Marshall sat forward, the eyes of the other men at the table turning toward him.
"Recapping for a moment, Sir Charles, it's exactly eight days since London first began to experience winds of over 120 miles an hour, greater than any previously recorded, and certainly well beyond anything the architects of this city designed for. Bearing that in mind, I'm sure you'll be proud to hear that our great capital city is holding together with remarkable tenacity." Marshall glanced around the table, letting the impact of this homily sink in, then continued in a slightly more factual tone:
"Taking London first, although almost all activity in the commercial and industrial sense has ceased for the time being, the majority of people are getting by without too much difficulty. Most of them have managed to board up their houses, secure their roofs, and lay in adequate stocks of food and water. Casualties have been low-2,000-and many of these were elderly people who were probably frightened to death, quite literally, rather than injured by falling masonry."
Marshall glanced through his notes. "Abroad, in Europe and North America, the picture is pretty much the same. They've all battened down the hatches and are ready to ride out the storm. Scandinavia and northern Russia, of course, are outside the main wind belt and life seems to be going on much as usual. They're equipped for hurricane-force winds as a matter of course." Marshall smiled his big craggy smile. "I think we can probably stand another 20 or 30 mph without any real damage."
Major-General Harris, a small man in a spic-and-span uniform, nodded briskly.
"Good to hear you say that, Marshall. Morale isn't as high as it could be. Too much negative talk around."
Vice-Admiral Saunders, sitting next to him, nodded agreement.
"I hope your information is right, though, Marshall. One of the Americans told me this morning that Venice was a complete writeoff."
"Exaggeration," Marshall said easily. "My latest report a few minutes ago was that there had been heavy flooding, but no serious damage."
The admiral nodded, glad to be reassured. Marshall continued with his survey. Deborah sat just behind him, listening to the steady confident tone. With the exception of Gort, who remained neutral, the three other members of the committee were inclined to be pessimistic and depressed, expecting the worst and misinterpreting the news to serve their unconscious acceptance of disaster. General Harris and Vice-Admiral Saunders were typical of the sort of serviceman in the saddle at the beginning of a war. They had the Dunkirk mentality, had already been defeated and were getting ready to make a triumph out of it, counting up the endless casualty lists, the catalogues of disaster and destruction, as if these were a measure of their courage and competence.
Marshall, Deborah realized, was the necessary counterforce on the team. Although he might be overoptimistic, this was deliberate, the sort of Churchillian policy that would keep people head-up into the wind, doing everything to defend themselves, rather than running helplessly before it. She listened half consciously to Mar shall, feeling his confidence surge through her.
On the way back to Marshall 's office after the meeting closed, they met Symington, carrying a teletype memo in his hand.
"Bad news, I'm afraid, sir. The old Russell Square Hotel collapsed suddenly about half an hour ago. Some of the piles drove straight through the sub-soil into the Piccadilly Line platforms directly below. First estimates are that about two hundred were killed in the Russell basement and about twice that number again in the station."
Marshall took the tape and stared at it blindly for several moments, bunching his fist and drumming it against his forehead.
"Deborah, get this out to all casualty units straight away! About four hundred were down in the station, you say, Andrew? For God's sake, what were they doing there? Don't tell me they were waiting for a train."
Symington gestured with one hand. "I suppose they were sheltering there, the way they did in World War II."
In a burst of exasperation, Marshall shouted: "But that's just what we don't want them to do! They should have been above ground, strengthening their own homes, not just abandoning them and cowering away like a lot of sheep."
Symington smiled wanly. "Properties in the Bloomsbury and Russell Square area are pretty decrepit. High Victorian terraced houses ready for demolition. People there live in single rooms-"
"I don't care where they live!" Marshall cut in. "There are eight million people in this city and they've got to stand up and face this wind together. Once they start thinking of themselves and a warm hole to hide in the whole damn place will blow away."
He swung through into his office. "Call transport," he snapped at Deborah. "Tell them to get a car ready. We'll go out and have a look at this ourselves."
He pulled a heavy trench coat off the door, climbed into it while Deborah hurried over to the phone. As he strode off down the corridor she followed, slipping into her own coat.
The operations deck was on the second floor of the Admiralty building, a honeycomb of small partitioned offices off the narrow high-ceilinged corridors. They passed the overseas news section, made their way through into a wide office which was the UK news reception unit. There were a dozen teletypes taping down an endless stream of information from the major provincial capitals, TV screens flickering with pictures broadcast from mobile transmitter Units all over London, and a trio of operators in direct touch with the Met. Office.
"What are the latest casualties at Russell Square?" Marshall asked a young lieutenant sitting at a desk in front of a TV set, watching the screen as he talked rapidly into a boom mike jutting from his shoulder.
"Heavy, I'm afraid, sir. At least four hundred dead. The station access platforms are in pitch darkness, and they're waiting for the RASC unit at Liverpool Street Station to move their generator down."
The screen was blurred and indistinct, but Marshall could make out the stabbing beams of searchlights playing over the ragged silhouette of the collapsed hotel. Its ten stories had concertinaed to the equivalent of three; many of the windows and balconies were apparently intact, but closer inspection revealed that the floors were separated by an interval of only three or four feet instead of the usual 12.
Marshall took Deborah's arm and led her out of the room into the corridor. They walked down the stairs to the ground floor. The building was equipped with its own generator but its power was inadequate to move the heavy elevator.
All the windows they passed were securely boarded. Outside, ten-foot-thick walls of sandbags had been stacked up to the roof, roped into an impenetrable wall. As they neared the ground floor, however, Deborah felt the building shudder slightly as a massive draught of air struck it, stirring the foundations in their clay beds. The movement stabbed at her heart, and she stopped for a moment and leaned against Marshall. He put an arm around her shoulders, smiled reassuringly.
"All right, Deborah?" His hand cupped the round swell of her shoulder through the jacket.
"Just about. I'm afraid it startled me."
They moved down the steps, Marshall slowing his pace for her. The tremor continued as the building settled itself into new foundations.
"Something big must have come down," Marshall said. "Probably the Palace, or No. 10 Downing Street." He gave a light laugh.