All Clear by Connie Willis Read Free Book Online

brushing dirt off the front of her uniform.
    “You’re bleeding,” the GI said.
    Mary looked at Talbot in horror. There was blood on her blouse, blood trickling down her mouth and her chin. “Oh, my God, Talbot!” she cried, and she and the Gl began fumbling for a handkerchief.
    “What are you talking about?” Talbot said. “I’m not bleeding.”
    “Your mouth,” the GI said, and Talbot felt it cautiously and then looked at her fingers.
    “That’s not blood,” she said, “it’s lipstick—oh, my God, my lipstick!” She began looking frantically around for it. “I only just got it. It’s Crimson Caress.” She started to stand up. “Kent knocked it out of my hand when she—
Oh!
Ow!” She collapsed back onto the curb.
    “You
are
hurt!” the GI said, hurrying over.
    “Oh, Talbot, I’m so sorry,” Mary said. “I thought it was a V-1. The newspapers said they sounded like a motorcycle. Is it your knee?”
    “Yes, but it’s nothing,” Talbot said, putting her arm around the GI’s neck. “It twisted under me as I went down. It’ll be fine in a moment—Ow! Ow! Ow!”
    “You’re not fine,” the GI said. He turned to Mary. “I don’t think she can walk. Or ride a motorcycle. Have you got a car?”
    “No. We came up here from Dulwich by bus.”
    “I’m all right,” Talbot said. “Kent can give me a hand.”
    But even supported by both of them, she couldn’t put any weight at all on the knee. “She’s torn a ligament,” the GI said, easing her back down to sitting on the curb. “You’re going to have to send for an ambulance.”
    “That’s ridiculous!” Talbot protested. “
We’re
the ambulance crew!”
    But he was already mounting his motorcycle to go find a telephone. Mary gave him the exchange and number of Bethnal Green’s post. “No, not Bethnal Green,” Talbot protested. “If the other units find out, we’ll be laughingstocks. Tell him to ring Dulwich, Kent.”
    She did, but when the ambulance arrived a few minutes later, it was from Brixton. “Both of yours were out at incidents,” the driver said. “Jerry’s sending them over fast and furious today.”
    Not over us
, Mary thought ruefully.
    Brixton’s crew took the news that she had mistaken a motorcycle for a V-1 in stride, but when she and Talbot got back to Dulwich, there was a good deal of merriment. “The newspapers
said
they sound like a motorcycle,” Mary said defensively.
    “Yes, well, the newspapers said they sound like a washing machine, too,” Maitland said. “I suppose we’d best be careful when we do our laundry, girls.”
    Parrish nodded. “I don’t want to run the risk of being flung down while hanging up my knickers.”
    “It was a very old De Havilland,” Talbot said in her defense, “and it did sputter and then die rather like a flying bomb.” But that only made it worse. The girls began calling her De Havilland and Triumph and any other motorcycle name that was handy, and whenever a door slammed or a pot boiled over, someone shouted, “Oh, no, it’s a flying bomb!” and attempted to tackle her from behind.
    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