jeep rattles over a pothole.
“You’re not in the Rescue Squad, are you?” Julian asks Mia. Women aren’t allowed to join the Home Guard, he refrains from adding. It’s for their own safety.
“I am,” she replies. “From the side. I’m with the Women’s Voluntary Services.”
“So what do you do?” Stay in the truck? Keep it running?
“Anything. Everything. Depending on what needs doing. Tonight, for example, you can help by being security with Dunk and Wild until the police come.”
Finch scoffs. “What’s he going to be able to do? You might want to put a glove on that hand of yours, mate. Might appear more menacing.”
“He’ll act menacing,” Mia says. “You’re a pretty good actor, right?” Lightly she nudges Julian. “They liked you tonight. They’ve been getting quite bored with me. Maybe we can put on something else for them if we make it out alive.”
If we make it out alive? She says it so carelessly. It’s a good thing it’s dark, and she can’t see the expression on his face.
With the streets empty of vehicles and people, it takes Finch less than seven minutes to get from the Bank of England to Commercial Street, where he pulls up to a curb and idles the engine. Even though it’s cold, everyone leaves their windows rolled down. The rumble of a hundred enemy planes is not distant enough.
It takes Julian a few moments to figure out that the squad is waiting to see where the bombs will drop. But what if the bombs fall on Commercial Street? he wants to ask. What if the bombs fall on the jeep where they sit and wait? The rising and falling of the piercing siren has not stopped. The sky flares up, followed by the sound of thunder. The night air is suddenly not as dark. In the brief bursts of light, he can see Mia’s calm, focused face.
Lightning.
Thunder.
Rise and fall of the wolf howl.
Like fireworks at a state fair, one two three, a dozen flares all at once, still at some distance downriver. The sound of long booms and sharp cracks gets nearer, grows louder. The bombs whistle and explode. It’s one of the most unnerving noises Julian has ever heard. He can’t help himself. Turning slightly, he leans against Mia. He wants to cover her with his body. Why would anyone be out in this awful ruckus? It’s like being out in a category 5 hurricane.
Lightning is followed by instant thunder over the buildings a few blocks away. Brick-busting explosions, plumes of flame, smoke.
There’s screaming.
“Now we go,” Mia says.
Finch shifts into drive and races the jeep around the corner, to one of the narrow residential side streets.
Between rows of terraced houses, two bombs have fallen in the street. Choking dusty wreckage rises in the air and small fires light up the cratered holes in the smashed-up homes, windows blown out, doors blown off. The street is littered with brick and wood and glass. There is some human exclamation, but not much on balance, not very much at all, considering. As they get out of the vehicle, Julian hears someone say, rather calmly, “Bloody hell.”
Three women covered in black ash stand crying. One of them holds a small child. Wild immediately goes to her and tells her to move away from the house. She refuses. There’s a fire in her kitchen, she says, and she just had the cabinets redone, “last spring!” The fire brigade is nowhere to be found. Julian feels that the woman’s renovated kitchen might not be the brigade’s priority. Four other houses on their street need dousing, and on the next street, the fire already rages. Julian can see it over the rooftops. Because of the fire, there is now light. Night is now day. It’s a perversion of what’s good in the world.
From the back of the jeep, Wild grabs one of the buckets filled with sand and runs into the woman’s house, through the gaping hole in the wall. He heads to the kitchen.
“What is he doing?” Julian asks Duncan, watching Wild fling sand on the woman’s cabinets. “By himself, with one arm? Why don’t you go help him?”
“You go help him,” Duncan rejoins. “Wild used to be a fireman. Who else is crazy enough to run inside a burning house? Don’t worry about him. He’s wearing a flameproof coat. He knows what he’s doing.”
The HMU with Shona at the wheel and Phil Cozens shotgun pulls up to Finch, patrolling the street to assess the damage. Finch gives Phil the all clear—meaning there are no injuries at the moment requiring the doctor’s immediate attention. This does not seem credible to Julian.
“Duncan, go!” Mia calls, gesturing down the street. Standing next to Julian, Duncan doesn’t move. “You’re needed there, not here,” she says, stepping over the bricks in the street to get closer to them. “Wild will be fine.” Julian resists the urge to give her his hand. “Julian, will you go with Duncan, please? The valuables in the bombed houses need to be protected from looters.” She must see Julian’s expression because she shrugs. “War brings out the worst in some people. Though not that many, fortunately. But if they do come, it’s immediately after the bombing. They hurry to get here before the police do.”
“The thieves like the jewelry,” Duncan says, “but prefer not to put themselves in any real danger.”
Mia nods. “Somehow they always manage to find the street with the least catastrophic damage.”
Julian glances up and down the block. “This is not catastrophic damage?”
Mia chuckles. “I thought you were from the East End? This is nothing. No real fire, no major casualties. Go, you two. Take the cricket bats.”
“Don’t need a cricket bat,” says Julian.
“I’ll take one,” Duncan says to Mia. “But I don’t need him. I’ll be fine. What’s he gonna do?”
“Wait, where are you going?” Julian catches Mia’s arm. “Don’t wander off,” he says, holding her. “It’s not safe.” The planes have droned off farther west. But the street is full of flying debris, of falling unstable beams. The air raid siren continues to howl.
“What do you think I do, sit in the car and knit like Lucinda?” Mia says. But she hasn’t disengaged from him.
“That sounds wise.”
“Wise but not helpful. Look at that poor woman.” Mia points down the block where a dusty disheveled older woman stands wailing. “I’m going to help her get her things out before the house falls on her head.”
“Oh, you shouldn’t do that,” Julian says earnestly.
Mia chuckles, as if he is being so funny! and rushes off. Julian fights off the urge to rush after her.
Duncan smirks with amusement.
“What?”
“Nothing. Stay put. Watch over Wild. He should be done soon.” Both men shake their heads as Wild swats one-armed at the remnants of the flame, using blankets and a piece of cardboard. “He’s bloody mental,” Duncan says with gruff affection. “As if the mother is going to be able to warm up the milk for her baby in that kitchen. What’s the difference if her house burns down now or is demolished in a week? There’s no repairing it. Kitchen cabinets! Mental, I tell you. Stay with him, okay?” He walks away.
“If you need help, holler,” Julian calls after Duncan, who turns, glances at Julian’s fingerless hand, and says yeah, I’ll be sure to do that.
A minute later, Wild comes to stand by Julian’s side, smelling of heat and smoke.
“How did you do?”
“Not great. There’s no saving that kitchen.”
“You knew that going in, though, didn’t you?”
“I did,” Wild says. “But you gotta do what you can. What