Hugh shook himself and charged ahead.
At the first collapsed building, he found a blue-helmeted ARP incident officer directing a rescue party, and he fired questions without getting in their way.
Piles of rubble lay before Aleida, and moans and cries issued from the ruins. Her hands itched to help, but with a rescue party on the scene, it was best to stand back unless directed to assist. Removing debris without proper care could cause rubble to fall onto victims below.
A man stumbled down a pile of wreckage, aided by a rescue party worker with anRon his helmet. Bright red streaked the gray dust coating the victim’s clothing.
“Jack!” a woman cried.
“I’m all right, Betty.” Jack raised a shaky hand to her and sank to the pavement. A man from a stretcher party, his helmet marked bySP, wrapped Jack’s bleeding head with a bandage.
Betty rushed to her husband, towing a small boy. She wore a shapeless brown dress. “Nellie! Where’s Nellie?”
Aleida gasped. One of the women from the meeting. Nellie was the little girl whose foster family had mistreated her for wetting the bed.
“She—she was in the kitchen.” Jack pointed out the direction to the rescue party.
“My little girl! Someone, help!” Betty’s gaze swung around and landed on Aleida. “You were at that meeting. From the government.”
“I was.” Aleida dropped Hugh’s arm and went to Betty. “See, they’re searching for your daughter now.”
Betty raked her free hand deep into her brown hair. “Why—why didn’t I send her away?”
Aleida patted Betty’s shoulder. “Please don’t doubt yourself. I know you love your daughter.”
“Here! Over here!” A man from the rescue party dug through the ruins.
A small, limp arm lay on the rubble.
“Nellie! Nellie!” Betty’s voice shattered.
The party shoved aside broken masonry. Then they hovered over the place they’d excavated, quiet and still.
“Oh no.” Aleida wound her arm around Betty’s thin shoulders. If the child were alive, they’d be hurrying.
“Nellie! Nellie? She’s all right, isn’t she? She’s just asleep, isn’t she?”
One of the men turned toward Betty, and his face warped with devastation.
“No...” Betty sagged.
Aleida embraced her, stumbling under the weight of her body and her grief.
Strong arms wrapped around both Aleida and Betty—Hugh, supporting, comforting.
Betty moaned and sobbed.
The poor woman. Aleida murmured to her, but her throat clogged. She knew what it was like to lose a child—and yet she didn’t.
Aleida still had hope.
12
FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER20, 1940
A stiff westerly wind toyed with Hugh’s fedora and the hem of his trench coat while he waited for the bombers.
They would come. They had come every day and every night for almost a fortnight.
