CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Carnahan O'Connell Estate, October 1, 1940, mid-afternoon
Weary was an excellent adjective to use these past days. Daily and nightly the Luftwaffe kept bombing: the Docklands were destroyed, homes had vanished, families dispersed.
The unextinguishable fires resulting from the Docklands bombings had an unfortunate side effect: the fires made excellent beacons for the Luftwaffe pilots. And the pilots had unerringly targeted schools, train stations and railroad lines. London was running short of food supplies.
Time and again, there was one train which managed to slip into London: Puffing Billy brought food and fresh military recruits to London. By unspoken mutual consent, foreign journalists vowed to keep the train's origination and termination points a secret, just in case the Nazis read the foreign newspapers.
Most heartbreaking were the radio reports concerning London's children. The three O'Connell's wept openly when the BBC broadcast interviews with the children of London.
Most of the villagers had either courageously returned to their homes, or had deserted London for safer environs in the country. Excepting Alex, the village's children were sent to the Irish countryside at the O'Connell's expense.
And tonight the O'Connell's would shelter a dozen or so villagers whose homes were destroyed.
But there was one incongruity which perplexed both the adult O'Connells: despite the intense nightly destruction of London and the high loss of human life, London's nightlife had, in the past few weeks, seemed to intensify. It had been Alex who had proffered an explanation.
"See, mum and dad, my mates think we'll be the next to die. Tallulah died from shrapnel on her way to donate blood. It's like that; people think they're going to die, so they want to go out and have fun while they are still alive," he'd said with all his seventeen year old authority.
The explanation about London's burgeoning nightlife from Alex didn't make sense to either of the adult O'Connell's but apparently the explanation made perfect sense to the rest of the world. Every day, the BBC broadcast reports about the foreign press commenting on "how the courageous young people of London went about their daily activities as if thumbing their noses at the Luftwaffe and the horrible destruction being wrought by the bombs. What spirit!"
Radio reports were filled with news about how the two Princessess were buying yarn and knitting for the soldiers. England was especially proud of how Queen Elizabeth had decided to turn Windsor Castle into a farm to grow crops. Taking up the Queen's suggestion, Rick had thought the Queen's idea a splendid one and he decided to grow vegetables on the vast Carnahan O'Connell estate to supplement the meagre war rations.
Evie heard footsteps thundering up the stairs. "Alex! Stop running! You'll wake the dead!" Evie called out as she tried to shoo the duck from the bathtub. "Ducky! You know water is being rationed," Evie told the duck. Ducky, for his part, ignored Evie's statements to him.
The footsteps were now thudding down the hallway towards Rick and Evie's bedroom suite.
"Mum! Ardeth's made the news!" he thrust a newspaper at Evie. "Besides, I already woke the dead!" he said, remembering how he'd used the Book of the Dead to resurrect his mother eight years ago.
"Where did you get this? Did you go off the estate?" Evie asked at once, concerned for Alex's safety. The O'Connells had decided that it was necessary for someone to refresh supplies and to see to the villagers' needs, and although Rick had volunteered, Alex sometimes went in Rick's place.
Evie had been concerned at first, for Nuit had told the O'Connells that they should stay on their estate, but as the O'Connell's and the villagers had quickly learned, it was safe to go about the village when the bombers weren't in the sky; Nuit would rumble whenever a Luftwaffe raid was imminent and warn the villagers to return to the O'Connell estate.
However, the rule at the O'Connell's was that at least one of the three family members remain on the estate at all times.
Now as Evie looked at the headlines on the front page of The New York Times, she felt her heart flutter. "Oh my! He's made it to England?"
"Yeah, but to the wrong end. He's in Land's End. Read it, mum."
Penzance Ferry sinks off the Cornwall Coast in Surprise Storm
Land's End, September 25, 1940. The government-contracted supply ferry, Gilgamesh, sank in storm waters off Land's End two days ago. The ferry was on its way back from France to Penzance on an authorized supply run when the storm caught them unawares. "A freak wave nearly capsized the ferry," said the Captain Roger Wiltshire of Penzance. The captain and first mate Harry Blanch were found alive in the water, clinging to a piece of wood.
One other survivor, a deckhand hailing from Cairo, Egypt, was rescued from the notorious Wolf's Rock, site of the sinking of the submarine SS Joshua Nicholson on March 18, 1917.
Four year old David Dunlop, looking through a telescope from Zawn Reeth, had insisted to his mother that a man was shipwrecked on Wolf Rock, a treacherous rock outcrop 1.2 kilometres from Land's End. A sympathetic sailor, Thomas Wheaton of Savannah, Georgia, USA, in the true spirit of a seaman, went to investigate David's claim and found the shipwrecked deckhand clinging to life on Wolf's Rock. The deckhand's name was not immediately known.
"It's Seth again. But Ardeth outwitted him. Let's show this to dad. He can wire down to Land's End and see what we can do to get Ardeth here," Alex suggested after his mother had read the article.
"Is he really here? The paper says a deckhand hailing from Egypt was rescued." Evie didn't want to get her hopes up but hope flared in her heart and she wasn't sure if she could keep her face from betraying her feelings. She looked at article again, then at the name of the paper.
"Where did you get this paper? It's from New York!" she exclaimed.
"From a Canadian who got to town this morning," Alex said.
"How did he get here? Air and sea routes are closed!"
"He came via Toronto to Dublin, ferried to Cardiff, then came on the supply trains that are still running," Alex replied.
"Not the Canadian, dear. Ardeth! How did Ardeth get to England?" Evie asked, a frown creasing her brow.
"I suppose he'll tell us when he gets here," Alex replied.
"Why hasn't he at least sent a telegram? He must have been in England for nearly a week," Evie stated, her eyebrows knitting in confusion.
Alex stroked his chin. "That is strange. I'll go ask dad if he's received any telegrams," he said as he sprinted out of the bedroom and down the hallway. Evie's voice floated after him,
"Alex! Be careful!" she called, then she addressed the duck.
"I'm going to leave the bathtub to you, Ducky," she told the duck. Since the 7th, the male duck had made himself quite at home in the O'Connell residence, going so far as to make a morning ritual of flying up and down the stairwell each day--quacking loudly--as his way of ensuring the O'Connell household greeted the new sunrise.
"Quack, quaaaaccck, quack, QUACK!" Ducky said to no one in particular, as he swam serenely in the bathtub.
Evie left the bedroom and went to find Rick. As she went, she began reading the accounts that Londoners gave to the foreign press.
Danni, Age 6, Stepney, London
The bombs were terrible when they fell. I was having high tea with mummy when I heard a loud explosion. She motioned for me to get down under the table but another explosion turned the table onto its side. Mummy and me hid.
And we fell asleep during the second bombardment. The next morning my mummy went outside to see the neighborhood. She came back and told me that my best friend's house was destroyed. And mummy told me my best friend Carol and her mum were lying dead in the grass of her front lawn.
Mummy covered her up with a tablecloth. Then she did something unusual: mummy rummaged around the remains of the home and took all the food. She brought these items back to our house. Then she went back and took all their silverware. She told me she was going to keep the silverware safe until Carol's relatives can send for it. They live overseas and are glad to know their family valuables are safe.
I heard on the beeb that people were looting destroyed homes for the valuables. Mummy says that's not what we did: we're safekeeping Carol's silverware. Her relatives know we have it for Mummy got word to them. Later we found out that Carol's dad and Carol's little sister Michelle were wounded but they left the country.
Now we have to go to bomb shelters every night. My seventh birthday is in November. I hope the war is over then. I don't want to spend my birthday in a bomb shelter. I hate war.
Paul Perlman, 41, South London
He's got us where he wants us, all right. With the shape of the Thames, London is a no-miss target. But blitz or no blitz, the nightlife of London goes on. One would think that nightlife would stop, all the entertainment would shut down, with the Luftwaffe dropping bombs every night.
But the young Londoners think they might not have a long life and you know how the young think: they might as well enjoy themselves for they might not be alive tomorrow night. So the young Londoners head out to their favorite pubs in Central London. The local council looks the other way when the pub owners stretch the licensing hours.
Sometimes the hours are stretched all night. I usually like to go to the mess hall when I'm off duty--I'm a quartermaster--where a LACW will serve bacon, eggs and hot coffee. I know what you're thinking: an Englishman drinking coffee when you thought all English people drank tea. I like coffee better than tea and I met my new girlfriend while drinking coffee in a shop down in Piccadilly.
Bad conclusion to draw, I know, but this is war and I'll take meeting a new girlfriend while drinking coffee over watching a bomb destroy a London neighborhood any day.
Linda Burns, Watford
My childhood semi-detached was bombed back in '18, when I was fourteen. I had been in the basement when the bombs fell and I was the only survivor from my family. My mum, dad, two sisters and my brother were outside in the garden when the bomb dropped on our neighbors.
My family was killed instantly. Physically, I lost my right eye and three fingers from my right hand from '18. That didn't stop me from going to work though. I was fourteen and had no other family to take me in. The social people tried to place me with different families but I ran away from every home. So they finally put me into a gardening job.
That was good work for my mangled right hand. That's what I do now for England: growing a garden. The Queen had a most wonderful idea of using Windsor Castle to grow crops for the war effort. The two Princesses come round to the estates to help with the work sometimes. Good patriotic spirit in Princesses Elizabeth and Margaret.
When I heard about the gardens, I went down and applied to be a gardener. Now I go around to the various Estates and oversee the planting of the crops. That's good work for me, because the homes on my street were destroyed on the 7th. Actually, our street seemed to be overlooked when the bombs first started dropping at high tea time. But during the overnight onslaught, my house was destroyed.
So I like the fact that I can get lodging in the Royal Estates as I oversee the planting of the war gardens. It seems like I'm destined to be homeless every twenty years or so, so it looks like I'll be in my mid fifties when I lose another of my homes.
Hettie Williams, Chauffeur, Piccadilly
I don't like to talk about the 7th. Karen can do that. In my off hours, me and the Brylcreem Boys go around to the coffeeshops when they come off duty. My regular job is to pick up the airmen coming in on Puffing Billy. Puffing Billy's the name is the name of the transport that brings in food and airmen.
I won't tell you where Puffing Billy originates or terminates because the SS might have their eye on this newspaper and then bomb Puffing Billy.
The Brylcreem Boys' CO gives a day off every four or five days. So the Brylcreem Boys come to London and I drive them around, seeing the sights like Westminster Abbey and the Tower of London. They're young and war or not, they need to unwind.
The Brylcreem Boys keep me in nylons, lipstick and cigarettes, so I would like to say thank you their families in America for sending those items. I picked up the term cigarettes from the Americans.
It's a wonder that my own street has escaped a lot of the damage but with the daily bombings, I suppose that will become a thing of the past. There are areas of London that the British soldiers won't let us drive through because of the fires, especially at the docklands, and the debris from the destroyed homes. The bombed out homes are still smoking.
Karen Wilson, South Ealing
Hettie might not like to talk about the 7th but she's just too shaken. I'm shaken too. Four hundred eighty eight people died on the 7th.
When the planes first moved towards London, I thought it was a huge thunderstorm coming. I remember feeling a bit let down when I saw the thick line of black in the sky moving towards London at high tea time. English weather is wet and rotten on an ordinary day, and although the 7th was a nice, sunny day, English weather is known to turn in a heartbeat. So I thought: a squall.
Then I went about setting out the silver for high tea. As I was pouring the tea, I thought: we're inland! That's when I knew the war had come to London.
August 24th had seen a lot of heavy Luftwaffe activity. Portsmouth, Dover, Ramsgate, South Wales, Birmingham, most of the north-east coast and a lot of airfields were targeted with bombs. A few bombs dropped over Central London but the papers the next day reported that the bombs were inadvertant.
We learned later that England retaliated for the 24th by bombing Germany. Apparently, Hitler didn't like our actions. Nobody in my family really believed that the bombs over London on the 24th were inadvertant.
It seemed we were just existing in kind of a daze, waiting day after day for the bombs to start dropping over London. Hitler seems like the "take it all" kind of person--I don't really want to call him a man and I'm being kind when I say person--and he seems to be methodically taking over Europe. But he won't win. London will never fall.
I have faith in our country. And I have faith in mysterious things, you know, those ethereal kind of things. Magic, some people call it for I've Egyptian blood running in my veins from my grandmother's side. And I just have a feeling that we'll beat Hitler and send him packing back to where he belongs.
Evie, having managed to get nearly all the way down the stairs while reading the newspaper accounts, slipped on something left on the stairs. "Aaaaaahhhhhh!" she said as she fell rather hard down the remaining stairs.
"I'm okay! It's just my rotten luck!" she called out to no one in particular. Taking stock of herself, she found that all she had bruised was her ego.
Twisting around to see what she had tripped on, she saw a most unwelcome sight: Ducky had left a calling card on the stair.
"Either he wears diapers or he will have to find a nice pond somewheres," Evie said halfheartedly. But she really didn't have the heart to displace Ducky.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Article in The London Times
London, October 2.
Carrying six survivors, the derelict supply ferry, Gilgamesh, was found a kilometer offshore from Plymouth. The Gilgamesh was thought to have sunk in storm waters off Wolf Rock (Land's End) on September 23. The captain, Roger Wiltshire, had thought the ferry sunk when a freak wave nearly capsized the boat with six lives lost. The six survivors, all crew hands of the Gilgamesh, after a medical exam, were found to be healthy, if a bit hungry and thirsty.
The cargo of the Gilgamesh was found intact. It is not known how the ferry's crew survived without food for over a week, although the crew related the same strange dream of being surrounded in a golden light. The six survivors did express surprise upon learning the date, for they had thought just a few hours had passed. The captain expressed profound relief at the survival of his entire crew, whom he thought perished in last week's storm.
The cargo of the ferry will be delivered to its destinations. Although the ferry did not suffer external damage, the captain thought it best to decommision the ferry, sell it, and purchase another. "I can't have the name of my ferry being bantered around the newspapers. You never know who is reading," he said.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The Afterlife, Sometime in Eternity
Taita had found Lostris dancing with the four year old girl Taita had noticed earlier. Lostris had immediately agreed to The Great Imhotep's request (she had, as a child, been as fascinated with the Architect as Taita himself was) and she was now off in a trance, attempting to communicate with the Keeper of the Bracelet.
While she was off in her trance--and Taita didn't know how long she would need to contact the Keeper--he decided he would use the spare time to get some of his questions answered.
Spotting a young boy-King sporting the Double Crown of Egypt, Taita turned his steps towards the young King. Taita was familiar with Egypt's List of Kings and this young man didn't figure in Taita's knowledge of Egypt at the time of Taita's death..
Then a thought struck him and he paused in mid-step: Lord Intef had given him--a slave--the opportunity for education, and he had used that knowledge to create the Bracelet of Lostris. By being one of the very few Egyptians to attain literacy, Taita had been able to gain access to the Book of Thoth--heavily guarded even in his own day but a ransacked Theben Temple had given Taita the opportunity to save a copy.
And using the magic contained in the Book was going to help the Restorer repel the invaders of London, and thus prevent the Dark One's forces from re-gaining Egypt.
Taita smiled. How strange things were, interlocking in circles. Lord Intef appeared, to Taita's mind, as a pivotal figure in history. First Lord Intef had purchased the eight year old Taita in the slave market, and then gave him the gift of education. An adult Taita had become Intef's right hand man, running the Grand Vizier Intef's business on his behalf.
Later on, after Lostris had married Pharoah and requested Taita as her wedding gift, Lord Intef had betrayed Egypt twice before going into exile. Taita had given the knowledge to the Pharaoh of Intef's second betrayal of Egypt.
Egypt was further betrayed a third time by Intef. And it came to pass that after ten days of waiting on the plain near Abnub, and nearly a thousand years after its invention, the chariot, wheeled with a solid disk and drawn by the Russian steppe horse, was introduced into Egypt by way of warfare.
And Egypt had fallen quickly to the invaders. But during the occupation and pillaging of Egypt, Taita had sought to improve upon--successfully, by creating the six spoke wheel--the design of the chariot. And with his literacy, he had sought to create improved magical spells to preserve the ancient knowledge.
A few of those improved spells had been instilled in the Bracelet of Lostris. Now the Bracelet that he had created would be used to expel the invaders of London--and the potential invaders of Egypt.
Circles within circles. Was Lord Intef a curse? A blessing in disguise? Taita would never know, for Lord Intef was in the Underworld.
He started to resume his walk to see the young boy-King but excited caws, meows and yips came faintly behind him. Turning, he saw running and flying towards him, his beloved puppies, cats and birds that had been poisoned by Lord Intef...well, Lord Intef had caused poison to be put into the sour milk that Taita had fed his beloved animals. He'd had the dead animals mummified and they had been waiting for him in the fields of the Afterlife.
He was bowled over by his menagerie. The young boy-King noticed the commotion and soon Taita heard a cheerful royal summons: "Come! Tell Pharaoh Tutanhkamen what you have there!"
Suspecting what the young king was wanting, Taita whistled to his animals and they followed him obediently as he walked over to Pharaoh Tut and made his obesiences.
"You aided my predecessor, Pharaoh Mamose," the young Pharaoh observed after Taita had risen from his obesiance.
"What you have heard is true, my King."
"Tell me, may I have this puppy?" King Tut said, making a sorry attempt to avoid the wet kisses of one of Taita's puppies--a female aged just two months when she had been given the poisoned milk.
"Yes, my King. She is yours. Her name is Lanata. She is a very lovable personality and enjoys sleeping with humans. Althought you might want to watch out for unwelcome presents in your bed upon awakening," he added drily.
"Lanata was the baby-name of Queen Lostris," King Tut observed wryly as Lanata successfully covered the young King's face with sloppy doggy kisses. The two men laughed, and King Tut motioned for Taita to step along with him as they went off to find somewhere they could talk.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Horse hooves galloped fast over the countryside just outside of Windsor Castle. His mount was fresh. Ardeth had assessed the situation and had come to the same conclusion that Rick had: riding a horse was much faster than trying to catch a train which ran sporadically.
He had found his journey through the mists of Cornwall to be rapid, and Cornwallian hospitality was the best on this side of the Mediterranean. Only his native Tuareg provided the same level of hospitality, for in the Sahara, when one came upon a tribe of Tuareg, one was welcomed for three days. The dessicating Sahara sapped the strength of even the strongest person, and the strongest beast. Three days was enough to rest and rejuvenate.
The one anomaly that perplexed Ardeth was the Cornwallian natives' tendency to refer to him as "King Arthur."
The "Arthur" he understood; David's referral to him as "Arder" was natural for a four year old for even the young children in his own tribe often mispronounced words. Martha's interpretation of "Arder" as "Arthur" didn't bother him; Ardeth was well aware of the differences in pronunciations by speakers of different languages.
Nor did the moniker of King Arthur bother Ardeth. Conversely, he had discovered that upon hearing the gallop of the horse he was riding, the natives of Cornwall had been quick to saddle up fresh horses, provide a hot bath, hot meals, fresh clothes while his own were being washed, and a warm bed. All these were offered, even before he'd dismounted from his sweaty horse.
"Ay, call down to the dairy and fetch King Arthur a fresh pail of milk!" someone would call as Ardeth's mount, sweating and tired, galloped up to a farm house.
"Ay, call upon Mary to fetch King Arthur a hot bath and a hot meal!" came the call from a farmhand to someone in the house as Ardeth swung over the side of the panting horse.
"Ready and saddle up a fresh horse for King Arthur!" came another cry as Ardeth's feet came into contact with the ground.
Farmhands and stable boys would come running to tend to the horse and make ready a stable. And, as always, when possible, the Cornwallians drove Ardeth to his next destination, or as far as they were able, given the blackout restrictions.
There were dark shadows underneath Ardeth's eyes, for he was sleeping less and travelling more. A bombing of some of the coastal ports meant that Ardeth had been delayed a few days, but he'd spent those days in relative comfort, regaining some of the sleep he'd lost, but the worry about his arriving in London weighed heavy on his heart.
And for some reason, he had been unable to find out Martin's whereabouts. He knew Martin was alive, for somehow the Bracelet had formed a tenuous link between the two men. He rather suspected that knowledge of Martin's whereabouts were being kept from him by Seth.
Carnahan O'Connell Estate, October 1, 1940, mid-afternoon
Weary was an excellent adjective to use these past days. Daily and nightly the Luftwaffe kept bombing: the Docklands were destroyed, homes had vanished, families dispersed.
The unextinguishable fires resulting from the Docklands bombings had an unfortunate side effect: the fires made excellent beacons for the Luftwaffe pilots. And the pilots had unerringly targeted schools, train stations and railroad lines. London was running short of food supplies.
Time and again, there was one train which managed to slip into London: Puffing Billy brought food and fresh military recruits to London. By unspoken mutual consent, foreign journalists vowed to keep the train's origination and termination points a secret, just in case the Nazis read the foreign newspapers.
Most heartbreaking were the radio reports concerning London's children. The three O'Connell's wept openly when the BBC broadcast interviews with the children of London.
Most of the villagers had either courageously returned to their homes, or had deserted London for safer environs in the country. Excepting Alex, the village's children were sent to the Irish countryside at the O'Connell's expense.
And tonight the O'Connell's would shelter a dozen or so villagers whose homes were destroyed.
But there was one incongruity which perplexed both the adult O'Connells: despite the intense nightly destruction of London and the high loss of human life, London's nightlife had, in the past few weeks, seemed to intensify. It had been Alex who had proffered an explanation.
"See, mum and dad, my mates think we'll be the next to die. Tallulah died from shrapnel on her way to donate blood. It's like that; people think they're going to die, so they want to go out and have fun while they are still alive," he'd said with all his seventeen year old authority.
The explanation about London's burgeoning nightlife from Alex didn't make sense to either of the adult O'Connell's but apparently the explanation made perfect sense to the rest of the world. Every day, the BBC broadcast reports about the foreign press commenting on "how the courageous young people of London went about their daily activities as if thumbing their noses at the Luftwaffe and the horrible destruction being wrought by the bombs. What spirit!"
Radio reports were filled with news about how the two Princessess were buying yarn and knitting for the soldiers. England was especially proud of how Queen Elizabeth had decided to turn Windsor Castle into a farm to grow crops. Taking up the Queen's suggestion, Rick had thought the Queen's idea a splendid one and he decided to grow vegetables on the vast Carnahan O'Connell estate to supplement the meagre war rations.
Evie heard footsteps thundering up the stairs. "Alex! Stop running! You'll wake the dead!" Evie called out as she tried to shoo the duck from the bathtub. "Ducky! You know water is being rationed," Evie told the duck. Ducky, for his part, ignored Evie's statements to him.
The footsteps were now thudding down the hallway towards Rick and Evie's bedroom suite.
"Mum! Ardeth's made the news!" he thrust a newspaper at Evie. "Besides, I already woke the dead!" he said, remembering how he'd used the Book of the Dead to resurrect his mother eight years ago.
"Where did you get this? Did you go off the estate?" Evie asked at once, concerned for Alex's safety. The O'Connells had decided that it was necessary for someone to refresh supplies and to see to the villagers' needs, and although Rick had volunteered, Alex sometimes went in Rick's place.
Evie had been concerned at first, for Nuit had told the O'Connells that they should stay on their estate, but as the O'Connell's and the villagers had quickly learned, it was safe to go about the village when the bombers weren't in the sky; Nuit would rumble whenever a Luftwaffe raid was imminent and warn the villagers to return to the O'Connell estate.
However, the rule at the O'Connell's was that at least one of the three family members remain on the estate at all times.
Now as Evie looked at the headlines on the front page of The New York Times, she felt her heart flutter. "Oh my! He's made it to England?"
"Yeah, but to the wrong end. He's in Land's End. Read it, mum."
Penzance Ferry sinks off the Cornwall Coast in Surprise Storm
Land's End, September 25, 1940. The government-contracted supply ferry, Gilgamesh, sank in storm waters off Land's End two days ago. The ferry was on its way back from France to Penzance on an authorized supply run when the storm caught them unawares. "A freak wave nearly capsized the ferry," said the Captain Roger Wiltshire of Penzance. The captain and first mate Harry Blanch were found alive in the water, clinging to a piece of wood.
One other survivor, a deckhand hailing from Cairo, Egypt, was rescued from the notorious Wolf's Rock, site of the sinking of the submarine SS Joshua Nicholson on March 18, 1917.
Four year old David Dunlop, looking through a telescope from Zawn Reeth, had insisted to his mother that a man was shipwrecked on Wolf Rock, a treacherous rock outcrop 1.2 kilometres from Land's End. A sympathetic sailor, Thomas Wheaton of Savannah, Georgia, USA, in the true spirit of a seaman, went to investigate David's claim and found the shipwrecked deckhand clinging to life on Wolf's Rock. The deckhand's name was not immediately known.
"It's Seth again. But Ardeth outwitted him. Let's show this to dad. He can wire down to Land's End and see what we can do to get Ardeth here," Alex suggested after his mother had read the article.
"Is he really here? The paper says a deckhand hailing from Egypt was rescued." Evie didn't want to get her hopes up but hope flared in her heart and she wasn't sure if she could keep her face from betraying her feelings. She looked at article again, then at the name of the paper.
"Where did you get this paper? It's from New York!" she exclaimed.
"From a Canadian who got to town this morning," Alex said.
"How did he get here? Air and sea routes are closed!"
"He came via Toronto to Dublin, ferried to Cardiff, then came on the supply trains that are still running," Alex replied.
"Not the Canadian, dear. Ardeth! How did Ardeth get to England?" Evie asked, a frown creasing her brow.
"I suppose he'll tell us when he gets here," Alex replied.
"Why hasn't he at least sent a telegram? He must have been in England for nearly a week," Evie stated, her eyebrows knitting in confusion.
Alex stroked his chin. "That is strange. I'll go ask dad if he's received any telegrams," he said as he sprinted out of the bedroom and down the hallway. Evie's voice floated after him,
"Alex! Be careful!" she called, then she addressed the duck.
"I'm going to leave the bathtub to you, Ducky," she told the duck. Since the 7th, the male duck had made himself quite at home in the O'Connell residence, going so far as to make a morning ritual of flying up and down the stairwell each day--quacking loudly--as his way of ensuring the O'Connell household greeted the new sunrise.
"Quack, quaaaaccck, quack, QUACK!" Ducky said to no one in particular, as he swam serenely in the bathtub.
Evie left the bedroom and went to find Rick. As she went, she began reading the accounts that Londoners gave to the foreign press.
Danni, Age 6, Stepney, London
The bombs were terrible when they fell. I was having high tea with mummy when I heard a loud explosion. She motioned for me to get down under the table but another explosion turned the table onto its side. Mummy and me hid.
And we fell asleep during the second bombardment. The next morning my mummy went outside to see the neighborhood. She came back and told me that my best friend's house was destroyed. And mummy told me my best friend Carol and her mum were lying dead in the grass of her front lawn.
Mummy covered her up with a tablecloth. Then she did something unusual: mummy rummaged around the remains of the home and took all the food. She brought these items back to our house. Then she went back and took all their silverware. She told me she was going to keep the silverware safe until Carol's relatives can send for it. They live overseas and are glad to know their family valuables are safe.
I heard on the beeb that people were looting destroyed homes for the valuables. Mummy says that's not what we did: we're safekeeping Carol's silverware. Her relatives know we have it for Mummy got word to them. Later we found out that Carol's dad and Carol's little sister Michelle were wounded but they left the country.
Now we have to go to bomb shelters every night. My seventh birthday is in November. I hope the war is over then. I don't want to spend my birthday in a bomb shelter. I hate war.
Paul Perlman, 41, South London
He's got us where he wants us, all right. With the shape of the Thames, London is a no-miss target. But blitz or no blitz, the nightlife of London goes on. One would think that nightlife would stop, all the entertainment would shut down, with the Luftwaffe dropping bombs every night.
But the young Londoners think they might not have a long life and you know how the young think: they might as well enjoy themselves for they might not be alive tomorrow night. So the young Londoners head out to their favorite pubs in Central London. The local council looks the other way when the pub owners stretch the licensing hours.
Sometimes the hours are stretched all night. I usually like to go to the mess hall when I'm off duty--I'm a quartermaster--where a LACW will serve bacon, eggs and hot coffee. I know what you're thinking: an Englishman drinking coffee when you thought all English people drank tea. I like coffee better than tea and I met my new girlfriend while drinking coffee in a shop down in Piccadilly.
Bad conclusion to draw, I know, but this is war and I'll take meeting a new girlfriend while drinking coffee over watching a bomb destroy a London neighborhood any day.
Linda Burns, Watford
My childhood semi-detached was bombed back in '18, when I was fourteen. I had been in the basement when the bombs fell and I was the only survivor from my family. My mum, dad, two sisters and my brother were outside in the garden when the bomb dropped on our neighbors.
My family was killed instantly. Physically, I lost my right eye and three fingers from my right hand from '18. That didn't stop me from going to work though. I was fourteen and had no other family to take me in. The social people tried to place me with different families but I ran away from every home. So they finally put me into a gardening job.
That was good work for my mangled right hand. That's what I do now for England: growing a garden. The Queen had a most wonderful idea of using Windsor Castle to grow crops for the war effort. The two Princesses come round to the estates to help with the work sometimes. Good patriotic spirit in Princesses Elizabeth and Margaret.
When I heard about the gardens, I went down and applied to be a gardener. Now I go around to the various Estates and oversee the planting of the crops. That's good work for me, because the homes on my street were destroyed on the 7th. Actually, our street seemed to be overlooked when the bombs first started dropping at high tea time. But during the overnight onslaught, my house was destroyed.
So I like the fact that I can get lodging in the Royal Estates as I oversee the planting of the war gardens. It seems like I'm destined to be homeless every twenty years or so, so it looks like I'll be in my mid fifties when I lose another of my homes.
Hettie Williams, Chauffeur, Piccadilly
I don't like to talk about the 7th. Karen can do that. In my off hours, me and the Brylcreem Boys go around to the coffeeshops when they come off duty. My regular job is to pick up the airmen coming in on Puffing Billy. Puffing Billy's the name is the name of the transport that brings in food and airmen.
I won't tell you where Puffing Billy originates or terminates because the SS might have their eye on this newspaper and then bomb Puffing Billy.
The Brylcreem Boys' CO gives a day off every four or five days. So the Brylcreem Boys come to London and I drive them around, seeing the sights like Westminster Abbey and the Tower of London. They're young and war or not, they need to unwind.
The Brylcreem Boys keep me in nylons, lipstick and cigarettes, so I would like to say thank you their families in America for sending those items. I picked up the term cigarettes from the Americans.
It's a wonder that my own street has escaped a lot of the damage but with the daily bombings, I suppose that will become a thing of the past. There are areas of London that the British soldiers won't let us drive through because of the fires, especially at the docklands, and the debris from the destroyed homes. The bombed out homes are still smoking.
Karen Wilson, South Ealing
Hettie might not like to talk about the 7th but she's just too shaken. I'm shaken too. Four hundred eighty eight people died on the 7th.
When the planes first moved towards London, I thought it was a huge thunderstorm coming. I remember feeling a bit let down when I saw the thick line of black in the sky moving towards London at high tea time. English weather is wet and rotten on an ordinary day, and although the 7th was a nice, sunny day, English weather is known to turn in a heartbeat. So I thought: a squall.
Then I went about setting out the silver for high tea. As I was pouring the tea, I thought: we're inland! That's when I knew the war had come to London.
August 24th had seen a lot of heavy Luftwaffe activity. Portsmouth, Dover, Ramsgate, South Wales, Birmingham, most of the north-east coast and a lot of airfields were targeted with bombs. A few bombs dropped over Central London but the papers the next day reported that the bombs were inadvertant.
We learned later that England retaliated for the 24th by bombing Germany. Apparently, Hitler didn't like our actions. Nobody in my family really believed that the bombs over London on the 24th were inadvertant.
It seemed we were just existing in kind of a daze, waiting day after day for the bombs to start dropping over London. Hitler seems like the "take it all" kind of person--I don't really want to call him a man and I'm being kind when I say person--and he seems to be methodically taking over Europe. But he won't win. London will never fall.
I have faith in our country. And I have faith in mysterious things, you know, those ethereal kind of things. Magic, some people call it for I've Egyptian blood running in my veins from my grandmother's side. And I just have a feeling that we'll beat Hitler and send him packing back to where he belongs.
Evie, having managed to get nearly all the way down the stairs while reading the newspaper accounts, slipped on something left on the stairs. "Aaaaaahhhhhh!" she said as she fell rather hard down the remaining stairs.
"I'm okay! It's just my rotten luck!" she called out to no one in particular. Taking stock of herself, she found that all she had bruised was her ego.
Twisting around to see what she had tripped on, she saw a most unwelcome sight: Ducky had left a calling card on the stair.
"Either he wears diapers or he will have to find a nice pond somewheres," Evie said halfheartedly. But she really didn't have the heart to displace Ducky.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Article in The London Times
London, October 2.
Carrying six survivors, the derelict supply ferry, Gilgamesh, was found a kilometer offshore from Plymouth. The Gilgamesh was thought to have sunk in storm waters off Wolf Rock (Land's End) on September 23. The captain, Roger Wiltshire, had thought the ferry sunk when a freak wave nearly capsized the boat with six lives lost. The six survivors, all crew hands of the Gilgamesh, after a medical exam, were found to be healthy, if a bit hungry and thirsty.
The cargo of the Gilgamesh was found intact. It is not known how the ferry's crew survived without food for over a week, although the crew related the same strange dream of being surrounded in a golden light. The six survivors did express surprise upon learning the date, for they had thought just a few hours had passed. The captain expressed profound relief at the survival of his entire crew, whom he thought perished in last week's storm.
The cargo of the ferry will be delivered to its destinations. Although the ferry did not suffer external damage, the captain thought it best to decommision the ferry, sell it, and purchase another. "I can't have the name of my ferry being bantered around the newspapers. You never know who is reading," he said.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The Afterlife, Sometime in Eternity
Taita had found Lostris dancing with the four year old girl Taita had noticed earlier. Lostris had immediately agreed to The Great Imhotep's request (she had, as a child, been as fascinated with the Architect as Taita himself was) and she was now off in a trance, attempting to communicate with the Keeper of the Bracelet.
While she was off in her trance--and Taita didn't know how long she would need to contact the Keeper--he decided he would use the spare time to get some of his questions answered.
Spotting a young boy-King sporting the Double Crown of Egypt, Taita turned his steps towards the young King. Taita was familiar with Egypt's List of Kings and this young man didn't figure in Taita's knowledge of Egypt at the time of Taita's death..
Then a thought struck him and he paused in mid-step: Lord Intef had given him--a slave--the opportunity for education, and he had used that knowledge to create the Bracelet of Lostris. By being one of the very few Egyptians to attain literacy, Taita had been able to gain access to the Book of Thoth--heavily guarded even in his own day but a ransacked Theben Temple had given Taita the opportunity to save a copy.
And using the magic contained in the Book was going to help the Restorer repel the invaders of London, and thus prevent the Dark One's forces from re-gaining Egypt.
Taita smiled. How strange things were, interlocking in circles. Lord Intef appeared, to Taita's mind, as a pivotal figure in history. First Lord Intef had purchased the eight year old Taita in the slave market, and then gave him the gift of education. An adult Taita had become Intef's right hand man, running the Grand Vizier Intef's business on his behalf.
Later on, after Lostris had married Pharoah and requested Taita as her wedding gift, Lord Intef had betrayed Egypt twice before going into exile. Taita had given the knowledge to the Pharaoh of Intef's second betrayal of Egypt.
Egypt was further betrayed a third time by Intef. And it came to pass that after ten days of waiting on the plain near Abnub, and nearly a thousand years after its invention, the chariot, wheeled with a solid disk and drawn by the Russian steppe horse, was introduced into Egypt by way of warfare.
And Egypt had fallen quickly to the invaders. But during the occupation and pillaging of Egypt, Taita had sought to improve upon--successfully, by creating the six spoke wheel--the design of the chariot. And with his literacy, he had sought to create improved magical spells to preserve the ancient knowledge.
A few of those improved spells had been instilled in the Bracelet of Lostris. Now the Bracelet that he had created would be used to expel the invaders of London--and the potential invaders of Egypt.
Circles within circles. Was Lord Intef a curse? A blessing in disguise? Taita would never know, for Lord Intef was in the Underworld.
He started to resume his walk to see the young boy-King but excited caws, meows and yips came faintly behind him. Turning, he saw running and flying towards him, his beloved puppies, cats and birds that had been poisoned by Lord Intef...well, Lord Intef had caused poison to be put into the sour milk that Taita had fed his beloved animals. He'd had the dead animals mummified and they had been waiting for him in the fields of the Afterlife.
He was bowled over by his menagerie. The young boy-King noticed the commotion and soon Taita heard a cheerful royal summons: "Come! Tell Pharaoh Tutanhkamen what you have there!"
Suspecting what the young king was wanting, Taita whistled to his animals and they followed him obediently as he walked over to Pharaoh Tut and made his obesiences.
"You aided my predecessor, Pharaoh Mamose," the young Pharaoh observed after Taita had risen from his obesiance.
"What you have heard is true, my King."
"Tell me, may I have this puppy?" King Tut said, making a sorry attempt to avoid the wet kisses of one of Taita's puppies--a female aged just two months when she had been given the poisoned milk.
"Yes, my King. She is yours. Her name is Lanata. She is a very lovable personality and enjoys sleeping with humans. Althought you might want to watch out for unwelcome presents in your bed upon awakening," he added drily.
"Lanata was the baby-name of Queen Lostris," King Tut observed wryly as Lanata successfully covered the young King's face with sloppy doggy kisses. The two men laughed, and King Tut motioned for Taita to step along with him as they went off to find somewhere they could talk.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Horse hooves galloped fast over the countryside just outside of Windsor Castle. His mount was fresh. Ardeth had assessed the situation and had come to the same conclusion that Rick had: riding a horse was much faster than trying to catch a train which ran sporadically.
He had found his journey through the mists of Cornwall to be rapid, and Cornwallian hospitality was the best on this side of the Mediterranean. Only his native Tuareg provided the same level of hospitality, for in the Sahara, when one came upon a tribe of Tuareg, one was welcomed for three days. The dessicating Sahara sapped the strength of even the strongest person, and the strongest beast. Three days was enough to rest and rejuvenate.
The one anomaly that perplexed Ardeth was the Cornwallian natives' tendency to refer to him as "King Arthur."
The "Arthur" he understood; David's referral to him as "Arder" was natural for a four year old for even the young children in his own tribe often mispronounced words. Martha's interpretation of "Arder" as "Arthur" didn't bother him; Ardeth was well aware of the differences in pronunciations by speakers of different languages.
Nor did the moniker of King Arthur bother Ardeth. Conversely, he had discovered that upon hearing the gallop of the horse he was riding, the natives of Cornwall had been quick to saddle up fresh horses, provide a hot bath, hot meals, fresh clothes while his own were being washed, and a warm bed. All these were offered, even before he'd dismounted from his sweaty horse.
"Ay, call down to the dairy and fetch King Arthur a fresh pail of milk!" someone would call as Ardeth's mount, sweating and tired, galloped up to a farm house.
"Ay, call upon Mary to fetch King Arthur a hot bath and a hot meal!" came the call from a farmhand to someone in the house as Ardeth swung over the side of the panting horse.
"Ready and saddle up a fresh horse for King Arthur!" came another cry as Ardeth's feet came into contact with the ground.
Farmhands and stable boys would come running to tend to the horse and make ready a stable. And, as always, when possible, the Cornwallians drove Ardeth to his next destination, or as far as they were able, given the blackout restrictions.
There were dark shadows underneath Ardeth's eyes, for he was sleeping less and travelling more. A bombing of some of the coastal ports meant that Ardeth had been delayed a few days, but he'd spent those days in relative comfort, regaining some of the sleep he'd lost, but the worry about his arriving in London weighed heavy on his heart.
And for some reason, he had been unable to find out Martin's whereabouts. He knew Martin was alive, for somehow the Bracelet had formed a tenuous link between the two men. He rather suspected that knowledge of Martin's whereabouts were being kept from him by Seth.
