At the Dark Hour

by John Wilson

  She glanced at her wrist again: 6.15. She took one last look in the mirror, smoothed down her hair and went to the wardrobe to pick out a coat, a three-quarter-length unlined garment in pale honey linen with shells embroidered on the pockets. She had purchased it the previous season from Bradleys of Chepstow Place for twelve and a half guineas in the days when she did not worry about money. Then she went to leave. She took the chain out of the security latch and pulled open the door, only to find Audrey Fisher on her doorstep. Her colleague from the Water Board had been on the point of knocking.

  – Hello. This is a surprise. What are you doing here?

  – I got a call from the Water Board. We all have to go into work tonight. They’re expecting a big raid.

  – But it’s my night off. I’ve arranged to meet someone.

  – Apparently, all leave’s been cancelled.

  – Can’t you say that you weren’t able to contact me?

  – I don’t think so.

  Julia stalled her friend and tried to think of a way to avoid going to Rosebery Avenue that evening.

  ****

  At exactly the moment when Julia was confronted by Audrey on her doorstep Adam opened the door of the Temple Church and went inside. He took a seat in a poorly lit part of the building. Julia had given a time but not a place but he knew that she had intended them to meet in the Temple Church. He was wearing the best of the suits Roly had gifted to him, and he had polished his shoes. A late afternoon sun sent weakening rays through the higher windows. He picked up a prayer book and tried to read from it. Insufficient light. So instead he looked around the ancient building and tried once more to work out where Julia used to kneel and say her prayers in the days when she would leave him a note. He had no idea. And then he heard the approach of footsteps outside. Someone was coming towards the door of the church. He looked over and saw it gradually opening. His heart was in his mouth. Now, at last, he would have Julia’s explanation for what had been going on. He got to his feet and smoothed down his hair.

  It was Blytheway, dressed in his tailored fire watcher’s outfit.

  – Roly! What on earth are you doing here? I thought you and Storman had gone to see some Elgar?

  – It was an absolutely wonderful concert! I think it went some way to lifting Jack’s spirits.

  – You didn’t go to the concert dressed like that?

  – Of course not. I took Jack back home and changed out of my black tie into my evening garb. I’m on duty tonight. I suggested that Jack have an early night and Caldwell agreed to look after him.

  – But that doesn’t explain why you’ve come into the church.

  – When I found you weren’t in your room I took a wild guess and came here.

  – So you were looking for me?

  – Do you mind if I join you, sweetheart?

  He took the pew next to Adam’s, wiped away at the dirt and sat down. The two men sat next to one another in silence for a while. Eventually, Adam spoke.

  – I don’t feel as though I have thanked you properly for what you did for me last week.

  – Not at all, darling. It was quite fun wasn’t it? I always like crossing swords with Pat. He is in a different league to Pemberton and Preston.

  – Something’s been troubling me. I don’t know if you feel you can talk about it.

  Blytheway’s tone became sombre.

  – I am very worried, Adam. I don’t think our city can take much more of this. I feel that we have reached the end-game.

  – What do you mean?

  – That raid that killed Margaret was horrific. They only need to muster the planes to do that once or twice more and we will be finished, for all of Churchill’s oratory. I am beginning to wonder which day will be my last.

  – Why don’t you escape to the country? No one would criticise you.

  – Ah. And see my peacocks one last time. That would be nice. But I couldn’t, Adam. I would never be able to forgive myself. I need to be here. We all have our allotted time and we should not allow fear to distract us from that.

  – Would you be prepared to answer my questions, please, Roly?

  – You have chosen a very good time to ask them. I’m feeling rather fatalistic this evening.

  – I’d completely understand if you felt you couldn’t answer me but why did you avoid all reference to the 1936 Ball? The slow waltz and the dance card and all of that?

  – I suppose it can’t do any harm now. Julia Pemberton was wearing a white backless dress that evening, wasn’t she?

  – How could you possibly know that?

  – Because I was there.

  – Why didn’t you say anything?

  – Think about it, sweetheart … That was one of those evenings I mentioned at Margaret’s funeral when I stood in for Jack. The photograph on the altar was taken that night. I told her she should pose alone as it would be something of a fraud if I was part of that. I think I have told you before that I am blessed – or cursed – with a photographic memory. I remember that Jeremy and Julia were three back behind her in the queue. I don’t think you and Catherine had your photographs taken.

  – We couldn’t afford it to be honest.

  – Well, I couldn’t have every dance with Margaret. That would have been unchivalrous. And for some reason I was disinclined to ask any of the ladies there to dance with me. I don’t think any of them thought of me as an ideal partner. If I hadn’t wanted to help out Margaret and Jack I certainly wouldn’t have been there. Wild horses and all of that. Anyway, an old Bencher had marked Margaret’s card for the slow waltz, and as it started I went out into the garden for a bit of fresh air. I noticed as I was leaving that you were dancing with Mrs Pemberton …

  – I thought I’d seen someone in the garden!

  – It was me. “I’ve been wanting to do that for a long time,” you said. And she replied, “We’ll be missed,” and back in you went. I made myself scarce.

  Adam realised that his mouth had dropped open. It was at last dawning on him.

  – So the reason you avoided all reference to that part of the events was because you knew what had happened during the missing five minutes?

  – I couldn’t mislead the court Adam. And I was there as an advocate. I was not there to give evidence but rather to make my submissions on the evidence as it emerged. I, of course, do not know what, if any, significance that moment had. But what I could not possibly do was to put forward some half-baked, un-thought-through version of events that you might have been tempted to put to me.

  Adam was reeling.

  – So you thought all along that I was having an affair with Julia?

  – What I thought does not matter. It was for Pemberton to prove it. And he failed.

  – Why do you dislike him so much? I remember asking you that question a few months ago and you wouldn’t answer. Someone at the Inner Temple said it was something to do with the Great War.

  – I wondered whether you would ask me that and I have been in two minds as to whether or not I should tell you. But, again, I think that tonight may be the right time for me to tell you my secrets. There may not be another time. It was the fourth of November 1918, a week before the Armistice and I, with my co-driver, was operating an ambulance.

  – Who was your co-driver?

  – Muriel.

  – Muriel?

  – She was a dark-haired suffragette who took no nonsense from anyone. She hated the name Muriel and insisted that I call her “M”.

  – “M”?

  – We made a good team. I wasn’t particularly attracted to women and she had a certain ambivalence – very choosy about men – although she liked horses unreservedly. So we got on together very well.

  – We found ourselves at the front at the Sambre-Oise Canal. It was to prove to be the last great battle of the war. We weren’t to know that things were so close to an end.

  – Where does Pemberton come into this?

  – He was there as well. He was something of a legen
dary figure. All that bravery. That incredible luck he had throughout his campaigns. But there was a private I was rather fond of. A young lad who was perhaps ten years my junior. Fred, he was called. A fresh-faced blond boy who was kind and sensitive and was neither deferential nor arrogant. He used to come and sit with me and M in the back of the ambulance and we’d all play whist. Although we were to win the battle the Germans got our range, and whilst Fred was out in no-man’s land he got caught by a shell just as night was falling. I had been keeping an eye out for him and I was convinced he had been killed, or if not killed grievously injured.

  Adam glanced across at Blytheway. There was a far-away look in his eyes.

  – A photographic memory is a curse as well as a blessing, Adam. I am forced to remember everything in minute detail. There are many things I would rather forget. That night was certainly one of them. They were raining shells down on us and throwing up flares so that the mud flats where Fred was lying were lit up spasmodically. Even if he was alive it would be almost impossible to save him. I was hunkering down in a trench with M and the person next to us was Jeremy Pemberton. He looked terrified and I think he had been drinking.

  – So what happened?

  – There was a brief break in the shelling and I heard Fred calling for help. He must have been less than a hundred yards away. Of course, I had no alternative but to try and save him. But I couldn’t do it on my own. It would take two people to drag his body back. I asked Pemberton to help me bring back Fred but he refused point blank. “He’s only a private,” he said. I think he was frightened that his luck might run out just as the war was coming to an end.

  Adam looked at his watch. It was after seven. Sirens were beginning to sound.

  – I don’t think she will be coming, Adam. I think she intended to, but, as always, we are being overtaken by events.

  – What are you talking about?

  – Eyes and ears, Adam.

  Adam’s shoulders slumped.

  – Can I speak to you hypothetically?

  – Hypothetically?

  – Working on the outlandish hypothesis that you were having a relationship with Mrs Pemberton and she suddenly broke it off giving no reason, and that she was intending to come here tonight to explain herself?

  – Okay.

  – Love is such a strange thing. Can one love two people at the same time? It’s a perennial question. Well, I think one can. But, at the same time, when it comes to that sticking point one has to acknowledge that one can love two or more people and yet one can love one or more people more than one loves another person.

  – What are you getting at?

  – Katya loved Tomas but she loved her brother more. Tomas loved Katya more than he loved his life. I think Bateman loved Marjorie but he loved Victoria more. In this hypothetical situation you loved Catherine but, ultimately, loved Julia more. Julia loved you – and she loved Jeremy and Jenny – but, ultimately, she loved her children the most.

  – Go on.

  – If, for example, when Julia said in her sleep “Not now, one day perhaps”, she was reliving a conversation with you and not remembering something that she had said or felt about her children, it would suggest that she loved them more than she loved you. And more than she loved you, Pemberton and Jenny. Well, the latter proposition is borne out by her reaction on learning that it was Jenny and not Agnes who had been killed. And again, speaking hypothetically, if you loved Julia more than anyone else in the world it would make perfect sense that you would be prepared to sacrifice your marriage, your reputation and your career by creating a false story that linked you to a prostitute who bore a remarkable resemblance to Julia Pemberton. These are of course just my musings on an outlandish hypothesis.

  The sirens were becoming more insistent and the sound of enemy bombers could now be heard clearly.

  – This is all rot!

  – Of course it is, sweetheart. An idle speculation.

  – Tell me more about Pemberton.

  – I have to confess that, for I think the only time in my life, I became angry. Fred was stuck in no-man’s land and Pemberton refused to help. And his only excuse was that the man was “only” a private. For about fifteen minutes I remonstrated with him but he was adamant. Eventually, M agreed to come with me. We folded rolls of bandages into our clothing and then covered ourselves in mud. You can imagine how distasteful I found that! Then we waited for a pause in the shelling and, when no flares were above, crawled out to try and find him. I can remember every single second of this. Every time a flare went up we had to lie still. M’s courage filled me with admiration. She never complained and seemed to know instinctively what to do.

  Bombs were beginning to fall and they sounded close.

  – It took us about an hour to reach him. And every time we heard the whistle of a shell we thought that this could be the end. The stench was terrible and we had to crawl past a lot of corpses. Fred had managed to pull himself into a crater full of water. He had dreadful facial injuries and it was a wonder that he had not lost his leg. We bandaged him up as best we could and then dragged him back to the trench. There were shells falling around us and flares overhead. He screamed once in agony but I was very firm. No more screaming or we would all be dead. And after that, somehow, he limited himself to groaning. Well, we got him back and the following day we got him to a field hospital.

  – What happened to M?

  – I don’t know, I’m afraid, sweetheart. I lost touch with her after the war.

  The floor of the church was shaking and the loud percussive roar was closing in.

  – I think we should be getting out of here now.

  – And did Fred survive? Did you ever see him again?

  – Fred? Oh yes. I see him every day. His surname is Caldwell.

  Chapter One Hundred and Six

  (Saturday 10th May 1941)

  Julia was still wearing the outfit that she had put on for Adam when she and Audrey entered the Water Board building in Rosebery Avenue. They went straight down into the bunker and took up their usual places. It was not long before reports began coming in of the bombings and they began charting them. Hundreds of planes were flying overhead.

  – Bombs are falling in Kingsway.

  – Smithfield has been hit.

  – Westminster is being pounded.

  – St Clement Danes has taken a direct hit and it looks as if it has been destroyed.

  – They’re targeting the Law Courts and the Temple.

  Julia looked up horrified from her note book. Oh God! They’re dropping bombs on the place I asked Adam to meet me! But there was no time for her to warn him, to save him or to do anything other than continue with her duties. She watched and listened in horror as more and more reports came in of bombs hitting the Temple.

  ****

  Adam and Roly climbed to the top of Hare Court and made ready to deal with the incendiaries as they had done on so many occasions in recent months. Barry appeared and joined them. The incendiaries were raining down on them and as night drew in the sky was lit by an eerie glow. They were surrounded by fire and the noise of bombs. And the Temple was beginning to burn.

  – They’ve hit Inner Temple Hall!

  Roly said as the flames leapt up. Adam was caked in sweat and was having difficulty breathing. His chest constricted.

  – We need to get down there!

  They rushed down from the roof, but by the time they reached the Temple Church the flames on the roof of the Hall were out of control and were beginning to leap in the wind towards Lamb Building. And then the roof of Lamb Building caught fire. A ferocious blaze began eating into the structure until the wood began to crumple and masonry fell down on the men below. Cloisters had been hit and was falling apart.

  The flames leapt again, from Lamb Buildings and onto the roof of the Temple Church. It was consumed by fire. A structure that had been consecrated in 1185 was being destroyed and they were helpless observers.

  – Let’s try and sav
e what we can,

  said Roly, and rushed into the building. Adam and Barry followed along with others. One of them was Storman. Adam looked at him in astonishment.

  – What are you doing here? I thought you were in bed.

  – Caldwell told me what was happening. He and I came down here together.

  Over Storman’s shoulder he saw Caldwell – Fred – picking up a crucifix and carrying it to safety. They were all trying to remove the artefacts inside, Victorian or otherwise, before the building collapsed. The heat was so intense that the lead was beginning to melt and dropping ominously amongst the rescuers. He saw Barry running out with a painting under his arm. A piece of masonry fell and knocked him down without pinioning him. He was unconscious inside the church and big glowing drops of molten lead had begun to fall on him. He was going to die in there. Adam’s chest was no longer cooperating. He could hardly breathe. He rushed over to Barry and half pulled, half lifted him to his feet. He knew he was on the verge of collapse but he had to get Barry out. Barry put an arm around his shoulder and the two of them stumbled out of the building. Adam took him as far away from the fires as he could and then went back towards the church. Blytheway, in his tailored fire-watching suit, was shouting.