The Ballroom Blitz by Anton Du Beke

Author:Anton Du Beke [Du Beke, Anton]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781398710108
Publisher: Orion
Published: 2022-10-12T23:00:00+00:00

Chapter Seventeen

Raymond was still watching Billy as he limped away into the night – the walk from Maida Vale had exhausted the boy; Raymond could see it with every step that he took – when a cry came from the office door. ‘Lance Corporal!’ There, in the shadowed doorway, stood Mortimer Bond himself, short and dumpy and recognisable by the cigarillo flare between his lips. As Raymond watched, he cupped a hand around it, shielding its light from above.

‘Reporting for service, sir!’

Raymond’s mind was a whirl as he followed Mortimer Bond into the office. ‘They’re hitting the docklands with everything they have,’ Mortimer was saying, while his telephone trilled and footsteps pounded the building’s halls. ‘We’ve calls for back-up flowing through. I’m sending you out east tonight, Lance Corporal. It’s where you’re needed …’ Mortimer Bond’s attention was suddenly piqued by footsteps outside the door. Moments later, another ARP warden appeared, dressed in his steel helmet and serge blue overcoat. ‘Humphrey – just the man. Lance Corporal de Guise needs a ride to the ops station out east. Room for one more?’

The new warden nodded. ‘We’re sitting in each other’s laps already. One more won’t hurt.’

‘Then hop to it, lads. It’s getting dicey out there.’ They were at the door when Mortimer Bond called after them, ‘Hang it, I’m coming on this one too. There’s nothing this old body can’t do that your young ones can.’ Then, together, they hustled out of the office.

Raymond had been aboard a good number of transport wagons in France, but none of them quite like this. These were just delivery trucks, postal vans and Morris commercial transports, requisitioned or donated to the cause. All along the road, the vans were loading up with ARP wardens like Raymond, and WVS volunteers from the station on the edge of the park. Engines burst into life and disappeared into the blackness beneath the barrage balloons.

Raymond was clambering up into the van’s dark interior, to find a perch among a dozen other ragged souls, when a voice cried out for him further down the row. He whipped his head round. The sharp cones of the searchlights were lighting up the sky above Hyde Park now.

And there was Cathy, hurrying with a crew of WVS girls into another of the waiting vans.

‘I thought I’d better join this one, Lance Corporal,’ she said. ‘I wouldn’t want you taking another tumble without me being there to pick you up. One good turn deserves another, after all.’

Raymond looked above – whether to God, or the brave RAF lads scrambling into battle, he did not know. ‘Here’s hoping luck’s with us tonight, Cathy.’

‘Oh,’ she said, before she disappeared into the wagon, ‘you don’t need luck, Raymond. You’ve got me. Stay safe! I’ll see you out east.’

Then she was gone, and so was Raymond, into the cramped interior. Soon, the black vistas of Hyde Park were rushing past. Soon, the boarded shop fronts of Oxford Street and the roped-off ruin of John Lewis. In

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