“Oh, Michael, I’m dreadfully sorry. I didn’t recognize you with that American accent. What is it you wanted?”
“Somebody called me earlier and left a message. Was it you?”
“No, but I only just came on duty. It may have been Badri. He’s doing a retrieval. I can have him phone you as soon as he’s finished.”
“Listen, can you check to see if the time of my drop’s been changed? It was on the schedule for Friday morning at 8 A.M.”
“I’ll check. Hang on a moment,” she said, and there was a brief silence. “No, the time hasn’t been changed. Michael Davies, Friday 8 A.M.”
“Good. Thanks, Linna.” He hung up, relieved. “Whoever it was who called, it wasn’t the lab.”
Charles was still poring over the message. “Could it have been Dunworthy? I think this might be a D.”
The only reason Dunworthy would have called would have been to say he’d decided Pearl Harbor was too dangerous and he’d changed his mind about letting him go, in which case Michael didn’t want to talk to him. “That’s not a D,” he said. “It’s a Q. Did Shakira say when she’d be back?”
Charles shook his head. “I expected her by now.”
“And you say she’s over at Props?”
“Or the Bodleian. She said she might try there or Research if the music archives didn’t have it.”
Which meant she could be anywhere, and if he went looking for her he was likely to miss her. He’d better stay here. He needed to check a few things anyway. He’d already done all the main research for Pearl Harbor—he knew the layout of the New Orleans’s decks, the names and ranks of the crew, and what Chaplain Forgy looked like. He’d memorized the rules of U.S. Navy protocol, the location of every ship, and a detailed chronology of the events of December seventh. The only part he was worried about was getting onto the New Orleans. He was scheduled to go through to Waikiki at 10 P.M. on December sixth and take one of the liberty launches—which ran until midnight—out to the ship, but according to his research, Waikiki on a Saturday night had been full of drunk GIs and sailors spoiling for a fight, and an overeager shore patrol. He couldn’t afford to be in the New Orleans’s brig when the Japanese attacked Sunday morning. Maybe he should see how far away from his drop the officers’ club was and whether launches had run to and from it that night. They should have. There’d been a dance there. He could—
The phone rang. Michael leaped to answer it. “Hullo, Charles,” Shakira said. “Sorry I’ve been so long. I haven’t been able to find any Glenn Miller. I’ve located a Benny Goodman—”
“This isn’t Charles, it’s Michael. Where are you?”
“You don’t sound like Michael.”
“I just got an American L-and-A implant,” he said. “Listen, when you were here, someone called for me—”
“I wrote it all down for you,” she said, sounding annoyed. “The message should be there by the phone.”
“But what did they say?”
“I wrote it down,” she said, annoyed. “The order of your drops has been changed. You’re going to Dunkirk first. On Friday at 8 A.M.”
By your readiness to serve you have helped the State in a work of great value.
—QUEEN ELIZABETH IN A TRIBUTE TO THOSE WHO TOOK IN EVACUEES, 1940
Warwickshire—February 1940
IT BEGAN TO RAIN JUST AS EILEEN WAS ABOUT TO HANG out the laundry, and she had to string up the clothesline in the ballroom, amid the portraits of Lord Edward and Lady Caroline’s ruffed and hoop-skirted ancestors, and hang the wet sheets in there, which would take twice as long. By the time she finished, the children would be home from school. She’d wanted to be gone before they arrived. Last time the Hodbins had followed her into the woods, and she’d had to postpone going to the drop for another week.
Again. The Monday before that she’d had to spend her half-day out fumigating the children’s cots for bedbugs, and the Monday before that she’d had to take Alf and Binnie over to Mr. Rudman’s farm to apologize for setting his haystack ablaze. They’d claimed they’d been practicing lighting signal fires in case of invasion. “The vicar says unless everyone does their bit we can’t win the war,” Binnie’d said.
I have an idea the vicar would make an exception in your case, Eileen had thought. But the Hodbins weren’t the only thing preventing her from going. Ever since Christmas she’d