“Because we have four patients in the back.” And Dr. Cross was coming out the door with a trolley.

“I couldn’t find anyone,” he said. “We’ll have to take them in ourselves.”

Somehow they managed—with Alf and Binnie helping—to get all four patients onto trolleys, into the hospital, and through an endless maze of corridors to a place where they could be turned over to the staff.

And it was no wonder there hadn’t been anyone at the entrance. Every ward, every examining room, was filled with patients, scurrying nurses, soot-covered rescue workers, doctors shouting orders, harried-looking attendants—one of whom detached himself at Dr. Cross’s order from the ARP warden he was bandaging to come take Eileen’s end of the trolley from her. “What are you doing?” he asked. “You’re injured. Sit down. I’ll fetch a doctor.”

Why did everyone keep saying that? “I’m Dr. Cross’s driver.”

“What are you doing?” Dr. Cross said impatiently to the attendant. “Grab hold of the trolley.” To Eileen he said, “Wait here.”

Eileen nodded, and he and the attendant disappeared with the trolley through a pair of double doors. And she was suddenly free to leave and go to St. Paul’s, as long as she wasn’t waylaid by some other doctor on the way out.

And if I can get to the cathedral, she thought, remembering that wall of red and what the warden had said about all of Ludgate Hill being on fire. She looked at Alf and Binnie, drooping beside her. I can’t take them back into the middle of those fires, she thought, though she wasn’t at all certain she could find her way to St. Paul’s without them.

I must. I’ve already exposed them to too much danger tonight as it is. Which meant she had to get away from them, a feat that she knew from experience was nearly impossible. Perhaps if she persuaded them to sit down, they’d fall asleep again.

But when she suggested it, Binnie said, “Sit down? He’ll likely be back any minute.”

“Come along,” Alf said, grabbing her hand.

“In a moment,” she said. “I need to tell the matron we’ve gone out to the waiting room so the doctor won’t know where we’ve gone,” which was duplicitous enough for them to fall in eagerly with the scheme.

“Stay there,” she ordered, and walked quickly down the corridor.

She wasn’t certain she could find her way back to the ambulance, let alone to St. Paul’s. She hadn’t paid any attention to which way they’d come when they brought the trolley in. And she had to be quick, or Alf and Binnie would tumble to what she was doing, and she’d find them waiting for her outside.

She looked in vain for someone to ask. There—walking away down that side corridor—was someone. Not a nurse. She was hatless and wearing a navy blue coat. An ARP warden, Eileen thought. She’d very likely just brought a patient in.

“Miss!” Eileen called. “Can you tell me where the emergency ward is?”