Blackout

by Connie Willis

  Or bombs shot from a giant catapult—a theory they discussed till the all clear went half an hour later. “Good,” Fairchild said, listening to its steady wail. “Let’s hope that’s the last one for tonight.”

  It won’t be, Mary thought. The alert will sound again in… she glanced at her watch… eleven minutes, if it was on schedule, which she was beginning to be confident it would be. The explosions had been on time all day, and when she looked at the despatcher’s log, there was a 2:20 A.M. ambulance call to Waring Lane. Which only left Bethnal Green.

  When the evening papers came out, she felt even more confident. Not only was the Evening Standard’s front page identical to the one she’d seen in the Bodleian, but the Daily Express said there’d been four V-1s on Tuesday night, though it didn’t say where they’d landed.

  The newspapers also settled the issue of what the V-1s weren’t. The Evening Standard’s headline read, “Pilotless Planes Now Raid Britain,” and they all described them in detail. The Daily Mail even had a diagram of the propulsion system, and the conversation in the shelter turned to the best way to avoid being hit by one.

  “When the sound of the engine stops, take cover promptly, using the most solid protection available and keeping well away from glass doors and windows,” the Times advised, and the Daily Express was even more blunt. “Lie face-down in the nearest gutter.”

  “Keep watch on the flame in the tail,” the Evening Standard suggested. “When it goes out, you will have approximately fifteen seconds in which to take cover,” which made the Morning Herald’s advice to go to the nearest shelter utterly impractical. But in general the press had it right. Though they couldn’t agree on the sound the V-1s made and none of them mentioned a backfiring automobile. Descriptions varied from “a washing machine” to “the putt-putt of a motorbike” to “the buzz of a bee.”

  “A bee?” Parrish, who had heard one on an ambulance run, said. “It’s not like any bee I ever heard. A hornet perhaps. An extremely large, extremely angry hornet,” and Mary was forced to take her word for it. By the end of the first week of attacks, she still hadn’t heard one nearby. That was the problem with being an ambulance driver. One went where the V-1 had already been, not where it was going.

  But it wasn’t their sound that mattered. It was the sudden silence, the abrupt cutting off of the engine, and that would be easy to recognize. At any rate, she was bound to hear one soon. They were coming over now at the rate of ten an hour, and the FANYs were working double shifts, driving to incident after incident, administering first aid to the injured, loading them onto stretchers, transporting them to hospital, and—when they arrived at an incident ahead of Civil Defence, which often happened—digging victims, alive and dead, out of the rubble. And they were still ferrying patients from Dover to Orpington.

  It was far more than they could handle, and the Major began lobbying HQ for more FANYs and an additional ambulance. “Which she’ll never get,” Talbot said.

  That’s true, Mary thought. Every available ambulance was being sent to France.

  “Not necessarily,” Reed said. “Remember, she got us Kent. And this is the Major,” and Camberley promptly started a betting pool on how long it would take her to obtain the ambulance.

  The FANYs had shifted effortlessly from arguing over frocks to tying tourniquets and coping with grisly sights. “Don’t bother with anything smaller than a hand,” Fairchild told her, and as they waited with a stretcher while a rescue team dug a shaft down to a sobbing woman, Parrish said calmly, “They’ll never make it to her in time. Gas. Are you going to the dance with Talbot on Saturday?”

  “I thought you were,” Mary managed to say, trying not to think about the gas. She could smell it growing stronger, and the woman’s cries seemed to be getting correspondingly weaker.

  “I was, but Dickie telephoned. He has a forty-eight-hour pass, and I was wondering if I might borrow your blue organdy, if you’re not wearing it anywhere on—oh, look, they’ve got her out,” Parrish said and took off at a trot across the rubble with the medical kit, but it wasn’t the woman, it was a dog, dead from the gas, and by the time they got the woman out, she’d died, too.

  “I’ll telephone for a mortuary van,” Parrish said. “You didn’t say whether you needed your organdy this weekend.”

  “No, I don’t,” Mary said, appalled at Parrish’s callousness, and then remembered she was supposed to have driven an ambulance during the Blitz. “Of course you can borrow it.”

  Away from the incidents they never discussed what had happened there or their lives before the war. They were like historians in that respect, focusing solely on their current assignment, their current identity. Mary had to piece together their backgrounds from clues they dropped in conversation and a copy of Debrett’s she found in the common room.

  Sutcliffe-Hythe’s father was an earl, Maitland’s mother was sixteenth in line to the throne, and Reed was Lady Diana Brenfell Reed. Camberley’s first name was Cynthia and Talbot’s Louise, though they never called each other by anything but their last names. Or nicknames. As well as “Jitters” Parrish, there was a FANY at Croydon they referred to as “Man-Mad,” and they’d dubbed an officer several of them had gone out with “NST,” which Camberley explained meant “Not Safe in Taxis.”

  Maitland had a twin who was serving in the Air Transport Service, Parrish had an elder brother who’d been captured by the Japanese in Singapore and a younger one who’d been killed on the HMS Hood, and Grenville’s father had been killed at Tobruk. But to listen to their conversations, one would never have known that. They gossiped, complained about Bela Lugosi (which was refusing to start), about the dampness of the cellar, about the Major’s habit of sending them after supplies when they were off-duty. “She sent me to Croydon last night in the blackout, to fetch three bottles of iodine,” Grenville said indignantly.

  “Next time, tell me and I’ll go,” Sutcliffe-Hythe said from her cot. “I’m not sleeping anyway with these wretched alerts going off every ten minutes.”

  “Then you can go to the dance with me on Saturday,” Talbot said.

  “I thought Parrish was going with you,” Reed said.

  “She has a date.”

  “I’d only yawn the whole evening,” Sutcliffe-Hythe said. She turned over and pulled the blanket over her head. “Make Grenville go with you.”

  “She won’t,” Reed said. “She’s finally had a letter from Tom in Italy. She plans to spend tomorrow writing him.”

  “Can’t that wait till Sunday?” Talbot asked.

  Reed gave her a withering look. “You’ve obviously never been in love, Talbot. And she wants to make certain it reaches him before he’s ordered somewhere else.”

  “Well, then, it’s up to you to go with me, Kent,” Talbot said, sitting down on the end of Mary’s cot.

  “I can’t. I’m on duty Saturday,” she said, glad she had an excuse. If the dance was in Bomb Alley or one of the other areas that weren’t in her implant—

  “Fairchild will trade shifts with you,” Talbot said. “Won’t you, Fairchild?”

  “Um-hmm,” Fairchild said without opening her eyes.

  “But that’s not fair to her,” Mary said. “Perhaps she wants to go to the dance.”

  “No, her heart belongs to the boy who used to pull her pigtails. Isn’t that right, Fairchild?”

  “Yes,” she said defensively.

  “He’s a pilot,” Parrish explained. “He’s stationed at Tangmere. He flies Spitfires.”

  “He’s her childhood sweetheart,” Reed put in, “and she’s made up her mind to marry him, so she isn’t interested in other men.”

  Fairchild sat up, looking indignant. “I didn’t say I was going to marry him. I said I was in love with him. I’ve loved him since I—”

  “Since you were six and he was twelve,” Talbot said. “We know. And when he sees you all grown up he’s going to fall madly in love with you. But what if he doesn’t?”

  “And how do you kn
ow you’ll still be in love with him when you see him again?” Reed said. “You haven’t seen him in nearly three years. It might have only been a schoolgirl crush.”

  “It wasn’t,” Fairchild said firmly.

  Talbot looked skeptical. “You can’t know that for certain unless you go out with other men, which is why you need to go to the dance with me. I’m only thinking of your welfare—”

  “No, you’re not. Kent, I’d be delighted to switch shifts with you.” She punched her pillow into shape, lay down, and closed her eyes. “Good night all.”

  “Then it’s settled. You’re going with me, Kent.”

  “Oh, but I—”

  “It’s your duty to go. After all, it’s your fault I lost the pool and haven’t any stockings.”

  The siren went, making it impossible to talk. Good, Mary thought, it will give me a chance to think of an excuse, and when it wound down, she said, “I haven’t anything to wear. I lent both of my dancing frocks to Parrish and Maitland, and the Yellow Peril makes me look jaundiced.”

  “The Yellow Peril makes everyone look jaundiced,” Talbot said. “You won’t need a dancing frock. This is a canteen dance. You can wear your uniform.”

  “Where’s it being held?” she asked, thinking, If it’s in Bomb Alley, I’ll have to pretend I’m ill on Saturday.

  “The American USO in Bethnal Green.”

  Bethnal Green. So she could finally go look at the railway bridge and stop worrying over whether she could trust her implant. She should be able to sneak away from the dance easily—Talbot would be busy trying to wheedle nylons out of her Yanks—and it was perfect timing. The only V-1s that had fallen on Bethnal Green on Saturday were in the afternoon.

  “Very well, I’ll go,” she said, congratulating herself on her cleverness and wondering if she could persuade one of the soldiers at the dance to take her to Grove Road in his Jeep, but at two Saturday afternoon Talbot said, “Aren’t you ready, Kent?”

  “Ready? I thought the dance wasn’t till tonight.”

  “No. Didn’t I tell you? It begins at four, and I want to be there before all the best Yanks are taken.”

  “But—”

  “No excuses. You promised. Now hurry, or we’ll miss our bus,” and dragged her off to the bus stop.

  Mary spent the ride to Bethnal Green listening anxiously for the sound of a washing machine or an angry hornet and looking for nonexistent street signs. One of the V-1s had fallen at 3:50 in Darnley Lane and the other at 5:28 in King Edward’s Road. “What street is the USO canteen in?” she asked Talbot.

  “I can’t remember,” Talbot said. “But I know the way,” which was no help.

  “This is our stop,” Talbot said. They descended on a street lined with shops.

  Good, Mary thought. This can’t be Darnley Lane. Darnley Lane was a residential street. She glanced at her watch. Five minutes to four. The 3:50 had already hit.

  She looked up and down the street. She couldn’t see any sign of a railway bridge, so apparently this wasn’t Grove Road either. She hoped it wasn’t King Edward’s Road. And that the Darnley Lane one had already hit. She didn’t hear any ambulance bells, or an all clear.

  “It’s a bit of a hike, I’m afraid,” Talbot said, setting off down the street.

  Mary glanced up at the sky again, listening. She thought she could hear something to the southeast.

  “What sort of men do you like?” Talbot asked.

  “What?” The sound was a hum, rising to a steady wail. The all clear. And seconds later, she heard a fire engine.

  “I don’t know why they even bother with an all clear,” Talbot said exasperatedly. “They’ll only have to sound the alert again five minutes from now.”

  No, not for an hour and a quarter, and by then they’d be at the dance, and she’d have been able to ask one of the USO people the canteen’s address and make certain it wasn’t on King Edward’s Road. And she’d have been able to ask them how she could find Grove Road. “Sorry, what were you saying before?”

  “I was asking you what sort of men you like,” Talbot said. “When we get there, I’ll introduce you to some of the chaps I know. Do you like them tall? Short? Younger men? Older?”

  Every man at this dance will be at least a hundred years too old for me, Mary thought. “I’m not really interested in—”

  “You’re not in love with someone, are you?”

  “No.”

  “Good. I don’t approve of people being in love during a war. How can anyone plan for the future when we don’t know if we’ll have one? When I was posted to Bournemouth, one of the girls got engaged to a naval officer who was on a destroyer guarding convoys. She worried herself sick about him, spent all her time devouring the newspapers and listening to the wireless. And then she was the one killed, driving an officer back to Duxton Airfield. And now with these flying bombs, any one of us might be killed at any minute.”

  She turned down a narrow lane lined with shops with boarded-up windows. “I tried to tell Fairchild that, the little goose. She’s not really in love, you know. Where’s my lipstick?” She fumbled in her bag for it as she walked. “Where is my compact? May I borrow yours?”

  Mary obligingly dug in her bag. “Never mind,” Talbot said, walking over to the one shop window which still had glass in it. She took the cap off her lipstick and twisted the base. “It will never work. He’s years older than she is.” She leaned forward to apply the lipstick in the window’s reflection. “You know the sort of thing, older boy worshipped by younger girl…”

  “Mmm,” Mary said, listening to the ragged putt-putt of an approaching motorcycle coming down the street they’d just left.

  Talbot didn’t seem to notice, even though she had to raise her voice over its noise. “She has some fairy-tale notion that he’ll see her in her uniform, all grown up, and realize he’s always loved her, even though she still looks fifteen.” She was nearly shouting, the motorcycle was so loud. The sound echoed rattlingly off the shops in the narrow lane. “She’s determined to have her heart broken.” She pursed her lips as she applied the Crimson Caress. “He’s in the RAF, after all, not exactly the safest of jobs.”

  The sound of the motorcycle grew deafeningly loud and then shut off abruptly. That’s not a motorcycle. That’s a V-1, Mary thought.

  And then, It can’t be, it’s only a quarter past four.

  And then, What if my implant data’s wrong after all?

  And then, Oh, God, I’ve only got fifteen seconds.

  “And what if he doesn’t fall into Fairchild’s arms as planned?” Talbot said, leaning toward the window to appraise the effect. “Or his aeroplane crashes?”

  Oh, God, the glass! Mary thought. She’ll be cut to ribbons. “Talbot!” she shouted and made a running dive at her, tackling her, flinging her off the curb. The lipstick flew out of her hand.

  “Ow! Kent, what do you think you’re—?” Talbot said.

  “Stay down!” She pushed Talbot’s head down into the gutter, flattened herself on top of her, and closed her eyes, waiting for the flash.

  The girls won’t leave without me, and I won’t leave without the King. And the King will never leave.

  —QUEEN MARY, ON BEING ASKED WHY SHE HADN’T EVACUATED THE PRINCESSES TO CANADA

  Warwickshire—May 1940

  THE ASPIRIN TABLETS EILEEN GAVE BINNIE BROUGHT HER fever down partway and kept it down, but she was still gravely ill. With each passing hour her breathing was more labored, and by morning she was calling wildly for Eileen, even though she was there next to her. Eileen telephoned Dr. Stuart.

  “I think you’d best write her mother and ask her to come,” he said.

  Oh, no, Eileen thought.

  She went to ask Alf their address. “Is Binnie dyin’, then?” he asked.

  “Of course not,” she said firmly. “It’s only that she’ll get well faster if your mother’s here to care for her.”

  Alf snorted. “I’ll wager she don’t come.”

 
“Of course she will. She’s your mother.”

  But she didn’t. She didn’t even reply. “Wicked,” Mrs. Bascombe said when she brought Binnie a cup of tea. “No wonder they’ve turned out the way they have. Is she breathing any easier?”

  “No,” Polly said.

  “This tea has hyssop in it,” Mrs. Bascombe said. “It will loosen her chest,” but Binnie was too weak to drink more than a few sips of the bitter-tasting tea and, worse, too weak to refuse to drink it.

  That was the most frightening aspect of Binnie’s illness. She didn’t resist what Eileen did or even protest. All the fight had gone out of her, and she lay listlessly as Eileen bathed her, changed her nightgown, gave her the aspirin. “Are you sure she ain’t dyin’?” Alf asked her.

  No, Eileen thought. I’m not sure at all. “Yes, I’m certain,” she said. “Your sister’s going to be fine.”

  “If she did die, what’d ’appen to ’er?”

  “You’d better worry over what’ll happen to you, young man,” Mrs. Bascombe said, coming in from the pantry. “If you want to get into heaven, you must change your ways.”

  “I ain’t talking about that,” Alf said and then hesitated, looking guilty. “Would they bury ’er in the churchyard in Backbury?”

  “What have you done to the churchyard?” Eileen demanded.

  “Nuthin’,” he said indignantly. “I was talkin’ about Binnie,” and stomped off, but the next day when the vicar brought the post, Alf called down to him, “If Binnie dies, will she ’ave to ’ave a tombstone?”

  “You mustn’t worry, Alf,” the vicar said. “Dr. Stuart and Miss O’Reilly are taking very good care of Binnie.”

  “I know. Will she?”

  “What’s all this about, Alf?” the vicar asked.

  “Nuthin’,” Alf said and ran off again.

  “Perhaps I’d best check the churchyard when I get home,” the vicar told Eileen. “Alf may have decided tombstones would make excellent roadblocks when the Germans invade.”