Tears fell, and the details from that night spilled from her lips while he held her. Her burden eased as she shared what she’d seen, leaning on his strength, not realizing how much she had needed it.
“I was in the Great War,” he said as she wiped at her eyes with a handkerchief. “You never forget, but it becomes part of you. Like a scar no one can see.”
Grace nodded at the logic of his statement, the roil of her emotions finally calm for the first time since she’d allowed herself to break apart.
Perhaps his comfort and advice were what gave her courage later that afternoon when a particularly bad raid echoed over the tube station. The cacophony of war overhead came nonstop and with such intensity, it was impossible to differentiate one sound from the other. Without her wits about her, she might have surrendered to the flicker of panic racing in her mind with every whistle, every thundering boom that reverberated in her chest. They only made her read all the louder.
Afterward, she learned just a mile away, during the height of rush hour, Charing Cross had been heavily bombed.
That evening, Grace was far more successful in hiding her bruised face from Mrs. Weatherford as they ate a supper of fatty beef and a blend of beans and carrots from their garden. She did not, however, succeed in convincing Mrs. Weatherford to seek shelter.
It was a discussion they had almost daily. At this point, Grace presumed Mrs. Weatherford had stopped listening to her carefully detailed reasons. Except now, Grace knew full well what could happen if a bomb struck Britton Street.
Preparing for her ARP work that night took a considerable amount of fortitude. Even as she attached the pin to her lapel, her hands trembled. After all, she never knew what the night would bring.
Mr. Stokes did not seem to act his usual self either. He didn’t bother to lord his knowledge over her, nor did he make any mention of the bombing of Charing Cross, which no doubt would have had gory details to regurgitate.
For once, he was quiet.
And as much as Grace thought such a thing would be a blessing, she discovered his silence dug at an uncomfortable place inside her until she recognized it as worry.
For Mr. Stokes, of all people.
After several hours of listening to the rest of London be bombed, a sound so commonplace, it faded to the background like static, and their own sector remaining quiet, Grace could stand it no longer. “I presume you heard about Charing Cross,” she said finally.
He pressed his lips against one another in the moonlight. She marveled for a moment in his thoughtful pause at how adept she had become at seeing in the blacked-out London streets. She could even make out a slight nick on the side of his jaw that he’d sustained in the blast the night before.
“I heard,” he said, his voice gravelly and hoarse. He swallowed. “Those poor people.”
And that was it. No terrible details of dismemberment or smoke-belching destruction. No destroyed homes and victims blasted to gruesome states.
They didn’t speak again for a long time. Not until they strode past Mrs. Driscoll’s townhouse. The widow’s remains had already been seen to by one of the rescue services and removed. Mr. Stokes stopped in front of the still-standing townhouse and looked at it for rather a long while, his hands thrust in his pockets.
“I didn’t thank you, Miss Bennett.” He lowered his head. “For last night. I… I nearly forgot myself, and you reminded me what we were there for.”
His humility struck Grace even more fully than had his silence earlier. “We’re partners.”
“You kept a level head and people are alive because of you.” His gaze shifted toward Grace. “I admire your ability to stay so focused.”
“I suspect,” she said slowly, unable to help herself, “it’s because I’m a woman.”
A slow smile crept over his mouth. He gave a mirthless laugh. “I am a lout, aren’t I?”
She tilted her head, declining to speak when he already knew the answer.
From that night on, they got on quite well with one another, finding something of a friendship amid the shared danger and tragedy they encountered together.
And they had need of it, for just a week later, on a night heavy with fog and anticipation, more bombs fell in their sector. The damage was great, the casualties high. On and on the Germans dropped their explosives into the early morning hours.
As slivers of sunlight jabbed through the smoky air, the all clear sounded. Grace paced before a fallen home, knowing the occupants had sought shelter in a basement beneath. There was a chance, however small, that they might still be alive.