Blackout (Oxford Time Travel) by Connie Willis

Author:Connie Willis [Willis, Connie]
Language: eng
Format: azw3, mobi
ISBN: 9780345519641
Publisher: Random House, Inc.
Published: 2010-01-28T05:00:00+00:00

Wars are not won by evacuations.

—WINSTON CHURCHILL, AFTER DUNKIRK

Dunkirk, France—29 May 1940

MIKE MUST HAVE BEEN KNOCKED UNCONSCIOUS BY THE bomb’s concussion, because when he came to, the light from the flares had faded, and he was trussed up in a rope and being hauled up the side of the Lady Jane. “Are you all right?” Jonathan asked anxiously.

“Yes,” he said, though he seemed to have trouble hanging on to the railing as Jonathan and one of the soldiers helped him over the side, their hands under his arms.

“Hypothermia,” Mike explained, and then remembered he was in 1940. “It’s the cold. Can I have a blanket?”

Jonathan ran off to get one while the soldier helped him over to a locker—he seemed to be having trouble walking, too—so he could sit down. “Are you certain you’re not hurt?” the soldier asked, peering at him in the darkness. “That bomb looked like it fell bang on top of you.”

“I’m fine,” Mike said, sinking down onto the wooden locker. “Go tell the Commander I cleared the propeller. Tell him to start the engine.” Then he must have blacked out again for a few minutes because Jonathan already had the blanket around him and the engine had started up, though they weren’t moving yet.

“We thought you were a goner,” Jonathan said. “It took ages to find you. And when we did, you were floating face-down with your arms out, just like that body we saw. We thought—”

He looked up, and so did Mike. The sky overhead blossomed with flares, shedding greenish-white sparks as they fell.

“For what we are about to receive…” one of the soldiers muttered.

“We’ve got to get out of here!” Mike said, getting up to go help the Commander guide the boat out of the harbor and then sitting shakily back down. “Go navigate! We’ve got to get out of here before they come back.”

“I think we’re too late,” Jonathan said, and Mike looked frightenedly up at the sky, but Jonathan was pointing out across the water. “They’ve seen us.”

“Who?” Mike staggered over to the railing and looked at the mole, where soldiers were running toward them, wading, swimming out to the Lady Jane through the green-lit water. Hundreds of them, thousands of them. Because I blacked out and they had to waste time rescuing me, Mike thought. “Go tell your grandfather to cast off,” he shouted. “Now!”

“And just leave them?” Jonathan asked, his eyes wide.

“Yes. We don’t have any other choice. They’ll swamp the boat. Go!” Mike shouted and gave him a push, then staggered back to the stern, hanging on to the rail for support, to pull up the rope they’d let down to him.

But it was too late. The soldiers were already climbing up it hand over hand, grabbing for the sides, clambering over the rail. “You’ll swamp her!” Mike shouted, trying to untie the rope, but they weren’t listening to him, they were swarming aboard like pirates, scrambling over each other, jumping down onto the deck.

“Move to the other side!” Mike shouted, clinging to the rail.

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