By the time they stepped out of the immaculate office-like interior of the warden’s post, the blackout was in full effect. The moon’s face was nearly completely hidden, and any light it might have offered was rendered opaque with a veil of heavy clouds.
It was far too dark to see anything.
Grace’s palms prickled with sweat despite the night chill.
“Come on then.” Mr. Stokes’s steps strode confidently ahead.
Grace cautiously inched forward.
“Miss Bennett, we can’t linger in front of the post all night.” Impatience edged Mr. Stokes’s tone.
Regret lanced through her. She never ought to have signed on with the Air Raid Precautions unit. How could she face every night in pitch-darkness?
She shuffled closer to the sound of Mr. Stokes’s voice.
His laughter rang out. “You new wardens are all the same, blind as moles in the daylight. Find the white lines on the curbs, Miss Bennett, your eyes will adjust and you can follow them with ease.”
The direction was given with more condescension than instruction, but still Grace did as he suggested. True to his words, her vision did adjust to identify the thickly painted lines.
She and the veteran warden carefully made their way through the blackened streets of their allotted sector, once so familiar by day and completely unrecognizable in the dark. As they did so, he showed her where the shelters were located as well as any areas that might cause public issue if bombed.
As they passed people’s homes, he rattled off their names. In the event of a bombing, they’d need to mark each resident down as they entered the shelters.
Between names and locations, Mr. Stokes reiterated all the details that had already been presented to Grace in the Air Raid Warden’s Training Manual, albeit the passages on the effects of gas were not as vivid, nor were the descriptions of injuries anywhere near as gratuitous with gore.
If Mr. Stokes had been able to see her face, he would know his words had left her disgusted. But perhaps that was the point. She wouldn’t put it past him to encourage her to quit.
“The Taylors,” he muttered with hostility under his breath. “Do you see that?” he asked, more loudly this time, clearly put out.
Grace searched the darkness in front of them, trying to ignore how the heaviness of it seemed to press into her eyes. There, in the distance, a glow of golden light framed the square of a distant window.
Grace almost laughed. The light was barely visible. “Surely that can’t be seen by German planes.”
Mr. Stokes’s footsteps resumed at a clipped pace. “The RAF has already tested infractions such as this and confirmed they can indeed be seen from the skies at night. The Germans invaded Norway and Denmark only yesterday. We could be next. Do you want your house bombed because the Taylors didn’t cover their windows properly?”
The question jarred Grace. “Of course not.”
“Missed the bus indeed,” Mr. Stokes groused, referencing Chamberlain’s recent claim. “If we lose this war, it’s because our government is too bloody slow to act.”
Grace had heard the broadcast as well, where Chamberlain claimed Hitler had “missed the bus” in that he should have attacked earlier in the war when he was prepared and Britain was not. The boast was ill-timed when days later, Hitler attacked Norway and Denmark. The latter fell in a matter of hours.
All of England had soured on Chamberlain’s response to the war.
Mr. Stokes darted up the front stairs at a pace Grace doubted she could ever grow used to in such pitch-blackness. “Mr. Taylor, put that light out. You know I told you there’d be a fine next time…”
Grace did her best to slink into the shadows. Certainly they felt great enough to swallow her up. She would be at the ready should they be attacked by Germany, but she refused to take such pleasure in fining the people of London for not tightly drawing their curtains.
Over the next month, Grace donned her tin warden’s hat three nights a week to grudgingly accompany Mr. Stokes as he terrorized the well-meaning citizens of London whose blackout efforts weren’t up to snuff.
In that time, Mrs. Weatherford had heard from Colin, who offered multiple assurances he was doing well and succeeding in his training. Grace had also received another letter from Viv. Her friend’s exuberance poured from the page with such vivacity that Grace had the comforting sensation of her friend’s voice in her head as she read. Whatever it was Viv had been assigned was noted in the letter and run through with the thick black band of a censor’s blot. Regardless, everything was right and tight with Viv, and that brought Grace incredible relief.