All Clear

by Connie Willis

  There wasn’t enough light to see signposts by, even if there were any, which there weren’t. The threat of invasion’s long since over, she thought, annoyed. There’s no reason for them not to have put the signposts back up.

  But they hadn’t, and as a result, she made two wrong turns and had to retrace her way for a tense few minutes, and it was half past twelve by the time she reached Dulwich.

  The garage was empty. They’ve already left for the V-1 that fell at 12:20. Good, that means I can have my tea before the next one. But she’d no sooner pulled in than Fairchild and Maitland piled in beside her. “V-1 in Herne Hill, DeHavilland,” Fairchild said. “Let’s go.”

  “They’ve had three in the last two hours,” Maitland said, “and they can’t handle it all.”

  And for the rest of the night, Mary clambered over ruins and bandaged wounds and loaded and unloaded stretchers.

  It was eight in the morning before they came home. “I heard you got stuck with my job, Triumph,” Talbot said when she went into the despatch room. “Which one was it? I hope not the Octopus.”

  “The Octopus?”

  “General Oswald. Eight hands, and cannot keep any of them to himself.” Talbot shuddered. “And very quick, even though he’s ancient and looks like a large toad.”

  “No,” Mary said, laughing. “Mine was young and very good-looking. His name was Lang. Flight Officer Lang.”

  “Oh, Stephen.” Talbot nodded wisely. “Did he convince you he’d met you somewhere before?”

  “He attempted to.”

  “He uses that line on every FANY who drives him,” Talbot said, which should have been a relief, but part of her had been secretly looking forward to the possibility of seeing him on her next assignment.

  “I wouldn’t set my cap for him,” Talbot was saying. “He’s definitely not interested in wartime attachments.”

  “Good,” Mary said. “I’m not either. If he rings up saying he needs a driver, would you—”

  “I’ll see to it the Major sends Parrish.”

  “Thank you. Talbot, I wanted to apologize again for pushing you down. I am sorry.”

  “No harm done, Triumph,” Talbot said, and the next day she hobbled into the common room on her crutches and kissed her on the cheek.

  “What was that for?” Mary asked.

  “This,” Talbot said, waving a letter at her. “It came in the post this morning. Listen, ‘Heard about your accident. Get better soon so we can go dancing. Signed, Sergeant Wally Wakowski,’ ” she read. “And in the parcel with it were two pairs of nylons! Your pushing me down was an absolute godsend, DeHavilland! As soon as my knee’s healed, I’ll take one—no, two—of your shifts for you.”

  But over the next week, the Germans increased the number of launchings till nearly two hundred and fifty V-1s were coming over every twenty-four hours, and everyone, including Talbot, went on double shifts. If Stephen had called and pretended he needed a driver, there wouldn’t have been any drivers or vehicles to send. Mary and Fairchild drove the Rolls to three separate incidents, and the Major spent most of her time on the telephone attempting to talk HQ into an additional driver and/or ambulance.

  But the next week, the number of V-1s arriving abruptly dropped. Mary wondered if the Germans had finally begun acting on the false information Intelligence had been feeding them and recalibrated their launchers to send the V-1s to pastures in Kent. Or perhaps Stephen had thought of a way to shoot them down. Whichever it was, the ambulance unit was able to go back to regular shifts and going to dances.

  Parrish, Maitland, and Reed dragged Mary to one in Walworth. Since she now knew what a V-1 sounded like—she’d heard one on a run to St. Francis’s—and since there weren’t any within a twenty-mile radius of Walworth on the day of the dance, she thought she could risk it.

  She was wrong. She met an American GI with exactly the same “Haven’t we met somewhere before?” line as Stephen Lang, none of Stephen’s charm or wit, and no dancing ability at all. She came home limping almost as badly as Talbot.

  The GI rang her up every day for a week, and on Thursday, when she and Fairchild got back from their second incident of the day—one dead, five injured—Parrish met them as they came in from the garage with “Kent, there’s someone waiting to see you in the common room.”

  “American?” she asked.

  “I don’t know. I’m only relaying a message from Maitland.”

  “I do hope it’s not that GI who couldn’t dance.”

  “Would you like me to come rescue you?” Fairchild offered.

  “Yes. Wait five minutes, and then come tell me I’m needed at hospital.”

  “I will. Here, give me your cap.”

  She handed it to Fairchild, went down the corridor to the common room, and opened the door. Maitland sat perched on the arm of the sofa, swinging her legs and smiling flirtatiously at a tall young man in an RAF uniform.

  It wasn’t the GI. It was Stephen Lang. “Isolde,” he said, smiling crookedly at her. “We meet yet again.”

  “What are you doing here?” she asked. “Do you need a driver?”

  “No, I came to thank you.”

  “Thank me?”

  “Yes, on behalf of the British people. And to tell you I finally remembered.”

  “Remembered?”

  “Yes. I told you we’d met before. I finally remembered where.”

  Do not tell the enemy anything. Hide your food and your bicycles. Hide your maps.

  PUBLIC INFORMATION BOOKLET,

  1940

  London—November 1940

  EILEEN LUCKED UP WILDLY AT THE SOUND OF THE SIREN. It wound up to a full-throated wail, its rising and falling notes filling the corridor outside the Hodbins’ flat. “Binnie!” Eileen shouted through the door. “Where’s the nearest shelter?”

  She rattled the knob, but the door was locked. “Binnie, you can’t stay in there!” she called through the door. “We must get to a shelter!”

  Silence except for the siren, which seemed to be right there in the tenement with her, it was so loud. “Binnie! Mrs. Hodbin!” She pounded on the door with both fists. The tube station they’d come from that day she first brought the children home was over a mile away. She’d never make it in time. It would have to be a surface shelter. “Mrs. Hodbin! Wake up! Where’s the nearest shelter? Mrs. Hod—”

  The door flew open and Binnie shot past her down the stairs, shouting, “It’s this way! Hurry!” Eileen ran after her down the three flights and past the landlady’s shut door, the siren ringing in her ears. She heard the outside door bang shut, but by the time she got outside, Binnie’d vanished. “Binnie!” she called. “Dolores!”

  There was no sign of her, and no one else in sight to tell her where the nearest shelter was. Eileen ran back inside and along the corridor, looking for steps that would lead down to a cellar, but she couldn’t find any.

  And these tenements collapse like matchsticks, she thought, panic washing over her. I must get out of here.

  She ran outside and back along the street, searching for a shelter notice or an Anderson, but there were only smashed houses and head-high heaps of rubble. The planes would be here any moment. Eileen looked up at the sky, trying to spot the black dots of the approaching bombers, but she couldn’t see or hear anything.

  There was a thump, followed by the slither of falling dirt, and Alf leaped down from the rubble and landed at her feet. “I thought I seen you,” he said. “What’re you doin’ ’ere?”

  She was actually glad to see him. “Quick, Alf,” she said, grabbing his arm. “Where’s the nearest air-raid shelter?”

  “What for?”

  “Didn’t you hear the siren?”

  “Siren?” he said. “I don’t ’ear no siren.”

  “It stopped. Is there a surface shelter near here?”

  “Are you sure you ’eard a siren?” he said. “I been out ’ere ages, and I ain’t ’eard nothin’, ’ave I?”

  I take it back about b
eing glad to see him, Eileen thought. “Yes, I’m certain I heard it. I was in there”—she pointed back at their tenement—“talking to Binnie—”

  His eyes narrowed. “What about?”

  “It doesn’t matter. Alf, we must get to a shelter now, before the raid—”

  “You ain’t ’ere ’cause of Child Services, are you?”

  Why on earth would she be here on behalf of Child Services? “No. Alf—” She tugged on his arm.

  “We don’t need to go till the planes come,” he said maddeningly. “ ’Sides, me and Binnie ain’t afraid of a little raid. There was one last week what blew up a ’undred ’ouses. Ka-boom!” He flung his arms up to show her. “Bits of people all over. What did Binnie tell you?” he asked suspiciously.

  We are going to be killed standing here, she thought desperately. “Alf, we can discuss all this later.”

  “Wait,” he said as if he’d suddenly had an idea. “What did the siren sound like?”

  “What do you mean, what did it sound like? An air-raid alert. Alf, we must—”

  “Where was you when it went?”

  “In the corridor outside your—Why?” she asked, suddenly suspicious.

  “I’ll wager you ’eard Mrs. Bascombe.”

  “Mrs. Bascombe?” What would Mrs. Bascombe be doing here in Whitechapel?

  “Our parrot.”

  A parrot.

  “We taught ’er to do the alert and the all clear,” Alf said proudly. “And HEs. Blooey! Ka-blam!”

  “You have a parrot that can imitate an air-raid alert?” Eileen said furiously, thinking, Of course they do. This is the Hodbins. Binnie had told it to do its siren imitation and then led her on a merry chase down the stairs and hid behind the tenement, where she no doubt still was, laughing her head off.

  “Mrs. Bascombe sounds just like ’em,” Alf was saying. “ ’Specially the HEs. She scared old Mrs. Rowe so bad she fell down the stairs. You thought it was a real siren,” he said, pointing at her and then doubling up with laughter. “What a good joke! You shoulda seen your face. Wait’ll I tell Binnie!” He started to run off, but Eileen hadn’t spent nine months with them for nothing. She was not leaving without the map. She grabbed Alf’s collar and held on in spite of his wriggling.

  “Stop squirming and stand still,” she said. “I want to talk to you. Do you still have the map the vicar gave you?”

  “I dunno,” he said. “Why?”

  “I need to borrow it.”

  “What for?” he said, his eyes narrowing again. “You ain’t one of them fifth columnists, are you?”

  “Of course not. I need it to look up something. If you’ll lend it to me, I’ll give you a book.”

  Alf snorted. “A book?”

  “Yes,” she said, attempting to decide whether she dared let go of him long enough to take it out of her bag. “About chopping people’s heads off.”

  He was immediately interested. “Whose ’eads?”

  “Anne Boleyn’s. Sir Thomas More’s. Lady Jane Grey’s.” She took the book from her bag.

  “Does it got pictures?” he asked, and when she nodded, “Can I see ’em?”

  “Not till you bring me the map.”

  He thought it over. “No,” he said finally. “What if a Messerschmitt comes over? ’Ow’ll I mark it if I ain’t got—”

  “I only need it for a day or two. After they chopped their heads off, they put them up on spikes on London Bridge.”

  His face lit up. “Does it got pictures of that?”

  “Yes,” she lied.

  “All right. Only you got to pay me. Five quid.”

  “Five quid?” Eileen said. “Do you know how much money that is? I have no intention—”

  Alf shrugged. “Suit yourself.”

  Very well, Eileen thought. “Where did you get that parrot, Alf?” she asked. “You stole it, didn’t you?”

  “No!” he said, outraged. “We never. We found it in the rubble. There’s all sorts of things in the rubble.”

  “That’s looting,” Eileen said, “and looting’s a crime.”

  “It ain’t looting!” he protested, his hands going defensively to his pockets. “ ’Ow can it be looting if the people what owned it’s dead?”

  Which was a good point, but Eileen needed that map, and they’d just taken ten years off her life with that parrot. “It’s still looting in the eyes of the law.”

  “Mrs. Bascombe woulda died if we ’adn’t found her. We rescued ’er.”

  “That may be, but I’m still going to have to call a constable and tell him you’re keeping a stolen parrot in your rooms.”

  He went white as a sheet. “Wait! Don’t!” he pleaded. “You can borrow the map.”

  “Thank you,” she began, and he wrenched suddenly free of her grasp, snatched the book out of her hands, and went racing off across the rubble. “Alf, you come back here!” Eileen called after him, but he’d already disappeared.

  And so had her chances of getting the map. She would have to admit defeat, go to Charing Cross Road, and hope she could find a map in a travel guide.

  She began walking toward Mile End Road, hoping the journey back wouldn’t be as—

  “Eileen!” Alf called, running up to her, Binnie at his heels. “You was s’posed to wait,” he said accusingly, and handed Eileen the map.

  “You needn’t bring it back,” Binnie said. “You can keep it. He don’t do planespotting no more. Now he collects shrapnel.”

  “And UXBs,” Alf said.

  Of course, Eileen thought.

  “So you needn’t come back,” Binnie finished.

  Eileen needn’t have worried about them following her back to Mrs. Rickett’s. On the contrary, they couldn’t wait to be rid of her. Why? What were they up to now? Alf had turned pale when she’d mentioned calling a constable. Had he “collected” a UXB and taken it home? But surely not even Mrs. Hodbin would have let them keep—

  “ ’Ad’nt you better be goin’?” Binnie said. “It’s gettin’ late.”

  She was right, and whatever mischief they were up to, it was no longer her responsibility. “Yes,” Eileen said. “Thank you for the map, Alf. Goodbye, Binnie.”

  “Dolores.”

  I’ll almost miss you, Eileen thought. Almost.

  “Goodbye, Dolores,” she said and pulled the film magazine from her bag and held it out to Binnie. “Here.”

  Binnie clutched it to her chest and ran off, as if she expected Eileen to change her mind and snatch it away from her.

  Alf still stood there.

  “It’s all right,” Eileen said. “I know you need your map for your planespotting. I’ll bring it back to you.”

  “You don’t hafta if you don’t want to. It’s like Binnie said, I don’t need it.”

  They definitely did not want her coming around. “I could send it back to you by post,” she suggested.

  “That’d be ’eaps better,” he said, looking relieved, but he continued to stand there. “You ain’t gonna tell the constable, are you?”

  “Not if you promise me you’ll keep out of the rubble,” she said, with no hope of his actually obeying her. “And that you won’t collect any more UXBs.”

  “I only collect little ones.”

  “No bombs,” she said firmly.

  “I can still collect shrapnel, can’t I?”

  “Yes,” she said, “but no watching raids. I want you to promise me you and Binnie will go to a shelter as soon as the sirens go.”

  Amazingly, he nodded. “Do you want I should show you where to catch the bus?”

  “No, that’s all right. I know the way home.” It’s somewhere on this map, and had to fight the impulse to open the map and look for the name of the airfield then and there, but it was growing late. It would have to wait till she got on the bus.

  But the bus was filled to capacity, and ten minutes after Eileen got on, it drove over a piece of shrapnel that Alf hadn’t collected and burst a tire, and she had to walk several streets o
ver to catch another one, which was even more crammed. She had to stand, hanging on to a strap, the entire way, and there were so many barricades and diversions that by the time the bus reached Bank Station, it was so late she was afraid if she went to Townsend Brothers, she’d miss Polly.

  Instead, she went to Mrs. Rickett’s and straight up to their room, where she sat down on the bed and opened out the map. It was badly worn and ripped along the folds, and the panel where the index of place-names should have been had been torn off. She’d have to locate the name on the map itself. Alf had marked Xes and dates all over the lower half of it, obscuring the names underneath. Luckily, they were in pencil and could be erased; hopefully, doing that wouldn’t also erase the names underneath. She hoped Alf hadn’t spotted a Messerschmitt over the airfield where Gerald was, or that it wasn’t on one of the torn folds.

  Polly and Mike thought his airfield was near Oxford. She began searching the section between there and London, bending over the tiny print, looking for Bs. Boxbourne … Bishop’s Stortford … Banbury …

  There was a timid tap on the door. She opened it a crack, just like Binnie had, and poked her head out. It was Miss Laburnum. “We’re just going down to dinner,” she said. “Are you coming?”

  “No, Polly’s not here yet,” Eileen said. “I’m waiting for her.”

  “Wise decision,” Mr. Dorming growled, passing in the corridor. “It’s boiled tripe tonight.”

  Boiled tripe, Eileen thought, making a face as she shut the door. I must find that name. She bent over the map again. It wasn’t anywhere on the railway line between Oxford and London, which must mean it was farther east. Baldock … Leighton Buzzard … Buckingham …

  There it was! I knew I’d recognize it if I saw it, she thought. And she’d been right about it being two words. Now if Polly would only come. She went out into the corridor to look down the stairs. An appalling stench somewhere between rotting flesh and mildewed sponge bags assailed her, and she clapped her hand to her nose and mouth and retreated into the room. A moment later Polly came in the door, gasping. “What is that wretched odor? Has Hitler begun using mustard gas?”