Connie Willis - All Clear

And if he was dead, then no one was coming to rescue them. She might have been able to convince herself that Mr. Dunworthy would have allowed Mike to be left here with an injured foot and her here with a deadline, but there was no way he would have allowed one of them to be killed if he could help it.

Which meant he couldn’t help it. He couldn’t get them out. And it scarcely mattered if the reason was slippage or their having altered events or some catastrophe in Oxford. Mike was dead. “Mike Davis, 26, died suddenly. Of enemy action.”

She took Mike’s things back to Mrs. Rickett’s, and put them in a drawer of the bureau, then took out the half-charred print of The Light of the World she had retrieved from the floor of St. Paul’s, unfolded it, and sat there on the bed, looking at it—at Christ’s hand, still raised to knock on the door though the door had burned away to nothing, and at his face. It held no expression at all.

“Would you care for me to make arrangements for a memorial service for your friend, Miss Sebastian?” the rector asked her on Friday. “I should be glad to officiate.

I’ve arranged with the rector of St. Bidulphus’s to have Mr. Simms’s funeral there, and I could speak to him about a service for Mr. Davis.”

But Eileen wouldn’t hear of it. “He isn’t dead,” she insisted, and when Polly showed her the entry in his notebook, she said, “That doesn’t say the eleventh. It says the seventeenth. Or the seventh. Look how the water’s blurred the numbers. And even if it does say the eleventh, it doesn’t mean he kept the appointment.”

On Tuesday, Polly went to Mr. Simms’s funeral. She had attempted to persuade Eileen to go, too, but she’d refused to leave her post at the foot of the escalator. “I might miss Mike,” she said, looking hopefully up at the people descending.

The entire troupe was at St. Bidulphus’s, including Nelson. Miss Laburnum and Miss Hibbard both wore black-veiled hats and carried black-edged handkerchiefs.

Sir Godfrey recited the St. Crispin’s Day speech: “ ‘They shall not speak of this, from this day to the ending of the world, but we in it shall be remembered, we few, we happy few, we band of brothers; for he today that sheds his blood with me shall be my brother.’ ”

And the rector, giving the eulogy, said, “Mr. Simms was no less a soldier than the men in Henry the Fifth’s army, and no less a hero.”

So was Mike, Polly thought, and it didn’t matter what he had been doing when he died any more than it mattered whether an RAF pilot was killed in a dogfight or while he was on leave. Mike had still died trying to get them out. He had devoted every moment since he’d found them to doing that. And it didn’t matter that he’d failed either. History was full of failed attempts—Thermopylae, Scott’s trek back from the South Pole, the siege of Khartoum. He was still a hero.

After the funeral, the rector asked Polly again about scheduling a service. “I could speak to the Reverend Mr. Unwin now, or perhaps you’d like to have it in some other church.”

Yes, Polly thought, St. Paul’s. It’s where all the heroes are: Wellington and Lord Nelson and Captain Faulknor. Mike should be there as well, though she knew they’d never allow it.

But she asked Mr. Humphreys anyway, and, to her surprise, he said that they could hold a small private service in the Chapel of St. Michael and St. George. “I am so sorry about Mr. Davis,” Mr. Humphreys said. “It’s difficult sometimes to see God’s plan in all this violence and death, but with His help, it will all come right in the end.”

He asked Polly what day she’d like to have the service, and she told him about Eileen. “People often find death difficult to accept,” he said, shaking his head,

“particularly when it is sudden. Is there someone she’s close to who could help her through this? Her mother or father, perhaps, or a friend from school?”

None of them has been born yet, Polly thought, going to Oxford Circus to attempt to persuade Eileen to return to Mrs. Rickett’s and get some sleep. Things couldn’t go on this way. Eileen was eating almost nothing and sleeping scarcely at all. There were dark hollows under her eyes and a driven, distracted look about her.

Like Mike had, Polly thought. She must get through to her somehow.

But Eileen wouldn’t listen to her. And there’s no one else here she’s close to, Polly thought, and then realized that wasn’t true. She wrote to the vicar in Backbury, and when she didn’t hear back from him after several days, went in search of Alf and Binnie Hodbin.

They were hardly ideal comforters, but Eileen cared about them—she’d been talking about them just before they found out about Mike. And the important thing now was to jar Eileen back to reality, something Alf and Binnie were experts at.

now was to jar Eileen back to reality, something Alf and Binnie were experts at.

Polly didn’t know where they lived except that it was in Whitechapel, and according to Eileen, no one was ever at home. Which left the tube stations.

She started with Embankment, where Eileen had last seen them, and then searched Blackfriars and Holborn. When she still couldn’t find them, she began collaring urchins and questioning them as to the Hodbins’ whereabouts, which didn’t work either. The children clearly thought she was from Child Services or a schoolmistress and weren’t about to tell her anything, so she switched tactics, giving them twopence to deliver a message to Alf and Binnie and promising another twopence on delivery.

They were waiting outside Townsend Brothers when she left work the next day. So was the urchin she’d promised the twopence to. She paid him, and he darted off.

As soon as he’d gone, Binnie said, “Did somethin’ ’appen to Eileen?”

“Was she killed?” Alf demanded.

“No, nothing’s happened to Eileen.”

“Then ’ow come she ain’t ’ere?” Binnie asked.

“Does she need us to go with her in the ambulance again and tell her which way to go?” Alf asked.

“No,” Polly said, frustrated. Eileen was liable to come out the staff door at any moment. Polly needed to tell them about Mike before she got here. “It’s about her friend, Mr. Davis. You met him that morning at St. Paul’s.”

“The bloke what didn’t have no coat?”

“Yes,” Polly said, remembering with a sharp pang Mike sitting there defeatedly in his shirtsleeves on St. Paul’s steps, remembered wrapping the pumpkin-colored scarf round his neck. “He was killed, and—”

“Eileen won’t ’afta go to an orphanage, will she?” Alf asked.

“No, you noddlehead,” Binnie said. “Only children get sent to orphanages.”

“Eileen’s been feeling very sad since Mr. Davis was killed,” Polly said, “and I was hoping you two might cheer—”

“Was it a bomb what killed ’im?” Binnie cut in.

“Yes, and Eileen—”

“What sorta bomb?” Alf demanded. “A thousand-pounder or a parachute mine?” Before Polly could answer, he said, “Parachute mines is the worst. They blow you up! Ka-blooie!” He flung his arms out. “And bits of you go everywhere!”

What was I thinking? Polly asked herself. These two have no business going anywhere near Eileen.

But now how would she get rid of them? Especially when Binnie was saying, “So you want we should cheer Eileen up?”

“Yes, but Eileen’s too sad to see anyone yet. I thought perhaps you could send her a condolence card.”

“We ain’t got no money,” Alf said.

“We could come to the funeral,” Binnie said. “When is it?”

“We don’t know yet,” Polly said, fumbling in her bag for money. She had to get rid of them before Eileen came out.