Connie Willis - Blackout

I should have knocked on Mrs. Owens’s door and run and left them standing there, she thought, her teeth chattering. I could have been home by now.

“I gotta go to the loo again,” Alf said.

Think of the Wounded 

MIKE STARED AT SISTER GABRIEL. “I’M IN ORPINGTON?” he repeated stupidly. Orpington was just south of London. It was miles from Dover.

“Yes, you were brought here from Dover for surgery,” Sister Gabriel explained.

“When?”

“I’m not certain.” She picked up his chart to look.

“I am,” Fordham said. “It was the sixth of June.”

D-Day, Mike thought. Oh, God, it’s 1944. I’ve been here four years.

“I remember because it was only two days after I was admitted,” Fordham went on, “and the orderlies kept banging against my traction wires as they got you into bed.”

“Yes, the sixth,” Sister Gabriel said, looking at his chart, and it was obvious the date meant nothing to them. It wasn’t 1944, it was still 1940. Thank God. June sixth. That meant he’d been brought here a week after Dunkirk, so that by the time the retrieval team had talked to the Commander and then come to Dover looking for him, he’d have been long gone, and with no name to trace him by.

That’s why the retrieval team’s not here, he thought jubilantly, and then, I’ve got to let them know where I am. He grabbed the blankets to fling them off and get out of bed.

“I say, what do you think you’re doing?” Fordham said, startled, and Sister Gabriel rushed over to stop him.

“Oh, you mustn’t try to get out of bed,” she said, putting her hand on his chest. “You’re still far too weak.” She pulled the covers back up. “What is it? Have you remembered something about your coming here?”

“No, I… I didn’t realize I wasn’t in Dover.”

“It must be difficult, not being able to remember,” Sister Gabriel said sympathetically. “Could you have been in the RAF?”

Oh, no, had his L-and-A implant stopped working again?

“There are lots of American flyers in the RAF,” she went on. “You could have been shot down, and that’s why you were in the water.”

He shook his head, frowning. “It’s all so foggy.”

“Never mind. You’re in very good hands here.” She handed him his crossword puzzle and pencil. “And you’re much safer here than in Dover.”

No, I’m not, he thought. And I have to get word to them. But how? He couldn’t send a telegram to 2060. The only way to get a message to Oxford was via the drop, and if he could get there to send it, he wouldn’t need to send a message. He could go through himself.

He tried to think what the retrieval team would have done when they couldn’t find him in Dover. They’d have gone back to Saltram-on-Sea. It, and the Commander, would be their only lead. I have to get word of where I am to him so he can tell them. But how? The Commander obviously didn’t have a phone or he wouldn’t have had to use the one at the inn to call the Admiralty.

Maybe I could call the inn, he thought, and leave a message with the barmaid-what was her name? Dolores? Dierdre? He couldn’t just call and ask for the brunette with the trick of glancing flirtatiously over her shoulder, not with her father there. And besides, he didn’t trust her to remember to deliver the message. She hadn’t been able to remember that the Commander had a car, even when he’d been in desperate need of one.

Maybe he could send the Commander a telegram. But he had no idea how to go about it. And no money. And if he asked Fordham or one of the nurses if they could send one for him, they’d conclude he’d regained his memory and ask all kinds of inconvenient questions.

Maybe I can ask Mrs. Ives, he thought. She doesn’t know I’m supposed to have amnesia. Fordham goes down for X-rays this afternoon. I’ll ask her then.

But when she arrived, Fordham was still there. “Anything else you need?” Mrs. Ives asked cheerily after she’d given Mike his newspaper.

Yes, Mike thought, I need an attendant to come take Fordham. “Can you help me with this crossword clue?” he asked, picking one at random. “‘Mount where the PM goes on Sunday mornings.’ Nine letters. I can’t figure it out.”

“Oh, that’s Churchill,” she said.

“Churchill?”

“Yes, our new prime minister.”

And here, finally, was the attendant with the gurney. He and the nurse began unhooking Fordham from his pulleys. “But how is Churchill the name of a mount?” Mike asked to stall.

“A mount is a hill…”

“Careful,” Fordham said as they put him on the gurney. “Don’t-Christ!-sorry, Mrs. Ives.”

“I quite understand,” she said and returned to the puzzle. “And the place one goes on Sunday mornings is ‘church,’ and together they spell out Church-hill. Churchill.”

“So the clues are riddles?” Mike said.

Mrs. Ives nodded.

Fordham yelped in pain. “Sorry, just a momentary twinge. Go ahead, driver. To the photographer’s studio!” and was finally wheeled off toward the ward’s double doors.

“I need to get word to someone,” Mike said as soon as the gurney was out of earshot, “and I was wondering if you-”

“Could write a letter for you?” Mrs. Ives said. “I’d be delighted.” She began gathering stationery from her cart.

“No, I wanted to send a telegram-”

“Oh, dear, no. Telegrams are such horrid things, always bringing bad news, especially now with the war. You don’t want to frighten the poor person you’re sending it to. A letter’s much better.” She picked up a fountain pen. “I’ll be glad to post it for you.”

“But I need to get word to this person right away-”

“A letter will be nearly as quick as a telegram,” she said, sitting down beside the bed. “Now, to whom is it to be sent?”

“I can write it myself. I just need-”

“Oh, I don’t mind. It’s my way of doing my bit for the war effort. And you mustn’t tire yourself out. You must conserve your strength toward getting well.”

There wasn’t time to argue with her. Fordham might be back any minute. “It’s to Commander Harold,” he said.

She wrote, “Dear Commander Harold,” in a neat, spidery hand.

“I am in the War Emergency Hospital in Orpington,” Mike dictated. “I was brought here from Dover for surgery on my foot.” And now what? He needed to phrase it so it didn’t give away the fact that he’d been feigning his amnesia, or that he was a civilian. If they found that out and moved him to another hospital, it would defeat the whole point of writing.

Mrs. Ives was looking up at him expectantly.

“I’m too tired to write any more right now,” he said, rubbing his hand across his forehead. “Just leave it, and I’ll finish it later.”

“I’ll be glad to come back,” she said, folding the letter and sticking it in her pocket.

No, Fordham would be there then, listening. “Just put, ‘Please write,’” Mike told her. The important thing was to tell the Commander where he was, and hopefully he’d write back and tell him if anyone had been there, looking for him. “And sign it ‘Mike Davis.’”

She wrote that, folded the letter in thirds, put it in an envelope, licked the flap, tore a stamp off a sheet, licked that, and pressed it onto a corner of the envelope. And it was just as well she’d written the letter for him-he’d have had no idea how to get the envelope shut or the stamp on. She wrote Mike’s name and the hospital’s address in the left-hand corner and “Commander Harold” in the center. “What’s the Commander’s address?” she asked.

“I need you to find that out for me. He lives in a village called Saltram-on-Sea. It’s in Kent. Or possibly in Sussex.”

“The postmaster will know,” she said. “Saltram-on-Sea will get it to him.” She wrote “Saltram-on-Sea” and, under it, “England,” and stuck it in her uniform pocket. “I’ll post it when I leave tonight.”

I hope she knows what she’s doing, Mike thought. “How long do you think it will take to get there?”

“Oh, it should arrive with tomorrow’s morning post, though with the war, one never knows. It might not arrive till the afternoon post, but it will definitely be there by tomorrow,” she said, which meant it would get there Wednesday or, since it didn’t have the Commander’s address, possibly Thursday. That meant the retrieval team could be here by Friday. Which meant he’d better work on getting better, and fast, so that when they showed up, they’d be able to get him out of here without having to resort to stealing a stretcher and an ambulance. To that end, he forced himself to eat everything on his tray, and practice sitting up in bed for longer than five minutes at a stretch.

It was harder than he expected. He was still incredibly weak, and even trying to sit on the side of the bed left him drenched in sweat. “There’s still some lung involvement,” the doctor said, listening to his chest. “How’s the memory? Anything returning?”

“Bits and pieces,” Mike said cautiously. Had Mrs. Ives told him about the letter?

Apparently not, because the doctor said, “Don’t try to force it. Take it slowly. And that goes for you trying to get up. I don’t want you having a relapse.”

And when Sister Carmody came to take his temperature, she told him the doctor had scolded her for allowing him to sit up. “He says you’re not to get up till next week.”

By which time I’ll be back in Oxford, he thought, but by Friday, there was still no sign of them and no letter. “It must have been delayed,” Mrs. Ives said. “The war, you know. I’m certain it will come tomorrow,” but it wasn’t in the post Saturday morning, either. Obviously Mrs. Ives had been wrong, and “Saltram-on-Sea, England” hadn’t been enough of an address. He was going to have to send a second letter and make Mrs. Ives find out the county this time, but the first thing she said was, “Perhaps instead of writing you back, he’s planning to come see you on the weekend.”

That possibility hadn’t even occurred to Mike. Oh, God, the thought of the Commander roaring in and announcing to the nurses that he was an American reporter. I have to tell them my memory’s come back, Mike thought.

“When are visiting hours on the weekend, Mrs. Ives?” he asked her.

“From two o’clock to four both today and tomorrow.”

That meant he wouldn’t have time to have his memory come back in pieces. It would have to be all at once. I’ll have to say it was triggered by something, he thought, and, as soon as Mrs. Ives left, started through the Herald, looking for a story he could say had sparked the memory: “Airfield Bombed,” “Londoners Hold Gas Attack Drills,” “Invasion May Be Imminent.” But nothing at all about Dunkirk or Americans. He turned to the inside pages. An ad for John Lewis, funeral notices, wedding announcements: Lord James and Lady Emma Siston-Hughes announce the engagement of their daughter Jane-

Jane. Perfect. He pretended to read for a few minutes, then rang the bell excitedly. “What is it?” Fordham asked. “What’s wrong?”