All Clear

by Connie Willis

  Marble Arch had been hit, so that didn’t help.

  “You’re interested in the Blitz?” Camberley asked.

  “Yes, my grandmother was in London during the Blitz.” Forgive me, Polly, he thought. “And I was hoping to find someone who knew her.”

  “What did she do?”

  “I don’t know. She died before I was born. I know she worked at Townsend Brothers during the first part of the Blitz and then did some sort of war work, and an uncle of mine said he thought she might have driven an ambulance.”

  “Oh, then Talbot might know her.”

  “Talbot?”

  “Yes. Talbot—I mean, Mrs. Vernon. During the war we got in the habit of calling one another by our last names, and we still do it, even though most of us have married and those aren’t our names any longer. Mrs. Vernon was at Dulwich with me. She drove an ambulance in the East End during the Blitz.”

  If Polly’d known Mrs. Vernon, or rather, Talbot, during the rocket attacks, she’d have taken care to keep out of her way during the Blitz, but he went with Camberley to find her in case she knew of other ambulance drivers he could contact.

  Talbot, a formidable woman three times Camberley’s size, was listening to a BBC recording with headphones on. Camberley had to tap her on the back to get her to turn around. “This is Mr. Knight. He’s looking for someone who knew his grandmother. She was an ambulance driver.”

  “What was her name?” Talbot asked.

  “Polly. Polly Sebastian.”

  “Sebastian…,” she said, shaking her head. “No, I don’t remember anyone by that name in the FANYs. But I know whom you should ask. Goody. Mrs. Lambert,” she explained. “She’s our group’s historian, and she knows everyone who worked in the Blitz.”

  “Which one is she?”

  “I don’t see her,” Talbot said, looking round the room. “She’s medium height, gray hair, rather stout.” Which described three-quarters of the women he’d seen this morning. “I know she’s here somewhere. Browne will know.”

  She dragged him over to a gray-haired woman peering through her spectacles at a parachute mine. “Browne, where’s Goody Two-Shoes, do you know?”

  “She’s not here. She had to do something in the City this morning, I don’t know what, but she said she’d come as soon as she’d finished with whatever it was.”

  “Oh, dear,” Talbot said. “This young man is looking for someone who might have known his grandmother.”

  “Oh. What did your grandmother do in the war?” Browne asked, and he went through the entire rigamarole again.

  “Were you an ambulance driver?” he asked her.

  “No, an RAF plotter. So I was only in London for the first two months of the Blitz. You said your grandmother worked at Townsend Brothers. So did Pudge. That’s her over there in the green dress,” she said, pointing at a thin, birdlike woman looking at a display of clothing ration books.

  But Pudge, whose name tag read Pauline Rainsford, had worked at Padgett’s, not Townsend Brothers. “Till it was hit,” she said matter-of-factly, “at which point I decided I might as well be in the armed services, and I volunteered to be a Wren.”

  “Do you know of anyone who did work at Townsend Brothers?” he asked.

  “No, but I know who you should ask. Mrs. Lambert. She’s our group’s historian.”

  “I was told she wasn’t here.”

  “She’s not,” Pudge said, “but she’s coming. In fact, I expected her here already. I’ll let you know as soon as she arrives, and in the meantime, you can ask the others. Hatcher!” she called to an elegant elderly woman in tweeds and pearls. “You were in London during the Blitz, weren’t you?”

  “No. Bletchley Park,” she said, coming over, “which was not nearly as romantic as the historians make it sound. It was mostly drudgery, sorting through thousands upon thousands of combinations, looking for one that might work.”

  Like the last eight years of my life, he thought, calculating coordinate after coordinate, searching for clues, trying to find a drop that would open.

  “Do you know of anyone who was in London during the Blitz?” Pudge was asking Hatcher.

  “Yes,” she said, pointing at two women looking at a display of war posters. “York and Chedders were.”

  But neither York nor Chedders—Barbara Chedwick, according to her name tag—remembered a Polly Sebastian, and neither did any of the other women they passed him on to.

  “There was a Polly in our troupe,” a large woman whose name tag read “Cora Holland” said.

  “In your troop?” he asked. “You were in the WAACs?”

  “No, not troop, troupe.” She spelled the word out. “We were in an ENSA show together. We were both chorus girls.” He must not have succeeded in hiding his astonishment because she snapped, “I realize you may find that difficult to believe, but I had quite a good figure in those days. What did you say her last name was?”

  “Sebastian.”

  “Sebastian,” Cora repeated. “No, that doesn’t ring a bell, I’m afraid, though that doesn’t necessarily mean anything. I might not have ever heard her last name. Mr. Tabbitt called us all by our stage names. Polly’s was Air Raid Adelaide. If her name was Polly. It might have been Peggy.”

  Well, and Polly wouldn’t have been a chorus girl in any case. But he couldn’t afford to leave any stone unturned. “Do you know what happened to her?”

  “I’m afraid not,” she said apologetically. “It’s so easy to lose track of people in a war, you know.”

  Yes.

  “I seem to remember having heard that she’d been assigned to one of the groups touring airfields and Army camps.”

  So, definitely not his Polly. And neither was the Polly who’d worked with Miss Dennehy on a barrage-balloon crew, even though Miss Dennehy was certain her last name had been Sebastian. “She was killed in August of ’40,” Miss Dennehy said.

  By half past eleven he’d interviewed the entire group except for another white-haired woman too deaf to understand anything he’d said to her, and Mrs. Lambert still wasn’t there. And if he waited any longer, he’d miss the ones at St. Paul’s.

  He went to find Pudge to ask for Mrs. Lambert’s address and telephone number, but she’d disappeared. He checked the blackout room, holding the curtain aside so he could see, and then the mockup of a tube shelter.

  Pudge wasn’t in there, but Talbot was, looking at a “Report Suspicious Behavior” poster on the tiled tunnel wall. “Did you find Lambert?” she asked. “Did she know what your grandmother did during the Blitz?”

  “No,” he said. “She’s not here yet, and I’m afraid I must go. I was wondering if you—”

  “She’s not here yet? I can’t imagine what’s keeping her,” she said, and dragged him off to find the woman who’d been too deaf to interview.

  “Rumford,” Talbot said, “did Goody Two-Shoes tell you what she had to do before she came here?”

  “What?” Rumford said, cupping her hand to her ear.

  “I said,” Talbot shouted, “did Goody Two-Shoes—Mrs. Lambert—tell you what she had to do before she came here? Mrs. Lambert!”

  “Lantern?”

  “No. Lambert. Do you know where she was going this morning before she came here?”

  Rumford looked round vaguely. “Isn’t she here yet?”

  “No. And this young man wants to speak to her. Do you know where she went?”

  “Yes,” she said. “To St. Paul’s.”

  St. Paul’s, where he could already be if he hadn’t waited here for her.

  “St. Paul’s?” Talbot said. “Why did she need to go there?”

  “What?” Rumford cupped her hand to her ear again.

  “I said, why did—oh, good, she’s here,” Talbot said, pointing at the far side of the exhibit where a plump, friendly-looking woman was rummaging in her handbag. “Goody Two-Shoes!” Talbot called, and when she didn’t look up, “Lambert! Over here. Eileen!”

  Do you know why they’r
e waving as we come along? We’re all bloody heroes.

  —SERGEANT LESLIE TEARE ON

  ARRIVING IN ENGLAND AFTER BEING

  EVACUATED FROM DUNKIRK

  Kent—June 1944

  “28 JUNE 1944,” ERNEST TYPED. “DEAR EDITOR, I LIVE IN Sellindge, near Folkestone, and our little village has always been a charming, tranquil place. For the past fortnight, however, that tranquility has been destroyed by a constant stream of troop transports. I’ve been forced to hang my washing inside because of the dust, and my cat, Polly Flinders, has nearly been run over twice. How long will this continue? When I spoke to Captain Davies, he said it might last until—”

  He paused, wondering what date he was supposed to use for the invasion. Immediately after they’d invaded at Normandy, they’d discussed July first as an invasion date, but that was when the longest they were hoping the deception would hold was D-Day-plus-five. It was already D-plus-twenty-two, and there was still no sign the Germans had caught on.

  “They’ve got to tumble to it soon,” Cess had said disgustedly the night before in the mess. “There are over five hundred thousand Allied forces in France. What do the jerries think they’re doing there? Picking flowers?”

  “You’re only annoyed because you lost the pool,” Prism had said.

  Ernest had lost the pool, too. It’s too bad I didn’t study the post-invasion period, he thought. I could have won fifty pounds. He’d guessed the eighteenth of June—D-plus-twelve—even though he’d privately believed the whole deception would collapse the moment the troops hit the beaches of Normandy. But here he was, in the last week of June, still typing phony wedding announcements and irate letters to the editor.

  He went to find Chasuble, but he wasn’t in his office, and Prism didn’t know where he was.

  “Gwendolyn might,” Prism said, and Ernest went out to the garage to find him.

  Gwen was underneath the staff car. Ernest leaned under and asked, “Do you know where Chasuble is?”

  “He went to Station X to drop off the radio messages,” Gwen said.

  Damn. “Do you know—” he began, then stopped and looked up, listening. There was a faint putt-putting off to the east. It sounded like a motorbike approaching.

  “That’s odd,” Gwen said, sliding out from under the car. “I didn’t hear the siren.”

  “Perhaps they’ve stopped bothering with them.”

  Gwen nodded. “Or worn them out.”

  It’s possible, Ernest thought, listening to the putt-putt grow louder. In the two weeks since the V-1s had started, the sirens had sounded at least five hundred times.

  “What did you ask me before?” Gwen asked.

  “I asked you,” Ernest said, raising his voice over the chugging of the V-1, “if you knew when we were invading France.”

  Gwen waited till the rocket had passed safely overhead and headed loudly off to the northeast and then shouted, “Invading France? I thought we already had!”

  “Very amusing!” Ernest yelled back. “Not the real one. I’m talking about the one we’ve been working on for the last five months!” He was suddenly shouting into silence as the V-1’s motor cut out.

  Gwen held up his hand, signaling him to wait. There was a brief silence and then a muffled boom off to the northwest.

  “That’s the eighth flying bomb today,” Gwen said. “You’d think Hitler would be growing bored with his new toy by now.” He slid back under the car.

  “You still haven’t told me when we’re invading Calais.”

  “I think they decided on July fifteenth, but I’m not certain. Cess will know.”

  But Cess would follow him back to the office and stand there watching him type.

  “Whenever it is, I hope it’s soon,” Gwen said from under the car. “I can’t wait to get out of this bloody place.”

  They’d all be out of this bloody place as soon as the Germans caught on to the deception.

  And then what? Ernest thought. Where would he be assigned? He had to see to it he wasn’t sent to France. He hadn’t realized deception units had operated over there after D-Day till last week, when an officer from Dover had arrived and requisitioned all their dummy tanks. They apparently planned to set up dummy-tank battalions in France to confuse the Germans, and the officer’d said the units manning them would be drawn from Fortitude South. “We need people who’ve had experience with these bloody unwieldy inflatables,” he’d said, which meant everyone in the unit was vulnerable.

  Hopefully, Ernest’s bad foot would keep him from being sent, but he couldn’t count on it—the officer had asked him how much experience he’d had with tanks, and Cess had told him the entire story of the bull.

  Ernest wished he knew what other deception missions they’d done after D-Day so he’d know what to avoid and what to ask for. He needed an assignment that would keep him in England, and one that involved sending messages that an historian might have an interest in. It was his only hope, now that D-Day was over and Denys Atherton had gone back to Oxford.

  It also had to be an assignment where he wouldn’t have to undergo a background check, and where he wouldn’t be likely to get caught.

  He’d had a close call last week. He’d been typing one of his messages when Cess came in, and before he could get the paper out of the typewriter, Cess had begun reading over his shoulder. “I say, haven’t you already used the name Polly?” he’d asked. “It’s a common enough name, but you don’t want to do anything to make the Germans suspicious.”

  Or you, he thought. Or Tensing. And he had dutifully Xed out the name and typed “Alice” above it.

  Maybe the safest thing to do would be to try to get invalided out and land a job on a newspaper. Whatever he did, he had to do it soon, before they were shut down and he was assigned elsewhere. Once he’d been assigned, it would be almost impossible to get it changed.

  And in the meantime he needed to finish his news story and get it put away before Cess caught him using “Polly” again and got suspicious. He went back to the office and changed the sentence to “When I spoke to Captain Davies, he said it was scheduled to last another full month. I realize Sellindge is located on the direct route to Dover, but is it necessary for the entire First Army to parade past my door? At my wits’ end, Miss Euphemia Hill, Rose Gate Cottage—”

  “You may as well stop typing,” Cess said from the doorway. “The Jig’s up.”

  Ernest looked up at him, startled. Cess was leaning lazily against the doorjamb, his arms folded. “What?”

  “I said, the jig’s up. It’s American slang. It means we’ve been found out. Hitler’s finally tumbled to the fact that there’s no First Army. And no second invasion.”

  Ernest waited a moment to give his heart time to stop thudding and then said, “Hitler’s caught on to the deception?”

  “Yes, and about time. I’d begun to think he’d only realize he’d been tricked when he saw Monty rolling into Berlin.”

  The Russians, Ernest thought. And Hitler won’t be there. He’ll already have killed himself in his bunker. “Who told you he’s caught on?”

  “No one,” he said. “I’m in Intelligence, remember? I’ve deduced it from the clues.”

  “What clues?”

  “One, Algernon’s here. And two, Lady Bracknell’s called a general meeting in the mess.”

  Cess was right. It looked like the jig was up. In more ways than one. I should have talked to him earlier about being reassigned, he thought. Or perhaps there was still time. “When’s this meeting scheduled for?”

  “Now,” Cess said, showing no sign of leaving.

  And Ernest couldn’t leave either, not with a story with the name Polly in it still in the typewriter. “Coming,” he said, putting a cover over the machine and standing up. “You need to go tell Gwen. He’s in the garage underneath the staff car.”

  “Oh, right,” Cess said, and left. Ernest yanked the cover off and the letter out of the typewriter, hid it in the file cabinet, and was at the door wh
en Cess returned.

  “Gwen wasn’t there,” he reported. “He must already be in the meeting.”

  He was, and so was everyone else except Chasuble. Lady Bracknell, in full-dress uniform—another bad sign—was saying, “Colonel Algernon has something to say to you.”

  “Thank you,” Tensing said, standing up. “First of all, I want to thank all of you for your hard work during these past months and to tell you how handsomely it’s paid off. Our efforts to deceive the Germans as to the time and place of the invasion have been successful beyond our greatest hopes. Even after receiving news of the Normandy invasion, the German High Command continued to believe that that was a diversion and that the main invasion was still to come at the Pas de Calais.”

  He was talking in the past tense. Cess was right. The jig was up.

  “As a result of this belief,” Tensing went on, “they held significant numbers of troops and tanks in readiness for that invasion, numbers which, if sent to Normandy, would have significantly altered the outcome. Fortitude South’s work was decisive in the outcome of the invasion, and you’re to be congratulated.”

  The men began to clap and cheer. “We did it!” Cess shouted. “We beat them.”

  “Right,” Prism said wryly. “Single-handedly. I’m certain all those destroyers and planes and paratroopers and landing forces had nothing to do with it.”

  “Lieutenant Prism makes an excellent point,” Tensing said. “The invasion was a combined effort, and there are countless others who deserve credit for its success. But they’ll receive medals, and there will be speeches praising what they did. And newspaper accounts.” He nodded briefly at Ernest. “You won’t. Your part in all this must unfortunately remain secret. My thanks and the knowledge of a job well done are all the reward you are likely to get. And”—he paused dramatically—“a bottle of Scotch with which to toast your accomplishment!” He held it up, and there was more clapping and cheering.

  “That’s not dummy Scotch, is it?” Cess asked suspiciously.

  “It’s an inflatable rubber bottle,” Prism said.

  “No, it’s glass,” Tensing said, tapping it with his finger. “I’m quite certain it’s authentic. The label says, ‘Aged at Shepperton Film Studios.’ ”