Connie Willis - To Say Nothing of the Dog

There were five of us — Carruthers and the new recruit and myself, and Mr. Spivens and the verger. It was late afternoon on November the fifteenth, and we were in what was left of Coventry Cathedral, looking for the bishop’s bird stump.

Or at any rate I was. The new recruit was gawking at the blown-out stained-glass windows, Mr. Spivens was over by the vestry steps digging up something, and Carruthers was trying to convince the verger we were from the Auxiliary Fire Service.

“This is our squadron leader, Lieutenant Ned Henry,” he said, pointing at me, “and I’m Commander Carruthers, the post fire officer.”

“Which post?” the verger said, his eyes narrowed.

“Thirty-six,” Carruthers said at random.

“What about him?” the verger said, pointing at the new recruit, who was now trying to figure out how his pocket torch worked and who didn’t look bright enough to be a member of the Home Guard, let alone AFS.

“He’s my brother-in-law,” Carruthers improvised. “Egbert.”

“My wife tried to get me to hire her brother to work on the fire watch,” the verger said, shaking his head sympathetically. “Can’t walk across the kitchen without tripping over the cat. ‘How’s he supposed to put out incendiaries?’ I asks her. ‘He needs a job she says. ‘Let Hitler put him to work,’ I says.”

I left them to it and started down what had been the nave. There was no time to lose. We’d gotten here late, and even though it was only a bit past four, the smoke and masonry dust in the air already made it almost too dark to see.

The recruit had given up on his pocket torch and was watching Mr. Spivens digging determinedly into the rubble next to the steps. I sighted along him to determine where the north aisle had been and started working my way toward the back of the nave.

The bishop’s bird stump had stood on a wrought-iron stand in front of the parclose screen of the Smiths’ Chapel. I picked my way over the rubble, trying to work out where I was. Only the outer walls of the cathedral and the tower, with its beautiful spire, were still standing. Everything else — the roof, the vaulted ceiling, the clerestory arches, the pillars — had come crashing down into one giant unrecognizable heap of blackened rubble.

All right, I thought, standing on top of a roof beam, that was the apse, and along there was the Drapers’ Chapel, although there was no way to tell except by the blown-out windows. The stone arches had come down, and there was only the bayed wall left.

And here was the St. Laurence Chapel, I thought, scrabbling over the rubble on my hands and knees. The clutter of stone and charred beams was five feet high in this part of the cathedral, and slippery. It had drizzled off and on all day, turning the ash to blackish mud and making the lead slates from the roof as slick as ice.

The Girdlers’ Chapel. And this must be the Smiths’ Chapel. There was no sign of the parclose screen. I tried to judge how far from the windows it would have stood, and started digging.

The bishop’s bird stump wasn’t underneath the mass of twisted girders and broken stone, and neither was the parclose screen. A broken-off length of kneeling rail was, and part of a pew, which meant I was too far out into the nave.

I stood up, trying to orient myself. It’s amazing how much destruction can distort the sense of space. I knelt down and looked up the church toward the choir, trying to spot the base of any of the north aisle pillars to see how far out into the nave I was, but they were hopelessly buried.

I needed to find where the arch had been and work from there. I looked back up at the Girdlers’ Chapel’s east wall, aligned myself with it and the windows, and started digging again, looking for the supporting pillar of the arch.

It had been broken off six inches from the floor. I uncovered the space around it, then, sighting along it, tried to estimate where the screen would have been, and started digging again.

Nothing. I heaved up a jagged piece of the wooden ceiling, and under it was a giant slab of marble, cracked across. The altar. Now I was too far in. I sighted along the new recruit again, who was still watching Mr. Spivens dig, paced off ten feet, and started digging again.

“But we are from the AFS,” I heard Carruthers say to the verger.

“Are you certain you’re with the AFS?” the verger said. “Those coveralls don’t look like any AFS uniform I’ve ever seen.”

He wasn’t having any of it, and no wonder. Our uniforms had been intended for the middle of an air raid, when anyone in a tin helmet can pass for official. And for the middle of the night. Daylight was another matter. Carruthers’s helmet had a Royal Engineers insignia, mine was stencilled “ARP” and the new recruit’s was from another war altogether.

“Our regular uniforms were hit by a high explosive,” Carruthers said.

The verger didn’t look convinced. “If you’re from the fire service, why weren’t you here last night when you might have done some good?”

An excellent question, and one that Lady Schrapnell would be sure to ask me when I got back. “What do you mean you went through on the fifteenth, Ned?” I could hear her asking. “That’s a whole day late.”

Which was why I was scrabbling through smoking roof beams, burning my finger on a still-melted puddle of lead that had dripped down from the roof last night, and choking on masonry dust instead of reporting in.

I pried up part of an iron reinforcing girder, nursing my burnt finger, and started through the heap of roof slates and charred beams. I cut the finger I’d burnt on a broken-off piece of metal and stood up, sucking on it.

Carruthers and the verger were still at it. “I never heard of any Post Thirty-six,” the verger said suspiciously. “The AFS posts in Coventry only go up to Seventeen.”

“We’re from London,” Carruthers said. “A special detachment sent up to help out.”

“How’d your lot get through?” the verger said, picking up his shovel aggressively. “The roads are all blocked.”

It was time to lend assistance. I went over to where they were standing. “We came round Radford way,” I said, fairly sure the verger wouldn’t have been out that direction. “A milk lorry gave us a lift.”

“I thought there were barricades up,” the verger said, still clutching his shovel.

“We had special passes,” Carruthers said.

Mistake. The verger was likely to ask to see them. I said hastily, “The Queen sent us.”

That did it. The verger’s tin helmet came off, and he came to attention, his shovel like a staff. “Her Majesty?”

I placed my ARP helmet over my heart. “She said she couldn’t look Coventry in the face till she’d done something to help. ‘Their beautiful, beautiful cathedral,’ she said to us. ‘You must go up to Coventry straightaway and offer them whatever help you can.’”