Connie Willis - All Clear

and he could be on the train back to London to pick up Eileen and Polly by tomorrow.

Only half a block to go. The young women were still standing there talking, totally caught up in what they were saying and oblivious to his approach. And no wonder they’d been known as “girls.” They didn’t look more than sixteen. They were talking animatedly and giggling, and it was clear as he got closer to them that they weren’t waiting to cross. They’d simply stopped to talk.

Keep talking till I catch up, girls, he willed them, but when he was still a hundred feet away, they crossed the street, walked to the second building, and started up the steps to the door.

Oh, no, they were going in. He hobbled quickly to the corner. “Hey!” he called, and both girls turned at the door and looked back at him. “Wait!” He stepped out into the street. “Can you tell me the way to—”

He didn’t even see the bicycle. His first thought as his bag flew out of his hand and both palms and his knee hit the pavement was that a bomb must have exploded and the blast had knocked him down, and he looked toward the girls, afraid they’d been hit, too. But they were running down the steps and over to him, exclaiming,

“Are you all right? Did he injure you?”

“He?” he said blankly.

“When he ran his bicycle into you,” the first girl said, and it was only then that he realized he’d been knocked down by a bicyclist. He looked on down the street to see the bicycle wobble and swerve and then crash into the curb, spilling its rider onto the pavement and clattering onto its side.

The girls saw the bike crash, too, but they paid no attention, even though it looked like the rider had taken a much worse fall than Mike had. They were busy picking Mike up. “Are you injured?” the first girl asked anxiously, putting her hand under Mike’s arm to help him up.

“I think he only clipped me,” Mike said.

The other was standing with her hands on her hips, staring at the rider, who was getting slowly to his feet. “He shouldn’t be allowed on the streets,” she said, annoyed.

“Do give us a hand, Mavis,” the first one said to her, and Mavis came over to take Mike’s other arm. Mike stood up, more or less. “Are you certain you’re not hurt?” she asked.

“I don’t think so,” he said, taking stock. His knee was beginning to throb, but he was able to put weight on it, so it wasn’t broken or sprained, and it and his hands had struck the pavement first. He flexed his fingers. “I think I’m fine. Anyway, nothing’s broken. I should have been looking where I was going.”

“You should have?” Mavis exploded. “He should have. It’s the third time he’s knocked someone down this week! Isn’t it, Elspeth?”

Elspeth nodded. “He nearly killed poor Jane on her way to the Park last week.” She glared at the rider, who was righting his bicycle. He got on and rode off down the street, apparently unharmed. “Watch where you’re going!” she shouted after him, to no effect. He didn’t even look back.

“You’re certain you’re all right?” Mavis was asking. “Oh, you’re limping.”

“No, that isn’t from—”

“I knew he’d end by injuring someone,” Mavis said angrily. “He never watches where he’s going.”

“My foot’s not hurt,” Mike said, but neither girl was listening.

“He’s an absolute menace,” Mavis said angrily. “He should be forbidden from riding a bicycle.”

Elspeth shook her head. “He’d only begin driving his car again, and that would be even worse,” she said. “Turing’s a wretched driver.”

Elspeth shook her head. “He’d only begin driving his car again, and that would be even worse,” she said. “Turing’s a wretched driver.”

In wartime the truth is so important it must be accompanied by a bodyguard of lies.

WINSTON CHURCHILL, IN A

SPEECH AT BLETCHLEY PARK

London—November 1940

POLLY AND EILEEN WAITED TO MAKE SURE MIKE’S TRAIN actually left for Bletchley Park, and then Eileen went to Whitechapel to return Alf Hodbin’s map. “I told them I’d post it to them, but I promised Theodore Willett I’d go see him, so I may as well run it by. And I want to talk to Alf. I got the feeling last time that he and Binnie are up to something.”

“Like what?” Polly asked.

“I’m not certain, but knowing the Hodbins, it’s something illegal. There weren’t any Nazi child spies, were there?”

Polly saw her to her train and then went to the British Museum—“Darling, so sorry. If you can forgive me, meet me by the Rosetta stone Sunday at two”—to wait for the retrieval team. And fret.

In spite of Mike’s reassurances that they hadn’t affected events, she was still worried. Her actions hadn’t affected only Marjorie. They’d also affected the warden who’d found her and the rescue squad and ambulance driver, her nurses and doctors, the airman she hadn’t met who’d gone off on his mission thinking she’d changed her mind about eloping, even Sarah Steinberg, who’d been given Marjorie’s job, and the shopgirl Townsend Brothers had hired to replace Sarah. The ripples spread out and out. And now Marjorie was going to be a nurse. She was going to be saving soldiers’ lives.

Like Mike had saved Hardy’s. And unlike Hardy, there was nothing else which could have caused what had happened. Marjorie had said quite plainly that she’d decided to run off with her airman because of having seen Polly standing there looking so shell-shocked the morning after St. George’s was hit. That had led directly to her having been in Jermyn Street when it was hit, and to her deciding to become a nurse and thus altering who knew what other events. Polly saw now why Mike had been so worried that morning outside Padgett’s when he thought he’d saved Hardy.

And now Mike was on his way to Bletchley Park, where he could do far more damage to the war than a hospital nurse could. If Gerald Phipps hadn’t already beaten him to it.

But if he had, there should be more discrepancies than just a siren going off when it shouldn’t have. And Mike was right, there were all sorts of instances in history when an action which should have had a major effect had been counteracted by something else, like the Verlaine-poem invasion signal. Or the appearance of

“Omaha” and “Overlord” in the Herald’s crossword puzzle, which hadn’t affected the invasion after all.

But that was also an example of how a single small action could have tremendous consequences. A few words in a crossword puzzle had nearly derailed an invasion involving years of careful planning and two million men. If D-Day had had to be delayed, the invasion’s location would almost certainly have leaked out, and Rommel’s tanks would have been waiting for the invasion troops at Normandy. And all because of a bit of carelessness and a teenaged boy. “For want of a nail …”

So what sort of impact could the combined actions of Marjorie and Hardy, and Gerald’s and now Mike’s wandering around the place where the most important secret of the war was being kept have? If Mike got there. Just because he’d gone to Dunkirk didn’t mean he’d be allowed to reach Bletchley Park.

She gave the retrieval team another half hour to show and then went back to Mrs. Rickett’s to see if Mike had phoned. He hadn’t, and by the time Eileen returned, there’d still been no word from him. “Did you find out what the Hodbins were up to?” Polly asked her.

“No, no one was there,” Eileen said, frowning. “I had to slide the map under the door. Did Mike ring up?”

“No, not yet. His train was likely delayed by a troop train or something.”

But she must not have succeeded in hiding her anxiety, because Eileen asked, “No trains were bombed today, were they?”