"Connie Willis - Jack" - читать интересную книгу автора (Willis Connie)

are now," as if the last guest had finally arrived at her tea party, and Jack stood up.
"If you'll just show me where the spotter's post is, Mr Harker," he said.
"Jack," I said. "It's a name that should be easy for you to remember."
 I took him upstairs to what had been Mrs Lucy's cook's garret bedroom, unlike
the street a perfect place to watch for incendiaries. It was on the fourth floor, higher
than most of the buildings on the street so one could see anything that fell on the
roofs around. One could see the Thames, too, between the chimneypots, and in the
other direction the searchlights in Hyde Park.
Mrs Lucy had set a wing-backed chair by the window, from which the glass had
been removed, and the narrow landing at the head of the stairs had been reinforced
with heavy oak beams that even Olmwood couldn't have lifted.
"One ducks out here when the bombs get close," I said, shining the torch on the
beams. "It'll be a swish and then a sort of rising whine." I led him into the bedroom.
"If you see incendiaries, call out and try to mark exactly where they fall on the
roofs." I showed him how to use the gunsight mounted on a wooden base that we
used for a sextant and handed him the binoculars. "Anything else you need?" I
asked.
"No," he said soberly. "Thank you."
I left him and went back downstairs. They were still discussing Violet.
"I'm really becoming worried about her," Mrs Lucy said. One of the ack-ack guns
started up, and there was the dull crump of bombs far away, and we all stopped to
listen.
"ME 109s," Morris said. "They're coming in from the south again."
"I do hope she has the sense to get to a shelter." Mrs Lucy said, and Vi burst in
the door.
"Sorry I'm late," she said, setting a box tied with string on the table next to
Twickenham's typewriter. She was out of breath and her face was suffused with
blood. "I know I'm supposed to be on watch, but Harry took me out to see his
plane this afternoon, and I had a horrid time getting back." She heaved herself out of
her coat and hung it over the back of Jack's chair. "You'll never believe what he's
named it! The Sweet Violet!" She untied the string on the box. "We were so late we
hadn't time for tea, and he said, 'You take this to your post and have a good tea, and
I'll keep the jerries busy till you've finished.' " She reached in the box and lifted out a
torte with sugar icing. "He's painted the name on the nose and put little violets in
purple all round it," she said, setting it on the table. "One for every jerry he's shot
down."
We stared at the cake. Eggs and sugar had been rationed since the beginning of
the year and they'd been in short supply even before that. I hadn't seen a fancy torte
like this in over a year.
"It's raspberry filling," she said, slicing through the cake with a knife. "They
hadn't any chocolate." She held the knife up, dripping jam. "Now, who wants some
then?"
"I do," I said. I had been hungry since the beginning of the war and ravenous
since I'd joined the ARP, especially for sweets, and I had my piece eaten before
she'd finished setting slices on Mrs Lucy's Wedgwood plates and passing them
round.
There was still a quarter left. "Who's upstairs taking my watch?" she said, sucking
a bit of raspberry jam off her finger.
"The new part-timer," I said. "I'll take it up to him."
She cut a slice and eased it off the knife and on to the plate. "What's he like?" she