The Gathering Storm

  “Not a raid, then?”

  Eben reached up and patted my hand where I had let it remain on his shoulder.

  “Them Nazees,” Harry explained patiently. “Bombin’ all them warehouses and ships down t’the river. But never you mind, Myrtle. We’ll be out in the air again quick as Bob’s yer uncle.’”

  “I do hope yer right, ’arry.”

  “Me too,” Eben whispered with a grin in his tone.

  That was just before the distant thump of anti-aircraft fire reached our ears. Buried as we were, it was impossible to judge directions, but it was clear the sounds came from a great distance at first, then drew nearer and nearer. Soon smaller caliber fire added its rasping pop to the heavier whomps of artillery.

  “Hang onter me, ’arry!”

  “Must be close,” Eben muttered. “They don’t waste ammunition if they don’t have targets.”

  I pictured the soldiers up the street from my house, the ones atop the knoll in Primrose Hill Park. Their searchlights must even now be stabbing the sky, trying to pin the invading bombers like moths to a velvet-lined box.

  “What’s ’at?” Myrtle demanded as an ominous drone penetrated even past the racket of bursting shells.

  “Heinkels,” Eben answered. Under his breath he added, “German bombers. Slow but…just keep close.”

  I needed no urging. Scenes from the burning of Atlanta played over and over in my head—fearful flames that reached above the level of the housetops.

  The floor jumped beneath my feet as the first of the German bombs detonated. Like a thunderstorm heard rolling in from afar, the explosions gathered force and speed. With each succeeding thump the pavement under my feet bounced. The mob on the platform swayed drunkenly. The lights flickered.

  Myrtle groaned. “Why’d we hafter come t’the West End, ’arry? Whyn’t we stay where we belonged?”

  I wondered where in London she thought was safe when bombs rained down so impersonally. A half-dozen detonations underscored my point, followed by three more in quick succession.

  At last the raid seemed to be relenting. People began to offer each other crooked smiles, registering, See, that wasn’t so bad, was it?

  That was when the biggest, closest blast rocked the tube station with the force of an earthquake. My skull bounced off the brick wall of the tunnel, and I saw stars that were never really visible beneath Oxford Street. Eben sank with me to the floor, cradling my head beneath him and sheltering me with his body.

  Myrtle screamed as the lights flared and winked out, plunging us into absolute blackness. Plaster dust dribbled down from overhead, causing some to shout that the tunnel was collapsing.

  But the tube station remained intact, and in a minute the lights came back on.

  The all-clear sounded, but there was no immediate rush toward the exits. The hesitation betrayed by the crowd showed our desire to be absolutely certain the danger had passed.

  “There you are, luv,” Harry said. “Right as rain.”

  “’arry,” Myrtle returned, “don’t never take me to a West End picture show never again.”

  So the burning of Atlanta had been in her thoughts too!

  No one in the Oxford Street shelter was seriously hurt. Any scrapes and bruises, unlike the lump on my head, were more a result of being crammed into a narrow lair with a couple hundred other humans than from any action of the German bombs. The shared experience of living through a bombing raid caused a kind of camaraderie in the group emerging from the Underground.

  There were jokes and a general air of good humor. This atmosphere continued until the head of the file exited the stairs. Then came an abrupt change in attitude: stifled exclamations of horror, accompanied by the wail of sirens.

  No more than two blocks away, a house in the middle of a row of others had received a direct hit. The scene was illuminated by burning buildings on either side of the gap. The smoke billowing up to overhang the scene and the orange light peering out the windows combined to create the illusion of a skull: fiery eyes surmounted a gapping-jawed smile.

  My hand flew to my mouth. I was shocked at the devastation. My sense of disbelief was heightened because only seconds before we had been laughing and joking.

  Eben allowed me no time for self-recrimination. Grabbing me by the elbow, he dragged me north up Regent Street toward the fires. “They may need help,” he shouted.

  The building that had completely disappeared in the blast was no more than half a hundred yards from All Souls Church and the Langham Hotel across from it. Fire crews were already on scene, but they directed their hoses at the structures flanking the bombsite.

  I tried to recall what had occupied the now vacant space: a three-story-high set of shops, offices, and flats had ceased to exist in the blink of an eye. What was left of it consisted of two piles of bricks: one partially blocking Little Portland Street, while the other spilled a trail of masonry guts across Mortimer Street like a slaughtered stone beast.

  Eben ran ahead of me as I struggled in my dress shoes to climb over fragments of roof slates and chunks of cornice. He arrived in front of the surviving house just west of the bomb crater even as two men emerged from the building. An Air Raid Warden with the letters A.R.P. stenciled on his tin hat, and a passerby in shirtsleeves with a cut on his forehead, appeared on the steps, carrying an unconscious woman between them. Eben helped lift her over a heap of debris and lower her to a clear bit of sidewalk on the far side of the street. The firemen continued to play their streams of water on the upper floors of her building.

  She lay very still.

  “Is she…?” I said.

  The warden looked up at me. “Just knocked out, miss,” he reassured me. “No wounds visible. Found her on the stairs.”

  I knelt beside the woman and the men relinquished her to my care. The warden handed me a folded blanket, which I placed under her head. She appeared to be about thirty years of age. Her honey-blond hair was pushed back from her face as if she had just combed it with her fingers. A gold wedding band and gold cross on a chain around her neck were all her jewelry. Her white blouse was unwrinkled and her dark skirt unmussed. She was in her stocking feet. She might have been napping.

  “Keep clear!” a fireman shouted. “There’s a ruptured gas main the next street over.”

  As if entering the stage on cue, a sheet of bright yellow flame erupted from the ground floor of the woman’s house. The firemen hastily backed away. They now concentrated their efforts on an adjoining undamaged house. “That one’s a goner, that is,” one of them said. “But we can save the rest of the block…maybe.”

  The woman’s eyelids fluttered. Calling Eben to me, I noted, “She’s coming ’round.”

  Unfocused eyes gazed upward for a space of a dozen blinks, then the victim asked, “Where am I? What happened?”

  As I began to explain she abruptly sat upright. “Take it easy,” I said. “You’re safe. What’s your name?”

  “Name?” she repeated dully, looking about as if missing something but not sure what it was.

  “Jenny,” she answered, then, “Bill! Where’s my boy, Bill? Have you seen him? He was in the kitchen when I went down to get the post.”

  The heads of the two rescue workers, as well as Eben’s and mine, pivoted toward the burning building. As we stared at the blazing upper stories, Jenny’s gaze was drawn to follow.

  Then she screamed and struggled against my grip on her shoulders. “He’s still in there! I know it! Bill! Bill!”

  While the other two men sat paralyzed, Eben grabbed the blanket. Draping it over his head and shoulders, he sprinted toward the firefighters. “Wet me down,” he said. “I’m going in.”

  “First floor up,” the frantic mother called out. “At the back.”

  “You’ll never make it,” I heard one of the firemen reply.

  Nevertheless, their hoses soaked him thoroughly even while I cried, “Eben! Eben!”

  Jenny and I hugged each other as Eben dashed up the steps. I saw h
im hesitate only an instant as a tongue of fire licked the porch above him. Ducking his head, Eben darted inside and disappeared.

  “Upstairs. At the back,” Jenny repeated over and over, as if Eben could still hear her. Perhaps the power of her desperation added to my anxious prayers could guide him through the thick, black smoke and curling flames.

  How long could he stay inside? Already the heat of the blaze was scorching the plaster next door. Little drips of lead fell sizzling from the rain gutters and roof seams as fire burst through above.

  I felt the heat boiling out of the conflagration even from the other side of the street. My face prickled with it, while the distracted mother was reduced to hoarse cries and tearless sobs.

  “Best come away, miss,” the warden said. “Let me help you move back.”

  “No!” I replied fiercely. “Help him. Him!”

  And then Eben was there, tottering at the top of the stairs. The blanket was steaming, and his clothes and face were streaked black. In his arms was a tow-headed five-year-old—very much alive and anxious to get to his mother. Eben delivered the child into the arms of the warden, then pitched forward into mine.

  Suddenly our world was upside down. Eben dusted himself off and made ineffectual daubs with his handkerchief at his face. London was alight with fires from burning structures. Smoke rising over the city turned the moon blood red.

  Eben grasped my hand and pulled me quickly along the burning street, out of the damaged shopping area and down toward the untouched dark reaches of the city.

  Down past Piccadilly Circus and Leicester Square we went, and on beyond Trafalgar. “There’s more to come,” he said. “Hurry!”

  In the distance we could hear the crump of bombs falling on the warehouses of the East End where so many refugees were interned.

  Almost in the same instant the siren wailed again and men and women scrambled back into shelters. Eben did not turn to the right or the left but continued toward the Embankment and the Savoy Hotel, which was among London’s few buildings fortified by steel. We charged into the unlit, deserted lobby. Flames from an inferno across the river lit up the interior that flickered softly. A doorman, looking strangely out of place in his livery, shouted over his shoulder as he ran that we must take shelter in the basement with the other guests.

  Eben said, “Go, Lora. Get to the shelter. This will last all night.”

  I did not let go of his hand. “I want to stay with you, Eben.”

  “You’re not afraid?”

  “No.”

  “All right, then.”

  We walked calmly together into the dining room. The bandstand was deserted, instruments abandoned and sheet music strewn across the floor. Meals were left uneaten on dining tables overlooking the Thames and the blazing docks. The orange conflagration reflected in the water of the Thames was strangely beautiful and terrifying, like the images on the screen of the burning of Atlanta. In the distance the hollow, ringing thump of anti-aircraft blasted away at the empty German bombers.

  More would certainly be headed our way before long.

  Eben found a table beside the open doors leading to a balcony. There was roast beef, roast potatoes, and fresh dinner rolls set out before us. We were alone in the most elegant dining room in London.

  “We should eat before the next wave arrives,” Eben said, as if expecting nothing more consequential than a train. “They will use the fires along the Thames as a path to guide them here from France.”

  “What will happen?”

  “They will drop more bombs.”

  “Eben?”

  “Yes, Lora?”

  “You are not afraid?”

  “No.”

  “Never?”

  “Never for my own sake. No.”

  “Why? How are you unafraid?”

  “I am certain of what comes after this. What is beyond the horizon. So I am not afraid.”

  “How can you know?”

  “I have seen it.”

  “Seen it? I am speaking of…Eben? I am not speaking of earthly things.”

  “Nor am I.”

  “Who are you?” I whispered. “Where do you come from?”

  “Another place. Another time. You know, Lora. Don’t you? Your heart knows me. I have seen it in your eyes. In your smile. You know.”

  Yes. He was right. I had known all along that he was a man, yet unlike other men. But I still could not comprehend that my suspicions could be more than imagination. “What am I to do with you?”

  “Marry me.”

  “Marry?”

  “I meant to ask you tonight. I believe there is so little time left for the world, Lora. I feel I must taste happiness…live for a while like other men live.”

  I tested my suspicions. “Like younger men?”

  He laughed. “If you like.”

  “How long have you waited to love me?”

  “A very long time. Centuries. What do you say?”

  “It has felt like centuries since I first loved you. Yes, Eben. I will marry you.”

  We raised our glasses and toasted whatever future we might have together in this broken world.

  And so we ate. Our meal was a banquet. I had not tasted such a fine meal since the summer at the White Rose Inn. By the light of burning buildings I could see the bench where Eben and I had shared our meager picnic only hours before. He poured two glasses of champagne. We toasted L’Chaim: “To Life.”

  Eben drew his chair close to mine and pulled me against his chest. He stroked my cheek and kissed me gently, as though my lips were wine to savor. Tracing my chin with his forefinger, he lifted my face to his. Warm eyes drank me in, devoured me. Then his mouth covered mine. He kissed me urgently, fiercely, tasting my mouth with his tongue. Embers of desire ignited within me. Desperate with long dormant desire, I returned his kisses.

  His breath brushed my face and neck. “In the morning, my White Rose. We will marry, and I will make you mine at last.”

  “Yes. Oh, Eben!” I whispered. Yielding to his touch, my resistance melted in his fierce embrace. I longed for him to take me away; to find a quiet place where I could lie in his arms through the night. “Please.” I sighed. “Now.”

  Suddenly a siren screamed as the next wave of German bombers swarmed up the Thames. He raised his head and took my hands, leading me out onto the balcony.

  Searchlights bored into the black canopy of night like white pillars holding up the sky. Lights locked on the German bombers. Black swastikas on tails were plainly visible.

  Bombs began to explode upriver. Anti-aircraft guns boomed. Eben held me and searched my face. “Lora, suddenly I am afraid…truly…I don’t want to lose you. Do you understand? I want to spend the rest of my life with you.”

  Luftwaffe bombers came in relays.

  British fighter planes soared almost vertically into battle, as bombs rained down throughout the long night. But in Eben’s strong arms I was not afraid.

  We rode the tube to Hampstead Village and climbed out of the deep tube station on High Street while it was still dark.

  “Would you like to come to my flat?” For years Eben had kept a tiny, one-room, pied-à-terre on Church Row.

  “No. Better not.” My hand in his was electric. Knowing what was ahead, I felt weak from his touch.

  “A cup of tea?”

  “A cup of tea alone with you could be dangerous.”

  His laugh was husky, and I knew I was right. “Later, then. I’ll fix you tea after we are properly married.”

  “I’ll fix you tea and bring it to you in bed.”

  In that moment I remembered the nights Varrick and I had shared together. We had been so young—so eager and clumsy in our lovemaking.

  I knew this time that experiencing passion in Eben’s arms would be different.

  Eben took me to a park bench on the edge of the heath. He held me close as we watched the red sun rise through the smoke to hover above the smoldering ruins of London.

  He knew the elderly pries
t at St. Mary’s Church, Hampstead, and had asked him to marry us first thing in the morning.

  “Should I be offended?” I asked, as we slowly walked toward the church.

  “Offended?”

  “You arranged for the wedding before you asked me to marry you.”

  “I didn’t want to waste any time.”

  “What if I had said no?”

  “I would have taken Father Brocke to breakfast at the Hollybush, and he would have told me it was all for the best that you had refused me in these uncertain times.”

  “You thought it all out.”

  “No. I knew you would say yes. Fresh linens and cleaned the place. I bought a new brass bed. Delivered yesterday. It fills up my room.”

  “Not too big, I hope. I wouldn’t want to have to look for you.”

  “It’s a very small room. So you can always find me.”

  “You were certain of me.”

  “From the moment I saw you again in…” He shook his head as if in amazement. “Not a child, Lora. But a beautiful, beautiful woman.”

  I did not have a watch. I did not have a change of clothes. Perhaps it did not matter. “What time is the wedding?”

  “Before early service. Seven.”

  “So early. You’re in a hurry,” I teased.

  He stood and looked over the smoke-filled basin of London beneath our vantage point. “Today will be our day. Tonight I suppose the bombers will come back.”

  “I don’t think I’ll notice, Eben.” He tugged me to my feet and I pressed myself heavily against his chest.

  One more kiss and then we walked back along the wooded path to the Georgian houses on Church Row. Eben pointed up to the open windows of his garret room.

  We turned onto the steep narrow lane called Holly Place that sloped up past the iron gate of the graveyard to little St. Mary’s. The entrance of the church could easily be missed. Its white façade was only as wide as one house, but inside it opened up into a plainly decorated space with high whitewashed walls and a dark-beamed ceiling. The crucifix above the altar was the focal point.

  Father Brocke was dressed in his clerical robes and waiting when Eben and I arrived. He was a small, balding, cheerful man with sharp features and a broad smile. His Irish brogue was only slightly diminished by long years in England.