Blackout

by Connie Willis

  “Oh, no, we missed breakfast,” Cess said, lifting the phonograph out. “I’ll never make it to luncheon. I could sleep for a week. What are you going to do, sleep or eat?”

  “Neither,” Ernest said. “I have to write up my news stories.”

  “Can’t that wait?”

  “No, I’ve got to get them over to Croydon by four o’clock.”

  “I thought you said they were due this morning.”

  “They were, but as I missed the Sudbury Weekly Shopper’s deadline because I was nearly being killed by an angry bull, they’ll now have to go in the Croydon Clarion Call instead.”

  “Sorry.”

  “It’s all right. The ordeal wasn’t entirely a loss. Our farmer friend back there gave me an idea for a letter to the editor.” He took the stack of phonograph records Cess handed him. “‘Dear Sir, I woke Tuesday morning to find that a—’ Whose tank brigade is supposed to be here now? American or British?”

  “Canadian. The Canadian Fourth Infantry Brigade.”

  “‘To find that a squadron of Canadian tanks had destroyed my best pasture. They’d mashed the grass flat, frightened my prize bull—’”

  “Not as much as it frightened you,” Cess said, handing him the bicycle pump.

  “‘—and left muddy tank tracks everywhere, all without so much as a by-your-leave.’” He stuck the records under his arm and shifted the pump to his left hand so he could open the door. “‘I realize we must all pull together to defeat the Germans, and that in wartime some sacrifice is necessary,’” He opened the door. “‘But—’”

  “Where have you two been?” Moncrieff demanded. “We’re late.”

  “For what?” Ernest asked.

  “Oh, no,” Cess said. “Don’t tell me we’ve got to go blow up more tanks. We’ve been up all night.”

  “You can sleep in the car,” Moncrieff said, and Prism came in, dressed in tweeds and a tie.

  “You can’t go to the ball like that, Cinderella,” Prism said, taking the records and pump away from Ernest. “Go on, get showered and dressed. You’ve got five minutes.”

  “But I need to take my news stories over to—”

  “You can do that later,” Prism said, dumping the records on the desk and propelling him toward the bathroom.

  “But the Sudbury Shopper’s deadline—”

  “This is more important. Go wash that mud off and get dressed,” he said. “And bring your pajamas.”

  “My pajamas—?”

  “Yes,” he said. “We’re going to see the Queen.”

  I called to the other men that the sky was clearing, and then a moment later I realized that what I had seen was not a rift in the clouds, but the white crest of an enormous wave.

  —ERNEST SHACKLETON

  London—19 September 1940

  MISS LABURNUM RAVED ABOUT SIR GODFREY ALL THE way back to the boardinghouse in the chill dawn. “How thrilling it must have been for you, Miss Sebastian, performing with a great actor like Sir Godfrey!” she gushed. “A Midsummer Night’s Dream is one of my favorite plays!”

  Since they’d been doing The Tempest, Polly was glad Sir Godfrey wasn’t there to hear that.

  “It’s been such an exciting night,” Miss Laburnum said. “I won’t be able to sleep!”

  I will, Polly thought, but she didn’t have time. She washed out her Times-stained blouse, wishing she had a second one to put on. She’d need to get one from Wardrobe when she went to get her skirt.

  She ironed her blouse more or less dry, ate a hasty breakfast of badly scorched porridge, and set out for work, hoping the Central Line had reopened—it had—and that Miss Snelgrove would believe her story about being unable to go home because of the raids, but when Polly arrived at Townsend Brothers, she wasn’t there. “She’s filling in up on fourth today,” Marjorie told her. “For Nan in Housewares. And she said for me to tell you that Townsend Brothers is moving up its closing time from six to half-past five because of the raids, starting tonight.”

  Good, Polly thought. That will give me more time to reach the drop.

  “Nan wasn’t hurt in last night’s raids, was she?” Doreen asked. “They were bad in Whitechapel.”

  “No, Miss Snelgrove would have said.”

  “Perhaps Nan pulled a flit,” Doreen suggested.

  “No, I don’t think so. Miss Snelgrove didn’t seem cross when she told me.” Marjorie grinned. “I mean, more cross than usual.”

  Doreen giggled. “At least she’s out of our hair.”

  Yes, Polly thought, but not for long, and when Nan came back, Miss Snelgrove would expect Polly to have a black skirt and be able to wrap parcels, so in between customers, she totted up her sales so she could make a quick getaway at closing time. The raids didn’t begin till 8:20, but obviously the sirens could go much earlier. I’d best skip supper, she thought, and go straight to the drop from the tube station. I can’t afford to be waylaid by Miss Laburnum tonight. And when she got back to Oxford, she needed to get the list of siren times from Colin.

  By four there was no one in the store. “They don’t want to be caught out when the sirens go,” Marjorie said, and Polly hoped that meant she could leave on time, but ten minutes before closing Miss Varley came in and wanted to see every single shade of stocking in stock, and, in spite of the earlier closing time, it was half past six before Polly had everything put away. She grabbed her coat and shot out of the store to the tube station, and then had to wait nearly twenty minutes for a train.

  The sirens went while she was en route to Notting Hill Gate. She heard two women who got on at Lancaster Gate discussing them.

  Good. She’d been afraid they might not go till later since the raids had mostly been over the East End. The ones over Bloomsbury must be early in the evening. And if there weren’t any delays, she’d have more than enough time to reach the drop before the raid started.

  There weren’t any, and when they pulled into Notting Hill Gate, it was only a quarter past seven. She hurried up the escalator and across to the exit. The grillwork grates were pulled across it. “No one’s allowed to leave while a raid’s in progress,” a tin-hatted guard told her.

  “But I must go home,” Polly said, “my family will be worried if I don’t—”

  “Sorry, miss,” he said and planted himself firmly in front of the gate. “Those are the rules. No one’s allowed out till after the all clear. You go back down below where it’s safe. The bombs’ll be starting up any minute.”

  No, they won’t, she thought, but it was clear he wasn’t going to relent, so she went back downstairs to look at the Underground map for other possible stations. Bayswater wasn’t close enough for her to be able to walk to the drop before the first raid began, but High Street Kensington might work if it didn’t have a gate. If there was only a guard, she might be able to sneak past him—

  It had a gate and a guard twice as determined not to let her go outside, and while she was arguing with him, the anti-aircraft guns started up. I’ve got to face it, she thought. I’m stuck here for the night.

  No, she wasn’t. She couldn’t get to the drop, but she didn’t have to spend the night here. She could take the tube to one of the deep stations and observe the shelterers. Balham would be the most interesting, but Mr. Dunworthy would have a fit, even though it hadn’t been hit till October fourteenth. And to go to Leicester Square, she’d have to change trains. She needed to be able to get back to Notting Hill Gate in the morning to tidy up before work. And, if the all clear went early enough, go to the drop and through to Oxford to get her skirt before work. Which meant she needed a station on the Central Line. Holborn.

  With its 150-foot-deep tunnels, Holborn had been one of the first tube stations the contemps had co-opted when the Blitz started. The government hadn’t intended for them to be used as shelters. They’d been worried about sanitation and infectious disease. But their admonitions to “Stay at Home—Build an Anderson Shelter” had gone unheeded, and there’d been no effective way to en
force the ban, not when there were stories of people being killed in Andersons and surface shelters. And not when all a person had to do was buy a ticket and ride to Holborn.

  Which the entire city of London had apparently done tonight. Polly could scarcely get off the train, the platform was so jammed with people sitting on blankets. She picked her way carefully through them, trying not to step on anyone, and out to the tunnel. It was just as bad there, a solid mass of people, bedding, and picnic baskets. One woman was boiling tea on a Primus stove and another was setting out plates and silverware on a tablecloth on the floor, which reminded Polly that she hadn’t had supper. She asked the woman where the canteen was.

  “Through there,” she said, pointing with a teaspoon, “and down to the Piccadilly Line.”

  “Thank you,” Polly said and made her way toward it through masses of people sitting against the tiled walls and standing in little knots, chatting.

  The main hall was only slightly less mobbed. Polly rode down the long escalator to the canteen, which was much larger than Notting Hill Gate’s and had china cups and saucers—“Just bring them back when you’re done, there’s a dear,” the WVS volunteer behind the counter said—and Polly bought a ham sandwich and a cup of tea and walked about, looking at the contemps.

  Historians had described the shelters as “nightmarish” and “like one of the lower circles of hell,” but the shelterers seemed more like people on holiday than doomed souls, picnicking and gossiping and reading the comic papers. A foursome sat on camp stools playing bridge, a middle-aged woman was washing out stockings in a tin pot, and a wind-up portable gramophone was playing “A Nightingale Sang in Berkeley Square.” Station guards were patrolling the platforms to keep order, but their only job seemed to be ordering people to put out their cigarettes and pick up their discarded wastepaper.

  The government was right to have been concerned about sanitation. There was only one makeshift toilet on each level, with endless waiting queues. Polly saw several toddlers sitting on chamber pots and watched as a mother carried a pot over to the platform’s edge and emptied it onto the tracks. Which no doubt accounted for the odor. Polly wondered what it would be like by the middle of winter.

  There’d been some attempts to impose order—a lost-and-found, a first-aid post, and a lending library—but for the most part, chaos reigned. Children ran wild in the tunnels and played dolls and marbles and hopscotch in the middle of the tunnels and on the narrow strip of platform reserved for passengers getting on and off the trains. No one was making any effort to put them to bed, even though it was half past nine and a number of adults were unfolding blankets and plumping pillows, and one teenaged girl was putting cold cream on her face.

  Which reminded Polly, she needed to find a place to sleep—or at the least, sit—which might be difficult. The few empty spaces along the walls were staked out with blankets for relatives and friends. The escalators would shut off when the trains stopped at half past ten. She might be able to snag one of their steps, though the wooden slats looked uncomfortable, but she had an hour to kill till then. She read the ARP and Victory Bonds posters pasted to the walls. One of them said Better Pot-Luck with Churchill Today Than Humble Pie under Hitler Tomorrow.

  Whoever composed that has obviously never eaten at Mrs. Rickett’s, she thought and went to look at the lending library. It consisted of a stack of newspapers, one of magazines, and a single row of worn paperbacks, most of which seemed to be murder mysteries.

  “Book, dear?” the ginger-haired librarian asked her. “This one’s very good.” She handed Polly Agatha Christie’s Murder in Three Acts. “You’ll never guess who did it. I never do with her novels. I always think I have the mystery solved, and then, too late, I realize I’ve been looking at it the wrong way round, and something else entirely is happening. Or perhaps you’d like a newspaper. I’ve got last evening’s Express.” She pressed it into Polly’s hands. “Just bring it back when you’re done with it so someone else can have a read.”

  Polly thanked her and looked at her watch. She still had twenty minutes to fill. She got in the queue for the canteen, again keeping an eye on the escalators so she could dart to claim a step as soon as they stopped, and observing the contemps in the queue: a couple in evening dress, complete with fur cloak and top hat; an elderly woman in a bathrobe and carpet slippers; a bearded man reading a Yiddish newspaper.

  A group of ragged, dirty urchins hovered nearby, playing tag and obviously hoping someone would offer to buy them a biscuit or an orange squash. The woman ahead of Polly carried a fretful toddler, and the one ahead of her had two pillows, a large black handbag, and a picnic basket. When she neared the front of the queue, she shifted the pillows to one arm, set the basket on the floor beside her, and opened her handbag. “I do so hate people who wait till they reach the counter to look for their money,” she said, digging in the bag. “I know I had a sixpence in here somewhere.”

  “You’re it!” one of the urchins shouted, and a ten-year-old girl ran by, knocking against the handbag. Its contents, including the elusive sixpence, spilled out in all directions, and everyone except Polly stooped to gather up the lipstick, handkerchief, comb.

  Polly was looking after the girl. She knocked against her on purpose, she thought and glanced back at the picnic basket. It was gone.

  “Stop, thief!” the woman shouted, and the rest of the urchins scattered.

  A station guard took off in hot pursuit, shouting, “Come back here, you hooligans!”

  He was back in moments, pulling a small boy along by the ear. “Ow,” the boy protested. “I didn’t do nuthin’.”

  “That’s him,” the woman said, “the one who stole my basket.”

  “I dunno what you’re talkin’ about,” the boy said, outraged. “I never—”

  A workman came up, carrying the basket. He pointed at the boy. “I saw him stowin’ this behind a dustbin.”

  “I put it there for safekeeping,” the boy said, “till I could take it to the lost-and-found. I found it layin’ on the platform, without a soul round it.”

  “What’s your name?” the guard demanded.

  “Bill.”

  “Where’s your mother?”

  “At ’er work,” an older girl said, coming up, and Polly recognized her as the one who had knocked against the woman’s handbag. She was wearing a dirty, too-short dress, and a filthy hair ribbon. “Mum works in a munitions factory. Making bombs. It’s dreadful dangerous work.”

  “Is this your sister?” the guard asked the boy, and he nodded. “What’s your name?” he asked her.

  “Vronica. Like the film star.” She clutched the guard’s sleeve. “Oh, please don’t tell Mum about this, sir. She’s enough worries already, what with our dad in the war.”

  “’E’s in the RAF,” the boy put in. “’E flies a Spitfire.”

  “Mum ain’t ’eard from him in weeks,” the girl said tearfully. “She’s ever so worried.”

  She’s nearly as good as Sir Godfrey, Polly thought admiringly.

  “Poor little tykes,” the woman murmured, and several of the people who’d gathered around glared at the guard. “There’s no harm done. After all, I’ve got my basket back.”

  I think you’d better check the contents before you say that, Polly thought.

  “Oh, thank you, ma’am,” the girl said, clutching the woman’s arm. “You’re ever so kind.”

  “I’ll let you go this time,” the guard said sternly, “but you must promise never to do it again.” He let go of the boy, and the two children instantly darted off through the crowd and down the escalator. Which had been switched off at some point during the altercation and was now crammed with people sitting and lying on the narrow steps.

  Little wretches, Polly thought. They cheated me out of my place, and she made the rounds again, looking for an unoccupied space. There weren’t any. Shelterers slept down on the rails after the trains stopped, but even though there were no historical accounts of anyone having be
en run over, it still struck her as a dangerous practice, to say nothing of all those emptied-out chamber pots.

  She finally found an unoccupied space in one of the connecting tunnels between two already sleeping women. Polly took off her coat, spread it out, and sat down. She set her shoulder bag next to her, then remembered the Artful Dodger and his sister and tucked it behind her back, leaned against it, and tried to go to sleep, which should have been easy. She hadn’t slept at all last night and only a bit more than three hours the night before. But it was too bright and too noisy, and the wall was as hard as a rock.

  She stood up, folded her coat into a pillow, and lay down, but the floor was even harder, and when she closed her eyes, all she could think about was how upset Mr. Dunworthy would be at her taking so long to check in and what Miss Snelgrove would say when she saw she still didn’t have a black skirt. Which did no good. There wasn’t anything she could do about either one at the moment.

  She sat up and unfolded the Express the librarian had lent her. The ocean liner City of Benares, packed with evacuees, had been sunk by a German U-boat, the RAF had shot down eight German fighters, and Liverpool had been bombed. There was nothing about John Lewis—only a story headed “Mass Bombing of City Continues,” which said, “Among the targets Tuesday night were two hospitals and a shopping street”—but there was a John Lewis ad on page four.

  Polly wondered if they’d forgotten to take it out of the paper, or if it was an attempt to deceive the Germans into believing it hadn’t been hit. During the V-1 attacks, they’d planted false information in the papers about where the rockets had landed. She looked to see if there was an ad for Peter Robinson’s, which had also been hit.

  There wasn’t. Selfridges was having a sale on siren suits, a one-piece wool coverall, “perfect for nights in the shelter—stylish and warm.” That’s what I need, Polly thought. The cement floor was cold. She unfolded her coat, draped it over herself, put her head on her bag, and tried again to sleep.