Connie Willis - Blackout

“You should see what they sent-now, where did I put it?” the Commander said, attacking the mess on the table again. “I know it’s here somewhere-aha!” He fished a letter out of the heap and handed it to Mike with a triumphant flourish. “The Small Vessels Pool sent that letter four weeks ago.”

The Small Vessels Pool. That was the “Smale Vises School” Mr. Tompkins had been mumbling about. And this was the letter they’d sent out at the beginning of May asking small craft owners if they’d be willing to volunteer their boats for service in case of invasion or other “military emergency.”

“Sent one of their bloody forms along with it,” the Commander said. “Six pages long! I wrote ’em back the very same day, volunteering the Lady Jane and me for service.”

I’ll bet you didn’t tell them about the broken bilge pump, Mike thought, or the four inches of water in the hold.

“And haven’t heard a word since,” the Commander was saying. “Four weeks! It took Hitler less than half that to take over Poland! If they’re running the war in France the way they’re running the Small Vessels Pool, they’ll be surrendering to Hitler a fortnight from now!”

No, they wouldn’t, thanks to a ragtag armada of motor launches and fishing smacks and pleasure boats who’d arrived to rescue them in the nick of time. But the Lady Jane wouldn’t be among them. It would never make it out of the harbor, let alone across the Channel and back. And there was no way he was going to let the Commander take him up to Dover in it. Which meant he’d better get back to the Crown and Anchor so he wouldn’t miss Mr. Powney. “I’ve got to be going,” he said. “Thanks for the coffee,” and tried to hand the mug back to the Commander.

“You can’t go till you’ve seen the Lady Jane. This is her engine.” The Commander lifted another trapdoor to reveal an ancient-looking motor, black with grease. “You won’t find an engine like that nowadays.”

Mike could believe that.

“And you won’t find a more seaworthy boat,” he said, splashing through the water to show Mike a locker containing grapples, a tangle of ropes, and a signal lantern. There was a bucket in the locker, too.

Good, Mike thought, because the water’d risen at least an inch since they’d been down here.

The Commander took him up on deck to show him the bridge. There was no sign of Daphne, and the three fishermen were still in the same place. The Commander showed him the bridge and the wheel and then dragged him to the rear of the boat to see the gunwales, the anchor, and the propeller, delivering lectures as he did on her seaworthiness and the modern Navy’s shortcomings, then below again to show Mike his charts. “I don’t hold with all this modern navigation,” he said, pointing to a clock in the galley. “In my day we used dead reckoning.”

The clock said five after six. How exactly was he going to navigate using dead reckoning with a stopped clock? Mike looked at his Bulova. It was nearly noon. Powney had to be back by now. Daphne was probably out looking for him. “Thanks for the tour,” he said, “but I’ve really got to be going.”

“Going? You can’t go yet. You haven’t finished your coffee. Or said why you were looking for me.”

Mike wasn’t about to tell him he’d been looking for a boat to take him to Dover. “That’ll have to wait till later,” he said, wading toward the ladder. “Right now I’ve got to…” He hesitated. He couldn’t tell him about Mr. Powney either. “Get back to the Crown and Anchor-”

“The Crown and Anchor? If it’s your dinner you’re wanting, you can have it here. Sit down.” He forced Mike into a chair, handed him the mug of cold coffee, and rummaged through the heap on the table again. He came up with a pot, which he dumped the sardines into. “In my day, every man in His Majesty’s Navy knew how to cook and mend sail and scrub decks.” He dumped in the can of potatoes. “Hand me that tin of bully beef.”

Mike handed it to him and he cut it open, dumped it in the pot in a solid block, stirred the mess with his knife, and set it on the Primus stove. “Nowadays, all they know how to do is fill up forms and take tea breaks. Soft, that’s what they are.” He rummaged again, came up with a tin plate and a crusted fork, and gave them to Mike. “I’ll wager Hitler’s soldiers don’t take tea breaks. Hand me your plate, Kansas.”

“No, I really can’t stay. I’ve got to report in to my paper, and-”

“You can do that after dinner. Hand over your plate.”

“Grandfather!” a voice called, and a young boy poked his head down the ladder. “Mum says to come home to dinner.”

Rescued in the nick of time, Mike thought. “I’ll be going, then,” he said, standing up.

“You stay right there. Jonathan!” he shouted up at the boy. “You go tell your mother I’m having my dinner on board. Go on, then.”

The boy, who reminded Mike a little of Colin Templer, though he was even younger, stayed where he was. “She said to tell you it’s going to rain, and you’ll catch your death.”

“You tell her I’ve been taking care of myself for eighty-two years and-”

“She said if you won’t come, to put this on.” Jonathan came down the ladder, handed the Commander a peacoat, and turned to Mike. “Are you from the Small Vessels Pool?” he asked.

“No, I’m a reporter,” Mike said.

“A war correspondent,” the Commander said. “Now, off with you. Tell your mother I’ll be home when it suits me.”

“A war correspondent!” Jonathan stayed long enough to say. “Have you seen lots of battles? I’m frightfully keen to get into the war. I’m going to enlist in the Navy as soon as I’m old enough.”

“If his mother’ll let him,” the Commander said after he was gone.

“He’s your grandson?”

“Great-grandson.” He tossed the peacoat on the bunk. “He’s a good lad, but his mother coddles him too much. Fourteen, and she won’t even let him go out in the Lady Jane with me.”

I can’t blame her, Mike thought.

“Won’t let me teach him to swim either. He might drown, she says. And what the bloody hell does she think he’ll do if he doesn’t learn to swim? Here, give me your plate.”

“No, really, I have to go, too. I’ve got to write up my story.”

“In my day, reporters were on the front lines, reporting the real news. I’ll wager that’s where you’d like to be instead of in a backwater like this.”

I’d like to be in Dover, Mike thought.

“Not that anybody’d want to be in France now, with everything going to hell in a handbasket,” and was off again on a rant about the incompetence of the French, the Belgians, and General Gort. It was twelve-thirty before Mike was able to make his escape. Luckily, the Commander’d gotten so worked up over the softness of the BEF that he’d forgotten about Mike’s having come to ask him something. And he’d forgotten about the stew.

But if I’ve missed Mr. Powney …

Mike sprinted back along the dock. The old men had disappeared. He hurried to the Crown and Anchor. Daphne was behind the bar, pouring ale from a pitcher for several customers. “Mr. Powney hasn’t come back, has he?” Mike asked.

“No, I can’t think what’s keeping him.” She went over to the end of the bar, consulted with the ale drinkers, and came back. “They say he might have gone straight home instead of stopping in.”

“Wouldn’t he have had to come through the village?”

“No, his farm’s south of here.”

“How far?” Mike asked, thinking, Please let it be within walking distance.

“Not far. Only three miles south by the coast road,” she said and drew a map for him. “But it’s much shorter if you cut across the fields, like this.”

That was probably true, but if Mr. Powney hadn’t gone home, Mike might miss him heading there and waste more time. And there was always the chance somebody else would come along-maybe the Army would show up to put in the beach defenses-and he could hitch a ride with them.

So he kept to the road, but he didn’t see a single vehicle the whole way to the turnoff to Mr. Powney’s.

There wasn’t anybody at the farm either, though Mike tramped out to the barn and the outbuildings, looking for a farmhand he could ask who might know when Mr. Powney was coming back, and he couldn’t see anybody in the surrounding fields, except for a few cows.

Which means I’ll have to take the same damned route back to make sure I don’t miss him, Mike thought, looking longingly at the shortcut Daphne had mapped out for him. He hadn’t prepped for an assignment with this much walking, and the farm had been much farther from Saltram-on-Sea than Daphne’d said-the distance from the turnoff to the farm alone was a good mile-and he was tired and thirsty. And hungry.

He hadn’t had anything to eat since he got here. I should have had that kipper Daphne offered. Or some of the Commander’s pilchard stew. Even it sounded almost good.

I definitely should have had that cup of the Commander’s godawful coffee, he thought, yawning. It would help keep me awake.

The weather wasn’t helping. In spite of everyone’s prediction of storms, the afternoon was sunny and warm and filled with the sleep-inducing drone of bees. He trudged back along the farm track, fighting an overwhelming desire to lie down in the grass and take a nap. When Mr. Powney finally shows up, and I get in that truck, he thought, I intend to sleep all the way to Dover.

But the road back was deserted all the way to Saltram-on-Sea, and there was no truck outside the Crown and Anchor, even though it was nearly three.

He must not be coming back today, Mike thought tiredly. He couldn’t afford to wait for him any longer, with the evacuation racing irretrievably past. He had to get to Dover. It’ll have to be one of the boats, he thought, heading out to the quay. Some of the fishing boats at least should be back by now, and surely he could talk one of them into running him up to Dover-

He stopped, staring. The quay was empty. Down at the end, the Lady Jane was still tied to the dock, but every other boat had vanished, including the Sea Sprite. Its engine had been lying in pieces on its deck. Where could it-where could they-all have disappeared to?

Dunkirk, he thought sickly. The Small Vessels Pool was here while I was gone. But it couldn’t have been. The Lady Jane was still here. Commander Harold would have been the first to volunteer, and they couldn’t possibly have gotten their boats ready so fast. There had to be some other explanation. He sprinted down the quay to the Lady Jane. “Commander Harold!” he called. “Where’s everyone gone?”

No answer. He ran aboard, called down the hatch, and when there was still no answer, climbed down the ladder to see if the Commander was down in the hold.

Maybe he missed it like I did, Mike thought, but the Commander wasn’t asleep in his bunk. He must be at his granddaughter’s.

Mike ran over to the Crown and Anchor to ask Daphne where that was. The door to the inn was open, and next to it a bicycle was leaning against the wall. Mike went in. And nearly collided with the Commander, who was on the phone. “Put me through to the officer in charge of the Small Vessels Pool! The one who was in Saltram-on-Sea this afternoon!” he was bellowing into it. “Then put me through to the Admiralty! In London!” He spied Mike. “Incompetents, the lot of them! And they’re in charge of saying what’s seaworthy and what’s not!”