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He soldiered on, skirting craters in the street, asking his way It was nearly full dark, now; he couldn’t be on the streets an to ease a little as he started to see things he knew, though Close, he was getting close

And then the sirens began, and people began to pour out of the houses

He was being buffeted by the crowd, borne down the street as much by their barely controlled panic as by their physical i for separated fa their torches, their flat, white helh it, the air-raid siren pierced him like a sharpened wire, thrust hi hiht

The tide of it swept round the next corner, and he saw the red circle with its blue line over the entrance to the Tube station, lit up by a warden’s flashlight He was sucked in, propelled through sudden bright lights, hurtling down the stair, the next, onto a platform, deep into the earth, into safety And all the ti the air, barelythe crowd, pushing people back against the walls, into the tunnels, away froainst a woirl with round eyes and a blue teddy bear--out of her ar a way for them He found a save her back the little girl Her mouth moved in thanks, but he couldn’t hear her above the noise of the crowd, the sirens, the creaking, the--

A sudden monstrous thud from above shook the station, and the whole croas struck silent, every eye on the high arched ceiling above them

The tiles hite, and as they looked, a dark crack appeared suddenly between ts of theasp rose from the crowd, louder than the sirens The crack seeed suddenly, parting the tiles, in different directions

He looked down fro crack, to see as below it--the people still on the stair The crowd at the bottom was too thick to move, everyone stopped still by horror And then he saw her, partway up the stair

Dolly She’s cut her hair, he thought It was short and curly, black as soot--black as the hair of the little boy she held in her ar him Her face was set, jaw clenched And then she turned a bit, and saw him

Her face went blank for an instant and then flared like a lit match, with a radiant joy that struck hi

There was a much louder thud! from above, and a scream of terror rose from the crowd, louder, , he could hear the fine rattle, like rain, as dirt began to pour froht, but couldn’t get past, couldn’t reach theain, her eyes ablaze with determination She shoved the man in front of her, who stu into the people in front of hier down into the little space she’d made, and with a twist of her shoulders and the heave of her whole body, hurled the little boy up, over the rail--toward Jerry

He sahat she was doing and was already leaning, pushing forward, straining to reach … The boy struck hih in the chest like a lu painfully into Jerry’s face, knocking his head back He had one ar back on the people behind hiet a firave way in the crowd around hiave way and he plunged over the lip of the track

He didn’t hear the crack of his head against the rail or the screams of the people above; it was all lost in a roar like the end of the world as the roof over the stair fell in