All Clear

by Connie Willis

  “Did he say how?”

  “How? You mean motor up or come by train?” Eileen asked. “No, but he said, ‘Is backwater Backbury even on the railway?’ ”

  “And the day I saw him,” Mike interjected, “he said one of the things he had to do was check the railway schedule.”

  “Good,” Polly said. “That means the airfield’s near a railway station. Mike, you said he went through to Oxford?”

  “Yes, but that was just to set things up, not for his assignment. He could have been checking on a train to anywhere …”

  Polly shook her head. “Wartime travel is too unreliable. Mr. Dunworthy would have insisted he come through near where he needed to go. Troop trains cause all sorts of delays.”

  “She’s right,” Eileen said. “Some days the train to Backbury didn’t come at all.”

  “So we’re looking for an airfield near Oxford,” Mike said.

  “Or Backbury,” Polly said.

  “Or Backbury. And near a railway station, and one that has two words in its name and begins with D, P, T, or B. That narrows it down considerably. Now, if we can just find a map …”

  “We’re working on that,” Polly said. “And I’m working on writing down all the raids.” She gave them each a copy of the list for the next week.

  “There are raids every night next week?” Eileen said.

  “I’m afraid so. They let up a bit in November when the Luftwaffe begins bombing other cities, and later on when winter weather sets in.”

  “Later on?” Eileen asked in dismay. “How long did the Blitz last?”

  “Till next May.”

  “May? But the raids taper off, don’t they?”

  “I’m afraid not. The biggest raid of the entire Blitz was May ninth and tenth.”

  “That’s when the worst raid was?” Mike asked. “In mid-May?”

  “Yes. Why?”

  “Nothing. It doesn’t matter. We’ll be out of here long before that.” He smiled encouragingly at Eileen. “All we have to do is figure out where Gerald is. Can you think of anything else he said that might give us a clue? Where were you when you had this conversation?”

  “There were two—in the lab, and then over at Oriel when I went there to get my driving authorization. Oh, I remember something he said about that. It began to rain while he was telling me how important and dangerous his assignment was, and he looked up at the sky and held out his hand the way one does to see if it’s really raining, then pointed at my authorization—you know, the printed form one has to fill up for driving lessons. You had one, Polly.”

  Polly nodded. “A printed red-and-blue form?”

  “Yes, that’s the one. He pointed at it and said, ‘You’d better put that away, or you’ll never learn to drive. Or at any rate, where I’m going you wouldn’t,’ and then he laughed as though he’d said something tremendously clever. He’s always doing that—he fancies himself a comedian, though his jokes aren’t funny in the least, and I didn’t understand that one at all. Do you understand the joke?”

  “No,” Polly said, and she couldn’t think of anything the form would have to do with an airfield. “Can you remember anything else he said?”

  “Or anything at all about when you were talking to him?” Mike said. “What else was going on?”

  “Linna was on the phone with someone, but it didn’t have anything to do with Gerald’s assignment.”

  “But it may trigger a memory of the name of the airfield. Try to remember every detail you can, no matter how irrelevant.”

  “Like the dog’s ball,” Eileen said eagerly.

  “Gerald had a dog’s ball?” Mike asked.

  “No. There was a dog’s ball in one of Agatha Christie’s novels.”

  Well, that’s certainly irrelevant, Polly thought.

  “In Dumb Witness,” Eileen said. “At first it didn’t seem to have anything at all to do with the murder, but then it turned out to be the key to the entire mystery.”

  “Exactly,” Mike said. “Write it all down, and see if it triggers something. And in the meantime, I want you to make the rounds of the department stores on Monday and fill out a job application at each one.”

  “I can ask Miss Snelgrove if they need anyone at Townsend Brothers,” Polly said.

  “This isn’t about a job,” Mike said. “It’s so they’ll have her name and address on file when the retrieval team comes looking for us.”

  Which must mean the arguments I made to him this morning at Padgett’s convinced him he didn’t alter history after all, Polly thought. But after they’d curled up under their coats on the landing to sleep, he shook her awake and motioned her to tiptoe after him past the sleeping Eileen and down the steps to the landing below.

  “Did you find out anything more about Padgett’s?” he whispered.

  “No,” Polly lied. “Did you?”

  He shook his head.

  Thank goodness, Polly thought. When the all clear goes. I’ll take him straight to the drop. He can’t talk to anyone there. He can sit there till I come back from the hospital. If I can get him out of here without Miss Laburnum latching on to us and blurting out something about how awful it is that there were five people kil—

  “You said there were three fatalities, right?” Mike asked.

  “Yes, but the information in my implant could have been wrong. It—”

  “And the supervisor—what was his name? Feathers?”

  “Fetters.”

  “Said everybody who worked at Padgett’s had been accounted for.”

  “Yes, but—”

  “I’ve been thinking. What if it was our retrieval team?”

  Metal makes guns! Keep your lipstick holder. Buy refills.

  —MAGAZINE ADVERTISEMENT,

  1944

  Bethnal Green—June 1944

  MARY FLUNG HERSELF DOWN IN THE GUTTER NEXT TO TALBOT, half on top of her, listening to the sudden silence where the putt-putt of the engine had been.

  “What in God’s name are you doing, Kent?” Talbot said, trying to wriggle free from underneath her.

  Mary pushed her back down into the gutter. “Keep your head down!” They had twelve seconds before the V-1 exploded. Eleven … ten … nine … Please, please, please, let us be far enough away from it, she prayed. Seven … six …

  “Keep my—?” Talbot said, struggling against her. “Have you gone mad?”

  Mary pressed her down. “Cover your eyes!” she ordered, and squeezed her own shut against the blinding light that would come with the blast.

  I should put my hands over my ears, she thought, but she needed them to hold down Talbot, who was, unbelievably, still attempting to get up. “Stay down! It’s a flying bomb!” Mary put her hand to the back of Talbot’s head and forced it flat against the bottom of the gutter. Two … one … zero …

  Her adrenaline-racing mind must have counted too quickly. She waited, arms tight around Talbot, for the flash and deafening concussion.

  Talbot was struggling harder than ever. “Flying bomb?” she said, wrenching herself free and raising herself on her hands and elbows. “What flying bomb?”

  “The one I heard. Don’t…,” Mary said, trying vainly to push her down again. “It’ll go off any second. It …”

  There was a sputtering cough, and the putt-putting sound started up again. But it can’t have, she thought bewilderedly. V-1s don’t start up again …

  “Is that what you heard?” Talbot asked. “That’s not a flying bomb, you ninny. It’s a motorcycle.” And as she spoke, an American GI came around the corner on a decrepit-looking DeHavilland, sped toward them, and careened to a stop.

  “What happened?” he asked, leaping off the motorcycle. “Are you two all right?”

  “No,” Talbot said disgustedly. She pulled herself to sitting and began brushing dirt off the front of her uniform.

  “You’re bleeding,” the GI said.

  Mary looked at Talbot in horror. There was blood on her blouse, blood trickling down
her mouth and her chin. “Oh, my God, Talbot!” she cried, and she and the Gl began fumbling for a handkerchief.

  “What are you talking about?” Talbot said. “I’m not bleeding.”

  “Your mouth,” the GI said, and Talbot felt it cautiously and then looked at her fingers.

  “That’s not blood,” she said, “it’s lipstick—oh, my God, my lipstick!” She began looking frantically around for it. “I only just got it. It’s Crimson Caress.” She started to stand up. “Kent knocked it out of my hand when she—Oh! Ow!” She collapsed back onto the curb.

  “You are hurt!” the GI said, hurrying over.

  “Oh, Talbot, I’m so sorry,” Mary said. “I thought it was a V-1. The newspapers said they sounded like a motorcycle. Is it your knee?”

  “Yes, but it’s nothing,” Talbot said, putting her arm around the GI’s neck. “It twisted under me as I went down. It’ll be fine in a moment—Ow! Ow! Ow!”

  “You’re not fine,” the GI said. He turned to Mary. “I don’t think she can walk. Or ride a motorcycle. Have you got a car?”

  “No. We came up here from Dulwich by bus.”

  “I’m all right,” Talbot said. “Kent can give me a hand.”

  But even supported by both of them, she couldn’t put any weight at all on the knee. “She’s torn a ligament,” the GI said, easing her back down to sitting on the curb. “You’re going to have to send for an ambulance.”

  “That’s ridiculous!” Talbot protested. “We’re the ambulance crew!”

  But he was already mounting his motorcycle to go find a telephone. Mary gave him the exchange and number of Bethnal Green’s post. “No, not Bethnal Green,” Talbot protested. “If the other units find out, we’ll be laughingstocks. Tell him to ring Dulwich, Kent.”

  She did, but when the ambulance arrived a few minutes later, it was from Brixton. “Both of yours were out at incidents,” the driver said. “Jerry’s sending them over fast and furious today.”

  Not over us, Mary thought ruefully.

  Brixton’s crew took the news that she had mistaken a motorcycle for a V-1 in stride, but when she and Talbot got back to Dulwich, there was a good deal of merriment. “The newspapers said they sound like a motorcycle,” Mary said defensively.

  “Yes, well, the newspapers said they sound like a washing machine, too,” Maitland said. “I suppose we’d best be careful when we do our laundry, girls.”

  Parrish nodded. “I don’t want to run the risk of being flung down while hanging up my knickers.”

  “It was a very old DeHavilland,” Talbot said in her defense, “and it did sputter and then die rather like a flying bomb.” But that only made it worse. The girls began calling her DeHavilland and Triumph and any other motorcycle name that was handy, and whenever a door slammed or a pot boiled over, someone shouted, “Oh, no, it’s a flying bomb!” and attempted to tackle her from behind.

  The ribbing was all good-natured, and Talbot didn’t seem to bear a grudge, even though she’d been taken off active duty and assigned secretarial tasks and had to hobble about on crutches. She seemed far more upset about her lost lipstick and having missed the dance than about her knee.

  On their way home from an incident the next morning Mary and Fairchild went to see if they could find the lipstick, but either it had rolled into the storm drain or someone had seen it lying in the street and taken it. They did find Talbot’s cap, which had been run over and was obviously beyond repair. And on the way home, they passed the railroad bridge Mary had gone to the dance to see—or rather, what was left of it. “It was hit by one of the first flying bombs that came over,” Fairchild said casually.

  And if you’d mentioned that sooner, Mary thought, I’d have known my implant data was accurate, and I wouldn’t have injured Talbot.

  To make amends, Mary offered Talbot her own lipstick, but Talbot said, “No, that’s too pink,” and set about concocting a substitute out of heated paraffin and merthiolate from the medical kit. The result proved too orange, and for the next few days the entire post was utterly absorbed—in between incidents, some of them grisly—in finding something that would reproduce Crimson Caress.

  Currants were too dark, beet juice too purple, and there were no strawberries to be had anywhere. Mary, helping to carry the body of a dead woman with a broken-off banister driven through her chest, noticed that her blood was the exact shade they needed, then felt horrified and ashamed of herself and spent the rest of the incident worrying that one of the other FANYs might have noticed the color, too. It was almost a relief when they spent the journey home arguing over whose turn it was to have to wear the Yellow Peril.

  If and when any of them got to go out again. With Talbot injured, they were shorthanded, and they’d already been pulling double shifts. And Hitler was sending more V-1s over every day. The newspapers reported that anti-aircraft guns had been placed in a line along the Dover coast and that the barrage balloons had been moved to the coast from London, but clearly neither of those defensive measures was working. “What I want to know,” Camberley said, exasperated after their fourth incident in twenty-four hours, “is, where are our boys?”

  At least I know where the V-1s are, Mary thought. The rockets were all coming over exactly when and where they were supposed to. The Guards Chapel was hit on June eighteenth, there was a near miss of Buckingham Palace on the twentieth, and Fleet Street, the Aldwych Theater, and Sloane Court were all hit on schedule. And since they had more than they could handle in their own district, they were no longer transporting any patients through Bomb Alley. So Mary was able to relax and concentrate on observing the FANYs and trying to live down her nickname.

  A week later Major Denewell came into the despatch office, where Mary was manning the telephone, and asked, “Where’s Maitland?”

  “Out on a run, ma’am. Burbage Road. V-1.”

  The Major looked annoyed. “What about Fairchild?”

  “She’s off duty. She’s gone with Reed to London.”

  “How long have they been gone?”

  “Over an hour.”

  She looked even more annoyed. “Then you’ll have to do,” she said. “We’ve had a telephone call from the RAF asking for a driver for one of their officers, and Talbot can’t drive with her wrenched knee. You’ll have to go in her place.” She handed Mary a folded slip of paper. “Here’s the officer’s name, where you’re to meet him, and your route.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” she said. And let’s hope the airfield where I’m to pick him up isn’t Biggin Hill or any of the other airfields in Bomb Alley, she thought, unfolding it.

  Oh, good, it was Hendon. But there was no destination listed. “Where am I to drive Flight Officer Lang to, ma’am?”

  “He’ll tell you that,” the Major said, obviously wishing Talbot was in a condition to do this. “You’re to drive him wherever he wishes to go and then wait for him and drive him back, unless otherwise instructed. You’re to be there by half past eleven.” Which meant she needed to leave immediately. “Take the Daimler,” the Major said. “And you’re to wear full-dress uniform.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “And since you’ll be in the vicinity, stop in Edgware and ask the supply officer if they have any stretchers they can spare.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” she said, and went to change. And look at the map. Hendon was far enough northwest of London that it was completely out of rocket range, and only a half dozen would fall between here and there this morning. The British Intelligence plan to convince the Germans to shorten the rockets’ range must be working.

  She looked at the route the Major had mapped out for her. Two of the six V-1s lay along it. She’d have to head west to Wandsworth instead and then north. It would take extra petrol, but she could say the road the Major had suggested had been blocked by a convoy or something.

  She traced the route and set out for Hendon, hoping she’d arrive early enough to go on to Edgware and pick up the bandages first, but there was all sorts of military tr
affic. It was after twelve by the time she reached the airfield, and the officer was already waiting at the door, looking impatiently at his watch.

  I hope he’s not angry, she thought, but as she pulled up, he grinned and bounded toward the ambulance. He was no older than she was, and boyishly handsome, with dark hair and a crooked smile.

  He opened the door and leaned in. “Where have you been, you beautiful—?” He stopped in midsentence. “Sorry, I thought you were someone I knew.”

  “Apparently,” she said.

  “Not that you’re not beautiful. You are,” he said, flashing her the crooked smile. “Rather devastatingly beautiful, as a matter of fact.”

  “I’m here from Ambulance Post Number Forty-Seven to pick up Flight Officer Lang,” she said crisply.

  “I’m Officer Lang.” He got into the front seat. “Where’s Lieutenant Talbot?”

  “She’s on sick leave, sir.”

  “Sick leave? She wasn’t hit by one of these blasted rocket bombs, was she?”

  “No, sir.” Only by an historian. “Not exactly.”

  “Not exactly? What happened? She wasn’t badly hurt?”

  “No, only a wrenched knee. I pushed her into a gutter.”

  “Because you wanted to be the one to drive me?” he said. “I’m flattered.”

  “No, because I thought I heard a V-1, but it was only a motorcycle.”

  “And so she’s not able to drive, and they sent you as her replacement,” he said, grinning. “It wasn’t an accident you were sent, you know. It was fate.”

  I doubt that, she thought. And why do I have a feeling you say the same thing to every FANY who drives you? “Where am I to take you, sir?”

  “London. Whitehall.”

  Which was better than somewhere in Bomb Alley, but not perfect. Once they got there, they’d be safe. No V-1s had fallen in Whitehall that day, but more than a dozen had hit between Hendon and London.

  “Whitehall. Yes, sir,” she said, and opened out the map to find the safest route.