would go again in another—she glanced at her watch—six minutes.
It did. “Oh, for goodness’ sake,” Fairchild said, exasperated. “What are they on about now?”
“It’s a Nazi plot to deprive us of our sleep,” Sutcliffe-Hythe said, flinging back her bedclothes, and there was a crump to the southeast. Croydon, Mary thought happily, and right on time.
So was the next one, and the next, though none of them were close enough for her to be able to hear their engines. She wished again that she’d listened to a recording of one. She needed to be able to recognize the sound if she heard one coming when she was in Bomb Alley, but at least she knew what the explosions were. None of the other FANYs seemed to grasp the situation at all, even when Maitland and Reed returned from their incident with tales of flattened houses and widespread destruction. “The pilot must have crashed with all his bombs still onboard,” Reed said, even though they’d heard four other explosions by then.
“Was it one of ours or theirs?” Sutcliffe-Hythe asked.
“There wasn’t enough left of it to tell,” Maitland said, “but it must have been a German plane. If it was one of our boys coming back, they’d have already dropped their load. The incident officer said he’d heard it come over, and it had sounded like it was having engine trouble.”
“Perhaps Hitler’s running out of petrol and is putting kerosene in their fuel tanks,” Reed said. “Coming back, we heard another one go over, stuttering and coughing.”
There was another rumbling boom to the east. “At this rate, Hitler won’t have an air force left by tomorrow,” Talbot said.
They’re not planes, Mary said silently, they’re unmanned rockets. And it was obvious she needn’t have worried about arriving too late to observe their pre-V-1 behavior—they were still exhibiting it.
They went back almost immediately to discussing the dance Talbot was going to the Saturday after next. “I need someone to go with me,” she said. “Will you, Reed? There’ll be heaps of Americans there.”
“Then, no, absolutely not. I hate Yanks. They’re all so conceited. And they step all over one’s feet,” and launched into a story about a dreadful American captain she’d met at the 400 Club. Even Camberley’s shouting down the cellar steps that there was another incident and Maitland and Reed’s hurrying off to it didn’t deter them. “Why would you want to go to a dance with a lot of Yanks, Talbot?” Parrish asked.
“She wants one of them to fall madly in love with her and buy her a pair of nylons,” Fairchild said.
“I think that’s disgraceful,” said Grenville, the one with the fiancé in Italy. “What about love?”
“I’d love to have a new pair of stockings,” Talbot said.
“I’ll go with you,” Parrish said, “but only if you’ll lend me your dotted swiss blouse to wear the next time I see Dickie.”
It had never occurred to Mary that the FANYs wouldn’t tumble to what was going on once the rockets started—especially since, according to historical records, there’d been rumors since 1942 that Hitler was developing a secret weapon. Then again, historical records had said the siren had gone at 11:31.
And they would realize soon enough. By the end of the week there’d be 250 V-1s coming over a day and nearly eight hundred dead. Let them enjoy their talk of men and frocks while they could. It wouldn’t last much longer. And it meant she was free to listen for the sirens and explosions and make certain they were on schedule.
They were, except for one that should have hit at 2:09 but didn’t, and the last all clear of the night, which went at 5:40 instead of 5:15.
“It hardly seems worthwhile to go to bed,” Fairchild said to Mary as they dragged back upstairs. “We go on duty at six.”
But the sirens won’t start up again till half past nine, Mary thought, and there won’t be a V-1 in our sector till 11:39. I hope.
She was worried about the one that hadn’t hit at 2:09. It was supposed to have fallen in Waring Lane, which was even nearer than the cricket grounds. They should have been able to hear it.
Which meant it must have landed somewhere else. That fit with British Intelligence’s deception plan. On the other hand, the 2:09 was the only one that hadn’t been at the right time and—as near as she could tell—in the right place, which meant it could also be only an error. Though a single error