Blackout

London-21 September 1940

“OPEN THE DROP!” POLLY CRIED, IN HER PANIC HAMMERING on the peeling, nailed-shut door with both fists. “Colin! Hurry!”

The scream of the bomb rose to a painful shriek. Polly clapped her hands over her ears. Oh, God, it’s right on top of me, she thought. It’s a direct hit, and dropped to her knees, her head ducked against the eardrum-shattering sound, the expected blast.

But there wasn’t any blast, only a deafening, bone-shaking boom, followed by the rattle of things falling and then fire-engine bells. They stopped nearly a quarter of a mile away.

Impossible, she thought. That was on top of me. So was the next one, and the next one, and even though she told herself, murmuring it like a prayer, that the drop hadn’t been hit during the Blitz, it was impossible not to put her arms over her head when the bombs’ descending screams began, and cower, terrified, against the foot of the door.

“Colin!” she sobbed. “Hurry!”

After what seemed like an eternity but was only, according to the glowing dial of her watch, an hour and a half, the bombardment began to subside. Polly waited till the Kensington Gardens gun had stopped and then crept cautiously down the passage, almost afraid to look at what was left of it.

But the only sign of new damage was to the last two barrels at the alley end of the passage, which had toppled over. She pushed them out of the way and climbed a short way up onto the mound to look across the road. An incendiary had fallen in the middle of it and was sputtering and fizzing like an oversized child’s sparkler, and in its light she could see the still-intact tobacconist’s and could read “T. Tubbins” above the door of the still-there greengrocer’s. None of the shops was on fire. She couldn’t even smell any smoke. The shops’ unharmed roofs stood out sharply against the crimson sky, and she couldn’t see any firespotters on top of them, and none on the warehouses on either side of the drop. But the drop still didn’t open.

Perhaps the problem’s the Luftwaffe, Polly thought, looking up at the narrow space between the buildings. They can see the shimmer from up there and use it as a target.

But the idea that bomber pilots could see a tiny light on the ground-a cigarette or a chink in the blackout curtains-had been proven to be a myth. Neither could be seen at all from ten thousand feet up. Which meant the shimmer wouldn’t be visible either. And besides, the entire east and north of London were on fire, and the passage was nearly as bright as day. And half an hour later, when the planes were no longer overhead, the drop still showed no sign of opening.

An hour went by, then two. The raid intensified again and then let up, and the orange clouds faded to a sickly pink. The anti-aircraft guns stuttered to a stop. There was a long hush, broken only by the drone of a departing plane. It faded to a hum and then silence, and for several minutes Polly half expected to hear the all clear. Then the whole thing started up again.

It stopped for good at three, exactly when Colin had said it would. But he, or the historical record, had got their location wrong. Those bombs had definitely fallen on Kensington, not Marylebone. And not just in Kensington, but on Lampden Road.

Silence settled down over the site, but the drop still didn’t open. By the time the all clear went at half past five, Polly had had time to consider every possible and far-fetched reason for the drop’s remaining shut, and discarded them all.

Except the obvious one. The drop had been damaged. In spite of the undisturbed barrels and the cobwebs, the blast that had flattened the row of buildings across the alley must have disrupted the drop’s field somehow, destroyed the temporal connection. And there was no point continuing to sit here in the damp cold waiting for it to open. As soon as Badri-and Mr. Dunworthy-realized what had happened, they’d set up a drop somewhere else and send a retrieval team for her.

If they can find me, she thought. I should have checked in as soon as I found a room. Then they’d know where I live.

But they had the list of approved streets and addresses, and this was time travel. They were no doubt already waiting for her at Mrs. Rickett’s. I do hope she lets them in. She’s so adamant about my not having male visitors. She hoped the team hadn’t come through posing as soldiers, whom Mrs. Rickett had a very low opinion of. Or as actors.

She stood up, stiff with cold and with sitting too long, and went down the passage. If she hurried, she might be able to reach the boardinghouse before Mrs. Rickett got home from St. George’s and intercept the retrieval team. The fog, which had lifted during the raids, was closing in again, making it as dark as it had been that first evening when she came through and shrouding the entrance and the rubble beyond. Polly worked her way as quickly as she could over the tangle of beams and bricks. She sank in almost to her knees once and had to grab for jutting timbers several times before she reached the edge.

She stepped down onto the pavement, and stopped to brush off her coat and see how bad her stockings were. Bad. She had wide ladders in both and a hole in the left one. Her knee was bleeding, and her skirt was a disaster. My nonregulation navy blue skirt I promised Miss Snelgrove I wouldn’t be wearing today, she thought, and then remembered it didn’t matter. She was going back to Oxford.

What time was it? She glanced at her wristwatch. The face was caked with pinkish dust. She wiped it clean with her finger. Ten past six. Oh, dear, Mrs. Rickett would be home from St. George’s by now and telling the retrieval team Polly wasn’t there and that she had no idea where she was. If she hadn’t simply slammed the door in their faces.

Polly ducked under the rope barrier and hurried down Lampden Road through the fog, hoping they were still at Mrs. Rickett’s, that she hadn’t just missed them-

She halted, her mouth open, staring at the devastation before her. She’d been right. The raids hadn’t been in Bloomsbury. They’d been here on Lampden Road. As far as she could see through the fog, everything had been flattened. She’d thought the shops in front of the drop had been destroyed, but it was nothing compared to this. Both sides of the road had been obliterated so completely she couldn’t even guess what had originally stood here. Incident rope had been strung up across the debris-strewn road and along it as far as the fog let her see. It looked like a V-2 had hit it, but that wasn’t poss-

“Dreadful, isn’t it?” a voice behind her said. It was an elderly man in a wool cap, obviously on his way home from a shelter. He had a fringed pink silk cushion tucked under one arm and a large paper sack under the other. “Parachute mine.”

A mine. That was why it had done so much damage. High-explosive bombs burrowed into the ground before going off, but mines exploded on the surface so that the full force of the blast hit the surrounding buildings.

“It must’ve been a thousand-pounder to take out all those shops,” the old man said, pointing back toward the rubble in front of the drop. “And the church and-”

“The church?” She looked down the road, searching frantically for St. George’s spire. She couldn’t see it. “Which church? St. George’s?”

He nodded. “Dreadful business,” he said, surveying the street. “So many killed-”

Polly plunged past him. The incident rope caught at her legs and snapped, but she ran on, unheeding. The rope tangled in her legs and trailed out behind her as she raced down the debris-strewn road to the wreckage of the church.

No, not wreckage. There were no roof slates here, no rafters or pillars or pews to show it had ever been a church, only a flat expanse of pulverized bricks and glass. Except for the mangled metal railing of the steps which had led down to the basement shelter and which no one, no one could have got out of alive.

“So many killed,” the old man had said. Oh, God, the rector and Miss Laburnum and Mrs. Brightford. And her little girls.

This happened last night when I was in the drop, she thought. I heard it hit. They’d all have been there in the shelter. And if I hadn’t been in the drop, I’d have been there, too, she thought sickly, and remembered her plan to hide in the sanctuary till everyone was off the streets. I’d have been in that with them, she thought, staring at the rubble. With Lila and Viv and Mr. Simms. And Nelson.

And Sir Godfrey. They were all under there. “We must get them out of there,” Polly said. She started toward the railing, thinking, “Why isn’t the rescue squad here?” but even as she formed the thought, her mind was processing the fact that there wasn’t any dust or smoke hovering above the wreckage, only the drifting fog, and that she’d looked for and hadn’t seen the spire last night, was processing the already-strung rope and the depression in the center of the mound that had to be a shaft dug by the rescue squad. And the old man, who knew the church had been hit, who knew the people in it had been killed.

He came trotting up, clutching his fringed cushion and his paper sack. “Hard to take in, isn’t it, miss?” he said, coming over to stand beside her. “Such a beautiful church-”

“When did this happen?” Polly demanded, but she already knew the answer. Not last night. Two nights ago. The rescue squad had already been here, had already dug out the bodies and taken them away in mortuary vans.

“Night before last,” the old man was saying, “not more’n an hour after the sirens went.”

They were already dead when I was in the alley worrying about running into them on their way to the shelter, Polly thought bleakly. And the whole time I was trapped in Holborn. St. George’s and the shops in front of the drop were hit the same night. The back of her knees went suddenly weak, as if she had ventured too near the edge of a cliff.

“Least that’s what the warden said yesterday morning,” the old man was saying. “It didn’t… here, now, are you all right, miss?”

She stared blindly at him. The drop wasn’t hit last night. It was the night before last. But it can’t have been. If it was, then the-

Her knees buckled. The old man caught her, dropping his cushion and the paper sack onto the pavement as he did. “Why don’t you sit down here on the curb for a moment,” he said, holding her up. “Till you’re feeling better, and then I’ll take you home. Where is it you live, miss?”

He meant the boardinghouse. But Mrs. Rickett and Miss Hibbard and Mr. Dorming and Miss Laburnum were all dead. There was no one there to tell the retrieval team she lived there. And there’d been no one there yesterday, when-

“I must go to Townsend Brothers,” Polly said.

“That’s not a good idea, miss,” the old man said. “You’ve had a bad shock. The ARP post’s just down the way. I’ll be back in no time.”

In no time. They’re all dead, she thought, and they can’t tell them where I am. They can’t come and get me-

“Oh, dear,” the old man said, catching her and easing her down onto the edge of the curb. “Are you certain you aren’t injured?” and when she didn’t answer, “You sit there, and I’ll fetch the warden. He’ll know what to do.” He tucked the fringed cushion against the small of her back, trotted off down the street, and disappeared into the fog.

Polly got to her feet and stumbled blindly off up the street. She had to get away before he came back with the warden. She had to get to Bayswater Road and find a taxi. And get to Townsend Brothers.

But no taxis were abroad, and no buses either. Because of the fog, she thought, but that wasn’t the reason. There was a bus in the center of the road half tipped into a large crater. It was empty. I wonder what happened to the passengers, Polly thought, but she knew. They were all dead. They’d been dead since yesterday, like Miss Laburnum and Trot and Sir Godfrey. Since yesterday.

Don’t think about that, she told herself, willing her wobbly legs to walk past it, to walk up the foggy road. Don’t think about any of it. Find a taxi.

She finally did, after what seemed like years of walking and wreckage and craters and fog. “Townsend Brothers,” she told the cabbie as she opened the door. “On Oxford Street.”

“Townsend Brothers?” he said, looking oddly at her.

She’d forgotten shopgirls didn’t take taxis. But she had to. “Yes,” she said. “Take me there immediately.”

“But you’re already there,” he said.

“Already-?” she said, looking bewilderedly where he was pointing, and there was Townsend Brothers. She looked at the boarded-up display windows, at the doors. And at the empty pavement in front of them.

The retrieval team wasn’t there. She’d been so certain they would be, so certain that when they couldn’t find out where she lived, they’d go to Oxford Street. They’ve been delayed, that’s all, she told herself. They couldn’t find a taxi either. Or they thought there wasn’t any point in coming till I arrived for work. They’ll be here at nine. She looked at her watch, but she couldn’t make the hands mean anything. “What time is it?” she asked the cabbie.

“Twenty past nine,” he said, pointing up the street at Selfridges’ clock. “You all right, miss?”

No. “Yes,” she said, and realized she was still holding on to the open passenger door. She shut it and started toward the store.

They’ve already gone inside, she told herself, going in the staff entrance and up the stairs. They’re waiting for me in my department. But they couldn’t be. The store wasn’t open yet, and when she reached third and opened the stairway door, there was no one over by her counter.

They’re not here, she thought, and the sick dread she’d been trying to hold at bay since she saw the wrecked church, trying to keep from herself, washed over her in a drowning wave.

The drop had been damaged by the same parachute mine that destroyed St. George’s and killed-oh, God, Sir Godfrey and Trot and all the rest of them. They’d been killed and the shops flattened and the drop damaged all at the same time-the night before last, while she was in Holborn, standing in line at the canteen, talking to the librarian, sitting in the tunnel reading the newspaper. No, earlier than that. “Not more’n an hour after the sirens went,” the old man had said. While she was trying to convince the guard to open the gate so she could go to the drop-

But it had already been out of commission. Already out of commission when she came to work yesterday morning. The retrieval team should have been here yesterday. They should have been waiting for her outside Townsend Brothers yesterday morning, not today. Yesterday.

“Polly!” she heard Marjorie say, but when she looked up, it was Miss Snelgrove, the floor supervisor, who was walking toward her. She looked appalled.

She’s going to discharge me, Polly thought, because I didn’t get a black skirt.

“Miss Sebastian,” Miss Snelgrove said. “What-?”

“I couldn’t get my skirt. I tried, but it wouldn’t open-”

“You mustn’t worry about that now,” Miss Snelgrove said, taking her arm as the old man had.

“And it’s nearly half past nine.”

“You mustn’t worry about that either. Miss Hayes,” Miss Snelgrove said to Marjorie, who’d come over. “Go and tell Mr. Witherill to telephone for a taxi,” but Marjorie didn’t go.

“What happened, Polly?” she asked.

“They’re not here,” Polly said. “They’re all dead.” She started blindly over to her counter.

Miss Snelgrove stopped her and steered her gently back toward the lifts. “We’ll find someone to fill in for you today,” she said, patting Polly kindly on the shoulder. “You need to go home.”

Polly looked at her bleakly. “You don’t understand,” she said. “I can’t.”