“But I can’t—I’m not a real ambulance driver—”

“Mrs. Mallowan told me you’d been recruited to bring the injured driver and the lieutenant in.”

“She can’t take you,” Alf said, popping up from the back.

“Good Lord, a stowaway,” Dr. Cross said, and as Binnie appeared beside him, “Two stowaways.”

“We’re ’er assistants,” Binnie said. “She can’t take you to Moorgate. She’s got to go to St. Paul’s.”

“To pick up a patient?”

“Yeah,” Alf said.

“One of the fire watch was injured,” Eileen said.

“They’ll have to send another ambulance.”

He reached across and honked the horn. An attendant appeared in the doorway. “As soon as Dawkins gets back,” the doctor called to him, “send her to St. Paul’s!”

He turned to Eileen. “All right, let’s go.”

“We ain’t sure it’ll start,” Alf said.

“It wouldn’t before,” Binnie added.

And if I can’t start it, Dr. Cross will have to find some other transport, Eileen thought, and yanked roughly on the choke the way she had on her first driving lesson.

The ambulance started up immediately. She put it in gear and let out the clutch with a motor-killing jerk that didn’t do anything either. The motor was practically purring.

“Turn left onto the street,” the doctor directed, “and then left on Smithfield.”

Eileen began to back out of the courtyard. An ambulance was pulling in. Why couldn’t it have been here five minutes sooner?

She slowed, trying to think of something she could say to persuade him to take the other ambulance.

Two men in helmets and overalls were clambering out of the back. They pulled out a man on a stretcher. Attendants converged on them.

“Hurry,” the doctor said to Eileen. “We haven’t much time.”

Paradoxically one might say that the most important incident of that night was one that failed to happen.

—W. R. MATTHEWS, DEAN OF ST. PAUL’S,
WRITING ABOUT THE NIGHT OF 29 DECEMBER 1940

St. Paul’s Cathedral—29 December 1940

“MR. DUNWORTHY,” POLLY BREATHED. SHE GRABBED FOR THE lamppost at the end of the steps of St. Paul’s, legs suddenly wobbly. Eileen had said he would come, and he had. And this was why she hadn’t been able to get a message to John Bartholomew, because she didn’t need to. Mr. Dunworthy had found them before they found him. It was only a spike in slippage, after all, and not some horrible catastrophe that had killed everyone in Oxford, and not their having changed the outcome of the war.

And not Mr. Dunworthy—and Colin—having lied to them.

Colin. If Mr. Dunworthy’s here, Colin may be, too, she thought, her heart lifting, and glanced at the people on either side of Mr. Dunworthy, but she couldn’t see him. Mr. Dunworthy was flanked by two elderly women who were staring raptly up at the dome.

“Mr. Dunworthy!” Polly called to him, shouting over the roar of the planes and anti-aircraft guns.

He turned, looking vaguely about to see where the voice was coming from.

“Over here, Mr. Dunworthy!” she shouted, and he looked directly at her.