Read the paragraphs below and answer the questions.
This extract describes what happened to Bill and Julie during the Blitz — a time during World War Two when London was bombed every night by German aeroplanes. They ignored the air raid warnings and crossed a bridge over the Thames when the bombs were coming down.
We had nearly reached the second bay on the bridge when there was a tremendous bang on our left somewhere. Seconds later the air hardened into a wall, struck us, and lifted us, threw us against the fencing on the girders, and held us there. Somehow in the same split second, reacting to the pain in my ears, remembering something I knew, I thrust the fingers of my left hand between my own lips, and those of my right hand into Julie's mouth. Turning her head, she tried to drag my hand away. I held onto her, fingers hooked over her teeth, while the air pressed down on us, held us spread-eagled, and crushed the breath out of us.
1. Why does Bill put his fingers in both their mouths?
2. How is the blast wave personified in this section?
Then we were being showered with specks of grit, which scratched our faces, and forced their way into our closed eyes; then the blast wave passed by, and the air dropped us, let us go, so that we slithered to the ground. On hands and knees we dragged ourselves into the shelter of the parapet where it curved away from the line of the railway, making a small balcony over the river. And there we stayed.
I was terrified. Not quaking with fear, but tingling with it — it was a prickling sensation on the skin, like having a high temperature. And although it was a cold night, with frost in the air, I was sweating. Yet I remember working it out quite coolly in my head; it was dangerous to stay where we were, but on balance more dangerous to move on.
Julie wriggled herself up close to the foot of the wall, and lay quite still, face turned sky upwards. We didn't say anything at all for a long time. We could hear a lot of noise; explosions, gunfire, and, nearer to us, shrapnel winding down from the sky, making a funny sound like a gurgle with a whistle in it.
3. How does Bill describe his fear?
4. Why is the word 'funny' surprising when describing the sound of shrapnel?
"You hurt my mouth."
"If you don't keep your mouth open, the blast bursts your ears, I think," I said.
"Oh, yes," she said. "I remember something about keeping a cork between one's teeth. Thanks, then." Then, a lot later, "Bill why isn't it dark? I wish it were dark!"
Very cautiously, I got up, and put my head over the parapet. I remember hearing my own voice, saying very slowly and clearly, "God in Heaven… look at that!"
She moved. She looked too. Below us the water of the river was a sheet of orange and gold. The eastern sky, as in a monstrous sunrise, was an expanse of limpid golden light, as though the sky itself was a wall of fire. Against it we could see the slender spires of Wren's churches, and the great dome of St. Paul's. They were not mere silhouettes; the corners, the columns, the curve of the dome had been traced in lines of reflected light, as though they had been drawn with a pencil of flame.
London was burning. It was all on fire. The immensity of it quenched my own fear in a wave of awe; it seemed like the end of the world.
5. Why is the simile 'as in a monstrous sunrise' so powerful?
6. What does 'The immensity of it quenched my own fear in a wave of awe' mean?
7. Why does the writer describe London's burning as beautiful ('orange and gold', 'limpid golden light', 'pencil of flame')?