Connie Willis - All Clear

“No. Rain. But luckily,” Polly said lightly, “we have an umbrella.”

She took the tea things downstairs, made a sandwich to take to Mike, and set off for Notting Hill Gate with Eileen. It was coming down hard—an icy downpour that made Polly glad Miss Laburnum had brought Eileen the coat and made her wish she’d brought a second umbrella. It was impossible to huddle under Eileen’s and lead her along the wet, dark streets at the same time, and twice Polly stepped in an ankle-deep puddle.

“I hate it here,” Eileen said. “I don’t care if I do sound like Theodore. I want to go home.”

“Did you tell Theodore’s mother your new address so your retrieval team can find you?”

“Yes, and her neighbor Mrs. Owen. And on the train in from Stepney, I wrote the vicar. I wanted to ask you about that. Do you think I must give Alf and Binnie my new address?”

“Are those the children you told me about? The haystack-fire starters?”

“Yes,” Eileen said, “and if I tell them where I am, they’re likely to take it as an invitation, and they’re—”

“Dreadful,” Polly finished.

“Dreadful,” Polly finished.

“Yes, and the only way the retrieval team would know where they are was if the vicar told them, and I’ve already told him where I am, so the retrieval team wouldn’t need—”

“Then I don’t see any reason you need to contact them,” Polly said, leading her down the steps into the tube station, hoping they wouldn’t run into any of the troupe. “Where did Mike say he’d meet us? At the foot of the escalator?”

“No, in the emergency staircase. There’s one here just like the one in Oxford Circus.”

Good, Polly thought, following Eileen through the tunnel. We’ll be safe from the troupe there. And if Mike’s been waiting in it, I needn’t worry about his having overheard people discussing Padgett’s.

But Mike wasn’t there. Eileen and Polly climbed up three flights and then down as many, calling his name, but there was no answer. “Should we go to Oxford Circus?” Eileen asked. “That’s what he said to do if we got separated.”

“No, he’ll be here soon.” Polly sat down on the steps.

“The raids weren’t on Regent Street tonight, were they?” Eileen asked anxiously.

“No, over the City and—”

“The city?” Eileen said, looking nervously up at the ceiling. “Which part of it?”

“Not the city of London. The City with a capital C. It’s the part of London around St. Paul’s.” And Fleet Street, Polly added silently. “It’s nowhere near here, and the raids later on were over Whitechapel.”

“Whitechapel?”

“Yes. Why? Mike wasn’t going there, was he?”

“No. But that’s where Alf and Binnie Hodbin live.”

Good Lord. Whitechapel was even worse than Stepney. It had been almost totally destroyed.

“Was it heavily bombed?” Eileen said anxiously. “Oh, dear, perhaps I shouldn’t have torn up that letter after all.”

“What letter?”

“From the vicar, arranging to send Alf and Binnie to Canada. I was afraid they might end up on the City of Benares, so I didn’t give it to Mrs. Hodbin.”

Thank goodness Mike’s late and wasn’t here to hear that, Polly thought. She was going to have a difficult enough time persuading him that Padgett’s five fatalities weren’t a discrepancy, let alone having to convince him that Eileen hadn’t saved the Hodbins’ lives by withholding the letter.

There were lots of ships to America they might have gone on. Or the Evacuation Committee might have decided to send them to Australia instead, or to Scotland.

And even if they had been assigned to the City of Benares, they might not have gone. Their train might have been delayed, or—if they were as dreadful as Eileen said

—they might have been thrown off the ship for painting blackout stripes on the deck chairs or setting them on fire.

But she doubted Mike would be convinced by her arguments, especially if he’d found out about Padgett’s. He’d go into a tailspin, certain he’d lost the war, and nothing short of telling him about VE-Day would persuade him otherwise. But telling him meant their finding out about her deadline, and the rest of it. Which would give them even more to worry about, and now, with this discrepancy …

I must find out about those fatalities before he does, Polly thought. “Don’t bring up the subject of Alf and Binnie to Mike,” she said to Eileen. “He needn’t know about the letter. And there’s no need to tell him you didn’t write and tell them your address.”

“But perhaps I should write to them. To tell them Whitechapel’s dangerous.”

I should imagine they already know that. “I thought you didn’t want them to know where you are.”

“But I’m the one responsible for them being there instead of in Canada. And Binnie’s still not completely well from the measles. She nearly died, and—”

“You didn’t tell me that,” Polly said.

“Yes, she had a horribly high fever, and I didn’t know what to do. I gave her aspirin—”

And thank goodness Mike hadn’t heard that either.

“If Alf and Binnie are in danger,” Eileen said, “it’s my fault. I—”

“Shh,” Polly said. “Someone’s coming.”

They listened. Far below them a door shut and footsteps began to ascend the iron steps.

“Eileen? Polly? Are you up there?”

“It’s Mike,” Eileen said, and ran down to meet him. “Where were you?”

“I went to the morgue,” Mike said.

Oh, no, I’m too late, Polly thought. He’s already found out about the five fatalities.

But when he came up the stairs, he said cheerfully, “I found a bunch of airfield names, and I’ve got a job, so we don’t have to live on just Polly’s wages.”

“A job?” Eileen said. “But if you’re working, how will you be able to go look for Gerald?”

“I’ve been hired as a stringer for the Daily Express, which means I go out and find news stories—including at airfields—and get paid by the story. I didn’t have any luck finding a map, so I went to the Express’s morgue to look through their back issues for mentions of airfields—”

The newspaper morgue, Polly thought, not the actual morgue.

“And when I told them I was a reporter who’d been at Dunkirk, they hired me on the spot. Best of all, they gave me a press pass, which will give me access at the airfield. So now all we need is to figure out which one it is.” He pulled a list from his pocket. “What about Digby? Or Dunkeswell?”

“No, it was two words … I think,” Eileen said.

“Great Dunmow?”

“No. I’ve been thinking. It might have begun with a B instead of a D.”

Which means she has no idea what letter it began with, Polly thought. “Boxted,” she said.

“No,” Eileen said.

“No,” Eileen said.

“B,” Mike murmured, going down the list. “Bentley Priory?”

Eileen frowned. “That sounds a bit like it, but—”

“Bury St. Edmunds?”

“No, though that might … oh, I don’t know!” She threw her hands up in frustration. “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t worry, we’ll find it,” Mike said, wadding up his list. “There are lots more airfields.”

“Can you remember anything else Gerald said about where he was going?” Polly asked.

“No.” She frowned in concentration. “He asked me how long I was going to be in Backbury, and I said till the beginning of May, and he said that was too bad, that if I’d been staying longer he’d have come up some weekend to ‘brighten my existence.’ ”

“Did he say how?”

“How? You mean motor up or come by train?” Eileen asked. “No, but he said, ‘Is backwater Backbury even on the railway?’ ”