Blitz, p.1
Blitz, page 1
DEDICATION
For Tim and Sandra
EPIGRAPH
When a high explosive bomb falls and explodes a number of things happen. Anything very close to the explosion is likely to be destroyed, and any house which suffers a direct hit is almost sure to collapse . . . Other dangers of a less spectacular kind can cause far more casualties . . . Blast can shatter unprotected windows at considerable distance and fragments of glass can be deadly, while bomb splinters can fly and kill at a distance of over half a mile if there is nothing to stop them.
—Ministry of Home Security, Your Home as an Air Raid Shelter (one of the bestsellers of 1940)
The first thing which the rescue squads and the firemen saw, as their torches poked through the gloom and the smoke and the bloody pit which had lately been the most chic cellar in London, was a frieze of other shadowy men, night-creatures who had scuttled within as soon as the echoes ceased, crouching over any dead or wounded woman, any soignée corpse they could find, and ripping off its necklace, or earrings, or brooch: rifling its handbag, scooping up its loose change.
—Nicholas Monsarrat, Breaking In, Breaking Out
Freedom is only the distance between the hunter and his prey.
—Bei Dao
CONTENTS
Dedication
Epigraph
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Acknowledgements
About the Author
Also by Daniel O’Malley
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Copyright
1
The three women stood in the sky above London and waited for the Blitz to come.
It was bitterly cold, so they wore goggles and thickly padded boilersuits with many layers underneath. Each of them had, slung over her shoulder by a slender strap, a buff cardboard box holding a gas mask. Far above them, the thinnest of crescent moons shone with a faint light, and thick clouds were smeared about the sky so that the stars were almost entirely concealed.
“And here they come,” said Bridget grimly. She pointed to the east, across Limehouse and Poplar. It was too dark to see the aircraft themselves, but she could hear the very faintest droning as the night winds carried the sound of the bombers toward them.
“Are we sure it’s the Germans?” asked Usha. Her tone was dry, but it lacked her usual calm. Her hand was firm in Bridget’s but she gave a little nervous clench as she spoke, and Bridget looked at her, startled. For the previous twenty-three nights, she, Usha, and Pamela had sat in the cellar of their mistress’s house and listened to German bombs falling above them. Every thud that sent dust down from the ceiling had made Bridget want to scream, but the Indian woman never turned a hair, even when the thuds were horribly close and it seemed like the world was about to collapse on them.
Even now, Usha was able to maintain a bearing of unruffled sophistication while wearing a boilersuit and a balaclava and standing on absolutely nothing ten thousand feet above a city that was being attacked. Admittedly, it was her supernatural power that was keeping the two of them up in the air, so of course she was more at ease than Bridget, but she should have seemed at least a little bit discommoded. It just seemed terrifically unfair.
Next to them, Pamela hung silently in the air. Unlike the other two, she wasn’t wearing a balaclava, and her face in the faint moonlight was expressionless. Her arms were crossed, and the only movement about her was her hair as the air that held her up rippled over and around her. As always, Bridget found her presence reassuring. The only full-fledged Pawn of the three of them, she was easygoing when off duty, but when she was in her professional mode, as now, she was completely focused. She was always calm, cool, and collected, whether responding to a scheduling mix-up or a mass murder.
The blacked-out city spread out beneath the three of them, and they could make out only the vaguest impressions of the buildings and streets. The winding strip of the Thames, however, was clear.
Over the past few months, as she’d gotten to know Usha and Pamela and they had begun taking her on flying jaunts, Bridget had learned it was best if she didn’t think of the vista as the actual ground but rather as an elaborate picture that had nothing to do with her present situation. For her, the key to flying comfortably under someone else’s power was maintaining an air of detachment. Otherwise, it was too easy to start feeling panicky, and panicking in those circumstances was never a good idea.
“Bastards,” said Pamela tightly. “Bloody bastards.” Bridget looked to her in surprise. The blond woman didn’t even seem aware that she’d spoken, but she had shifted, and her arms were now at her sides. It was surprising, though. Pamela was normally far too disciplined to allow herself any sort of emotional outburst, even on the most terrifying missions.
Although this isn’t really a mission, Bridget thought. We’re just observing. Very definitely only observing. Lady Carmichael had been reluctant to give the three of them permission to go up into the skies during the bombing, and it had only been after repeated requests that she’d agreed. Even then, she was very firm in her restrictions.
“I don’t blame you for not wanting to stay in the shelter,” the Lady had said sympathetically. “I feel a bit trapped myself sometimes. So you may go out, but you must absolutely keep yourselves away from the airplanes and the bombing. Well away. And you don’t come back to the ground until the all-clear siren has gone. I don’t want even the slightest possibility of any of you getting hurt.”
And so the three of them stood there just watching as balls of fire flared and spread on the ground.
Except that, from what Bridget could see in the darkness, Pamela’s hands were clenched, and her lips were pressed together tightly. Normally, Pamela diverted away the worst of the winds, but now the air about them swirled and snapped, flapping their clothes.
The Nazis are bombing her city, and she hates it.
I don’t blame her. I hate it too.
As they watched, there was a distant flash on the ground. A few seconds later, they heard the muffled crump of the bomb. Then another flash and another eventual boom. Then more. The glow of fire grew and outlined buildings.
“They’re hitting Wapping tonight,” said Usha. “Hard. I suppose they’re targeting the docks.”
“And nothing’s being done,” said Bridget. “Why aren’t they doing something?” The women could see more and more explosions flaring in the darkness. “It burns me that we knew they were coming, we could hear them, and now it’s all just happening.” A blaring started coming up out of the city with a chorus of roaring sirens rising and falling.
“There goes moaning Minnie,” said Usha.
“Yes, finally,” said Bridget. “They could have been sounding that alarm minutes ago if we’d just—”
“Bridget,” said Usha.
“Yes?”
“Stop. Just stop.”
Bridget just stopped. They were both apprentices, and Usha had been with the Checquy for only three years, but at twenty-four, the Indian woman was six years older. That combined with her natural authority made her words seem as good as an order. Bridget stared down at the ground beneath them, half expecting to see a torrent of little lights as people streamed from their houses to backyard Anderson shelters and Tube stations.
But of course that’s ridiculous. She had read that people had taken to arriving early at the Underground, as early as four in the afternoon, to be certain of getting a good spot for their bedding and food. And no one is going to risk a flashlight in their own backyard, she thought. Not when they say a Jerry pilot can see the light from a cigarette. She was a trifle dubious about that claim, though.
As she mused, searchlights sliced up from the ground and swept about, and the women could hear the crack of the antiaircraft guns.
“Does the ack-ack actually hit much?” asked Bridget finally.
“I don’t believe so,” said Usha. “I gather that they’re firing to make people feel better as much as from any belief that they’ll hit a bomber. It’s good to be seen doing something.”
“Well, that’s a depressing thought,” said Bridget. She squinted into the darkness. The sound of the bombers was now lost in the noise of the attack, and she couldn’t see any sign of the actual airplanes. There were supposed to be British Hurricanes flying about, fighting back, but she’d read reports that such efforts were useless, and she could see why.
How on earth could they find the enemy’s planes in this darkness?
The explosions were still coming, spreading out across the city, an irregular line of flashes advancing toward them. The noise was getting louder too, and Bridget cocked her head, listening. She pulled her balaclava up over her goggles to better focus on hearing and felt the biting wind on her face.
“One of them is coming this way,” she said. She looked all about her. “Ah, it’s there.” S he pointed up and to the left. A patch of darkness was cutting through the clouds a few thousand feet above them. “It’s pretty low, really.”
“Probably hoping for a good shot at—oh!” exclaimed Usha. “Look over there! I think they’ve hit a church!” Bridget squinted, following the other woman’s pointing finger. She opened her mouth to say something but was suddenly smacked in the face and chest by a violent, howling torrent of wind. Usha’s hand tightened around hers as the two of them were buffeted backward.
For a single horrible moment, Usha must have lost her focus, because the two of them dropped. The fall was no more than a few feet, but it seemed to last for a long time, and then they were once again standing on empty, impossibly solid air like a glass floor. Their knees buckled, and the wind blew them back and sent them skidding along the surface that Usha had created. They scrabbled on the sky before managing to bring themselves to a stop, then braced themselves against the wind and stood.
Bridget let go of a breath she hadn’t realized she was holding and carefully loosened her death grip on Usha’s hand. She thanked the heavens that Usha had spread the gravity out rather than simply making a small platform and for the ten-foot-long leather strap that connected their wrists in case of nasty accidents. Then: Pamela! They looked around for their comrade, but she was gone.
“Where did she go?” shouted Bridget above the roar of the wind. Without Pamela keeping them in a bubble of comparative calm, they were exposed to all the force of the winter night. Bridget’s eyes met Usha’s, and her stomach twisted. They looked below, scanning the darkness for a sign of Pamela falling, tumbling down to the city, perhaps unconscious or sick or wounded. But there was nothing, no flicker of movement.
Where is she? Oh God, where is she? Has she already hit?
“There she is!” exclaimed Usha.
“Where? Where?” asked Bridget desperately, peering down into the darkness.
“Not there—up!” Bridget looked up. She could just see Pamela coursing away from them. She was clearly alive and well and directing all her will to her flight.
“But what the bloody hell is she doing?” shouted Usha. She sounded more irritated than concerned. Bridget squinted at their comrade thoughtfully. Pamela was flying away at a tremendous speed but curving up as well, and her arms were in front of her, almost clawing at the air.
“Aw, Christ,” said Bridget to herself, and Usha somehow heard her through the wind.
“What?”
“She’s going after that Jerry plane, the bomber!” shouted Bridget. Usha’s head whipped back to stare incredulously at Pamela. Beyond their friend, they could just make out the shape of the aircraft, which did not appear to be flying in a straightforward manner. It was being tossed about, and as they watched, it abruptly dropped several dozen feet. That has to be Pamela’s doing, thought Bridget.
“Has she gone mad?” exclaimed Usha.
Bridget could only shrug helplessly. How high is that plane? Is there enough air for Pamela? The air where they were standing was already bitingly cold in their throats, a sign that they were at the limits of safety. Pamela, of course, could go higher than they could. Not only was she more accustomed to it—in her lifetime of training, she had spent hours and hours at extreme altitudes—but she could also force some air to come with her. Still, even she could not go as high as a plane whose crew wore oxygen masks. What does she mean to do? Can she bring down the plane? Does she have the strength? There were ten thousand things that made what was happening impossible.
Plus, of course, there was the one thing that made it absolutely impossible.
“We’ll have to go after her!” shouted Usha. “Try to stop her!” Bridget nodded helplessly. Their hands tightened around each other’s, and then the invisible ground vanished beneath their feet. Bridget’s stomach lurched as they were suddenly tearing forward and upward, like divers falling diagonally up rather than straight down. Bridget hurriedly pulled the balaclava over her face before the wind could snatch it off her head.
The wind howled around them and buffeted them about. The thin strap holding Bridget’s gas-mask box snapped wildly in the gale and hit her on the back before the strap broke and the box was gone behind them, abruptly subjected to the gravity of the Earth.
Good luck, little box, thought Bridget ridiculously. She couldn’t help but pity it, torn from one plunge to another. Because with Usha, it wasn’t flying, it was falling. There was no air carrying them, no sheath of invisible energy wrapped around them. They were simply plummeting upward, and the source of their gravity, the point pulling them with all the mass of the Earth, was Pamela.
But what if she’s going higher than we can go? thought Bridget. She could just make out the distant figure of their friend and the German bomber. The plane had turned and was now flying in a broad curve before them, clearly trying to escape London and the bizarre conditions that kept forcing it down. Every few moments, it plunged several dozen feet almost on the spot. Bridget winced at the thought of the effort Pamela must be bringing to bear. Her friend was powerful, and the plane had already been flying lower than most bombers, but dragging it down had to be incredibly difficult, especially since she was coursing after it with horrendous speed.
The speed of Usha and Bridget’s upward fall was continuing to increase, and the screaming of the wind almost drowned out the sound of the bombing attack behind them. Still, despite the turbulence, Bridget realized that the air was actually helping to push them along. We must be in Pamela’s slipstream. She knew that her friend would be drawing air from all around to keep herself aloft and rush her after her prey. I think we’re catching up to her!
Meanwhile, even as they gained on her, Pamela was gaining on the aircraft. The beleaguered bomber had slowed considerably, and as they watched, it abruptly began to descend to a level at which the three women could breathe. Then Bridget felt the pressure of acceleration as Usha warped the rules of physics around them a little more.
Can we catch up to her? thought Bridget desperately. And if they did, then what? Would they tackle her in midair? Perhaps we’ll be able to drag her down. Or slap some sense into her. The din from the bomber roared in their ears. It was now flying directly across their path, and they could hear the thunderous cracks of the wind striking the aircraft.
What does she mean to do? Bridget wondered. Pamela was drawing closer and closer to the bomber; she looked as if she meant to start punching it. She’s crazy! Pamela’s powers over air didn’t give her any special physical strength or resistance to injury. She could call down incredible force, but she could still be hurt by the bulk of the aircraft or by . . .
The gunners! Bridget suddenly remembered, aghast. She’d read the files and knew that the Heinkel had machine guns to protect itself. There were guns at the front, at the rear, on its back, on its belly, sticking out from the sides. The five-man crew included three gunners and a bombardier, who would also act as the nose gunner.
“Pamela!” Bridget screamed at her. “You’ve got to stop!” It seemed impossible that their friend could hear her, but she had to try. As they watched, Pamela closed the gap between herself and the plane. She dived down under the fuselage and kept pace below the aircraft.
There would be a gunner lying down in the enclosure that bulged out of the aircraft’s belly. He would be looking ahead, but could he miss seeing her?
At Bridget’s side, Usha shouted something incredulous, but the actual words were lost in the gale. For a moment, their course had altered violently, yanked down to follow Pamela’s maneuvers, but then they swooped up, and Bridget could tell that Usha had shifted their focus of gravity from Pamela to the aircraft itself.
Good thinking. With the unpredictable movements of the plane and the presence of those scything propellers, something could easily go wrong—messily wrong—if they tried to follow her under. For all the speed she could muster, Usha possessed nothing like Pamela’s agility in the open air. They plunged toward the bomber.
“Usha, go for the side!” she shouted. “There’s a gunner on the back!” The Indian woman nodded tightly, and their fall curved a little.
“Get your feet ready!” shouted Usha, and she twisted in the air to reorient herself and pulled Bridget with her.
They sliced past the aircraft’s tail, and as its side came under them, they paused in midair, and then, through Usha’s will, the side of the plane was where down was, and they landed on top of it, just ahead of the tail.
