Back we went, into the building, while the fire crept closer and the shouts of the fire brigade rang through the smoke. When we emerged, the duke and his men had set up the fire hose and begun to soak the brick walls of the Red Cross with it. I recognized Oakes among them, his rough face smudged with soot, and I remembered the building belonged to him, that he had loaned it to the Red Cross for the duration of the war. Back and forth, stacks of blankets, boxes of packages bound for London. Where was Thorpe? Back and forth, until my arms ached, and I could hardly breathe because the smoke scorched my throat and my lungs at every pulse. Across the street, the Charlotte Hotel was now fully engulfed, flames shooting from the roof, cinders flying. The station wagon was full, and another car brought down from Government House. I heard a groan, looked to the roof, and saw a curl of smoke rising from the right-hand side. I dashed back up the steps.

“Everyone out!” I shouted. “Everyone out! There’s smoke on the roof!”

Out came the duchess from the back, carrying a small crate, followed by Miss Drewes with another crate.

“Anyone else back there?”

“It’s all clear,” said the duchess, in her calm voice. “And this is the last of the supplies. Miss Drewes, will you drive the Morris? I’ll take the station wagon.”

At the door, a frantic Duke of Windsor met us. He snatched the crate from his wife’s arms and cried, Thank God.

“David. Good gracious.” The duchess squinted at the scene outside. “Is that Marshall on top of the cathedral?”

We turned and followed her gaze, up and up to the peaked roof of the cathedral, where a large man stood near the spire, silhouetted in orange.

“Yes,” said the duke. “God bless him. He’s testing the structure. If the wind doesn’t hold, we’ve got to dynamite the place, I’m afraid.”

“Dynamite!”

“Darling, it’s got to be done. It’s the only chance to stop the thing from spreading all the way up the damned hill!”

At that instant, just over the duke’s last few words—the damned hill—a low boom shook the ground. I realized I’d heard it before, the last time I went outside, except I hadn’t paid attention, I’d assumed it was part of the general noise of the fire’s destruction. Now I listened. There was a loud crack, and the sound of crumbling, breaking.

An expression of shock transformed the duchess’s face. I don’t think she had considered this, that the fire might reach all the way to Government House, to her own home, where the carloads of Red Cross supplies were right now being unloaded into the ballroom. She turned back to the cathedral roof and put her hand to her brow, as if shielding her eyes from a terrible sun. I looked too, and saw a curious thing: the large metal cross at the very front of the cathedral, atop the peak, silhouetted against the glow of flames, in such a way that the fire seemed to come from within the cross itself.