Connie Willis - Blackout

“We still must check,” she said stubbornly and started out of the lift.

He grabbed her arm. “There’s no time. You’ve got to face it, she’s not here. Even if she does work here, we must have missed her somehow. Maybe she took one of the other elevators down while we were coming up. There’s nobody here. The store’s completely empty.”

“No, it’s not. There were casualties. Three people were killed-”

“Yes, and two of them will be us if we don’t get out of here right now.”

He was right. The planes were nearly overhead. And Merope obviously wasn’t here. Marjorie must have got the name of the store muddled-

Marjorie, whom nobody had known was on Jermyn Street. What if Merope had stayed late to tidy her shelves? Or had come back for something she’d forgotten? There’d been three casualties-

Polly wrenched violently free of Michael and ran out across the floor. “Merope!” she shouted above the drone of the planes. There was a loud crump, and the tall windows lit up. She flinched. “Eileen!”

“Polly!” Mike shouted, hobbling after her. “Get away from the windows!”

She ignored him, running on toward what had to be the children’s wear department. There was a tiny mannequin in a frilly dress. “Eileen!” she called, running past it toward a row of infants’ cots.

“We’ve got to go!” Mike shouted. “She’s not here-” There was another explosion, closer, and Mike’s voice cut off.

Polly wheeled, but he wasn’t hurt: He was standing there, staring back toward Children’s Wear as if he’d heard something. “What is it?” Polly asked.

And Merope was running toward them from the door of a storeroom, her face radiant with smiles. She threw herself into Polly’s arms. “Polly, oh, my goodness, I’ve never been so happy to see anyone in my life!” She ran over to hug Michael. “And you’re here, too! This is wonderful! I’d nearly given up hope. Where have you been?”

The poom-poom-poom of an anti-aircraft gun started up, so close it rattled the windows, and Michael said, “We can discuss that later. Right now we’ve got to get out of here.”

“There’s a shelter here,” Merope said. “In the basement-”

“No, we must get out of the store,” Polly said.

“Oh. Then I’ll get my coat and-”

“There isn’t time. Come on!” Michael shouted over the deafening sound of the planes. “Where’s the closest way down?”

“There’s a stairway over there,” Merope said, pointing.

“The elevator will be quicker,” Mike said and started back across the floor.

Polly opened her mouth to say, “But the raid’s begun. Wouldn’t the stairs be safer?” but it was four flights, and with that limp, he clearly couldn’t move that fast. She followed him, dragging Merope along with her. “Hurry.”

Merope was limping, too. “Is your foot injured?” Polly shouted as they ran.

“No. A perfectly horrid child trod on my instep.”

“The ones you were telling me about in Oxford?”

“Alf and Binnie? No, they’re amateurs compared to this little wretch. I hope one of these bombs falls on him,” she said, glancing anxiously up at the ceiling. The planes were very near. Another anti-aircraft gun roared into action, and the windows lit up with a garish green. A flare. “I don’t think there’s time to go to a shelter. We’ll have to use Padgett’s. It’s all right. It’s been reinforced.”

Polly shook her head. “Padgett’s is going to be bombed.”

“It is?” Merope turned frightened eyes to her. “But you said… When?”

“I don’t know,” Polly said. “Any minute.”

“But you said Padgett’s hadn’t been bombed.”

“I did not. Hurry! We can talk about this later.”

But Merope continued to chatter as Polly dragged her, hobbling, to the lift. “That’s why I took the job here, because you said it was safe. You said you were going to work in a department store, Selfridges or Padgett’s or-”

Oh, God. I said those were the ones Mr. Dunworthy forbade me to work in, Polly thought, but this was no time to go into it. Or into why Merope hadn’t come back to Townsend Brothers that Monday. Or what she was still doing here. “We’ll sort it all out later,” she said.

Merope nodded. “After we’re back in Oxford. When I found out you’d already gone, I was afraid I’d never see Oxford again. I didn’t know what to do-”

Michael was already inside the lift. “Come on!” he yelled.

There was a loud crump, half a mile away, and a bright flash. Polly pushed Merope into the lift ahead of her, and pulled the brass gate across for Michael. “Go,” she said.

He yanked the lever all the way back, and the lift began to descend. “I still can’t believe you’re here,” Merope chattered to Michael. “I heard voices, but I thought Mrs. Sadler and her horrid son Roland had come back, so I hid in the storeroom, and then I heard someone calling Polly’s name. When I think I nearly didn’t come out-”

There was a loud boom, and then a leaden thunk, and the lift jerked to a stop. They weren’t at a floor. Beyond the metal gate there was only blank wall.

We’re trapped, Polly thought, and then, There were three casualties. We rescued Merope only to trap her here.

“What happened?” Merope asked, but Michael didn’t answer. He pushed hard on the lever, then pulled it back. The lift began to ascend. Michael let it go up for a moment and then reversed the lever. The lift started down.

Polly held her breath. Second floor, that’s it, she thought, willing it to descend, and now first-

The lift jerked to a stop again, and this time it sounded final. Michael yanked with both hands, but the lever wouldn’t budge. He pulled the gate open and looked up. The floor was three feet above them. “Polly, I need you to climb up and open the door,” he said, bracing his body against the side wall. He laced his fingers together. “Climb onto my hands,” he ordered.

Polly nodded and stepped up, reaching for the edge of the floor above. He hoisted her up, Merope giving support, and she got one knee onto it.

“Now stretch your hand over to the door handles,” Michael ordered. “That’s it. Now slide them apart,” which was easier said than done. She had almost no leverage. She managed to pull the doors a few inches apart, but her knee slipped, and she nearly fell.

“No problem,” Michael said. He lowered her back down. “That was a good first try. If only we had a stick or something to push it open with,” he said, looking around, but Padgett’s lifts didn’t have so much as a stool for the lift operator. “Okay, let’s try it again.”

“Let me try this time,” Merope said, kicking off her shoes. She stepped lightly onto his hands, squeezed herself into the narrow opening, her legs dangling as she heaved herself through it and up onto the floor, and stood up. She slid the doors all the way open from the outside to the instant accompaniment of guns and bombs. Merope looked nervously over her shoulder and then knelt down, her hand extended. “Now you, Polly. Boost her up, Michael.”

He did, and Merope grasped Polly’s free hand and pulled her up over the edge. A bomb exploded somewhere nearby, and Merope flinched and said frightenedly, “How near do you think-?”

“Near. Help me pull Michael out,” Polly said. If we can, she thought. I should have boosted him up. “Take hold of my ankles,” she ordered Merope, lying down flat on the floor and extending her arms down to Michael.

“That won’t work,” Michael shouted up. “I’m too heavy. Listen, you two go on.”

Merope leaped to her feet and ran stocking-footed into the darkness. Polly stared after her, furious. She was obviously frightened, but they couldn’t abandon Michael. “Merope-!”

“You, too,” Michael shouted up to her. “I’ll fix it and meet you downstairs.”

“I’m not going without you.”

“There’s no time to argue,” he said. “You need-” but Merope was back, dragging a chair.

“Sorry,” she said breathlessly. “I had to go all the way to the ladies’ lounge for it. Help me with it.” Together, they lowered the chair down to him, and he stepped awkwardly up onto the seat.

“Wait,” Merope shouted. “My shoes!”

“There isn’t time to-” Polly began, but he’d already stepped off the chair, jammed them in his pockets, and climbed back up.

Merope knelt next to Polly, and they heaved him up and out. “Where’s the nearest stairway?” he asked Merope.

“There,” she said, and they fled across the firelit floor, Michael hobbling behind them.

“I can’t wait to get out of this horrid place and back to Oxford,” Merope said as they ran. “Do you know what the first thing I’m going to do when we get there is?”

If we get there, Polly thought, hurrying them along. The planes were directly above them now. Bombs whistled all around them, and the floor lit up with bright, deafening flashes. They dived into the stairwell and racketed down the stairs.

“I’m going to tell Mr. Dunworthy I am never doing another assignment involving children,” Merope said.

Polly glanced back at Michael. He was keeping up, though he was leaning heavily on the stair railing.

“I thought you’d never find me, Polly,” Merope said. “When I found out you’d gone back, I-”

They reached the ground floor. Polly opened the door, and they plunged along the side of the store through a barrage of flashes and explosions, their hands up to shield their heads, and across the street.

When they came up onto the pavement on the far side, Merope and Michael stopped, panting. “No, we’re still too close,” Polly said, grabbing Merope’s arm and pulling her along the street with Michael limping after, trying to keep away from the windows of the shops and at the same time in the protection of the buildings. They should have stayed on the same side of the street as Padgett’s. The blast would spread out in an arc, and here there were no walls between them and the force of the concussion. And she had no idea how far the blast from the explosion would reach.

“I’m sorry,” Merope gasped after two blocks, “I’ve got to stop a moment.”

Polly nodded and pulled them around the next corner into the shadow of a building to catch their breath. “Thank you,” Merope panted, leaning against the wall.

Michael was bending down, his hands on his knees, breathing hard. “I wish I could… say it was… letting up,” he said, looking up at the sky, “but I think it’s… getting worse.”

“But if we go to a shelter,” Merope objected, “we’ll be trapped there all night. Shouldn’t we go straight to the drop?”

The drop. She’d been so fixed on getting Merope out of Padgett’s, on getting them to safety, she’d forgotten about Michael being the retrieval team. He was here to take her-to take them-back to Oxford, to safety. Home.

“Yes, of course. You’re right,” she said. She turned to Michael. “Let’s go to the drop.”

“Great,” he said. “Where is it?”

“What?”

“Your drop. Where is it? Is it far from here?”

They were both looking at her expectantly. “You’re not the retrieval team, Michael?” Polly said.