Originally published in hardcover in the United States by Spectra, an imprint of The Random House Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., in 2010.

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA

Willis, Connie.
All clear / Connie Willis.
p. cm.
eISBN: 978-0-345-52269-6
1. Time travel—Fiction. 2. Historians—Fiction.
3. World War, 1939–1945—England—Fiction. I. Title.
PS3573.I45652A79 2010
813′.54—dc22 2010030197

www.ballantinebooks.com

Cover design: FaceOut Studio, Charles Brock,
based on photographs © Trinity Mirror/Mirrorpix/Alamy (St. Paul’s Cathedral) and © Hulton Archive/Getty Images (spectators)

v3.1_r1

You will make all kinds of mistakes; but as long as you are generous and true, and also fierce, you cannot hurt the world or even seriously distress her.

—WINSTON CHURCHILL

Contents

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Epigraph

London—26 October 1940

London—7 May 1945

London—26 October 1940

Bethnal Green—June 1944

London—26 October 1940

Kent—April 1944

London—27 October 1940

London—November 1940

Kent—April 1944

Golders Green—July 1944

London—November 1940

Kent—April 1944

London—November 1940

London—November 1940

Oxford—April 2060

Bletchley—November 1940

Dulwich—Summer 1944

London—November 1940

Bletchley—December 1940

Dulwich—Summer 1944

London—December 1940

Oxford—April 2060

London—December 1940

Saltram-on-Sea—December 1940

London—December 1940

London—December 1940

London—29 December 1940

St. Paul’s Cathedral—29 December 1940

St. Paul’s Cathedral—29 December 1940

Ludgate Hill—29 December 1940

Blackfriars Tube Station—29 December 1940

St. Paul’s Cathedral—29 December 1940

The City—29 December 1940

St. Bartholomew’s Hospital—30 December 1940

St. Paul’s Cathedral—30 December 1940

Croydon—October 1944

London—Winter 1941

London—Winter 1941

Croydon—October 1944

London—Winter 1941

London—7 May 1945

London—Winter 1941

London—Winter 1941

London—Winter 1941

London—Winter 1941

Kent—April 1944

Imperial War Museum, London—7 May 1995

Dover—April 1944

Imperial War Museum, London—7 May 1995

Wales—May 1944

London—Spring 1941

London—May 1944

London—Spring 1941

Imperial War Museum, London—7 May 1995

Kent—June 1944

Imperial War Museum, London—7 May 1995

Kent—October 1944

London—Spring 1941

Croydon—October 1944

London—Spring 1941

London—Spring 1941

London—Spring 1941

Imperial War Museum, London—7 May 1995

London—19 April 1941

London—19 April 1941

Imperial War Museum, London—7 May 1995

London—7 May 1945

London—19 April 1941

Dedication

Acknowledgments

Other Books by This Author

About the Author

Well, he hasn’t come yet, sir, he’s more than a bit late tonight.

—LONDON PORTER TO ERNIE PYLE, REFERRING
TO THE GERMAN BOMBERS

London—26 October 1940

BY NOON MICHAEL AND MEROPE STILL HADN’T RETURNED from Stepney, and Polly was beginning to get really worried. Stepney was less than an hour away by train. There was no way it could take Merope and Michael—correction, Eileen and Mike; she had to remember to call them by their cover names—no way it could take them six hours to go fetch Eileen’s belongings from Mrs. Willett’s and come back to Oxford Street. What if there’d been a raid and something had happened to them? The East End was the most dangerous part of London.

There weren’t any daytime raids on the twenty-sixth, she thought. But there weren’t supposed to have been five fatalities at Padgett’s either. If Mike was right, and he had altered events by saving the soldier Hardy at Dunkirk, anything was possible. The space-time continuum was a chaotic system, in which even a minuscule action could have an enormous effect.