All Clear

“I suppose you’re right,” Cess agreed. “The moment you think you’re in the clear is when something disastrous always happens.”

He was right. They were no sooner back in the car than the cloud cover began to break up and patches of blue began to show. Ernest jammed his foot down on the accelerator, praying it would be cloudier near the coast.

It was. By the time they reached Portsmouth, wisps of fog were beginning to drift across the road.

I hope it doesn’t get too foggy, Ernest thought. We won’t be able to see the ships, but they were clearly visible, troop transports and destroyers and battleships riding at anchor as far out as they could see. The fog actually helped, obscuring the surrounding coast so that when Cess asked, “Which way are the white cliffs of Dover?”

he was able to point confidently off toward an invisible shore and say, “Over there.”

Cess sang, “There’ll be bluebirds over the white cliffs of Dover,” and then said, “How long do you think it’ll be before the”—he glanced back at the colonel, who promptly closed his eyes, and dropped his voice—“before … you know?”

“Not before mid-July at the earliest,” Ernest said. The fog looked like it was beginning to thin. He started inland from the docks before the colonel could see there weren’t any cliffs, white or otherwise. “One can’t count on good weather before that. And the American troops haven’t all arrived.”

Cess said, “My brother—he’s in the Second Corps in Essex—says it’ll be August, but he says they”—another surreptitious glance at the “sleeping” colonel—“may launch an attack somewhere before that to fool the Germans. Turn here.” He consulted the map. “And then at the next street, right again, and that will be the road to Kingston.” And they were safely out of Portsmouth and on the road to London.

“I don’t care what you say about not getting overconfident,” Cess said jubilantly when they stopped at the border of the staging area to show their papers. “I say we’ve pulled it off.”

Yes, Ernest thought, and so have I. In spite of impossible odds and obstacles, he’d found out where Atherton was, and with over a month to spare. And even if he couldn’t get to him in that time, he could phone him and tell him where Polly and Eileen were.

I need to do it as soon as possible, though, he thought, driving through Haslemere, in case his drop’s somewhere outside the staging area or is on a once-a-week schedule like Eileen’s was. But how? He couldn’t phone him from the post. If Cess or Prism saw him making unauthorized calls …

I’ll have to get to a phone somehow, he thought. I’ll tell Cess it’s too late to deliver my write-ups to Mr. Jeppers tonight, that the Call’s office will be shut, and find a way to take them over alone tomorrow.

But that’ll mean my messages won’t get in till at least week after next, he thought, and realized it no longer mattered.

You don’t need to send any more messages, he thought jubilantly. You’ve found Atherton! All you’ve got to do is get to London without von Sprecht realizing he’s been duped and hand him over to the War Ministry.

And even that proved simple. The colonel’s feigned slumber turned into the real thing, and Ernest took advantage of his sleeping and Cess’s—he’d fallen asleep against the door, his mouth open—to speed through Kingston and Guildford and across the southern edge of London so they could approach the city the way they would have if they’d really been coming from Dover. That way they wouldn’t have to worry about a glimpse of St. Paul’s in the wrong spot ruining the entire illusion.

They were both still asleep when he turned north onto the Old Kent Road. Home free, he thought. Now all we have to do is deliver the colonel to the authorities and—

Cess woke up. “Where are we?” he asked sleepily, and then said, “I think I hear a knock in the engine.”

Oh, God, what now? He glanced back at the colonel, but he was still asleep, and Ernest could see his chest moving, so he hadn’t died.

“There’s a garage ahead,” Cess said, pointing.

Ernest pulled in to it and stopped the car, and they both got out. “What’s wrong?” he whispered as soon as he had the hood up.

“Nothing. I need to look at the map. Where are we?”

“On the Old Kent Road. What do you need the map for? This’ll take us straight to Whitehall and the War Ministry.”

“We’re not taking him to the War Ministry,” Cess said. “They’re having a state dinner for him. With General Patton. To put the finishing touches on.” And after a minute he added, “Oh, good, we can take the same route in as I do when I deliver my press releases. Look”—Cess showed Ernest the map—“we take this to the Holborn Viaduct and then the Bayswater Road to Kensington—”

Kensington? Jesus. “Where’s this dinner being held?”

“Kensington Palace. It’s at the western end of Kensington Gardens. Just before Notting Hill Gate.”

Just waiting, waiting, waiting till your number came up …

—WAR CORRESPONDENT IN A

HOLDING CAMP BEFORE D-DAY

London—Spring 1941