Connie Willis - All Clear

“It ain’t looting!” he protested, his hands going defensively to his pockets. “ ’Ow can it be looting if the people what owned it’s dead?”

Which was a good point, but Eileen needed that map, and they’d just taken ten years off her life with that parrot. “It’s still looting in the eyes of the law.”

“Mrs. Bascombe woulda died if we ’adn’t found her. We rescued ’er.”

“That may be, but I’m still going to have to call a constable and tell him you’re keeping a stolen parrot in your rooms.”

He went white as a sheet. “Wait! Don’t!” he pleaded. “You can borrow the map.”

“Thank you,” she began, and he wrenched suddenly free of her grasp, snatched the book out of her hands, and went racing off across the rubble. “Alf, you come back here!” Eileen called after him, but he’d already disappeared.

And so had her chances of getting the map. She would have to admit defeat, go to Charing Cross Road, and hope she could find a map in a travel guide.

She began walking toward Mile End Road, hoping the journey back wouldn’t be as—

“Eileen!” Alf called, running up to her, Binnie at his heels. “You was s’posed to wait,” he said accusingly, and handed Eileen the map.

“You needn’t bring it back,” Binnie said. “You can keep it. He don’t do planespotting no more. Now he collects shrapnel.”

“And UXBs,” Alf said.

Of course, Eileen thought.

“So you needn’t come back,” Binnie finished.

Eileen needn’t have worried about them following her back to Mrs. Rickett’s. On the contrary, they couldn’t wait to be rid of her. Why? What were they up to now? Alf had turned pale when she’d mentioned calling a constable. Had he “collected” a UXB and taken it home? But surely not even Mrs. Hodbin would have let them keep—

“ ’Ad’nt you better be goin’?” Binnie said. “It’s gettin’ late.”

She was right, and whatever mischief they were up to, it was no longer her responsibility. “Yes,” Eileen said. “Thank you for the map, Alf. Goodbye, Binnie.”

“Dolores.”

I’ll almost miss you, Eileen thought. Almost.

“Goodbye, Dolores,” she said and pulled the film magazine from her bag and held it out to Binnie. “Here.”

Binnie clutched it to her chest and ran off, as if she expected Eileen to change her mind and snatch it away from her.

Alf still stood there.

“It’s all right,” Eileen said. “I know you need your map for your planespotting. I’ll bring it back to you.”

“You don’t hafta if you don’t want to. It’s like Binnie said, I don’t need it.”

They definitely did not want her coming around. “I could send it back to you by post,” she suggested.

“That’d be ’eaps better,” he said, looking relieved, but he continued to stand there. “You ain’t gonna tell the constable, are you?”

“Not if you promise me you’ll keep out of the rubble,” she said, with no hope of his actually obeying her. “And that you won’t collect any more UXBs.”

“I only collect little ones.”

“No bombs,” she said firmly.

“I can still collect shrapnel, can’t I?”

“Yes,” she said, “but no watching raids. I want you to promise me you and Binnie will go to a shelter as soon as the sirens go.”

Amazingly, he nodded. “Do you want I should show you where to catch the bus?”

“No, that’s all right. I know the way home.” It’s somewhere on this map, and had to fight the impulse to open the map and look for the name of the airfield then and there, but it was growing late. It would have to wait till she got on the bus.

But the bus was filled to capacity, and ten minutes after Eileen got on, it drove over a piece of shrapnel that Alf hadn’t collected and burst a tire, and she had to walk several streets over to catch another one, which was even more crammed. She had to stand, hanging on to a strap, the entire way, and there were so many barricades and diversions that by the time the bus reached Bank Station, it was so late she was afraid if she went to Townsend Brothers, she’d miss Polly.

Instead, she went to Mrs. Rickett’s and straight up to their room, where she sat down on the bed and opened out the map. It was badly worn and ripped along the folds, and the panel where the index of place-names should have been had been torn off. She’d have to locate the name on the map itself. Alf had marked Xes and dates all over the lower half of it, obscuring the names underneath. Luckily, they were in pencil and could be erased; hopefully, doing that wouldn’t also erase the names underneath. She hoped Alf hadn’t spotted a Messerschmitt over the airfield where Gerald was, or that it wasn’t on one of the torn folds.

Polly and Mike thought his airfield was near Oxford. She began searching the section between there and London, bending over the tiny print, looking for Bs.

Polly and Mike thought his airfield was near Oxford. She began searching the section between there and London, bending over the tiny print, looking for Bs.

Boxbourne … Bishop’s Stortford … Banbury …

There was a timid tap on the door. She opened it a crack, just like Binnie had, and poked her head out. It was Miss Laburnum. “We’re just going down to dinner,”

she said. “Are you coming?”

“No, Polly’s not here yet,” Eileen said. “I’m waiting for her.”

“Wise decision,” Mr. Dorming growled, passing in the corridor. “It’s boiled tripe tonight.”

Boiled tripe, Eileen thought, making a face as she shut the door. I must find that name. She bent over the map again. It wasn’t anywhere on the railway line between Oxford and London, which must mean it was farther east. Baldock … Leighton Buzzard … Buckingham …

There it was! I knew I’d recognize it if I saw it, she thought. And she’d been right about it being two words. Now if Polly would only come. She went out into the corridor to look down the stairs. An appalling stench somewhere between rotting flesh and mildewed sponge bags assailed her, and she clapped her hand to her nose and mouth and retreated into the room. A moment later Polly came in the door, gasping. “What is that wretched odor? Has Hitler begun using mustard gas?”

“It’s boiled tripe,” Eileen said, “but it’s all right.”

“How can it possibly be all right?” Polly said, unbuttoning her coat. “We have to eat that.”

“No, we don’t,” Eileen said. “We’re going home. I know where Gerald is.”

Polly stopped in the act of taking off her coat. “You found a map.”

“Yes. I got it from Alf Hodbin.”

“But I thought you said the Hodbins were horrid. They’re not. They’re wonderful. Oh, Alf, you dear, darling boy!”

“I wouldn’t go so far as that,” Eileen said. “He and his sister have a parrot they’ve trained to imitate an air-raid siren. But it doesn’t matter. I found the airfield.” She grabbed the map and shoved it under Polly’s nose to show her. “He’s at Bletchley Park.”

I can’t believe we will ever get away with this.

CHRISTOPHER HARNER, ON SEEING

THE PLAN FOR FORTITUDE SOUTH,

1944

Kent—April 1944

“WORTHING!” CESS SHOUTED FROM THE HALLWAY, AND Ernest could hear him opening doors. “Ernest! Where are you?”

Ernest yanked the sheet of paper he was working on out of the typewriter, slid it under a stack of papers, and threaded a new one in. He called out, “In here!” and began typing, “On Tuesday, the Welcome Committee of Derringstone held a ‘Hands Across the Sea concert.’ Mrs. Jones-Pritchard—”

“There you are,” Cess said, carrying in some papers. “I’ve been looking for you everywhere. Didn’t you hear me?”