He took a long drink of wine. His hand was shaking.
‘Today, Churchill sent a squadron of bombers to lay waste to Berlin. Children massacred as they played in the Tiergarten. Homes destroyed as if they were military targets. Wanton destruction from a cowardly act. An act of desperation from a country that knows its days are numbered.’
There was a ripple of voices around the table. Anger. Fear. Many of the people here had family in Berlin. All had property there. Margaret kept her eyes down, aware many were looking at her. Looking at her in a different light. Easy to welcome a refugee from a country about to be invaded. Not so easy when that country fights back.
‘You will be pleased to know,’ Schmidt continued, ‘the Führer has ordered swift retaliation. This act of cowardly aggression will not go unanswered. Churchill has unleashed a vengeance to echo through history.’
9
Margaret splashed cold water on her face, looking up as Frau Wassenberg opened the door to the tiny bathroom. The older woman frowned.
‘It can’t be all true,’ she said. ‘It’s ... what’s the word ... hyperbole.’
Margaret dried her face with a threadbare towel.
‘You heard what he said. Annihilated.’
Frau Wassenberg shook her head.
‘It’s smoke and mirrors. All this talk about bombing Berlin – your Churchill’s too clever. It’s cover for Goering. He can’t provide air superiority in time for the Führer’s deadline, so he pretends he has a better plan. A big gesture. The Führer likes big gestures and Goering’s the master of them. He’ll dress it up in heroic language, a quest, like something Wagner would write an opera about.’
‘They did it to Warsaw,’ Margaret said.
‘Warsaw’s on the road to Moscow. London’s a distraction. Hitler knows that. He doesn’t even want to invade.’
Wassenberg put her hand to the side of her mouth.
‘They say he’s never been on a boat. We have a Führer who can’t swim and who’s terrified of water,’ she whispered.
Margaret appreciated her friend’s attempt to lighten the mood, but nothing could take the place of what Schmidt had said, his voice triumphant in the crowded dining room.
London was to be destroyed. Wiped off the map – joining the ranks of other ancient cities like Carthage and Babylon. More than a thousand fighters and bombers had already set off from airfields across northern France. The most significant assault against Britain since the Spanish Armada. The full fury of the Reich, more than eight hundred square miles of sky filled with planes, all heading for one target. The people of London were about to learn what it meant to pick a fight with the most powerful man in the world.
‘I have to go,’ Margaret said.
‘There’s nothing you can do,’ the older woman said.
‘They’re not ready,’ Margaret said. ‘I’ve got to warn them.’
‘He said the bombers took off at four,’ Frau Wassenberg said, looking at the gathering dusk outside. ‘I think by now they know.’
Margaret looked to the window, as if she could see hundreds of miles north, imagining London in flames. Churchill wouldn’t take it lying down. Then what? Mutual destruction, city by city, until all of Europe lay in ruins? She thought of Cook, her farmer. Her lover. People come and go but the land remains, he’d said to her, as they’d celebrated the harvest, their arms still stinging from scratches won honestly from a day gathering corn. Cook would be all right. The whole world could get bombed, and when the smoke cleared, Cook would be there, the winter wheat already sown, watching over his fields. Watching over the children.
10
The air-raid siren cut through the voices in the pub, and Cook felt a stab of disappointment. At the war, for not letting a young lad have a couple of hours for his birthday party, but most of all at himself, for bringing Frankie here, into harm’s way. No good blaming the boy for asking, it had been Cook’s responsibility to say no, and he’d failed.
‘It’ll be a false alarm,’ Gracie said, knocking back a shot of whisky.
Cook felt foolish at being spooked by the siren. Nobody else seemed the least bit interested.
‘What did you get him?’ Gracie asked.
Cook put the present on the bar. A cricket bat, wrapped in yesterday’s paper.
‘Snap,’ a man said, from next to Cook.
The man put his gift on the bar, next to Cook’s. Same approach to wrapping – yesterday’s paper, tied with string. A smaller gift, but a complement to Cook’s. The noise it made on the polished counter was distinctive. A heavy knock that could only have been made by a cricket ball.
