Blackout

by Connie Willis

  “You look just like a drowned rat Alf caught once,” she said, and then accusingly, “This ain’t your ’alf-day out.”

  My half-day out, Eileen thought. That’s why it didn’t open. They’re assuming I won’t come through till Monday.

  But the drop didn’t open on Monday either, even though Eileen had waited till the children were all inside having their tea so they couldn’t follow her, and taken a roundabout route just to be certain.

  The lab must not know the quarantine’s over, Eileen thought, though the date it had ended would be in the Ministry of Health archives. But the lab might have sent through a retrieval team and they’d seen a notice that hadn’t been taken down yet and concluded the manor was still under quarantine—though when she checked, all the notices had been removed.

  And if the team had come to the manor, they’d have seen unmistakable signs that it had been lifted: children playing outside, cots being fumigated on the lawn, the grocer’s boy going in and out of the kitchen. The retrieval team could easily have waylaid him on his way home and asked him about it.

  And the evacuees’ parents had all known the moment the quarantine had been lifted. Some of them had sent for their children the very next day, even though the Battle of Britain was in full cry, airfields and oil depots were being bombed, and the wireless was warning of invasion.

  So were Alf and Binnie. “’Itler’s sendin’ over parachutists to get ready for it,” Alf eagerly told the vicar, who’d come to take Eileen and Lily Lovell to the station. “They’re ’ere to cut telephone wires and blow up bridges and things. I wager they’re ’idin’ in the woods this very minute,” and even the vicar confided he feared the attack might come very soon.

  But none of the invasion talk had any effect on the evacuees’ parents. They were determined to have their children “safely at home”—which presumably was a reference to their having sent them away only to have them catch the measles—and they couldn’t be persuaded to leave them where they were. Eileen worried over what would happen to them in London.

  When she wasn’t worrying about where the retrieval team was. Since this was only her first assignment, she didn’t know how long they waited before coming to get someone. Ten days? A fortnight? But this was time travel. Once they realized she was late, they’d have come through immediately.

  There must be something wrong. It must be something else, a breakdown or something. Alf and Binnie broke the drop, she thought. Or they’d followed her and kept it from opening. She asked the vicar to resume Binnie’s driving lessons so she could go to the drop without being observed. But it still didn’t open.

  Alf and Binnie aren’t the only ones who could be watching, she thought. The Home Guard might be patrolling the woods for Alf’s German parachutists, or the soldier Alf and Binnie’d seen talking to Una still might be hanging about.

  In which case the lab would eventually realize that the drop wasn’t going to open and send the retrieval team through somewhere else. Till then, she had more than enough to keep her occupied. Not only did she have the departing evacuees to deal with, but they had to clean and prepare the house for Lady Caroline, who’d written saying she was coming home.

  And repair the damage the children had done. “Oh, when she sees the library ceiling!” Una said.

  And the Louis Quinze hat stand, and the opera glasses, Eileen thought, and prayed the retrieval team would arrive before Lady Caroline returned, but they didn’t.

  Lady Caroline had written that her son Alan would be accompanying her, but she arrived without him, and when Mrs. Bascombe asked when he’d be coming, Lady Caroline told her he’d enlisted in the RAF and was training to be a pilot.

  “He’s doing his part to win this war,” she said proudly, “and so must we,” and set the staff to learning the St. John’s Ambulance Emergency Medical Care manual from cover to cover. Which meant Eileen had to sandwich in the memorizing of “Shock: the shutting down by the body of peripheral systems in an attempt to survive,” between attempting to keep the evacuees quiet, apologizing to Mr. Rudman, Miss Fuller, and Mr. Brown for Alf and Binnie’s latest crimes, and taking children to the train.

  Georgie Cox went home to Hampstead, in spite of the fact that a nearby aerodrome had been bombed, Edwina and Susan’s grandfather came from Manchester to fetch them, and Jimmy’s aunt in Bristol sent for him, which made Eileen hope that a relative—preferably one who didn’t know them—would send for the Hodbins, but they didn’t. The Hodbins I shall have with me always, she thought resignedly.

  Sending the children off took nearly all of Eileen’s time. She had to pack their things, walk them to the railway station, and wait on the platform with them, often for hours. “It’s all the troop trains,” Mr. Tooley said, “and now these air raids. The trains have to halt till they’re over.”

  The vicar kindly gave Eileen and the children lifts to the railway station when he could, but he was often busy attending the Invasion Preparedness meetings Lady Caroline had organized. Eileen didn’t mind. Walking back gave her the opportunity to check the drop. When she could escape the Hodbins’ watchful eyes, which wasn’t often.

  But today, seeing Patsy Foster off, Alf and Binnie had grown bored with waiting and left, and moments later the train had arrived, so Eileen was able to not only go to the clearing but spend the afternoon there on the off-chance the drop was only opening every hour and a half or two hours.

  It wasn’t, and there was still no sign that the retrieval team—or Una’s soldier, or a German parachutist—had been here. What was keeping them? She thought suddenly of the train’s being late and wondered if there was something going on in Oxford, the equivalent of troop trains or air raids, which was causing the delay.

  If that was the case, then they might show up at the manor anytime, and she’d better be there. She hurried back through the woods. As she neared the lane, she caught a glimpse of someone standing on the other side of the lane. Eileen ducked behind a tree, and then peered cautiously out to see who it was.

  It was Alf. I knew it, she thought. He and Binnie have been spying on me. That’s why it won’t open, but he wasn’t looking into the woods. He was gazing up the lane in the direction of the manor as if waiting for someone. And when she stepped out onto the lane, he jumped a good foot. “What are you doing here, Alf?” she demanded.

  “Nuthin’,” he said, putting his hands behind his back.

  “Then what have you got in your hand?” Eileen said. “You’ve been setting out tacks again, haven’t you?”

  “No,” he said, and oddly, it had the ring of truth. But this was Alf.

  “Show me what you have there,” she said, holding out her hand.

  Alf backed up against a bush, there was a suspicious thunk, and he held out both hands, empty. “You’ve been throwing rocks at cars,” she said, but even as she said it, she was remembering that Alf had been gazing toward the manor, clearly waiting for a car to come from there, and it couldn’t be Lady Caroline’s Bentley. She was at a Red Cross meeting in Nuneaton, and the vicar had gone with her, so it couldn’t be the Austin. “Alf, who’s at the manor?” she asked.

  He frowned at her, trying to decide if this was a trick question. “I dunno. Strangers.”

  Finally, Eileen thought. “Who did they come to see?”

  “I dunno. I just seen ’em drive by.”

  “In a car?”

  He nodded. “One like Lady Caroline’s. But I wasn’t goin’ to throw rocks at it, I swear, only clods. I was practicin’ for when the jerries invade. Me’n Binnie’s gonna throw rocks at their tanks.”

  She wasn’t listening. A car like Lady Caroline’s. A Bentley. The retrieval team could have practiced on one in Oxford, just as she’d done, and then come through, hired one, and driven it here to fetch her. She took off for the manor at a run.

  The Bentley was drawn up to the front door. Eileen started up the steps, and then remembered she was still a servant, at least for a few more hours, and ran around to the serv
ants’ entrance, hoping Mrs. Bascombe was in the kitchen. She was, with a bowl of batter in the crook of one arm, stirring it violently with a wooden spoon. “Who’s here?” Eileen asked, trying to keep the eagerness out of her voice. “I saw a car out in front as I—”

  “They’re from the War Office.”

  “But…” The War Office? Why would the retrieval team tell Lady Caroline that?

  “They’re here to look over the house and grounds to see if they’re suitable.”

  “Clods don’t hurt nothing,” Alf said at her elbow. “It’s only dirt.”

  Eileen ignored him. “Suitable for what?” she asked Mrs. Bascombe.

  “For shooting,” Mrs. Bascombe said, stirring viciously. “The government’s taking over the manor for the duration. They’re turning it into a riflery training school.”

  The horns are to butt with and the mouth is to moo with.

  —LETTER FROM AN EVACUEE EXPLAINING WHAT A COW IS, 1939

  Kent—April 1944

  THE BULL STARED AT ERNEST FROM ACROSS THE PASTURE for a long, menacing moment. “Worthing! Run! There’s a bull!” Cess shouted from behind the lorry.

  “Naw look wot ya done!” the farmer said. “Ya’ve upset my bull. This is his pasture—”

  “Yes, I can see that,” Ernest said without taking his eye off the bull.

  The bull hadn’t taken its little eyes off him either. Where the hell was the fog when you needed it?

  The bull lowered its massive head. Oh, Christ, here he comes! Ernest thought, pushing his back against the tank.

  The bull began to paw the ground. Ernest shot a frantic look at the farmer, who was standing by the fence with his arms folded belligerently. “Now ye’ve torn it,” he said. “He don’t like what ye’ve done to his pasture, nor do I. Look at this great mess of tracks. Ye’ve chewed up the whole meadow with your bloody tanks, and that’s made him mad.”

  “I know,” Ernest said. “What do you suggest I do now?”

  “Run!” Cess shouted.

  The bull swung its massive head around to see who’d said that, and then turned back to Ernest. It snorted.

  “Don’t—” Ernest said, putting his hand out like a traffic policeman, but the bull was already barreling across the grass straight at him.

  “Run!” Cess bellowed, and Ernest took off for the end of the tank and around to the other side, as if crouching behind it was going to offer any protection.

  The bull roared straight at the tank.

  “Stop! Ye’ll hurt yourself,” the farmer shouted, finally moving. “Ye’re no match for a tank. Stop!”

  But the bull wasn’t listening. It lowered its head and charged, its horns thrusting out like bayonets, and plowed straight into the tank. Its horns went all the way in.

  There was another endless moment, and then a high, thin wail, like an air-raid siren. “Ye’ve killed him,” the farmer shouted, pelting across the pasture. “Ye bloody bast—” And stopped, his mouth open.

  The bull’s mouth was open, too. It stood for a few more seconds, its horns impaled in the tank, then took a skittish step backward, freeing itself. The tank slowly shriveled and shrank into a limp gray-green mass of rubber. The wail became a squeal and then faded away, and there was another long silence.

  “Bloody hell,” the farmer said softly, and the bull looked like it wanted to say the same thing. It stared, stunned, at the collapsed tank.

  “Bloody hell,” the farmer said again, as if to himself. “No wonder the Panzers were able to go straight through our boys in France.”

  The bull raised its head and looked straight at Ernest, then gave a low bleat and turned and bolted for the safety of the fence. “What in God’s name are ye two playin’ at?” the farmer demanded. “Is this some sort of bloody trick?”

  “Yes,” Ernest said. “We’re—” and looked up at a faint droning sound.

  “It’s a plane!” Cess said unnecessarily and came galloping over to grab hold of the tank’s deflated turret. “Grab the rear end! Hurry!” They began dragging the tank over the wet grass to the trees.

  “I don’t know what ye two are up to—” the farmer began belligerently.

  “Don’t just stand there. Help us!” Ernest shouted over the drone, which was growing steadily louder. “It’s a German reconnaissance plane. We can’t let them see this!”

  The farmer glanced up at the clearing sky and then back at the tank and seemed, finally, to grasp the situation. He ran clumsily over and took hold of the tank’s right tread and began helping them drag it over to the copse.

  It was like trying to shift jelly. There was nothing solid to grab hold of, and it weighed a ton. The muddy, wet grass should have made the unwieldy mass easier to move, but the only thing it made slipperier was their footing, and when Ernest tried to yank the tank over a hillock, he slipped and fell flat in one of the tracks he’d just made. “Hurry!” Cess shouted at him as he struggled to his feet. “It’s nearly overhead!”

  It was, and all it would take was one photo of the deflated mass of rubber to blow Fortitude South wide open. Ernest planted his mud-caked boots, gave another mighty heave, and the three of them pushed, pulled, manhandled it in under the trees.

  Cess looked up. “It’s one of ours,” he said. “A Tempest.”

  It was. Ernest could make out the distinct outline. “This time,” he said. “But next time it won’t be.”

  Cess nodded. “We’d best get this on the lorry before another one shows up. Go bring the lorry over here.”

  “Not across this pasture,” the farmer said. “Ye’ve already torn it up bad enough already. To say nothin’ of putting my bull off his feed.” He gestured toward the bull, which was over by the fence, placidly chewing two or three mouthfuls of grass. “And who knows what other damage ye done to him? I’m supposed to take him down to Sedlescombe next week to breed him, and now look at him.”

  Since the bull had stopped chewing and was eyeing one of the cows beyond the fence, Ernest doubted that would be a problem, but the farmer was determined. “I won’t have him more upset than he already is,” the farmer said. “You’ll have to take that tank back over to your lorry the same way you brought it over here.”

  “We can’t,” Cess said. “If a German reconnaissance plane sees us—”

  “It won’t see anythin’,” the farmer said. “Fog’s coming back in.”

  It was, drifting thickly across the pasture to hide the grazing bull, the lorry, the tank tracks.

  “And when you’re done doin’ that, you can take those tanks with you, as well,” the farmer said, pointing to the ghostly outlines of the tanks sticking out from under the trees, and they spent the next quarter of an hour trying to explain the necessity of the tanks staying there till a German reconnaissance plane had photographed them.

  “You’ll be helping to defeat Hitler,” Cess told him.

  “With a lot of bloody balloons?”

  “Yes,” Ernest said firmly. And a bunch of wooden planes and old sewer pipes and fake wireless messages.

  “His Majesty’s Army will be glad to reimburse you for the damage to your field,” Cess said, and the farmer immediately perked up. “And to your bull’s psyche.”

  Don’t bring up the bull, Ernest thought, but the farmer smiled. “I never seen anythin’ like the look on his face when he gored that tank,” he said, shaking his head. He began to laugh, slapping his thigh. “I can’t wait to tell ’em down t’ the pub—”

  “No!” they cried in unison.

  “You can’t tell anyone,” Ernest said.

  “It’s top secret,” Cess said.

  “Top secret, is it?” the farmer said, looking even more pleased than he had at the prospect of being reimbursed. “This is to do with the invasion, ain’t it?”

  “Yes,” Cess said, “and it’s terribly important, but we can’t tell you anything more than that.”

  “Ye don’t have to. I can puzzle it out on my own. Invadin’ at Normandy, are you then? I thought so. Ow
en Batt said Calais, but I said no, that’s what the Germans were expecting, and we’re smarter than that. Wait till I—”

  “You can’t tell Owen Batt or anyone else,” Cess said.

  “If you do, you could lose us the war,” Ernest said, and they spent another quarter of an hour standing there in the clammy fog getting the farmer to agree to keep the story to himself.

  “I’ll keep it dark,” he finally promised grudgingly, “though it’s a pity. The look on that bull’s face—” He brightened. “I can tell it after the invasion, can’t I?”

  “Yes,” Ernest said, “but not till three weeks after.”

  “Why not?”

  “We can’t tell you that either,” Cess said. “It’s top top secret.”

  “And we can leave the tanks?” Ernest asked. “We promise we’ll come back for them as soon as they’ve been photographed.”

  The farmer nodded. “If it means doin’ my bit to win the war.”

  “It does,” Cess said, and started for the lorry.

  “Now, wait just a minute. I said ye could leave the tanks, not drive all over my pasture. Ye’ll have to take that bust balloon back the way you brought it over here.”

  “But it’ll take half an hour, and one of their planes might see us while we’re doing it,” Cess argued. “This fog might clear at any moment.”

  “It won’t,” the farmer said, and it didn’t. It settled over the pasture and the woods like a heavy gray blanket that made it impossible to gauge direction, which resulted in their dragging, pushing, and manhandling the deflated tank an extra hundred yards trying to find the lorry, during which effort Ernest fell down two more times.

  “Well, at least it can’t get any worse,” Cess said as they tried to shove the flopping mass up over the back of the lorry. At which point it began to rain again—a thin, bone-chilling rain that continued for the entire duration of their stowing the tank, loading the cutter and the pump and the phonograph, and thanking the farmer, who, along with the bull, had watched the entire proceedings with interest. By the time they got back to Cardew Castle, they were drenched, frozen, and starving.