Connie Willis - All Clear

“I only just remembered, I forgot to log in,” she said, starting toward the door. “I’ll be back straightaway.” But he grabbed her hand.

“Wait. You can’t go till I’ve told you about the flying bombs. I’ve found a way to stop them. Remember how I told you the generals were after me to invent a way to shoot them down before they reached their target?”

“And you thought of one?”

“I told you, shooting them down doesn’t work because the bomb still goes off.”

“So you’ve found a way to keep the bomb from going off?” she said, thinking, He can’t have. The RAF was never able to devise a way to disable the V-1s’ bombs in flight.

“No. I found a way to turn them round and send them back across the Channel. Or at any rate away from the target.”

“This isn’t the lassoing-it-with-a-rope plan, is it?”

“No.” He laughed. “This doesn’t require a rope or cannons. All that’s needed is a Spitfire and some expert flying. That’s the beauty of it. All I do is catch up to the V-1 till the Spitfire’s just below it—”

And edge your wing under the V-1’s fin, she thought, and then angle your plane slightly so the fin tips up and sends the rocket careening off course.

She had read about the practice of V-1 tipping when she was prepping for this assignment. But it was an incredibly dangerous thing to attempt. The Spitfire’s wing could be crumpled by the heavier metal of the V-1, or the contact could send the Spitfire into a disastrous tailspin. Or, if the Spitfire came up on the V-1 too fast, they could both explode.

The sickening thought flickered through her mind that this was the reason the net hadn’t prevented her from driving him out of the way of those V-1s. It hadn’t mattered that she’d saved his life because he was going to be killed tipping them.

“And then we come up under the wing,” he was saying, and demonstrated, bringing one of his hands up under the other, “and tilt it ever so slightly”—he nudged the hand on top—“so that it tips.” The hand on top angled up and then veered off. “The rocket’s got a delicate gyroscopic mechanism. Most of the time we needn’t even touch it.”

He demonstrated it again, this time without his hands touching, and as she watched him, boyishly intent on explaining how it worked, she had the same feeling she’d had in Whitehall that afternoon, that there was something familiar about him.

“The slipstream does the work for us,” he said, “and the V-1 goes spiraling down into the Channel, or, if we’re truly lucky, back to France and the launcher it came from, without us so much as laying a finger on it. We’ve downed thirty already this week.”

And that’s why the number of rockets has been down, she thought. Not because of Intelligence’s misinformation campaign, but because Stephen and his fellow pilots have been playing “Tag, you’re it” with the rockets.

“—And not a single casualty on the ground,” he was saying happily. “But that’s not the best of it. What I came to tell you—”

“Triumph!” someone called from the corridor.

Finally, she thought. “In here!” she called back.

“Triumph?” Stephen said. “I thought your name was Kent.”

“They’ve been calling me that since the motorcycle incident,” she explained, wondering why Fairchild hadn’t appeared. “That and DeHavilland and Norton,” she said. “The name of every motorcycle they can think of, in fact. Oh, and also Lawrence of Arabia. Because he crashed his motorcycle, you know.”

“I quite understand,” he said, grinning. “My nickname at school was Spots. And the name Triumph suits you. Which reminds me, I was going to tell you where we met.”

Where was Fairchild? “I really must go log in. The Major—” she began, and the door opened.

But it was only Parrish. “Oh, sorry,” she said when she saw Stephen, “didn’t mean to interrupt. You haven’t got the keys to Bela, have you, DeHavilland?”

“No,” she said. “I’ll come help you look for them—”

“No, I wouldn’t dream of dragging you away from such a handsome young man,” Parrish said, smiling flirtatiously at Stephen. “You wouldn’t happen to have a

“No, I wouldn’t dream of dragging you away from such a handsome young man,” Parrish said, smiling flirtatiously at Stephen. “You wouldn’t happen to have a twin, would you? One who’s fond of jitterbugging?”

“Sorry,” he said, grinning.

“Truly. I can help you look—” Mary began.

“Don’t bother. They’re probably in the despatch room,” Parrish said. “Ta.” And she left, closing the door behind her.

“Lieutenant Parrish is a very good dancer,” Mary said. “And she’s very much in favor of wartime attachments. You should ask her to go—”

“It won’t work, you know,” he said. “You can’t get rid of me. Or deny our destiny. And the reason you don’t remember our meeting is because it was in another lifetime.”

“A … another … lifetime?” she stammered.

“Yes,” he said, and smiled that heartbreakingly crooked smile. “Far in the distant past. I was a king in Babylon, and you were a Christian slave.”

And that was a poem by William Ernest Henley. He’s quoting poetry, not talking about time travel, she thought. Thank goodness. She was so relieved she laughed.

“I’m deadly serious,” he said. “Our souls have been destined to be together throughout history. I told you, we were Tristan and Isolde.” He moved in closer. “We were Pelleas and Melisande, Heloise and Abelard.” He leaned toward her. “Catherine and Heathcliff—”

“Catherine and Heathcliff are not historical figures, and there weren’t any Christian slaves in Babylon,” she said, slipping neatly away from him. “It was B.C., not A.D.”

“There, you see,” he said, pointing delightedly at her. “What you did just then, that’s exactly it! That’s what—”

“Norton!” a voice called from the corridor. “Kent!”

And there’s Fairchild, she thought wryly, when I no longer need to be rescued. She hadn’t met him on an upcoming assignment, or on any assignment. He was only flirting—and he was so good at it she was almost sorry she’d asked Fairchild to come drag her away.

Though it was probably just as well. Stephen was entirely too charming, and it was entirely too easy to forget that she was a hundred years too old for him, that they were even more star-crossed than the lovers he’d named. If he’d been from 2060 instead of 1944—

“Kent!” Fairchild called again. “Mary!”

“I’d best go see what’s wanted,” she said, and started for the door, but Fairchild had already flung it open.

“Oh, good, there you are. You’re wanted on the telephone. It’s the hospital. You can take it in the—oh, my goodness!” she shouted, and, astonishingly, shot past Mary and launched herself at Stephen. “Stephen!” she cried, flinging her arms about his neck. “What are you doing here?”

“Bits and Pieces! Good God!” he said, hugging her and then holding her at arm’s length to look at her. “What am I doing here? What are you doing here?”

“This is my FANY unit,” Fairchild said. “And I’m not Bits and Pieces. I’m Lieutenant Fairchild.” She saluted smartly. “I drive an ambulance.”

“An ambulance?” he said. “You can’t possibly. You’re not old enough.”

“I’m nineteen.”

“Don’t be ridiculous.”

“I am. My birthday was last week, wasn’t it, Kent?” she said, looking over at Mary. “Kent, this is Stephen Lang, the pilot I told you about.”

The person Fairchild had been in love with since she was six, the one she’d said was in love with her as well, only he didn’t know it yet. Oh, God.