—3—
We were setting the table for tea when the sirens went off. I looked at Mother, and then at Peter. We’d had a number of false alarms. Was this one real? Betty, our housekeeper, ran through the door from the kitchen, wringing a towel through her hands. “What do we do?” she cried.
I headed to the back door to look out, and the sky was clear. I could hear no engines over the sound of the sirens, but that didn’t mean there weren’t any.
Peter said beside me, pointing, “There.”
On the horizon was a sprinkling of what looked like birds. I felt my blood drain through my body, leaving me shivery and frightened. I froze until Peter took my arm and gently directed me toward the cellar door.
Mother nudged Betty ahead of her. “All is well, my dear. We’ve prepared.” She waved her hand at Peter and me, and we followed her through the kitchen. “Elsie, bring the biscuits. Peter, that pitcher of water.”
Before we reached the stairs, the first bombs whistled through the air, the sound piercing, terrifying, and we instinctively looked toward the sky, holding our breath, counting as with lightning. A boom sounded, and another, and another. The walls shook. I ducked instinctively.
Behind me, Peter roared, “Down to the cellar!”
Dust shook from the rafters as we clattered down the steps, diving into the shelter Peter had painstakingly built over the past three months, larger than an Anderson shelter, making more space for all of us.
I was grateful as we took our places around the little table Mother had ordered brought down weeks ago.
We sat on the old sofa, draped with blankets, and she sat in the chair that had once graced our house in Nainital, so many years before.
A bag of knitting awaited. “There, now,” she said, raising her voice to be heard above the noise, the sirens going on and on, along with the irregular whistling and thudding of bombs.
Betty shivered, arms clasped around herself. “I didn’t know it would be so loud,” she said.
I grabbed a shawl from the back of the sofa and flung it over her shoulders. “Never mind,” I said. “Let’s have some biscuits. We mustn’t waste the sugar, now, should we?”
Only Peter paced, back and forth, back and forth. His face was the color of snow, and I felt pity. He’d known terrible suffering in the last war, taken prisoner in North Africa. “Bloody bombs,” he muttered.
“Language, please,” Mother said. “Come, sit and have a biscuit, Peter. The sugar will do you good.”
The sirens slowed, and I took a breath, reaching for a biscuit. “Are these lemon—?”
A loud whistle, sounding as if it were right over our heads, sailed down, down, down, and an explosion much closer than any other we’d heard made the windows rattle. Dirt shook down on our heads. Betty yelped.
“Oh, dear.” Mother met my eye. Smoothly, to create distraction, she said, “Elsie, do you remember when the tiger threatened the village?”