While I was writing this story, the one book I could not find was the one I most needed: the Reverend Dean W. R. Matthews’ book about the Fire Watch written just after the war called St. Paul’s in Wartime. It was referred to in every other book I read, and I knew it would have everything in it that I could not find anywhere else: where they slept in the crypt, what they had to eat, how long their shifts were, where the stairs to the roofs were, how the Watch was organized and run.

The book was out of print and not even available at St. Paul’s, though the lady assured me that it was a “wonderful book.” A friend finally managed to get hold of it through a London book search service and sent it to me soon after “Fire Watch” came out.

It is indeed a wonderful book. It has, as I thought, everything I needed and could not find, but too late. Oddly enough, that’s what this story is about.