If Cripplegate was bombed, it might not prove conclusively that he hadn’t altered events, but it would prove he hadn’t knocked the war off course, that history was still on track. The story wouldn’t be in the papers till tomorrow, or possibly today’s late editions, but the weather forecast would be. He could at least see if fog was predicted. It was clear right now.
But it’ll come in in the late afternoon, he thought, waiting anxiously for Mrs. Ives’s arrival.
But she didn’t come, Fordham didn’t have the Herald, and the sky was still clear when Sister Gabriel pulled the blackout curtains shut.
Even if saving Hardy did alter events, it can’t have affected the weather, he told himself. But in chaotic systems everything affected everything else in complicated and unpredictable ways. If a butterfly flapping its wings in Montana could cause a monsoon in China, then saving a soldier at Dunkirk could affect the weather in southeast England.
There were no sirens during the night, and the next morning the sky was still clear.
The fog could have been limited to London, he told himself.
When Sister Gabriel brought his breakfast, he asked her, “What happened last night? I thought I heard bombs.”
It was impossible to hear a bomb in Cripplegate from Dover, of course, but he hoped she’d say, “No, but London got it last night,” and then elaborate.
She didn’t. She gave him the same look she always gave Bevins and took his temperature. She looked at the thermometer, frowning. “Try to rest,” she said and left him to wait anxiously for Mrs. Ives. What if Mrs. Ives didn’t come again today? What if she never came back, like Mr. Powney?
She did, but not till late afternoon. “I’ve been down on first since yesterday morning,” she said, “assisting with the new patients. Nearly a dozen pilots. One of them crash-landed, and he—” she caught herself. “Oh, but you don’t want to hear about that. How about a nice book?”
“No, reading books makes my head ache. Can’t I have a newspaper? Please.”
“Oh, dear, I really shouldn’t. The nurses said you weren’t to read anything troubling…”
Troubling. “I don’t want to read the war news,” he lied. “I just want to work the crossword puzzle.”
“Oh,” she said, relieved, “well, in that case…” and handed him the Herald and a yellow lead pencil, and then stood there while he opened it to the puzzle. He’d have to at least pretend to work it. He started reading the clues. Six across: “The man between two hills is a sadist.”
What? Fifteen across: “This sign of the Zodiac has no connection with the fishes.” What kind of clues were these? He’d worked crosswords when he’d studied the history of games, but they’d had straightforward clues like “Spanish coin” and “marsh bird,” not, “The well brought-up help these over stiles.”
“Do you need any help?” Mrs. Ives asked kindly.
“No,” he said and quickly filled in the first set of spaces with random letters. Mrs. Ives moved on down the ward with her cart. As soon as she left, Mike quickly flipped to the front page. “London Church Bombed,” the headline read. “3 Killed, 27 Injured,” and there was a photo of the half-destroyed Church of St. Giles, Cripplegate, complete with the toppled statue of Milton.
Thank God, he thought, though he couldn’t be certain till he’d seen what the response to the bombing was, which meant convincing Mrs. Ives to keep on giving him the paper.
But when he asked the next day, she said, “Oh, the crossword’s done you good. Your color’s much improved,” and handed over the Express without any argument.
On the twenty-seventh the headline read, “RAF Bombs Berlin!” and the next day, “Hitler Vows Revenge for Berlin Bombing.” He breathed a massive sigh of relief. But if he hadn’t altered events, then what had happened to the retrieval team?
They don’t know where I am, he thought. It was the only explanation. But why not? Even if they hadn’t been able to find out anything in Saltram-on-Sea, they’d known he’d intended to go to Dover. They’d have scoured the town, checked the police station and the morgue and all the hospitals. How many were there? He hadn’t had time to research that because of wasting that afternoon waiting for Dunworthy. “How many hospitals are there here?” he asked Sister Gabriel when she brought his medicine.
“Here?” she said blankly. “In England?”
“No, here in Dover.”
“I say, you have been out of it,” Fordham said from his bed. “You’re not in Dover.”