Iris smiled weakly. “I hope to God there are no wars for him or anyone to fight in after this one.”
They settled down for the duration. There were two more heavy explosions in the first hour, but mostly they could hear the dull thump of distant bombardment. By the time the all clear sounded at seven, Sam had read two Sherlock Holmes stories and drunk two cups of tea and Iris and Fred were both asleep. He climbed the stairs to enter the hall and pushed through the front door into the street. A house at the far end of the terrace was burning, but everything else seemed normal. He walked back through the house out into the garden and then through the gate, past the allotments and into the open fields. He thought he would be able to get the clearest view of the London skyline from the middle of one of the fields. Until he got there, he didn’t turn to look back. When he did, he saw vast billowing clouds of black smoke covering most of the horizon. All of London must be on fire, he thought. He stared, his mind a blank, for a moment or two, then came to his senses. It’s best to leave Iris with her dad, he thought. For some reason the garish music hall image of Max Miller came to his mind. Yes, the centre of town seemed to be top of the bill today and the southern suburbs were just the supporting acts. He’d have to get back to Battersea though – he needed to know whether they had a home to go back to. He felt a firm push from behind and jumped. He turned to find one of the small ponies someone kept in the fields. He put his hand onto the animal’s head and stroked it. He could feel it shaking.
“You and me both, mate. You and me both.”
*
Maksim tried very hard to keep his hand still as he poured more brandy into his employer’s glass. The fact that dinner had been served to the accompaniment of the racket from Germany’s largest bombing attack by far on the English capital seemed not to have disturbed Kyril Voronov at all. He had laughed and joked all night. Although most of the bombs appeared to be falling far to the east, they had heard plenty of explosions much closer to home. A neighbour had knocked on the door a little earlier to warn Maksim that Pont Street had been hit by a cluster of bombs. Pont Street was a mere five-minute walk from Voronov’s palatial house off Eaton Square. When Maksim had told him this, Voronov had only laughed louder. But then everyone knew that Kyril Voronov was a madman. No one but a madman would call Stalin an ignorant Georgian sheepshagger to his face. Everyone wondered how he had been able to survive that, but he had, as he had survived many other things – the revolution, many battles, the numerous purges. He had survived all those things and had somehow accumulated a large fortune as well. Very few knew how he had managed this, but Maksim was one of them. He had been with Voronov for nearly twenty years. He had seen the distasteful favours Voronov had done, the horse-trading, the wheeling and dealing, the torture, the murder. Call Voronov mad? Maksim himself was the maddest to stick by this ogre. But then again, things hadn’t been so bad recently – a calm, quiet, comfortable period for him at least, until the bloody Germans had decided to bomb the hell out of London.
Another nearby explosion rattled the windows. Maksim jumped and spilled some brandy on the table.
“You idiot, Maksim! What’s wrong with you?”
“Do you not think, Kyril Ivanovitch, that we should make our way to the shelter now or at least to the cellar. That sounded very close.”
“Bulls’ bollocks, Maksim. That was a long way away. By God, we’ve been through a lot worse than this and survived. And remember, Kyril was born lucky – nothing ever hurts Kyril, does it, my dear?”
Madame Anna Voronov finished her glass of Chateau Yquem and smiled weakly. “Yes, dear. Nothing ever hurts you – just those around you.”