Connie Willis - Blackout

He yanked the lever all the way back, and the lift began to descend. “I still can’t believe you’re here,” Merope chattered to Michael. “I heard voices, but I thought Mrs. Sadler and her horrid son Roland had come back, so I hid in the storeroom, and then I heard someone calling Polly’s name. When I think I nearly didn’t come out-”

There was a loud boom, and then a leaden thunk, and the lift jerked to a stop. They weren’t at a floor. Beyond the metal gate there was only blank wall.

We’re trapped, Polly thought, and then, There were three casualties. We rescued Merope only to trap her here.

“What happened?” Merope asked, but Michael didn’t answer. He pushed hard on the lever, then pulled it back. The lift began to ascend. Michael let it go up for a moment and then reversed the lever. The lift started down.

Polly held her breath. Second floor, that’s it, she thought, willing it to descend, and now first-

The lift jerked to a stop again, and this time it sounded final. Michael yanked with both hands, but the lever wouldn’t budge. He pulled the gate open and looked up. The floor was three feet above them. “Polly, I need you to climb up and open the door,” he said, bracing his body against the side wall. He laced his fingers together. “Climb onto my hands,” he ordered.

Polly nodded and stepped up, reaching for the edge of the floor above. He hoisted her up, Merope giving support, and she got one knee onto it.

“Now stretch your hand over to the door handles,” Michael ordered. “That’s it. Now slide them apart,” which was easier said than done. She had almost no leverage. She managed to pull the doors a few inches apart, but her knee slipped, and she nearly fell.

“No problem,” Michael said. He lowered her back down. “That was a good first try. If only we had a stick or something to push it open with,” he said, looking around, but Padgett’s lifts didn’t have so much as a stool for the lift operator. “Okay, let’s try it again.”

“Let me try this time,” Merope said, kicking off her shoes. She stepped lightly onto his hands, squeezed herself into the narrow opening, her legs dangling as she heaved herself through it and up onto the floor, and stood up. She slid the doors all the way open from the outside to the instant accompaniment of guns and bombs. Merope looked nervously over her shoulder and then knelt down, her hand extended. “Now you, Polly. Boost her up, Michael.”

He did, and Merope grasped Polly’s free hand and pulled her up over the edge. A bomb exploded somewhere nearby, and Merope flinched and said frightenedly, “How near do you think-?”

“Near. Help me pull Michael out,” Polly said. If we can, she thought. I should have boosted him up. “Take hold of my ankles,” she ordered Merope, lying down flat on the floor and extending her arms down to Michael.

“That won’t work,” Michael shouted up. “I’m too heavy. Listen, you two go on.”

Merope leaped to her feet and ran stocking-footed into the darkness. Polly stared after her, furious. She was obviously frightened, but they couldn’t abandon Michael. “Merope-!”

“You, too,” Michael shouted up to her. “I’ll fix it and meet you downstairs.”

“I’m not going without you.”

“There’s no time to argue,” he said. “You need-” but Merope was back, dragging a chair.

“Sorry,” she said breathlessly. “I had to go all the way to the ladies’ lounge for it. Help me with it.” Together, they lowered the chair down to him, and he stepped awkwardly up onto the seat.

“Wait,” Merope shouted. “My shoes!”

“There isn’t time to-” Polly began, but he’d already stepped off the chair, jammed them in his pockets, and climbed back up.

Merope knelt next to Polly, and they heaved him up and out. “Where’s the nearest stairway?” he asked Merope.

“There,” she said, and they fled across the firelit floor, Michael hobbling behind them.

“I can’t wait to get out of this horrid place and back to Oxford,” Merope said as they ran. “Do you know what the first thing I’m going to do when we get there is?”

If we get there, Polly thought, hurrying them along. The planes were directly above them now. Bombs whistled all around them, and the floor lit up with bright, deafening flashes. They dived into the stairwell and racketed down the stairs.

“I’m going to tell Mr. Dunworthy I am never doing another assignment involving children,” Merope said.

Polly glanced back at Michael. He was keeping up, though he was leaning heavily on the stair railing.

“I thought you’d never find me, Polly,” Merope said. “When I found out you’d gone back, I-”

They reached the ground floor. Polly opened the door, and they plunged along the side of the store through a barrage of flashes and explosions, their hands up to shield their heads, and across the street.

When they came up onto the pavement on the far side, Merope and Michael stopped, panting. “No, we’re still too close,” Polly said, grabbing Merope’s arm and pulling her along the street with Michael limping after, trying to keep away from the windows of the shops and at the same time in the protection of the buildings. They should have stayed on the same side of the street as Padgett’s. The blast would spread out in an arc, and here there were no walls between them and the force of the concussion. And she had no idea how far the blast from the explosion would reach.

“I’m sorry,” Merope gasped after two blocks, “I’ve got to stop a moment.”

Polly nodded and pulled them around the next corner into the shadow of a building to catch their breath. “Thank you,” Merope panted, leaning against the wall.

Michael was bending down, his hands on his knees, breathing hard. “I wish I could… say it was… letting up,” he said, looking up at the sky, “but I think it’s… getting worse.”

“But if we go to a shelter,” Merope objected, “we’ll be trapped there all night. Shouldn’t we go straight to the drop?”

The drop. She’d been so fixed on getting Merope out of Padgett’s, on getting them to safety, she’d forgotten about Michael being the retrieval team. He was here to take her-to take them-back to Oxford, to safety. Home.

“Yes, of course. You’re right,” she said. She turned to Michael. “Let’s go to the drop.”

“Great,” he said. “Where is it?”

“What?”

“Your drop. Where is it? Is it far from here?”

They were both looking at her expectantly. “You’re not the retrieval team, Michael?” Polly said.

“The retrieval team? No.”

I should have known, Polly thought dully. All the clues were there: his injured foot, his not knowing Merope was here, his remark that he’d been searching for her for almost a month.

“Wait, I don’t understand,” Merope said, looking bewilderedly from one to the other. “Neither of you is the retrieval team? But then what are you doing here, Michael?”

“I can’t get to my drop,” he said. “I came to London to find Polly so I could use hers-”

“So did I,” Merope said, “but when I went to Townsend Brothers, they told me you’d gone back, Polly, so I-”

“Look, we can discuss all this in Oxford,” Michael said impatiently. “Right now we need to get to your drop, Polly. How far-?”

“It’s in Kensington,” Polly said, “but we can’t use it either. Why can’t you get to your drop?”

An HE crashed down up the street, spewing glass everywhere. The three of them instinctively put their hands up to shield their faces. “We’ve got to get to a shelter,” Michael said. “Which one’s nearest?”

“Oxford Circus,” Polly said and led them at a trot along the street to the entrance and down the steps. The iron grille had already been pulled across. The guard had to open it for them. “You lot are cutting it close,” he said as they ran in. “You’d best get below straightaway.”

They didn’t need any encouraging. They ran for the turnstiles. “I haven’t any money,” Merope said. “My handbag-”

Polly fumbled in her bag for extra tokens. Another HE thudded nearby, shaking the station.

“Are you certain it’s safe in here?” Merope said, looking nervously up at the ceiling.

“Yes,” Polly said, handing her and Michael tokens. “Oxford Circus wasn’t hit till the end of the Blitz.” She pushed through the turnstile and ran over to the escalators.

“Oh, that’s right,” Merope said, behind her. “I forgot. You know where all the bombs fell.”

Till the first of January, Polly thought, stepping onto the long escalator. Which means we’d better have got to Michael’s drop by then.

What did he mean, he couldn’t get to it? She turned to ask him, but he was several steps above them, limping down to where they were, leaning heavily on the moving rubber rail. “Are you all right?” Merope asked. “You didn’t sprain your ankle chasing me in Padgett’s, did you?”

“No,” Michael said, coming down onto the step with Merope, “I-it was hit by shrapnel. At Dunkirk.”

Dunkirk? Polly felt a twinge of panic. Was that why he couldn’t get to his drop, because it was in Dunkirk? If it was, they wouldn’t be able to reach it till the end of the war, and that was too late. But his drop couldn’t be in Dunkirk. And he couldn’t have been there either.

“What were you doing in Dunkirk?” Merope was asking.

“Shh,” Michael said, pointing below them. They were to the foot of the escalator, which was so jammed with people they had difficulty getting off, and once they did, even more difficulty getting through the crowd. The entire hall was packed solid with people. Everyone on Oxford Street-and Regent Street and New Bond Street-had fled down here when the bombing began, and they all had parcels and shopping bags and wet umbrellas to add to the crush.

The tunnels were just as bad, and Polly knew from experience that the platforms would be even worse. “This is impossible,” Michael said. “We’ve got to find a place where we can talk. What about another tube station? The trains are still running, aren’t they?”

She nodded and led them through the crowd, saying over and over, “Sorry, we’re trying to get to our train, sorry…”

“No use going out to the platform, dearie,” a woman in the archway to the Central Line platform said. “The Central Line trains aren’t running.”

“What about the Bakerloo Line?” Polly asked.

The woman shrugged. “No idea, dearie.”

“We’ll have to go back upstairs,” Polly told Michael and Merope. If they could get there, if they could even get out of this entryway and into the tunnel-

“There’s a space!” Merope cried and, before Polly could stop her, ran out onto the platform. When Polly and Michael caught up to her, she was standing happily on a blue blanket held down at each corner by a shoe.

“We can’t sit here,” Polly said, remembering that first night at St. George’s when she’d got in trouble with everyone for-

The troupe. She’d completely forgotten about them. When she didn’t come, they’d think something had happened to her, and Sir Godfrey would-

“Why can’t we sit here?” Merope said. “Whoever was sitting on it before has gone off to the canteen or the loo or something, and it’ll take them hours to get back in this crowd.”

“And this is as good a place to talk as we’re going to get,” Michael said.

He was right. The people on both sides were deep in conversation and didn’t even notice when Merope sat down on the blanket and curled her legs up under her. Mike eased himself down, putting his hand on her shoulder for support, and wincing as he crossed his legs. “Now,” he said, leaning forward and lowering his voice, “I want to hear about your drop, Polly. Why isn’t it-?”

Merope cut in, “No, first you must tell us what happened to your foot. What were you doing at Dunkirk? I thought you were going to Dover.”

“I was,” he said, “but I came through on a beach thirty miles south of it-”

Oh, thank God. His drop wasn’t in Dunkirk. It was on this side of the Atlantic.

“-and before I could get to Dover I was shanghaied-”

“Shanghaied?”

“It’s a long story. Anyway, I ended up taking part in the evacuation from Dunkirk, where I got this.” He pointed at his foot. “They did surgery and managed to save it, but the tendons are damaged, which is why I’ve got the limp.”

“But why didn’t you go back to Oxford to have it repaired?” Merope asked.

“I told you, I can’t get to my drop.”

“Why not?” Polly asked. “Is the beach patrolled?” If that was the only problem, the three of them should be able to come up with some way to distract the guard.

“No, it doesn’t have to be. There’s an artillery gun emplacement right on top of the drop site.”

Which will be there till the end of the war, Polly thought.

“But then why didn’t they send a retrieval team for you?” Merope whispered.

“They may have and couldn’t find me. I was unconscious when I was brought in and didn’t have any papers on me, so the hospital didn’t know who I was, and before I could tell them I was moved to Orpington.”

Polly looked up at him. “Orpington?”

“Yeah, it’s in southeast London. They’d never have thought to look for me there. Listen, we can discuss what happened to me later.” He lowered his voice. “Right now we need to figure out what to do about a drop. Polly, are you sure yours isn’t working?”

“Yes.” She told them about the incident.

“Blast can do odd things,” Michael agreed. “I know that from my prep. It can kill people without leaving a mark on them. Which leaves yours, Merope,” he said, turning to her. “What did you mean when you said you can’t get to your drop either? And please don’t say there’s an artillery gun on it.”

“No, but the military’s taken over the manor for a riflery school.”

“Was the drop on the manor grounds?”

“No, in the woods, but the Army’s conducting riflery practice in them.”

“And they’ve strung barbed wire all round it,” Polly said.

Merope looked at her, surprised. “How do you know that?”

“I went to Backbury to look for you. That’s where I was the day you came to Townsend Brothers. We just missed each other.”

“But why did they say you’d gone to Northumbria? I thought-”

“Later,” Michael said impatiently. “Is the fence guarded? Do you think we’d be able to cut through it? Or crawl under?”

“Possibly,” Merope said. “But that’s not the only problem. I think my drop must have been somehow damaged, too. It wouldn’t open, even before the Army came. After the quarantine, I tried to go through over a dozen times, but-”

“After the quarantine?” Michael said.

“Yes, my assignment was supposed to be over the second of May, but Alf got the measles, and the manor was quarantined for nearly three months-”