"Connie Willis - Fire Watch" - читать интересную книгу автора (Willis Connie)

I've run out of makework and taught myself to work a stirrup pump. Kivrin was overly conce
about my memory retrieval abilities. I have not had any trouble so far. Quite the opposite. I calle
fire-fighting information and got the whole manual with pictures, including instructions on the u
the stirrup pump. If the kippers set Lord Nelson on fire, I shall be a hero.
Excitement last night. The sirens went early and some of the chars who clean offices in the
sheltered in the crypt with us. One of them woke me out of a sound sleep, going like an air raid s
Seems she'd seen a mouse. We had to go whacking at tombs and under the cots with a rubber
to persuade her it was gone. Obviously what the history depart-ment had in mind: murdering mic

September 24 -Langby took me on rounds. Into the choir, where I had to learn the stirrup p
all over again, assigned rubber boots and a tin helmet. Langby says Com-mander Allen is gettin
asbestos firemen's coats, but hasn't yet, so it's my own wool coat and muffler and very cold o
roofs even in September. It feels like November and looks it, too, bleak and cheerless with no
Up to the dome and onto the roofs which should be flat, but in fact are littered with tow
pinnacles, gutters, and statues, all designed to catch and hold incendiaries out of reach. Shown
to smother an incendiary with sand before it burns through the roof and sets the church on
Shown the ropes (literally) lying in a heap at the base of the dome in case somebody has to g
one of the west towers or over the top of the dome. Back inside and down to the Whisp
Gallery.
Langby kept up a running commentary through the whole tour, part practical instruction,
church history. Before we went up into the Gallery he dragged me over to the south door to te
how Christopher Wren stood in the smoking rubble of Old St. Paul's and asked a workman to b
him a stone from the graveyard to make the cornerstone. On the stone was written in Latin, "I
rise again," and Wren was so im-pressed by the irony that he had the words inscribed above
door. Langby looked as smug as if he had not told me a story every first-year history student kn
but I suppose without the impact of the firewatch stone, the other is just a nice story.
 Langby raced me up the steps and onto the narrow balcony circling the Whispering Gallery
was already halfway round to the other side, shouting dimensions and acoustics at me. He sto
facing the wall opposite and said softly, "You can hear me whispering because of the shape o
dome. The sound waves are reinforced around the perimeter of the dome. It sounds like the
crack of doom up here during a raid. The dome is one hundred and seven feet across. It is e
feet above the nave."
I looked down. The railing went out from under me and the black-and-white marble floor cam
with dizzying speed. Ihung onto something in front of me and dropped to my knees, staggered
sick at heart. The sun had come out, and all of St. Paul's seemed drenched in gold. Even the ca
wood of the choir, the white stone pillars, the leaden pipes of the organ, all of it golden, golden.
Langby was beside me, trying to pull me free. "Bartholo-mew," he shouted, "What's wrong?
God's sake, man."
I knew I must tell him that if I let go, St. Paul's and all the past would fall in on me, and that I
not let that happen because I was an historian. I said something, but it was not what I inte
because Langby merely tightened his grip. He hauled me violently free of the railing and back
the stairway, then let me collapse limply on the steps and stood back from me, not speaking.
"I don't know what happened in there," I said. "I've never been afraid of heights before."
"You're shaking," he said sharply. "You'd better lie down." He led me back to the crypt.

September 25 -Memory retrieval: ARP manual. Symp-toms of bombing victims. S
one-shock; stupefaction; unawareness of injuries; words may not make sense except to victim. S
two-shivering; nausea; injuries, losses felt; return to reality. Stage three-talkativeness that canno
controlled; desire to explain shock behavior to rescuers.
Langby must surely recognize the symptoms, but how does he account for the fact there wa