Connie Willis - All Clear

“The man you saved has already been taken to hospital. You can speak to him there,” the FANY said, putting a mask over her nose and mouth. “Take a deep breath.”

“No,” Polly said, pushing it violently away, “not Sir Godfrey. Hunter, the man who brought me out.” But the doors were already shut, the ambulance was already moving. “Driver, you’ve got to go back. He said something when we were coming out of the theater. I must ask him what it was!”

“She’s confused,” the attendant called up to the driver. “It’s the effects of the gas.”

No, it’s not, Polly thought. It’s a clue.

He had said … something, and when she’d heard the words, they’d set up an echo of someone else, saying the same words … and for an instant it had all made sense—Alf and Binnie blocking Eileen’s way, and Mike unfouling the propeller, and the measles and the slippage and A Christmas Carol. If she could only remember …

Hunter had said, “You can’t get out that way. It’s blocked.” Like their drops. Hers had been bombed, and Mike’s had a gun emplacement on it, and Eileen’s had been fenced off and turned into a riflery range, blocking their way back. Like Alf and Binnie had blocked Eileen’s way, like the station guard had kept Polly from leaving Notting Hill Gate and going to the drop the night St. George’s was destroyed—

It has something to do with that night, Polly thought. The guard wouldn’t let me leave, and I went to Holborn—

“This won’t hurt,” the attendant said, clamping the oxygen mask down over her nose and mouth and holding it there. “It’s only oxygen. It will help clear your head.”

I don’t want it cleared, Polly thought. Not till she remembered what he’d said, not until she’d worked it out. It was a puzzle, like one of Mike’s crosswords. It had something to do with Holborn and Mike’s bus and ENSA and her shoe.

No, not her shoe—the shoe the horse had lost. “For want of a horse, the battle was lost. For want of a battle, the war …”

The ambulance jolted to a stop, and they were opening the doors, carrying her inside the hospital past a woman at a desk.

Like Agatha Christie that night at St. Bart’s, Polly thought, and for an instant she nearly had it. It was something to do with Agatha Christie. And that night she’d gone to Holborn. The sirens had gone early, and the guard wouldn’t let her go to the drop, and so she hadn’t been there when the parachute mine exploded, she had thought they were all dead and had staggered into Townsend Brothers, and Marjorie had seen her and decided to elope with her airman—

“Let’s get you out of those clothes,” the nurse said, and they were taking her bloody swimsuit off, putting her into a hospital gown and a bed, bombarding her with questions so that she couldn’t concentrate. She had to keep explaining that her name wasn’t Viola, it was Polly Sebastian, that she wasn’t a chorus girl at the Windmill, that she wasn’t injured.

“It’s not my blood,” she insisted. “It’s Sir Godfrey’s.”

She’d nearly forgotten about Sir Godfrey, she had been so fixed on remembering what Hunter had said, but if he’d died on the way to hospital, it didn’t matter. If she hadn’t saved his life …

“Is he here?” she asked. “Is he all right?”

“I’ll send someone to see,” the nurse promised, taking her pulse, pulling the blankets up over her. “This will help you to sleep.”

“I don’t want to sleep,” Polly said, but it was too late. The needle was already in her arm.

“Marjorie,” she murmured, determined not to lose her train of thought. Marjorie had decided to elope with her airman, and so she’d been in Jermyn Street when it was hit, and so she’d …

But the sedative was already working, her thoughts already breaking up like fog into wisps of thought, already drifting from her grasp. She couldn’t remember what Marjorie … no, not Marjorie. Agatha Christie. And the measles and a horse and that night at Holborn. There hadn’t been anywhere to sit, so she’d stood in line at the canteen waiting for the escalators to stop, and Alf and Binnie had run by, had stolen the woman’s picnic basket. Alf and Binnie, who’d kept Eileen from going to St.

canteen waiting for the escalators to stop, and Alf and Binnie had run by, had stolen the woman’s picnic basket. Alf and Binnie, who’d kept Eileen from going to St.

Paul’s … no, that wasn’t Eileen, it was Mr. Dunworthy. They’d kept Mr. Dunworthy from going to St. Paul’s, and he’d collided with Alan Turing. No, Mike had collided with Alan Turing. Mr. Dunworthy had collided with Talbot, and her lipstick had rolled into the street, and Sir Godfrey …

Polly must have called out his name because the nurse hurried over. “He’s resting comfortably. Now try to sleep.”

I can’t, Polly thought groggily. I have to be there. “If you aren’t, there will be no one there to avert the inevitable disaster,” Hunter had said. No, that was Sir Godfrey, talking about Mrs. Wyvern and the pantomime. Hunter had said, “It was lucky you knew what to do.”

I learned it in Oxford, she thought, so I could pose as an ambulance driver and observe the V-1s and V-2s. But the Major sent us to Croydon to find John Bartholomew. No, not to Croydon, to St. Paul’s. But the streets were roped off because of the UXB, and I sneaked past the barrier and up the hill, but it was a cul-de-sac. I’d gone the wrong way—

Wrong way. That was what Hunter had said.

“Wrong way,” Polly murmured, and saw the ginger-haired librarian at Holborn holding an Agatha Christie paperback, heard her saying, “I’m convinced I know who the murderer is, and then, when I’m nearly to the end, I realize I’ve been looking at the entire situation the wrong way round, that something else entirely is going on.”

No, the librarian hadn’t said that, Eileen had, that day in Oxford. No, that wasn’t right either. But it didn’t matter. Because Polly had it—the idea she’d been pursuing all the way across the wrecked theater. And it all—Talbot and Marjorie and St. Paul’s and the measles and the stiff strap on her gilt shoe—fit together. It all made sense, and she knew it was vital to hold on to it, not to let it drift away, but it was impossible, the sedative was already closing in like fog, obliterating everything.

“Like the spell in Sleeping Beauty,” she tried to say, but she couldn’t. She was already asleep.

There just isn’t any way we’re gonna live through this thing.

—NAVIGATOR LIEUTENANT LOU BABER,

467TH BOMBARDMENT GROUP

Croydon—October 1944

“WE WEREN’T KILLED,” ERNEST TRIED TO SAY TO MR. JEPPERS. “The V-1 didn’t kill us.” But he couldn’t find the editor in the smoke. It billowed up blackly around him.

They must have hit the Arizona, he thought, coughing, trying to see out across the deck of the New Orleans.

But that couldn’t be right. I never got to Pearl Harbor, he thought. Dunworthy changed the order of my assignments. Oh, God, I’m still at Dunkirk. My foot …

But that wasn’t right either, because he was lying down. There hadn’t been room on the boat to lie down. He’d had to stand up, mashed against the rail the whole way. And the smoke was too thick for it to be Dunkirk.

He couldn’t see anything. It was completely dark. He must be belowdecks. He could see flames through the smoke and hear fire bells. They’re going to an incident, he thought, and remembered the V-1. I hope it didn’t damage the printing press. I’ve got to get that picture of St. Anselm’s in. And take a photo of this incident.

He looked around, trying to see if the name on the newspaper office was still there. If it was, Cess could crop off the word “Croydon,” and they could say it was the Cricklewood Clarion Call. But the fire wasn’t bright enough to light more than the few feet beyond him, and there were no landmarks there, only bricks and broken timbers shrouded by orangish dust. It hadn’t been smoke. It was plaster dust. That was why it was so choking, why he couldn’t stop coughing. He had to try several times before he managed to say, “Mr. Jeppers! I need a flashlight so I can look at your sign!”