By January 1944 the weather had resumed its rightful place as the primary obsession of the British public. The summer and autumn had been unusually dry and hot; the winter, when it came, unusually cold. Freezing fogs rose from the river, stalked Westminster and Belgravia, hovered like gunsmoke over the ruins of Battersea and Southwark. The blitz was little more than a distant memory. The children had returned. They filled the toy shops and department stores, mothers in tow, exchanging unwanted Christmas presents for more desirable items. On New Year's Eve, large crowds had jammed Piccadilly Circus. It all might have seemed normal if not for the fact that the celebration took place in the gloom of the blackout. But now the Luftwaffe, after a long and welcome absence, had returned to the skies over London.
At eight p.m., Catherine Blake hurried across Westminster Bridge. Fires burned across the East End and the docks; tracer fire and searchlights crisscrossed the night sky. Catherine could hear the dull thump-thump of antiaircraft fire from the batteries in Hyde Park and along the Embankment and taste the acrid bite of smoke from the fires. She knew she was in for a long, busy night.
She turned into Lambeth Palace Road and was struck by an absurd thought--she was absolutely famished. Food was in shorter supply than ever. The dry autumn and bitter cold winter had combined to eliminate almost all green vegetables from the country. Potatoes and brussels sprouts were delicacies. Only turnips and swedes were in plentiful supply. She thought, If I have to eat one more turnip, I'll shoot myself. Still, she suspected things were much worse in Berlin.
A policeman--a short chubby man who looked too old to get into the army--stood watch at the entrance to Lambeth Palace Road. He raised his hand and, shouting over the wail of the air raid sirens, asked for her identification.
As always, Catherine's heart seemed to miss a beat.
She handed over a badge identifying her as a member of the Women's Voluntary Service. The policeman glanced at it, then at her face. She touched the policeman's shoulder and leaned close to his ear so that when she spoke he could feel her breath on his ear. It was a technique she had used to neutralize men for years.
Catherine said, "I'm a volunteer nurse at St. Thomas Hospital."
The police officer looked up. By the expression on his face Catherine could see he was no longer a threat to her. He was grinning stupidly, gazing at her as if he had just fallen in love. The reaction was nothing new to Catherine. She was strikingly beautiful, and she had used her looks as a weapon her entire life.
The policeman handed back her identification.
"How bad is it?" she asked.
"Bad. Be careful and keep your head down."
London's need for ambulances had far exceeded the supply. The authorities grabbed anything suitable they could lay their hands on--delivery vans, milk trucks--anything with four wheels, a motor, and room in the back for the injured and a medic. Catherine noticed a red cross painted over the faded name of a popular local bakery on one of the ambulances pouring into the hospital's emergency entrance.
She walked quickly now, trailing the ambulance, and stepped inside. It was bedlam. The emergency room was filled with wounded. They seemed to be everywhere--the floors, the hallways, even the nurses' station. A few cried. Others sat staring, too dazed to comprehend what had happened to them. Dozens of patients had yet to see a doctor or a nurse. More were arriving by the minute.
Catherine felt a hand on her shoulder.
"No time for standing round, Miss Blake."
Catherine turned and saw the stern face of Enid Pritt. Before the war, Enid had been a kind, sometimes confused woman accustomed to dealing with cases of influenza and, occasionally, the loser of a Saturday-night knife fight outside a pub. All that changed with the war. Now she stood ramrod straight and spoke in a clear parade-ground voice, never using more words than needed to make a point. She ran one of the busiest emergency wards in London without a hitch. A year earlier her husband of twenty-eight years had been killed in the blitz. Enid Pritt did not grieve--that could wait until after the Germans were beaten.
"Don't let them see what you're thinking, Miss Blake," Enid Pritt said briskly. "Frightens them even more. Off with your coat and get to work. At least a hundred and fifty wounded in this hospital alone, and the morgue's filling fast. Been told to expect more."
"I haven't seen it this bad since September 1940."
"That's why they need you. Now get to work, young lady, quick as you like."