“She ain’t,” Binnie said. “It’s them what’s ’urt.” She pointed at the stretchers they were bringing in.

“Come with me,” the nurse said, and led them down the corridor after the carts, which the attendants were pushing at breakneck speed.

The nurse was walking almost as quickly. “I’m not the ambulance driver,” Eileen said, trying to keep up with her. “The injured woman is. They recruited me because I could drive—”

The nurse wasn’t listening. She’d raised her head and was listening to a drone of planes which was growing louder and louder.

Oh, no, Eileen thought, was St. Bart’s hit on the twenty-ninth?

They turned down another corridor, and then another, at the end of which the carts disappeared through a pair of double doors. “Wait here,” the nurse said, and went through them, too.

“You ain’t gonna have to file a report, are you?” Binnie asked.

“A report?”

“Yeah, about us takin’ the ambulance. We won’t ’ave to tell ’em our names, will we?”

“Where’d you two go?” Alf asked, appearing out of nowhere.

“Where’d we go?” Binnie said indignantly. “You were the one what disappeared.”

“I never. I went to find where to go, like you told me—”

“Shh,” Eileen said. “This is a hospital.”

Alf looked around. “What are you standin’ ’ere for? I thought you said you ’ad to go to St. Paul’s.”

“I do, but the nurse—”

“Then we better go before she comes back. The ambulance is this way,” Alf said.

“We can’t drive the ambulance to St. Paul’s,” Eileen said. “The hospital needs it.”

“But if they ain’t got nobody to drive it, it ain’t no good to ’em. We might as well take it,” Alf said, ever practical.

“And if we don’t, ’ow’ll you get there?” Binnie asked. “It’s miles, and the trains’ve stopped running.”

“They have? What time is it?” Eileen asked, glancing at her watch.

It was nearly eleven. Mike would have long since come back to Blackfriars looking for her. He’d have no idea where she’d gone. She had to get back there.

But how? The planes were growing steadily louder, and fires were already blocking nearly every street that led back to Blackfriars. And they’d have spread during the time they’d been here. Soon no one would be able to get anywhere near it or St. Paul’s. The entire City would be ablaze, and there’d be no way to get to Mike or Polly. Or to Mr. Bartholomew, whom they’d surely found by now. They’d each promised they wouldn’t go without the others, but what if the drop was only open for a short time? What if they hadn’t any choice but to go without her?

“Where did you say the ambulance was?” she asked.

“This way.” Alf plunged down a corridor.

“Wait,” Eileen said. “How do you know it’s still there? Someone else may have taken it out.”

Alf reached in his pocket and held the key up. “I took it out when I was lookin’ for you. So nobody could pinch it.”