The men of heavy rescue pulled up in a battered lorry, though most vehicles were battered these days, and approached her with grim faces. Those men saw the worst the bombing had to offer. They were large, all of them, their bodies bulky from the weeks of shifting rubble, their eyes as hollow and empty as the gaping windows of blasted homes.
She directed them where to dig and helped where she might, calling out the names of people she hoped to one day see again.
“Miss Bennett.” A shrill voice cried out to her.
She straightened from a pile of bricks to find a young man running down the path to her.
“I’m glad I found you,” he said, gasping for breath from his haste. “There’s been a bomb. At Mrs. Weatherford’s—”
Grace’s blood chilled.
Mrs. Weatherford.
She turned from the boy and the men and the rubble, sprinting down the streets toward the townhouse with an impossible speed. When she arrived, she found its face intact. But she knew better than to trust such things. One need only open a door sometimes to discover nothing there.
She raced up the steps and wasted not a moment as she threw open the door and froze with shock.
Everything was exactly as she had left it, the wooden floors gleaming beneath the fading carpet, the door to the kitchen propped open, revealing the cheerful yellow and white room.
She shouted for Mrs. Weatherford as she stumbled into the parlor, finding it empty.
She darted to the kitchen with another ready breath sucked in to call out once more and nearly ran headlong into none other than Mrs. Weatherford.
“I was told there was a bomb,” Grace cried out.
Mrs. Weatherford gave a tired smile. “There is, love. But it’s not gone off, you see?”
She pointed from the kitchen window where a massive bomb had landed directly on their Anderson shelter, crunching in its center. It was an ugly thing, nearly as long as Grace was tall with a fin jutting from its back and a layer of grit over its dull metal body. Within that body, however, were enough explosives to reduce homes to ruin and chew through tender skin.
Another shiver rattled down Grace’s spine.
Had it gone off, Mrs. Weatherford would have been killed. Ripped to pieces. And Grace would have been the one to come upon her.
“I’ve already notified the ARP post so a bomb disposal unit could be sent round.” Mrs. Weatherford spoke in a flat tone, as if she hadn’t a care. As if she didn’t acknowledge the danger.
Grace shook her head. “You could have been killed. If it had gone off, if it does go off, the explosion would have leveled the house and you would be…”
“But that didn’t happen, dear.” Mrs. Weatherford motioned Grace to the table and poured her a cup of tea. The small chain bracelet Grace had given her recently hung from her limp wrist, the flat oval at its center printed neatly with her name and address.
But even if she was wearing the wristlet, Grace wouldn’t be put off so easily. She pulled at Mrs. Weatherford, drawing her from the kitchen. “You could have been…” Grace’s voice faltered. “You cold have been hurt…like…”
Like Mrs. Driscoll.
“But I’m not.” Mrs. Weatherford sighed, almost appearing saddened by it. Regardless, she offered no protest as Grace nudged her out the front door.
“You could have been.” Grace blew her whistle to the ARP wardens just coming onto their shift and directed them to clear out the area before the bomb removal unit arrived.
When at last they were several streets away, with a cup of lukewarm tea from a WVS sponsored canteen, Grace managed to quell her panic and leveled a gaze at Mrs. Weatherford. “I know life has been difficult.”
Mrs. Weatherford closed her eyes in a slow, painful blink.
“Please,” Grace pleaded, her voice thick. “I have seen some terrible sights. I’ve witnessed what these bombs can do to people.”
Mrs. Weatherford’s stare drifted to Grace’s coat, now exposed in the daylight to reveal the grit and blood.
Things Mrs. Weatherford had never noticed before.
Several other people lingering near the mobile canteen unit appeared in a similar state, volunteers as well as bomb victims.
“Do you know what it would do to me to find you in such a state?” Grace’s voice was hoarse with the strain of her whisper. “I can’t—” Tears stung her eyes.
Mrs. Weatherford touched a hand to her mouth. “Oh, Grace. Dear, I’m so sorry.”
They said nothing else in the hours that dragged on before the disposal unit could come to take the unexploded bomb safely away.