Connie Willis - All Clear

Jeppers would be none the wiser.

If. The printing press was shooting out pages at a steady clip, with no sign of jamming. Why, tonight of all nights, had it decided to run properly? And why had he thought using phrases such as “historic architecture” was a good idea?

Where were the U’s? He slotted the finished stick of type into place and grabbed an empty one.

His ears pricked up at the sound of a rattle. Good, the printing press was up to its old tricks. Where the bloody hell were the C’s?

The rattle grew louder and more clanking. It sounded like a wrench had got caught in the gears. “Shut it off!” he shouted, though in another minute he wouldn’t need to. The press would rattle itself apart.

“What?” Mr. Jeppers cupped his hand behind his ear.

“Something’s wrong with the printing press!” Ernest shouted, jabbing his finger at it. “That rattle. It’s—”

The noise cut off abruptly. “Rattle?” Mr. Jeppers shouted over the sound of the smoothly running press. “I can’t hear anything!”

That’s because it’s stopped, Ernest thought. And then, What if that was a doodle—?

But there was no time to complete the thought or shout to Mr. Jeppers or run. No time.

Our little life is rounded with a sleep.

—WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE, THE TEMPEST

London—Spring 1941

SOMEONE WAS CALLING HER. THE ALL OLEAR MUST HAVE GONE, she thought, but it was Sir Godfrey. “Wake up,” he said sternly. “Can you hear me, miss?”

Her head ached. I must have nodded off during rehearsal. He’ll be furious. And then, It can’t be Sir Godfrey, he always calls me Viola, and remembered where they were.

They were still in the bombed theater, and she was lying on top of Sir Godfrey, her full weight pressing down on him. “I’m sorry, Sir Godfrey,” she said. “I must have fallen on you when I passed out.”

He didn’t answer.

“Sir Godfrey? Wake up,” she said, and attempted to shift herself off him, but the effort made her head ache worse.

“Don’t try to move, miss, we’re coming,” the voice said from somewhere above them. “Careful. I can smell gas.”

“Sir Godfrey,” she said, but he didn’t respond.

And she should have known she couldn’t save him, that they would come too late. “Oh, Sir Godfrey, I am so sorry,” she murmured, and laid her head against his shoulder.

“Miss!” the voice said imperatively. “Are you trapped?”

Yes, she thought, and then hands were reaching down, lifting her off Sir Godfrey.

“No, you mustn’t, he’s bleeding,” she protested, but they had already pulled her out of the hole and sat her down, and now they were lifting the theater seats from Sir Godfrey’s legs, placing a jack under a pillar, jumping down into the hole, bending over him.

“Was there anyone else in the theater when the bomb hit, miss?” the one who’d pulled her out asked.

“I don’t know. I wasn’t here. When I saw the theater’d been hit, I came to find Sir Godfrey, and I caught my heel,” she said, trying to explain, “and while I was trying to free it, I heard his voice—”

“Well, it’s no wonder your heel got caught. This isn’t the sort of shoe to be clambering about an incident in,” he said, looking down at her gilt shoe, at her other, bare foot, and then at her costume, or what was left of it.

“I had to take off my skirt to make a compress,” she began, but he wasn’t listening.

“She’s injured,” he called to someone else, and when she looked down, she saw that her bathing suit and her hands were both covered in blood.

“That isn’t mine. It’s Paige’s,” she said, and even though it was too late and he was already dead, she told them, “Sir Godfrey has a chest wound. You need to apply direct pressure.”

“We’ll see to him, don’t you worry,” he said, examining her hands. “You’re certain you’re not hurt?”

I have blood on my hands, she thought, watching him dully as he turned them over, looking for cuts. Like Lady Macbeth. “ ‘What, will these hands ne’er be clean?’ ” she murmured.

“Miss—”

“You don’t understand. I killed him. I altered events—”

“She’s in shock,” he said to someone.

“No,” she said. Not shock. Shock was when one didn’t see it coming, like that day at what was left of St. George’s when she realized something terrible had happened, that no one was coming for her. This was different. She had known all along it would end this way.

“Bring a stretcher!” he called.

It’s no use. You can’t save me either, she thought, and wondered dimly why she hadn’t died from the gas, too. That way I wouldn’t be able to do any more damage. I wouldn’t be able to kill anyone else.

“I need to get you over to the ambulance,” he said. “Can you walk, do you think?”

“Yes,” she said, thinking, They must not have had a stretcher. Major Denewell must have borrowed all of them.

“That’s a good girl,” he said, and put his hand under her arm and helped her to her feet. “Here we go.”

But when she tried to walk, she swayed and fell against him.

He grabbed her arm. “Is your leg injured?”

“No, it’s my shoe,” she said. “I’m all right,” but when she tried again, her head spun and she nearly pitched forward. “My head—”

“You’ve breathed in a bit of gas, miss, that’s why you’re dizzy,” he said, easing her down onto the toppled back of a theater seat. “You need to take deep breaths … that’s it.”

He raised his head and called over her to the men gathered around the hole, “Sit here a minute, miss—what’s your name?”

“Mary,” she said, but that wasn’t right. This was the Blitz, not the V-1s. “Viola.”

“Viola, listen, my name’s Hunter. I want you to stay here a moment while I go fetch some oxygen to help you breathe, all right?”

She nodded.

“I’ll be back straightaway,” he said, and went to meet two men coming across the wreckage with a stretcher. He said something and took the stretcher from them, and they clambered back across the rubble. He took it over to the hole, where they were lifting out the section of balcony wall.

So they can remove Sir Godfrey’s body, she thought, watching them. You should wait till the gas is shut off.

“Fetch me a plasma drip,” someone called from the hole, and one of the men bounded off like a deer across the tangle of wreckage.

Why is he hurrying? Polly thought, bewildered. Sir Godfrey’s already dead.

Why is he hurrying? Polly thought, bewildered. Sir Godfrey’s already dead.

She limped over to the hole. They were lifting him out and onto the stretcher. His chest was bandaged, a pad of white gauze taped to the wound, and there was a bandage on his wrist and a line of tubing running up his arm to a glass bottle full of plasma one of them was holding.

“Easy, don’t jar him,” the man holding the bottle said as they lifted the stretcher. “You’ll set him bleeding again.”

He isn’t dead, she thought wonderingly.

But that didn’t mean she’d saved his life. She’d only delayed his death. He’d die on the way to hospital. Or on the way to the ambulance, as they carried him across the wreckage on the stretcher. “I’m so sorry,” she said, and the men looked over at her.

“What the bloody hell’s she still doing here?” the one holding the plasma said. “She needs medical attention.”

Hunter hastened over to her. “Viola, I’m going to take you to the ambulance now,” he said. “Put your arm round my neck.”

“Careful,” one of the stretcher-bearers warned as they started across the wreckage with it. “If you strike a spark, you’ll send us all up.”