Blackout by Connie Willis Read Free Book Online

“Our house has been quiet as a tomb without them.” At the phrase “quiet as a tomb,” Lady Caroline looked pained. She must have heard the children.
    “And now that Hitler’s coming to his senses and realizing Europe won’t stand for his nonsense,” Mr. Magruder said, “there’s no reason not to have them with us. Not that we don’t appreciate all you’ve done for them, your ladyship, taking them in and loving them like your own.”
    “I was more than glad to do it,” Lady Caroline said. “Ellen, go pack Peggy’s and… the other children’s things and bring them here to the drawing room.”
    “Yes, ma’am,” Eileen said, curtseying, and walked quickly along thecorridor to the ballroom. If she could find Una, she could have her get the Magruder children’s things ready while she went to the drop.
Please let her still be in the ballroom
.
    She was, still holding the damp wad of sheets. “Una, pack the Magruders’ things,” she said. “I’m going out to fetch the children,” and fled, but when she ran outside, the vicar was standing there, next to Lady Caroline’s Bentley.
    “Vicar, I’m sorry, but I can’t have my lesson now,” she said. “The Magruders are here to fetch Peggy and Ewan and—”
    “I know,” he said. “I’ve already spoken to Mrs. Bascombe and arranged for you to have your lesson tomorrow.”
    I love you
, she thought.
    “Una will have hers today.”
    Oh, you poor man
, but at least she was free to go. “Thank you, Vicar,” she said fervently, and walked quickly across the lawn in the misty drizzle toward the stables, then ducked behind the hothouse and ran out to the road and set off along it, hurrying so she wouldn’t be overtaken by Una and the vicar in the Bentley.
    Before she’d gone a quarter of a mile, it began to rain harder, but that was actually a good thing. Even the inquisitive Hodbins wouldn’t try to track her down in this downpour. She turned off into the woods and hurried along the muddy path to the ash tree.
    Please don’t let me have just missed it opening
, she thought. The drop only opened once an hour, and in another hour it would be dark. The drop was far enough into the woods that its shimmer couldn’t be seen from the road, but with the blackout, any light was suspect, and the Home Guard, for lack of anything better to do, sometimes patrolled the woods, looking for German parachutists. If they or the Hodbins—
    She caught a flicker of movement out of the corner of her eye. She turned quickly, straining to catch a glimpse of Alf’s cap or Binnie’s hair ribbon. “What are you doing here?” a man’s voice said from behind her, and she nearly jumped out of her skin. She whirled around. There was a faint shimmer next to the ash tree. Through it she could see the net and Badri at the console. “You’re not supposed to go through till the tenth,” he was saying. “Weren’t you notified that your drop had been rescheduled?”
    “That’s why I’m here,” another man’s voice said angrily as the shimmer grew brighter. “I demand to know why it’s been postponed. I—”
    “This will have to wait,” Badri said. “I’m in the middle of a retrieval—”
    Eileen walked through the shimmer and into the lab.

At the time, we didn’t know that it was a vital battle…. We didn’t know we were quite so close to defeat, either
.
    —SQUADRON LEADER JAMES H. “GINGER” LACEY, ON THE BATTLE OF BRITAIN

Oxford—April 2060
    “THEY’RE SENDING YOU TO DUNKIRK?” CHARLES ASKED when Michael got off the phone. “What happened to Pearl Harbor?”
    “That’s what I’d like to know,” Michael said. He stormed over to the lab to confront Badri.
    Linna met him at the door. “He’s preparing to send someone through. Can I be of help?”
    “Yes. You can tell me why the hell you changed the order of my drops! I can’t go to the Dunkirk evacuation with an American accent. I’m supposed to be a reporter for the
London Daily Herald
.