At the Dark Hour

by John Wilson

  – You’re jumping the gun.

  – And Falling. Don’t you worry. I won’t be drinking. That’s behind me now.

  – I’m glad to hear that.

  – I could beat you hollow even if I was drunk. But I’m going to make you pay for killing Jenny.

  The man was deranged. But before Adam could reply Blytheway came back into the Mess, Preston following, to announce that Katya had been found not guilty.

  – So that’s good news all round! I’m sorry Pemberton, are you leaving?

  Pemberton was already slouching towards the door.

  – What a pity. I was hoping we could have a chat. Adam, I’m sorry to be a bore but I need to go down and see Mrs Hoffer. She’s still in custody I’m afraid but I am hoping to broker a meeting between her and Mr Novak.

  Chapter Eighty-three

  (Wednesday 16th April 1941)

  The nearest working telephone box was about ten minutes’ walk from Julia’s apartment and frequently one had to queue up to use it. It was quarter past seven in the evening before she was able to step inside, take some coins from her purse and put a call through to her children. She had last been able to see them over the previous long weekend, the Easter weekend, when she had taken Easter eggs down to the Cotswolds for them. Dusk was falling by the time she stepped out. There had been a rap on the glass from the next in line to use the kiosk and she had been obliged to say hurried goodbyes to Agnes.

  People were already hurrying towards Holborn underground station as she made her way back to Mecklenburg Square. In just over half an hour the blackout was due to begin. Inside her apartment she switched on the main light and put the blackout shades in place. She had laid out her night-dress on the bed, and her overnight bag, filled with toiletries should she need to decamp to the cellar, lay next to it. She opened a tin of tomato soup and poured it into a pan on the hot-plate.

  While it was bubbling up she went to her tiny bathroom and, with a piece of cotton, began removing her foundation. There were dark shadows under her eyes and her face was gaunt. The smell of cream of tomato drifted in on her and she went back to the little kitchen and poured the soup into a bowl.

  As she was lifting her spoon to eat there was a knock on the door. Placing the chain in the security latch she cautiously pulled the door open and peered out into the gloom. It was Audrey Fisher, a fresh-faced woman in her early thirties who lived around the corner and worked with her at the Water Board.

  – Sorry to disturb, Julia, but we need to go back to work.

  Julia looked at her watch.

  – It’s my night off.

  – Mine too. I’ve had a call. Bad things are about to happen. We’ve got no choice.

  – Give me a minute.

  Julia unlatched the door and let Audrey in. She poured her soup into a Thermos flask, picked up her overnight bag and put on her overcoat. They were out of the door within minutes.

  – I’m really sorry to have to do this. We’ve both been working double shifts lately.

  – Did anyone call for me?

  – A man named Jack Storman rang to find out how you were. He asked if you could call him.

  – How long do you think this is going to last?

  – All night I think.

  They hurried along the darkening, almost deserted streets.

  Down in the bunker they took their places at the usual desks. Ladies in twin-sets took seats by the maps of the city, ready to move markers around. And then the sirens and the drone of planes began.

  This had been her life now for several weeks. The postponement of the trial and the heavy, if erratic, bombing had allowed a strange normality to emerge. In the room there had been growing talk of invasion, which served to contextualise her problems and diminish them. Jenny’s death, equally, had, in an odd way, made her more sanguine.

  This raid was different. As the clocked clicked through to nine the sound of planes overhead was loud, oppressive and unending, as was the sound of explosions. Occasionally the building they were in jumped and rocked as if it were on springs.

  Then the reports began to come in. Bombs were falling everywhere in a manner that had not been experienced before. It was as though everywhere and everything in London was being hit that night: the Temple, the West End, Mayfair, the Docks, Islington, Farringdon, Camden and even Kent: Shortlands, Bromley and Beckenham. One accurate bomb, and her trial (and perhaps her life) would be over. She felt a strange omnipotence about her friends, and enemies, as the reports came in and she unscrewed the Thermos to drink the hot tomato soup.

  ****

  On the roof of 1 Hare Court, Blytheway was standing in for Adam who, still unwell, continued to insist on staying in his room in Dr Johnson’s Buildings. Incendiaries, high explosives and parachute mines were falling and he, Barry and Roberts were kicking the incendiaries off the roof and watching for fires. Blytheway’s overalls had been tailored to accentuate his figure. Barry turned to him in a lull.

  – This is worse than anything we’ve seen so far, sir.

  – Roly! Please!

  Blytheway wiped away some sweat from his face. He was breathing heavily.

  – I’m afraid you are right, Barry. If this carries on much longer we shall all be obliged to cash in our chips … Look out!

  A rattle of incendiaries landed in the gutter. The three men moved quickly to avoid them.

  – Kick them hard! Oh, how I hate having to shout!

  And they managed to get them all off the roof.

  ****

  In Dr Johnson’s Buildings, Adam remained in bed sleeping fitfully despite the roar of the planes and the sound of explosions. His mind was filled with images of the coming trials, and when sleep occasionally came to him Blytheway’s cobalt ghost would shimmer around the room.

  ****

  In the basement in Eaton Square Pemberton sat on his bed. The electric light flickered against the wine racks and blankets. Samuels and Annie sat on the bed opposite, Julia’s bed, and listened to the bombardment overhead. Occasionally they looked one another in the eye and saw how large were the whites: this felt like the end. Then they would look across at their employer, whose eyes were inward and seeing something completely different. The interminable rumble continued and the cellar shook as bombs exploded nearby.

  Pemberton was thinking of Julia, in that bomb-wrecked part of London. He hoped that she might perhaps die now and he could seal his grief over. There was nothing left for him. He gazed fretfully at the whisky bottle that he had placed on the bedside table and willed himself not to open it. Or not yet at least.

  ****

  Jack Storman and his wife, Margaret, were hugging one another in the darkness of their Anderson shelter. He had lit a candle, which flickered, sending shadows over the walls. His wife was still beautiful, in a way that many women were not, but the fear and anxiety that had been growing in her over the years had creased her beauty. It was 2 a.m. now and the bombs had been falling for five hours. The incessant noise and the sound of encroaching explosions seemed to intensify. He made himself admit that he was terrified. He held his wife closer and she looked deeply into his eyes with the look that she had given him twenty-five years ago on their wedding day.

  – I’m so thirsty.

  – This can’t go on much longer.

  – I know. We’ll see it through – as we always do.

  – Do you want me to get you some water?

  – No. It’s too dangerous. Stay here with me.

  Storman pulled himself away from her.

  – I won’t be a minute.

  – You shouldn’t. I love you so much!

  – I love you too!

  It was a ritual that they had insisted on, implicitly, since the Blitz began. Storman climbed out of the shelter and stumbled up their long, narrow garden back to the house. He fumbled his way to the cupboard and then to the kitchen tap and, like a blind man, trickled water into a glass for his wife. In daylight it would have taken less than a minute. In these circ
umstances it took him five. The glass was cool in his hand, and on a whim he drank it down. He edged the glass back to the spout of the tap and slowly turned the tap back on. When the glass was heavy enough he turned off the flow and felt his way to the back door.

  Opening the kitchen door he could see, in a fire-cracker of explosions, their gardens, the little stone path and, at the end of it, the shelter. He stepped out into a maelstrom of sudden noise, and a burst of hot wind blew him backwards into the house.

  When he came to his clothing was soaked with steaming water, and fragments of glass littered him. The kitchen windows had all been blown out. Lifting his head to look outside, he saw that the shelter was no longer there.

  Chapter Eighty-four

  (Thursday 17th April 1941)

  Someone was shaking him insistently by the shoulders. He didn’t want to wake up. The previous night’s bombardment had broken his sleep comprehensively by 1 a.m. and although he had no thought of going down to the shelter the noise from outside was of cataclysmic proportions. Dawn was edging round the corners of the blackout shades by the time he eventually fell asleep. The silent shaking continued and he turned his head away and tried to burrow down under his blankets.

  – Need to sleep …

  he said drowsily.

  He felt a hand on his face, a thumb in one cheek and fingers in the other and his head was wrenched back to where it had been.

  – I am afraid you cannot sleep. You must wake up!

  It was Roly. The urgency in his voice was something Adam had never heard before and it woke him with a start. Opening his eyes, he saw Blytheway leaning over him. He was again dressed in a frock coat but, unusually, the rest of his clothing was lacking in colour. The last time he had seen him he had been wearing his specially tailored overalls in readiness for a night of fire-fighting.

  – What is it? What time is it? What day is it?

  – I let myself in when you didn’t respond to my knocking.

  – What’s going on?

  – Terrible news, I am afraid.

  Alarmed, Adam hauled himself quickly into a sitting position. Blytheway looked distraught. As his eyes came fully into focus he could tell that Roly had been weeping. There was none of the usual jauntiness. No “sweethearts”. No “darlings”. No “hey-hos”. His hair was out of place as though he had been running his hands through it obsessively. Adam did not know what to think. He had never before seen Blytheway without a ready answer, Blytheway helpless.

  He had taken down the blackout shades before shaking Adam awake. The window had been pulled open and green scents mingled with the smell of smoke and fire that wafted in. The urgent bells of emergency vehicles were clattering along in the streets outside the Temple.

  – What is it?

  – Margaret Storman.

  – Jack’s wife?

  – Their Anderson shelter took a direct hit. I am afraid she was killed instantly. Poor Margaret. Poor Jack.

  – My God! How’s Jack.

  – In a terrible way. I didn’t find out until 6 a.m. when I got home. He had telephoned at three in the morning and Caldwell took a message. He couldn’t get hold of me to pass it on. But he knows me very well. I knew something was wrong when I saw our car sitting outside the house.

  Adam noticed that he did not refer to it as his “jalopy”.

  – He had laid out a change of clothes in my dressing room. Sub-fusc. And we were on our way to Shortlands by twenty past. Adam, I have never seen such destruction. So many roads were closed that it took us an hour and a half to get to Storman. Al Bowley was killed as well … and Baron Stamp and his wife and son – nice man. I fear that we are losing this war.

  – What about Jack?

  – He was in a terrible state by the time we got there. Catatonic with grief. Margaret was still in what was left of their shelter. He had made calls to the emergency services of course but had to tell them that she was beyond hope … so she wasn’t a high priority.

  – But he survived? Is he very badly injured?

  – They had been in their sad shelter for five hours and he had gone to get Margaret a glass of water because she was thirsty. He was just going back into the garden when the bomb struck. Blew him backwards and blew out all the windows. He still had fragments of glass all over his pyjamas. I think he might have been concussed. Caldwell made some tea for us all.

  – This is dreadful.

  – You see, Jack poured Margaret a glass of water and then drank it himself. And so then he had to pour another glass – and that took a little time with the blackout on. He kept saying to me that, if he had just taken the first glass out to her, he could have been with her at the end. I don’t think he wants to go on living.

  Blytheway stifled a sob.

  – Jack knew she was dead. The shelter was utterly demolished but he hadn’t been able to pluck up the courage to try and get her out. He said that, with our help, we could take her back to the house and lay her out with some dignity there. Of course, that was absolutely not on! We forbade him to try, and ushered him back into the kitchen when he tried …

  He put his head in his hands and squeezed on his eyes before running his fingers through his grey hair again and again. Adam remained silent. There was nothing he could say. For the first and the last occasion in the time that he spent with Blytheway, his friend looked old and tired and vulnerable. He reached out a hand and stroked his shoulder.

  – So Caldwell and I had to deal with the situation. We gathered up some sheets and made our way down his beautiful garden. It was a lovely morning. There had been a curved roof of corrugated metal but it had been completely obliterated. I’ve seen a great deal of death, Adam. God knows. I try, as Yeats would have it, to “cast a cold eye” on it. But this was a woman I loved. Just as I love Jack.

  Adam had a mental picture of the two men walking unsteadily towards the devastation. Jack watching them from the blown-out kitchen windows.

  – She must have died instantly. That is a small comfort. I cast my cold eye. The bomb must have landed on the back of her neck. She was probably cowering in fear. What a terrible mess! Of course, the woman I knew as Margaret was gone; but so much of her body had been destroyed as well. There was blood everywhere and her clothes had been scorched off her. Thank goodness we took sheets to cover her! She was stuck through with pieces of corrugated iron and we had to do our best to remove it. I’ve had training in this sort of thing.

  Adam remembered that Blytheway had been in the ambulance corps in the last war.

  – Her body was still in one piece. But dreadfully disfigured. She was a lot lighter to carry than she should have been. Once we had got her out and wrapped her in our sheets we persuaded Jack that he should not look and waited until the ambulance arrived so that she could be taken to the morgue. We brought Jack back into London. He is staying with us for the time being. We gave him your room. I hope that’s all right?

  – I’m so sorry, Roly.

  – You see. I have very few people who I can count as real friends. People who have the ability to take me as I am. And Margaret and Jack were two of the very few who could. I can hardly imagine what Jack is going through. And for once in my life there is absolutely nothing I can do to make things better.

  – You said that she had developed agoraphobia. Why did that happen?

  – I’m afraid that I don’t know. It was a source of great anxiety to Jack but I was never able to pin it down to any particular incident or cause – though goodness knows I tried.

  – I never felt I knew her that well.

  – She was a delightful – beautiful – lady. And she made Jack very happy.

  As I think I mentioned, she and Jack were the only friends that I felt able to introduce to the Bloomsbury Set.

  – And you stood in for Jack at various functions?

  – He sometimes had problems with his back. It was not something I would normally do. I tend to hate these black-tie balls that the Inns throw each summer. They weren’t or
ganised with people like me in mind. But for Jack and Margaret I was happy to make an exception. Of course, after 1937, when her condition deteriorated, I was no longer required to fulfil that function. I will miss her.

  – So what happens next?

  Blytheway shook himself, as though he were reminding himself who he was. When next he spoke it was almost as though the old Roly was back.

  – I told Storman that we would deal with the funeral arrangements. After Caldwell dropped me here he went back to the house to get on with it. It may take a little time. A lot of people were killed last night. That is one of the reasons I needed to see you. I suspect that the funeral will take place a week on Saturday. I am sure you would want to be there, health permitting. But I know that you are likely to be worried about the Bateman trial, which is due to begin on the following Monday.

  – I’ll be there, Roly. Whatever the cost.

  – Think about it, Adam, before you commit yourself to it.

  – Why on earth would I need to think about it?

  – Jack Storman is a member of your old chambers. They will all be there. He is also a good friend of your wife. She no doubt will also be there. Julia Pemberton will be there. I, of course, will be there, as will Caldwell. Are you really sure that you’re up to it?

  – I must.

  – All right, Adam. But if I were you I would turn up a few minutes late rather than a few minutes early.

  Blytheway stood up to leave.

  – It’s nearly time for luncheon, sweetheart, and I don’t want to keep Jack waiting.

  – Stay. Have another cup of tea.

  – Sorry, sweetheart. I need to go. I will walk back. I need to clear my head. I’m sorry about the state I’ve been in. I think I dropped my guard. I rarely do that.