“A church,” he said, and I wished again I could see his face. I couldn’t tell in the dark whether he spoke in contempt or longing.
“She was a deaconess or something,” I said. “What sort of war work is it? Munitions?”
“No,” he said and walked on ahead.
Mrs Lucy met us at the door of the post. I gave her the package of lamb chops, and Jack went upstairs to replace Vi as spotter. Mrs Lucy cooked the chops up immediately, running upstairs to the kitchen during a lull in the raids for salt and a jar of mint sauce, standing over the gas ring at the end of the table and turning them for what seemed an eternity. They smelled wonderful.
Twickenham passed round newly run-off copies of Twickenham’s Twitterings. “Something for you to read while you wait for your dinner,” he said proudly.
The lead article was about the change in address of Sub-Post D, which had taken a partial hit that broke the water mains.
“Had Nelson refused them reinforcements, too?” Swales asked.
“Listen to this,” Petersby said. He read aloud from the news-sheet. “ ‘The crime rate in London has risen 28 per cent since the beginning of the blackout.’ ”
“And no wonder,” Vi said, coming down from upstairs. “You can’t see your nose in front of your face at night, let alone someone lurking in an alley. I’m always afraid someone’s going to jump out at me while I’m on patrol.”
“All those houses standing empty, and half of London sleeping in the shelters,” Swales said. “It’s easy pickings. If I was a bad’un, I’d come straight to London.”
“It’s disgusting,” Morris said indignantly. “The idea of someone taking advantage of there being a war like that to commit crimes.”
“Oh, Mr Morris, that reminds me. Your son telephoned,” Mrs Lucy said, cutting into a chop to see if it was done. Blood welled up. “He said he’d a surprise for you, and you were to come out to” — she switched the fork to her left hand and rummaged in her overall pocket till she found a slip of paper — “North Weald on Monday, I think. His commanding officer’s made the necessary travel arrangements for you. I wrote it all down.” She handed it to him and went back to turning the chops.
“A surprise?” Morris said, sounding worried. “He’s not in trouble, is he? His commanding officer wants to see me?”
“I don’t know. He didn’t say what it was about. Only that he wanted you to come.”
Vi went over to Mrs Lucy and peered into the skillet. “I’m glad it was the butcher’s and not the grocer’s,” she said. “Rutabagas wouldn’t have cooked up half so nice.”
Mrs Lucy speared a chop, put it on a plate, and handed it to Vi. “Take this up to Jack,” she said.
“He doesn’t want any,” Vi said. She took the plate and sat down at the table.
“Did he say why he didn’t?” I asked.
She looked curiously at me. “I suppose he’s not hungry,” she said. “Or perhaps he doesn’t like lamb chops.”
“I do hope he’s not in any trouble,” Morris said, and it took me a minute to realize he was talking about his son. “He’s not a bad boy, but he does things without thinking. Youthful high spirits, that’s all it is.”
“He didn’t eat the cake either,” I said. “Did he say why he didn’t want the lamb chop?”
“If Mr Settle doesn’t want it, then take it to Mr Renfrew,” Mrs Lucy said sharply. She snatched the plate away from Vi. “And don’t let him tell you he’s not hungry. He must eat. He’s getting very run-down.”
Vi sighed and stood up. Mrs Lucy handed her back the plate and she went into the other room.
“We all need to eat plenty of good food and get lots of sleep,” Mrs Lucy said reprovingly. “To keep our strength up.”
“I’ve written an article about it in the Twitterings” Twickenham said, beaming. “It’s known as ‘walking death’. It’s brought about by lack of sleep and poor nutrition, with the anxiety of the raids. The walking dead exhibit slowed reaction time and impaired judgment which result in increased accidents on the job.”
“Well, I won’t have any walking dead among my wardens,” Mrs Lucy said, dishing up the rest of the chops. “As soon as you’ve had these, I want you all to go to bed.”
The chops tasted even better than they had smelled. I ate mine, reading Twickenham’s article on the walking dead. It said that loss of appetite was a common reaction to the raids. It also said that lack of sleep could cause compulsive behaviour and odd fixations. “The walking dead may become convinced that they are being poisoned or that a friend or relative is a German agent. They may hallucinate, hearing voices, seeing visions or believing fantastical things.”
“He was in trouble at school, before the war, but he’s steadied down since he joined up,” Morris said. “I wonder what he’s done.”
At three the next morning a land-mine exploded in almost the same spot off Old Church Street as the HEs. Nelson sent Olmwood to ask for help, and Mrs Lucy ordered Swales, Jack and me to go with him.
“The mine didn’t land more’n two houses away from the first crater,” Olmwood said while we were getting on our gear. “The jerries couldn’t have come closer if they’d been aiming at it.”
“I know what they’re aiming at,” Renfrew said from the doorway. He looked terrible, pale and drawn as a ghost. “And I know why you’ve applied for reinforcements for the post. It’s me, isn’t it? They’re after me.”
“They’re not after any of us,” Mrs Lucy said firmly. “They’re two miles up. They’re not aiming at anything.”
“Why would Hitler want to bomb you more than the rest of us?” Swales said.
“I don’t know.” He sank down on one of the chairs and put his head in his hands. “I don’t know. But they’re after me. I can feel it.”
Mrs Lucy had sent Swales, Jack and me to the incident because “you’ve been there before. You’ll know the terrain,” but that was a fond hope. Since they explode above ground, landmines do considerably more damage than HEs. There was now a hill where the incident officer’s tent had been, and three more beyond it, a mountain range in the middle of London. Swales started up the nearest peak to look for the incident officer’s light.
“Jack, over here!” somebody called from the hill behind us, and both of us scrambled up a slope towards the voice.
A group of five men were halfway up the hill looking down into a hole.
“Jack!” the man yelled again. He was wearing a blue foreman’s armband, and he was looking straight past us at someone toiling up the slope with what looked like a stirrup pump. I thought, surely they’re not trying to fight a fire down that shaft, and then saw it wasn’t a pump. It was, in fact, an automobile jack, and the man with the blue armband reached between us for it, lowered it down the hole, and scrambled in after it.
The rest of the rescue squad stood looking down into the blackness as if they could actually see something. After a while they began handing empty buckets down into the hole and pulling them out heaped full of broken bricks and pieces of splintered wood. None of them took any notice of us, even when Jack held out his hands to take one of the buckets.
“We’re from Chelsea,” I shouted to the foreman over the din of the planes and bombs. “What can we do to help?”
They went on bucket-brigading. A china teapot came up on the top of one load, covered with dust but not even chipped.
I tried again. “Who is it down there?”