Blackout - Connie Willis

One more day, Eileen thought. “Sit down, all of you,” she said. She upended Alf and Binnie’s suitcase and sat them down on it to wait for the train. And please let it come soon.

“I see it,” Alf said, pointing above the trees.

“I don’t see nothin’,” Binnie said, “you’re fibbing,” but when Eileen looked where he was pointing, she could see a faint blur of smoke above the trees. The train was definitely coming. It was a miracle.

“All right, gather up your things,” she said. “Alf, fold up your map. Theodore, put your jacket on. Binnie-”

“Look!” Alf said excitedly, jumped off the platform, and ran toward the road with Binnie at his heels.

“Where are you-?” Eileen said, glancing anxiously up the tracks. “Come back here! The train-”

It was approaching rapidly. She could see it emerging from the trees. “Theodore, stay right here. Don’t move,” she ordered him and took off for the platform steps. If those two made them miss the train…

“Alf, Binnie! Stop!” she shouted, but they weren’t listening. They were running toward the Austin, which roared past them and skidded to a stop at the foot of the platform stairs.

The vicar leaped out and ran up the steps, carrying a basket. “I’m so glad I caught you,” he said breathlessly. “I was afraid you’d gone.”

“I thought you were in Hereford.”

“I was. I got stopped on the way home by a wretched troop convoy or I’d have been here earlier. I’m so sorry you had to walk all that way with the luggage.”

“It’s all right,” she said, feeling suddenly that it was.

“I thought you said drivin’ fast was only for emergencies,” Binnie said, bounding up onto the platform.

“You was going a ’undred miles an hour,” Alf said.

“Did you come to say goodbye to us?” Theodore asked.

“Yes,” he said to Eileen, “and to bring you-” He stopped and glared at the train, which was nearly at the station. “Don’t tell me the train is actually on time. It hasn’t been on time once since the war started, and now today of all days.… At any rate, I brought you some sandwiches and biscuits.” He gave her the basket. “And.… Alf, Binnie, go fetch the luggage,” and when they did, he said quietly, “I rang the Children’s Overseas Reception Board.” He handed her an envelope. “I’ve arranged passage for Alf and Binnie on a ship to Canada.”

To Canada? That’s where the City of Benares had been going when it was sunk by a U-boat. Nearly all the evacuees on board had drowned. “Which ship?” Eileen asked.

“I don’t know. Their mother’s to take them to the Evacuation Committee’s office-the address is in the letter-and they’ll take them to Portsmouth.”

The City of Benares had sailed from Portsmouth.

“And this is for you as well.” He handed her an envelope with several ten-shilling notes inside. “To cover your train fare and the children’s expenses.”

“Oh, but I can’t-”

“It’s from the Evacuation Committee.”

You’re lying, she thought. It came out of your own pocket.

“It isn’t fair to ask you to pay your own way when you’re doing the committee’s job,” he said. He glanced over at Alf and Binnie. “I’m certain you’ll earn every penny.”

“The train’s ’ere,” Alf said, and they both looked over at it.

It came to a whooshing stop.

“Thank you,” Eileen said, handing the envelope back to him, “but I don’t want you to have to-”

“Please,” he said earnestly. “I know what a worrying time this has been for you, and I thought… I mean, the committee thought that at least you shouldn’t have to worry about money. Please take it.”

She nodded, blinking back tears. “Thank you. I mean, please convey my thanks to the committee. For everything.”

“I will.” He looked at her searchingly. “Are you all right?”

No, she thought. I’m a hundred and twenty years away from home, my drop’s broken, and I have no idea what I’m going to do if I can’t find Polly.

“Whatever it is, you can tell me,” the vicar said. “Perhaps I can help.”

I wish I could tell you, she thought.

“Come along,” Alf said, yanking on her sleeve. “We gotta get on.”

She nodded. “Children, gather up your things. Here, Binnie, take Theodore’s duffel for him. Alf, take your-”

“I have them,” the vicar said, picking up the bags. With his help, she got them and Alf and Binnie up the steps onto the train. This one wasn’t crammed with troops, thank goodness.

“Now you, Theodore,” she said.

Theodore balked. “I don’t want-”

Oh, no, not again, Eileen thought, but the vicar was already saying, “Theodore, will you show Eileen what to do? She’s never been to London on the train before.”

“I have,” Theodore said.

“I know, so you must take good care of her.”

Theodore nodded. “You go up the steps,” he instructed Eileen, demonstrating. “Then you sit down-”

“You’re a miracle worker,” Eileen said gratefully.

“Part of my job,” he said, smiling, and then soberly, “London’s extremely dangerous just now. Do take care.”

“I will. I’m sorry I won’t be here to drive the ambulance after all your lessons.”

“It’s all right. My housekeeper’s agreed to fill in. Unfortunately, she shows the same aptitude as Una, but-”

“Come along,” Alf called from the top of the steps. “You’re makin’ the train late!”

“I must go,” she said, starting up the steps.

“Wait,” he said, catching hold of her arm. “You mustn’t worry. It will all-”

“Come on!” Alf shouted, dragging her aboard. The huge wheels began to turn. “I get to sit by the window-”

“Goodbye, Vicar!” Theodore shouted, waving.

“You do not get to,” Binnie said. “Alf says ’e gets to sit by the window, but I want-”

“Shh,” Eileen said, leaning out. The train began to move. “What?” she called back to the vicar.

“I said,” the vicar shouted, cupping his hands to his mouth, “it will all come right in the end.” The train picked up speed, leaving him behind on the platform, still waving.

And if we no more meet till we meet in heaven, then joyfully, my noble lords and my kind kinsmen, warriors all, adieu! 

London-21 September 1940

“OPEN THE DROP!” POLLY CRIED, IN HER PANIC HAMMERING on the peeling, nailed-shut door with both fists. “Colin! Hurry!”

The scream of the bomb rose to a painful shriek. Polly clapped her hands over her ears. Oh, God, it’s right on top of me, she thought. It’s a direct hit, and dropped to her knees, her head ducked against the eardrum-shattering sound, the expected blast.

But there wasn’t any blast, only a deafening, bone-shaking boom, followed by the rattle of things falling and then fire-engine bells. They stopped nearly a quarter of a mile away.

Impossible, she thought. That was on top of me. So was the next one, and the next one, and even though she told herself, murmuring it like a prayer, that the drop hadn’t been hit during the Blitz, it was impossible not to put her arms over her head when the bombs’ descending screams began, and cower, terrified, against the foot of the door.

“Colin!” she sobbed. “Hurry!”

After what seemed like an eternity but was only, according to the glowing dial of her watch, an hour and a half, the bombardment began to subside. Polly waited till the Kensington Gardens gun had stopped and then crept cautiously down the passage, almost afraid to look at what was left of it.

But the only sign of new damage was to the last two barrels at the alley end of the passage, which had toppled over. She pushed them out of the way and climbed a short way up onto the mound to look across the road. An incendiary had fallen in the middle of it and was sputtering and fizzing like an oversized child’s sparkler, and in its light she could see the still-intact tobacconist’s and could read “T. Tubbins” above the door of the still-there greengrocer’s. None of the shops was on fire. She couldn’t even smell any smoke. The shops’ unharmed roofs stood out sharply against the crimson sky, and she couldn’t see any firespotters on top of them, and none on the warehouses on either side of the drop. But the drop still didn’t open.

Perhaps the problem’s the Luftwaffe, Polly thought, looking up at the narrow space between the buildings. They can see the shimmer from up there and use it as a target.

But the idea that bomber pilots could see a tiny light on the ground-a cigarette or a chink in the blackout curtains-had been proven to be a myth. Neither could be seen at all from ten thousand feet up. Which meant the shimmer wouldn’t be visible either. And besides, the entire east and north of London were on fire, and the passage was nearly as bright as day. And half an hour later, when the planes were no longer overhead, the drop still showed no sign of opening.

An hour went by, then two. The raid intensified again and then let up, and the orange clouds faded to a sickly pink. The anti-aircraft guns stuttered to a stop. There was a long hush, broken only by the drone of a departing plane. It faded to a hum and then silence, and for several minutes Polly half expected to hear the all clear. Then the whole thing started up again.

It stopped for good at three, exactly when Colin had said it would. But he, or the historical record, had got their location wrong. Those bombs had definitely fallen on Kensington, not Marylebone. And not just in Kensington, but on Lampden Road.

Silence settled down over the site, but the drop still didn’t open. By the time the all clear went at half past five, Polly had had time to consider every possible and far-fetched reason for the drop’s remaining shut, and discarded them all.

Except the obvious one. The drop had been damaged. In spite of the undisturbed barrels and the cobwebs, the blast that had flattened the row of buildings across the alley must have disrupted the drop’s field somehow, destroyed the temporal connection. And there was no point continuing to sit here in the damp cold waiting for it to open. As soon as Badri-and Mr. Dunworthy-realized what had happened, they’d set up a drop somewhere else and send a retrieval team for her.

If they can find me, she thought. I should have checked in as soon as I found a room. Then they’d know where I live.

But they had the list of approved streets and addresses, and this was time travel. They were no doubt already waiting for her at Mrs. Rickett’s. I do hope she lets them in. She’s so adamant about my not having male visitors. She hoped the team hadn’t come through posing as soldiers, whom Mrs. Rickett had a very low opinion of. Or as actors.

She stood up, stiff with cold and with sitting too long, and went down the passage. If she hurried, she might be able to reach the boardinghouse before Mrs. Rickett got home from St. George’s and intercept the retrieval team. The fog, which had lifted during the raids, was closing in again, making it as dark as it had been that first evening when she came through and shrouding the entrance and the rubble beyond. Polly worked her way as quickly as she could over the tangle of beams and bricks. She sank in almost to her knees once and had to grab for jutting timbers several times before she reached the edge.

She stepped down onto the pavement, and stopped to brush off her coat and see how bad her stockings were. Bad. She had wide ladders in both and a hole in the left one. Her knee was bleeding, and her skirt was a disaster. My nonregulation navy blue skirt I promised Miss Snelgrove I wouldn’t be wearing today, she thought, and then remembered it didn’t matter. She was going back to Oxford.

What time was it? She glanced at her wristwatch. The face was caked with pinkish dust. She wiped it clean with her finger. Ten past six. Oh, dear, Mrs. Rickett would be home from St. George’s by now and telling the retrieval team Polly wasn’t there and that she had no idea where she was. If she hadn’t simply slammed the door in their faces.

Polly ducked under the rope barrier and hurried down Lampden Road through the fog, hoping they were still at Mrs. Rickett’s, that she hadn’t just missed them-

She halted, her mouth open, staring at the devastation before her. She’d been right. The raids hadn’t been in Bloomsbury. They’d been here on Lampden Road. As far as she could see through the fog, everything had been flattened. She’d thought the shops in front of the drop had been destroyed, but it was nothing compared to this. Both sides of the road had been obliterated so completely she couldn’t even guess what had originally stood here. Incident rope had been strung up across the debris-strewn road and along it as far as the fog let her see. It looked like a V-2 had hit it, but that wasn’t poss-

“Dreadful, isn’t it?” a voice behind her said. It was an elderly man in a wool cap, obviously on his way home from a shelter. He had a fringed pink silk cushion tucked under one arm and a large paper sack under the other. “Parachute mine.”

A mine. That was why it had done so much damage. High-explosive bombs burrowed into the ground before going off, but mines exploded on the surface so that the full force of the blast hit the surrounding buildings.

“It must’ve been a thousand-pounder to take out all those shops,” the old man said, pointing back toward the rubble in front of the drop. “And the church and-”

“The church?” She looked down the road, searching frantically for St. George’s spire. She couldn’t see it. “Which church? St. George’s?”

He nodded. “Dreadful business,” he said, surveying the street. “So many killed-”

Polly plunged past him. The incident rope caught at her legs and snapped, but she ran on, unheeding. The rope tangled in her legs and trailed out behind her as she raced down the debris-strewn road to the wreckage of the church.

No, not wreckage. There were no roof slates here, no rafters or pillars or pews to show it had ever been a church, only a flat expanse of pulverized bricks and glass. Except for the mangled metal railing of the steps which had led down to the basement shelter and which no one, no one could have got out of alive.

“So many killed,” the old man had said. Oh, God, the rector and Miss Laburnum and Mrs. Brightford. And her little girls.

This happened last night when I was in the drop, she thought. I heard it hit. They’d all have been there in the shelter. And if I hadn’t been in the drop, I’d have been there, too, she thought sickly, and remembered her plan to hide in the sanctuary till everyone was off the streets. I’d have been in that with them, she thought, staring at the rubble. With Lila and Viv and Mr. Simms. And Nelson.

And Sir Godfrey. They were all under there. “We must get them out of there,” Polly said. She started toward the railing, thinking, “Why isn’t the rescue squad here?” but even as she formed the thought, her mind was processing the fact that there wasn’t any dust or smoke hovering above the wreckage, only the drifting fog, and that she’d looked for and hadn’t seen the spire last night, was processing the already-strung rope and the depression in the center of the mound that had to be a shaft dug by the rescue squad. And the old man, who knew the church had been hit, who knew the people in it had been killed.