Connie Willis - All Clear

Parrish met them as they came in from the garage with “Kent, there’s someone waiting to see you in the common room.”

“American?” she asked.

“I don’t know. I’m only relaying a message from Maitland.”

“I do hope it’s not that GI who couldn’t dance.”

“Would you like me to come rescue you?” Fairchild offered.

“Yes. Wait five minutes, and then come tell me I’m needed at hospital.”

“I will. Here, give me your cap.”

She handed it to Fairchild, went down the corridor to the common room, and opened the door. Maitland sat perched on the arm of the sofa, swinging her legs and smiling flirtatiously at a tall young man in an RAF uniform.

It wasn’t the GI. It was Stephen Lang. “Isolde,” he said, smiling crookedly at her. “We meet yet again.”

“What are you doing here?” she asked. “Do you need a driver?”

“No, I came to thank you.”

“Thank me?”

“Yes, on behalf of the British people. And to tell you I finally remembered.”

“Remembered?”

“Yes. I told you we’d met before. I finally remembered where.”

Do not tell the enemy anything. Hide your food and your bicycles. Hide your maps.

PUBLIC INFORMATION BOOKLET,

1940

London—November 1940

EILEEN LUCKED UP WILDLY AT THE SOUND OF THE SIREN. It wound up to a full-throated wail, its rising and falling notes filling the corridor outside the Hodbins’ flat. “Binnie!” Eileen shouted through the door. “Where’s the nearest shelter?”

She rattled the knob, but the door was locked. “Binnie, you can’t stay in there!” she called through the door. “We must get to a shelter!”

Silence except for the siren, which seemed to be right there in the tenement with her, it was so loud. “Binnie! Mrs. Hodbin!” She pounded on the door with both fists. The tube station they’d come from that day she first brought the children home was over a mile away. She’d never make it in time. It would have to be a surface shelter. “Mrs. Hodbin! Wake up! Where’s the nearest shelter? Mrs. Hod—”

The door flew open and Binnie shot past her down the stairs, shouting, “It’s this way! Hurry!” Eileen ran after her down the three flights and past the landlady’s shut door, the siren ringing in her ears. She heard the outside door bang shut, but by the time she got outside, Binnie’d vanished. “Binnie!” she called. “Dolores!”

There was no sign of her, and no one else in sight to tell her where the nearest shelter was. Eileen ran back inside and along the corridor, looking for steps that would lead down to a cellar, but she couldn’t find any.

And these tenements collapse like matchsticks, she thought, panic washing over her. I must get out of here.

She ran outside and back along the street, searching for a shelter notice or an Anderson, but there were only smashed houses and head-high heaps of rubble. The planes would be here any moment. Eileen looked up at the sky, trying to spot the black dots of the approaching bombers, but she couldn’t see or hear anything.

There was a thump, followed by the slither of falling dirt, and Alf leaped down from the rubble and landed at her feet. “I thought I seen you,” he said. “What’re you doin’ ’ere?”

She was actually glad to see him. “Quick, Alf,” she said, grabbing his arm. “Where’s the nearest air-raid shelter?”

“What for?”

“Didn’t you hear the siren?”

“Siren?” he said. “I don’t ’ear no siren.”

“It stopped. Is there a surface shelter near here?”

“Are you sure you ’eard a siren?” he said. “I been out ’ere ages, and I ain’t ’eard nothin’, ’ave I?”

I take it back about being glad to see him, Eileen thought. “Yes, I’m certain I heard it. I was in there”—she pointed back at their tenement—“talking to Binnie—”

His eyes narrowed. “What about?”

“It doesn’t matter. Alf, we must get to a shelter now, before the raid—”

“You ain’t ’ere ’cause of Child Services, are you?”

Why on earth would she be here on behalf of Child Services? “No. Alf—” She tugged on his arm.

“We don’t need to go till the planes come,” he said maddeningly. “ ’Sides, me and Binnie ain’t afraid of a little raid. There was one last week what blew up a

’undred ’ouses. Ka-boom!” He flung his arms up to show her. “Bits of people all over. What did Binnie tell you?” he asked suspiciously.

We are going to be killed standing here, she thought desperately. “Alf, we can discuss all this later.”

“Wait,” he said as if he’d suddenly had an idea. “What did the siren sound like?”

“What do you mean, what did it sound like? An air-raid alert. Alf, we must—”

“Where was you when it went?”

“In the corridor outside your—Why?” she asked, suddenly suspicious.

“I’ll wager you ’eard Mrs. Bascombe.”

“Mrs. Bascombe?” What would Mrs. Bascombe be doing here in Whitechapel?

“Our parrot.”

A parrot.

“We taught ’er to do the alert and the all clear,” Alf said proudly. “And HEs. Blooey! Ka-blam!”

“You have a parrot that can imitate an air-raid alert?” Eileen said furiously, thinking, Of course they do. This is the Hodbins. Binnie had told it to do its siren imitation and then led her on a merry chase down the stairs and hid behind the tenement, where she no doubt still was, laughing her head off.

“Mrs. Bascombe sounds just like ’em,” Alf was saying. “ ’Specially the HEs. She scared old Mrs. Rowe so bad she fell down the stairs. You thought it was a real siren,” he said, pointing at her and then doubling up with laughter. “What a good joke! You shoulda seen your face. Wait’ll I tell Binnie!” He started to run off, but Eileen hadn’t spent nine months with them for nothing. She was not leaving without the map. She grabbed Alf’s collar and held on in spite of his wriggling.

“Stop squirming and stand still,” she said. “I want to talk to you. Do you still have the map the vicar gave you?”

“I dunno,” he said. “Why?”

“I need to borrow it.”

“What for?” he said, his eyes narrowing again. “You ain’t one of them fifth columnists, are you?”

“Of course not. I need it to look up something. If you’ll lend it to me, I’ll give you a book.”

Alf snorted. “A book?”

“Yes,” she said, attempting to decide whether she dared let go of him long enough to take it out of her bag. “About chopping people’s heads off.”

He was immediately interested. “Whose ’eads?”

He was immediately interested. “Whose ’eads?”

“Anne Boleyn’s. Sir Thomas More’s. Lady Jane Grey’s.” She took the book from her bag.

“Does it got pictures?” he asked, and when she nodded, “Can I see ’em?”

“Not till you bring me the map.”

He thought it over. “No,” he said finally. “What if a Messerschmitt comes over? ’Ow’ll I mark it if I ain’t got—”

“I only need it for a day or two. After they chopped their heads off, they put them up on spikes on London Bridge.”

His face lit up. “Does it got pictures of that?”

“Yes,” she lied.

“All right. Only you got to pay me. Five quid.”

“Five quid?” Eileen said. “Do you know how much money that is? I have no intention—”

Alf shrugged. “Suit yourself.”

Very well, Eileen thought. “Where did you get that parrot, Alf?” she asked. “You stole it, didn’t you?”

“No!” he said, outraged. “We never. We found it in the rubble. There’s all sorts of things in the rubble.”

“That’s looting,” Eileen said, “and looting’s a crime.”