All Clear

NITE” in it, mailed it, and then walked out to the Park. He didn’t find Gerald, but on the way back he overheard a conversation between two Wrens. “Do you know anything about the new man in Hut Eight?” one asked.

“Yes,” the other Wren said disgustedly. “His name’s Phillips. He’s billeted in Stoke Hammond, and you can have him. He’s a dreadful stick.”

The “dreadful stick” part definitely sounded like Phipps, and Phillips would be a natural cover name for him. Mike took the bus to Stoke Hammond and spent the rest of the day and half of Wednesday pretending to look for a room there and asking, “You don’t happen to have a lodger named Phillips, do you?”

On the tenth try Wednesday, the landlady said, “No, a young man by that name came looking for a room, Monday it was. I sent him to Mursley.”

Mursley was six miles farther on. By the time Mike had caught the bus there, tried half a dozen places without success before he found a woman who said she remembered someone named Phillips and that she’d sent him over to Little Howard, and Mike had come back to Bletchley, it was nearly seven. He took off immediately for the train station to call Polly.

And ran straight into Dilly’s girls. “Hullo!” Elspeth said happily. “We’d been wondering what happened to you!”

“We’ve looked for you every day at the Park,” Joan said.

“This is the American we were telling you about, Wendy,” Mavis said to the fourth girl. “The one Turing nearly killed.”

“The handsome one,” Wendy—who looked none the worse for sleeping in the larder—said, batting her eyes at him. “I’ve been dying to meet you!”

“I saw him first,” Joan said.

“I picked him up after Turing ran him down,” Elspeth said, linking her arm possessively in his.

“Girls, girls, this is no time to be greedy,” Mavis said, taking his other arm. “In wartime we must share and share alike.” How the hell was he going to get away from them? He couldn’t even get a word in edgewise. “Did the billeting officer find you a place to stay?” Mavis asked him.

“Of course he hasn’t,” Wendy said bitterly. “I’ve been after him for weeks. There hasn’t been a vacancy anywhere for months.”

“We’ve been out looking for a room for Wendy,” Elspeth explained.

“Not only does she have to sleep among the bottled peaches,” Mavis said, “but now the billeting officer’s assigned her two roommates.”

“We heard a rumor there was a vacancy on Albion Street,” Wendy told him, “but when we got there it was already taken.” She sighed. “I should have known it was too good to be true.”

“And now you’ve got to come buy all of us a drink to cheer us up,” Joan said.

“I’d love to, but I can’t. I’m meeting someone—”

“I knew it,” Elspeth said morosely.

“Is she pretty?” Joan asked.

“Not a girl, an old friend,” Mike said.

“Well, then, Friday,” Mavis said.

“Friday,” he said, “and I promise I’ll let you know if I hear of any vacant rooms,” and was finally able to escape, but it was nearly eight. Please, please, let Polly still be there, he thought, hobbling to the station.

Eileen answered. “Have you found Gerald?” she asked eagerly, and there was a terrific crashing sound on her end.

“What was that?” Mike asked.

“An HE. We’re in the middle of a raid.”

Of course. Jesus, could their luck get any worse?

“Did you?” Eileen persisted. “Find Gerald?”

“Not yet. Is Polly there? Put her on.”

There was a loud whistle and another crash, and Polly came on the line. “What’s happened?” she asked.

“I ran into this guy I was in the hospital with. Tensing, his name is.”

“And he knows you’re an American, not an Englishman. Did he blow your cover?”

“No. I mean, I’d decided not to tell people I was an Englishman, after all, which was a good thing. Anyway, I’m pretty sure he works at Bletchley Park. I told him I was here to see a doctor about my foot, and he bought that. Anyway,” he said, shouting over the racket on Polly’s end—the anti-aircraft guns must have started up

—“he saw me in a pub, and we talked for a few minutes, and then he asked me if I was still interested in doing crossword puzzles.”

“In what? I can’t hear you. It’s rather noisy here.”

“Crossword puzzles!” he shouted. “I’d done them in the hospital, and I was pretending to work on one while I sat there looking for Phipps. He asked me if I was still interested in doing them, and when I said yes, he asked me how long I’d be in Bletchley, that he had to go to London for a few days but that he wanted to talk to me when he got back.”

“Did he say anything else? About the crossword puzzles?”

“Yeah, he said he remembered I was good at them and that most Americans weren’t able to solve English crosswords. Do you think they could already be looking for spy messages in crosswords, like the D-Day thing you told me about?”