Blackout ac-1

by Connie Willis

  Oh, dear, I hope this isn’t a troop train. “Is this the passenger train to London?” she asked hopefully.

  “It is,” the soldier said. “Hop aboard, luv.” He leaned down, one hand extended, the other clutching the side railing.

  “We’ll take good care of you,” a beefy, red-faced soldier next to him said. “Won’t we, boys?” and there was an answering chorus of hoots and whistles.

  “I’m not taking the train. This little boy is,” she said to the first soldier. “I need to speak to the guard. Can you fetch him for me?”

  “Through that mob?” he said, looking back into the car. “Nothing could get through that.”

  Oh, dear. “This little boy must get to London,” she said. “Can you see that he arrives there safely? His mother will be at the station to meet him.”

  He nodded. “Are you certain you don’t want to come as well, luv?”

  “Here’s his ticket,” she said, passing it up to him. “His address is in his pocket. His name’s Theodore Willett.” She handed the suitcase up. “All right, Theodore, up you go. This nice soldier will take care of you.”

  “No!” Theodore shouted, turning and launching himself into her arms. “I don’t want to go home.”

  She staggered under his weight. “Of course you do, Theodore. You mustn’t listen to Alf and Binnie, they were only trying to frighten you. Here, I’ll climb up the steps with you,” she said, trying to set him on the bottom rung, but he grabbed her around the neck.

  “No! I’ll miss you.”

  “I’ll miss you, too,” she said, trying to loosen his grip. “But just think, your mum will be there, and your own nice bed and toys. Remember how much you’ve been wanting to go home?”

  “No.” He buried his head in her shoulder.

  “Whyn’t you just toss ’im onto the train?” Alf suggested helpfully.

  “No!” Theodore sobbed.

  “Alf,” Eileen said. “How would you like to be tossed into the middle of a lot of people you didn’t know to fend for yourself?”

  “I’d like it fine. I’d make ’em buy me sweets.”

  I’ll wager you would, Eileen thought. But Theodore’s not as tough as you. And, at any rate, she couldn’t toss him. His hands were locked around her neck. “No!” he shrieked, as she tried to pry his fingers loose. “I want you to go with me!”

  “I can’t, Theodore. I haven’t a ticket.” And the soldier who’d taken Theodore’s suitcase had disappeared into the car to stow it, and there was no way to get it or the ticket back. “Theodore, I’m afraid you must get on the train.”

  “No!” he screamed, right in her ear, and tightened his grip around her neck, nearly strangling her.

  “Theodore-”

  “There, that’s no way to carry on, Theodore,” a man’s voice said, nearly in her ear, and Theodore was abruptly off her neck and in his arms. It was the vicar, Mr. Goode. “Of course you don’t want to go, Theodore,” he said, “but in a war we must all do things we don’t want to do. You must be a brave soldier, and-”

  “I’m not a soldier,” Theodore said, aiming a kick at the vicar’s groin, which he deflected neatly by grabbing Theodore’s foot.

  “Yes, you are. When there’s a war, everyone’s a soldier.”

  “You’re not,” Theodore said rudely.

  “Yes, I am. I’m a captain in the Home Guard.”

  “Well, she’s not,” Theodore said, pointing at Eileen.

  “Of course she is. She’s the major-general in charge of evacuees.” He saluted her smartly.

  He’ll never buy it, Eileen thought. Nice try, Vicar, but Theodore was asking, “What sort of soldier am I?”

  “A sergeant,” the vicar said. “In charge of going on the train.” There was a whoosh of steam, and the train gave a lurch. “Time to go, Sergeant,” he said, and handed him up into the arms of the red-faced soldier. “I’m counting on you to see that he reaches his mother, soldier,” the vicar said to him.

  “I will, Vicar,” the soldier promised.

  “I’m a soldier, too,” Theodore informed the soldier. “A sergeant, so you must salute me.”

  “Is that so?” the soldier said, smiling.

  The train began to move. “Thank you,” Eileen called over the clank of the wheels. “Goodbye, Theodore!” She waved to him, but he was talking animatedly to the soldier. She turned to the vicar. “You’re a miracle worker. I could never have got him off by myself. Thank goodness you happened to be passing.”

  “Actually, I was looking for the Hodbins. I don’t suppose you’ve seen them?”

  That explained why they’d vanished. “What have they done now?”

  “Put a snake in the schoolmistress’s gas mask,” he said, walking out to the edge of the platform and looking over it. “If you should happen to see them-”

  “I’ll see that they apologize.” She raised her voice in case they were under the platform. “And that they’re punished.”

  “Oh, I shouldn’t be too hard on them,” he said. “No doubt it’s difficult for them, being shipped off to a strange place, so far from home. Still, I’d best go find them before they burn down Backbury.” He took another searching look over the edge of the platform and left.

  Eileen half expected Alf and Binnie to reappear as soon as he was out of sight, but they didn’t. She hoped Theodore would be all right. What if his mother wasn’t there to meet him, and the soldiers left him alone at the station? “I should have gone with him,” she murmured.

  “Then who’d take care of us?” Alf said, appearing out of nowhere.

  “The vicar says you put a snake in your schoolmistress’s gas mask.”

  “I never did.”

  “I’ll wager it crawled in there by itself,” Binnie said, popping up. “P’raps it thought it smelt poison gas.”

  “You ain’t gonna tell Mrs. Bascombe, are you?” Alf asked. “She’ll send us to bed without our supper, and I ain’t ’alf starved.”

  “Yes, well, you should have thought of that,” Eileen said. “Now, come along.”

  They both stood stubbornly still. “We ’eard you talkin’ to them soldiers,” Alf said.

  “Mrs. Bascombe says nice girls don’t talk to soldiers,” Binnie said. “We won’t tell if you don’t tell ’er what we done.”

  They’ve both long since grown up and been sent to prison, Eileen told herself. Or the gallows. She looked around, half hoping the vicar would reappear to rescue her and then said, “March. Now. It will be dark soon.”

  “It’s already dark,” Alf said.

  It was. While she’d been wrestling Theodore onto the train and talking to the vicar, the last of the afternoon light had faded, and it was nearly an hour’s walk to the manor, most of it through the woods. “’Ow’ll we find our way ’ome in the dark?” Binnie asked. “Ain’t you got a pocket torch?”

  “They ain’t allowed, you noddlehead,” Alf said. “The jerries’ll see the light and drop a bomb on you. Boom!”

  “I know where the vicar keeps ’is torch,” Binnie said.

  “We are not adding burglary to your list of crimes,” Eileen said. “We won’t need a torch if we walk quickly.” She took hold of Alf’s sleeve and Binnie’s coat and propelled them past the vicarage and through the village.

  “Mr. Rudman says jerries ’ide in the woods at night,” Alf said. “’E says ’e found a parachute in ’is pasture. ’E says the jerries murder children.”

  They’d reached the end of the village. The lane to the manor stretched ahead, already dark. “Do they?” Binnie asked. “Murder children?”

  Yes, Eileen thought, thinking of the children in Warsaw, in Auschwitz. “There aren’t any Germans in the woods.”

  “There is so,” Alf said. “You can’t see ’em ’cause they’re ‘idin’, waitin’ for the invasion. Mr. Rudman says ’Itler’s goin’ to invade on Christmas Day.”

  Binnie nodded. “During the King’s speech, when no one’s expectin’ it, ’cause they’ll all be too bus
y laughin’ at the King st-st-stammerin’.”

  And before Eileen could reprove her for being disrespectful, Alf said, “No, ’e ain’t. ’E’s goin’ to invade tonight.” He pointed at the trees. “The jerries’ll jump outa the woods”-he lunged at Binnie-“and stab us with their bayonets!” He demonstrated, and Binnie began kicking him.

  Four months, Eileen thought, separating them. I only have to put up with them for four more months. “No one’s going to invade,” she said firmly, “tonight or any other night.”

  “’Ow do you know?” Alf demanded.

  “You can’t know something what ain’t ’appened yet,” Binnie said.

  “Why ain’t ’e going to?” Alf persisted.

  Because the British Army will get away from him at Dunkirk, Eileen thought, and he’ll lose the Battle of Britain and begin bombing London to bring the British to their knees. But it won’t work. They’ll stand up to him. It’ll be their finest hour. And it will lose him the war.

  “Because I have faith in the future,” she said, and, getting a firmer grip on Alf and Binnie, set off with them into the darkness.

  The best laid plans…

  ROBERT BURNS, “TO A MOUSE”

  Balliol College, Oxford-April 2060

  WHEN MICHAEL GOT BACK TO HIS ROOMS FROM WARDROBE, Charles was there. “What are you doing here, Davies?” he asked, stopping in the middle of what looked like a self-defense move, his left arm held stiffly in front of him and his right protecting his stomach. “I thought you were leaving this afternoon.”

  “No,” Michael said disgustedly. He draped his dress whites over a chair. “My drop’s been postponed till Friday, which they could have told me before I went and got my American accent, so I wouldn’t have to run around Oxford sounding like a damned fool for four days.”

  “You always sound like an idiot, Michael,” Charles said, grinning. “Or should I be calling you by your cover name so you can get used to it? What is it, by the way? Chuck? Bob?”

  Michael handed him his dog tags. “Lieutenant Mike Davis,” Charles read.

  “Yeah, I’m keeping the names as close to my own as I can since the segments of this assignment are so short. What’s your name for Singapore?”

  “Oswald Beddington-Hythe.”

  No wonder he’s practicing self-defense, Michael thought, setting on the bed the shoes Wardrobe had issued him. “When are you going, Oswald?”

  “Monday. Why was your drop postponed?”

  “I don’t know. The lab’s running behind.”

  Charles nodded. “Linna says they’re simply swamped over there. Ten drops and retrievals a day. If you ask me, there are entirely too many historians going to the past. We’ll be crashing into each other soon. I hope they postpone my drop. I’ve still got masses of things to learn. You wouldn’t know anything about foxhunting, would you?”

  “Foxhunting? I thought you were going to Singapore.”

  “I am, but a good many of the British officers there were apparently County and spent all their time discussing their foxhunting exploits.” He picked up the dress whites Michael’d slung over the chair. “This is a naval uniform. What was the U.S. Navy doing at the Battle of the Bulge?”

  “Not the Battle of the Bulge-Pearl Harbor,” Michael said. “Then the second World Trade Center bombing, then the Battle of the Bulge.”

  Charles looked confused. “I thought you were going to the evacuation of Dunkirk.”

  “I am. That’s fourth on the list, after which I do Salisbury and El Alamein.”

  “Tell me again why you’re going all these extremely dangerous places, Davies.”

  “Because that’s where heroes are, and that’s what I’m observing.”

  “But aren’t all of those events tens? And I thought Dunkirk was a divergence point. How can you-?”

  “I’m not. I’m going to Dover. And only parts of Pearl Harbor are a ten-the Arizona, the West Virginia, Wheeler Field, and the Oklahoma. I’m going to be on the New Orleans.”

  “But do you actually have to be on the boat with Lord Nelson or whoever it is? Couldn’t you observe him from a safe distance?”

  “No,” Michael said. “One, the New Orleans is a ship, not a boat. Boats are what rescued the soldiers from Dunkirk. Two, observing from a safe distance is what historians were stuck doing before Ira Feldman invented time travel. Three, Lord Nelson was at Trafalgar, not Pearl Harbor, and four, I’m not studying the heroes who lead navies-and armies-and win wars. I’m studying ordinary people who you wouldn’t expect to be heroic, but who, when there’s a crisis, show extraordinary bravery and self-sacrifice. Like Jenna Geidel, who gave her life vaccinating people during the Pandemic. And the fishermen and retired boat owners and weekend sailors who rescued the British Army from Dunkirk. And Wells Crowther, the twenty-four-year-old equities trader who worked in the World Trade Center. When it was hit by terrorists, he could have gotten out, but instead he went back and saved ten people, and died. I’m going to observe six different sets of heroes in six different situations to try to determine what qualities they have in common.”

  “Like an aptitude for being in the wrong place at the wrong time? Or owning a boat?”

  “Circumstance is one factor,” Michael said, refusing to be baited.

  “Also a sense of duty or responsibility, physical disregard for personal safety, adaptability-”

  “Adaptability?”

  “Yeah. One minute you’re giving a Sunday morning sermon and the next you’re helping pass five-inch shells up to the guns to shoot at Japanese Zeroes.”

  “Who did that?”

  “The Reverend Howell Forgy. He was getting ready to do Sunday morning services on board the New Orleans when the Japanese attacked. They fired back, but the electricity to the ammunition hoists had been knocked out, and he’s the one who organized the gun crews-in the dark-into a human chain to pass the shells up to the deck. And he’s the one who, when one of the sailors said, ‘You didn’t get to finish your sermon, Reverend. Why don’t you finish it now?’ answered, ‘Praise the Lord and pass the ammunition.’”

  “And you’re certain being fired at by Japanese Zeroes isn’t a ten? I still can’t see how you persuaded Dunworthy to approve a project like that.”

  “You’re going to Singapore.”

  “Yes, but I’m coming back before the Japanese arrive. Oh, that reminds me, someone phoned for you earlier.”

  “Who was it?”

  “I don’t know. Shakira took the message. She was here teaching me to foxtrot.”

  “Foxtrot?” Michael said. “I thought you had to learn about foxhunting.”

  “I need to learn both. So I can go to the club dances. The British community in Singapore held weekly dances.” He put his arms in the self-defense positions he’d had them in when Michael came in and began stepping stiffly around the room, counting, “Left and-two and-three and-four and-”

  “The British community in Singapore should have spent more time paying attention to what the Japanese were up to,” Michael said. “Then they might not have been caught so completely flat-footed.”

  “Like you Americans at Pearl Harbor, Lieutenant Davis?” Charles said, grinning.

  “You said Shakira took the message. Did she write it down?”

  “Yes. It’s there by the phone.”

  Michael picked up the slip of paper and tried to read it, but the only words he could make out were “Michael” and, farther down, “to.” The rest of it was anybody’s guess. There was something that might be “dob” or “late” or “hots,” and on the next line a “501” or “scl.” “I can’t decipher this,” he said, handing it to Charles. “Did she say anything about what it was about?”

  “I wasn’t here. I had to run to Wardrobe to be measured for my dinner jacket, and when I got back she told me there’d been a call for you and she’d written it down.”

  “Where is she now? Did she go back to her rooms?”

  “No, she went over to Props to see if they h
ad a recording of ‘Moonlight Serenade’ for us to practice to.” He took the slip of paper from Michael. “Here, let me try. Good Lord, she truly does have wretched handwriting. I think that’s ‘sch.’” He pointed at the “sol.” “And the next word might be ‘change.’ Schedule change?”

  Schedule change. In which case the “dob” might be “lab.” “They’d better not have postponed it again,” Michael said, calling the lab. “Hi, Linna. Let me talk to Badri.”

  “May I ask who this is?”

  “It’s Michael Davies,” he said impatiently.

  “Oh, Michael, I’m dreadfully sorry. I didn’t recognize you with that American accent. What is it you wanted?”

  “Somebody called me earlier and left a message. Was it you?”

  “No, but I only just came on duty. It may have been Badri. He’s doing a retrieval. I can have him phone you as soon as he’s finished.”

  “Listen, can you check to see if the time of my drop’s been changed? It was on the schedule for Friday morning at 8 A.M.”

  “I’ll check. Hang on a moment,” she said, and there was a brief silence. “No, the time hasn’t been changed. Michael Davies, Friday 8 A.M.”

  “Good. Thanks, Linna.” He hung up, relieved. “Whoever it was who called, it wasn’t the lab.”

  Charles was still poring over the message. “Could it have been Dunworthy? I think this might be a D.”

  The only reason Dunworthy would have called would have been to say he’d decided Pearl Harbor was too dangerous and he’d changed his mind about letting him go, in which case Michael didn’t want to talk to him. “That’s not a D,” he said. “It’s a Q. Did Shakira say when she’d be back?”

  Charles shook his head. “I expected her by now.”