There was another, higher-pitched swish. “Jesus!” Mike shouted, running toward her. “Here come some more. We’ve got to get out of here!” He grabbed her hand. They skirted the incendiary and ran up the steps, but too late. Another incendiary rattled down onto the porch, directly between them and the door, fizzing. They backed away from it.

And straight into the arms of the warden. “This way!” the warden shouted. “Quick!”

He grabbed their arms and herded them back down the stairs and around the side of the cathedral. More incendiaries fell, glittering among the trees and shrubs in the churchyard and along the lane as he propelled them down the hill.

“Where are we going?” Mike shouted.

“Shelter!” the warden yelled back over the roar of the planes. “Keep near the buildings!”

There was another clatter, several streets away, and a heavier thump. That’s an HE, Eileen thought. But Mike said it was all incendiaries.

They rounded a corner. A woman and two children were huddling in a doorway. “Come along,” the warden said, letting go of Mike’s arm to take charge of them, too. “We must get out of this.”

He was right. Fires were springing up all around them, turning the garish white light of the incendiaries to orange. The group went faster, heads down, hugging the line of wooden warehouses, and two elderly men fell in behind them.

Mike leaned close to Eileen as they ran. “If we get separated,” he said, “go to Blackfriars with him and wait for me there.”

“Why? What are you going to do?”

“I’ve got to get into St. Paul’s.”

“But—” Eileen said, looking fearfully back up the hill. Fires were burning all along its crest.

“We’ve only got tonight to find Bartholomew,” Mike said, “and Polly doesn’t even know what he looks like.”

“But I thought you said we needed to keep together.”

“We do. But if we should happen to get separated, we can’t afford to waste time running around looking for each other. We may only have a couple of hours’ leeway to get to the drop—”

He broke off as the warden turned his head to say, “We’re nearly there.” The warden pointed down a side street. “There’s a surface shelter just round the corner from here.”

A surface shelter. Polly had said one of them had been hit. “I thought you were taking us to Blackfriars,” Eileen shouted over the anti-aircraft guns.

“This is nearer!” the warden shouted.

They rounded the corner and stopped. The building at the end of the block was on fire, flames and smoke boiling from its upper story. In front of it, filling the narrow street, was a fire engine. Firemen swarmed around it, uncoiling hose, spraying a stream of water on the blaze. Eileen stepped back involuntarily, and bumped right into another fireman. “This lane’s off-limits!” he shouted at her, and then at the warden, “What are these people doing here?”

“I was taking them to the shelter in Pilgrim Street,” the warden said defensively.