‘You all right, sir? Had a close shave by the looks of you. Still, quite a number of others not so lucky, I’m afraid. You and the lady come with me, we’ll get you fixed up …’
Uncomprehending, speechless, Hencke was led around the corner. The spectacle that confronted him was so overwhelming he all but stumbled in alarm before the policeman caught and steadied him. They were in a street, more brightly lit than the one they had just left, with tall rows of houses stretching on either side. The street was residential, not very salubrious, with the worn-down air of a shoe which has had too much use. The buildings were tenements, normally crowded with people, many of whom were at this moment spilled along the street. Immediately in front of Hencke there should have been a solid frontage of brick; instead there was a hole some forty yards across, filled with rubble, smoke, smashed wooden beams, splinters of steel and teams of men clawing away with their hands at the ruins.
‘You live there, did you?’ the policeman enquired solicitously.
Hencke shook his head.
‘Oh, passing by, were you? Bloody V-2s. Can’t hear them coming, not like the doodle-bugs. First thing you know is when it’s hit. Too late by then, usually. You’re lucky, really lucky, believe me. Still, you and the lady must be badly shocked. Come on, let’s get that arm seen to and find you both a cuppa …’
They were led along a street full of fire tenders, dust, ambulances, air raid wardens, rescue squads, housewives dispensing blankets and sympathy, doctors and nurses tending the injured, and policemen. Lots of policemen. And bodies. In a quiet corner there were already a dozen corpses covered by blankets. A woman’s feet stuck out from under one blanket, a child’s hand from beneath another, tightly clutching a teddy bear with one arm torn off. And the memories came flooding back …
Neither he nor the girl said anything while his arm was tended, the Red Cross nurse used to dealing with patients in shock and happy to do all the chattering herself. It appeared the rocket had fallen some fifteen minutes earlier, about the time the pub fight started. Perhaps that was what had masked the sound of the explosion. The section of the street which had disappeared into the crater normally housed over a hundred people, the nurse said. She hoped that most of them had been out enjoying their Friday evening, but many clearly had not and the row of bodies being assembled under the blankets grew longer with every passing minute. She would like Hitler and all the rest to be brought back to London and a German hanged on every site in the city where a bomb had fallen. Her fiance had been captured in Singapore and was still, she believed, a prisoner of the Japanese, and the same went for that lot too. She wanted Hencke to go to hospital for stitches – the wound was deep – but he refused, so she disinfected it and bandaged it tightly.
‘Just keep it quiet for a couple of days and don’t do too much running around, love,’ she advised. ‘You’ll be as right as rain.’
With that they were packed off for a cup of tea from the mobile canteen.
The girl had wanted to forgo the tea and sidle out while they could, but Hencke shook his head. ‘Wait. We’re all right for the moment. Take the tea.’ He was trembling from the shock and the cold, and he needed time to recover.
But there was something else. In the shadows behind the canteen the line of bodies was still growing. Distraught men and women would occasionally walk over to turn back the covering blankets and search for a loved one. No one interfered; death like this had long been routine in London.
It was after their second cup of tea, drunk without a word, that he took her firmly by the hand and led her towards the line of blankets. He avoided those which obviously covered women or children, but the others he began to turn back, staring at the dead, holding on to his companion’s hand as if they were a couple seeking mutual comfort. He found what he was looking for underneath the eighth blanket. A man’s body, you could tell that by the trousers and the hair on his chest. But of the face there was nothing other than a mass of angry bone and flesh in no recognizable human pattern. The girl drew back in horror, but Hencke knelt down close, as if grieving. Another couple passed by giving them a wide and sympathetic berth, leaving them alone in their sorrow. The Irish girl watched transfixed as Hencke removed an oval dog-tag from his own neck and placed it around the neck of the corpse, before standing up in apparent distress.
‘It might confuse them for a while,’ he whispered, ‘buy us a little time.’
‘Now can we get out of here? Or do you fancy hanging around a little longer, just in case the Prime Minister decides to pay a visit?’
She grabbed his hand and was dragging him away when they passed by the body of the girl clutching the mutilated teddy bear. Hencke stopped and stared. Tears filled his eyes and his lips moved in agitation, whispering silent words of anguish, remembering. He fell to his knees and began to pray.
‘Holy Mother of God,’ the girl snapped in exasperation, looking around for the posse of policemen she expected would descend on them at any moment. ‘Can’t we do our praying later?’
But he would not be hurried. He finished, oblivious to the bustle of the street, before leaning down and taking the child’s tiny hand. With great tenderness he prised the armless toy away from her. ‘For luck, Little One,’ he whispered, and gently covered her hand with the blanket.
When he rose he stood tall, shoulders braced, and for the first time she saw what a powerful frame he had. The shocked and crumpled man of moments earlier was gone. In his eyes burned the glow of a bitterness and a determination which she understood well.
‘Let’s go,’ he said grimly, tucking the bear inside his shirt. ‘There’s still much I have to do.’
The Old Man was sitting on his own, in the gloom, with just a small table lamp to cast light. Had he been paying attention to the box of papers at his side he would undoubtedly have suffered severe eye strain, but the papers lay untouched. Churchill was alone with the thoughts that had preoccupied him ever since his return from Germany. He could have been excused a moment of exhilaration, the first Allied political leader to set foot on enemy soil, but there was no zest in him. He had been brooding, sulking some were saying, and had neglected not only his official duties but also the normal civilities that attend governmental life. Even Clemmie had taken umbrage, deciding on the spur of the moment to visit relatives in the country for a few days rather than indulge in yet another heated and utterly pointless exchange with her husband. She was used to his moods and tempers, but she could see no reason for this bout of petulance. It was not as though he had lost a battle – or so she thought.
Only Cazolet had shown any inclination to indulge him and the rest of the Private Office had been more than content for him to shoulder the burden. Cazolet had sat for many hours, ignoring the barbs and the criticism, showing indifference to Churchill’s irascible accusations of disloyalty aimed at those around him, even offering a rebuke when the Old Man had gone inexcusably far. Cazolet considered he was over-reacting, and told him so. Yet self-inflicted or not, the pain was real. He resembled a great old oak, now dying, ancient limbs sagging under their own weight, the sap no longer rising. Instead of thrusting for the sky he seemed to be slowly falling apart.
As Cazolet entered the Old Man looked up. There was no friendly rustle of leaves, no welcome in his eyes. He was swathed in his favourite silk dressing-gown whose rich brilliance he usually outshone, but tonight his garb seemed oddly out of place.