Jack
by Connie Willis
The night Jack joined our post, Vi was late. So was the Luftwaffe. The sirens still hadn’t gone by eight o’clock.
“Perhaps our Violet’s tired of the RAF and begun on the aircraft spotters,” Morris said, “and they’re so taken by her charms they’ve forgotten to wind the sirens.”
“You’d best watch out then,” Swales said, taking off his tin warden’s hat. He’d just come back from patrol. We made room for him at the linoleum-covered table, moving our teacups and the litter of gas masks and pocket torches. Twickenham shuffled his paper into one pile next to his typewriter and went on typing.
Swales sat down and poured himself a cup of tea. “She’ll set her cap for the ARP next,” he said, reaching for the milk. Morris pushed it towards him. “And none of us will be safe.” He grinned at me. “Especially the young ones, Jack.”
“I’m safe,” I said. “I’m being called up soon. Twickenham’s the one who should be worrying.”
Twickenham looked up from his typing at the sound of his name. “Worrying about what?” he asked, his hands poised over the keyboard.
“Our Violet setting her cap for you,” Swales said. “Girls always go for poets.”
“I’m a journalist, not a poet. What about Renfrew?” He nodded his head towards the cots in the other room.
“Renfrew!” Swales boomed, pushing his chair back and starting into the room.
“Shh,” I said. “Don’t wake him. He hasn’t slept all week.”
“You’re right. It wouldn’t be fair in his weakened condition.” He sat back down. “And Morris is married. What about your son, Morris? He’s a pilot, isn’t he? Stationed in London?”
Morris shook his head. “Quincy’s up at North Weald.”
“Lucky, that,” Swales said. “Looks as if that leaves you, Twickenham.”
“Sorry,” Twickenham said, typing. “She’s not my type.”
“She’s not anyone’s type, is she?” Swales said.
“The RAF’s,” Morris said, and we all fell silent, thinking of Vi and her bewildering popularity with the RAF pilots in and around London. She had pale eyelashes and colourless brown hair she put up in flat little pincurls while she was on duty, which was against regulations, though Mrs Lucy didn’t say anything to her about them. Vi was dumpy and rather stupid, and yet she was out constantly with one pilot after another, going to dances and parties.
“I still say she makes it all up,” Swales said. “She buys all those things she says they give her herself, all those oranges and chocolate. She buys them on the black market.”
“On a full-time’s salary?” I said. We only made two pounds a week, and the things she brought home to the post—sweets and sherry and cigarettes — couldn’t be bought on that. Vi shared them round freely, though liquor and cigarettes were against regulations as well. Mrs Lucy didn’t say anything about them either.
She never reprimanded her wardens about anything, except being malicious about Vi, and we never gossiped in her presence. I wondered where she was. I hadn’t seen her since I came in.
“Where’s Mrs Lucy?” I asked. “She’s not late as well, is she?”
Morris nodded towards the pantry door. “She’s in her office. Olmwood’s replacement is here. She’s filling him in.”
Olmwood had been our best part-timer, a huge out-of-work collier who could lift a house beam by himself, which was why Nelson, using his authority as district warden, had had him transferred to his own post.
“I hope the new man’s not any good,” Swales said. “Or Nelson will steal him.”
“I saw Olmwood yesterday,” Morris said. “He looked like Renfrew, only worse. He told me Nelson keeps them out the whole night patrolling and looking for incendiaries.”
There was no point in that. You couldn’t see where the incendiaries were falling from the street, and if there was an incident, nobody was anywhere to be found. Mrs Lucy had assigned patrols at the beginning of the Blitz, but within a week she’d stopped them at midnight so we could get some sleep. Mrs Lucy said she saw no point in our getting killed when everyone was already in bed anyway.
“Olmwood says Nelson makes them wear their gas masks the entire time they’re on duty and holds stirrup-pump drills twice a shift,” Morris said.
“Stirrup-pump drills!” Swales exploded. “How difficult does he think it is to learn to use one? Nelson’s not getting me on his post, I don’t care if Churchill himself signs the transfer papers.”
The pantry door opened. Mrs Lucy poked her head out. “It’s half past eight. The spotter’d better go upstairs even if the sirens haven’t gone,” she said. “Who’s on duty tonight?”
“Vi,” I said, “but she hasn’t come in yet.”
“Oh, dear,” she said. “Perhaps someone had better go look for her.”
“I’ll go,” I said, and started pulling on my boots.
“Thank you, Jack,” she said. She shut the door.
I stood up and tucked my pocket torch into my belt. I picked up my gas mask and slung it over my arm in case I ran into Nelson. The regulations said they were to be worn while patrolling, but Mrs Lucy had realized early on that you couldn’t see anything with them on. Which is why, I thought, she has the best post in the district, including Admiral Nelson’s.
Mrs Lucy opened the door again and leaned out for a moment. “She usually comes by underground. Sloarie Square,” she said. “Take care.”
“Right,” Swales said. “Vi might be lurking outside in the dark, waiting to pounce!” He grabbed Twickenham round the neck and hugged him to his chest.
“I’ll be careful,” I said and went up the basement stairs and out on to the street.
I went the way Vi usually came from Sloane Square Station, but there was no one in the blacked-out streets except a girl hurrying to the underground station, carrying a blanket, a pillow, and a dress on a hanger.
I walked the rest of the way to the tube station with her to make sure she found her way, though it wasn’t that dark. The nearly full moon was up, and there was a fire still burning down by the docks from the raid of the night before.
“Thanks awfully,” the girl said, switching the hanger to her other hand so she could shake hands with me. She was much nicer-looking than Vi, with blonde, very curly hair. “I work for this old stewpot at John Lewis’s, and she won’t let me leave even a minute before closing, will she, even if the sirens have gone.”
I waited outside the station for a few minutes and then walked up to the Brompton Road, thinking Vi might have come in at South Kensington instead, but I didn’t see her, and she still wasn’t at the post when I got back.
“We’ve a new theory for why the sirens haven’t gone,” Swales said. “We’ve decided our Vi’s set her cap at the Luftwaffe, and they’ve surrendered.”
“Where’s Mrs Lucy?” I asked.
“Still in with the new man,” Twickenham said.
“I’d better tell Mrs Lucy I couldn’t find her,” I said and started for the pantry.
Halfway there the door opened, and Mrs Lucy and the new man came out. He was scarcely a replacement for the burly Olmwood. He was not much older than I was, slightly built, hardly the sort to lift house beams. His face was thin and rather pale, and I wondered if he was a student.
“This is our new part-timer, Mr Settle,” Mrs Lucy said. She pointed to each of us in turn. “Mr Morris, Mr Twickenham, Mr Swales, Mr Harker.” She smiled at the part-timer and then at me. “Mr Harker’s name is Jack, too,” she said. “I shall have to work at keeping you straight.”
“A pair of jacks,” Swales said. “Not a bad hand.”
The part-timer smiled.
“Cots are in there if you’d like to have a lie-down,” Mrs Lucy said, “and if the raids are close, the coal cellar’s reinforced. I’m afraid the rest of the basement isn’t, but I’m attempting to rectify that.” She waved the papers in her hand. “I’ve applied to the district warden for reinforcing beams. Gas masks are in there,” she said, pointing at a wooden chest, “batteries for the torches are in here” — she pulled a drawer open—“and the duty roster’s posted on this wall.” She pointed at the neat columns. “Patrols here and watches here. As you can see, Miss Western has the first watch for tonight.”