The fire watch. She looked over at the porch, but no one was on it or on the steps or coming out either of the side doors. The chorister had said coming out through the nave was quicker. That meant the fire watch was already out here, somewhere in this crowd. Polly started through it, looking for men in coveralls and helmets.

“Mr. Bartholomew!” she called, pushing between people, hoping someone would turn his head. “John Bartholomew!” but there was too much noise from the guns and the planes and the fire engines’ bells. She couldn’t make herself heard. And she couldn’t see any helmets.

“Oh, look!” the woman she was shoving past said. “She’s going!” and Polly, shocked, turned and looked up. Where the small flame had been, large yellow flames were spurting, whipped by the wind. Even as she watched, the fire seemed to grow larger and brighter.

“She’s done for,” someone said.

“Can’t they do something?” a woman asked plaintively.

A man’s voice in the middle of the crowd said with authority, “I think a prayer would be in order,” and the crowd went silent. “Let us pray.”

That had to be Dean Matthews. The chorister had said he was up on the roofs. He and the fire watch would be standing together.

Polly headed for his voice, but the crowd, spellbound by the drama on the dome, refused to let her through. Polly pushed out of the crowd and ran toward the cathedral and up the steps to see where Dean Matthews and the fire watch were standing. If she could spot Mr. Bartholomew from Eileen’s description and wave to him …

She clambered up next to the lamppost at the end of the stairs and scanned the crowd, looking for a clerical collar. She still couldn’t see Dean Matthews or the fire watch. She moved a bit to the right, attempting to get a better angle from which to see their upturned faces, lit by the orange light from the fires in Paternoster Row. She noted and discarded the ones who couldn’t be on the fire watch—woman, woman, too young, too old—

Oh, God. She grabbed for the lamppost, suddenly weak in the knees.

It was Mr. Dunworthy.

How all occasions do inform against me.

—WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE, HAMLET

St. Paul’s Cathedral—29 December 1940

EILEEN WATCHED THE WARDEN START AROUND THE INCENDIARY and up the steps after Polly. “You there! Stop!” he called after her, but she was already inside and the door had closed behind her.

For a split second Eileen was afraid he was going to go in after her, but the incendiary suddenly began gyrating and throwing off violent sparks and blobs of molten magnesium, and the warden stopped where he was, brushing wildly at his coat and arms. Mike leaped to his aid, slapping at the sparks.

The incendiary’s spinning was bringing it closer to the men and to the edge of the step.

“Look out!” Eileen shouted. It rolled over the edge, still spinning, and down two steps, sending off a shower of stinging sparks. Eileen instinctively backed away from it and fell off her step, stumbling and flailing her arms to keep her balance.