“I’m going to volunteer for the Auxiliary Fire Service,” Eve said as she ate. “I watched them work yesterday, and I want to help.”
“Oh, Eve. You’re not big enough or strong enough to handle heavy fire hoses. I would be worried sick about you. You’re all I have!”
“Well, I can’t just cower inside a shelter until the war ends. I felt so trapped sitting there! The fire service must have other jobs I can do besides handle a hose.”
“Pray about it. Please, love. I know you’re angry with God, but talk to Him. This isn’t a good time to walk away from Him.”
Tears filled Eve’s eyes as she looked up at Granny Maud’s picture of the Good Shepherd. It had comforted her as a child. She had trusted Him. But where was He now? How could He allow this terrible war to happen?
Eve spent the afternoon with her mum, and they ate a light supper downstairs with the other servants. The horror Eve had endured slowly began to fade. She might be able to close her eyes tonight without seeing flames and rubble or the image of the mother cradling her dead child. “I should go,” she finally said. “I need to get back to my flat before the blackout.” She stood by the back door, preparing to leave, when the air-raid siren began its terrible wail, rising in pitch with a wobbling scream. Fear rippled through Eve. Ten minutes.
“Oh, God, help us,” Mum breathed. “Eve! Get in the Anderson shelter with the others. I’ll run upstairs and help Lady Rosamunde.”
“No, don’t leave me!” Eve said, clinging to her.
Mum pushed her toward the door. “Go with the others, love. I’ll be there in a minute.”
Nine minutes. The evening air made her shiver as she followed the other servants outside. The shelter was so tiny, an underground hole designed for six adults. Her heart pounded with panic at the thought of being buried alive. She had to bend over to crawl inside. It smelled of damp earth and worms. Eve and the others sat on ledges across from each other, knees touching, a jumble of arms and legs. Waiting.
Five minutes. Half the time had passed by now. Above the sound of the siren, the taunting drone of enemy airplanes rumbled. Where was Mum? Hurry! Please, hurry! Eve was about to leap up and run back inside the town house to find her when the flap opened and Mum crawled inside, breathless. Eve made room for her, gripping her hand as she sat down.
“Where’s Lady Rosamunde?” the housekeeper asked.
“She wouldn’t come. She said she refused to be buried alive in a nasty hole before she’s dead. I hated leaving her there all alone, but . . .”
The explosions began. The nightmare returned. It didn’t seem real. The blasts were more distant than last night’s, but the thumps and crumps of falling bombs terrified Eve nonetheless. She had witnessed their destruction. She couldn’t breathe. She had to get out!
She couldn’t get out.
As the other servants talked softly, she tried to gauge how far away the blasts were. What the targets might be. Which part of London was getting the worst of it. It sounded like the East End. Again. She tried to draw deep breaths but couldn’t. A heavy weight sat on her chest.
Hours passed and nothing changed. Eve sat in the shelter with her mum throughout another long night as the ground shuddered and London burned. She prayed for Iris and her family. She prayed she and Mum would survive another endless night.
13
WELLINGFORD HALL, NOVEMBER 1940
The telephone awakened Audrey just after dawn, jangling its dire alarm. She grabbed her robe and stuffed her arms into the sleeves as she hurried downstairs. Robbins answered it, and he held out the receiver to her. “It’s the vicar, Miss Audrey.”
“Hello, Rev. Hamlin. This is Audrey.”
“I’m sorry to disturb you, Miss Clarkson, but there was a horrific bombing raid on the city of Coventry last night. They’re asking for help. Will you come?”
Her heart thumped faster. She knew the vicar well enough to recognize the urgency in his voice. “Yes, of course. What can I do?”
“We need blankets. Food. Old bedsheets to tear into bandages. Clean drinking water.”
“Right. I’ll meet you at the church as quickly as I can.”
“And, Miss Clarkson . . . ?” he added before she rang off. “I’m told that Coventry is a scene from hell. Nazi planes bombed the city for eleven straight hours. Devastated it.”
“Oh, dear God . . .”
“They even destroyed Coventry Cathedral.”
Audrey closed her eyes. That beautiful fourteenth-century cathedral. Gone.
The vicar cleared his throat. “Everyone will understand if you stay here while we deliver aid to the survivors.”
“No,” she said. “No, I would like to help.” Eve had taught her to be courageous, forcing her to pilot the Rosamunde for the evacuation of Dunkirk, insisting she learn to drive a car. She could do this. She would do this.
Audrey ran up the stairs to her room to dress, praying for the people of Coventry, for the men and women who labored to help them. She’d learned to pray in the past few months as she’d become more involved in the village and in the life of the church. It was simple, really, the vicar said. A matter of talking to the Almighty and believing that He heard. That He cared. She’d also taken a first aid course to learn how to apply a tourniquet and administer basic medical help. Now, as she and one of the chambermaids gathered blankets and sheets from Wellingford’s bedrooms, then raided the linen cupboard for more, she thought of how different she was from the shy, tearful girl she’d once been.
Mrs. Smith and Robbins boxed up all the food they could find and filled spare containers with drinking water. George helped load everything into the car. “I would like to come with you, Miss Audrey,” he said. “They might need me to help dig . . . you know . . . for survivors.”
Audrey feared he was too old for such grim labor, but she wouldn’t deny his request. “Yes, of course, George. Put your shovel in the boot with the rest of the things.”
They stopped at the village church to pick up more supplies and volunteers. Then, with the car fully loaded, Audrey followed the vicar’s car across the tranquil countryside to Coventry. With such dire news these past weeks, Audrey wondered, at times, if England would survive. Italy had entered the war on the side of the Nazis. France had surrendered less than three weeks after the evacuation of Dunkirk. Nazi troops occupied Britain’s Channel Islands, a few miles away. Nearly all of Europe had been defeated. Eve’s letters detailed the ongoing fear and destruction in London as the Nazis bombarded the city night after night. Would anything be left?
Meanwhile, Audrey’s family was separated. Mother insisted on staying in London in spite of Audrey’s pleas. Alfie would be shipped out soon, traveling through U-boat-infested waters aboard a transport ship. Father was overseeing his factories in Manchester, with no plans to return to Wellingford. And Eve worked in London during the day and slept in a bomb shelter every night. Audrey longed to gather together all of the people she loved and stash them in the shelter George had dug in Wellingford’s back garden, but she couldn’t. They were all fighting this war in one way or another, and she wanted to help, too.
Three miles outside Coventry, a dense cloud of oily black smoke filled the horizon, tinted with a reddish glow. The city was on fire from end to end. Their convoy halted beside a group of dazed refugees, staggering away from the stricken city as if sleepwalking. George fetched his shovel and went ahead with the vicar to help in the rescue operation, while Audrey climbed from the car to distribute food and water and blankets to the refugees. She dug out her first aid kit to bandage wounds and burns. Many survivors had cuts from broken windows, shattered by the explosions. Audrey and the other women of the WVS worked nonstop as victims with smoke-reddened eyes and sooty faces continued to come throughout the morning.