Chapter 24
Cook ran towards where they’d seen the parachute come down, through the warren of alleys. Beaumont, the ARP man, followed behind.
They turned a corner and there it was. An unremarkable hole in the road at the end of the alley, with what looked like a lake of silk puddled on the road next to it.
‘What if it goes off?’ Beamont asked. He looked back down the road, the way they’d come, as if hoping someone would come along and take the problem away from him.
Beyond the hole, a large yellow-brick building loomed. Four storeys high, towering over neighbouring houses.
‘What’s that building?’ Cook asked.
‘St Patrick’s,’ Beaumont said. ‘Lying-in hospital. Two hundred beds.’
Cook took a step forward, but Beaumont put his hand on his arm.
‘I can’t let you,’ he said. ‘Procedure. I’ve got to call it in.’
Cook took another step forward, out of Beaumont’s reach.
He looked at the hospital. Thinking about what Beaumont had said.
Two hundred beds. Two hundred women and babies.
Nurses. Doctors. Any one of them worth more than a farmer who’d chosen to use up all his nine lives in some of the most dangerous places known to man.