"A monster," Vi said.
I looked across at Jack. He still had his hand over his glass.
"A headmaster," Swales said. "No, I've got it. An Inland Revenue collector!"
Everyone laughed.
"I was a horrid person before the war," Mrs Lucy said.
Vi giggled.
"I was a deaconess, one of those dreadful women who arranges the flowers in the sanctuary and gets up jumble sales and bullies the rector. 'The Terror of the Churchwardens', that's what I used to be. I was determined that they should put the hymnals front side out on the backs of the pews. Morris knows. He sang in the choir."
"It's true," Morris said. "She used to instruct the choir on the proper way to line up."
I tried to imagine her as a stickler, as a petty tyrant like Nelson, and failed.
"Sometimes it takes something dreadful like a war for one to find one's proper job," she said, staring at her glass.
"To the war!" Swales said gaily.
"I'm not sure we should toast something so terrible as that," Twickenham said doubtfully.
"It isn't all that terrible," Vi said. "I mean, without it, we wouldn't all be here together, would we?"
"And you'd never have met all those pilots of yours, would you, Vi?" Swales said.
"There's nothing wrong with making the best of a bad job," Vi said, miffed.
"Some people do more than that," Swales said. "Some people take positive advantage of the war. Like Colonel Godaiming. I had a word with one of the AFS volunteers. Seems the colonel didn't come back for his hunting rifle after all." He leaned forward confidingly. "Seems he was having a bit on with a blonde dancer from the Windmill. Seems his wife thought he was out shooting grouse in Surrey and now she's asking all sorts of unpleasant questions."
"He's not the only one taking advantage," Morris said. "That night you got the Kirkcuddys out, Jack, I found an old couple killed by blast. I put them by the road for the mortuary van, and later I saw somebody over there, bending over the bodies, doing something to them. I thought, He must be straightening them out before the rigor set in, but then it comes to me. He's robbing them. Dead bodies."
"And who's to say they were killed by blast?" Swales said. "Who's to say they weren't murdered? There's lots of bodies, aren't there, and nobody looks close at them. Who's to say they were all killed by the Germans?"
"How did we get on to this?" Petersby said. "We're supposed to be celebrating Quincy Morris's medal, not talking about murderers." He raised his glass. "To Quincy Morris!"
"And the RAF!" Vi said.
"To making the best of a bad job," Mrs Lucy said.
"Hear, hear," Jack said softly and raised his glass, but he still didn't drink.
Jack found four people in the next three days. I did not hear any of them until well after we had started digging, and the last one, a fat woman in striped pyjamas and a pink hairnet, I never did hear, though she said when we brought her up that she had "called and called between prayers".
Twickenham wrote it all up for the Twitterings , tossing out the article on Quincy Morris's medal and typing up a new master's. When Mrs Lucy borrowed the typewriter to fill out the A-114, she said, "What's this?"
"My lead story," he said. " 'Settle Finds Four in Rubble.'" He handed her the master's.
'"Jack Settle, the newest addition to Post Forty-Eight,'" she read, " 'located four air-raid victims last night. 'I wanted to be useful,' says the modest Mr Settle when asked why he came to London from Yorkshire. And he's been useful since his very first night on the job when he'" She handed it back to him. "Sorry. You can't print that. Nelson's been nosing about, asking questions. He's already taken one of my wardens and nearly got him killed. I won't let him have another."
"That's censorship!" Twickenham said, outraged.
"There's a war on," Mrs Lucy said, "and we're short-handed. I've relieved Mr Renfrew of duty. He's going to stay with his sister in Birmingham. And I wouldn't let Nelson have another one of my wardens if we were overstaffed. He's already got Olmwood nearly killed."
She handed me the A-114 and asked me to take it to Civil Defence. I did. The girl I had spoken to wasn't there, and the girl who was said, "This is for interior improvements. You need to fill out a D-268."
"I did," I said, "and I was told that reinforcements qualified as exterior improvements."
"Only if they're on the outside." She handed me a D-268. "Sorry," she said apologetically. "I'd help you if I could, but my boss is a stickler for the correct forms."
"There's something else you can do for me," I said. "I was supposed to take one of our part-timers a message at his day job, but I've lost the address. If you could look it up for me. Jack Settle? If not, I've got to go all the way back to Chelsea to get it."
She looked back over her shoulder and then said, "Wait a mo," and darted down the hall. She came back with a sheet of paper.
"Settle?" she said. "Post forty-eight, Chelsea?"
"That's the one," I said. "I need his work address."
"He hasn't got one."
He had left the incident while we were still getting the fat woman out. It was starting to get light. We had a rope under her, and a makeshift winch, and he had abruptly handed his end to Swales and said, "I've got to leave for my day job."
"You're certain?" I said.
"I'm certain."
She handed me the sheet of paper. It was Jack's approval for employment as a part-time warden, signed by Mrs Lucy. The spaces for work and home addresses had been left blank. "This is all there was in the file," she said. "No work permit, no identity card, not even a ration card. We keep copies of all that, so he must not have a job."
I took the D-268 back to the post, but Mrs Lucy wasn't there. "One of Nelson's wardens came round with a new regulation," Twickenham said, running off copies on the duplicating machine. "All wardens will be out on patrol unless on telephone or spotter duty. All wardens. She went off to give him what-for," he said, sounding pleased. He was apparently over his anger at her for censoring his story on Jack.
I picked up one of the still-wet copies of the news-sheet. The lead story was about Hitler's invasion of Greece. He had put the article about Quincy Morris's medal down in the right-hand corner under a list of "What the War Has Done For Us". Number one was, "It's made us discover capabilities we didn't know we had."
"She called him a murderer," Twickenham said.
A murderer.
"What did you want to tell her?" Twickenham said.
That Jack doesn't have a job, I thought. Or a ration card. That he didn't put out the incendiary in the church even though Vi told him it had gone through the altar roof. That he knew the Anderson was further to the left.
"It's still the wrong form," I said, taking out the D-268.
"That's easily remedied," he said. He rolled the application into the typewriter, typed for a few minutes, handed it back to me.
"Mrs Lucy has to sign it," I said, and he snatched it back, whipped out a fountain pen, and signed her name.
"What were you before the war?" I asked. "A forger?"
"You'd be surprised." He handed the form back to me. "You look dreadful, Jack. Have you got any sleep this last week?"
"When would I have had the chance?"
"Why don't you lie down now while no one's here?" he said, reaching for my arm the way Vi had reached for Renfrew's. "I'll take the form back to Civil Defence for you."
I shook off his arm. "I'm all right."
I walked back to Civil Defence. The girl who had tried to find Jack's file wasn't there, and the first girl was. I was sorry I hadn't brought the A-114 along as well, but she scrutinized the form without comment and stamped the back. "It will take approximately six weeks to process," she said.
"Six weeks!" I said. "Hitler could have invaded the entire empire by then."
"In that case, you'll very likely have to file a different form."
I didn't go back to the post. Mrs Lucy would doubtless be back by the time I returned, but what could I say to her? I suspect Jack. Of what? Of not liking lamb chops and cake? Of having to leave early for work? Of rescuing children from the rubble?