London - Edward Rutherfurd [587]
Only after the first raid of the night had passed did it occur to her that it might be her own life rather than Helen’s which was about to be snapped shut. There had only been a few bombs on Belgravia, presumably aimed at Buckingham Palace, but of course it was possible. She wondered whether she should try to do anything about it. She sighed to herself. She was over seventy. Did she really have the energy?
It couldn’t have been the corned beef since that had never been touched, but, whatever it was, by midnight Auxiliary Fireman Clark was in no state to go out. Crew number three, therefore, was a man short.
When the news came through that the Bull Brewery had been hit, the station officer looked round for an extra man. He had always hesitated to use the older men like the Flemings. As both were in their sixties, they really belonged in the Home Guard and, in fact, though neither of them knew it, they were only there because he felt Herbert’s performances at the piano were good for morale. Just now, however, he was a man short and faced with a conflagration. Thoughtfully, he looked at Percy.
“I suppose,” he said, “you wouldn’t like to go along?”
“Come on, Percy!” the others cried. “It’s a chance to get in the brewery. We’ll have a party!”
“All right, then,” he said. “I’ll go.”
Now it was really coming down on every side. Incendiaries were falling, both magnesium and oil ones. Again and again, Charlie heard the scream and the awful thump of a high-explosive bomb. One fell in Blackfriars, another somewhere near the Guildhall. Above, the sky was full of starbursts as though they were witnessing a huge firework display put on by madmen. The roars, cracks and bangs were deafening.
They had been sent up to St Bartholomew’s after Ludgate. On their way there, they had passed the high dome of the Old Bailey criminal court whose elegant figure of Justice holding the scales had presided over this quarter of the City for the last thirty years. Thinking of the illicit bottles in their boots, Charlie and his mate grinned at each other as they passed her.
The St Bartholomew’s fire proved to be small and quickly dealt with. But they were not left idle: within minutes a dispatch rider told them to go over behind St Paul’s. An office building between Watling Street and St Mary-le-Bow had caught fire. A dozen other appliances were hastening towards it.
Just as they were leaving, Charlie, who was driving, caught sight of something gleaming as white as an angel, drifting slowly towards them over the dome of the Old Bailey.
“Hello,” he murmured. “We’re in luck again.”
Of all the agents of destruction dropped from the skies during the Blitz, perhaps the most devastating were the landmines. Drifting quietly down attached to a parachute, the landmine would strike the ground without burrowing into it and then detonate. One of them could easily wipe out half a street of small houses. The casualties they caused were terrible. Yet as these angels of death drifted down people were frequently seen running not away, but towards them.
The reason was the parachute. It was made of silk. If you could keep far enough away from the mine to avoid the blast, but then rush in quickly before anyone else, you could cut yourself a good piece of the silk parachute. They made up very nicely into shirts and dresses.
Luck was indeed on Charlie’s side that night. While they took cover, the landmine obligingly landed in the open space of Smithfield where it made a large hole