All Clear (6 page)

The ribbing was all good-natured, and Talbot didn’t seem to bear a grudge, even though she’d been taken off active duty and assigned secretarial tasks and had to hobble about on crutches. She seemed far more upset about her lost lipstick and having missed the dance than about her knee.

On their way home from an incident the next morning Mary and Fairchild went to see if they could find the lipstick, but either it had rolled into the storm drain or someone had seen it lying in the street and taken it. They
did
find Talbot’s cap, which had been run over and was obviously beyond repair. And on the way home, they passed the railroad bridge Mary had gone to the dance to see—or rather, what was left of it. “It was hit by one of the first flying bombs that came over,” Fairchild said casually.

And if you’d mentioned that sooner
, Mary thought,
I’d have known my implant data was accurate, and I wouldn’t have injured Talbot
.

To make amends, Mary offered Talbot her own lipstick, but Talbot
said, “No, that’s too pink,” and set about concocting a substitute out of heated paraffin and merthiolate from the medical kit. The result proved too orange, and for the next few days the entire post was utterly absorbed—in between incidents, some of them grisly—in finding something that would reproduce Crimson Caress.

Currants were too dark, beet juice too purple, and there were no strawberries to be had anywhere. Mary, helping to carry the body of a dead woman with a broken-off banister driven through her chest, noticed that her blood was the exact shade they needed, then felt horrified and ashamed of herself and spent the rest of the incident worrying that one of the other FANYs might have noticed the color, too. It was almost a relief when they spent the journey home arguing over whose turn it was to have to wear the Yellow Peril.

If and when any of them got to go out again. With Talbot injured, they were shorthanded, and they’d already been pulling double shifts. And Hitler was sending more V-1s over every day. The newspapers reported that anti-aircraft guns had been placed in a line along the Dover coast and that the barrage balloons had been moved to the coast from London, but clearly neither of those defensive measures was working. “What I want to know,” Camberley said, exasperated after their fourth incident in twenty-four hours, “is, where are our boys?”

At least I know where the V-1
s
are
, Mary thought. The rockets were all coming over exactly when and where they were supposed to. The Guards Chapel was hit on June eighteenth, there was a near miss of Buckingham Palace on the twentieth, and Fleet Street, the Aldwych Theater, and Sloane Court were all hit on schedule. And since they had more than they could handle in their own district, they were no longer transporting any patients through Bomb Alley. So Mary was able to relax and concentrate on observing the FANYs and trying to live down her nickname.

A week later Major Denewell came into the despatch office, where Mary was manning the telephone, and asked, “Where’s Maitland?”

“Out on a run, ma’am. Burbage Road. V-1.”

The Major looked annoyed. “What about Fairchild?”

“She’s off duty. She’s gone with Reed to London.”

“How long have they been gone?”

“Over an hour.”

She looked even more annoyed. “Then you’ll have to do,” she said. “We’ve had a telephone call from the RAF asking for a driver for one of their officers, and Talbot can’t drive with her wrenched knee. You’ll have
to go in her place.” She handed Mary a folded slip of paper. “Here’s the officer’s name, where you’re to meet him, and your route.”

“Yes, ma’am,” she said.
And let’s hope the airfield where I’m to pick him up isn’t Biggin Hill or any of the other airfields in Bomb Alley
, she thought, unfolding it.

Oh, good, it was Hendon. But there was no destination listed. “Where am I to drive Flight Officer Lang to, ma’am?”

“He’ll tell you that,” the Major said, obviously wishing Talbot was in a condition to do this. “You’re to drive him wherever he wishes to go and then wait for him and drive him back, unless otherwise instructed. You’re to be there by half past eleven.” Which meant she needed to leave immediately. “Take the Daimler,” the Major said. “And you’re to wear full-dress uniform.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“And since you’ll be in the vicinity, stop in Edgware and ask the supply officer if they have any stretchers they can spare.”

“Yes, ma’am,” she said, and went to change. And look at the map. Hendon was far enough northwest of London that it was completely out of rocket range, and only a half dozen would fall between here and there this morning. The British Intelligence plan to convince the Germans to shorten the rockets’ range must be working.

She looked at the route the Major had mapped out for her. Two of the six V-1s lay along it. She’d have to head west to Wandsworth instead and then north. It would take extra petrol, but she could say the road the Major had suggested had been blocked by a convoy or something.

She traced the route and set out for Hendon, hoping she’d arrive early enough to go on to Edgware and pick up the bandages first, but there was all sorts of military traffic. It was after twelve by the time she reached the airfield, and the officer was already waiting at the door, looking impatiently at his watch.

I hope he’s not angry
, she thought, but as she pulled up, he grinned and bounded toward the ambulance. He was no older than she was, and boyishly handsome, with dark hair and a crooked smile.

He opened the door and leaned in. “Where have you been, you beautiful—?” He stopped in midsentence. “Sorry, I thought you were someone I knew.”

“Apparently,” she said.

“Not that
you’re
not beautiful. You are,” he said, flashing her the crooked smile. “Rather devastatingly beautiful, as a matter of fact.”

“I’m here from Ambulance Post Number Forty-Seven to pick up Flight Officer Lang,” she said crisply.

“I’m Officer Lang.” He got into the front seat. “Where’s Lieutenant Talbot?”

“She’s on sick leave, sir.”

“Sick leave? She wasn’t hit by one of these blasted rocket bombs, was she?”

“No, sir.”
Only by an historian
. “Not exactly.”

“Not
exactly
? What happened? She wasn’t badly hurt?”

“No, only a wrenched knee. I pushed her into a gutter.”

“Because you wanted to be the one to drive me?” he said. “I’m flattered.”

“No, because I thought I heard a V-1, but it was only a motorcycle.”

“And so she’s not able to drive, and they sent you as her replacement,” he said, grinning. “It wasn’t an accident you were sent, you know. It was fate.”

I doubt that
, she thought.
And why do I have a feeling you say the same thing to every FANY who drives you
? “Where am I to take you, sir?”

“London. Whitehall.”

Which was better than somewhere in Bomb Alley, but not perfect. Once they got there, they’d be safe. No V-1s had fallen in Whitehall that day, but more than a dozen had hit between Hendon and London.

“Whitehall. Yes, sir,” she said, and opened out the map to find the safest route.

“You won’t need that,” he said, plucking it out of her hands and folding it up. “I can show you the way.” There was nothing for her to do but start the engine. “It’s quickest to take the Great North Road. Follow this lane till the first turning, and then bear right.”

“Yes, sir,” she said, heading in the direction he indicated and trying to think of an excuse for getting the map back so she could see what towns lay along the Great North Road.

“Definitely fate,” Flight Officer Lang was saying. “It’s clear we were destined to meet, Lieutenant—what’s your name?”

“Kent, sir,” she said absently. She should have told him that the Major insisted her FANYs take the Edgware Road to London. That way they’d be out of range nearly the entire way.

“
Lieutenant
Kent,” he said sternly. “Lovers brought together by fate do not call each other by their last names. Antony and Cleopatra, Tristan and Isolde, Romeo and Juliet. Stephen”—he pointed at himself—“and?”

“Mary, sir.”

“Sir?” His voice was filled with mock outrage. “Did Juliet call Romeo sir? Did Guinevere call Lancelot sir? Well, actually, I suppose she may have done. He
was
a knight, after all, but I don’t want you to do it. It makes me feel a hundred years old.”

A hundred and thirty-some old, actually
, she thought.

“As your superior officer, I order you to call me Stephen, and I shall call you Mary. Mary,” he said, looking over at her and then frowning puzzledly. “Have we met before?”

“No,” she said. “Does this route take us through Edgware?”

“Edgware?” he said. “No, that’s the other direction. This road goes through Golders Green, and then we take the Great North Road south through Finchley.”

Oh, no. There’d been a V-1 in East Finchley this afternoon, and two in Golders Green. “Oh, dear, I thought this went through Edgware,” she said, and didn’t have to feign the distress in her voice. “I was to pick up some stretchers for the Major at Edgware’s ambulance post.” She slowed the car, looking for a place to pull off and turn around. “We must go back.”

“You’ll have to do it after we return, I’m afraid. I’ve a meeting at two, and I’ll be cashiered if I’m not there on time. And we’re late as it is. It’s already half past twelve.”

The Golders Green V-1s had hit at 12:56 and 1:08.
And let’s hope Flight Officer Lang isn’t right about our meeting being fate, and that that fate is to be blown to bits by a V-1. I should have memorized the casualties from each rocket attack
, she thought,
so I’d know if an RAF flight officer and his driver were killed this afternoon
.

But there’d scarcely been room in her implant for all the rockets which had hit in the areas she was most likely to be in, so all she knew was that the 12:56 one had been on Queen’s Road and the 1:08 one on a bridge somewhere outside the village. And they were heading straight toward both of them.

The net wouldn’t have let her come through if her presence in the past would affect events, but that didn’t mean she could blithely drive into the path of a V-1, certain that nothing would happen.

For one thing,
she
could be killed even if he wasn’t. And for another, Flight Officer Lang had a constantly dangerous job. It might not make a difference to the course of history whether he was killed this afternoon or on a mission tomorrow.

But it made a great deal of difference to her, which was why she needed to get off this road. “I promise you we’ll go straight to Edgware after my meeting,” Lang was saying. “And to make up for it I’ll take you out for dinner and dancing. What do you say?”

I’d say that won’t make up for my being dead
, she thought.

There was a crossroads ahead. Good. She’d ask him again which way to turn, then pretend she’d misheard his instructions, turn right instead of left, and get them somehow onto a road that would lead them back out of range.

She waited till they were nearly to the crossroads and then said, “Which road did you say I take?”

“We stay on this. In another mile it turns into Queen’s Road. Are you certain we haven’t met before?”

“Yes,” she said, only half listening. She peered ahead, looking for another crossroads. She wouldn’t ask this time, she’d simply turn off.

“You’re certain you haven’t driven me before?” he persisted. “Last spring?”

Absolutely certain
. She wished he’d stop talking so she could hear. She might be able to swerve—or stop—if she heard the V-1 soon enough, but the noise of a car engine sometimes masked the sound, and with him prattling on—

“Or last winter?”

“No, I’ve only been in Dulwich for six weeks,” she said, glancing at her watch: 12:53. She rolled down the window. She couldn’t hear anything yet. And she didn’t know where on Queen’s Road the V-1 would—

“Stop,” he ordered. “There’s a lorry ahead!” There was—a U.S. Army transport, apparently stopped. She nearly ran up the rear end of it, and as she braked, she saw it was the last in a line of lorries loaded with what looked like crates of ammunition.

Oh, no
, she thought, and then realized the lorries were her salvation. “It’s a convoy,” she said, backing the Daimler up. “We’ll never get through.” She began turning it around, wishing the road wasn’t so narrow.

“There’s no need to turn round,” Stephen said, leaning out to look ahead. “The front of the line’s beginning to move.”

“You said you were late,” she said briskly, then yanked on the wheel, completed the turn, and shot back the way they’d come.

“I’m not that late,” he said. “And it would be a blessing if I missed the entire thing. It’s one of those utterly pointless conferences on what should be done to stop these rocket attacks.” He had the map out and was poring over it. “If we turn right at the next opportunity, it will take us—”

Straight back toward that V-1
, she thought. “I know a shortcut,” she said, and turned left instead and then left again.

“I’m not certain this road …,” he said doubtfully, peering at the map.

“I’ve taken it before,” she lied. “Why is it pointless?” she asked, to prevent him from looking at the map. “Your conference. Or can’t you talk about it? Military secrets and all that?”

“It would be secret if there was anything to be done to stop them on this end which hasn’t been done already—anti-aircraft defenses, detection devices, barrage balloons, none of which has been at all effective, as you and your ambulance unit no doubt know.”

And none of which stopped the ones that are about to hit here
, she thought, driving as fast as she dared to get them out of the danger zone. The lanes were narrow and rutted, and there was no room to turn. If they ran into a car going the other way …

Behind them, she heard a muffled explosion. The 12:56 V-1. She waited for a second one, which would mean it had hit the convoy, but it didn’t come.

“As I was saying, none of our defenses is at all effective,” Stephen said calmly. “The only way to stop them is to prevent them from being launched in the first place.”