Free Blackout by Connie Willis Page A

at the manor when I first arrived wanted to marry me, and he was only three.”
    “Oh, dear, do you truly think—?” Polly looked back up the street. “Perhaps I’d better not ask him to help me with any more research.”
    “No, that would be cruel. He’s trying to please and impress you. I think you should let him. You’re only going to be here—how long?”
    “Two weeks, if the lab can find me a drop site. I expected them to have found one by the time I got back, but they still haven’t.”
    “But they’ll find you one eventually, and then you’ll go to the Blitz—is this one real-time or flash-time?”
    “Real-time.”
    “And you’ll be gone how long?”
    “Six weeks.”
    “Which is an eternity for a seventeen-year-old. By the time you come back, he’ll have fallen in love with someone his own age and forgotten all about you.”
    “I don’t know, I was gone nearly that long last time…” she said thoughtfully. “And just because someone’s young, it doesn’t mean their attachment’s not serious. On my last assignment—” She bit off whatever she had been going to say and said brightly, “I think it’s much more likely he’s trying to impress me with his research skills so that I’ll help him convince Mr. Dunworthy to let him go to the Crusades.”
    “The
Crusades?
That’s even more dangerous than the Blitz, isn’t it?”
    “Far
more dangerous, particularly when one knows where and when all the Blitz’s bombs will be falling, which I will. And it’s less dangerous than—Sorry, I’ve been doing all the talking. I want to hear about your assignment.”
    “There’s nothing much to tell. It’s mostly washing up and dealing with children and irate farmers. I’d hoped I might meet the actor Michael Caine—he was evacuated when he was six—but I haven’t, and—I just thought of something. You might meet Agatha Christie. She was in London during the Blitz.”
    “Agatha Christie?”
    “The twentieth-century mystery novelist. She wrote these marvelous books about murders involving spinsters and clergymen and retired colonels. I used them for my prep—they’re full of details about servants and manor houses. And during the war she worked in hospital, and you’re going to be an ambulance driver. She—”
    “I’m not going to be an ambulance driver. I’m going to be something far more dangerous—a shopgirl in an Oxford Street department store.”
    “That’s more dangerous than driving an ambulance?”
    “Definitely. Oxford Street was bombed five times, and more than half its department stores were at least partly damaged.”
    “You’re not going to work in one of those, are you?”
    “No, of course not. Mr. Dunworthy won’t even allow me to work in Peter Robinson, though it wasn’t hit till the end of the Blitz. I can understand why he wouldn’t let me.…”
    Eileen nodded absently, listening to the bells of Christ Church tolling the hours. Four o’clock. They’d stood there talking to Colin longer than she’d thought. Perhaps instead of going with Polly, she should go to Oriel and find out when Transport closed.
    “… John Lewis and Company…” Polly was saying.
    Or she could ask Polly to ask Mr. Dunworthy to ring Props and approve the lessons over the phone for her.
    “… Padgett’s or Selfridges…”
    I could go to Props
, Eileen thought,
pick up the authorization form, go to Oriel, and have Polly meet me there
.
    “But I daren’t dare push too hard,” Polly said, “or he may cancel it altogether. He’s thought this entire assignment was too dangerous from the beginning, and when he finds out—” She stopped, frowning again.
    “Finds out what?” Eileen asked.
    Polly paused. “How many tube stations were hit,” she said finally, and Eileen had the feeling that hadn’t been what she’d intended to say. “I’m going to be spending my nights sleeping in the Underground stations.”
    “The Underground stations?”
    “Yes, there weren’t