Like the times when he had been sent to deal with the parachute mines dropped on congested towns and seaports. Every street was always cleared beforehand. Just the Unexploded Bomb sign, his rating assistant, and utter desolation. As if every living thing had been spirited away.
He had never got over the feeling that he was intruding. The Marie Celeste atmosphere of meals from precious rations left steaming on tables, letters half-read or partly written. Mantelpieces with their framed pictures of dear ones in uniform. Sons, husbands, lovers. And always below the tell-tale damage, the huge, deadly mine hanging from its parachute.
Intrusion. That summed it up better than anything. What war was all about.
A voice said sternly, ‘Just a moment, sir.’ A policeman in a steel helmet stepped from his little sandbagged observation post.
Sherwood peered at him through the gloom, saw the helmet reflect a couple of the shell-bursts. It was strange, but you never got used to seeing a London bobby in a tin hat.
‘Yes?’
The constable said, ‘Air-raid, sir. There’ll be some shell splinters dropping about soon. It’s not safe to walk the streets. Your cap won’t stop the stuff.’
Sherwood thought of the ships he had watched being blown up or strafed, of Fawn and her broken, pathetic survivors.
He replied, it’s the war, I expect.’
He walked on and the policeman muttered to himself, ‘Another bloody hero!’
By the time Sherwood reached the street where the company flat was installed he had guessed that the raid was heading further away, to the City or East London perhaps.
He heard the far-off crash of bombs and the familiar rumble of collapsing buildings. As he climbed the stairs to his flat, the streets came alive with other sounds. It was like a mad symphony, he thought. The clamour of fire-engine and ambulance gongs, taxis roaring down side-streets, not with passengers this time, but “towing small pumps as a part of the auxiliary fire service. It was as if the whole of London was putting its weight against the enemy. Nobody was spared. And yet when another smoky dawn laid bare the ruins, these same ordinary people would go about their daily tasks. Make the best of it.
Sherwood threw his cap on the bed and prepared himself for the night. He took a bottle of gin from a cupboard, one glass and a rare lemon he had brought from the ship.
Then he hung his jacket on a chair and glanced around the flat. As it was in Mayfair, he supposed it was worth a fortune. But it was for visitors who came and went without caring too much about the decor. It was dull, without personality.
He swallowed half a glass of neat gin and bit back a cough. Then he switched off the lights, opened the black-out curtains across the window, and seated himself in a comfortable chair to watch the progress of the raid. He heard the occasional clink of a splinter on the roof or in the street and thought of the policeman’s warning.
Another ambulance dashed through the unlit street, its bell clanging violently. Some terrified soul would awake in a hospital bed. He grimaced and took another drink. Or not, as the case might be.
He did not remember falling asleep, but awoke with a jerk, his mind clearing instantly despite the gin, his reflexes tuned like those of a wild animal.
For a brief moment he imagined the building had been hit by a bomb or an incendiary. There were fires flickering beyond the window, and he heard a sudden crash and knew that was what had awakened him. But the glow of fires was several miles away. The noise seemed to be from the flat next door. He drew the curtains, then something fell against the wall and he heard a woman cry out; then a man’s voice, blurred and indistinct, but full of menace.
Sherwood ran from the flat, wishing he had picked up a weapon. It must be a robbery, or some burglar who had been disturbed on the job. He had had no idea that the other flat was occupied. He stood breathlessly on the landing, gauging the distance as he stared at the closed door.
Then with only the briefest thought of the consequences he hurled himself at it. It flew open, the lock flying across the room so violently that the two occupants froze stock-still, like figures in a waxworks.
Sherwood was used to making up his mind in a split second. It did not need a genius to work out what had been happening. An army officer’s tunic with red staff tabs on the lapels lay on the floor, and the bedside table was filled with bottles and a soda syphon. The scene was set.
Sherwood looked first at the man, a big, wild-eyed individual in khaki shirt and trousers, his eyes almost popping with surprise, then fury as he realised what had happened.
The woman lay propped against the wall, one leg bent under her, her blouse torn from one shoulder, a smear of lipstick or blood beside her mouth as if she had been hit, and hit hard.
Sherwood took it all in. She was very attractive, and half out of her mind with terror. He also noted she was wearing a wedding ring.
She called, ‘Help me, please!’
Sherwood found that he was so calm he wanted to laugh. And it was not the gin.
He asked, ‘Whose flat is this?’
‘What the hell is that to do with you?’ The man lurched towards him. ‘I’m living here, and—’
Sherwood reached out and helped the woman to her feet. ‘Are you all right?’ But he kept his eyes on the army officer.
She thrust her foot into a shoe which had fallen under a chair.
‘I came because he was going to tell me about—’ She hesitated. ‘About my husband—’
The man glared and then laughed. ‘She knew what it was all about!’
He seemed to realise that Sherwood was partly dressed in uniform. ‘You a bloody sailor?’
Sherwood said quietly, ‘Go next door. It’s open. Just walk in. You’ll be safe there until the raid’s passed over—’
‘Don’t you bloody dare to burst in here giving orders! When I’ve finished with you—’ He got no further.
Sherwood lashed out hard and hit the man in the stomach. It was like exploding a bag, he thought. He just folded over, retching and choking, his face contorted with agony.
Sherwood said, ‘You shouldn’t drink so much, old chum.’ He picked up a chair and smashed it across the reeling man’s shoulders, so that pieces of wood and fabric flew in all directions.
He was aware of two things. That the young woman was pulling at his arm, pleading with him to stop. The other was that he knew he wanted to go on hitting the man until he was dead.
She did not resist when he guided her to the flat next door.
He said, ‘Make yourself comfortable. I’ll try to get a taxi, or walk you home if you like.’ He heard the man lumbering around in the other room, the crash of glass and the loud flushing of a toilet.
He said, ‘See? He’ll live.’ He watched her as she sat in the chair by the window. ‘Do you want to tell me about it?’
She was not listening, but trying to drag her torn blouse across her shoulder.
Sherwood picked up her coat and bag where she had dropped them when he had slammed the door. Perhaps the man in the other flat was telling the truth, that she had gone there for a bit of fun, which had got out of control. She was quite pretty, he thought, about his own age. He gropped for a handkerchief and dabbed the corner of her mouth. She winced but did not pull away.
She said in a small voice, ‘I lost my husband some time ago.’ She was staring at her hands, anywhere but meeting his eyes. ‘In the Western Desert.’ She spoke in clipped sentences, like parts of an official communique. ‘He was in the infantry. First they said he was missing. Then they discovered he had been—’ She looked away. ‘Killed in action.’