Connie Willis - All Clear

He nodded and limped off toward the door.

“You don’t suppose they’ll arrest me for stealing the ambulance, do you?” Eileen asked.

“Considering the blood-covered state of your coat, no. But if they do, I’ll help you escape,” Polly said, and went up to the ward to ask about Mike’s coat.

The nurse thought it likely they’d had to cut it off him when he was brought in. “You might check in Emergency.”

It wasn’t there either, or with the matron. Polly went out front to tell Mike. He and Eileen were both there. “You weren’t arrested?” Polly asked Eileen.

“No, they were extremely nice about it. You didn’t find Mike’s coat?”

“No, sorry. I’ll have to ask Mrs. Wyvern to get you another. Here.” Polly took off the pumpkin-colored scarf Miss Hibbard had given her. “Take this till we get you a coat.” She wrapped it around his neck as if he were a child, and they set out for the tube station.

It was open, but the Hammersmith and Jubilee Lines were both out of commission, and the District Line wasn’t running between Cannon Street and Temple.

“This means there may still be a chance of catching Bartholomew,” Mike said. “If the train he needed to take was destroyed or wasn’t running, he may not have gone back yet. He may still be here in London.”

“Mike,” Polly protested, “he left two hours—”

“You two go on to work. If I catch him, I’ll come get you at Townsend Brothers,” Mike said, and took off before they could stop him.

“Do you think there’s a chance—?” Eileen asked Polly.

“No,” Polly said, though it took them an hour and a half just to reach Townsend Brothers.

“Thank goodness you’re here,” Miss Snelgrove said. “Neither Doreen nor Sarah can make it in, and the New Year’s sales begin day after tomorrow—good heavens, you’re hurt!” she said to Eileen, and ordered Polly to telephone for an ambulance.

“It’s not my blood,” Eileen said, looking down at her coat. “I don’t suppose you know of anything which will take out bloodstains?”

“Benzene,” Miss Snelgrove said promptly, “though it looks as if it’s soaked through.”

She sent Eileen up to Housewares for a bottle of the cleaning fluid and set Polly to lettering placards for the New Year’s sales while she went to fill in for Sarah.

Polly spent the rest of the day printing “Special New Year’s Mark-down” and worrying about why Mike didn’t come and about his burned arm and what they were going to do after tomorrow.

As of January first, they wouldn’t know where and when any of the raids were or what was safe, except for Townsend Brothers and Notting Hill Gate. She assumed Mrs. Rickett’s and Mike’s boardinghouse were, too, though Badri hadn’t said whether the list of allowed addresses was safe for the duration of the Blitz or only till the end of her assignment. But Mr. Dunworthy had been so insistent that she stay in a tube station which hadn’t been hit at all that he was unlikely to have let her stay in a boardinghouse that had been.

But unlikely wasn’t certain, which meant they’d best spend their nights in Notting Hill Gate—and hope they got there before the raids began.

Which was impossible with the short winter days. The sirens routinely went before five. And Mike’s job took him all over London, and there were daytime raids to worry about. And UXBs and dangling parachute mines. And the fact that by closing time Mike still hadn’t shown up.

Where was he? And what if he got blood poisoning in his burned arm? Or caught pneumonia? Though that at least she could do something about, and after work she and Eileen went straight to Notting Hill Gate to speak to Mrs. Wyvern about a coat.

She wasn’t there. “She and the rector are helping with a fund-raiser for families who’ve been bombed out,” Miss Hibbard told her.

She wasn’t there. “She and the rector are helping with a fund-raiser for families who’ve been bombed out,” Miss Hibbard told her.

“Do you know where?” Polly asked. There weren’t any raids tonight, so she could go find her, but she hadn’t told Miss Hibbard the location of the fund-raiser.

I’ll have to ask Miss Laburnum, Polly thought. “Did she say when she was coming over?”

“She has a bad cold,” Miss Hibbard said. “I told her she should stay at home. The station’s so drafty and cold.”

It was, and the emergency staircase was even icier. When Mike finally arrived, Polly and Eileen took off their coats, and the three of them huddled together under them as Mike told them where he’d been, which had apparently been in every tube station in London, with no luck. “I should have gone to St. Paul’s Station as soon as I got to the cathedral,” he said. “If I had—”

“You still couldn’t have caught him,” Polly said.

“I’ll figure out a way to get you out of here before your deadline, Polly,” he said fiercely.

“What about the retrieval team?” Eileen asked. “You still might be able to find them,” and Polly realized that in all the excitement the night before, they hadn’t told her what had happened.

“I did find them,” Mike said, “but it wasn’t the retrieval team. It was a guy I knew in hospital.”

Eileen’s face fell. “But they still might come. I could write to Mr. Goode again. And the manor. Or we could check Polly’s drop again. It might be working by now.”

“You’re right,” he said. “We’ll do all those things. And I’ll figure out a way to get you both out of here. But right now we need to concentrate on staying alive till I do. Where are tomorrow’s raids?”

“There aren’t any tomorrow either,” she said. “But I’m afraid I have more bad news.” She told them about not knowing about the raids after the first of the year.

“But Notting Hill Gate’s safe, right?” Mike said. “And Townsend Brothers, so you two are safe during the day.”

“No,” Eileen said. “My supervisor told me today they plan to let all the Christmas help go as soon as the New Year’s sales are over.”

“And we have another problem,” Polly said. “Sometime—I don’t know when—Eileen and I are going to be conscripted.”

“Conscripted?” Mike said. “Into the Army?”

“Not necessarily, but into some sort of national service. The ATS or the land girls or working in a war-industry factory. It’s the National Service Act. All British civilians between the ages of twenty and thirty must sign up.”

“Can’t you get a deferment from Townsend Brothers or something?” Mike asked.

“No,” Polly said. “And if we don’t volunteer before it goes into effect, we run the risk of being assigned somewhere outside of London.”

“Which means we’d better find a way out of here fast,” Mike said, frowning.

“Don’t you know when any of the raids are, Polly?” Eileen asked nervously.

“Some of them,” Polly said. “And some nights the Luftwaffe attacked other cities.”

“And they can’t attack when the weather’s bad,” Mike said, “which should help for the next couple of months. And the Blitz ends in May, right?”

“Yes, May eleventh,” Polly said. But between now and then nearly twenty thousand civilians will be killed.

“So all we have to do is get through the next four and a half months,” Mike said, “and then we’re safe till Denys Atherton gets here.”

Safe, Polly thought.

“And that’s a worst-case scenario. We’re bound to figure out a way to get home before—” He stopped. “What is it, Polly? Why are you looking like that?”

“Nothing. What is that dreadful odor?”

“My coat,” Eileen confessed. “I’m afraid I used a bit too much benzene on it to get the blood out.”