On a clear, dangerous night in London, Queen Charlotte’s Ball went ahead in the underground ballroom of the Grosvenor House Hotel. Mary Churchill spent the day shopping, attending rehearsal for the debutantes’ formal cake-cutting ceremony, and preparing for the evening, then joined the ball in a blue chiffon dress. When the air-raid sirens sounded as dinner began, the guests largely ignored them because the basement setting felt as safe as a shelter, and the party continued in an atmosphere Mary described as cheerful and carefree.

Elsewhere, bandleader Snakehips Johnson was at the Embassy Club when the red alert began. Although friends urged Snakehips Johnson to stay put because the raid seemed serious and taxis had disappeared, Snakehips Johnson insisted on keeping his engagement at the Café de Paris out of loyalty to owner Martin Poulsen. Snakehips Johnson ran through the blackout to the club, where diners, dancers, musicians, kitchen staff, and performers were settling into a glamorous evening of music, food, and dancing.

As the raid intensified aboveground, London was heavily bombed, with incendiaries and high explosives falling across the city. At 9:50 p.m., a bomb dropped through the roof of the Café de Paris, reached the basement dance floor, and exploded. The blast killed and mutilated guests and staff, including saxophonist David Williams, headwaiter Charles, and Snakehips Johnson, whose body was catastrophically torn apart; others, such as Lady Betty Baldwin and a Dutch officer in her party, survived with injuries. Survivors stumbled through darkness, dust, cordite, and wreckage while rescue efforts began.

Back at the Grosvenor House, the ball continued until the all clear. With permission from her mother, Mary Churchill left with friends intending to continue the evening at the Café de Paris, but roads near the club were blocked by debris, ambulances, and fire engines. The group diverted to another club and kept dancing, only later learning what had happened; the news shattered Mary Churchill’s sense that the war remained distant from ordinary social life, because the people killed at the café had been dancing and laughing just as her own party had been.

The chapter closes on two contrasting notes. Mary Churchill and her friends embraced the familiar wartime motto of carrying on, even as Mary Churchill later looked back with unease at their instinct to keep dancing until morning. Then, at three a.m., Harry Hopkins telephoned Chequers from Washington to report that the U.S. Senate had passed the Lend-Lease Bill by 60 to 31, marking a major political and material breakthrough for Britain amid the destruction.