‘It’s eight thousand feet up,’ Tremlett said. ‘At least.’
‘Where are our planes? Why can’t we shoot it down?’
‘Do you know how long it takes one of our planes to climb to eight thousand feet, sir?’
‘No. Not the faintest.’
‘About forty minutes. He’ll be long gone. Or else he’ll drop ballast and jump up another thousand feet. Easy as pie.’
‘How do you know all this, Tremlett?’
‘My little brother’s in the Royal Flying Corps. Stationed at Hainault. He’s always – WOAH! FUCK ME! –’
The first bomb had exploded. Not far from the Embankment – a sudden violent wash of flame, then the shock wave and the flat crack of the explosion.
‘That’s the Strand,’ Tremlett yelled. ‘Fuckin’ hell!’
Then there was a short series of explosions – Blat! Blat! Blat! – as bombs fell swiftly one after the other, Tremlett bellowing his commentary.
‘They’re going for the theatres! Fuckin’ Ada! That’s Drury Lane! That’s Aldwych!’
Lysander felt a bolus of vomit rise in his throat. Blanche was in a play at the Lyceum. Jesus Christ. Wellington Street, corner of Aldwych. He held his watch up – it would be just about the interval now. He looked up to see the Zeppelin turn slowly, heading northwards, up towards Lincoln’s Inn. There were more thumps as bombs fell, out of sight.
‘Big fire there!’ Tremlett yelled. ‘Look, they got the Lyceum!’
Lysander turned and raced through the roof access door and pelted down the stairway. He burst out on to the Embankment – the noise of police bells and fire engines, whistles, shouts, all coming down from the Strand and, in the distance, the sound of even more bombs dropping. He ran up Carting Lane past the Hotel Cecil to the Strand. Here he could see the flames, tall as the buildings, a bright unnatural orange lighting the façades on Aldwych and Wellington Street. Gas, he thought, a gas main’s gone up. People were rushing along the Strand towards the source of the fire. He pushed his way through them and sprinted up the slope of Exeter Street. There was a thick dust cloud here and all the street lights had been blown out. He turned the corner to see glass and bricks scattered on the road and the first fuming crater. The earth itself seemed to be burning at its centre and fringes. Three bodies lay huddled at the side of the road, like tramps sleeping. The fire was blazing garishly at the end of the street and he ran towards it. He could see it was at the side of the Lyceum itself, the gas main billowing flames forty feet high. Bells, shouts, screams. A woman in a sequinned gown stumbled out of the darkness past him, whimpering, the frayed stump of her right arm twitching at her shoulder. A man in an evening suit lay on his back, both arms thrown wide, not a mark visible on him.
Half a gable-end had come down here and the way forward was blocked by a wall of tumbled bricks six feet high. He could hear women screaming and the shouts of police in Wellington Street bellowing, ‘Keep back! Keep back!’ He scrabbled up the brickwork and slipped, bashing his elbow. He tried again on the north side of Exeter Street where he could at least gain some purchase from the opposite façades. Glass shone here, glittering shards of orange-diamond jewels – every window in the street blasted out. He was thinking of the Lyceum, where the dressing rooms were – his father had played there all the time in the eighties. Maybe it hadn’t been the interval – Blanche would have been safer on stage – but he hadn’t seen the wretched play yet so he had no idea where she would have been.
He hauled his way up the sliding brick wall. At the top the gas flare made his shadow monstrously huge on the building front, flickering and undulating. The crater was immense, ten feet deep. More bodies and bits of bodies were scattered about it – the pub at the corner, The Bell, was ablaze. People went to the pub from the Lyceum at the interval – the bomb had caught it at its fullest. Beyond the blaze he could see the police forming a cordon to keep the appalled but curious onlookers away from the soaring flames of the venting gas main.
He heard bricks falling to the road, a sharp egg-cracking sound, and looked up just in time to see a window embrasure topple outwards and drag down the half wall beneath it. He flung himself out of the way and fell awkwardly down the slope to the pavement, winded. Lights were flashing in front of his eyes as he struggled to regain his breath. He hauled himself to his knees and saw a figure a few yards away across the street, standing still in the shadows, apparently looking straight at him.
‘Give us a hand, will you?’ Lysander shouted, wheezily.
The figure didn’t move. A man with a hat and the collar of his coat folded up – impossible to see anything more with the street lights gone. The man was standing at the right angle of Exeter Street where it turned down to the Strand, where he’d seen the first dead bodies.
Lysander rose to his feet shakily, perturbed, and the figure stayed where it was, apparently staring directly at him. What was going on? Why was he just staring, doing nothing? The gas main flared again and for a moment more light was cast – the figure raised his hand to shield his face.
‘I see you!’ Lysander yelled – not seeing him but wanting to provoke him, somehow. ‘I know who you are! I see you!’
The figure immediately turned and ran around the corner – disappeared.
There was no point in chasing, Lysander thought, and anyway, he had to find Blanche. He climbed up and slithered down the other side of the brick pile and ran up to the stage door of the Lyceum. A policeman was sheltering inside.
‘The actors! I’ve a friend –’
‘Can’t come in here, sir. Everyone’s gathered down on the Strand.’
Lysander realized there was no way through by Wellington Street so he had to go back the way he’d come. He picked his way cautiously up the brick wall and saw now that there were policemen and ambulances collecting the bodies. Safe. He ran past them and down to the Strand heading for Aldwych. There was a big surging crowd here. The Strand Theatre opposite had emptied and the streets were full of well-dressed theatre-goers milling about, smoking and chatting excitedly – bow ties, feathers, silk, jewels. He looked around him. Where were the actors?
‘Lysander! I don’t believe it!’
It was Blanche, a mug of coffee in one hand, a cigarette in the other. Someone’s overcoat was thrown around her shoulders like a cape.
He felt weak finding her like this, unmanned suddenly. He went towards her and kissed her cheek, tasting greasepaint. In the rippling light from the gas main she looked almost grotesque in her white Regency wig – a painted loon with dark, arched eyebrows, a beauty spot and red lips.
‘Were you caught in the blast?’
He looked down at himself. He was covered in brick dust, the left knee of his trousers was ripped and flapping, he had no hat, a knuckle was dripping blood.
‘No. I was working and saw the bombs and so came looking for you. I was worried . . .’
‘Ah, my Lysander . . .’
They hugged each other, held each other close. Her whole body was shaking violently, trembling.
‘You can’t go home in that state,’ he said, softly, taking her hands. ‘Come to my flat and tidy up. Have a proper drink. It’s two minutes away.’
14. Autobiographical Investigations
Blanche has gone. It’s nine in the morning. She sent to the Lyceum for her clothes. The newspapers say seventeen people died in the raid – the ‘Great Raid on Theatreland’. Bizarrely, I owe everything to the pilot of that Zeppelin – my first night in 3/12 Trevelyan House was spent with Blanche. Blanche. Blanche naked with her wide low-slung breasts, her jutting hips, long slim thighs like a boy, her white powdered face, the beauty spot, lipstick kissed away. How she slipped her fingers in my hair, gripping, and held my face above hers, eye to unblinking eye, as I climaxed. Deliverance. Relief. Watching her cross the room naked to find my cigarettes, standing there, pale odalisque, lighting one, then lighting one for me.