All Clear

But at such a terrible, terrible price—millions dead, cities in ruins, lives destroyed. Including mine, she thought. And Eileen’s and Mike’s.

She glanced over at them, sitting hunched on the steps, Eileen looking half frozen and about to cry, Mike with his arm bandaged and his foot half shot off. They looked done in, and Polly felt a wave of love for both of them. They had done all this, quite literally risked life and limb, for her because of her deadline. And they would both have sacrificed their lives if it had meant getting her safely home. Which meant the least she could do was to pull herself together.

Mr. Humphreys had managed to, and so had London. The day after they’d watched half their city burn down around their ears, Londoners hadn’t sat there feeling sorry for themselves. Instead, they’d set about putting out the fires that were still burning and digging people out of the rubble. They’d repaired water mains and railway tracks and telephone lines, shown up at their jobs, even if where they worked was no longer there, swept up glass. Gone on.

If they could do it, she could, too. “Once more into the breach,” she thought, and stood up and brushed the soot off her coat.

“We need to be going,” she said. She gathered up their cups and saucers, took them inside, set them on the desk next to the half-burned print of The Light of the World, and started out, then went back to look at it again—at the lantern raised to light the nothingness which lay before it, the darkness on all sides, at Christ’s robe smeared with soot from the charred, flaking edge.

She’d expected his face to look as done in, as defeated, as Eileen’s and Mike’s, but it didn’t. It was filled with kindness and concern, like Mr. Humphreys’s.

She fished sixpence out of her bag, laid it on the desk, folded the picture into quarters, put it in her pocket, and went outside.

“We need to go,” she said to Mike and Eileen. “We’ll be late for work. And we must take the ambulance back to St. Bart’s.”

“And get my coat,” Mike said. “And Eileen’s.”

“And get my coat,” Mike said. “And Eileen’s.”

“I need to take the children home first,” Eileen said. “Alf! Binnie!” she called to them.

They were still messing about in the ruins, poking at a smoldering timber with sticks and then jumping back as it crumbled into glowing embers.

“Come along. I’ll take you home.”

“ ’Ome?” Binnie said. The children looked at each other and then up at her. “We don’t need nobody to take us,” Alf said. “We can get there on our own.”

“No, the trains to Whitechapel may not be running, and your mother will be worried to death,” Eileen said. “I want to tell her where you’ve been all night and how much help you were.” She started down the steps toward them.

Alf and Binnie exchanged glances again, then dropped their sticks and tore off down the street, running as fast as they could.

“Alf! Binnie! Wait!” Eileen called, and took off after them, Polly and Mike in pursuit, but they’d already vanished into the tangle of smoking ruins beyond Paternoster Row.

“We’ll never catch them in that maze,” Mike said, and Eileen nodded reluctantly.

“Will they be all right, do you think?” Polly asked.

“Yes, they’re expert at taking care of themselves,” Eileen said, looking after them and frowning. “But I wonder why—”

“They were probably afraid if you took them home they’d have to go to school,” Mike said, and when they reached the ambulance, he peered at the petrol gauge and said, “We couldn’t have taken them home anyway. We don’t have enough gas to get to Whitechapel and back. We’ll be lucky if we’ve got enough to get us to St.

Bart’s.”

“If we can find St. Bart’s,” Eileen said. She started the car. “Alf was my navigator, remember?”

Polly nodded, thinking of all the blocked streets and barricades.

“I think I can get us there,” Mike said.

And he did.

Eileen’s coat was still hanging over the railing where she’d left it, but Mike’s was nowhere to be found, and he refused to ask the staff. “I left without being discharged,” he told them, “and they’re liable to try to put me back in the hospital.”

“I thought you said you’d scarcely burned your arm at all,” Polly said.

“I did. It’s nothing. But that doesn’t mean they’ll let me out, and I can’t afford to be stuck in here doing nothing, like I was all those weeks in Orpington. I don’t need a coat.”

“But it’s winter,” Eileen said. “You’ll catch your death—”

“I’ll go find it,” Polly said, taking charge. “Eileen, go turn the ambulance in. Mike, wait for us out front.”

He nodded and limped off toward the door.

“You don’t suppose they’ll arrest me for stealing the ambulance, do you?” Eileen asked.

“Considering the blood-covered state of your coat, no. But if they do, I’ll help you escape,” Polly said, and went up to the ward to ask about Mike’s coat.

The nurse thought it likely they’d had to cut it off him when he was brought in. “You might check in Emergency.”