Oxford Time Travel 1 - Blackout

by Connie Willis

  To no avail, even though at half past eleven the lights dimmed and conversation dropped to a murmur. She couldn’t hear the bombs—the sound didn’t penetrate this far underground. It was unnerving, not knowing what was going on up there. She lay there, listening to the shelterers snoring, and then sat up again and read the rest of the paper, including the “Cooking in Wartime” column—which it was clear Mrs. Rickett got her recipes from—the casualties list, and the personal ads.

  They gave an intimate glimpse into what life was like for the contemps. Some were funny—L. T., Apologize for behavior at Officer’s Club dance last Sat. Please say you’ll give me another chance. Lt. S. W.—and others heartbreaking—Anyone having any information regarding Midshipman Paul Robbey, last seen aboard the Grafton at Dunkirk, please contact Mrs. P. Robbey, 16 Cheyne Walk, Chelsea. And there was no one who wasn’t affected by the Blitz, as witness: Lost, white cat, answers to Moppet, last seen during night raid 12 September. Frightened of loud noises. Reward.

  Poor thing, Polly thought, trapped in a terrifying situation it couldn’t understand. She hoped it was all right. She read through the rest of the personals—Homes wanted for evacuees and R. T., Meet me Nelson Monument noon Friday, H. and Ambulance drivers needed. Enlist in the FANY today—and lay down again, determined to sleep.

  She did, only to be wakened by a crying baby, a woman on her way to the loo, murmuring “Sorry… sorry… sorry,” and then a guard saying sharply, “Put that cigarette out. No smoking allowed in the shelter due to the fire danger.” The idea that the authorities were concerned about fire when half of London was on fire above them struck her as extremely funny, and she laughed to herself and fell asleep.

  This time it was the guard shouting “All clear!” that woke her. She put on her coat, yawning, and went down to the Central Line to catch the first westbound train, only to be met by a notice board: “No train service between Queensway and Shepherd’s Bush.” That included Notting Hill Gate, which ruled out any chance of getting to the drop before work. She would have to buy a skirt at Townsend Brothers before the store opened.

  But the train took half an hour to arrive and then promptly stopped between stations. Twice. She scarcely had time to reach the store and wash her face and comb her hair in the employee loo before the opening bell. Her blouse was wrinkled and the back had a brown streak between the shoulder blades from where she’d sat against the wall. She brushed at it awkwardly, tucked the blouse in, and went out to the floor, praying Nan wasn’t back.

  She apparently was. Miss Snelgrove came over to Polly’s counter immediately, her lips pursed in disapproval, and said, “I believe I told you on being hired that Townsend Brothers’ shopgirls wear black skirts and neat, clean white blouses.”

  “Yes, ma’am, you did,” Polly said. “I’m dreadfully sorry, but I’ve been unable to get home these past two nights because of the raids. I spent both nights in a shelter.”

  “I will let it go today,” Miss Snelgrove said. “I realize the current situation has created certain… complications. However, it is our job to overcome them. Townsend Brothers cannot allow its standards to drop, no matter what the circumstances.”

  Polly nodded. “I’ll have it by tomorrow, I promise.”

  “See that you do.”

  “Old bat,” Marjorie whispered to Polly as soon as she was gone. “Have you got money enough for a skirt? If you haven’t, I could loan you a bit.”

  “Thanks, I can manage it,” Polly said.

  “I’ll cover your counter if you want to leave early so you can buy it before the shops close.”

  “Would you?” Polly said gratefully. “But won’t we get in trouble?”

  “I’ll tell Miss Snelgrove Mrs. Tidwell asked if we have the Dainty Debutante girdle in extra large. Looking for it will keep her in the workroom till well after closing.”

  “But what if she finds it?”

  “She won’t. We only had one, and I’ve already sent it out to Mrs. Tidwell.”

  Marjorie was as good as her word, and Polly was able to leave half an hour early, which was wonderful since she’d decided the only way to ensure her making it to the drop was to walk. She couldn’t risk being caught underground again, and a bus would have to pull over and stop if the sirens went. The raids weren’t till nearly nine tonight, but after last night she wasn’t taking any chances.

  I hope it isn’t raining, she thought.

  It wasn’t, but as she walked toward Marble Arch, fog began drifting in, and by the time she turned off Bayswater, it was even thicker than it had been the night she came through. She could only see a few houses’ distance, and as she approached Lampden Road, ghostly outlines of its buildings. The fog made them look unfamiliar, at once far off and looming.

  They were unfamiliar. She must have turned a street too soon, for these weren’t the buildings that lined Lampden Road—the chemist’s with its bow windows and the row of shops. They were warehouses of some kind, windowless brick edifices with a single half-timbered house wedged in among them.

  She walked toward them, looking for a familiar landmark, the curve of the road, or, if the fog was too thick for that, the spire of St. George’s. The fog had completely distorted distances. The warehouses still looked far away, even though she was nearly to the corner. And she should be able to see the spire from here. Could she have somehow got turned around? The street ahead couldn’t be Lampden Road. It was much too broad—

  She reached the corner and stopped, staring across the road. She had been right about the buildings being too far away. She was looking at the ones that faced the next street over. The entire row of buildings which should be in front of them was gone, collapsed into a tangled heap of roof slates and timbers and brick, exposing the backs of the buildings behind them.

  It must have been an HE. And Badri had been right. It was easy to lose one’s bearings after a bombing. She had no idea what part of the road this was. She looked down toward where St. George’s and the curve of the road should lie, but the fog was too thick—she couldn’t see either one.

  And nothing looked familiar. She looked across at the row of warehouses. They didn’t seem damaged. And the second one from the corner had a wooden staircase angling down its back, and it hadn’t fallen down, and if it was as ramshackle as the one in the alley next to the drop, one good hard push could have collapsed it, let alone the concussion from a bomb.

  She turned to look at the buildings behind her on this side of the road. They hadn’t been damaged either. Not even the windows of the butcher’s shop had been broken. Blast does do peculiar things, she thought. The windows of the greengrocer’s beyond the butcher’s hadn’t been broken either, and the baskets of cabbages sitting outside the door—

  It can’t be the same grocer’s, she thought, running up the road toward it. But it was. The awning above the door said, “T. Tubbins, Greengrocer.” But if this is the same greengrocer’s, then—

  She stopped, staring not at the shop, but across the street at the rubble and the row of warehouses behind it. At the narrow passage between the second and third buildings from the end, filled with barrels. And at the Union Jack chalked on the brick wall and the words scrawled beneath it, clearly visible even through the fog and the falling darkness: “London kan take it.”

  Wars are not won by evacuations.

  —WINSTON CHURCHILL, AFTER DUNKIRK

  Dunkirk, France—29 May 1940

  MIKE MUST HAVE BEEN KNOCKED UNCONSCIOUS BY THE bomb’s concussion, because when he came to, the light from the flares had faded, and he was trussed up in a rope and being hauled up the side of the Lady Jane. “Are you all right?” Jonathan asked anxiously.

  “Yes,” he said, though he seemed to have trouble hanging on to the railing as Jonathan and one of the soldiers helped him over the side, their hands under his arms.

  “Hypothermia,” Mike explained, and then remembered he was in 1940. “It’s the cold. Can I have a blanket?”

  Jonathan ran off to get o
ne while the soldier helped him over to a locker—he seemed to be having trouble walking, too—so he could sit down. “Are you certain you’re not hurt?” the soldier asked, peering at him in the darkness. “That bomb looked like it fell bang on top of you.”

  “I’m fine,” Mike said, sinking down onto the wooden locker. “Go tell the Commander I cleared the propeller. Tell him to start the engine.” Then he must have blacked out again for a few minutes because Jonathan already had the blanket around him and the engine had started up, though they weren’t moving yet.

  “We thought you were a goner,” Jonathan said. “It took ages to find you. And when we did, you were floating face-down with your arms out, just like that body we saw. We thought—”

  He looked up, and so did Mike. The sky overhead blossomed with flares, shedding greenish-white sparks as they fell.

  “For what we are about to receive…” one of the soldiers muttered.

  “We’ve got to get out of here!” Mike said, getting up to go help the Commander guide the boat out of the harbor and then sitting shakily back down. “Go navigate! We’ve got to get out of here before they come back.”

  “I think we’re too late,” Jonathan said, and Mike looked frightenedly up at the sky, but Jonathan was pointing out across the water. “They’ve seen us.”

  “Who?” Mike staggered over to the railing and looked at the mole, where soldiers were running toward them, wading, swimming out to the Lady Jane through the green-lit water. Hundreds of them, thousands of them. Because I blacked out and they had to waste time rescuing me, Mike thought. “Go tell your grandfather to cast off,” he shouted. “Now!”

  “And just leave them?” Jonathan asked, his eyes wide.

  “Yes. We don’t have any other choice. They’ll swamp the boat. Go!” Mike shouted and gave him a push, then staggered back to the stern, hanging on to the rail for support, to pull up the rope they’d let down to him.

  But it was too late. The soldiers were already climbing up it hand over hand, grabbing for the sides, clambering over the rail. “You’ll swamp her!” Mike shouted, trying to untie the rope, but they weren’t listening to him, they were swarming aboard like pirates, scrambling over each other, jumping down onto the deck.

  “Move to the other side!” Mike shouted, clinging to the rail. He was still too wobbly to stand. “You’ll tip her over!” He shoved at them, trying to move them forward into the bow, but no one was listening.

  The deck began to slant. “Listen! Move—”

  “Duck!” somebody yelled, and the men flattened themselves against the deck. The first bomb hit close enough to spray water all over them, and the second just as close on the other side. The hordes of soldiers still on the mole ran back along it, and the ones in the water began to swim back toward shore.

  A few were still swimming out to them, still climbing aboard, but the bombs provided intervals, and the threat of strafing made it possible to convince some of the soldiers to go below. “Space yourselves in the hold,” Mike told them, working his way along the rail. “Not all on one side. And no moving around. Sit down and stay put.”

  “Stop sending them forward!” Jonathan shouted back to him over the crowd. “There’s no room up here!”

  “There’s no room back here either!” Mike yelled. “Tell the Commander to get out of here before we take on any more.” The launch was already riding perilously low in the water, and God knew how much water was in the hold by now. He could hear the bilge pump wheezing even over the sound of the engine. He should go below and make sure it didn’t break down under the strain, but the soldiers were packed in too tightly to let him get through, or even away from the rail. Maybe that was why they weren’t moving, because the Commander couldn’t get to the wheel.

  Someone grabbed at the neck of his shirt, yanking him back against the rail, and then clutched at his shoulder, using Mike to haul himself up over the side. It was a very young, very freckled soldier. “Just made it,” he said. “I was afraid you were going to leave without me. I say, it’s a bit crowded, isn’t it? We won’t sink, will we?”

  We will if we don’t get out of here now, Mike thought, looking toward the bow. Come on, and the Lady Jane finally, finally began to move, backing out from the now-burning mole. There was a whoosh and a scream, and a bomb crashed down where they’d been moments before, spraying water over the bow.

  “We made it,” the freckled soldier said jubilantly.

  If we can make it out of the harbor, Mike thought, and the Commander can find his way back to England. And the engine doesn’t break down. Or they didn’t run into something.

  He should be up in the bow, serving as lookout. “Coming through,” he shouted, and tried to push his way forward, but he wasn’t going anywhere—the soldiers were packed in too tightly—and as soon as he let go of the railing, the shakiness came back. It’s reaction, he thought, grabbing for it again.

  And relief. It was the force of the bomb that had knocked the body free, that had unfouled the propeller, not his attempts, and it was obvious the soldiers would have gotten on board with or without him. So I don’t have to worry about having affected the outcome of Dunkirk.

  “I didn’t think anyone was going to come for us,” the freckled soldier said. “Except the Germans. We could hear their artillery, there on the beach. They’ll be here by morning.” He looked anxiously at Mike. “Seasick, mate?”

  Mike shook his head.

  “I always get seasick,” the soldier said cheerfully. “I hate boats. My name’s Hardy. Private First Class, Royal Engineers. Bit crowded, isn’t it?”

  That was an understatement. They were crammed in as tightly as the pilchards in that can the Commander had made his stew with.

  And I don’t have to worry about having taken up anyone else’s space on board, Mike thought. He wasn’t taking up any space at all. They were so wedged in the other soldiers were holding him up. Which was a good thing. Without them and the rail, his legs would have buckled under him.

  I should have eaten that stew when I had the chance, he thought. And hung on to that blanket. He’d lost it somewhere, trying to work his way forward, and his wet clothes were icy against his skin. He couldn’t even feel his feet, they were so cold.

  But the soldiers were even worse off. Many were shirtless and one was dressed only in boxer shorts and, of all things, a gas mask. He had a gash on the side of his head. Blood was dripping down his cheek and into his mouth, but he seemed oblivious. He doesn’t even know he’s injured, Mike thought.

  “How far is it?” Private Hardy asked at his ear. “Across the Channel?”

  “Twenty miles,” Mike said.

  “I was afraid I was going to have to swim for it.”

  They were out of the harbor and into open sea. Mike could tell by how much colder the wind had gotten. He began to shiver. He tried to hug his chest, but his arms were wedged tightly to his sides. He wished fervently he still had that blanket and that Hardy would shut up. Unlike the other soldiers, his relief at being rescued had taken the form of talking compulsively. “Our sergeant told us to head for the beaches,” he said, “that there’d be ships to take us off, but when we got there, there wasn’t a ship in sight. ‘We’re for it now, Sergeant,’ I told him. ‘They’ve left us behind.’”

  The Lady Jane continued to plow through the darkness. We’ve got to be at least halfway across, Mike thought, and it’s got to be daylight soon. He tried to free his arm to look at his Bulova and then remembered he’d left it up in the bow along with his coat and shoes.

  The sea grew rougher, and it began to rain. Mike hunched his shoulders against it, shivering. Hardy didn’t even notice. “You’ve no idea how it feels to sit and wait for days, not knowing if anyone’s coming for you or if they’ll be in time, not even knowing if anyone knows you’re there.”

  The night—and Hardy’s voice—went on and on. The wind picked up, blowing the rain and the spray right into their faces, but Mike barely felt it. He was too exhausted to ho
ld on to the railing, even held up as he was by the mass of soldiers.

  “Our sergeant tried to send a Morse signal with his pocket torch, but Conyers said it was no use, that Hitler’d already invaded and there was no one to come. That was the worst, sitting there thinking England might not be there any longer. Oh, I say, look, it’s getting light out.”

  It was. The sky lightened to charcoal and then to gray. “Now we’ll be able to see where we are,” Hardy said.

  So will the Germans, Mike thought, but there was no one else on the wide expanse of slate gray water. He scanned the waves, looking for a periscope, for the wake of a torpedo.

  “It was odd,” Hardy droned on. “I could bear the thought of being captured, or killed, so long as England was still there, but—I say, look!” He unwedged his hand to point at a smudge of lighter gray against the gray horizon. “Aren’t those the White Cliffs of Dover?”

  They were. I’ll finally be where I’ve been trying to get for days, Mike thought. Talk about taking the long way around. But at least now I know where the small craft docked. And he wouldn’t have any trouble getting access to them. Or to the men coming back from Dunkirk. It had just never occurred to him he’d be one of them.

  They were pulling into the harbor, maneuvering their way through the maze of boats arriving, loading, setting out. “Dear old England,” Hardy said. “I never thought I’d see her again. And I wouldn’t have if it weren’t for you.”

  “For me?” Mike said.

  “And your boat. I’d completely given up hope when I saw your signal light.”

  Mike jerked his head around sharply. “Signal light?”

  Hardy nodded. “I saw it weaving about out there on the water, and I thought, that’s a boat.”