Hi sparklers! Hope you all had a blessed thanksgiving! Shout outs to:
Ellie- oh my word I love those books AND movies!Xoxo! you're a kindred spirit. :D
Hibernia12-love ya, sister.
Jules- aww thank you so much!
And to all the awesome people who have followed and favorited this story- thank you!xxxxooo
Fenton raked his hand through his grey-brown hair. At nearly forty, he was still quite handsome, with a tall, muscular build like his sons. More than several people looked at him curiously as he exited the train in London. It had been a long journey, from boarding a warship and dodging German U-boats, and he was sure he looked rather rumpled and dirty.
Ah, well, it couldn't be helped. He shoved his hat on as he stepped out and gathered his luggage, deciding to walk to headquarters. He hadn't been here in a while, but several of his cases with NYPD had involved Scotland Yard, and he remembered the British Espionage Headquarters was right beside it. He grabbed his suitcase and began briskly walking, glancing at his surroundings every now and then.
It was strange, really. There would be a row of houses, and suddenly, there were none. A perfectly manicured lawn, and a sidewalk leading up to nothing but a pile of rubble. Shaking his head, he pressed forward.
He had read of it in the papers and heard it in the war bulletins and seen it in news reels, but it was still shocking, seeing the destruction. At home, of course they had air raid drills, but they never really were attacked. Here, air raid drills meant destruction- not a just-in-case practice. He shifted his suitcase to his other hand.
That was when he heard it, the siren, with the same tinny sound European sirens make.
"Go to the Tube!"
A woman yelled as she passed him, dragging a little boy along behind her. The Tube? Fenton clutched his suitcase and sprinted after the running crowd to the subway station. Well, that was the Tube. No time to think, to panic. Not now. Everyone calmly sat down in the rails to wait it out, like some kind of surreal silent movie.
He could hear planes zooming overhead, then a terrible crash, like thunder but a million times louder, and he knew that something had just been blown up. The siren was still whistling eerily, and the boy next to him sobbing.
There weren't many children left in the city, they'd been shipped to the safer countryside or to America. Regarding the boy, he was reminded a little of Frank as a child- the boy had the same dark hair and blue eyes. He wondered where his sons were, and he hoped and prayed they were both safe.
Fenton reflected that if you could take a bottle, pour the surrounding sounds in and cork it tightly, you would have a recording of the war. The planes roaring like some phantasm beast, wailing sirens, the little boy pounding the ground with chubby fists as tears streamed down his face, and, every now and then, echoing crashes that shook the station...
The all clear signal rang after what seemed like an eternity, and they all emerged from the Tube, blinking in the sun. The adults went back to work or chores. The child took his mother's hand and followed her down the street, kicking at pebbles.
And Fenton made his way to headquarters.