Page 58 of Strangers in Time

A N IGHT OF M ISSIVES

W HILE M OLLY DOUBTLESS SLEPT fitfully in her room, Oliver—who had completed his air warden duties during a night in which, thankfully, no sirens had sounded—opened the door of Imogen’s study and sat down at the desk. He would not be fruitlessly attempting, as he normally would, to add to his wife’s novel. He would be composing a letter for Molly.

He decided that pen and paper would be more appropriate and took up these elements, his only light a candle.

As instructed by Molly, Oliver addressed the missive to Matron Tweedy. He thought intently about the best words to use to convey his complete confidence in Molly’s abilities, as well as his approval of her helping in the war effort. It wasn’t that difficult to conjure the phrasing, as he had seen her obvious skill on display in quite a desperate situation with the wounded man and his bloody arm. He almost signed his real name at the end of the letter before instead stroking out a fine, bold Herbert James Wakefield.

A small deception for the best of reasons.

He blotted the letter, folded it over, and placed it inside an envelope and then sealed it.

Now he had one more letter to compose. And this one he would carry out on the Crown typewriter.

He settled his fingers on the keys and tapped away. The letter was addressed to Major Scott Bryant, his contact at the War Office. Oliver was inquiring as to the whereabouts of one Herbert James Wakefield, lately of Chelsea and an apparent signatory to the Official Secrets Act. Oliver did not set forth why he was interested in Wakefield, or that at this moment he was hosting the man’s daughter in his spare room. If they found out, someone from the Ministry of Health might be over in a thrice, he knew, to relieve him of the girl.

But he was curious as to why people had been watching Molly. Oliver seriously doubted it could be connected to Molly or her mother, which left the missing father as the cause, and also probably the reason for the man’s disappearance.

He obviously did a bunk and they want to track him down. The only question is why.

He ended the letter with the usual platitudes and thanks and affirmation of secrecy and the like. He cranked the letter out of the Crown and signed it. He wrote out the address on another envelope and placed this letter inside it. He would post it in the morning.

His tasks completed, Oliver put out the candle, locked up the study, and placed both envelopes on the front counter. He opened the till and glanced at the cash inside. He knew the amount down to the shilling, and the money Charlie had found at Molly’s home had been a significant contribution. He knew those who really had nothing.

Like Charlie.

He walked over to the window and edged the blackout curtains apart.

Oliver had once asked his wife why her father had not located his bookshop at Paternoster Row, in the City of London. That was where most of the leading bookshops were, along with the massive wholesaler, Simpkin & Marshall, from which Oliver purchased much of his book stock. Paternoster Row was a special place, he felt, with quite an interesting history as to its naming.

Centuries ago the monks and clergy of St. Paul’s would march down the street reciting the Lord’s Prayer, and “Pater Noster” were the opening words, in the original Latin. The words had been combined over time to give the street its unusual name. There had been a spillover effect as well, since nearby were the religious-inspired names of Ave Maria Lane and Amen Corner. It made him smile that from such divine sources had come memorable historical references that had persevered to this day.

His wife’s answer to his question regarding the location of The Book Keep had been simple and direct:

“My father said that we must spread the wealth of books around, Iggy. Concentrating them in one place means that others will be deprived of the experience of opening a tome of wonder. No, we must be where the people who need us are. And the people who need books are all over this great city, not simply in one exalted place. And where there are enough books that more people read, places naturally become exalted in the best possible sense, they become exalted of the individual mind and spirit .”

He remembered those words so clearly. And her father’s decision had turned out to be a prescient one for them, but devastating for others. In 1940 on one perilous night around the Christmas holidays, the Germans had bombed the sector containing Paternoster Row with such ferocity it seemed that they knew exactly what was contained down there.

An American politician, Wendell Willkie, had visited the remains of Paternoster Row the following month and remarked that the Germans had obliterated where truth was told. Oliver knew very little about Americans, but he thought Willkie had hit the nail right on the head.

Books filled with truth, turned to ash, and turning minds the same in their absence.

Even before the main bombs had fallen that night, the crackling and popping magnesium clusters attached to parachutes had ignited in the streets, turning a peaceful lane of books and buildings into a conflagration. It burned so hot and there were too many of the clusters, so sand, usually a reliable foe to magnesium, was rendered useless. And if one put water on magnesium, it simply exploded. Added to the problem was the fact that the German bombs had also blown out the water mains. And the attack had happened at low tide, which meant drawing water from the Thames was nigh impossible.

In the end the fire brigades were simply resigned to let Paternoster Row burn itself out.

And it had.

Simpkin & Marshall, in particular, had flamed with an intensity perhaps never before seen in the city. The inferno had been fed by its inventory of millions of books. And more tragically, many people had died, some incinerated in their beds. It had been deemed the Second Great Fire of London, after the one that had occurred nearly three centuries earlier. The entire city was at risk of burning from the mass of incendiary bombs dropped on that cold night in December, but the fires had eventually been extinguished, and nearby St. Paul’s Cathedral had once more been spared.

Oliver and Imogen had ventured one day to Paternoster Row and seen the devastation. Both had openly wept at the losses. His wife had been near inconsolable, as the ashes of destroyed books still filtered through the breezy air, covering them like the detritus of an apocalyptic eruption.

The casualty list posted to the borough’s town hall ran to several pages, Oliver recalled, including over a dozen firemen who had perished fighting the blazes.

He remembered watching Imogen staring, dead-eyed, at the loss of books and people, her two favorite things in life, and then she had slumped to the pavement sobbing. He had held her as tightly as he could. Yet nothing he could say was consoling enough, and his beloved wife was racked with sob after sob for well over an hour.

When Imogen rose she did so unsteadily, but then his wife looked at him in a way that she never had before. It was as though a different person was standing before him.

“War is never the answer, Ignatius,” she said. “ Never .”

And then she had walked off. As things turned out, that had been a defining moment for Imogen Oliver. For both of them, really.

Oliver felt tears gather in his eyes at this wretched memory.

He looked at the Secret Garden tea shop across the way. Desdemona Macklin would no doubt describe Oliver as someone who kept himself to himself. But she was also observant. She seemed to note every visitor that he had. And one in particular—Cedric. That was not good.

He drew the curtains. During the Blitz most shops closed at four so that folks could get some sleep before their nightly shift began as volunteers with, among others, the fire brigade, the air wardens, or the Heavy Rescue Division, the latter comprised of men driving battered lorries whose thankless job it was to search the rubble for survivors, but more often finding the dead. These squads were routinely comprised of those in the construction industry who used their knowledge of structures and load points and the like to safely burrow into collapsed buildings.

He rolled up his sleeve and looked at one of the burns he had suffered when a magnesium cluster had landed on him. It was as though electrified fire had been injected into him. Had his fellow warden not been there to assist him, Oliver knew he would be no more. This fellow warden had died the very next night when a wall had toppled on him. Oliver had been a dozen steps behind, only because he had stopped to pick up an injured cat. He had taken off his gas mask to see better and proceeded to knock the burning embers off the poor animal’s coat. He looked up to witness the wall collapsing on his mate.

He had not been on duty, but had been near the Marble Arch Underground station on Oxford Street in Westminster when a bomb had come through the station’s ceiling. Those not killed by the initial blast had been ripped apart by the tiles sheared off the walls and hurled through the air at them like thousands of spinning knives.

Coming upon that scene he had picked not through bodies, but body parts . He and a dozen other wardens had worked for hours helping to clear the mess. Though he knew there were survivors, Oliver had never personally seen a single one.

Part of his air warden training had involved a plea for detachment, a level of sangfroid that Oliver found logical and necessary while being instructed on it, and impossible to employ in the heat of the moment. Any warden who could coolly and dispassionately walk through devastation and death was not a human being he desired ever to meet.

Oliver’s official report forms, in which wardens documented all incidents on their watch in order to build a knowledge base of enemy activity, were regularly stained with his tears.

His thoughts turned to Charlie. He was out there somewhere, and in a city of millions and hundreds of square miles and God knew how many buildings and places to hide oneself, he was certain they would never find him. They would have to wait for Charlie to return to them.

If he ever managed to.