“Mary,” a muffled voice said at her feet. “Here.”

“Fairchild!” She’d forgotten about Fairchild. Mary groped for her in the darkness and found her hand. “Are you all right?”

“I can’t … breathe,” Fairchild gasped, clutching her hand. “… can’t catch …”

“You’ve only had the breath knocked out of you,” Mary said. “Breathe out.” She pursed her lips and exhaled, showing her how to do it. Which was ridiculous. Fairchild couldn’t see her. “Exhale. Blow out.”

“Can’t,” Fairchild said. “There’s something on me.”

“It only feels that way,” Mary reassured her, but when she patted around her, feeling to see if Fairchild was intact, she encountered splintered wood. She tried to lift it, but Fairchild cried out.

Mary stopped. “Where are you hurt?”

“What happened?” Fairchild asked. “Did a gas main blow up?”

“No, it was a V-2,” she said, and tried to move the piece of wood to the side.

Fairchild cried out again.

She didn’t dare try to do anything when she couldn’t see. She might make things worse. She’d have to wait for the ambulance.

But the ambulance was already here. She’d seen it pulling up. She turned to look over at it, silhouetted against the fire, and could see the driver’s door opening and someone in a helmet getting out. “Injury over here!” she shouted, and the driver started toward them and then, inexplicably, moved away across the rubble.

“No, over here!”

“I don’t think the ambulance is here yet,” Fairchild said. “Listen.”

Mary listened. She could hear more ambulance bells in the distance. Another unit, from Woodside or Norbury, must be coming. “Croydon’s already here,” she told Fairchild, “but they can’t hear us. We need to signal them. Is there a torch in the ambulance?”

“There’s one in the medical kit.”

“Where’s the kit? In the ambulance?”

“No, you sent me to fetch the kit. I was bringing it to you when …”

Mary had no memory of sending her to fetch anything. She must still be a bit dazed from the blast. “Where is it?”

“I think it must have been knocked out of my hand,” Fairchild said.

And I’ll never find it in the darkness, Mary thought, but she put her hand on it, and on the torch, almost immediately. And, amazingly, it wasn’t broken. When she pushed the switch, it lit up. She held it up and waved it back and forth so the ambulance driver would see it.

“You’re not supposed to do that,” Fairchild said. “The blackout. The jerries will …”

Will what? Hit us with a V-2? She stripped off the tape shielding the lens.

“It’s a good thing we had our … talk when we did, isn’t it?” Fairchild said.

Oh, God. “Shh. You mustn’t talk like that.” Mary shone the torch on her, afraid of what she’d see, but there didn’t seem to be any blood except for a cut on Fairchild’s arm where a broken-off slat was jabbing it. It and several planks lay crisscrossed over her chest and stomach, but there was no blood on them and nothing lying on her legs or feet.