As Mary Churchill settled into bed at Ditchley after the weekend, London was still burning from the May 10 raid. Firefighters and rescue crews worked around unexploded bombs while searching rubble for survivors and bodies. The attack became the worst single night of the war for London, killing 1,436 people, injuring 1,792, and leaving about 12,000 homeless; Rose Macaulay’s destruction of her home and treasured books illustrated the intimate cultural losses behind the statistics.

The raid’s most symbolic blow was the destruction of the House of Commons chamber, only days after Churchill had defeated a challenge there. Churchill bitterly noted that the Germans had chosen a moment when the chamber was empty. Yet the next day brought an eerie calm and beauty over London, and when no bombers returned on the following nights, observers struggled to explain the sudden pause, fearing it signaled a more dangerous German move elsewhere.

The lull coincided with measurable changes in the war. Civilian deaths from air raids dropped sharply after May, even as Britain’s night defenses were finally improving through radio countermeasures, radar-equipped fighters, and more effective interceptions. On the ground, public behavior also shifted: instead of merely enduring raids, many civilians grew more aggressive and determined, treating incendiaries and firefighting as active ways to fight back.

The chapter then turns to the repercussions of Rudolf Hess’s flight to Scotland. In Germany, Joseph Goebbels tried to contain the embarrassment by portraying Hess as unstable while assuring party officials that the incident would be overshadowed by coming military events, namely the invasion of Russia. Germany officially described Hess as a sick man influenced by mystics, and even his astrologer was arrested; meanwhile Göring jokingly endured Willy Messerschmitt’s barbed remark about a lunatic holding high office in the Reich.

In Britain, Churchill ordered that Hess be treated with dignity but as a possible future war criminal, and approved housing him in the Tower of London for the time being. Roosevelt delighted in the propaganda value of the episode, and Churchill agreed that letting the story run would keep Germany off balance. The chapter closes by marking the end of Churchill’s first year in office: Britain and especially London had suffered terribly, but the Blitz had not broken morale, and Churchill’s great achievement was not giving courage to the British people but focusing the courage they already possessed.