All Clear

Imperial War Museum, London—7 May 1995

IT WAS A QUARTER PAST NINE WHEN HE REACHED THE museum. It didn’t open till ten, but he’d come through early, hoping they’d arrive early, too, and he’d be able to talk to them before they went in.

But there was no one standing outside the doors or on the steps, and no one in the courtyard, where a tank, an anti-aircraft gun, and a motor-boat were on display.

He tried the main doors on the off chance that the lobby was open, but they were locked, and he couldn’t see anyone at the ticket desk yet.

He walked down to the courtyard and looked at the tank, wishing they’d get here. There was a “St. Paul’s in the Blitz” exhibit opening at St. Paul’s Cathedral today as well. He’d debated going to that one instead, then decided his chances were better at this one, since there’d be more attendees here. But he’d hoped that by coming early, he could make it to both. And now there wasn’t a soul here.

He wandered over to the boat. It had Lily Maid stenciled on its bow. There was an impressive array of machine-gun bullet holes in its stern, and a placard on it reading, “One of the many small craft manned by civilians which participated in the evacuation of over 340,000 British and other Allied soldiers from Dunkirk.”

He examined the bullet holes and then retrieved a museum brochure someone had jammed in the windscreen of the boat and went back to sit on the steps and read it. “FINEST HOURS: A Fiftieth-Anniversary World War II Tribute,” it read, and listed the museum’s upcoming special events and exhibitions: “The Battle of Britain,” “The War in North Africa,” “Women at War,” “The Secret That Won the War,” “The Evacuation of the Children.” If he didn’t find anyone here or at St.

Paul’s, he definitely needed to attend that last one.

If he could get here. Badri and Linna hadn’t been able to get a drop to open anywhere near “Women at War” ’s opening date, even though they’d labored over it for months and gone as far afield as Yorkshire. When was “The Evacuation of the Children”? If it was soon, he might be able to stay till its opening. It wasn’t till September. He couldn’t waste four months on the off chance that he could find an evacuee who’d had contact with Merope after she went to London. Or who knew what other children had been at Denewell Manor.

The Evacuation Committee’s files had been destroyed by the same pinpoint bomb which had vaporized St. Paul’s, and all he’d learned from local records was that the evacuees hadn’t been so much assigned to a particular family or house as dumped on them. A committee head he’d interviewed in 1960 had only been able to name three of the thirty children who’d been at Denewell Manor, and the only reason she’d remembered two of them was that they’d been such hellions.

“Alf and Binnie Hodbin were dreadful children. Lady Denewell was an absolute saint to have them there,” she’d told him. “They stole things, tormented livestock, damaged people’s property. And then they’d stand there and tell you the most outrageous lies.” And when he’d asked her if she’d had any contact with them since the war, she’d said, “No, thank heavens. I shouldn’t be surprised if they were in prison.”

She had known where the third evacuee—Edwina Barry, née Driscoll—was, but Mrs. Barry had been sent to another home before Eileen had left the manor, and she hadn’t known what had happened to the Hodbins either, though she knew they were from Whitechapel. He’d spent the next six months scouring prison rosters and Whitechapel’s housing records. He’d found out their address, but their tenement had been destroyed in February of 1941. Their names hadn’t been on the casualty list for the bombing, but a list of casualties for the entire Blitz had confirmed that their mother had been killed, which meant they probably had been, too.

He wrote down the opening date of the children’s evacuation exhibit and perused the rest of the brochure for any other possibly useful exhibitions, then glanced up.

Someone was coming. It was only a pair of tourists. They were in their fifties and, from the look of it, American. They both wore white plimsolls and had large cameras round their necks. The wife was wearing sunglasses even though it looked like it might rain at any moment, and the husband was grumbling, “I told you it wouldn’t be open yet.”

“It’s better to be too early than too late,” the wife said, and started up the steps. “Is the museum open?”

“If it was open,” the man growled, “he wouldn’t be sitting out here.”

“I’m Brenda,” she said, “and this is my husband, Bob.”

He stood up and shook her hand. “I’m Calvin Knight.”

“Oh, I just love English accents!”

There was no good answer to that, so he asked, “Are you here for the opening of the ‘Living Through the Blitz’ exhibition?”

“No, is that what’s on? We didn’t know anything about it. Bob just wanted to come because he’s interested in World War Two. We’ve already been to the RAF

Museum and the Cabinet War Rooms. Did you hear that, honey?” she called down to her husband. “Calvin says they’re opening a thing here on the Blitz today.”

I hope, he thought. Bob and Brenda didn’t know about it, and there was no one here yet. Could he have the wrong day? There hadn’t been any slippage. This was definitely May seventh, but the article he’d read in the Times might have got the date of the opening wrong.

I should have checked it against other historical records, he thought, wondering how he could check it now. With the museum still shut …

“We’re from Indianapolis,” Brenda was saying. “Do you live here in London?”

If he said yes, she was likely to demand tourist information from him, and he had no idea what had been in London in 1995. “No, I’m from Oxford.”

An estate wagon was pulling in to the car park. He’d be able to ask whoever was in it about the opening.

“The museum should be opening shortly,” he told Brenda. “There are some interesting exhibits in the courtyard that you and your husband might like to look at in the meantime.” But she wasn’t listening.

“You’re from Oxford?” she cried. “We’re going there on Wednesday. You’ve got to tell us what we should see while we’re there.”

He glanced out at the car park. The woman stepping out of the estate wagon and going round to open the back was too young to be one of the women he was looking for. She couldn’t be more than forty, and she was wearing a business suit and high-heeled shoes and was getting an armload of books and papers out of the back. Someone who worked here. She would definitely know whether the opening was today.

“We want to see the university,” Brenda was saying, “but I couldn’t find it on the map, only a lot of colleges.”

He explained that the colleges were the university, and told her to go see Balliol. “And Magdalen,” he said, trying to think what would have been in Oxford in 1995. “And the Ashmolean Museum.”

“Is that where they have the dodo?” she asked. “I’m dying to see the dodo and all the other Alice in Wonderland stuff.”

“No, the dodo’s at the Natural History Museum,” he said.

“Oh, where’s that?” she asked, digging in her tote bag. “Bob!” she called. “Do you have the guidebook?” But Bob had gone down into the courtyard to look at the anti-aircraft gun and either couldn’t hear her or was ignoring her. “He’s got the guidebook,” she said. “Can you show me where the—what did you say it was? The Nature Museum?”

“The Natural History Museum.” He glanced quickly out toward the car park, but the woman in the business suit was still unloading things from her car, and no one else had pulled in. He went down the stairs and into the courtyard with Brenda.

Bob didn’t have the guidebook. “I thought you had it.”

“No, I gave it to you, remember? Right before we left the hotel?” she said, but after digging some more, she found it and got it open to the section on Oxford, and he showed her where the museum was and went back to the steps. Just in time to see the business-suited woman disappear up them and inside, which meant the doors must be open. But when he tried them, they were still locked, and there were still no cars pulling in to the car park. And it was beginning to rain.

He turned his collar up and ducked under the cover of the doorway, and Brenda came scampering up the steps, holding the guidebook open over her head, her husband behind her, saying, “I told you we needed to bring an umbrella.”

“I can’t get used to how much it rains here, Calvin,” Brenda said. “It said on the sign down by the anti-aircraft gun that it had been in Kensington Gardens. That’s not the same Kensington Gardens where they have the Peter Pan statue, is it?”

“Yes, it is,” he said.

“Oh, I want to go there. I love Peter Pan,” she said, and began leafing through the guidebook again. “And to the house where Barrie lived as a child in Scotland.”

“We’re only here for ten days,” Bob said, “not six months.”

“Oh, I know, it’s just that there are so many things I’m dying to see. There just isn’t enough time.”

You’re right, Calvin thought, looking at the door. There isn’t.

“Is that the museum schedule?” Bob asked, pointing at the brochure he was holding.

“Yes.” He handed it to him, and he and Brenda pored over it.

“ ‘The Battle of Britain’ looks good,” she said. “Oh, dear, it doesn’t open till July first. We won’t be here. ‘The Secret That Won the War,’ ” she read aloud.

“What’s that one about?”

“I don’t know,” Bob said impatiently.

“I believe it’s about Ultra and Bletchley Park,” Calvin said.

“Ultra?”

“The secret project to decode the Nazis’ coded messages,” he said.

“Oh.” Brenda turned to her husband. “I thought you said the American forces were what won the war.”

Bob had the good grace to look embarrassed.

“There were all kinds of things that won the war,” Bob said. “Radar and the atom bomb and Hitler’s deciding to invade Russia—”

“And the evacuation from Dunkirk,” Calvin said, “and the Battle of Britain, and the way Londoners stood up to the Blitz—”

Brenda beamed at him. “You’re obviously as big a fan of World War Two as my husband is.”

A fan. Of World War II. “Actually, I’m a journalist,” he said. “I’m here to cover the opening of the Blitz exhibit.”

“Really?” she said. “Our daughter Stephanie teaches journalism. You’d be perfect for each other. Are you married?”

“Brenda,” her husband said. “It’s none of our business—”

“Oh, don’t be silly,” she said. “Are you?”

He shook his head.

“Girlfriend?”

“Not yet.”

“You see?” she said, turning triumphantly to her husband and then back to him. “How old are you? Thirty?”

“Brenda! This young man is not interested in—”

“Stephanie’s twenty-six,” she said. “She teaches at—”

“Let’s go look at the tank,” Bob said, and took her arm.

“It’s raining—” she began.

“It’s stopped,” Bob said firmly.

“Oh, all right,” she said, starting down the steps, and then said to Calvin, “Would you mind taking our picture in front of the tank?”

She handed him her camera, and he went down with them and took their picture in front of the anti-aircraft gun and the boat. “The Lily Maid,” she said. “It’s not a very warlike name, is it?”

“They didn’t know they were going into a war,” Bob said impatiently. “Did they, Calvin?”

No, he thought. They didn’t know they were going into a war.

We didn’t know where we were going, so we just scribbled little notes and flung them out at stations as we passed.

—SERGEANT MAJOR MARTIN MCLANE,

RECALLING HIS ARRIVAL HOME

FROM DUNKIRK