Blackout - Connie Willis

“Is that inconvenient for you?” the vicar asked her. “I could just as easily begin the lessons tomorrow, Lady Caroline.”

“Absolutely not, Mr. Goode. Backbury may come under attack at any time.” She turned to Eileen. “When it comes to the war, we must all be prepared to make sacrifices. The vicar will give you your lesson as soon as we’ve finished here. And then you’ll stay to tea, won’t you, Vicar? Ellen, tell Mrs. Bascombe that Mr. Goode is staying to tea. And tell her she and Mr. Samuels will have their lessons after tea. You may go.”

“Yes, ma’am.” Eileen curtseyed and ran back down to the kitchen. Now she really needed to go to the drop. It was one thing to not know how to drive, and another thing to be completely unfamiliar with 1940s automobiles. She needed to get some advance prep. She wondered if she should try to make it to the drop and back before the lesson. If she knew Lady Caroline, they’d be at least an hour. But if they weren’t … Perhaps I can get Mrs. Bascombe to have her lesson first, she thought.

She found her putting cakes into the oven. “The children just came in,” Mrs. Bascombe said. “I’ve sent them up to the nursery to take off their coats. What did her ladyship want?”

“The vicar’s going to teach us all to drive. And Lady Caroline said to tell you he’s staying to tea.”

“Drive?” Mrs. Bascombe said.

“Yes. So that we can drive an ambulance in case of a bombing incident.”

“Or in case James is called up and she hasn’t anyone to drive her to all her meetings.”

Eileen hadn’t thought of that. She might very well be worried that her chauffeur would be called up. The butler and both footmen had been last month, and Samuels, the elderly gardener, was now manning the front door.

“Well, she’s not getting me in any automobile,” Mrs. Bascombe said, “bombing incident or no bombing incident.”

Which meant Eileen couldn’t exchange with her. It would have to be Samuels.

“When are we to find the time for these lessons? We’ve too much to do as it is. Where are you going?” Mrs. Bascombe demanded.

“To see Mr. Samuels. The vicar’s to give me my first lesson this afternoon, but as it’s my half-day out, I thought perhaps I could exchange with him.”

“No, the Home Guard’s meeting this afternoon.”

“But it’s important,” Eileen said. “Couldn’t he miss-?”

Mrs. Bascombe looked shrewdly at her. “Why are you so eager to have your half-day out today? You’re not meeting a soldier, are you? Binnie said she saw you flirting with a soldier at the railway station.”

Binnie, you little traitor. After I kept our bargain and didn’t tell Mrs. Bascombe about the snake. “I wasn’t flirting, I was giving the soldier instructions for delivering Theodore Willett to his mother.”

Mrs. Bascombe looked unconvinced. “Young girls can’t be too careful, especially in times like these. Soldiers turning girls’ heads, talking them into meeting them in the woods, promising to marry them-” There was a loud thump overhead, followed by a shriek and a sound like a herd of rhinoceri. “What are those wretched children doing now? You’d best go see. It sounds like they’re in the ballroom.”

They were. And the thumps had apparently been the sheet-filled clotheslines coming down. A huddle of children cowered in a corner, menaced by two sheet-draped ghosts with outspread arms. “Alf, Binnie, take those off immediately,” Eileen said.

“They told us they was Nazis,” Jimmy said defensively, which didn’t explain the sheets.

“They said Germans kill little children,” five-year-old Barbara said. “They chased us.”

The damage seemed to be confined to the sheets, thank goodness, though the portrait of Lady Caroline’s hoop-skirted ancestor was hanging crookedly. “We told them we weren’t allowed to play in here,” eight-year-old Peggy said virtuously, “but they wouldn’t listen.”

Alf and Binnie were still freeing themselves from the wet, clinging folds of sheet. “Do the Germans?” Barbara asked, tugging on Eileen’s skirt. “Kill little children?”

“No.”

Alf’s head emerged from the sheet. “They do so. When they invade, they’re going to kill Princess Elizabeth and Margaret Rose. They’re going to cut their ’eads right off.”

“Are they?” Barbara asked fearfully.

“No,” Eileen said. “Outside.”

“But it’s rainin’,” Alf said.

“You should have thought of that before. You can play in the stables.” She herded them all outside and went back up to the ballroom. She straightened the portrait of Lady Caroline’s ancestor, rehung the lines, then began picking the sheets up off the floor. They’d all have to be washed again, and so would the dust sheets covering the furniture.

I wonder how badly it would affect history if I throttled the Hodbins, she thought. Theoretically, historians weren’t able to do anything that would alter events. Slippage kept that from happening. But surely in this instance, it would make an exception. History would so clearly be a better place without them. She stooped to pick up another trampled sheet. “Begging your pardon, miss,” Una said from the door, “but her ladyship wants to see you in the drawing room.”

Eileen thrust the wet sheets into Una’s arms and ran down to change into her pinafore again and then race back upstairs to the drawing room. Mr. and Mrs. Magruder were there. “They’ve come for… er… their children,” said Lady Caroline, who obviously had no idea what the children’s names were.

“For Barbara, Peggy, and Ewan, ma’am?” Eileen said.

“Yes.”

“We missed them so,” Mrs. Magruder said to Eileen. “Our house has been quiet as a tomb without them.” At the phrase “quiet as a tomb,” Lady Caroline looked pained. She must have heard the children.

“And now that Hitler’s coming to his senses and realizing Europe won’t stand for his nonsense,” Mr. Magruder said, “there’s no reason not to have them with us. Not that we don’t appreciate all you’ve done for them, your ladyship, taking them in and loving them like your own.”

“I was more than glad to do it,” Lady Caroline said. “Ellen, go pack Peggy’s and… the other children’s things and bring them here to the drawing room.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Eileen said, curtseying, and walked quickly along the corridor to the ballroom. If she could find Una, she could have her get the Magruder children’s things ready while she went to the drop. Please let her still be in the ballroom.

She was, still holding the damp wad of sheets. “Una, pack the Magruders’ things,” she said. “I’m going out to fetch the children,” and fled, but when she ran outside, the vicar was standing there, next to Lady Caroline’s Bentley.

“Vicar, I’m sorry, but I can’t have my lesson now,” she said. “The Magruders are here to fetch Peggy and Ewan and-”

“I know,” he said. “I’ve already spoken to Mrs. Bascombe and arranged for you to have your lesson tomorrow.”

I love you, she thought.

“Una will have hers today.”

Oh, you poor man, but at least she was free to go. “Thank you, Vicar,” she said fervently, and walked quickly across the lawn in the misty drizzle toward the stables, then ducked behind the hothouse and ran out to the road and set off along it, hurrying so she wouldn’t be overtaken by Una and the vicar in the Bentley.

Before she’d gone a quarter of a mile, it began to rain harder, but that was actually a good thing. Even the inquisitive Hodbins wouldn’t try to track her down in this downpour. She turned off into the woods and hurried along the muddy path to the ash tree.

Please don’t let me have just missed it opening, she thought. The drop only opened once an hour, and in another hour it would be dark. The drop was far enough into the woods that its shimmer couldn’t be seen from the road, but with the blackout, any light was suspect, and the Home Guard, for lack of anything better to do, sometimes patrolled the woods, looking for German parachutists. If they or the Hodbins-

She caught a flicker of movement out of the corner of her eye. She turned quickly, straining to catch a glimpse of Alf’s cap or Binnie’s hair ribbon. “What are you doing here?” a man’s voice said from behind her, and she nearly jumped out of her skin. She whirled around. There was a faint shimmer next to the ash tree. Through it she could see the net and Badri at the console. “You’re not supposed to go through till the tenth,” he was saying. “Weren’t you notified that your drop had been rescheduled?”

“That’s why I’m here,” another man’s voice said angrily as the shimmer grew brighter. “I demand to know why it’s been postponed. I-”

“This will have to wait,” Badri said. “I’m in the middle of a retrieval-”

Eileen walked through the shimmer and into the lab.

At the time, we didn’t know that it was a vital battle…. We didn’t know we were quite so close to defeat, either.

Oxford-April 2060

“THEY’RE SENDING YOU TO DUNKIRK?” CHARLES ASKED when Michael got off the phone. “What happened to Pearl Harbor?”

“That’s what I’d like to know,” Michael said. He stormed over to the lab to confront Badri.

Linna met him at the door. “He’s preparing to send someone through. Can I be of help?”

“Yes. You can tell me why the hell you changed the order of my drops! I can’t go to the Dunkirk evacuation with an American accent. I’m supposed to be a reporter for the London Daily Herald. You’ve got to-”

“I think you’d better speak to Badri,” Linna said. “If you’ll wait here-” and walked quickly over to Badri at the console. He was busily typing figures into the console, glancing up at the screens, typing again. A young man Michael didn’t know stood behind him watching, obviously the historian who was going to be sent through. He was dressed in threadbare tweed flannels and wire-rimmed spectacles. A 1930s Cambridge don, Michael thought.

Linna leaned over Badri briefly and came back. “He said it will be at least another half hour,” she reported. “If you don’t want to wait, he can ring you up at-”

“I’ll wait.”

“Would you like to sit down?” she asked, and before he could say no, the telephone rang, and she went to answer it. “No, sir, he’s sending someone through right now,” he heard her say to the person on the other end. “No, sir, not yet. He’s going through to Oxford.”

Well, he’d been close. He wondered what he was researching in Oxford in the 1930s. The Inklings? The admission of women to the university?

“No, sir, it’s just a recon and prep,” Linna said. “Phipps doesn’t leave for his assignment till the end of next week.”

A recon and prep? Those were only used for especially complicated or dangerous assignments. He looked interestedly over at Phipps, who’d moved to the net. What could he be observing in 1930s Oxford that was that complicated? It couldn’t be anything dangerous-he looked too pale and spindly.

“No, sir, he’s only going to one temporal location,” Linna said into the phone. A pause while she consulted her console. “No, sir. His only other assignment was to 1666.”

“Stand in the center,” Badri said, and Phipps stepped under the draped folds and stood on the positioning marks, pushing his spectacles up on his nose.

“You want a list of all the historians currently on assignment and scheduled to go this week and next?” Linna asked the person on the telephone. “Spatial locations or just temporal?” A pause. “Historian, assignment, dates.” She scribbled it down, he hoped more legibly than Shakira had with the note she’d left him. “Yes, sir, I’ll get that for you straightaway. Do you wish to remain on the line?” she asked, and he must have said yes, because she laid the receiver down and scurried over to Badri, who was still getting Phipps into position, then over to an auxiliary terminal.

“All set?” Badri said to Phipps.

Phipps reached into his tweed jacket, checked something in the inside pocket, then nodded. “You’re not sending me through on a Saturday, are you?” he asked. “If there’s slippage, that will put me there on a Sunday, and-”

“No, a Wednesday,” Badri said. “August seventh.”

“August seventh?” Phipps asked Badri.

“That’s right,” Linna said, “1536,” and Michael looked over at her, confused, but she was back at the phone, reading off a printout. “London, the trial of Anne Boleyn-”

“Yes, the seventh,” Badri said to Phipps. “The drop will open every half hour. Move a bit to the right.” He motioned with his hand. “A bit more.” Phipps shambled obediently to the right. “A bit to the left. Good. Now hold that.” He walked back over to the console and hit several keys, and the folds of the net began to lower around Phipps. “I need you to note the amount of temporal slippage on the drop.”

“October tenth 1940,” Linna said into the phone, “to December eighteenth-”

“Why?” Phipps asked. “You’re not expecting more slippage than usual on this drop, are you?”

“Don’t move,” Badri said.

“There shouldn’t be any slippage. I’m not going anywhere near-”

“Cairo, Egypt,” Linna said into the phone.

“Ready?” Badri asked Phipps.

Phipps said, “No, I want to know-” and was gone in a shimmer of light.

Badri came over to Michael. “I assume you received my message?”

“Yeah,” Michael said. “What the hell’s going on?”

“There’s no need to swear,” Badri said mildly.

“That’s what you think! You can’t change my schedule at the last minute like this. I’ve already done the research for Pearl Harbor. I’ve already gotten my costume and papers and money and had an implant done so I sound like an American.”

“It can’t be helped. Here’s the new order of your drops.” Badri handed him a printout. “Dunkirk evacuation,” the list read, “Pearl Harbor, El Alamein, Battle of the Bulge, second World Trade Center attack, beginning of the Pandemic in Salisbury.”

“You’ve changed all of them?” Michael shouted. “You can’t just move them around like this! They were in the order I gave you for a reason. Look,” he said, shoving the list under Badri’s nose. “Pearl Harbor and the World Trade Center and the Battle of the Bulge are all American. I scheduled them together so I could get one L-and-A implant. Which I’ve already had! How am I supposed to be a London Daily Herald war correspondent reporting on the evacuation from Dunkirk with this accent?”

“I apologize for that,” Badri said. “We attempted to contact you before the implant. I’m afraid you’ll have to have it reversed.”

“Reversed? And then what the hell do I do about Pearl Harbor? I’m supposed to be an American Navy lieutenant. You’ve got these alternating, for God’s sake-British, American, British! This isn’t an ordinary mission where I’m there for a year. I’m only going to be in each of these places a few days. I can’t afford to spend it faking an accent and worrying about what to call things.”