Connie Willis - All Clear

Oh, God, it’s the Germans. I didn’t get off Dunkirk in time.

The German shone a flashlight full in his face, and he flinched away from it. They’ve captured me, and they’re interrogating me. If they find out about Fortitude South, they’ll know we’re going to invade at Normandy.

But it was an English soldier. “How badly are you hurt?” he was asking, bending over Ernest, and his helmet was the tin hat of an ARP warden. “What’s your name?”

He thinks I’m Cess, Ernest thought. Thank goodness he’s not here, and tried to tell the warden about Cess’s having traded duties with Chasuble, and his having traded with Cess, and about the harvest fête and Daphne at the Crown and Anchor.

No, that wasn’t right. That was the other Daphne, and she wasn’t there. She was in Manchester, and she was married …

The warden was shaking him. “Davies?” he asked, wiping the plaster dust from his face. “Michael?”

Yes, he thought. But he wasn’t sure, it had been so long since he’d heard his real name, and he’d had so many names since he was killed …

The warden was shaking him and saying urgently, “Can you hear me, Davies? Michael?”

“Yes.”

“Oh, thank God. Michael, listen, I’m here to take you back to Oxford. I’m Colin Templer.”

But he couldn’t be. Colin was only a boy. “You’re too old,” he murmured.

“I’ve been looking for you for a long time.”

“You got my messages,” Ernest said, feeling sick with relief. They were here, they could warn Polly not to go to the Blitz. And they could …

“You have to get Charles out,” he said, trying to raise himself by his elbows. “He’s in Singapore. You have to get him out before the Japanese—”

“We did,” he said. “He’s safe. He’s waiting for you in the lab. Do you think you can stand up?”

He shook his head. “You have to tell Polly—”

“She’s alive? She was alive when you left her?”

Ernest nodded.

“Oh, thank God,” Colin breathed.

It was Colin after all. “You have to tell her—”

“I’ll find her and get her out,” Colin said, “but first I’ve got to get you out of here.”

“No, she’s here,” he tried to say, but he was coughing too hard.

“Can you tell me where you’re hurt?”

“My foot,” he said. “I was unfouling the propeller,” but Colin wasn’t listening. He was digging someone out of the rubble.

It must be Mr. Jeppers, he thought. “Is he all right?” he asked, and heard a siren.

“We need to get to a shelter,” he said.

“We need to get to a shelter,” he said.

“That’s the ambulance. I’ve got to get you out of here before they arrive,” Colin said, stooping to lift him. “We can’t let them see us.”

“No, wait, you have to tell Polly not to go,” he tried to say, but he was overcome with a spasm of coughing. It was all the plaster Colin had stirred up digging out Mr. Jeppers. It was making him choke, and all he could get out was her name.

“I’ll go fetch Polly, I promise, as soon as I get you back to Oxford.”

Oxford, Ernest thought, and could see the spires of Christ Church and St. Mary’s, and Magdalen Tower, and Balliol’s quad green in the April sunshine.

“This’ll hurt,” Colin said, reaching his arms around him. “Sorry.” And the V-2 hit, ripping the world apart.

No, that wasn’t right, the V-2 had already hit, and he wasn’t in the wreckage, he was on a cot and an orderly was covering him with a blanket. “Am I in hospital?”

he asked.

“Not yet,” the orderly said. “I’m taking you there now.”

“You can’t,” Ernest said, struggling. He had passed out on the way to hospital. He had been unconscious for over a month, and when he’d come to, nobody had known who he was. “I can’t go to Orpington. The retrieval team won’t know where I am.”

“I’m the retrieval team, old man,” the orderly said. “It’s Colin. Colin Templer. You’re in Croydon, in an ambulance. I’m taking you back to Oxford.”

Ernest clutched Colin’s arm. “But I have to tell you about Polly,” and some of his desperation must have got through because Colin nodded.

“All right. When did you see her last, Michael?”

Had it been a few minutes or longer than that? “I don’t know. She”—he tried to raise his hand to show Colin where she’d gone—“left.”

“When did you leave?” Colin asked. “On January eleventh? That’s when the Times said you died.”

No, he thought, it’s October. But Colin meant when he’d been in London. “Yes, on the eleventh.”

“Where was Polly working when you left? Was she still working in Oxford Street?”

He nodded. “At Townsend Brothers. On the third floor. But she and Eileen—”

“Eileen? Merope’s there?” Colin said eagerly. “She and Polly are together? Do you know where they’re living?”

“Fourteen,” he said, swallowing. There was an odd metallic taste in his mouth. He swallowed, trying to get rid of it. “Cardle Street,” he attempted to say, but he couldn’t for coughing—and he must have coughed so hard he vomited because Colin was wiping at his mouth with a corner of the blanket. “Mrs.—”

“Don’t try to talk,” Colin said, dabbing at his chin. “They’re living at Mrs. Rickett’s in Cardle Street. Number fourteen.”

Ernest nodded. “In Kensington,” he tried to say, but more coughing overtook him.

But it was all right, Colin understood. “In Kensington, right? We worked that out from your messages. And the shelter they’re using is Notting Hill Gate?”

Ernest nodded, grateful he didn’t have to try to say all that because there was something else he needed to tell him, something important. “She didn’t come through in June. She came through in December of ’43. You have to get her out before the twenty-ninth.”

“I will. But first I’ve got to get you back.” He stooped over him. “Can you put your arms round my neck?”

“Don’t,” Ernest said, afraid the V-2 would hit again when he lifted him. “Get Polly to help you. Tell her to bring the stretcher.”

“She’s not here,” Colin said gently. “She’s in 1941. Remember? You told me where to find her.”

“No. Here. At the incident.” But Colin wouldn’t know that word. He wasn’t an historian. He was just a boy. “She was the one who found me in the wreckage,” he tried to say. “She rescued me. She’s an ambulance driver at Dulwich.”

But that must not have been what he said because Colin asked, “She wasn’t working at Townsend Brothers when you left? She was driving an ambulance?”

“No. Here. In the wreckage”—he swallowed—“after the V-1 hit—”

“Polly was here just now?” Colin cut in.

“No, Mary. She hasn’t gone to the Blitz yet. But it’s all right. She didn’t recognize me. I didn’t ruin it,” he said between coughs. “You’ve got to warn her. You’ve got to tell her not to go.”

“If I’d known—” Colin said, looking off into the distance, and Ernest knew they weren’t at the incident, that Colin had taken him somewhere else.

“Are we in the ambulance?” he asked.

“No, we’re at the drop. If I’d known Polly was there …,” Colin said, and his voice sounded full of despair and longing.

Like that night I left London, Ernest thought, when I knew I could never see her or Eileen again.

But he had to see her. “You have to stop her. Go back—”

“I’ve got to get you home first. The drop’ll open any second now. There’s an emergency medical team waiting for us in the lab. We’ll have you fixed up in no time, old man.”

“There’s no time. She’ll be gone,” he opened his mouth to say. “You have to go find her.” But without any warning he was vomiting again, all down Colin’s coverall, only it wasn’t vomit, it was blood.