Connie Willis - All Clear

“None of the fire watch was injured or killed in 1941,” Mr. Dunworthy told her, and Polly wondered if that was a lie, if Mr. Dunworthy was hoping to die at St.

Paul’s as well as work there.

“And being in the cathedral will give me opportunities to check the drop when no one’s around,” Mr. Dunworthy said, and Eileen eventually relented, though she insisted on walking him to and from the cathedral every night he was on duty.

“St. Paul’s may be safe,” she said, “but there’s still the journey there and back again. I have no intention of letting either of you get killed five minutes before the retrieval team arrives.”

“All right,” he agreed, and let her walk him there every night, except for the seventeenth, when he sent Eileen on an errand and had Polly accompany him instead so Eileen wouldn’t see the damage from the raids the night before.

“It left a huge crater in the middle of the floor,” he told Polly. “If Eileen sees it, I fear she’ll never let me go on working with the fire watch.”

“And she’ll see you can’t get to your drop,” Polly said, guessing the real reason.

“True, I can’t.”

When they reached St. Paul’s, Mr. Humphreys was delighted to see Polly. “Miss Sebastian, you must be an excellent nurse. Mr. Hobbe looks quite recovered.”

He insisted on showing them the north transept, or, rather, the mountain of plaster and splintered timbers and broken marble that blocked access to it. “Still, though, the damage could have been worse,” he said.

Far, far worse, Polly thought, going to the Alhambra that night, thinking of Hitler unvanquished, unstoppable, marauding and murdering his way through England and the rest of the world. And the future.

But we stopped him, she thought. We won the war.

“You look like the cat that swallowed the canary,” Tabbitt said. “Did you meet a handsome doctor in hospital?”

“You’re in awfully good spirits for someone who nearly bought it,” Hattie said.

The troupe noted her lightness of mood as well. “You’re too cheery by half,” Viv said when she went to the theater for the first pantomime rehearsal.

“It’s just that I’m so happy to see all of you,” she said. Sir Godfrey and Mrs. Wyvern had not only found another theater—the Regent—for them to stage the pantomime in but had managed to talk Mr. Tabbitt into shifting Polly to matinees for the duration and had bullied the entire troupe to be in the play.

Miss Laburnum was to be the narrator, Mrs. Brightford Sleeping Beauty’s mother and the Queen, and the rector the King and one-half of the Prince’s horse. Viv was the other half, Nelson was the prince’s dog, and Miss Hibbard was helping with costumes. “We’re happy to see you, too, my dear,” she said.

“And delighted to see you looking so well after your ordeal,” the rector added.

“It’s the spring weather,” Miss Laburnum said. “I find the coming of spring always lifts one spirits.”

“I say it’s a man,” Viv said.

“Well, whatever it is, it suits you,” Mrs. Brightford said. “You look positively radiant.”

But when she went backstage with Sir Godfrey, he said, “What is this fey mood which has come now upon you? Such moods are dangerous. Are you certain you’re fully recovered from your exertions on my behalf? Perhaps we should postpone the play.”

“No, better not,” she said and, when he looked up alertly, “I only meant the theater may not be available for an additional week. And ENSA may be sending me to the provinces in May. Not to Bristol,” she added hastily. “There’s no need to postpone. I’m all right.”

Which was true. She was only sorry she wouldn’t get to see Colin again, and anguished over what his failure to rescue her and Mr. Dunworthy would do to him.

It wasn’t your fault, she wished she could tell him. I know you would have come to rescue me if you could.

Sir Godfrey was looking worriedly at her. “Simply because you’ve cheated Death once,” he said, “doesn’t mean he will not try again. I could not bear to lose you.”

“Only because you’d have to find another principal boy,” she said, smiling.

And she seemed to have allayed his fears because he became his old tyrannical directing self again, bellowing at everyone and shouting orders at Mr. Dorming, who’d been recruited into painting sets. Mrs. Brightford’s three little girls had been enlisted, too, and, by the time rehearsals began—and over Polly’s protests—Alf and Binnie.

“Oh, I don’t think that’s a good idea,” Polly said when Mrs. Wyvern suggested it.

“Oh, I don’t think that’s a good idea,” Polly said when Mrs. Wyvern suggested it.

“It’s an excellent idea,” Mrs. Wyvern said. “The pantomime is being given to benefit the orphans of the East End. What could be better than having actual children from the East End in it? They can be in the christening scene.”

“We’re fairies,” Binnie told Mr. Dunworthy proudly.

“I ain’t,” Alf said. “Girls are fairies. I’m a goblin. And a bramblebush. First Bramblebush.”

“Liar,” Binnie said. “All the bramblebushes are the same. I’m goin’ to wear a beautiful glittery dress and wings.”

If Sir Godfrey doesn’t throttle you first, Polly thought, which seemed highly likely. They teased Nelson, trod in paint, bounced on Sleeping Beauty’s bed, and hit each other with the fairies’ wands and the prop swords.

“Those swords were borrowed from the Royal Shakespeare!” Sir Godfrey bellowed at them. “The next miscreant I catch with one will be strung up by his heels.”

Which had no effect on them at all. Polly had to talk Eileen into coming to rehearsals with her to keep them from destroying the theater, and Mrs. Wyvern promptly latched on to her and made her prompter.

“At least when the retrieval team comes, we’ll all be in one place,” Eileen said cheerfully.

She’d refused to give up hope, even though it was obvious by this time that no one had been able to get through. “The bombing of St. Paul’s must be a divergence point,” she said, “and the retrieval team can’t come through till it’s past.”

Nothing happened on the sixteenth or the seventeenth. On the eighteenth, Eileen said, “With us not in Oxford Street anymore and Mrs. Rickett’s house gone and the vicar not in Backbury, they’ve no way to find us. We need to go to Townsend Brothers and give them our new address. Do you think I should write to Lieutenant Heffernan at the riflery school at the manor?”

It doesn’t matter, Polly thought. If they were able to come, they’d have done it long before this. They know Mr. Dunworthy’s deadline is the first of May. And the weather was supposed to be clear for the next three nights. Perfect bombing weather.

“I’ll write to the manor tonight when we get home,” Eileen said. “Perhaps they moved the riflery range, and we can go to Backbury and use my drop.”

It won’t open either, Polly thought, and wished she could tell Eileen, You mustn’t blame yourself that we weren’t able to get out in time. It’s not your fault.

But Eileen would only say, “They’ll get us out. You’ll see. At this very moment, there are all sorts of things happening, all sorts of people working to rescue us,”

and Polly didn’t think she could bear it. So instead, after Eileen left to walk Mr. Dunworthy to St. Paul’s, she wrote what she had wanted to say in a note and added a list of the dates, times, and locations of every V-1 and V-2 in her implant.

She copied it out in case the original was destroyed when she got killed and hid the copy in Eileen’s Murder in the Calais Coach. The original she sealed in an envelope addressed to Eileen, then sealed the envelope and the half-charred lithograph of The Light of the World in a second envelope, which she put in her coat pocket.