Connie Willis - All Clear

It was half past three and beginning to grow dark before they came within sight of Saltram-on-Sea. He could see the gun emplacement, flanked now by row after bristling row of concrete tank traps and sharpened stakes.

There was razor wire all along the top of the cliff, and signs warning, Danger: This Area Mined. He wondered what the retrieval team had thought when they’d seen all that.

“Do you mind if I drop you at the crossroads?” the land girl, whose name was Nora, asked him. “I want to get home before dark.”

“No, that’s fine,” he told her, but was sorry from the moment she let him out. The wind coming off the Channel was bitter, and the sleet was turning to snow.

Damn it, the retrieval team had better be here after all this, he thought, limping down into the village, his head bent against the wind, his coat collar pulled up around his neck. And the drop they’d come through had better be here, too.

At least Daphne will be, he thought, going into the inn, but she wasn’t behind the bar. Her father was.

“I’m looking for Daphne,” Mike said.

“You’re that American reporter, aren’t you?” her father said. “The one who went to Dunkirk with the Commander?” and when Mike nodded, “Sorry, lad. You’re too late.”

“Too late?”

“Aye, lad,” he said. “She’s already married.”

I pray you tell me, hath anybody enquir’d for me today?

—WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE,

MEASURE FOR MEASURE

Saltram-on-Sea—December 1940

“DAPHNE’S MARRIED?” MIKE SAID, PUSHING HIMSELF AWAY from the pub’s counter.

“Aye,” her father said, placidly toweling a glass dry. “To one of the lads what was putting in the beach defenses.”

I obviously didn’t need to worry about accidentally breaking her heart and keeping her from marrying anybody else, Mike thought ruefully.

“Beach defenses,” the pipe-smoking fisherman he’d talked to on the quay snorted. “Didn’t know much about defenses, if you ask me. Couldn’t defend himself against your Daphne, could he now?” He nudged Mike. “Looks like you couldn’t either, eh, lad?”

There was general laughter, under cover of which Mike asked, “Can you tell me where I can find her?”

Daphne’s father frowned. “I don’t know as that’s a good idea, lad. She’s Mrs. Rob Butcher, and there’s naught you can do about it.”

“I don’t want to,” Mike said.

Her father scowled.

“I mean, I don’t want to make trouble. I just need to talk to her about something. She wrote me a letter—about some men who were asking for me—and I need to ask her if she knows where I can get in touch with them. Or maybe you can help me. Daphne said they came in—”

Her father shook his head. “I know nothing about any men, and as for Daphne, she’s in Manchester with her husband.”

Manchester? That was more than two hundred miles from Saltram. It would take him at least two days to get there by train. If he could even get on one. They’d be jammed with soldiers going home on leave for Christmas.

“I don’t suppose you have a phone number where she can be reached?” Mike asked. “Or an address?”

“You’re not thinkin’ of goin’ there to make mischief, are you?”

“No, I just want to write to her,” Mike lied, hoping the address wouldn’t be a post office box.

It wasn’t. It was an address on King Street. “Though I had a letter from her yesterday saying their lodgings were very unsatisfactory,” Daphne’s father told him,

“and they were hopin’ to find somethin’ better.”

Let’s hope they didn’t, Mike thought, writing the address down.

“If anyone comes in asking for me, tell them I can be reached here,” he said, giving him Mrs. Leary’s address and telephone number. He congratulated him on his daughter’s marriage, then set out for Manchester.

It didn’t take two days. It took nearly four of fully booked trains, delayed departures, missed connections, and compartments crammed full not only of soldiers but of civilians with packages, plum puddings, and, on one leg of the journey, an enormous unplucked Christmas goose. Apparently no one in England was obeying the government order posted in every station to “avoid unnecessary travel.”

He didn’t reach Manchester till late afternoon on December twenty-second—by which time Daphne and her new husband had found “something better.” He limped all the way to King Street, only to be sent back across town to Whitworth. And then the landlady, who looked exactly like Mrs. Rickett, wasn’t sure Daphne was in.

“I’ll go and see,” she said, and left him standing at the door.

Please let her be in, he thought, leaning against the doorjamb to take the weight off his aching foot.

She was. She came halfway down the stairs and stopped, just like she had that first day in Saltram-on-Sea. “Why, Mike,” she said, her eyes widening, “I never expected to see you in Manchester. Whatever are you doing here?”

“I came to find you, to ask you—”

“But didn’t Dad tell you? Oh, dear, this is dreadful! I didn’t mean for you to find out like this! You’re a lovely boy, and now you’ve come all this way, but the thing is, I was married last week.”

“I know. Your father told me,” he said, trying to get the right mixture of heartbreak and resignation into his voice. “I really came about your letter.”

“My letter?” she said, bewildered. “But I didn’t … I thought about writing and telling you about Rob, but I didn’t know where you were or what you were doing, and I thought if you were off covering the war, it would be unkind—”

“No, the letter you wrote me about the men who came in asking about me,” he said, pulling it out of his coat. “There was a mix-up with the mail, and I just got it.”

“Oh,” she said, sounding vaguely disappointed.

“I went to Saltram-on-Sea to talk to you about it, and your father told me you’d gone to Manchester and that you’d got married. Congratulations to both of you.

Your husband’s a very lucky man.”

“Oh, but I’m the lucky one,” she said, blushing. “Rob’s wonderful, so kind and brave. He’s working on repairing the docks just now, but he’s put in for combat duty. He’s determined to do his bit for England. I said, ‘You are doing your bit. You’re seeing to it England doesn’t starve, aren’t you? It may not look as grandly heroic as shooting Germans or sinking U-boats, but—’ ”

And if he didn’t cut her off, he’d be here all night. “If I could just ask you a couple of questions.”

“Oh, of course. Where are my manners, keeping you standing in the door like that? Come through to the parlor. Would you like some tea?”

He’d love some tea—he hadn’t had anything to eat since breakfast—and he’d love to take the weight off his foot, but he didn’t want to do anything to encourage her to talk longer than she already was. “No, thanks, I have a train to catch. You said these two men came into the pub asking for me.”

Daphne nodded. “Twice. The first time they asked everyone in the pub if they knew a war correspondent named Mike Davis, and Mr. Tompkins said I did, and they asked me if I knew how they could get in touch with you.”

“And did you tell them?”

“No. I remembered what you said about letting you know straightaway if anyone came round asking for you. That’s why I wrote to you instead of giving them your address.”

address.”

Mike groaned inwardly. “Did they say why they were trying to get in touch with me?”

“No, they said it was something to do with the war, and that it was very important that they contact you, but they didn’t say what it was.”

“Did they tell you their names?”