“You were in the lab in 2018?” Mr. Dunworthy said, looking at T.J. “That’s where the area of slippage was. What did you see, Ned?”
“—and then in the tower of Coventry Cathedral in 1395,” I said.
“Destination malfunction,” T.J. said worriedly.
“Two P.M. Six P.M.,” Warder said, her eyes on the screen.
“The net’s breaking down,” I said, “and Verity’s out there somewhere. You’ve got to get a fix on her and—”
“Warder,” Mr. Dunworthy said. “Stop the accelerated. We need—”
“Wait, I’m getting something,” she said.
“Now,” Mr. Dunworthy said. “I want a fix on Verity Kindle.”
“In a min—”
And Carruthers appeared in the net.
He was wearing the same thing he’d been wearing last time I’d seen him, his AFS coveralls and nonregulation helmet, except that they weren’t covered with soot. “Well, it’s about time!” he said, taking his tin helmet off.
Warder ran over to the net, pushed through the veils, and flung her arms around his neck. “I was so worried!” she said. “Are you all right?”
“I nearly got arrested for not having an identity card,” Carruthers said, looking slightly taken aback, “and I was this close to being blown up when a delayed HE went off, but otherwise I’m fine.” He disentangled himself from Warder’s arms. “I thought something had gone wrong with the net, and I was going to be stuck there for the duration of the war. Where the bloody hell have you been?”
“Trying to get you out,” Warder said, beaming at him. “We thought something had gone wrong with the net, too. Then I thought of running an accelerated to see if we could get past whatever the block was.” She linked her arm through his. “Are you certain you’re all right? Can I get you anything?”
“You can get me Verity. Now!” I said. “I want you to run a fix right now.”
Mr. Dunworthy nodded.
“All right!” Warder snapped, and stomped over to the console.
“You didn’t have any trouble coming back, did you?” T.J. said to Carruthers.
“Except that the bloody net wouldn’t open for three weeks, no,” Carruthers said.
“I mean, you didn’t go to another destination before you came here?”
Carruthers shook his head.
“And you haven’t any idea why the net wouldn’t open?”
“No,” Carruthers said. “A delayed HE went off a hundred yards from the drop. I thought perhaps it had done something to it.”
I went over to the console. “Anything yet?”
“No,” Warder said. “And don’t stand over me like that. It keeps me from concentrating.”
I went back over to Carruthers, who had sat down at T.J.’s sim setup and was pulling off his boots.
“One good thing came out of all this,” he said, peeling off a very dirty sock. “I can definitely report to Lady Schrapnell that the bishop’s bird stump wasn’t in the rubble. We cleared every inch of the cathedral, and it wasn’t there. But it was in the cathedral during the raid. The Head of the Flower Committee, this horrible old spinster sort named Miss Sharpe—you know the type, gray hair, long nose, hard as nails—saw it at five o’clock that afternoon. She was on her way home after a meeting of the Advent Bazaar and Soldiers’ Parcel Effort Committee, and she noticed some of the chrysanthemums in it were turning brown, and she stopped and pulled them out.”
I was only half listening. I was watching Warder, who was hitting keys, glaring at the screen, leaning back thoughtfully, hitting more keys. She has no idea where Verity is, I thought.
“So you think it was destroyed in the fire?” Mr. Dunworthy said.
“I do,” Carruthers said, “and everyone else does, except for this dreadful old harpy Miss Sharpe.She insists it was stolen.”
“During the raid?” Mr. Dunworthy asked.
“No. She says as soon as the sirens went, she came back and stood guard, so it must have been stolen after five and before eight, and whoever took it must have known there was going to be a raid that night.”
Numbers were coming up rapidly on the screen. Warder leaned forward, tapping keys rapidly. “Have you got the fix?”
“I’m getting it,” she said irritably.
“She had an absolute bee in her bonnet about it,” Carruthers said, peeling off his other sock and dumping it in his boot. “Interrogated everyone who’d been in or near the cathedral during the raid, accused the verger’s brother in-law, even wrote a letter to the editor of the local paper about it. Generally made everyone’s lives miserable. I didn’t have to do any detective work on it. She was doing it all. If somebody had stolen the bishop’s bird stump, you can be certain she’d have found it.”
“I’ve got it,” Warder said. “Verity’s in Coventry.”
“Coventry?” I said. “When?”
“November fourteenth, 1940.”
“Where?” I said.
She tapped the keys, and the coordinates came up.
“That’s the cathedral,” I said. “What time?”
She worked the keys some more. “Five past eight P.M.”
“That’s the raid,” I said and started for the net. “Send me through.”
“If the net’s malfunctioning—” T.J. said.
“Verity’s there,” I said. “In the middle of an air raid.”
“Send him through,” Mr. Dunworthy said.
“We’ve tried this before, remember?” Carruthers said. “Nobody could get near the place, including you. What makes you think—”
“Give me your coveralls and helmet,” I said.
He looked at Mr. Dunworthy and then started to strip them off.
“What was Verity wearing?” Mr. Dunworthy asked.
Carruthers handed me the coveralls, and I pulled them onover my tweeds. “A long white high-necked dress,” I said, and realized I’d made an erroneous assumption. Her clothes wouldn’t create an incongruity in the middle of an air raid. No one would even notice them. Or if they did, they’d think she was in her nightgown.
“Here, take this,” T.J. said, handing me a raincoat.
“I want a five-minute intermittent,” I said, taking the raincoat and stepping into the net. Warder lowered the veils.
“If you come through in the marrows field,” Carruthers said, “the barn’s to the west.”
The net began to shimmer.
Carruthers said, “Watch out for the dogs. And the farmer’s wife—”
And found myself right back where I’d started from. And in pitch-blackness. The darkness meant I was there the next night, or any of a thousand nights, a hundred thousand nights, while the cathedral sat its way through the Middle Ages. And meanwhile Verity was in the middle of an air raid. And all I could do was stay put and wait for the bloody net to open again.
“No!” I said, and smashed my fist against the rough rock. And the world exploded around me.
There was a whoosh and then a crump, and ack-ack guns started up off to the east. The darkness flared bluish-white and then the aftercolor of red, and I could smell smoke below me.
“Verity!” I shouted and ran up the stairs to the bells, remembering this time to count the steps. There was just enough orangish light to see by, and a faint smell of smoke.
I reached the bell platform and shouted up the stairs. “Verity! Are you up here?”
Pigeons, no doubt descendants of the one I’d disturbed six hundred years ago, flapped wildly down the upper tower and into my face.
She wasn’t up there. I ran back down the stairs, shouting, till I reached the step where I’d come through, and began counting again.
Thirty-one, thirty-two. “Verity!” I shouted over the drone of planes and the wail of an air-raid siren that had, belatedly and unnecessarily, started up.
Fifty-three, fifty-four, I counted. “Verity! Where are you?”
I hit the bottom step. Fifty-eight. Remember that, I told myself and pushed the tower do
or open and came out into the west porch. The smell of smoke was stronger here, and had a rich, acrid scent to it, like cigar smoke.
“Verity!” I shouted, pushing open the heavy inner door of the tower. And came out into the nave.
The church was dark except for the rood light and a reddish light in the windows of the clerestory. I tried to estimate what time it was. Most of the explosions and sirens seemed to be off toward the north. There was a lot of smoke up near the organ, but no flames from the Girdlers’ Chapel, which had been hit early. So it couldn’t be later than half past eight, and Verity couldn’t have been here more than a few minutes.
“Verity!” I called, and my voice echoed in the dark church.
The Mercers’ Chapel had been hit in the first batch of incendiaries. I started up the main aisle toward the choir, wishing I’d brought a pocket torch.
The ack-ack stopped and then started up again with renewed effort, and the hum of the planes got louder. There was a thud, thud, thud of bombs just to the east, and flares lit the windows garishly. Half of them, the half that had had their stained glass removed for safekeeping, were boarded up or covered over with blackout paper, but three of the windows on the north were still intact, and the greenish flares made them light the church momentarily with a sickly red and blue. I couldn’t see Verity anywhere. Where would she have gone? I would have expected her to stay close to the drop, but perhaps the raid had frightened her and she’d taken shelter somewhere. But where?
The drone of the planes became an angry roar. “Verity!” I shouted over the din, and there was a clatter above on the roof, like hail pattering, then a pounding and muffled shouts.
The fire watch, up on the roof putting out the incendiaries. Had Verity heard them and hidden somewhere so they wouldn’t see her?
There was a crash overhead and then a whizzing, spitting sound. I looked up, and it was a good thing I did because I narrowly missed being hit by an incendiary.
It fell onto one of the pews, hissing and spitting molten sparks onto the wooden pew. I grabbed a hymnal out of the back of the next pew and knocked the incendiary off with it onto the floor. It rolled into the aisle and up against the end of the pew across the aisle.
I kicked it away, but the wood was already smoking. The incendiary spit and sparked, twisting like a live thing. It hit the kneeling rail and began to burn with a white-hot flame.
A stirrup pump, I thought, and looked around wildly, but they must have taken them all up on the roof. There was a bucket hanging by the south door. I ran back and grabbed it, hoping it had sand in it. It did.
I ran back up the nave and upended the bucket over the incendiary and the already-burning rail, and then stood back, waiting for it to spit.
It didn’t. I used my foot to push the incendiary into the very middle of the aisle and check to make sure the fire on the kneeling rail was out. I had dropped the sand bucket and it had rolled under one of the pews. For the verger to find tomorrow and burst into tears.
I stood there looking at it, thinking about what I’d just done.I’d acted without thinking, like Verity, going after the cat in the water. But there was no chance here of changing the course of history. The Luftwaffe was already correcting any possible incongruities.
I looked up at the Mercers’ Chapel. Flames were already licking through the carved wooden ceiling above it, and no amount of sand buckets would be able to put them out. In another two hours the entire cathedral would be in flames.
There was a dull boom as something landed outside the Girdlers’ Chapel, lighting it for an instant. In the seconds before the light faded, I could see the Fifteenth-Century wooden cross with the carving of a child kneeling at the foot of it. In another half hour, Provost Howard would see it, behind a wall of flames, and the whole east end of the church would be on fire.
“Verity!” I shouted, and my voice echoed in the darkened church. “Verity!”
“Ned!”
I whirled around. “Verity!” I shouted and bolted back down the main aisle. I skidded to a stop at the back of the nave. “Verity!” I shouted and stood still, listening.
“Ned!”
Outside the church. The south door. I took off between the pews, stumbling over the rails, and across to the south door.
There was a knot of people gathered outside, looking anxiously up at the roof, and two tough-looking youths with their hands in their pockets, leaning casually against a lamp-post on the corner, discussing a fire off to the west. “What’s that smell of cigars?” the taller one was asking, as calmly as if they were discussing the weather.
“Tobacconist’s corner of Broadgate,” the shorter one said. “We shoulda nipped in and pinched some cigs before it got going.”
“Did you see a girl come out of the cathedral?” I asked the nearest person, a middle-aged woman in a kerchief.
“It’s not going to catch, is it, do you think?” she said.
Yes, I thought. “The fire watch is up there,” I said. “Did you see a girl run out of the church?”
“No,” she said and went immediately back to looking up at the roof.
I ran down Bayley Lane and then back along the side of the church, but there was no sign of her. She must have come out one of the other doors. Not the vestry door. The fire watch came in and out that door. The west door.
I raced round to the west door. There was a duster of people there, too, huddled inside the porch, a woman with three little girls, an old man wrapped in a blanket, a girl in a maid’s uniform. A gray-haired woman with a sharp nose and a WAS armband stood in front of the doors, her arms crossed.
“Did you see anyone come out of the church in the last few minutes?” I asked her.
“No one’s allowed inside the church except the fire watch,” she said accusingly, and her voice reminded me of someone’s, too, but I didn’t have time to try to work out whose.
“She has red hair,” I said. “She’s wearing a long white . . . she’s wearing a white nightgown.”
“Nightgown?” she said disapprovingly.
A short, stout ARP warden came up. “I’ve got orders to clear this area,” he said. “The fire brigade needs all avenues to the cathedral cleared. Come along.”
The woman with the little girls picked up the littlest one and started out of the porch. The old man shuffled after her.
“Come along,” the warden said to the maid, who seemed paralyzed with fright. “You too, Miss Sharpe.” He waved to the gray-haired woman.
“I have no intention of going anywhere,” she said, crossing her arms more militantly. “I am the vice-chairwoman of the Cathedral Ladies’ Altar Guild and the head of the Flower Committee.”
“I don’t care who you are,” the warden said. “I’ve got orders to clear these doors for the fire brigade. I’ve already cleared the south door, and now it’s your turn.”
“Warden, have you seen a young woman with red hair?” I interrupted.
“I have been assigned to guard this door against looters,” the woman said, drawing herself up. “I have stood here since the raid began and I intend to stand here all night, if necessary, to protect the cathedral.”
“And I intend to clear this door,” the warden said, drawing himself up.
I didn’t have time for this. I stepped between them. “I’m looking for a missing girl,” I said, drawing myself up. “Red hair. White nightgown.”
“Ask at the police station,” the warden said: He pointed back the way I’d come. “Down St. Mary’s Street.”
I took off at a trot, wondering who would win. My money was on the head of the Flower Committee. Who did she remind me of? Mary Botoner? Lady Schrapnell? One of the far-bearing ladies in Blackwell’s?
The warden hadn’t done a very effective job of clearing the south door. The exact same knot of people was standing there, and the two youths were still holding up the lamp-post. I hurried along the south side of the cathedral toward Bayley Lane and straight into the processional.
I had read ab
out what the police sergeant had called the “solemn little procession” when the fire watch had rescued what treasures they could grab and taken them across to the police station for safekeeping. And in my mind’s eye, I had thought of it as that—a decorous parade, with Provost Howard leading, trooping the colors of the Warwickshire Regiment, and then the others, carrying the candlesticks and chalice and wafer box at a measured pace, and the wooden crucifix bringing up the rear—so that at first I didn’t recognize it.
Because it wasn’t a processional, it was a rabble, a rout, Napoleon’s Old Guard frantically saving what they could from Waterloo. They stumbled down the road at a half-run, the canon with a candlestick under each arm and a load of vestments, a teenaged boy clutching a chalice and a stirrup pump for dear life, the provost charging with the colors thrust out before him like a lance and half-stumbling over the trailing flag.
I stopped, watching them just as if it were a parade, and that took care of one possibility Verity had proposed. None of them was carrying the bishop’s bird stump.
They ran back into the police station. They must have dumped their treasures unceremoniously on the first surface they found, because they were back outside in under a minute and running back toward the vestry door.
A balding man in a blue coverall met them halfway up the stairs, shaking his head. “It’s no good. There’s too much smoke.”
“I’ve got to get the Gospel and the Epistles,” Provost Howard said and pushed past him and through the door.
“Where the bloody hell is the fire brigade?” said the teenaged boy.
“The fire brigade?” the canon said, looking up at the sky. “Where the bloody hell is the RAF?”
The teenaged boy ran back down St. Mary’s to the police station to tell them to ring the fire brigade again, and I followed him.
The rescued treasures were sitting in a pathetic line on the sergeant’s desk, the regimental colors propped up against the wall behind. While the teenaged boy was telling the sergeant, “Well, try them again. The whole chancel roof’s on fire,” I looked at them. The candlesticks, the wooden crucifix. There was a little pile of worn brown Books of Common Prayer, as well, that hadn’t made the list, and a little bundle of offering envelopes and a choirboy’s surplice, and I wondered how many other rescued items Provost Howard had left out of his list. But the bishop’s bird stump wasn’t there.
To Say Nothing of the Dog Page 48