“Why?”
“I broke his arm.”
“Why am I not surprised?” Hector got to his feet and inhaled a restorative breath. “We have to go to the Tower.”
“It’s not Tuesday, is it? My God, did I sleep that long?”
“It’s Sunday morning.”
“What time is it?”
“Dawn. Our plans have suddenly changed. The Germans bombed the Tower last night, so we are starting Operation Cat three days early.” He took another breath, straightened, and noticed a suitcase on top of the wardrobe. He grasped the handle and swung the case onto the bed. “You have exactly five minutes to fill this,” he said, raising his right hand, fingers splayed. “Five. Pack your things. I’ll be waiting in the car, and five minutes from now I’m pulling away. With or without you.”
Wincing and rubbing his right ear, Hector left. Four minutes and thirty seconds later, Caitrin slung her case into the rear of his Humber Super Snipe and joined him in the front seat.
“Made it. This car smells of dogs, Hecky.”
“That’s because my mother loves cocker spaniels.”
“How many does she have?”
“I believe about ten, last count.” Hector started the engine and pulled away, the towed horse box rattling behind. The dim streets were deserted. The blue-black air smelled of burning rubber, and smoke coiled above the roofs. A red glow to the east showed the docks were ablaze.
“The Elephant and Castle is an aiming point for the Luftwaffe to bomb the docks,” Hector said. ”Why on earth did you choose to live here?”
“I didn’t choose. It was all I could afford, and the Nazeez weren’t bombing us when I moved in.”
They passed a burning street to their left, rows of sightless windows flaring orange and the firemen tiny silhouettes battling the flames. A fire engine rattled by, warning bell hammering, as a building wall collapsed in a welter of sparks. The fire-fighting efforts seemed pointless in the face of such an inferno.
“Why were you in your room last night?” Hector said. “That is so dangerous. The underground shelter is only two streets away. You would have been safer down there.”
“Because my landlady, Mrs. Lilian Bardwell, had one of her turns. Poor dear gets so frightened sometimes and can’t move. I didn’t want to leave her alone.”
“Next time there’s a raid I suggest you do leave her,” Hector said.
“I would never do that to Mrs. Bardwell,” she said as they crossed Tower Bridge. Mid-river, they could clearly see the docks were a cauldron of flame.
“Those poor chaps in Docklands took a pounding,” Hector said.
Caitrin pointed to their left. “So did they over there.”
Across the Thames a column of smoke was rising from the Tower of London.
“Looks as though it took a direct hit,” she said.
“More than one,” Hector said. “Let’s hope there’s something left.”
They crossed the bridge and turned toward the Tower. A policeman waved a torch to warn them away until Hector presented him with a letter. He read with great care and returned it to Hector as though it were some holy relic. “Thank you, Sir. Bombs demolished a big piece of the Mint and the old Hospital Block,” he said. “Just missed the White Tower. Killed Yeoman Warder Reeves. He was a good bloke too. Family man. Tragedy I call it.”
“Yes, it is,” Hector said.
“And the docks got it again last night.” The policeman pointed west. “Go through the Middle Tower, turn left down Mint Street and stop at Beauchamp Tower. It’s well away from where the bombs exploded. They’ll meet you there. Mind how you go, Sir.”
“You too, Constable,” Hector said and followed his directions.
Inside the Tower walls, Mint Street narrowed at Beauchamp Tower, where a half-dozen men were waiting in the shadows. One of them was Walter Thompson, Churchill’s bodyguard. They shook hands, but no one spoke as the cases were loaded into the horse box. A few of the smaller cases were stored in the Humber’s boot. Satisfied they were secure, the men covered the cases with hay bales and closed the horse-box door. Caitrin watched, fascinated by their silent toil, and whispered to Hector, “All we need is a horse neighing in there to finish it off.”
“No space left.”
“You could sit on the hay bales and pretend. Maybe I could get you some coconut shells to clomp.” She stopped one of the men from padlocking the horse-box door. “No, don’t lock it. Give me the lock.”
“But the Jewels,” he said.
“If it’s unlocked, people will think there’s nothing of value inside. Nothing but hay bales. Locked, they’ll be curious.”
The man glanced at Thompson, who frowned for a moment, unsure, then nodded in agreement. He gave Hector a card. “You are to call this number every morning to report, and only from a telephone box. Do not call from anyone’s home; it might not be secure. Do not give away your location. The estates on the list the prime minister gave you are all numbered. When you report in, give only the listed number of the house where you are staying. The telephone is manned day and night, but call at other times only in an emergency.”
Hector nodded to show he understood and glanced to the lightening sky. “We’ve left it rather late. Regardless of the day, we were supposed to depart before daybreak.”
“Couldn’t be helped. Make sure you time your arrival in Scotland to just before the submarine sails, so the Jewels go directly on board.”
Shouts in the distance followed a rumbling as part of the bomb-shattered walls collapsed. Hector stopped and stared in disbelief at the rubble and its rising cloud of dust. As a boy, he had visited here many times and remembered standing close to this spot.
This was the Tower of London; he had drawn it in his art classes and gotten excellent marks. His mother still had the sketch up on a wall in their home. His English teacher wanted an essay about one of their trips, and Hector, while better with a pencil than a pen, had done his best. He wrote that William the Conqueror had built the first Tower in 1078, and Sir Walter Raleigh was imprisoned there, as were the two Little Princes, although he did not know why and forgot their names.
His memory clung to a pristine image of the Tower that clashed with the fallen reality before him and tried to put it back whole. In many ways, he had grown used to the war and its random destruction, but the struggle between the remembered and the real affected him, and he understood why some people eventually went insane. What was happening was insanity, and how would they deal with it, how would they make sense of all the ruin when the war was over? Who would, or could, explain why it had happened?
“Hector?” Caitrin tugged at his sleeve. “Are you all right?”
