Chapter 11
Cook hurried outside, followed by Reynolds – the two men with the same goal, to make sure the thunder wasn’t anything worse than a summer storm.
In the canyon formed by the surrounding tenements, Cook could only see a thin sliver of sky.
Reynolds hurried away, disappearing into a narrow alley.
Cook followed, and found himself in an open space – a churchyard, and an adjoining park. More sky.
Thick cloud gathered on the eastern horizon. The source of the storm. But this cloud was unlike any Cook had seen before. It was rising quickly, like steam from a kettle left too long to boil. Flashes of light lit the cloud from inside.
Cook smelt the air. There was an acrid smell, oddly familiar.
‘Coffee,’ Reynolds said. ‘They’re hitting the royal docks. There was a shipment in from Brazil last night.’
Now he’d said it, the smell was unmistakable. And the sound. Not thunder. Bombs. As many bombs as Cook had ever heard. Took him back to the Somme. But that was impossible. It would take hundreds of bombers. Thousands. It would take the entire Luftwaffe.
‘Any military targets over there?’ Cook asked.
‘Woolwich Arsenal,’ Reynolds said. ‘But that’s miles past the royals. Even the krauts wouldn’t miss by that much.’
The thunder was louder, and Cook saw glints of light in the sky, like a shoal of silvery fish in a dark pool.
‘Your idea to bring up the boy?’ Reynolds asked Cook.
Cook didn’t respond.
Reynolds winked. ‘Welcome to the island,’ he said, then slipped into the darkness of another alley.
Cook watched the sky. Hard not to. Hypnotic, in its own way. Thousands of bombers, coming from the east.
Churchill had called the city a giant sow, tethered and vulnerable. Impossible to defend. No amount of fighters or anti-aircraft guns could make a mark. The bomber will always get through, was the mantra of the newspaper headline and the military strategist alike.
The only response had been to prepare the defences. Gas masks. Sandbags. Public shelters. Tape on every window.
As Cook stood in the churchyard and watched the sky turn red, suddenly the defences seemed all too thin.
Were they ever intended to protect the population of the biggest city in the world? Or were they just to keep the people quiet? Keep them going about their work without complaint, while the great and the good built deep shelters for themselves, and laid out escape plans.
The bombers were above Cook now, and he had to crane his neck, looking directly up into the late-afternoon sky.
And all the time, the sirens wailed, and the searchlights panned.
So this is it, Cook thought. The end of the world.