These Dark Wings (27 page)

A gull calls shrilly from above. Keeping left, I pass the permanent scaffold and gallows, leap over the low wall, pass All Hallows Church, and hurry towards Great Tower Street.
I have done it.

The summer night air comes cool and crisp. Again, I have forgotten the gloves. I stand tall, looking back. The wind blows endlessly along the river.

I stare hard at the Tower, the old turrets and battlements. I think of the Warders, not just Uncle, but all those who protected me and gave me a home. I must do this, for all of them.

My eyes are drawn to a flash of light on the east wall. A torch.

I freeze in terror. Did the Watchman hear me sneaking away? I squint into the darkness of the bridge and see the steady cone of light. My stomach rises.

A Warder, peering over the edge. The light is on me. Somehow, even in the black night, I know the face. Oakes. From the great distance we stare at each other.
He recognizes me
.

I should say something, yell back some curse, throw up my hands in confusion, in anger. Instead I turn towards the city and run.

We two alone will sing like birds i’ the cage.

King Lear
, V.iii.9

Tuesday, 27 May 1941

Along Great Tower Street, and crossing two broad roads, I run, so fast that even Flo would never catch me. St Paul’s, swathed in darkness, I can barely make out. I keep running, along narrow alleys and lanes glittering in a snowfall of powdered glass. Everywhere I look, empty window sockets, melted pipes, sandbagged doorways. Moonlight jumps through the buildings.

Without the street signs, it is impossible to orientate myself. Must they take down
all
the signs? The dust here is different than in the Tower, heavy yellow clouds. The largest city in the world, and my only guide is the occasional tree, ringed with three white bands of paint.
And the smell is like the Underground.

Oakes will send out Warders. Or will he simply set guards to ensure that I don’t return?
You put an incendiary in the middle of the Tower.
He will have you arrested if you return.

There is no sense dwelling on it. I have no choice.

When I see Mabel, I will wrap her inside the jumper and hold her still inside my coat. I clear my head of any thoughts of her great beak and sharp talons.

I must find her, and bring her home.

I stare into the night until my eyes burn. All around, piles of ruins. Are people... buried in there? Did the houses fall in on them? The huge masses of crushing stone, the downed telephone poles. The raid was so long ago. Surely repairs have at least
started
.

This is not a high street, that much I can tell. The front of one house has been sheared off. Is there someone in there? I see a table, leaning at a bizarre angle; glass and bricks everywhere. With horror I notice a shape moving in the shattered building. Before I can cry out, the shape leaps suddenly forward and races past, a clock in his hands.

Looters
, I realize in disgust.
Of course it’s not him.

Where? Where are you going?

I will need to wait for dawn, when Mabel wakes.
And then what?

The voice is cancelled by a distant light, faint blue and high above. At any moment, the siren will wail.
Why isn’t it wailing?

‘Hey! You there!’

The voice is loud. Without thinking, I am off and galloping. A patrolling warden. What does he want? To arrest me? I dodge the debris, my feet oddly heavy. Panic makes it impossible to focus. The warden is probably yelling at the looter. Likely he didn’t even see me.

A quick glance over my shoulder shows that he is chasing me.

Move.

My sense of direction is confused. Have I turned east again?

After several endless minutes I huddle against the bricks, panting quietly. I slow down my thoughts; breathe. Why is he hunting me when a raid is about to start?
Is this a raid? Where is the siren?

What did Timothy Squire say again? His voice comes to me, I can hear it clearly; all it says, over and over, is
run
. I run.

Faint cries from the darkness. I need a shelter. There is meant to be a distance of only eight minutes between them. I am running and I see nothing. Not a Tube station, railway arch, or even a doorway. No
Public Shelter
sign.

I will have to find my own. Lifting my feet, again and again, trying not to fall. There. Across the street, a white concrete building, a red flag on the roof. I push the heavy door. It is not locked.

For a moment I stand in the new darkness, my eyes slowly adjusting. Outside, any moment now, will come the whistle and crunch of bombs. Will this concrete protect me? I don’t know, but it has to be safer than the streets. The warden too will have to make for cover.

But the siren never came.

I slide down the wall and keep near the entrance, remembering to stay near the doorway. I clutch the silver dog in my pocket. Outside sounds fall silent.

Nothing happens.

As my eyes take ages to adapt, a smell settles, heavy and powerful. A familiar smell, something I remember from home. It is very strong, and I wonder how I didn’t notice it immediately.

I will survive at least until I find Mabel.

Another sound, close. Guns restarting? I inch nearer to the doorway. Why has nobody else taken shelter here? Unless they have, and dozens of strange men and women sit crowded in the corners. Somehow I am sure that I am alone, here in the darkness with the pungent smell. Like Flo’s father’s car. Why is the siren still silent?

I take a moment to check my things. I have food, in addition to Mabel’s food, but only a bite. How am I expecting to find a black bird in the vast city? At least, I am sure, she is not in here, under a concrete roof and surrounded by...

My heart does not beat. I cannot move. Yet I must, and now. I know where I am, why I am the only one sheltering here. The heavy smell.

I know now what this building is.

A fuel depot.

Day is slow to arrive. I walk the quiet streets. No siren wails; no bombs fall. I am merely tired, exhausted, seeing and hearing things in this broken city. Dawn is only a few minutes away. The outlines of buildings are almost clear.

A whole night, hiding from an imaginary raid.
In a fuel depot
. Timothy Squire will never hear a word of this. Even Flo would laugh at me.

Serves me right for what I did with the bomb at the Tower.

What would the warden have said if he caught me sneaking out of there, thinking it was a shelter?
Lock me in a mad house?

‘Hey!’

It seems I am about to find out. It is the bloody warden again, and I am running, directly towards an entrance like a cave in the mountains. Someone is standing in a doorway, a woman, and she pulls me inside.

Valerie has invited me to sit and have tea, ‘Blitz soup’ and toast. She is the owner of The Rose and Punchbowl and she has even dealt with the nosy warden. When I ask if I can please use the lavatory, she points to the back.

The mirror shows a small, pale face, lost and frightened, with ragged hair like a boy’s. I don’t know where I am, where Raven Mabel is, how to get home,
if
I can even go home... The smell of toasting bread pulls me back.

I return to the table, trying to smile. My legs, heavy and sore, are grateful for the rest. And the fire, roaring in the grate.

She sees my look, gestures to the plate. I begin to eat. Mum used to go lunching with a woman named Valerie – Valerie Willis – and I never liked the look of her. This Valerie, however, with her short black curls and firm jaw, seems kind. For some reason she reminds me of Nell. A kindly Nell.

As she watches me, Valerie asks questions, quiet and unhurried, ducking her head whenever she speaks.

‘What about you, dear? You live in the Tower, you said. That must be quite something.’

I nod, and return to the toasted bread. It is warm and delicious.

‘Hmm. I always thought of that place as some kind of tomb. But I suppose the whole city is, nowadays. Living in that old medieval castle, though. You always walk around by yourself at night?’

‘Yes. I mean, I have to be back by sunrise – I’m the Ravenmaster now – so I need to be back for the dawn feeding.’

‘Aha. Well, just enjoy your toast for now. Worry about the birds later.’

She does not believe me – it
does
sound strange, and with my hair I must look a right mess – but I don’t try to explain further. It doesn’t matter. I have toast and tea and a kind woman to talk to. I shift towards the warm and welcome fire. I think of Nell, trying to frame my questions politely.

‘So you work here?’ I ask.

‘You’re in my pub, dear. Bought it just before the war started. Not the best bit of luck. Beats getting torched by a bomb, though.’

I think of all the damage along the street and though I don’t say anything, it seems Valerie can see my thoughts easily enough.

‘Last raid, bomb fell right outside.’ She tosses her head dismissively. ‘Can’t even explode properly. I watched it just simpering away.’

‘You didn’t go down to the shelter?’

‘No one bothers any more. Only the crazies in there now.
I’m ill, I’m ill
, is all they say.’

She is eyeing me strangely. She thinks I’m one of the crazies. A thirteen-year-old, the Ravenmaster at the Tower of London, wandering the East London streets at night? Hollow laughter builds up inside me.

I try to block out my time cowering in a fuel depot because of an imagined siren. I turn back to what’s left of the soup, eating noisily but unable to slow down.

‘Thank you so much,’ I say, my spoon scraping against the porcelain bowl. ‘I was terribly hungry.’

‘You can’t count on the food centres. Have you
seen
the queues outside the Exchange? Even during a raid nobody moves. The staff shut it up and run for cover, but not a person budges out of that line. We have to rely on each other.’

I smile up at her. Even with the generous meal, the ache in my stomach won’t fade. ‘I heard Prime Minister Churchill’s speech. He said – he said the people of the East End have been the most brave during the war.’

‘Suits him fine, doesn’t it? “Hey look, the Cockneys aren’t grumbling. And who’s not better than a Cockney?” Yeah, some people around here are putting up with an awful lot. But we were just as brave when there was no work, when we got sick, when food ran out. It’s not a compliment to say it now, just ’cause bombs are falling. Nobody asks for his applause.’

I sit in silence, unsure what I can possible say. Surely it
is
a compliment, that they keep on working when people are dying all around? And what is so wrong with applause, whether you ask for it or not? The look on Valerie’s face says otherwise. I remember that Mum used to say ‘No one’s brave. People just have different ways of looking at the world.’

Little else is spoken on any topic. Valerie only says that I should stay and warm up until day breaks, and then begins her own day of setting up the pub. Dawn is not yet here. And I can use a few moments’ rest by the fire.