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.The drone of the planes overhead became a roar, and there was another whoosh, and a boom that sounded as if it were directly across the street.“The raids tonight are supposed to be in Bloomsbury,” Polly shouted up at the planes, “not Kensington.” She thought of Colin, warning her about stray bombs, about the hundreds of minor incidents which hadn’t made it into the historical record.“You’ve got no business being out in a raid,” he’d told her.You’re right, she thought, crouching back into the corner of the steps.There was another whoosh and a window-rattling boom several blocks away, and then a long, rising scream that sent Polly ducking down, her hands over her ears.The sound crescendoed to eardrum-rupturing intensity, and there was an anticlimactic thud and then a terrific flash, and the whole building shook as if it would come apart.Polly looked up at the brick walls on either side.They’re going to come crashing down, she thought, and no one will have any notion I’m in here.I’ve got to get out of here.“Open!” she shouted as if the techs in Oxford could hear her, and dived at the door.“Open!” but another bomb was already falling, drowning out her voice.The whoosh rose to a scream.Since England, despite her hopeless military situation, still shows no signs of willingness to come to terms, I have decided to begin preparations for, and if necessary to carry out, an invasion against her.ADOLF HITLER, 16 JULY 1940War Emergency Hospital—Summer 1940WHEN MIKE CAME TO, A NUN IN A WHITE VEIL WAS STANDING over him.Oh, God, he thought, I’m in France.The Lady Jane left me behind on the beach at Dunkirk, and the Germans are coming.But that couldn’t be right.He remembered coming back across the Channel, remembered sitting there at the dock, looking down at his shredded—“My foot,” he said, even though the nun wouldn’t be able to understand English.He tried to raise his head to see it.“It’s bleeding.”“There, there, you mustn’t think about that now,” the nun said, and she had a British accent, so he must be in England.But I didn’t think the English had nuns.Hadn’t Henry VIII burned down all the convents? He must not have, because the nun was bending over him, pulling the blanket up over his shoulders.“You must rest,” she said.“You’ve just come out of surgery—”“Surgery?” he said in alarm.He tried to sit up, but the moment he raised his head off the pillow, a wave of dizzying nausea washed over him, and he fell back, swallowing hard.“You’re still feeling the effects of the ether,” she said, her hands firmly on his chest to keep him from attempting to sit up again.“You must lie still.”“No.” He shook his head, and that was a mistake, too.I’m going to vomit all over her white habit, he thought, and swallowed hard.“You said they operated.Did they have to take off my foot?”“Try to sleep,” she said, covering him up again.“Did they?” he attempted to ask, but this time he did vomit, and while the nun was gone emptying the basin, he dozed off.And she was right, he must still be feeling the effects of the ether because he had strange drugged dreams—he was on the beach at Dunkirk with Private Hardy.“I’d have been a goner without your light,” Hardy said.“You saved my life,” but it wasn’t true.The boats had all left, and the Germans were coming.“It’s all right,” Mike told him.“We’ll use my drop,” but it wouldn’t open, and then he was in the water, trying to reach the Lady Jane, but she was already pulling away from the mole, she was already pulling out of the harbor, and when he tried to swim after her, the water was full of flames, it was so hot—I must have a fever, he thought, waking briefly.My foot must have gotten infected.Why aren’t they giving me antibiotics?Because they hadn’t been invented yet, and neither had antivirals or tissue regeneration.Had they even developed penicillin in 1940? I have to get out of here.I have to get back to Oxford.And he tried, but the nuns held him down and gave him an injection, and they must have had sedatives in 1940 because he ended up back in the flaming water.He couldn’t see the Lady Jane anywhere, but there was a light, shining this way and that.It’s Jonathan’s flashlight, he thought, and swam toward that, but he couldn’t reach it.“Wait!” he shouted, but the nun didn’t hear him.“No, no better, Doctor,” she said.“I fear he’s too ill to be moved,” but he must not have been, because when he woke up, after what seemed like days and days in his dream, he was in another bed, another, larger ward, with two long rows of white painted metal beds, and the nun was different, younger and with a white bibbed apron over her blue habit.But she said the same things: “You must rest,” and “His fever’s up again,” and “Go below and put your shoes on.We’ll be in Dunkirk soon.”“I can’t go to Dunkirk!” he told her as she pulled the blanket up over him, but they were already there.He could see the docks and the flames from the town and the enveloping black smoke.“You have to take me back!” he shouted.“I’m not supposed to be here! It’s a divergence point!”“Shh, you’re not going anywhere,” the nun said, and when he opened his eyes he was back in the bed, and she was standing next to it, holding his wrist, and the nausea and the splitting headache were gone.“I think the effects of the ether have worn off,” he said.“I should imagine so,” she said, and smiled.“I’ll fetch the doctor.”“No, wait.How long—?” but she had already disappeared through the double doors at the end of the ward.“Three weeks,” someone said, and Mike turned his head to look at the man in the bed next to him, or rather, boy—he couldn’t be more than seventeen.His head was bandaged, and his left arm was in a cast held up at an angle by pulleys and wires.“You mean three days?” Mike said.The boy shook his head.“It’s been three weeks since they operated on you [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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