Blackout - Connie Willis

The sea grew rougher, and it began to rain. Mike hunched his shoulders against it, shivering. Hardy didn’t even notice. “You’ve no idea how it feels to sit and wait for days, not knowing if anyone’s coming for you or if they’ll be in time, not even knowing if anyone knows you’re there.”

The night-and Hardy’s voice-went on and on. The wind picked up, blowing the rain and the spray right into their faces, but Mike barely felt it. He was too exhausted to hold on to the railing, even held up as he was by the mass of soldiers.

“Our sergeant tried to send a Morse signal with his pocket torch, but Conyers said it was no use, that Hitler’d already invaded and there was no one to come. That was the worst, sitting there thinking England might not be there any longer. Oh, I say, look, it’s getting light out.”

It was. The sky lightened to charcoal and then to gray. “Now we’ll be able to see where we are,” Hardy said.

So will the Germans, Mike thought, but there was no one else on the wide expanse of slate gray water. He scanned the waves, looking for a periscope, for the wake of a torpedo.

“It was odd,” Hardy droned on. “I could bear the thought of being captured, or killed, so long as England was still there, but-I say, look!” He unwedged his hand to point at a smudge of lighter gray against the gray horizon. “Aren’t those the White Cliffs of Dover?”

They were. I’ll finally be where I’ve been trying to get for days, Mike thought. Talk about taking the long way around. But at least now I know where the small craft docked. And he wouldn’t have any trouble getting access to them. Or to the men coming back from Dunkirk. It had just never occurred to him he’d be one of them.

They were pulling into the harbor, maneuvering their way through the maze of boats arriving, loading, setting out. “Dear old England,” Hardy said. “I never thought I’d see her again. And I wouldn’t have if it weren’t for you.”

“For me?” Mike said.

“And your boat. I’d completely given up hope when I saw your signal light.”

Mike jerked his head around sharply. “Signal light?”

Hardy nodded. “I saw it weaving about out there on the water, and I thought, that’s a boat.”

The flashlight I made Jonathan shine on the propeller, Mike thought. He saw the light from it when Jonathan was searching for me in the water.

“If I hadn’t seen it, I’d still be back on that beach with those Stukas. It saved my life.”

I saved his life, Mike thought sickly as the Commander guided the Lady Jane in toward the wharf. He wasn’t supposed to have been rescued.

“We have injured aboard,” the Commander shouted to the sailor tying them up to the dock.

“Yes, sir,” the sailor said and took off down the wharf. Jonathan rigged a gangway. The soldiers began stumbling off the boat.

“Do you happen to know how one goes about finding one’s unit?” Hardy asked. “I wonder where I’ll be sent next.”

North Africa, Mike thought, but you aren’t supposed to be there. You were supposed to have been killed on that beach. Or captured by the Germans.

The sailor was back, leading orderlies with stretchers and an officer who knelt as soon as he was on deck and began bandaging a soldier’s leg.

“Fetch us some petrol,” the Commander said to the sailor. “We’re heading back to Dunkirk as soon as we get this lot unloaded.”

“No,” Mike said, starting toward him. He swayed and nearly fell. Hardy grabbed him to steady him and helped him over to the locker to sit down. “I’ll fetch the captain,” he said, but the Commander was already heading toward him.

“I can’t go back to Dunkirk,” Mike said to him. “You’ve got to take me to Saltram-on-Sea.”

“You’re not going anywhere, lad,” the Commander said. He turned and called, “Lieutenant! Over here.”

“You don’t understand,” Mike said. “I’ve got to get back to Oxford and tell them what’s happened. He wasn’t supposed to make it back. He saw the light.”

“There, now, Kansas,” the Commander said, putting his hand around Mike’s shoulder. “Don’t go upsetting yourself. Lieutenant!” he bellowed, and the officer who’d been tending the wounded stood up and started toward them.

“You don’t understand,” Mike pleaded. “I may have altered events. I’ve got to warn them. Dunkirk’s a divergence point. I may have done something that’ll make you lose the war,” but they weren’t listening. They were all looking down at the deck, at the bloody mess that had been his right foot.

He hath fenced up my way that I cannot pass, and He hath set darkness in my paths. 

London-20 September 1940

IT CAN’T HAVE BEEN HIT, POLLY THOUGHT, LOOKING STUPIDLY across the expanse of rubble at the exposed drop. Mr. Dunworthy would never have approved the drop if it had been. And Badri had said he’d insisted they find a site that had been untouched during the entire Blitz, not only during her six weeks.

But it wasn’t hit, she realized. Only the buildings on the other side of the alley were, and they would have had Lampden Road addresses. Badri and his techs must only have checked the buildings on the passage’s side of the alley, and it hadn’t occurred to them that one side of an alley could be damaged and the other side untouched. They didn’t know how erratic blast patterns could be. The passage-at least as far down it as she could see in the fog-looked undisturbed, and the rickety staircase on the back of the next building was still intact.

She needed to get a closer look. She walked across the road and up to the rubble, stepping carefully over a rope barrier with a small square sign suspended from it that read Danger-Keep Out.

Danger was right. On closer inspection the rubble was studded with jagged-ended timbers and broken roof slates, and was nearly head-high. Polly walked rapidly along the roped perimeter, looking for a way up onto the mound. But there wasn’t any, though the rubble wasn’t quite as deep on the north side, and a few feet in, there was a sort of path made of a door-which must have been flung on top of the mound by the force of the blast-and a torn piece of linoleum.

Polly took hold of a half-buried timber and climbed up onto the rubble. It was less solid than it looked. Her feet sank into the plaster and pulverized brick up to her ankles, and one of her stockings snagged on a large wooden splinter. She took another cautious step, and the whole mound seemed to shift.

She grabbed for a broken-off bedpost. Plaster and pebbles rattled down for several seconds, then stopped. She stepped forward cautiously, not letting go till she had to, and testing each hand and foot before she put her weight on the unsteady wreckage till she reached the piece of linoleum.

She’d been wrong. The linoleum hadn’t been flung there by the bomb, and neither had the door. A rescue squad had laid them there, and they didn’t lead to the drop. They led to a square-sided hole. Polly knew instantly what it was-a shaft dug to reach a victim, or a body, buried there. Which, presumably, they had got out.

She looked across at the passage. Glass was scattered in it, but no debris, and none of the barrels had been knocked over. They-and the drop’s position in the recessed well-would both have helped protect the drop from blast.

If I can only get to it, she thought, testing the plaster-and-brick mass beyond the linoleum. It gave ominously under her foot. She needed something to walk on. Perhaps if she could shift the door in the direction of the drop…

But it was too heavy. So was the linoleum. She stood up and surveyed the mound, looking for a section of wall or a cupboard door she could use.

“You, there!” a man’s voice shouted. “What are you doing?” It was the ARP warden who’d dragged her to the shelter that first night. He was standing by the rope barrier, holding a pocket torch. “This incident’s off-limits.”

Polly wondered fleetingly if she should make a run for it. He’d have a hard time catching her in this rubble, and it was nearly dark. Which meant she was liable to fall through and break a leg. “Come down at once,” the warden said. He ducked under the rope, and started up onto the mound.

“I’m coming,” Polly said and started back toward the edge, picking her way carefully.

“What were you doing up there?” he demanded. “Didn’t you see the notice?”

“Yes,” Polly said, debating what to tell him. He didn’t seem to have recognized her. “I thought I heard a cat meowing.” She climbed down to where he was standing. “I was-” Her foot slid, and the warden put out a hand to catch her. “I was afraid it was trapped in the rubble.”

He looked worriedly past her. “You’re certain it was a cat and not someone calling for help?”

That was all she needed, for the warden to call a rescue crew and them to begin digging again. “Yes, I’m certain,” she said hastily, “and it wasn’t trapped after all. Just as I got to where the sound was coming from, it ran away.”

“This incident’s dangerous, miss. There’s a good many holes and weak patches out there. If you was to fall through, nobody’d know you was out there. They wouldn’t know to come looking for you. You could be out there for days, weeks even-”

“I know. I’m sorry. I didn’t think.”

“You shouldn’t be out this time of night,” he said. “The sirens will be going any minute.”

She nodded. He held up the rope barrier for her, and she ducked under it.

“You need to get to shelter, miss.” That was the same thing he’d said to her last Saturday, and the same thought must have occurred to him because he frowned at her.

“Yes, straightaway,” she said, ducked quickly under the rope barrier, and started rapidly up the street.

“Wait!” he shouted, and came after her. “Notting Hill Gate’s this way,” he said, reaching for her arm.

She eluded his grasp. “I live just up the street,” she said, pointing, hoping there hadn’t been an incident up that way as well.

There was a drone of planes off to the east. The warden looked up. Saved by the Luftwaffe, Polly thought, and walked off quickly in the direction she’d pointed.

“See that you go straight there,” the warden called after her.

“I will, warden,” she said and kept going, resisting the impulse to look back to see if he was following her. She crossed the street and the next and then ducked into an alley. From this distance it would look to the warden as if she’d turned down a side street. If he was still watching.

He was.

Go drag someone else off to St. George’s, she willed him, or go look for blackout infractions or something, but he continued to stand there in the dusk. What if he stood there all night?

He’ll have to leave when the raids begin and go look for incendiaries, she thought, retreating into the alley. The raids weren’t over Kensington tonight. They were over Bloomsbury and the East End. But as Colin had said, there were lots of stray bombs. She looked at her watch. A quarter to eight. Which meant she had over an hour to wait, and it was already frigid here in the alley.

If the warden would only leave, she could go to St. George’s and hide in the sanctuary till everyone was off the streets. It had to be warmer there than here. But the warden was still there, and it was already too dark down the alley to try to go that way. She’d crash into something and make the warden come running.

Leave, she willed the still-motionless figure. Move. And after a moment he did.

Oh, no, he was coming this way. Polly backed farther into the dark alley, looking for a doorway or a passage like the drop’s to hide in. She could just make out a large metal dustbin in the darkness, and on the far side of it, a wooden crate. Polly sat down on the crate, tucking her feet back out of view, and waited, listening for footsteps.

After several minutes she heard some, but they were from the wrong direction and walking swiftly. Contemps going to a shelter. Another reason to stay here. She didn’t want to run into Miss Laburnum again and be dragged off to St. George’s. She pulled her sleeve back and checked her watch again. Five past. She jammed her icy hands in her pockets and sat there, listening for planes.

It was an eternity before she heard them. A gun far to the east started up, and a brief interval later, she heard an HE hit, so distant it made only a faint poomphing sound. Polly stood up and felt her way along the side of the dustbin to the mouth of the alley to see if the warden was still there. She looked cautiously out.

Into blackness. It was as dark on the street as it had been in the alley. Darker. Between the fog and the blackout, there was no light at all. She’d never be able to find her way back to Lampden Road in this, let alone across that unstable, hazard-and shaft-strewn mound of rubble to the drop.

I’ll have to go fetch a pocket torch, she thought, but if she couldn’t find her way back to the drop, she couldn’t find her way to Mrs. Rickett’s.

But I can’t afford to wait another night to go back to Oxford, she thought and flinched as there was another whoosh and crump, much nearer than the first, and then another. The gun in Tavistock Square started up, and a moment later a flare lit the street in a blue-white glow.

It flickered out, leaving behind a faint reddish glow and then fading, but almost immediately another one flashed to the west of it, arcing in a shower of shimmering white stars, and to the east, a reddish wavering glow lit the lower clouds. A fire, and now the searchlights were coming on, crisscrossing the sky, like giant pocket torches. Wonderful, there was more than enough light to get back to the drop by, and more than enough to see and avoid any rescue shafts.

And to see that the warden had gone. She ran quickly back to the drop, keeping a sharp eye out, but there was no one on the side streets or the part of Lampden Road she could see ahead. By the time she reached the incident, it was bright enough to be able to read the Danger-Keep Out notice. She took one last quick look round for the warden, then clambered up and over the rubble on all fours till she got behind the higher part of the mound and partially out of sight of the street, and then straightened up and moved more slowly.

The closer she got to the drop, the less stable the mound became. Whole sections went slithering down with every step. Polly backtracked a few yards to a tangle of broken-off joists and-holding on to them and then a large beam-worked her way to the wall, and then along it to the passage. When she jumped down into the mouth of the passage, she heaved a sigh of relief.

She’d been worried the blast had somehow penetrated to the drop, but the broken glass only extended a few feet in. There was a thin coat of plaster dust on the floor and the tops of the barrels, but nothing else.

Polly edged past the barrels and went down the steps into the narrow well. The stacked barrels and the ledge above blocked the light from the fires-but there was still more than enough light to see by. The passage and the barrels had protected the well completely. There wasn’t even any dust on the steps, and the spiderweb on the hinge hadn’t been disturbed. She tried the rusty doorknob in case the blast had jarred it loose, but it was still frozen, the door still locked.