of being reimbursed. “This is to do with the invasion, ain’t it?”
“Yes,” Cess said, “and it’s terribly important, but we can’t tell you anything more than that.”
“Ye don’t have to. I can puzzle it out on my own. Invadin’ at Normandy, are you then? I thought so. Owen Batt said Calais, but I said no, that’s what the Germans were expecting, and we’re smarter than that. Wait till I—”
“You can’t tell Owen Batt or anyone else,” Cess said.
“If you do, you could lose us the war,” Ernest said, and they spent another quarter of an hour standing there in the clammy fog getting the farmer to agree to keep the story to himself.
“I’ll keep it dark,” he finally promised grudgingly, “though it’s a pity. The look on that bull’s face—” He brightened. “I can tell it after the invasion, can’t I?”
“Yes,” Ernest said, “but not till three weeks after.”
“Why not?”
“We can’t tell you that either,” Cess said. “It’s top top secret.”
“And we can leave the tanks?” Ernest asked. “We promise we’ll come back for them as soon as they’ve been photographed.”
The farmer nodded. “If it means doin’ my bit to win the war.”
“It does,” Cess said, and started for the lorry.
“Now, wait just a minute. I said ye could leave the tanks, not drive all over my pasture. Ye’ll have to take that bust balloon back the way you brought it over here.”
“But it’ll take half an hour, and one of their planes might see us while we’re doing it,” Cess argued. “This fog might clear at any moment.”
“It won’t,” the farmer said, and it didn’t. It settled over the pasture and the woods like a heavy gray blanket that made it impossible to gauge direction, which resulted in their dragging, pushing, and manhandling the deflated tank an extra hundred yards trying to find the lorry, during which effort Ernest fell down two more times.
“Well, at least it can’t get any worse,” Cess said as they tried to shove the flopping mass up over the back of the lorry. At which point it began to rain again—a thin, bone-chilling rain that continued for the entire duration of their stowing the tank, loading the cutter and the pump and the phonograph, and thanking the farmer, who, along with the bull, had watched the entire proceedings with interest. By the time they got back to Cardew Castle, they were drenched, frozen, and starving.
“Oh, no, we missed breakfast,” Cess said, lifting the phonograph out. “I’ll never make it to luncheon. I could sleep for a week. What are you going to do, sleep or eat?”
“Neither,” Ernest said. “I have to write up my news stories.”
“Can’t that wait?”
“No, I’ve got to get them over to Croydon by four o’clock.”
“I thought you said they were due this morning.”
“They were, but as I missed the Sudbury Weekly Shopper’s deadline because I was nearly being killed by an angry bull, they’ll now have to go in the Croydon Clarion Call instead.”
“Sorry.”
“It’s all right. The ordeal wasn’t entirely a loss. Our farmer friend back there gave me an idea for a letter to the editor.” He took the stack of phonograph records Cess handed him. “‘Dear Sir, I woke Tuesday morning to find that a—’ Whose tank brigade is supposed to be here now? American or British?”
“Canadian. The Canadian Fourth Infantry Brigade.”
“‘To find that a squadron of Canadian tanks had destroyed my best pasture. They’d mashed the grass flat, frightened my prize bull—’”
“Not as much as it frightened you,” Cess said, handing him the bicycle pump.
“‘—and left muddy tank tracks everywhere, all without so much as a by-your-leave.’” He stuck the records under his arm and shifted the pump to his left hand so he could open the door. “‘I realize we must all pull together to defeat the Germans, and that in wartime some sacrifice is necessary,’” He opened the door. “‘But—’”
“Where have you two been?” Moncrieff demanded. “We’re late.”
“For what?” Ernest asked.
“Oh, no,” Cess said. “Don’t tell me we’ve got to go blow up more tanks. We’ve been up all night.”
“You can sleep in the car,” Moncrieff said, and Prism came in, dressed in tweeds and a tie.
“You can’t go to the ball like that, Cinderella,” Prism said, taking the records and pump away from Ernest. “Go on, get showered and dressed. You’ve got five minutes.”
“But I need to take my news stories over to—”
“You can do that later,” Prism said, dumping the records on the desk and propelling him toward the bathroom.