All Clear

“None other,” Cess said. “He looked straight at me, and I could tell he was trying to place me, and I was afraid he was about to remember he’d seen me at the reception and shout out ‘Holt!’ in that carrying voice of his. But luckily his aide came up just then and dragged him off, and I was able to get away with the colonel none the wiser.”

“And Patton didn’t see you with him?”

“No, and I’m fairly certain he didn’t remember where he’d seen me. But the sooner we’re out of here, the safer I’ll feel,” he said.

“My sentiments exactly.” Ernest started the car and pulled away from the curb.

“Besides, I’m starving,” Cess said. “Turn right. I know a little place on Lampden Road that has—Where are you going? That’s the wrong way.”

“I know,” Ernest said, racing down Gloucester Road. “I just thought of something. If we hurry, we can make it to Croydon before the Call closes, and I can turn in my pieces.”

“Croydon?” Cess yelped. “That’s miles, and I’m starved!”

“There’s a good pub there. Excellent shepherd’s pie,” he said, even though he’d never set foot in the place. “And a very pretty barmaid.” And a phone booth down the street from the Call which I can call Atherton from while you’re in the pub.

“I thought you said the Call’s deadline was at four.”

“It is, but the editor’s sometimes there late, and if he hasn’t finished setting the type, I may be able to persuade him to put my articles in.”

He shot along Cromwell Road and turned onto the road south.

“What about Lady Bracknell?” Cess asked. “We were to report in.”

“We can do it from Croydon. After we eat. If we phone him now, he’ll tell us to come straight home, and then you’ll really be starving.”

“All right,” Cess said, “but if he loses his temper, you have to tell him this was your idea.”

“I will. Thanks. It’s important I not miss this deadline.”

Cess nodded, and then, after a minute, said, “Do you really think the German High Command reads the Croydon Fish and Chips Wrapper or whatever it is?”

“The Clarion Call,” he said. “I don’t know. But we don’t know that they’re listening to our wireless messages either, or taking aerial photos of our cardboard camps and rubber tanks. Or that Colonel von Sprecht actually bought our little charade. Or, even if he did, that he’ll tell the German High Command. Or that they’ll believe him.”

Cess nodded. “The poor devil might not even live long enough to make it to Berlin.” He sighed. “That’s the hell of doing this sort of thing. We never know whether anything we’ve done has had any effect at all.”

And perhaps we’re better off not knowing, Ernest thought, speeding through Fulham.

“Will we find out after the war, do you think?” Cess asked. “Whether it worked or not?”

“If it didn’t work, we won’t have to wait that long. We’ll know next month. If the entire German Army’s waiting for us in Normandy, then it didn’t.”

“True,” Cess said, and after a minute added, “History will sort it all out, I suppose. Will we make it into the history books, do you think? Von Sprecht and our encounter with that bull and all your letters to the editor of the Bumpkin Weekly Banner?”

If I can’t get through to Atherton, those letters to the editor had better, Ernest thought, driving into Croydon. He turned off the high street at the cinema so Cess wouldn’t spot the phone booth and drove past the Call’s office.

Mr. Jeppers’s bicycle stood outside it. Ernest had been lying to Cess about being able to make it to Croydon before the Call closed. He hadn’t expected the office to be open this late, but the printing press must have jammed again. Which meant he really might be able to get his articles in this week’s paper.

“I’ll drop you at the pub,” he told Cess, stopping in front of it, “and I’ll go deliver my articles. It may take some time. Mr. Jeppers likes to talk. Order for me,” he said, and drove back to the phone booth.

The operator put him through immediately, and the same young woman answered. “This is Lieutenant Davies,” Ernest said. “General Dunworthy’s aide. I telephoned earlier this afternoon, but we were cut off.”

“Oh, yes,” she said.

“I need to speak with Major Atherton.”

“Oh, dear, he came back, but he’s gone out again.”

Damn.

“Is it a medical emergency? This is his nurse. If it’s an emergency, I can try to contact Dr. Atherton.”

Dr. Atherton. He was a doctor. Which meant he wasn’t Denys. Historians posed as lots of things, but there were no subliminals for medicine. Even Polly’s driving an ambulance had been unusual, and all she’d had was emergency first-aid training. Which she’d done here. There was no way Atherton could have got a medical degree here since February.

“Sir?” she said. “Are you still there?”

“Yes. I think I may have the wrong Major Atherton. I’m trying to contact Major Denys Atherton.”

“Yes. I think I may have the wrong Major Atherton. I’m trying to contact Major Denys Atherton.”

“Yes, sir. That’s Major Atherton’s name.”

“Tall man, dark curly hair, mid-twenties?”