Chapter 23
The ARP headquarters was in the church cellar.
A musty storage space in peacetime, an ancient, iron door separating the room from the crypt proper, where they buried the former priests, or so everyone said.
Not a place anyone would choose to spend any time in, but a place presumed safe from the worst of the bombs.
Enough space for a camp bed, so whoever was manning the station could get some sleep when things were quiet.
A large-scale map of the district was pinned to the wall, not that anybody ever looked at it.
Everyone who’d grown up on the island knew every street.
Most of the space on the desk was taken up by the wireless set. Transmitter and receiver. There’d be a message every fifteen minutes when things were quiet. And things had been quiet for almost a year. Then, suddenly, they weren’t.
Beaumont had put up with a year of abuse.
Tinpot dictator, he’d been called, all for doing his job, making sure people were obeying the blackout.
When his team of volunteers had shut down the high street for a rehearsal of a gas attack, half the people ignored them, walking through their war game as if they knew better.
Beaumont had lain awake that night, praying for a gas attack.
Put them in their places. Everyone had been given the gas masks, shown how to use them, but most of them still didn’t believe in the threat.
But that was all changed now. Now the bombers had arrived, Beaumont was a man whose time had come. Tonight, as the bombs rained down, he was the most powerful man on the island, just because he’d raised his hand a year and a half ago when they’d asked for volunteers.
The radio squawked. Kathleen, one of Beaumont’s more competent volunteers, picked up the receiver and listened, noting down the message.
‘Two high explosives, Limehouse.’
Useless information. Out of their jurisdiction. As if they didn’t have enough to worry about already. Half the island was burning.
Beaumont knew, on a purely theoretical level, that he should be out there. The training had been very clear. See and be seen. But what good could he do? The volunteer fire wardens were doing what they could. He could do more here, co-ordinating. Keeping things under control.
There was a commotion at the door. Beaumont looked up from his desk. It was the farmer. The one who’d brought the cricket bat.
‘That shelter in the park,’ Cook said. ‘It’s not safe.’
‘Course it’s safe,’ Beaumont said. ‘Only built a few months ago. Government specification.’
‘You’ve got to close it,’ Cook said. ‘Get people out.’
‘Get them out of the shelter?’ Beaumont asked, as a shower of dust fell from the ceiling and a bomb fell nearby.
‘It’s going to come down,’ Cook said. ‘You need to put a sign up. Boards across the door. I’ll do it if you’ve got the lumber.’
The phone rang. Kathleen picked it up, listened.
‘They want to lower the bridge at Shadwell,’ she said. ‘Get more fire engines onto the island.’
Beaumont was aware all eyes were on him.
It was his decision. But it was an impossible one to make.
Not enough information, and conflicting priorities.
Keep the waterways open, the latest bulletin from the government had made very clear.
But that had been before the island had been turned into a target for the whole of the Luftwaffe.
‘What shall I tell them?’ Kathleen asked.
‘The bridge stays up,’ he said.
Kathleen relayed this order. There was shouting from the other end. Beaumont leant over and cut the line.
‘There’s no right choice,’ he said.
The phone rang again.
‘Wait,’ Cook said.
Kathleen looked to Beaumont for confirmation. The ARP man opened his mouth to respond, but then he heard it. The sound they weren’t meant to hear.
They all strained to listen, above the ringing of the phone and the roaring of the fires. Filtering out the distant screams and the crashes as another warehouse succumbed to its injuries and collapsed inward.
It was a normal enough sound. A peaceful sound. Sleepy Sunday mornings in quiet country villages. Holidays. Celebrations. A sound that nobody in England had heard for months, since the order went out. No church bells until the invasion begins.
Father Ryan ran down the stairs, an ARP armband over his vestments.
‘I heard the bells from St Mary’s,’ he said. ‘It’s happening.’
Cook followed the priest up the stairs from the crypt. Above ground, the bells were deafening. No attempt at a tune, just a discordant peal.
Beaumont and Kathleen joined Cook and the priest.
‘Look!’ Kathleen said, pointing to the dark sky.
Cook followed her arm, and then he saw it. A parachute.
‘Get the rifle,’ Beaumont snapped, and Kathleen disappeared, back down the stairs.
Cook scanned the sky for more. They wouldn’t just drop one man. If this was the invasion, there’d be thousands more on the way.
A searchlight picked out the parachute. Cook pictured the crew, manhandling the large light. The light flickered off its target then found it again.
There was no parachutist. Instead, the parachute was supporting a large cylinder. Hard to judge the size at such a distance, but it looked like it was the size of a small car.
‘Bloody hell,’ Kathleen said. Then – ‘Sorry, Father.’
‘Bloody hell indeed,’ Father Ryan replied.