‘There’s no right choice,’ he said.
The phone rang again.
‘Wait,’ Cook said.
Kathleen looked to Beaumont for confirmation. The ARP man opened his mouth to respond, but then he heard it. The sound they weren’t meant to hear.
They all strained to listen, above the ringing of the phone and the roaring of the fires. Filtering out the distant screams and the crashes as another warehouse succumbed to its injuries and collapsed inward.
It was a normal enough sound. A peaceful sound. Sleepy Sunday mornings in quiet country villages. Holidays. Celebrations. A sound that nobody in England had heard for months, since the order went out. No church bells until the invasion begins.
Father Ryan ran down the stairs, an ARP armband over his vestments.
‘I heard the bells from St Mary’s,’ he said. ‘It’s happening.’
Cook followed the priest up the stairs from the crypt. Above ground, the bells were deafening. No attempt at a tune, just a discordant peal.
Beaumont and Kathleen joined Cook and the priest.
‘Look!’ Kathleen said, pointing to the dark sky.
Cook followed her arm, and then he saw it. A parachute.
‘Get the rifle,’ Beaumont snapped, and Kathleen disappeared, back down the stairs.
Cook scanned the sky for more. They wouldn’t just drop one man. If this was the invasion, there’d be thousands more on the way.
A searchlight picked out the parachute. Cook pictured the crew, manhandling the large light. The light flickered off its target then found it again.
There was no parachutist. Instead, the parachute was supporting a large cylinder. Hard to judge the size at such a distance, but it looked like it was the size of a small car.
‘Bloody hell,’ Kathleen said. Then – ‘Sorry, Father.’
‘Bloody hell indeed,’ Father Ryan replied.
24
Cook ran towards where they’d seen the parachute come down, through the warren of alleys. Beaumont, the ARP man, followed behind.
They turned a corner and there it was. An unremarkable hole in the road at the end of the alley, with what looked like a lake of silk puddled on the road next to it.
‘What if it goes off?’ Beamont asked. He looked back down the road, the way they’d come, as if hoping someone would come along and take the problem away from him.
Beyond the hole, a large yellow-brick building loomed. Four storeys high, towering over neighbouring houses.
‘What’s that building?’ Cook asked.
‘St Patrick’s,’ Beaumont said. ‘Lying-in hospital. Two hundred beds.’
Cook took a step forward, but Beaumont put his hand on his arm.
‘I can’t let you,’ he said. ‘Procedure. I’ve got to call it in.’
Cook took another step forward, out of Beaumont’s reach. He looked at the hospital. Thinking about what Beaumont had said. Two hundred beds. Two hundred women and babies. Nurses. Doctors. Any one of them worth more than a farmer who’d chosen to use up all his nine lives in some of the most dangerous places known to man.
25
Cook kept his eye on the hole. Watching it had no practical purpose, of course. Either the bomb would go off, or it wouldn’t. But it seemed like the sort of thing you’d want to keep your eye on. Perhaps there’d be warning signs. A sudden burst of smoke, or a flash from an initial detonator. Something that might give a man time to hurl himself to the ground.
