Connie Willis - All Clear

Good, Mary thought. At least we’ll have light to see by. She wished she’d worn her coveralls and boots instead of her skirted uniform, since it looked like they were the first ones here and were going to have to clamber over the wreckage looking for victims.

Fairchild drove the ambulance as close to the wreckage as she could and parked, and they scrambled out. “At least we’ve plenty of bandages,” she said. “I’ll go find a telephone and ring the post.”

“Good, though I should imagine the post heard the explosion.” Mary put on her helmet and fastened the strap. “I’ll go see if there are casualties in the cinema.”

“It doesn’t show films on Wednesday,” Fairchild said. “I know because Reed and I came down to see Random Harvest Wednesday last, and it was shut. And none of these shops would have been open at this time of night, so perhaps there won’t have been any casualties.” She ran off to find a phone box, and Mary pulled on her gumboots and started through the wreckage, hoping Fairchild was right.

Halfway down the street she thought she heard a voice. She stopped, listening, but she couldn’t hear anything for Fairchild’s hurrying back toward her, dislodging bricks and chunks of mortar as she came. “I notified Croydon,” she reported. “Have you found any—?”

“Shh. I thought I heard something.”

They listened.

“Jeppers!” Mary heard a man’s voice call from somewhere at the other end of the destroyed area.

“It came from over there,” Fairchild said, pointing, and began picking her way through the rubble.

Mary followed, stopping every few feet to look about her. She’d been wrong about the fires. They gave off only enough light to maneuver by, not enough to see the hazards in her way or to make out more than silhouettes, and the flickering flames made her think she saw movement where there wasn’t any.

Midway across, Mary thought she heard the man again. She stopped, listening, and then called, “Where are you?”

“Over here.” The voice was so faint she could scarcely hear it.

“Keep talking.”

“Over …” He went off into a spasm of coughing.

Which she could hear. “Fairchild, he’s this way!” she called, and set off toward the sound, picking her way over the tangle of bricks and broken wood.

The coughing stopped. “Where are you?” she called again.

“Here he is!” Fairchild called from several yards off, and then, as Mary clambered over to her, “I found him.”

She was bending over a dark form, but she straightened as Mary reached her. “He’s dead.”

“Are you certain?” Mary said. It was so dark, Fairchild might have made a mistake. She squatted down next to the body.

Not body. Half a body. The man had been sliced in two. Which meant he couldn’t have been the one coughing. “There’s another one here somewhere,” she told Fairchild. “You take that area over there, and I’ll look over here.” She walked back the way she’d come, calling, “Where are you? If you can hear us, make a sound,”

and then waiting, listening for the slightest sound before moving on again.

She stepped carefully over a broken window. A large black object lay on its side next to it. What is that? Mary wondered. A piano? No, it was far too large, and there was paper tangled in it and lying in drifts all round it. It’s a printing press, she thought. This must have been a newspaper office, and saw an arm.

Let’s hope it isn’t only an arm, she thought, scrambling over to it. Or that the rest of him isn’t under that printing press.

It wasn’t. The man lay next to it, and the reason she hadn’t been able to see him was that he was covered in newspapers, and his face was so white and so spattered with blood—which looked black in the orange light from the fires—that it was barely recognizable as a face.

He’s dead as well, she thought, squatting down next to him, but his chest was rising and falling. And as she bent closer, she saw that the white was from plaster dust, which he was caked with. “Are you all right?” she asked, but he didn’t respond. “You mustn’t worry. We’ll get you out of here straightaway. Fairchild!” she called into the darkness. “Over here!”

She tried to see what the blood was from, wishing she had her pocket torch. She could scarcely see him in the reddish firelight. But she could see the blood. It was all over his coat and the newspapers covering him. “I need a light!” she shouted, and began brushing the newspapers aside, looking for the wound that had to be there.

She opened his coat. There was no blood on his shirt.

It’s someone else’s blood, she thought, and then remembered the printing press. She touched the black on his coat and then brought her fingers up to her nose. Ink.

It must have splattered on him when the V-1 hit.

But even if it wasn’t blood, he was clearly injured. Perhaps the blast only knocked him unconscious, she thought hopefully, but when she moved the remaining newspapers off, he was buried from his waist down in bricks and chunks of plaster. She dug through them with both hands. His left leg was covered in blood, and this newspapers off, he was buried from his waist down in bricks and chunks of plaster. She dug through them with both hands. His left leg was covered in blood, and this time it wasn’t printer’s ink. All the blood and the darkness made it difficult to see just how bad the injury was, but the lower half of the leg looked like it was badly mangled, and his foot had been severed.

Mary fumbled in her pocket for a handkerchief and tied it round his leg just below his knee. She broke off a short length of wood, tied it into the knot, and twisted the tourniquet till it was tight.

“Is he alive?” Fairchild asked, appearing out of the darkness to kneel down next to him and peer into his face.

“Yes,” Mary said, trying to see if the bleeding from his leg had stopped. “Did you bring the torch?”

“No, I’ll go fetch one. How bad is he?”

“He’s unconscious and his leg’s crushed. His foot’s been cut off,” she said, and the man murmured something.

“What is it?” Mary asked, bending over him, putting her ear close to his lips.

“Wasn’t…,” he said, and his voice was hoarse and rasping.

From the plaster dust, she thought.

“Done …” His eyes closed again.

Done for. “You’re going to be all right,” she said, patting his chest. “I’ll get you out of here, I promise. I’ve tied a tourniquet,” she told Fairchild. “Is Croydon here yet?”

“No,” Fairchild said, looking off toward where their ambulance was parked. “I thought I heard a motor a moment ago, but I must have been mistaken.”

“We’ll have to get him to the ambulance ourselves then,” Mary said. “Go and fetch the stretcher.” Fairchild nodded and ran off.

“Don’t forget the torch!” Mary called after her, and went back to uncovering his other leg, shifting bricks and a metal case of type, which was impossibly heavy.

“You mustn’t worry. We’ll have you out of here in no time.”

He seemed to flinch at the sound of her voice. “No,” he murmured. “Oh, no … no …”

“You mustn’t be frightened. You’re going to be all right.”

“No.” He shook his head feebly. “I’m so sorry.”

“It’s all right.” Poor man. “It’s not your fault. You’ve been injured by a flying bomb,” but her words had no effect on him.

“Still been here …,” he said, his hoarse voice anguished, “… dead …”

“Shh. Don’t try to talk.”

“I thought I could … not supposed to be here …”

“Just lie still. I need to look at your leg.”

She went back to uncovering his other leg and his foot, which, thank God, wasn’t cut off, but it was bleeding badly, and she didn’t have another handkerchief for a tourniquet. She pressed on it with both hands. “Fairchild!” she called. “Paige! I need the medical kit.”