Connie Willis - Blackout

“Yes, well, if we’d known we were going to be stuck here, we’d all have behaved differently,” Mike said grimly. “Never mind, we can easily find out the airfields. Do either of you know who this other person who’s here from October to December could be? Or do you know of anyone else who might be here?”

“Robert Glabers said he was doing World War II,” Polly said.

“He is,” Mike said. “The testing of the atomic bomb in New Mexico in 1945, which doesn’t help us.”

Yes, it does, Polly thought. It gives me the chance to ask Eileen the question I need to. “Nineteen forty-five,” she said thoughtfully. “Nineteen forty-five. What about the person who did VE-Day whom you were going to switch with, Eileen? Did you persuade Mr. Dunworthy to let you go?”

“We need someone right now,” Mike said impatiently. “Why are you two talking about 1945?”

“Did you?” Polly persisted.

“No, I couldn’t ever get in to see him. And now, with all this, he probably won’t even consider letting me go.”

Thank God, Polly thought. She didn’t go to VE-Day. She doesn’t have a deadline, thank God. And neither does Mike. But then-

“Do you think this October person could be here in London?” Mike asked.

“No, if Badri’d had to find two drops in London, I’m certain he’d have mentioned it; he had so much difficulty finding mine. But I can’t think of anything else besides the Blitz an historian would be doing in October, at least in England.”

“Then it sounds like Gerald’s a better bet,” Mike said. “If we can just figure out which airfield he’s at. Tomorrow we’ll get a map-”

He stopped again at muffled sounds from below.

The children again, Polly thought, but there were no clanking footsteps or giggling. “False alarm,” Mike said.

“Wait.” Polly clattered down the steps and opened the door. The couple that’d been in front of it had gone, and across the tunnel people were folding blankets and putting dishes and empty bottles into baskets. Polly opened the door a bit wider and called to a young girl sitting on the floor putting on her shoes, “Has the all clear gone?”

The girl nodded, and Polly ducked back inside the stairwell and ran up to tell Mike and Eileen.

“Jesus,” Mike said, looking at his watch, “it’s nearly six. We’ve stayed up all night talking.”

“And I’ve got to be at work in three hours.” Polly stretched and brushed off her skirt.

Eileen took Mike’s coat from around her shoulders and gave it back to him. “Okay,” Mike said. “Eileen, you’re going to go get your belongings and try to remember which airfield Gerald told you.” He gave her money for her tube fare. “Polly, you make that list of raids for us, and I want you to show me where the drop is before you go to work.”

They left the stairwell. Everyone in the tunnel had packed up and gone except for two very dirty urchins picking over the left-behind food scraps, and they fled the moment Polly opened the door.

The main hall was nearly deserted as well. “What train do you take to Stepney, Eileen?” Polly asked.

“Bakerloo to District and Circle.”

“We take the Central Line,” Polly said, and at Eileen’s worried expression, “We’ll walk you to your platform.”

That was easier said than done. The people on the Bakerloo platform were still in the process of packing up. One group had gathered around an ARP warden who’d obviously just come in from outside. He was covered in soot, and his coverall was torn. “How bad is it?” a woman asked him as they started past. “Did Marylebone get it again?”

He nodded. “And Wigmore Street.” He took off his tin hat to wipe his face with a sooty handkerchief. “Three incidents. One of the firemen said it was pretty bad out Whitechapel way, too.”

“What about Oxford Street?” Mike asked.

“No, it was lucky this time. Not a scratch on her.”

The color drained from Mike’s face.

“Are you certain-?” Eileen began, but Mike was already limping down the tunnel. He was nearly to the escalators before Polly caught up with him.

“That warden wouldn’t necessarily have seen Padgett’s,” she said. “You heard him, he was on Wigmore Street all night. That’s north of here, and it’s still dark. And when there’s an incident, there’s all this smoke and dust. One can’t see anything.”

“Or there isn’t anything to see,” he said, starting up the escalator.

“I don’t understand,” Eileen said, catching up to them as they reached the top. “Wasn’t Padgett’s hit?”

Mike didn’t answer her. He limped across the station to the exit and up to the street.

It was still dark out, but not dark enough that Polly couldn’t see the black roofs of Oxford Street’s stores against the inky sky. There was no sign of destruction, and no broken glass in the dark street. “It’s freezing out here,” Eileen said, shivering in her thin blouse as they stood looking down the street. “If it was hit, wouldn’t it be burning?”

Yes, Polly thought, but there was no sign of flames, no reddened sky, not even any smoke. The air was damp and clean.

“Are you certain you got the name of the store right?” Eileen asked, her teeth chattering. “It wasn’t Parmenter’s that was hit? Or Peter Robinson?”

“I’m certain,” Polly said.

“Perhaps you got the date wrong,” Eileen suggested, “and it won’t be hit till tomorrow night. Which means I can fetch my coat. And my handbag.” She set off down the dark street.

“Did you?” Mike asked. “Get the date wrong?”

“No. All the Oxford Street raids were implanted. We just can’t see it from here.” Which was true, but they’d be able to see the fire engines and hear the ambulance bells. And see the blue light of the incident officer. “When we get a bit farther down, we’ll see it,” she said firmly and set off after Eileen.

“Or I changed the course of events somehow so it didn’t get hit,” Mike said, limping alongside her. “I didn’t tell you what I did at Dunkirk-”

“It doesn’t matter what you did; historians can’t alter events. Padgett’s was hit by an HE, not an incendiary. They don’t necessarily cause fires, and if it happened early last night, the fire could have been out for hours-”

Ahead of them, Eileen called, “Padgett’s is still there. I can see it,” and Mike took off toward her at an awkward, hobbling run.

It can’t be, Polly thought, racing after and then past him, but it was. Before she’d run halfway she could make out Lyons Corner House in the darkness, still intact, and beyond it the first of Padgett’s pillars.

Eileen was nearly there. Polly ran after her, straining to see through the darkness. There were the rest of Padgett’s pillars, and the building beyond it. No, she thought. It can’t still be there.

It wasn’t. Before she was even to Lyons Corner House, she could see the side wall of the building beyond Padgett’s, half destroyed, and the empty space between it and Lyons.

Eileen had reached the front of the store. “Oh, no,” Polly heard her gasp.

She turned to call back to Mike, “It’s all right. It was hit,” and ran on to the store. Or the space where it had been. The pillars-and beyond them a deep pit-were all that was left. The HE had totally vaporized the department store, which meant it had been a thousand-pounder. And when we read the newspapers tomorrow, it will say that, and that there were three fatalities.

They had strung up rope at the edge of the pavement, blocking off the incident, and Eileen stood motionless just outside it, staring. In relief or shock? Polly couldn’t tell-it was too dark to see the expression on her face.

Polly reached her side. “Look,” Eileen said, pointing, and Polly saw she wasn’t staring at what was left of Padgett’s. She was staring at the glass-strewn pavement between the pillars. And at what Polly hadn’t seen before because it was too dark.

The pavement was strewn with bodies, and there were at least a dozen of them.

Be careful. Should you omit or add one single word, you may destroy the world. 

POLLY SQUINTED AT THE BODIES SPRAWLED ACROSS THE pavement. Even though she could only just make them out in the darkness, she could see that their arms and legs had been flung into tortured angles.

Mike limped up. “Oh, Christ,” he breathed. “How many are there?”

“I don’t know,” Eileen said. “Are they dead?”

They had to be. It wasn’t light enough to see their faces-or the blood-but it was impossible for necks to turn that far. They had to be dead. But they can’t be, Polly thought. There were only three fatalities. Which meant some of them had to be alive, in spite of the angles of the necks, the severed arm. “Mike, go fetch help!” she said.

He didn’t seem to hear her. He stood there frozen, staring past Polly at the bodies. “I knew it,” he said dully. “This is my fault.”

“Eileen!” Polly said. “Eileen!”

She finally turned, a look of disbelief on her face. “Go back to the station and fetch help,” Polly ordered. “Tell them we need an ambulance.”

Eileen nodded dumbly and stumbled off.

“Mike, I need a pocket torch,” Polly said, and ducked under the rope. She crunched across the broken glass to the bodies, but as she ran she was already processing the scene.

It was all wrong. The bodies should be under the rubble, not flung free of it. They must have been standing at the windows looking out when the bomb hit, but no Londoner in his right mind would do that. And where was the rescue squad? They’d clearly been here. They’d put up rope around the incident. And gone off again?

They wouldn’t just leave them lying there, she thought, kneeling beside a woman. Not even if they were all dead, which they clearly were. The woman’s arm, still in its coat sleeve, had been blown off. It lay, bent stiffly at the elbow-

Polly sat back on her heels. “Eileen! Come back!” she called. “Mike! It’s all right. They’re mannequins. They must have been blown out of the display windows.”

“You, there!” a deep voice called from beyond the rope. “What are you doing?”

Good Lord, it’s that same ARP warden who caught me going to my drop, Polly thought a little wildly, but it wasn’t. It wasn’t even a man. It was a woman wearing ARP coveralls.

“Come out of there at once!” she said.”Looting’s a punishable offense.”

“We weren’t looting,” Polly said, putting the arm down and standing up. “We thought the mannequins were bodies. We were trying to help.” She pointed at Eileen, who’d come running back. “She works here. She was afraid it might be someone she knew.”

The warden turned to Eileen. “You work at Padgett’s?”

“Yes, I’m Eileen O’Reilly. I work on the fifth floor. In Children’s Wear.”

“Have you reported in?”

Eileen looked at the gaping hole where Padgett’s had been. “Reported in?”

“Round there,” the warden said, leading them on to the corner and pointing down the side street, where Polly could see a blue incident light and people moving about. “Mr. Fetters,” the warden called.