All Clear

London—November 1940

EILEEN LUCKED UP WILDLY AT THE SOUND OF THE SIREN. It wound up to a full-throated wail, its rising and falling notes filling the corridor outside the Hodbins’ flat. “Binnie!” Eileen shouted through the door. “Where’s the nearest shelter?”

She rattled the knob, but the door was locked. “Binnie, you can’t stay in there!” she called through the door. “We must get to a shelter!”

Silence except for the siren, which seemed to be right there in the tenement with her, it was so loud. “Binnie! Mrs. Hodbin!” She pounded on the door with both fists. The tube station they’d come from that day she first brought the children home was over a mile away. She’d never make it in time. It would have to be a surface shelter. “Mrs. Hodbin! Wake up! Where’s the nearest shelter? Mrs. Hod—”

The door flew open and Binnie shot past her down the stairs, shouting, “It’s this way! Hurry!” Eileen ran after her down the three flights and past the landlady’s shut door, the siren ringing in her ears. She heard the outside door bang shut, but by the time she got outside, Binnie’d vanished. “Binnie!” she called. “Dolores!”

There was no sign of her, and no one else in sight to tell her where the nearest shelter was. Eileen ran back inside and along the corridor, looking for steps that would lead down to a cellar, but she couldn’t find any.

And these tenements collapse like matchsticks, she thought, panic washing over her. I must get out of here.

She ran outside and back along the street, searching for a shelter notice or an Anderson, but there were only smashed houses and head-high heaps of rubble. The planes would be here any moment. Eileen looked up at the sky, trying to spot the black dots of the approaching bombers, but she couldn’t see or hear anything.

There was a thump, followed by the slither of falling dirt, and Alf leaped down from the rubble and landed at her feet. “I thought I seen you,” he said. “What’re you doin’ ’ere?”

She was actually glad to see him. “Quick, Alf,” she said, grabbing his arm. “Where’s the nearest air-raid shelter?”

“What for?”

“Didn’t you hear the siren?”

“Siren?” he said. “I don’t ’ear no siren.”

“It stopped. Is there a surface shelter near here?”

“Are you sure you ’eard a siren?” he said. “I been out ’ere ages, and I ain’t ’eard nothin’, ’ave I?”

I take it back about being glad to see him, Eileen thought. “Yes, I’m certain I heard it. I was in there”—she pointed back at their tenement—“talking to Binnie—”

His eyes narrowed. “What about?”

“It doesn’t matter. Alf, we must get to a shelter now, before the raid—”

“You ain’t ’ere ’cause of Child Services, are you?”

Why on earth would she be here on behalf of Child Services? “No. Alf—” She tugged on his arm.

“We don’t need to go till the planes come,” he said maddeningly. “ ’Sides, me and Binnie ain’t afraid of a little raid. There was one last week what blew up a

’undred ’ouses. Ka-boom!” He flung his arms up to show her. “Bits of people all over. What did Binnie tell you?” he asked suspiciously.

We are going to be killed standing here, she thought desperately. “Alf, we can discuss all this later.”

“Wait,” he said as if he’d suddenly had an idea. “What did the siren sound like?”

“What do you mean, what did it sound like? An air-raid alert. Alf, we must—”

“Where was you when it went?”

“In the corridor outside your—Why?” she asked, suddenly suspicious.

“I’ll wager you ’eard Mrs. Bascombe.”

“Mrs. Bascombe?” What would Mrs. Bascombe be doing here in Whitechapel?

“Our parrot.”

A parrot.

“We taught ’er to do the alert and the all clear,” Alf said proudly. “And HEs. Blooey! Ka-blam!”

“You have a parrot that can imitate an air-raid alert?” Eileen said furiously, thinking, Of course they do. This is the Hodbins. Binnie had told it to do its siren imitation and then led her on a merry chase down the stairs and hid behind the tenement, where she no doubt still was, laughing her head off.

“Mrs. Bascombe sounds just like ’em,” Alf was saying. “ ’Specially the HEs. She scared old Mrs. Rowe so bad she fell down the stairs. You thought it was a real siren,” he said, pointing at her and then doubling up with laughter. “What a good joke! You shoulda seen your face. Wait’ll I tell Binnie!” He started to run off, but Eileen hadn’t spent nine months with them for nothing. She was not leaving without the map. She grabbed Alf’s collar and held on in spite of his wriggling.

“Stop squirming and stand still,” she said. “I want to talk to you. Do you still have the map the vicar gave you?”

“I dunno,” he said. “Why?”

“I need to borrow it.”

“What for?” he said, his eyes narrowing again. “You ain’t one of them fifth columnists, are you?”

“Of course not. I need it to look up something. If you’ll lend it to me, I’ll give you a book.”

Alf snorted. “A book?”

“Yes,” she said, attempting to decide whether she dared let go of him long enough to take it out of her bag. “About chopping people’s heads off.”

He was immediately interested. “Whose ’eads?”

“Anne Boleyn’s. Sir Thomas More’s. Lady Jane Grey’s.” She took the book from her bag.

“Does it got pictures?” he asked, and when she nodded, “Can I see ’em?”

“Not till you bring me the map.”

He thought it over. “No,” he said finally. “What if a Messerschmitt comes over? ’Ow’ll I mark it if I ain’t got—”

“I only need it for a day or two. After they chopped their heads off, they put them up on spikes on London Bridge.”

His face lit up. “Does it got pictures of that?”

“Yes,” she lied.

“All right. Only you got to pay me. Five quid.”

“Five quid?” Eileen said. “Do you know how much money that is? I have no intention—”

Alf shrugged. “Suit yourself.”

Very well, Eileen thought. “Where did you get that parrot, Alf?” she asked. “You stole it, didn’t you?”

“No!” he said, outraged. “We never. We found it in the rubble. There’s all sorts of things in the rubble.”

“That’s looting,” Eileen said, “and looting’s a crime.”

“It ain’t looting!” he protested, his hands going defensively to his pockets. “ ’Ow can it be looting if the people what owned it’s dead?”

Which was a good point, but Eileen needed that map, and they’d just taken ten years off her life with that parrot. “It’s still looting in the eyes of the law.”

“Mrs. Bascombe woulda died if we ’adn’t found her. We rescued ’er.”

“That may be, but I’m still going to have to call a constable and tell him you’re keeping a stolen parrot in your rooms.”

He went white as a sheet. “Wait! Don’t!” he pleaded. “You can borrow the map.”

“Thank you,” she began, and he wrenched suddenly free of her grasp, snatched the book out of her hands, and went racing off across the rubble. “Alf, you come back here!” Eileen called after him, but he’d already disappeared.

And so had her chances of getting the map. She would have to admit defeat, go to Charing Cross Road, and hope she could find a map in a travel guide.

She began walking toward Mile End Road, hoping the journey back wouldn’t be as—

“Eileen!” Alf called, running up to her, Binnie at his heels. “You was s’posed to wait,” he said accusingly, and handed Eileen the map.

“You needn’t bring it back,” Binnie said. “You can keep it. He don’t do planespotting no more. Now he collects shrapnel.”

“And UXBs,” Alf said.

Of course, Eileen thought.

“So you needn’t come back,” Binnie finished.

Eileen needn’t have worried about them following her back to Mrs. Rickett’s. On the contrary, they couldn’t wait to be rid of her. Why? What were they up to now? Alf had turned pale when she’d mentioned calling a constable. Had he “collected” a UXB and taken it home? But surely not even Mrs. Hodbin would have let them keep—

“ ’Ad’nt you better be goin’?” Binnie said. “It’s gettin’ late.”

She was right, and whatever mischief they were up to, it was no longer her responsibility. “Yes,” Eileen said. “Thank you for the map, Alf. Goodbye, Binnie.”

“Dolores.”

I’ll almost miss you, Eileen thought. Almost.

“Goodbye, Dolores,” she said and pulled the film magazine from her bag and held it out to Binnie. “Here.”

Binnie clutched it to her chest and ran off, as if she expected Eileen to change her mind and snatch it away from her.

Alf still stood there.

“It’s all right,” Eileen said. “I know you need your map for your planespotting. I’ll bring it back to you.”

“You don’t hafta if you don’t want to. It’s like Binnie said, I don’t need it.”

They definitely did not want her coming around. “I could send it back to you by post,” she suggested.

“That’d be ’eaps better,” he said, looking relieved, but he continued to stand there. “You ain’t gonna tell the constable, are you?”

“Not if you promise me you’ll keep out of the rubble,” she said, with no hope of his actually obeying her. “And that you won’t collect any more UXBs.”

“I only collect little ones.”

“No bombs,” she said firmly.

“I can still collect shrapnel, can’t I?”

“Yes,” she said, “but no watching raids. I want you to promise me you and Binnie will go to a shelter as soon as the sirens go.”

Amazingly, he nodded. “Do you want I should show you where to catch the bus?”

“No, that’s all right. I know the way home.” It’s somewhere on this map, and had to fight the impulse to open the map and look for the name of the airfield then and there, but it was growing late. It would have to wait till she got on the bus.

But the bus was filled to capacity, and ten minutes after Eileen got on, it drove over a piece of shrapnel that Alf hadn’t collected and burst a tire, and she had to walk several streets over to catch another one, which was even more crammed. She had to stand, hanging on to a strap, the entire way, and there were so many barricades and diversions that by the time the bus reached Bank Station, it was so late she was afraid if she went to Townsend Brothers, she’d miss Polly.

Instead, she went to Mrs. Rickett’s and straight up to their room, where she sat down on the bed and opened out the map. It was badly worn and ripped along the folds, and the panel where the index of place-names should have been had been torn off. She’d have to locate the name on the map itself. Alf had marked Xes and dates all over the lower half of it, obscuring the names underneath. Luckily, they were in pencil and could be erased; hopefully, doing that wouldn’t also erase the names underneath. She hoped Alf hadn’t spotted a Messerschmitt over the airfield where Gerald was, or that it wasn’t on one of the torn folds.

Polly and Mike thought his airfield was near Oxford. She began searching the section between there and London, bending over the tiny print, looking for Bs.

Boxbourne … Bishop’s Stortford … Banbury …

There was a timid tap on the door. She opened it a crack, just like Binnie had, and poked her head out. It was Miss Laburnum. “We’re just going down to dinner,” she said. “Are you coming?”

“No, Polly’s not here yet,” Eileen said. “I’m waiting for her.”

“Wise decision,” Mr. Dorming growled, passing in the corridor. “It’s boiled tripe tonight.”

Boiled tripe, Eileen thought, making a face as she shut the door. I must find that name. She bent over the map again. It wasn’t anywhere on the railway line between Oxford and London, which must mean it was farther east. Baldock … Leighton Buzzard … Buckingham …

There it was! I knew I’d recognize it if I saw it, she thought. And she’d been right about it being two words. Now if Polly would only come. She went out into the corridor to look down the stairs. An appalling stench somewhere between rotting flesh and mildewed sponge bags assailed her, and she clapped her hand to her nose and mouth and retreated into the room. A moment later Polly came in the door, gasping. “What is that wretched odor? Has Hitler begun using mustard gas?”

“It’s boiled tripe,” Eileen said, “but it’s all right.”

“How can it possibly be all right?” Polly said, unbuttoning her coat. “We have to eat that.”

“No, we don’t,” Eileen said. “We’re going home. I know where Gerald is.”

Polly stopped in the act of taking off her coat. “You found a map.”

“Yes. I got it from Alf Hodbin.”

“But I thought you said the Hodbins were horrid. They’re not. They’re wonderful. Oh, Alf, you dear, darling boy!”

“I wouldn’t go so far as that,” Eileen said. “He and his sister have a parrot they’ve trained to imitate an air-raid siren. But it doesn’t matter. I found the airfield.” She grabbed the map and shoved it under Polly’s nose to show her. “He’s at Bletchley Park.”

I can’t believe we will ever get away with this.

CHRISTOPHER HARNER, ON SEEING

THE PLAN FOR FORTITUDE SOUTH,

1944