The Report by Jessica Francis Kane Page A

Mallory release a witness from a hug.
    “Lord knows they need this more than anything else,” she said.
    “You are feeling below the mark?” Laurie asked. He wanted to be kind at the beginning.
    “I am very much below the mark, sir.”
    “Is this owing to the shock of what happened?”
    “Yes, sir. I worked up to the last before I went down to the first aid, and this is how it has left me.” The man was pale and shaking. “The doctor has ordered me to go to a place where it is very quiet.”
    “Very wise. Let me just turn up your statement, and we will try to be brief. Now, your name is Henderson?”
    “That is right.”
    “And you are a constable at the Bethnal Green Police Station, H Division?”
    “That is right.”
    “What is your full name?”
    “Martin, sir. Henderson.”
    “Where were you when the alert sounded?”
    “We were in a desperate position, sir. We thought we could not do anything outside until the pressure was removed inside, you see.”
    “Now you’re getting ahead of me. Let us just take it by stages. Where were you when the alert sounded?”
    “On patrol, sir.”
    “What are your instructions in an alert?”
    “To get to the shelter entrance.”
    “Were you able to do that?”
    “Yes, sir.”
    “This particular night, March third?”
    “Yes.”
    “When you got to the entrance, what was happening?”
    “I saw men working there as I have never seen men work before. They were crying because they were so desperate. We could not extricate the people.”
    “So when you arrived, something had already gone wrong?”
    “Yes, sir.”
    “What did you do?”
    “I was directed by my superior officer to get over the crowd and work from the bottom. We thought it would be simpler from the bottom.”
    “You got over the people on the stairs, did you? How?”
    “I swung from a girder. I accidentally kicked one or two people, but it couldn’t be helped. From the top it looked as if it would be much simpler to get at them from the bottom, but when you got to the bottom, it looked simpler from the top. It was actually much worse from the bottom.”
    “They were filling the landing, I imagine?”
    “No one was on the landing.”
    “But they must have been pressed against that far wall?”
    “No, sir. It was very dark, of course, but I can tell you no one was on the landing. That’s where I and several other people stood to try to get them out.”
    “Have you ever known any trouble of this sort before at the shelter?”
    “No, sir.”
    “No panic or disorder at the entrance?”
    “None whatsoever, sir.”
    “You are the superintendent of H Division?”
    “Yes.”
    “And that includes the whole area affected by this tragedy?”
    “Yes, sir.”
    “What is the area roughly served by the shelter—could you tell me that?”
    “Mainly this end of Bethnal Green. I think most of the shelterers live in Bethnal Green.”
    “What would it involve, the longest walk for a resident to get to the shelter in the area served? A quarter of a mile, half a mile, that sort of thing?”
    “Ten minutes at the outside.”
    “Ten minutes would cover it?”
    “Assuming a person could walk half a mile in ten minutes.”
    “You have been in charge of this division since before the war. Has there been any similar incident in the division?”
    “No, sir.”
    “Generally the population behaved well during the Blitz?”
    “Extremely well.”
    “And since?”
    “Yes, very well.”
    “There was a good deal of expectation, I suppose, that there would be a retaliation that night.”
    “Yes, quite a deal.”
    “Do you think the people were jumpy?”
    “I would not say jumpy. They were expectant. We all were.”
    “You had difficulty in getting the pile sorted, in getting the people away from the entrance?”
    “It was nearly impossible to sort out which person was free to be removed. I am at a loss to account for it. I did not think it was possible for people to get so mixed up that it would be