“Thank you, sir.”
Smith used one of the tickets as he was told because he did not know what else to do. He left his bag at his hotel and went out to Daly’s. There he sat through the first twenty minutes of Maid of the Mountains. It was a good show and the house was packed but he saw none of it. He saw a dark coast, the sea breaking gently on a shallow-shelving, long beach with a sharp lift of dunes beyond. And beyond them the loom of woodland, dark, silent. Secret.
He left the theatre and walked, lost in thoughts that revolved in his mind and threw up possible solutions to the mystery that he probed and worried at, but that remained just possibilities. There might be other possibilities that he could not dream of. It was a long time before the shrilling of the air-raid whistles brought him back to the present and he found he had been walking east. It seemed only minutes but his watch would have told him he had walked for an hour. He did not need to look at it because he knew where he was and that he was close to the little house belonging to Eleanor Hurst. But Eleanor was still in France. And besides, she wanted nothing more to do with him…
A fast-striding policeman, an elderly man, a ‘special constable’, peered at him and said, “Air-raid, sir. There’s a shelter in the street you’ve just passed.”
The warning was superfluous and the policeman looked at Smith curiously. There was gun-fire all around the eastern perimeter of the city, searchlights sweeping the sky and now the far-off but familiar whistle, glow and crump! Of an exploding bomb.
The ‘special’ said, “I suppose it’s the Gothas again, sir.” And then he shouted, “There y’are!” He pointed. In the sky to the east of the city the wavering beam of a searchlight had locked on to an aeroplane, a very high, tiny thing of silver in the light. But it was a Gotha. They were big biplanes, enormous compared to aircraft like the Harry Tate, with the range to reach London with a half-ton of bombs each. They had a ceiling of fifteen thousand feet but this one looked lower than that as it twisted and turned, but still the light held it and the gunfire burst around it.
“Go on! Blast the bleeder!” The ‘special’ ground it out.
But then the Gotha side-slipped out of the light. The searchlight beam swept the sky, searching, but did not find it again.
‘The ‘special’ muttered savagely under his breath then glanced at Smith. “Be wise to take shelter, sir.” He was disapproving. He obviously thought an officer should have more sense than to be walking the streets in an air-raid for no good reason.
Smith could not explain his presence but air-raids in the streets were the business of firemen and ambulancemen, and of the volunteer patrols formed in each street. He was none of these. If he could not help, then: “I’ll go back to my hotel.”
“You watch out then, sir.”
Smith turned back. He had not covered fifty yards and was approaching a side street when he heard a far-off hiss climb quickly to a shriek and he threw himself down close by the wall. The pavement heaved under him and the blast sucked out the windows above his head to shower him with falling glass as the roar of the explosion battered his ear-drums. He saw the dust roll out in a cloud from the side street just ahead. The pavement heaved under him again and there was the thump! Of another bomb exploding but this one sounded further away. Dust still boiled out of the street ahead of him. He started to rise and was on hands and knees when the house groaned above him. He stared up and saw the whole wall of it toppling like a falling tree; he went down again with his hands over his head, pressed in tight against the wall. Then it burst about him and that was all he remembered.
There was light and there were voices. He heard the murmur of them as far away, deep but with a lighter tone among them, the voice of a woman. Eleanor Hurst? He heard them in the drowsy moments of slow awakening. Then there was a rustle as of a woman’s skirts and the voice said softly, “Yes, I think he’s waking.”
He opened his eyes. She was young and pretty but she was not Eleanor Hurst. She was a nurse, a VAD and she stooped over him with a half-smile on her face but watching him intently. He thought she had a nice face, young, anxious. He turned his head on the pillow. There were screens around his bed and on a chair at one side sat Hacker, who now shot his cuff to glance at a gold wrist-watch and drawled, “About time.” But he looked relieved.
Smith lay still for a moment thinking about it, drowsy but not tired, just waking slowly and drawing his world together again. He remembered the bomb, the toppling wall. He asked, “What is this place?”
Hacker answered, “A hospital for officers. One of those houses given up for the duration. Near Regents Park.” He was shaved, neatly uniformed, buttons and Sam Browne belt gleaming but there were dark smudges under his eyes. “I went to your hotel this morning and found you hadn’t got back last night and started searching. Had a hell of a job finding you. Wasn’t till the forenoon —”
“Forenoon!” Smith jerked upright in the bed, fully awake now. He stared at Hacker and asked, “Well?”
Hacker nodded. “I’ve got your orders in my pocket. What you wanted.”
And Smith thought that he had been sleeping the day away while time ran out — wasted!
The nurse returned. “I can’t find Doctor Blair.”
Smith asked quickly, “My clothes, please?”
“Well, the doctor will have to see you before —”
“But I’m all right! What was wrong with me?”
“You were unconscious and bruised. A few minor lacerations.”
“That’s nothing. I’m all right.” He was. He was stiff and sore but he felt as though for once he had slept well; he was eager to be away.
The girl explained patiently, “A doctor must see you before you can be discharged.”
“He has. Colonel Hacker is a doctor and he’s just been looking at me. Right, Colonel?”
The girl looked at Hacker and he looked at Smith then said gruffly, “That’s right.”
The girl hesitated. “But the Colonel isn’t Medical Corps —”
Smith said quickly, “Seconded for Staff duty.”
Hacker nodded and smiled at the nurse.
The girl blushed and gave way. “Well, I suppose in that case —”
Smith jumped in. “Fine! Fetch my clothes, nurse, there’s a dear girl.”
She brought them and he saw someone had cleaned his uniform tolerably well and his boots had a shine to them. He dressed rapidly.
At the front door she admonished him, “But you must take care, sir. A wall fell on you. You looked an awful mess when they brought you in.”
“I will.” Smith could see Hacker’s car waiting at the kerb with the driver at the wheel, the engine running and Hacker gesturing urgently from the rear seat. Smith added sincerely, “And thank you.”
She looked over his shoulder. “Why, here’s Doctor Blair now.”
Smith saw him, a grey-haired man in a white coat walking across the road from a house opposite. “My compliments to him.” Smith was across the pavement and into the car. He waved to her as it pulled away.
Hacker grumbled, “You really are the bloody limit, Smith.”
“Well, you told me you were a doctor.”
“Of philosophy, dammit! If they report this —”
Smith grinned. “You might get your name in the papers.”
Hacker was not amused. “Along with the other dirty old men who impersonate doctors. Thank you. Oh, well, I’ll go in and apologise when I get the chance.”
“So will I. Where are my orders?” He ripped open the envelope Hacker gave him.
Hacker said, “We had to see a lot of people — that Admiral of yours is a demon! Had to do a lot of talking, a lot of persuading. But they came around. Mind you,” he added cautiously, “they weren’t enthusiastic. In fact they are just covering themselves.”