On Wednesday, April 16, Averell Harriman leaves his office early for a haircut before a formal dinner at the Dorchester honoring Adele Astaire. The day has already been important for the Harriman Mission because Roosevelt has approved the first Lend-Lease transfer of food to Britain. Harriman’s early departure also gives his secretary, Robert Meiklejohn, an unusually early dinner on what begins as a clear, pleasant evening.

At nine o’clock, sirens sound across London earlier than usual, and the city soon comes under a massive air attack. In Bloomsbury, Graham Greene and Dorothy Glover watch flares drift down as they go to their civil-defense duties; then bombs and parachute mines begin falling in large numbers. Greene reaches the ruined Victoria Club, where Canadian soldiers have been sleeping, and sees bloodied men emerging from the wreckage. Other blasts destroy a Jewish girls’ club, wipe out an anti-aircraft post in Hyde Park, and leave a priest crawling into pub ruins to hear the confessions of trapped victims.

During the raid, John Colville leaves 10 Downing Street in Churchill’s armored car to meet U.S. ambassador John Winant about a telegram Churchill intends to send Roosevelt. Colville later walks back through the bombardment as bombs fall around him. At the American embassy, Meiklejohn watches from the roof, hears for the first time the whistle of falling bombs, sees huge explosions and a gas tank erupt into a towering fire, and later views a vast section of London burning. He is struck by the calm of the people around him, who treat the raid almost like bad weather. Nearby at Claridge’s, General Lee and Herschel Johnson pass the night discussing literature and art, while Lee feels sickened by the helplessness of listening to mass death so close at hand.

At the Dorchester, Harriman and other dinner guests, including Pamela Churchill, watch the raid from the hotel’s upper floor. Pamela, having recently turned twenty-one, feels newly independent and senses that her life is about to change. Seated beside Harriman, she talks with him at length about Max Beaverbrook, whom Harriman wants to understand and cultivate. He invites Pamela to continue the conversation in his apartment, and while the city outside is lit by flares and bombs, their private talk turns intimate and they go to bed together.

By morning, the attack has killed 1,180 people, making it the worst raid so far, and has badly damaged districts across London, including the Admiralty and Christie’s, while St. Peter’s Church loses its vicar in a direct hit. After breakfast at Downing Street, Colville and Eric Seal walk out to inspect the destruction and find London looking "bleary-eyed and disfigured." Colville notices Pamela Churchill and Averell Harriman examining the damage together, and Harriman later writes his wife that the guns and aircraft kept his sleep intermittent.