Connie Willis - Blackout

Mrs. Bascombe looked unconvinced. “Young girls can’t be too careful, especially in times like these. Soldiers turning girls’ heads, talking them into meeting them in the woods, promising to marry them-” There was a loud thump overhead, followed by a shriek and a sound like a herd of rhinoceri. “What are those wretched children doing now? You’d best go see. It sounds like they’re in the ballroom.”

They were. And the thumps had apparently been the sheet-filled clotheslines coming down. A huddle of children cowered in a corner, menaced by two sheet-draped ghosts with outspread arms. “Alf, Binnie, take those off immediately,” Eileen said.

“They told us they was Nazis,” Jimmy said defensively, which didn’t explain the sheets.

“They said Germans kill little children,” five-year-old Barbara said. “They chased us.”

The damage seemed to be confined to the sheets, thank goodness, though the portrait of Lady Caroline’s hoop-skirted ancestor was hanging crookedly. “We told them we weren’t allowed to play in here,” eight-year-old Peggy said virtuously, “but they wouldn’t listen.”

Alf and Binnie were still freeing themselves from the wet, clinging folds of sheet. “Do the Germans?” Barbara asked, tugging on Eileen’s skirt. “Kill little children?”

“No.”

Alf’s head emerged from the sheet. “They do so. When they invade, they’re going to kill Princess Elizabeth and Margaret Rose. They’re going to cut their ’eads right off.”

“Are they?” Barbara asked fearfully.

“No,” Eileen said. “Outside.”

“But it’s rainin’,” Alf said.

“You should have thought of that before. You can play in the stables.” She herded them all outside and went back up to the ballroom. She straightened the portrait of Lady Caroline’s ancestor, rehung the lines, then began picking the sheets up off the floor. They’d all have to be washed again, and so would the dust sheets covering the furniture.

I wonder how badly it would affect history if I throttled the Hodbins, she thought. Theoretically, historians weren’t able to do anything that would alter events. Slippage kept that from happening. But surely in this instance, it would make an exception. History would so clearly be a better place without them. She stooped to pick up another trampled sheet. “Begging your pardon, miss,” Una said from the door, “but her ladyship wants to see you in the drawing room.”

Eileen thrust the wet sheets into Una’s arms and ran down to change into her pinafore again and then race back upstairs to the drawing room. Mr. and Mrs. Magruder were there. “They’ve come for… er… their children,” said Lady Caroline, who obviously had no idea what the children’s names were.

“For Barbara, Peggy, and Ewan, ma’am?” Eileen said.

“Yes.”

“We missed them so,” Mrs. Magruder said to Eileen. “Our house has been quiet as a tomb without them.” At the phrase “quiet as a tomb,” Lady Caroline looked pained. She must have heard the children.

“And now that Hitler’s coming to his senses and realizing Europe won’t stand for his nonsense,” Mr. Magruder said, “there’s no reason not to have them with us. Not that we don’t appreciate all you’ve done for them, your ladyship, taking them in and loving them like your own.”

“I was more than glad to do it,” Lady Caroline said. “Ellen, go pack Peggy’s and… the other children’s things and bring them here to the drawing room.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Eileen said, curtseying, and walked quickly along the corridor to the ballroom. If she could find Una, she could have her get the Magruder children’s things ready while she went to the drop. Please let her still be in the ballroom.

She was, still holding the damp wad of sheets. “Una, pack the Magruders’ things,” she said. “I’m going out to fetch the children,” and fled, but when she ran outside, the vicar was standing there, next to Lady Caroline’s Bentley.

“Vicar, I’m sorry, but I can’t have my lesson now,” she said. “The Magruders are here to fetch Peggy and Ewan and-”

“I know,” he said. “I’ve already spoken to Mrs. Bascombe and arranged for you to have your lesson tomorrow.”

I love you, she thought.

“Una will have hers today.”

Oh, you poor man, but at least she was free to go. “Thank you, Vicar,” she said fervently, and walked quickly across the lawn in the misty drizzle toward the stables, then ducked behind the hothouse and ran out to the road and set off along it, hurrying so she wouldn’t be overtaken by Una and the vicar in the Bentley.

Before she’d gone a quarter of a mile, it began to rain harder, but that was actually a good thing. Even the inquisitive Hodbins wouldn’t try to track her down in this downpour. She turned off into the woods and hurried along the muddy path to the ash tree.

Please don’t let me have just missed it opening, she thought. The drop only opened once an hour, and in another hour it would be dark. The drop was far enough into the woods that its shimmer couldn’t be seen from the road, but with the blackout, any light was suspect, and the Home Guard, for lack of anything better to do, sometimes patrolled the woods, looking for German parachutists. If they or the Hodbins-

She caught a flicker of movement out of the corner of her eye. She turned quickly, straining to catch a glimpse of Alf’s cap or Binnie’s hair ribbon. “What are you doing here?” a man’s voice said from behind her, and she nearly jumped out of her skin. She whirled around. There was a faint shimmer next to the ash tree. Through it she could see the net and Badri at the console. “You’re not supposed to go through till the tenth,” he was saying. “Weren’t you notified that your drop had been rescheduled?”

“That’s why I’m here,” another man’s voice said angrily as the shimmer grew brighter. “I demand to know why it’s been postponed. I-”

“This will have to wait,” Badri said. “I’m in the middle of a retrieval-”

Eileen walked through the shimmer and into the lab.

At the time, we didn’t know that it was a vital battle…. We didn’t know we were quite so close to defeat, either.

“THEY’RE SENDING YOU TO DUNKIRK?” CHARLES ASKED when Michael got off the phone. “What happened to Pearl Harbor?”

“That’s what I’d like to know,” Michael said. He stormed over to the lab to confront Badri.

Linna met him at the door. “He’s preparing to send someone through. Can I be of help?”

“Yes. You can tell me why the hell you changed the order of my drops! I can’t go to the Dunkirk evacuation with an American accent. I’m supposed to be a reporter for the London Daily Herald. You’ve got to-”

“I think you’d better speak to Badri,” Linna said. “If you’ll wait here-” and walked quickly over to Badri at the console. He was busily typing figures into the console, glancing up at the screens, typing again. A young man Michael didn’t know stood behind him watching, obviously the historian who was going to be sent through. He was dressed in threadbare tweed flannels and wire-rimmed spectacles. A 1930s Cambridge don, Michael thought.

Linna leaned over Badri briefly and came back. “He said it will be at least another half hour,” she reported. “If you don’t want to wait, he can ring you up at-”

“I’ll wait.”

“Would you like to sit down?” she asked, and before he could say no, the telephone rang, and she went to answer it. “No, sir, he’s sending someone through right now,” he heard her say to the person on the other end. “No, sir, not yet. He’s going through to Oxford.”