All Clear

She turned to Fairchild. “Did you say there was a trunk call for me? I’d best go take it.” She started for the door. “It was nice seeing you again, Flight Officer Lang.”

“Wait, you can’t go yet,” Stephen said. “You still haven’t said you’ll go out to dinner with me. Bits, convince her I’m not a bounder.”

You are a bounder, Mary thought. You’re also an utter fool. Can’t you see the poor child’s in love with you?

You are a bounder, Mary thought. You’re also an utter fool. Can’t you see the poor child’s in love with you?

“Tell her what a nice chap I am,” he said to Fairchild. “That I’m entirely trustworthy and upstanding.”

“He is,” Fairchild said, looking as though she’d been cut to the heart. “Any girl would be lucky to get him.”

“There, you see? You have my little sister’s endorsement.”

“Oh, but the two of you must have tons of catching up to do,” Mary said desperately. “Childhood memories and all that. I’d only be in the way. You two go.”

“I can’t,” Fairchild said, managing somehow to keep her voice natural. “I must go fetch a shipment of medical supplies for the Major.” And Stephen at least had the decency to say, “Can’t you get one of the other girls to go in your place?”

“No. We’ll do it next time you come. You go, Kent.”

And if I do, Mary thought, watching her make her escape, she’ll never forgive me. She might not forgive her anyway, but Mary had no intention of making it worse than it already was. “I really must go take that call from HQ,” she said, “and if it’s about what I think it is, I won’t be able to go to dinner either.”

“Then tomorrow.”

“I’m on duty, and I told you, I don’t believe in wartime attachments. There must be scores of other girls dying to go out with you.”

“None I knew in a previous life. The day after tomorrow?”

“I can’t. I really must take that call.” She started for the door.

“No, wait,” he said and grabbed her hands. “I haven’t thanked you yet.”

“I told you, I didn’t save your life. Tottenham Court Road is a very long road, and—”

“No, not for that. This is about the V-1s.”

“The V-1s?”

“Yes. Do you remember how you managed to slip out of my grasp just as I was about to kiss you before Bits and Pieces came in?”

“About to kiss—”

“Yes, of course. That was the entire point of all that Babylon rot, don’t you know?” he said, grinning. “And just as I thought it was working, you eluded my grasp, more’s the pity.”

“I thought you were going to tell me about the V-1s.”

“I was. I am. You did the same thing that day you drove me. Twice. My line of attack was working splendidly, and then suddenly I found myself totally thrown off course, even though I’d never got near enough to lay a hand on you.”

“I still don’t know what this has to do with—”

“Don’t you see?” he said, squeezing her hands. “That was where I got the notion of throwing the V-1s off course. You’re the one who gave me the idea. If it hadn’t been for you, I’d have been blown up by now, trying to shoot them down.”

We are hanging on by our eyelids.

—GENERAL ALAN BROOKE

London—November 1940

AFTER POLLY FOUND OUT THAT THE REIGN OF TERROR had been over four years after the storming of the Bastille, she attempted to convince herself that there couldn’t possibly be that much slippage. The most on record for a non-divergence point had been three months and eight days. Someone had had six months’ slippage, and Mr. Dunworthy had overreacted and canceled everyone’s drops, that was all. And the fact that he hadn’t canceled hers proved it.

But the fear still nagged at her, so much so that she redoubled her efforts to find a way out. She put a new set of ads in the papers and went to Charing Cross to see if there was any spot in the sprawling station where Mr. Dunworthy could have come through on his earlier journeys. There wasn’t. Even the emergency staircase was filled with amorous couples. His drop had to have been somewhere else.

There was no sign of a younger Mr. Dunworthy either, though she wasn’t certain she’d recognize him if she saw him. The first few times he’d gone to the past, he’d been scarcely older than Colin. She tried to imagine him Colin’s age—lanky, eager, taking the escalator steps two at a time—but she couldn’t manage it, any more than she could imagine Mr. Dunworthy sending them knowingly into danger. Or not coming to get them if he could.

She wondered suddenly if it was not just an increase in slippage that was keeping him from pulling them out, but the fact that he was already here on a previous assignment and couldn’t come through till after his younger self had returned to Oxford. Which would be when?

Mike didn’t phone again on Tuesday or Wednesday, or write, which Eileen was convinced was a good sign. “It means he’s found Gerald, and they’re on their way to check his drop,” she said. “You mustn’t worry so. Just when things are in a complete mess, and you can’t see how they can possibly work out, that’s when help arrives.”