Connie Willis - Blackout

“Write him again,” Mike was saying. “And contact the parents of the other evacuees you delivered.”

“Alf and Binnie?” Eileen said, sounding horrified.

“Yes, and whoever was in charge of the evacuation. We need every contact we can think of. And we need to find a drop-”

He stopped, listening. A door opened somewhere above them and then slammed, and someone rattled down the steps. Whoever it was must be running. The footsteps clanked down toward them at an enormous rate, and Polly could hear giggling.

Those children who were running from the guard, Polly thought. “I do hope the raids won’t last very long tonight,” she said loudly.

The footsteps halted abruptly and then clanked back up the steps. The door opened and slammed again. “They’re gone,” Mike said. “Now where were we?”

“You said we need to find a drop,” Eileen said.

“Right, preferably one that isn’t under the gun, so to speak,” he said cheerfully.

He was sounding and looking much better, too. She must have convinced him that he hadn’t altered events. I wish he’d managed to convince me that nothing’s happened to Oxford, she thought.

“We need to find one of the other historians who’s here besides us,” Mike went on.

“There was someone who was going to the Battle of the Bulge,” Eileen said.

“That was me,” Mike said. “And I’m glad this didn’t happen while I was there. The Ardennes in winter would have been a nasty place to be stuck.”

“Whereas this…” Polly said, spreading her hands to indicate the dim stairwell.

“At least no one’s shooting prisoners here,” he said, “and it’s not snowing.”

“It might as well be,” Eileen said, hugging her arms to herself. “I wish I had my coat. It’s simply freezing in here.”

Mike took off his suit jacket and draped it around her shoulders. “Thank you,” Eileen said. “But won’t you be cold-? Oh, I just thought of something,” she said, sounding dismayed. “How am I going to buy another coat? And pay Theodore’s mother the room and board I owe her? All the money I had was in my handbag. I was supposed to collect my pay packet tomorrow, but if Padgett’s-”

“Was the store totally destroyed?” Mike asked. “Maybe-”

Polly shook her head. “Direct hit. A thousand-pound HE.”

“Has it already been hit?” Eileen asked, glancing up at the stairs spiraling above them.

“Yes, I don’t know exactly when. I wasn’t supposed to still be here when it hit, so I don’t know the details. Only that it was early this evening and that there were three fatalities.”

“But if it had already been hit, wouldn’t we have heard it?” Eileen asked. “Or the fire bells or something?”

“Not in here,” Polly said. “Don’t worry about the coat. Mrs. Wyvern-she’s one of the people I sit with in the shelter-helps distribute clothing to people who’ve been bombed out. I’ll see if I can arrange a coat for you from her.”

“Do you think you could talk her out of one for me, too?” Mike asked. “I hocked mine.”

Polly nodded. “You’ll both need one-1940 was one of the coldest and rainiest winters on record.”

“Then let’s try not to spend more time in it than we have to,” Mike said. “There’s at least one historian here now. Both times I was in the lab, Linna was on the phone giving someone a list of historians currently on assignment. I only heard snatches, but one of them was October 1940.”

“Are you certain it wasn’t me?” Polly asked. “I was supposed to go back October twenty-second.”

He shook his head. “October was the arrival date. The departure date was December eighteenth.”

“Which means whoever it is is here right now,” Eileen said. “You didn’t hear the name?”

“No, but I also met a guy in the lab. He was there doing a recon and prep drop. I don’t know the date of his assignment, but the recon and prep was to Oxford on July second, 1940. His name was Phillips or Phipps-”

“Gerald Phipps?” Eileen said.

“I didn’t hear his first name. Do you know him?”

“Yes,” Eileen said, making a face. “He’s insufferable. When I first told him about my assignment, he said, ‘A maid? Is that the most exciting assignment you could find? You won’t get to see the war at all.’”

“Which tells us he would,” Polly said.

“And that his assignment was exciting,” Mike added. “Did he tell you where he was going?”

“Yes. It began with a D, I think. Or a P. Or possibly a T. I wasn’t really listening.”

“And he didn’t tell you what he’d be observing?” Mike asked, and when Eileen shook her head, “Polly, what was happening in July?”

“In England? The Battle of Britain.”

“No, I don’t think that’s it. He was wearing tweeds, not an RAF uniform.”

“But you said it was a setup,” Polly argued. “Perhaps he had to arrange for a transfer to an airfield.”

“He did say he’d posted some letters and made a trunk call,” Mike said. “What airfields begin with a D?”

“Detling?” Polly suggested. “Duxford?”

“No,” Eileen said, frowning. “It might have been a T.”

“T?” Mike said. “You said a D or a P.”

“I know.” She bit her lip thoughtfully. “But I think it may have been a T.”

“Tangmere?” Polly said.

“No… I’m sorry. I’d know it if I heard it.”

“We need a list of English airfields,” Mike said.

“But I can’t imagine Gerald as a pilot,” Eileen said.

“Yeah, I know,” Mike said. “He’s scrawny, and when I saw him, he was wearing spectacles.”

“And he’s a dreadful grind,” Eileen said. “Maths and-”

“He might be posing as a course plotter or a radio operator,” Polly suggested. “That’s much more likely than his being a pilot. The life expectancy for pilots during the Battle of Britain was three weeks. Mr. Dunworthy would never have allowed it. And if he was a course plotter or a dispatcher he could observe the Battle of Britain without being in as much danger, though the airfields and sector stations were bombed as well. But if he was here to observe the Battle of Britain, then he may already have gone back.” She turned to Eileen. “He didn’t say how long he was staying?”

“No. At least I don’t think so,” she said, frowning in concentration. “I was late for my driving lesson, and, as I said, he’s insufferable. All I was thinking about was getting away from him. If I’d known this was going to happen, I’d have listened more carefully.”

“Yes, well, if we’d known we were going to be stuck here, we’d all have behaved differently,” Mike said grimly. “Never mind, we can easily find out the airfields. Do either of you know who this other person who’s here from October to December could be? Or do you know of anyone else who might be here?”

“Robert Glabers said he was doing World War II,” Polly said.

“He is,” Mike said. “The testing of the atomic bomb in New Mexico in 1945, which doesn’t help us.”

Yes, it does, Polly thought. It gives me the chance to ask Eileen the question I need to. “Nineteen forty-five,” she said thoughtfully. “Nineteen forty-five. What about the person who did VE-Day whom you were going to switch with, Eileen? Did you persuade Mr. Dunworthy to let you go?”

“We need someone right now,” Mike said impatiently. “Why are you two talking about 1945?”

“Did you?” Polly persisted.

“No, I couldn’t ever get in to see him. And now, with all this, he probably won’t even consider letting me go.”

Thank God, Polly thought. She didn’t go to VE-Day. She doesn’t have a deadline, thank God. And neither does Mike. But then-

“Do you think this October person could be here in London?” Mike asked.

“No, if Badri’d had to find two drops in London, I’m certain he’d have mentioned it; he had so much difficulty finding mine. But I can’t think of anything else besides the Blitz an historian would be doing in October, at least in England.”

“Then it sounds like Gerald’s a better bet,” Mike said. “If we can just figure out which airfield he’s at. Tomorrow we’ll get a map-”

He stopped again at muffled sounds from below.

The children again, Polly thought, but there were no clanking footsteps or giggling. “False alarm,” Mike said.

“Wait.” Polly clattered down the steps and opened the door. The couple that’d been in front of it had gone, and across the tunnel people were folding blankets and putting dishes and empty bottles into baskets. Polly opened the door a bit wider and called to a young girl sitting on the floor putting on her shoes, “Has the all clear gone?”

The girl nodded, and Polly ducked back inside the stairwell and ran up to tell Mike and Eileen.

“Jesus,” Mike said, looking at his watch, “it’s nearly six. We’ve stayed up all night talking.”

“And I’ve got to be at work in three hours.” Polly stretched and brushed off her skirt.

Eileen took Mike’s coat from around her shoulders and gave it back to him. “Okay,” Mike said. “Eileen, you’re going to go get your belongings and try to remember which airfield Gerald told you.” He gave her money for her tube fare. “Polly, you make that list of raids for us, and I want you to show me where the drop is before you go to work.”

They left the stairwell. Everyone in the tunnel had packed up and gone except for two very dirty urchins picking over the left-behind food scraps, and they fled the moment Polly opened the door.

The main hall was nearly deserted as well. “What train do you take to Stepney, Eileen?” Polly asked.

“Bakerloo to District and Circle.”

“We take the Central Line,” Polly said, and at Eileen’s worried expression, “We’ll walk you to your platform.”

That was easier said than done. The people on the Bakerloo platform were still in the process of packing up. One group had gathered around an ARP warden who’d obviously just come in from outside. He was covered in soot, and his coverall was torn. “How bad is it?” a woman asked him as they started past. “Did Marylebone get it again?”

He nodded. “And Wigmore Street.” He took off his tin hat to wipe his face with a sooty handkerchief. “Three incidents. One of the firemen said it was pretty bad out Whitechapel way, too.”

“What about Oxford Street?” Mike asked.

“No, it was lucky this time. Not a scratch on her.”

The color drained from Mike’s face.

“Are you certain-?” Eileen began, but Mike was already limping down the tunnel. He was nearly to the escalators before Polly caught up with him.

“That warden wouldn’t necessarily have seen Padgett’s,” she said. “You heard him, he was on Wigmore Street all night. That’s north of here, and it’s still dark. And when there’s an incident, there’s all this smoke and dust. One can’t see anything.”

“Or there isn’t anything to see,” he said, starting up the escalator.

“I don’t understand,” Eileen said, catching up to them as they reached the top. “Wasn’t Padgett’s hit?”

Mike didn’t answer her. He limped across the station to the exit and up to the street.

It was still dark out, but not dark enough that Polly couldn’t see the black roofs of Oxford Street’s stores against the inky sky. There was no sign of destruction, and no broken glass in the dark street. “It’s freezing out here,” Eileen said, shivering in her thin blouse as they stood looking down the street. “If it was hit, wouldn’t it be burning?”

Yes, Polly thought, but there was no sign of flames, no reddened sky, not even any smoke. The air was damp and clean.

“Are you certain you got the name of the store right?” Eileen asked, her teeth chattering. “It wasn’t Parmenter’s that was hit? Or Peter Robinson?”

“I’m certain,” Polly said.

“Perhaps you got the date wrong,” Eileen suggested, “and it won’t be hit till tomorrow night. Which means I can fetch my coat. And my handbag.” She set off down the dark street.

“Did you?” Mike asked. “Get the date wrong?”

“No. All the Oxford Street raids were implanted. We just can’t see it from here.” Which was true, but they’d be able to see the fire engines and hear the ambulance bells. And see the blue light of the incident officer. “When we get a bit farther down, we’ll see it,” she said firmly and set off after Eileen.

“Or I changed the course of events somehow so it didn’t get hit,” Mike said, limping alongside her. “I didn’t tell you what I did at Dunkirk-”

“It doesn’t matter what you did; historians can’t alter events. Padgett’s was hit by an HE, not an incendiary. They don’t necessarily cause fires, and if it happened early last night, the fire could have been out for hours-”

Ahead of them, Eileen called, “Padgett’s is still there. I can see it,” and Mike took off toward her at an awkward, hobbling run.

It can’t be, Polly thought, racing after and then past him, but it was. Before she’d run halfway she could make out Lyons Corner House in the darkness, still intact, and beyond it the first of Padgett’s pillars.

Eileen was nearly there. Polly ran after her, straining to see through the darkness. There were the rest of Padgett’s pillars, and the building beyond it. No, she thought. It can’t still be there.

It wasn’t. Before she was even to Lyons Corner House, she could see the side wall of the building beyond Padgett’s, half destroyed, and the empty space between it and Lyons.

Eileen had reached the front of the store. “Oh, no,” Polly heard her gasp.

She turned to call back to Mike, “It’s all right. It was hit,” and ran on to the store. Or the space where it had been. The pillars-and beyond them a deep pit-were all that was left. The HE had totally vaporized the department store, which meant it had been a thousand-pounder. And when we read the newspapers tomorrow, it will say that, and that there were three fatalities.

They had strung up rope at the edge of the pavement, blocking off the incident, and Eileen stood motionless just outside it, staring. In relief or shock? Polly couldn’t tell-it was too dark to see the expression on her face.

Polly reached her side. “Look,” Eileen said, pointing, and Polly saw she wasn’t staring at what was left of Padgett’s. She was staring at the glass-strewn pavement between the pillars. And at what Polly hadn’t seen before because it was too dark.

The pavement was strewn with bodies, and there were at least a dozen of them.

Be careful. Should you omit or add one single word, you may destroy the world. 

Oxford Street-26 October 1940

POLLY SQUINTED AT THE BODIES SPRAWLED ACROSS THE pavement. Even though she could only just make them out in the darkness, she could see that their arms and legs had been flung into tortured angles.