Suddenly a dark stream of movement streaked toward her—a swarm of rats fleeing from the burning docks. Eve screamed, unable to move as they raced past, then disappeared into the debris. She shivered in horror.
Hours seemed to pass before Iris returned, carrying a few of her family’s belongings in a scorched pillowcase. “The landmarks are all gone,” she said, her voice hoarse with smoke. “I could barely find our house. Then I couldn’t find my way back.”
“But your house . . . ?” Eve asked.
Tears filled Iris’s eyes as she shook her head. “Gone. It’s gone.” She sank down beside her grandmother, clinging to her, weeping. “I’m sorry, Granny . . . I’m so sorry!” Eve thought of the sugar packet, the errand that had brought them to the East End. Iris’s granny would be dead if they hadn’t come.
“We can’t go home, Granny,” Iris wept. “I tried to save a few of our things . . .”
“There must be someplace we can take her to find food and shelter for the night,” Eve said.
“I know, but where? And I need to find Mum and Dad.”
“Stay here with her. I’ll find someone in charge.” Eve waded through the endless chaos, asking anyone and everyone if they knew where people who’d lost their homes could spend the night. No one knew. Surely plans had been made for this disaster. Everyone expected London to be bombed. But those plans had been blown to pieces amid the horror of the devastation. The most immediate needs were to rescue the injured, locate survivors among the wreckage, and clear the streets to allow stretchers and ambulances to get through.
At last, Eve learned of a local school a few blocks to the east that was a temporary shelter for bomb victims. Night had fallen, but fires lit the streets like daylight as she made her way back to Iris. Eve helped them both to their feet and tried to get Iris’s granny walking, but she was still dazed and shaken. They had shuffled only a few yards when the chilling wail of the siren sounded once again, slicing through the night.
“No . . . Oh, God, no!” Eve moaned. She couldn’t see the approaching planes in the smoke-filled sky but she heard them. They would find their targets easily, the night illuminated by fires from the first round of bombings. “We have to get back to the shelter!” she said above the siren’s shriek. They hadn’t walked very far from it. They turned and hurried back.
Fallen bricks lay all around the building. The foundation seemed to have shifted. “It doesn’t look safe,” Iris said. “Are you sure we should go in?”
“I don’t want to, but there’s no other choice.”
Ten minutes. Maybe only eight minutes now. Eve relived the nightmare for a second time, holding her breath as bombs shrieked toward earth. Bracing herself for each impact. Breathing again after each explosion. And the next and the next. All around her, people wept and prayed. She tried to pray, too, but as the endless raid wore on, she could only mumble, “Please, God. Please . . .” as the world exploded around her. She battled waves of panic, feeling trapped and helpless in the windowless shelter. She wanted to get out—had to get out! But she didn’t dare.
At midnight, there was still no end to the bombing. The shelter had been designed for short-term raids, a place for residents to wait an hour or two until an attack ended, not a place where hundreds of people could huddle through a long night of continuous bombing. There were no washroom facilities, no beds, and not nearly enough seats. No provision had been made for the elderly or small children. There was no food or drinking water, no way to fix a comforting cup of tea. The electricity cut off when the second raid began, and no one had thought to provide emergency lighting in the windowless building. Eve sat on the floor in the darkness as the hours passed with nothing to occupy her mind except fear. Her heart pounded and tripped over itself as her panic soared. She couldn’t breathe. She had to get out!
She couldn’t get out.
The attack continued until dawn. Eight straight hours of bombing. Eve’s ears rang from the blasts. Nothing would be left outside. Where was the Good Shepherd? Didn’t He care about His suffering sheep?
By the time the all clear sounded, Eve felt numb. Once again, she emerged from the shelter with Iris and her granny into a world of impassable streets, pocked with craters, strewn with debris. A woman sat on a pile of rubble with a limp child in her arms, crying in a low, endless wail. She refused to let the volunteers near her. Everywhere Eve looked, civil defense workers frantically dug through debris, pulling out bodies, loading the injured into ambulances, their faces weary and hopeless. Flames and smoke filled the horizon above the docks. Eve felt the heat, saw it shimmering in the air. Someone said the Ford Motor Works had been hit. She wondered about Iris’s parents.
“Where are we supposed to go?” Iris asked. Everyone asked the same question. People called out names of missing family members, questioning everyone they met. Iris did the same, asking about her parents and the factory. Soot blackened many of the faces Eve passed; others were white with plaster dust. How would Iris recognize anyone?
A canteen truck arrived from the Women’s Voluntary Service with tea and sandwiches. Eve gobbled one down, weak from hunger. She and Iris hadn’t eaten since lunch yesterday. One of the volunteers confirmed that there was a temporary shelter being set up in the school a few blocks away. “If you wait there,” she told them, “the government will send buses to take you to a permanent facility with food and clothing. They’ll find you a place to stay until your homes can be repaired or you find new ones.”
“Let’s take your grandmother back to our flat,” Eve said. “This is no place for her.”
“No, you go home, Eve. I’ll take Granny to the school and wait to hear from my parents. If the Ford factory was hit . . .” She couldn’t finish.
“Oh, Iris! Let me stay and help you. What can I do?”
“Nothing. There’s nothing anyone can do. Go home and make sure your mum is safe.”
She was. The area of London where the town house was located hadn’t been damaged. Eve fell into Mum’s arms, unable to find words to describe what she’d endured on her endless night in the East End. Mum let her weep, then drew her a hot bath. Eve thought of Iris as she soaked in the tub, and of all the people who no longer had bathtubs. Or running water. Or gas to boil a pot of tea. It took a long time for Eve to stop shaking.
“I don’t think anyone ever imagined this,” Eve said later as she sat in Mum’s room, cradling a cup of hot tea. “If the soldiers on the battlefront endured this horror during the first war, it’s no wonder they came home shocked and broken. Now the battlefront is here, in our own streets. Every one of us is a soldier. But how do we fight back?”
“Don’t worry about that right now,” Mum said. “It’s Sunday morning, and we should go to church and thank God for sparing your life last night. We’ll pray for Iris and her family, too.”
Eve closed her eyes as tears spilled down her face. “I don’t know if I can face God. I’m still so angry. You didn’t see what happened in the East End last night.”
“Try to get some sleep. We’ll talk when I get back.”
Eve did manage to fall asleep in Mum’s bed for a few hours, but nightmarish visions filled her dreams. They didn’t spring from her imagination like most nightmares, but from what she’d seen and experienced. When she awoke, Mum had Eve’s breakfast on a tray. “Tildy made you eggs and toast. Everyone downstairs is thanking God you’re all right.”