Page 78 of Strangers in Time

Tense minutes slipped by after the second warning siren had gone off. Then the drone of plane engines could be heard. So many that everyone looked up in surprise.

It was so eerily quiet down here that they heard one man mutter, “Come on, you bastards, just chuck it at us and be done.”

Oliver slipped his arms around the children, pulling them together and down and hovering over them, as though his slender body could shield them from what was coming.

The sounds of the aircraft engines thudded ever closer, and the anti–aircraft guns commenced firing. Each blast of the weapons made Molly’s body jerk. And then came the whine of falling bombs, shrieking higher and higher as they drew closer to the earth.

As the first munitions struck, the explosions seemed to reach right through the top of the station as though an earthquake had just breached London.

Oliver bent lower over the children and grunted in pain as a falling piece of ceiling tile hit him on the shoulder. Another bomb struck nearby, and the floor under them seemed to shift violently with the impact. Farther down the Underground line they heard screams and what sounded like a wall collapsing. Thick dust and smoke shot through the tunnel, making them all gag.

Molly had her hand clenched around Charlie’s. She had never been this frightened in her life. She wondered at how Charlie and Mr. Oliver could have endured something like this on an almost nightly basis for months on end during the Blitz.

She managed to catch Charlie’s gaze. Molly could tell he wasscared. Yet he smiled bravely at her and said, “It’s all right, Molly. The Jerries don’t aim too good most times.”

She nodded and managed a weak smile in return, but, in truth, she felt nauseous and her pulse was throbbing in her ears.

As more bombs landed, the explosions were interlaced with sirens, screams, and sounds of panic from above. Inside the tube station babies shrieked, and children cried, as did some of the adults. A full two hours passed with nearly unrelenting explosions that shook all of them to their souls. Molly thought that nothing in hell could ever match this experience. And then the whines and impacts and explosions slowed, and then abruptly ceased. Everyone sat paralyzed in seeming disbelief that it was over and they were still alive.

After ten minutes of quiet passed, Oliver slowly straightened and let go of Molly and Charlie. He rubbed his injured shoulder where the tile had struck him.

“Okay, we should hear the all clear soon,” he said. “But we must wait until then. They could be sending in a second wave.”

Molly looked at him with a stunned expression. “A… s-second wave?”

“But perhaps not tonight,” he said in a reassuring tone.

Two minutes later the all clear siren mercifully sounded. Some started to make their way to the exits, while others settled down to spend the night underground just in case the Luftwaffe returned to try to kill them.

When they reached the surface, they could smell smoke and hear screams and sirens, and an explosion or two, probably as ruptured gas lines ignited. Flames rose high into the sky, turning night into near day and heating the air so much they could all feel the enhanced warmth on their skin and the smoke in their lungs.

They watched as firemen battled numerous blazes with hard streams of water and people rushed past them in all directions.

“Looks like they hit us pretty badly,” said Oliver dejectedly.

“Help me! Please!” someone nearby cried out.

They rushed toward the sounds and found a man lying amid some heated, smoky rubble. He was bleeding and his face was ashen.

“Children, go and get help while I see to him,” said Oliver as he knelt next to the injured man. “As a warden I’ve had first aid training.”

Instead, Molly pushed past him and ran her gaze over the man. He was holding his arm where blood was soaking through his ripped shirt sleeve. She examined the wound and the ominous blood flow.

“Mr. Oliver, do you have a torch?”

He produced one and shone it where she directed, on the man’s arm.

She told the man to count to ten and that this would hurt a bit, but she had to do it. She glanced at Oliver and Charlie and said quietly, “If you could hold him still.”

They did so while she took the torch and then inserted her gloved finger inside the wound. The man cried out and would have thrashed around had he not been held tightly by Charlie and Oliver.

“Okay,” said Molly. “I’m done. You can let him go.”

“What did you do?” whispered Oliver.

She whispered back, “I managed to nudge a torn blood vessel back in alignment. It won’t fully stop the bleeding but it slowed it considerably. Had I not, I doubt he would live. Now I need to slow the blood loss even more.”

She took off her hat, tore the sash from around it, and looked at Oliver. “I need you to hold his arm very tightly while I wrap this around it.” She turned back to the wounded man and said firmly, “You must remain very still. Do you understand? This will not hurt like before, but it is necessary. All right?”

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