Winter of the World

The maid said: ‘Are you all deaf? There’s a fucking air raid on!’ No one looked at her. ‘I’m going down the basement,’ she said, and she disappeared.

They all needed to seek shelter. But Daisy had something to say to Boy before she left. ‘Don’t come to my bed again, ever, please. I refuse to be contaminated.’

The girl on the couch – Joanie – said: ‘It’s only a bit of fun, love. Why don’t you join in? You might like it.’

Pearl, the older one, looked Daisy up and down. ‘She’s got a nice little figure.’

Daisy realized they would humiliate her further if she gave them the chance. Ignoring them, she spoke to Boy. ‘You’ve made your choice,’ she said. ‘And I’ve made my decision.’ She left the room, holding her head high even though she felt debased and spurned.

She heard Boy said: ‘Oh, damn, what a mess.’

A mess? she thought. Is that all?

She went out of the front door.

Then she looked up.

The sky was full of planes.

The sight made her shake with fear. They were high, about ten thousand feet, but all the same they seemed to block the sun. There were hundreds of them, fat bombers and waspish fighters, a fleet that seemed twenty miles wide. To the east, in the direction of the docks and Woolwich Arsenal, palls of smoke rose from the ground where the bombs were landing. The explosions ran together into a continuous tidal roar like an angry sea.

Daisy recalled that Hitler had made a speech in the German parliament, just last Wednesday, ranting about the wickedness of RAF bombing raids on Berlin, and threatening to erase British cities in retaliation. Apparently he had meant it. They were intending to flatten London.

This was already the worst day of Daisy’s life. Now she realized it might be the last.

But she could not bring herself to go back into that house and share their basement shelter. She had to get away. She needed to be at home where she could cry in private.

Hurriedly, she put on helmet and goggles. She resisted an irrational but nonetheless powerful impulse to throw herself behind the nearest wall. She jumped on her motorcycle and drove away.

She did not get far.

Two streets away, a bomb landed on a house directly in her line of vision, and she braked suddenly. She saw the hole in the roof, felt the thump of the explosion, and a few seconds later saw flames inside, as if kerosene from a heater had spilled and caught fire. A moment later, a girl of about twelve came out, screaming, with her hair on fire, and ran straight at Daisy.

Daisy jumped off the bike, pulled off her leather jacket, and used it to cover the girl’s head, wrapping it tightly over the hair, denying oxygen to the flames.

The screaming stopped. Daisy removed the jacket. The girl was sobbing. She was no longer in agony, but she was bald.

Daisy looked up and down the street. A man wearing a steel helmet and an ARP armband came running up carrying a tin case with a white First Aid cross painted on its side.

The girl looked at Daisy, opened her mouth, and screamed: ‘My mother’s in there!’

The ARP warden said: ‘Calm down, love, let’s have a look at you.’

Daisy left the girl with him and ran to the front door of the building. It seemed to be an old house subdivided into cheap apartments. The upper floors were burning but she was able to enter the hall. Taking a guess, she ran to the back and found herself in a kitchen. There she saw a woman unconscious on the floor and a toddler in a cot. She picked up the child and ran out again.

The girl with the burned hair yelled: ‘That’s my sister!’

Daisy thrust the toddler into the girl’s arms and ran back inside.

The unconscious woman was too heavy for her to lift. Daisy got behind her, raised her to a sitting position, took hold of her under the arms, and dragged her across the kitchen floor and through the hallway into the street.

An ambulance had arrived, a converted saloon car, its rear bodywork replaced by a canvas roof with a back opening. The ARP warden was helping the burned girl into the vehicle. The driver came running over to Daisy. Between them, they lifted the mother into the ambulance.

The driver said to Daisy: ‘Is there anyone else inside?’

‘I don’t know!’

He ran into the hall. At that moment the entire building sagged. The burning upper storeys crashed through to the ground floor. The ambulance driver disappeared into an inferno.

Daisy heard herself scream.

She covered her mouth with her hand and stared into the flames, searching for him, even though she could not have helped him, and it would have been suicide to try.

The ARP warden said: ‘Oh, my God, Alf’s been killed.’

There was another explosion as a bomb landed a hundred yards along the street.

The warden said: ‘Now I’ve got no driver, and I can’t leave the scene.’ He looked up and down the street. There were little knots of people standing outside some of the houses, but most were probably in shelters.

Daisy said: ‘I’ll drive it. Where should I go?’

‘Can you drive?’