Julian calls out, “you don’t happen to have an extra coat for me, do you?” Why is he always grubbing for a cloak?
The passageway quietens down. The pitched warble above is the only sound.
“Why did you call me that?” she says. “No one calls me Mia but my mum.”
“Yeah,” Finch says. “Her name is Ma-ri-a.”
“You can pronounce your own girlfriend’s name?” Wild says. “Well done!” He throws Julian one of his coats. “Here, take mine. Let’s go.”
“I don’t mind you calling me that, by the way,” Mia says quietly to Julian in the stairwell. “I just wanted to know why you did, that’s all.”
“I knew someone like you once,” Julian says. “Her name was Mia.”
Mia smiles. “Yeah, but did she look like me?”
“She looked just like you.”
He doesn’t meet her questioning eye as they climb the stairs.
THE STREET IS COLD AND DARK. JULIAN BUTTONS HIS COAT. They feel their way down Princes Street, down the block-long granite sidewall of the Bank of England. The Rescue Squad jeep and the Heavy Mobile Unit medical truck are parked behind the bank on Lothbury. Julian doesn’t know how anyone can find Lothbury. He cannot see his hand before his face. In the blacked-out city, the streetlights are off, and the windows are covered with curtains. The night sky is under cloud. Finch gets behind the wheel of the jeep, Duncan rides shotgun, Julian, Mia, and Wild pile in the back. Phil, Sheila, Shona, and Frankie ride separately in the HMU van.
Julian had gambled on where he might end up and has read a bit about the Battle of Britain, about the bombs and the ruins. Here’s what he didn’t read about: under the night sky, the relentless air raid alarm is an insanity maker. It’s an echoey, up and down howling of a million wolves. Julian doesn’t know how everyone doesn’t plug up their ears and scream. His compatriots seem a lot calmer than he is, even the girl.
Especially the girl.
“Where are we headed to tonight, dove?” Finch says to her.
Leaning over Julian’s lap, Mia sticks her head out the window and listens to the drone of the enemy plane engines. Julian sucks in his breath and closes his eyes. Do any of us really know where we’re going, C.J.?
“Let’s drive to Stepney,” she says, settling back between Julian and Wild. “Something always falls near the docks.” She glances at Julian. He attempts to affect a neutral face. “Stepney, Wapping, Bethnal Green, Shadwell. All of East End is in pretty bad shape. Where are you from, Julian?”
“The East End,” Julian replies. “The East End originally,” he amends, knowing he won’t be able to fake a “been there, seen that” indifference to the coming destruction. “I’ve been away. Is Finch going to turn the lights on?” Finch is driving without them.
Mia shakes her head. “Can’t. Not allowed.”
“He plans to drive all the way to Stepney in the dark?”
“That’s one of Finch’s many gifts,” Mia says.
“You mean his only gift,” says Wild.
“Shut up, Wild.”
“Finch knows the city like a blind man,” Mia says.
“And drives like one,” says Wild as the jeep rattles over a pothole.
“You’re not in the Rescue Squad, are you?” Julian asks Mia. Women aren’t allowed to join the Home Guard, he refrains from adding. It’s for their own safety.
“I am,” she replies. “From the side. I’m with the Women’s Voluntary Services.”
“So what do you do?” Stay in the truck? Keep it running?
“Anything. Everything. Depending on what needs doing. Tonight, for example, you can help by being security with Dunk and Wild until the police come.”
Finch scoffs. “What’s he going to be able to do? You might want to put a glove on that hand of yours, mate. Might appear more menacing.”
“He’ll act menacing,” Mia says. “You’re a pretty good actor, right?” Lightly she nudges Julian. “They liked you tonight. They’ve been getting quite bored with me. Maybe we can put on something else for them if we make it out alive.”
If we make it out alive? She says it so carelessly. It’s a good thing it’s dark, and she can’t see the expression on his face.
With the streets empty of vehicles and people, it takes Finch less than seven minutes to get from the Bank of England to Commercial Street, where he pulls up to a curb and idles the engine. Even though it’s cold, everyone leaves their windows rolled down. The rumble of a hundred enemy planes is not distant enough.
It takes Julian a few moments to figure out that the squad is waiting to see where the bombs will drop. But what if the bombs fall on Commercial Street? he wants to ask. What if the bombs fall on the jeep where they sit and wait? The rising and falling of the piercing siren has not stopped. The sky flares up, followed by the sound of thunder. The night air is suddenly not as dark. In the brief bursts of light, he can see Mia’s calm, focused face.
Lightning.
Thunder.
Rise and fall of the wolf howl.
Like fireworks at a state fair, one two three, a dozen flares all at once, still at some distance downriver. The sound of long booms and sharp cracks gets nearer, grows louder. The bombs whistle and explode. It’s one of the most unnerving noises Julian has ever heard. He can’t help himself. Turning slightly, he leans against Mia. He wants to cover her with his body. Why would anyone be out in this awful ruckus? It’s like being out in a category 5 hurricane.
Lightning is followed by instant thunder over the buildings a few blocks away. Brick-busting explosions, plumes of flame, smoke.
There’s screaming.
“Now we go,” Mia says.
Finch shifts into drive and races the jeep around the corner, to one of the narrow residential side streets.
Between rows of terraced houses, two bombs have fallen in the street. Choking dusty wreckage rises in the air and small fires light up the cratered holes in the smashed-up homes, windows blown out, doors blown off. The street is littered with brick and wood and glass. There is some human exclamation, but not much on balance, not very much at all, considering. As they get out of the vehicle, Julian hears someone say, rather calmly, “Bloody hell.”
Three women covered in black ash stand crying.
