Connie Willis - All Clear

“Thank you,” Mike said. He took a deep breath. It’s only half past six at the latest, he thought. The fire watch doesn’t come off duty till seven, and Polly’s had all night to find Bartholomew, even if she doesn’t know what he looks like. And all she had to do was tell him, and he’d wait for Eileen and me.

He leaned back, cradling his arm, which was throbbing badly. So was his head. It doesn’t matter. They can fix them both in Oxford.

“Want to see the old girl for yourself, eh, guv’nor?” the cabbie called back to him. “Make certain she’s still there? I don’t blame you. I thought she was a goner myself last night. It looked like London was a goner, too.”

He turned down a succession of smoky streets. “I was taking a passenger to Guy’s Hospital—a doctor it was, trying to get there to take care of casualties. And when we got to Embankment, it looked like the sky itself was on fire, so bright you could read a newspaper by it, and this queer red color, it was.

“ ‘Guy’s won’t be there,’ I told him, and blamed if the hospital wasn’t on fire when we got there. I had to take him back across London Bridge to St. Bart’s, and a good thing I got him there. I’ve never seen so many casualties.”

He stopped at a crossing to look down a street. “Newgate’s blocked off, but there’s a chance Aldergate’s open.”

It wasn’t. A wooden barricade stood across it.

“What about Cheapside?” the cabbie asked the officer standing next to it.

“No, this sector’s blocked off all the way to the Tower. Where were you trying to go?”

The cabbie didn’t answer him. “What about Farringdon?”

The officer shook his head. “They still haven’t got the fires out. The whole City’s impassable.”

The cabbie nodded and backed around. “Don’t worry,” he said to Mike. “Just because one way don’t work don’t mean another won’t, does it? I’ll get you there.”

Mike hoped he was right. Every street they tried was either roped off or blocked by fallen masonry. A huge crater had been blown out of the middle of one lane, Mike hoped he was right. Every street they tried was either roped off or blocked by fallen masonry. A huge crater had been blown out of the middle of one lane, and in the next one over, two portable fire pumps and an ambulance had been abandoned. He was obviously going to have to walk, which meant he’d better put his socks on. He pulled them out of his pockets, took off his shoes, and began putting them on.

“You wanted a look at her,” the cabbie called back to him. “Well, there she is.”

Mike looked up, and there was St. Paul’s, the dome framed by the opening of the lane they were passing, and the ball and gold cross standing out clearly against the dark gray sky.

“Not a scratch on her,” the cabbie said admiringly. “Not that Hitler didn’t try his best. Beautiful, ain’t she, sir?”

Beautiful, yes, but at least two miles away. They’d been closer at St. Bart’s. I need to get out of this cab before we get any farther away, Mike thought, but the cathedral had disappeared as the cabbie dived back into the maze of twisting streets, turning and backing and retracing so much Mike had no idea which direction it lay in.

And neither does he, Mike thought, tying his shoes and buttoning his jacket. He’s just driving. And meanwhile I’m running out of time.

“Stop,” he said aloud, reaching for the door handle. “I’ll walk from here.”

The cabbie shook his head. “It’s rainin’, guv, and you with no coat. No, I said I’d take you straight to St. Paul’s front door, and I will.”

“No, really, I—”

But the cabbie had already turned down a narrow alley. He nodded at the blackened buildings on either side. “Getting near it now, we are.”

Near to where the fires had been, anyway. Whole streets were gutted, with patches still burning in spite of the rain. It looked like vids Mike had seen of London after the pinpoint. Through the charred timbers, he could see the wreckage the next street over, and the next, but no sign of St. Paul’s.

We must be in the Barbican, he thought, or Moorgate.

“And here we are,” the cabbie said, pulling over to the curb alongside a still-smoldering warehouse.

There, just past it, was St. Paul’s courtyard, and beyond, the pillared west front of the cathedral. Mike fumbled in his jacket for his wallet.

“Told you I’d get you here,” the cabbie crowed.

The nurse must have taken his wallet. He fumbled in his trouser pockets and brought up a shilling and twopence. Oh, no, not after he’d made it to within a few hundred yards.

“I must have lost my wallet last night, in the raid,” he stammered, searching through his pockets again. His papers weren’t there either. Or his ration book. The nurses must have locked them up for safekeeping. “I only have—”

“You don’t owe me nothin’, guv’nor,” the cabbie said, waving the coins away, “after what your lot’s done.”

“My lot—?”

“You Yanks.” He held up the newspaper. The banner headline read, “Roosevelt Pledges Support to Britain.”

“Nothing can stop us winning the war now,” the cabbie said.

Thank you, President Roosevelt, Mike thought. You came through in the nick of time.

“And any rate, it was worth the fare just to see for myself she’s still all in one piece,” the cabbie said. “A sight for sore eyes, ain’t she, guv?” He pointed toward the cathedral. “Looks like we’re not the only ones what wanted to take a look at the old girl.”

He was pointing at knots of people standing in the courtyard, looking up at St. Paul’s. Mike was too far away to see if Bartholomew and Polly were among them.

He got out of the taxi. “Thanks—for everything.”

“The same to you, mate,” the cabbie said, and drove off.

Mike limped up the street toward St. Paul’s, looking for Polly and Bartholomew, but he didn’t see them among the people in the courtyard. He hoped they hadn’t gone off looking for him.

No, they wouldn’t have any idea where to look, he thought. And they know I’d try to come here. This is where they’d wait. He looked over at the porch and the broad steps where more people stood and sat. Unless Polly and Bartholomew have gone to Blackfriars to find Eileen.

No, Polly didn’t know he’d told Eileen to wait there …

A hand grabbed his sleeve. Mike turned, expecting it to be Polly, but it was a thin, dazed-looking man. “This is where I work,” the man said urgently, pointing at the still-standing door in the wreckage behind Mike. It hung in its frame, held up by two blackened supports. The rest of the warehouse was completely gutted. “What do I do now?” he asked.

“I don’t know. Sorry,” Mike said, trying to pull away.

“It’s past time for them to open.” The man held up his wristwatch for Mike to look at. It read nine o’clock.

Nine o’clock. It had taken him two and a half hours to get out of the hospital and over here. The fire watch would have gone off duty long since and gone back down to the Crypt.

That’s where Polly and Bartholomew will be, he thought, breaking away from the man’s grasp and starting across the courtyard, picking his way over fire hoses and around ash-edged puddles.

The man trailed after him, murmuring, “It’s gone. What do I do now?”

Mike reached the foot of the steps. A score of people sat slumped against the steps, like the soldiers on the Lady Jane at Dunkirk, sooty, worn out, unseeing. And he’d been right. Polly was here waiting for him, sitting halfway up the steps next to two ragged children. And so was Eileen. Beside her on the step was a charred mark, like a deformed star. The incendiary.

Eileen caught sight of him. She stood up and started down the steps to tell him what had happened, why John Bartholomew wasn’t there, but he already knew. One look at Polly’s face had told him everything.