‘It was the same with us at the hospital,’ Tilly agreed. ‘Our shelter is down in the basement of the hospital, and they’ve got the operating theatres down there as well. We can hear the bombers, even down in the shelters, though.’
‘I think you British are being magnificently brave,’ Drew told her with great sincerity.
‘It’s all very well being brave, but what I don’t understand is why we don’t hear our own anti-aircraft guns firing at the Germans,’ Tilly said with some concern.
‘Well, I might be able to answer that question for you,’ Drew told her. ‘You’ll have heard of Ed Murrow?’
Tilly nodded. Ed Murrow was a well-known American radio broadcaster.
‘Yes,’ she confirmed. ‘He does the nightly “This is London” wireless programme to America doesn’t he?’
Drew beamed her a smile of approval. ‘That’s right,’ he agreed. ‘Well, I heard him talking to some other journalists last night in the American Bar, and he was saying that the Government has left the skies open for your own fighter planes to blow the Germans out of the air.’
Tilly gave him a wan smile. She knew he had wanted to cheer her up, but as far as she could see from the terrible damage being inflicted on the city, their own fighter planes didn’t seem to be doing very much to stop London being blitzed by German bombers. Not that she was going to say so, of course. She was far too patriotic to do that.
Being patriotic, though, did not mean that there were times when she didn’t feel afraid.
All the occupants of number 13, with the exception of Sally, who was on duty, had spent the last two nights in their Anderson shelter in the garden, all of them pretending to sleep but none of them actually doing so, Tilly was sure. They had lain in their narrow bunk beds, listening to the dreadful noises of the assault on the city. The worst, in Tilly’s opinion, were those heart-stopping few minutes when all you could hear was the approaching relentless menacing purring sound made by the engines of the German bombers coming in over the city. Your stomach tensed terribly against what you knew was going to happen when the bombs started to fall. She could feel herself holding her breath now, just as she did at night when she lay there waiting for the full horror she knew was imminent: the whistle of falling bombs; the dull boom of huge explosions, which shook the ground. Somewhere in the city houses were being destroyed and people were being killed and injured. In Article Row they had been lucky – so far – but she had seen at work what was happening to those whose families and homes had been blown apart by the bombs: numbed, disbelieving white-faced people visiting their injured relatives; or even worse, those poor, poor people who came to Barts hoping against hope that the loved one who was missing might be there and alive.
Tilly, like everyone else in the department, had had to put her normal routine to one side because of the work involved in recording the details of the patients now flooding into the hospital.
You could see the tension in people’s faces. When you were out on London’s streets, crunching through the broken glass littering the pavements, you hardly dared to look at the fearful shapes of the destroyed buildings – and certainly not towards the river, where the docks had been bombed night after night and where, in the morning, some of the fires were still burning. If you heard a loud sound fear automatically gripped you, but you pushed it aside because you had to, because you didn’t want Hitler thinking he was beating down your spirit, knowing how afraid you really were.
‘Oh ho,’ Ian warned, interrupting Tilly’s thoughts, ‘here comes Nancy. Nancy likes to keep us all in order,’ he told the American. ‘She’s a bit of a stickler for making sure that none of us does anything that might lower the tone of the Row. Isn’t that right, Tilly?’
‘Yes, I’m afraid it is.’ Tilly was forced to admit ruefully. ‘Nancy likes to disapprove of things. She’s also a bit of a gossip,’ she felt obliged to warn Drew.
‘She certainly is.’ Ian pulled a face. ‘When I brought my cousin home with me the night she’d been bombed out, Nancy was on the doorstep first thing the next morning wanting to know who she was and if Barb knew she’d stayed the night. Lena soon put her right and told her what was what.’
‘I’d better go,’ Tilly told Ian. ‘Mum will be wondering where I am.’
‘It sure was nice to get to meet you,’ Drew told her with another smile.
He seemed a decent sort, Tilly acknowledged as she hurried towards number 13. Not that she was remotely interested in young men, not since Dulcie’s elder brother, Rick, had taught her the danger of giving her heart too readily. That had simply been a silly crush, but it had taught her a valuable lesson and now she intended to remain heart free.
In the kitchen of number 13, Olive, Tilly’s mother, was trying desperately not to give in to her anxiety and go to look out of the front window to check if she could see her daughter.
Although it was unlike Tilly to be late home from work, normally Olive would not have been clock-watching and worrying, but these were not normal times. When the Germans had started bombing London night and day almost a week ago, they had bombed normality out of the lives of its people, especially those poor souls who lived in the East End near the docks.
As a member of the Women’s Voluntary Service Olive had already been to the East End with the rest of her local group under the management of their local vicar’s wife, Mrs Windle, to do whatever they could to help out.
What they had seen there had made Olive want to weep for the occupants of what was the poorest part of the city, but of course one must not do that. Cups of hot tea; the kind but firm arm around the shaking shoulders of the homeless and the bereaved; giving directions to the nearest rest centre; noting down details of missing relatives to relay to the authorities, the simple physical act of kneeling down in the rubble of bombed-out houses to help shaking fingers extract what looked like filthy rags from the carnage, but which to those pulling desperately at them were precious belongings – those were the things that mattered, not giving in to tears of pity for the suffering.
From the window of her pretty bright kitchen with its duck-egg-blue walls, and its blue-and-cream-checked curtains, Olive could see out into the long narrow garden, most of which Sally had converted into a vegetable patch. But it was their earth-covered Anderson shelter that drew her attention. They had spent the last four nights inside it, and would probably be inside it again tonight, unless by some miracle the Germans stopped dropping their bombs on London.
Where was Tilly? No air-raid sirens had gone off during the last couple of hours, so she should have been able to get home by now, even given the delays in public transport the bombing had caused. Perhaps she should go and check the street outside again?
Olive had just walked into the hall when she heard the back door opening. Quickly she hurried back to the kitchen, relief flooding through her when she saw Tilly standing there.
‘Oh, Tilly, there you are.’
‘I’m sorry I’m a bit late, Mum,’ Tilly apologised immediately, seeing her mother’s expression.
The resemblance between mother and daughter was obvious. They both had the same thick dark brown curls, the same sea-green eyes and lovely Celtic skin, and even the same heart-shaped faces, although Tilly was already nearly an inch taller than her mother.
‘I was just walking into the Row when Ian Simpson called me over to introduce me to an American reporter
