Night of Triumph by Peter Bradshaw Page B

God.’
    ‘Lilibet!’
    ‘Uh.’
    Hugh and Margaret stood motionless and wordless, as the crowd swelled away from them. Peter was still left on the neglected tarpaulin, like a castaway on a raft. He was drifting in and out of
consciousness. Margaret ran some way across the littered grass, looking for Elizabeth, and then back to where Hugh was standing, also scanning the crowd. Then she trotted in the opposite direction,
looking, and ran back. She was always hopeless at finding things.
    ‘Uh.’ Peter returned to a bleary wakefulness. Margaret looked over to him, pity and concern in her face entirely subordinate to irritation and distaste. Peter tried to speak to her,
and vomited weakly down his chin. Someone nearby said something about not holding his drink.
    Hugh bent over Peter and listened as he whispered that he could not move his arm. Then Hugh quickly removed his jacket and attempted to make a rudimentary sling from his shirt, all the time
frantically and pointlessly looking around for signs of Elizabeth.
    ‘I think
that’s
her!’ said Margaret, and ran off to a young woman standing in shadow under a tree. Hugh and Peter limped and straggled behind as Margaret shouted,
‘Lilibet, Lilibet,’ now entirely heedless of the need to remain incognito.
    The woman turned to them, her face in shadow. It was only then that all three of them saw that she was not in uniform, but in some sort of dark coat and skirt, and that she was smoking a
cigarette, her right elbow cupped in her left palm.
    ‘Five shillings each,’ was all she said.
    ‘I do beg your pardon,’ said Hugh, as Margaret turned away and Peter vomited once again.
    Singing and rowdiness and cigarette smoke drifted in the wind as night fell further. The trio mentally exerted themselves to the utmost to suppress their fear.
    ‘Well, we appear to have become split up from Her Royal Highness, in the crowds,’ said Hugh at last, a great believer in exerting mastery over any situation by speaking and
summarising, however superfluous his words would appear. Peter groaned, and Hugh grunted as he shifted his own weight to keep Peter upright.
    Margaret herself was speechless, and in a state of some suspense, postponing her vituperation and scorn for when this situation was rectified by her attendants.
    Hugh cleared his throat with a bark and then said, ‘What Her Royal Highness has undoubtedly done ... what she has undoubtedly done is set off back to the Palace on her own.’
    ‘I’ve broken my arm.’
    Both Hugh and Margaret ignored Peter as the reality of this situation dawned on them. Elizabeth would present herself at the side gate of the Palace again, present her warrant card, and be
re-admitted. There would then be the most ferocious row, especially if she had to encounter Their Majesties on her own. The fuss would be bad enough for Elizabeth and then for Margaret, but for
Peter and Hugh it would indeed be horrible.
    ‘My arm.’
    But surely, Hugh pondered, Elizabeth herself would sense all of this, and be very reluctant simply to head off back to the Palace? They had, after all, only been separated for half an hour. They
should look for her.
    Peter almost fainted again, and Hugh clutched him.
    ‘I say,’ said Margaret loudly, to three young women in nurses’ uniforms that were walking past nearby.
    ‘Yes?’ one replied.
    ‘This man would appear to be in some pain. We think he has broken his arm.’ Margaret left it ambiguous as to whether or not she was actually acquainted with the injured party.
    ‘Oh?’
    ‘Do you happen to know if there’s anywhere he can go?’
    ‘Yes,’ said a second nurse eagerly. ‘There’s a medical station in Charing Cross – St John’s Ambulance.’
    ‘Oh jolly good.
Would
you mind taking this poor man there?’ said Margaret, adroitly implying that in volunteering this information, they had also volunteered to accompany
Peter to Charing Cross. Helpfully, and piteously, Peter then fell forwards in the