Free Recovery and the Return of Ethan Hart by Stephen Benatar Page B

are constantly changing colour. All this is the more impressive since we’ve again been without any form of street lighting for a week (it wasn’t restored to us for very long!) and shall have to be without it for a further ten; it’s only for tonight and tomorrow—such beneficence.
    Walking back along the Strand we pass dozens of men and women sitting on the kerb, raising tankards and toasting the victory. (All the pubs tonight are open until twelve.) We have to stand aside for sailors marching six abreast with linked arms and singing ‘Tipperary’—a song more of the last war than of this. However, it makes a change from the equally dated ‘Over There’, which even Matt, good American though he is, feels we’ve had quite enough of for the time being. Anyway, me, I much prefer ‘Yankee Doodle Dandy’ to either of them. That’s another song we’re hearing pretty frequently.
    We get back to Buckingham Palace just before ten-thirty, and at precisely the appointed minute all the floodlights and lamps above the gates are switched on to bathe the great grey building in pools of soft white light. As this happens, cheer upon cheer bursts from the delighted crowd. Word goes round that the two princesses, escorted by Guards’ officers, are now walking amongst us. We hope to catch a glimpse of them close to, until a quarter of an hour later they once again appear with their parents on the balcony; after that we reckon it’s time to see Big Ben and the Houses of Parliament, while we still have the chance. People say the lighting will go off at twelve.
    But we get detained in Whitehall. The Grenadier Guards are playing ‘Land of Hope and Glory’ to a crowd which is uncannily hushed until, little by little, the people themselves start to sing the words. Tears mist my eyes. Then we have a further view of Mr Churchill—this time in his siren suit and black homburg—taking over as conductor.
    We’d like to stay in Whitehall but there’s still something we’ve been told we shouldn’t miss. The view from Waterloo Bridge is panoramic. St Paul’s in one direction; Parliament in the other. Ever-shifting searchlights making tracks into the sky. Many of the wharves lit up. Lamps shining on the bridges and Embankment. The magnificence of County Hall. Trains moving slowly in or out of Charing Cross. All mirrored in the water. Magical. Even when we pull ourselves away we have to keep stopping to look back. Matt bemoans the fact we haven’t got a camera. I ask him why. You can’t encapsulate enchantment.
    Afterwards, we make again for Piccadilly Circus, the true vulgar heart of the West End, the place which always calls you back. (Whereas we find we couldn’t now return to Waterloo Bridge, for fear of disappointment.) A floodlight plays across the site of Eros, although Eros himself is hidden behind tiers of seating. But when the floodlight gets turned off a universal groan bursts out. It isn’t even midnight.
    However, searchlight beams soon swing across the sky. A column of men and women forms at once—each person with both hands upon the shoulders of the reveller in front—and goes marching off down Coventry Street with a drummer beating a tin box.
    Then the floodlight is switched on again. The crowd had earlier shown signs of dispersing but now it begins to be drawn back.
    The underground’s still open. Police are marshalling people in and out. Near one exit a woman faints. The night’s grown sultry; we’ve seen ambulance after ambulance. Despite their clanging bells these appear to make progress only with bobbies walking in front or riding on their running-boards. A U.S. military police van, slowly forcing its way across the Circus, is brought to a prolonged standstill. Before it finally disappears, along Piccadilly, about six men are sitting on its roof. I agree with a fellow in a dinner jacket, and an older woman