out the window, and Miss Fuller glared at him. Polly looked down at her watch: 11:19. The train. But the stationmaster had said it was always late.
It’s another troop train, she thought, but she could already hear it slowing.
“Just as we have faith that one day the war will be over,” the vicar said, “we have faith that one day we shall attain heaven. But just as we cannot hope to win this war unless we ‘do our bit’—rolling bandages, planting Victory gardens, serving in the Home Guard—so we cannot hope to attain heaven unless we also do our bit—”
Polly hesitated, caught in an agony of indecision. This was today’s only train, and the bus wouldn’t come till after five. If it was on time.
But someone here might know where Merope went. You know where she went, Polly thought, and you know what they’ll tell you. That all the evacuees went back to London and she left as soon as they were gone. She’s been back in Oxford for weeks. Which means her drop isn’t working anymore, and even if it was, you don’t know where it is and can’t get to it without being shot at, so there’s no point in staying here.
And if you miss that train, there’ll be no way you’ll make it back to London before Tuesday—or Wednesday—and Marjorie can’t cover for you forever. You’ll lose your job, and when the retrieval team comes, they won’t be able to find you.
“We must act—” the vicar said. The whistle, much closer, blew again.
Polly stood up, shot the vicar an apologetic glance, opened the church door, and ran for the train.
Those in the convent are desperate.
—CODED MESSAGE TO THE FRENCH RESISTANCE, 5 JUNE 1944
War Emergency Hospital—September 1940
MIKE HAD HAD NO IDEA ANYONE WAS SITTING THERE IN the high-backed wicker chair. When the voice said, “I thought you were supposed to keep your weight off that foot, Davis,” it startled him so much he let go of the chair back, came down full on his bad foot, nearly fell, and had to clutch wildly at the potted palm to stay upright.
At the same time, a wild hope surged through him. It’s the retrieval team, he thought. Finally.
The man was wearing the hospital-issue pajamas and maroon bathrobe, but he could have gotten those from Wardrobe. “Patient” would be a perfect disguise for getting into the hospital, and he was the right age for an historian. And he’d waited till they were alone in the sunroom to speak.
“Sorry, old man, I didn’t mean to give you a fright,” he said, leaning over the arm of the chair to smile at Mike.
“You know my name,” Mike said.
“Oh, right, we haven’t been properly introduced, have we?” He extended his hand. “Hugh Tensing. I’m on the third floor.”
And you’re not the retrieval team, Mike thought. Now that he looked closer, he saw Tensing was much too thin, and he had the drawn, strained look of an invalid.
“You’re Mike Davis, the American war correspondent,” Tensing was saying. “You repaired a broken propeller with your bare hands and single handedly rescued the entire BEF, according to Nurse Baker. She can’t stop talking about you.”
“She’s wrong,” Mike said. “The propeller wasn’t broken. It was just fouled, and all I did was pull—”
“Spoken like a true hero,” Tensing said. “Modest, humble even though you were injured in the line of duty—”
“I wasn’t—”
“I see, it’s all a fabrication. You weren’t actually in Dunkirk at all,” Tensing said, smiling. “You were in your newspaper office in London when a typewriter fell on your foot. Sorry, it won’t wash. I know you’re a hero. I’ve seen you take dangerous risks.”
“Dangerous—?”
“Just now. Openly defying your nurse’s orders. And Matron’s wrath. You’re far braver than I am.”
“Yes, well, I’m not brave enough to risk being caught,” Mike said, “and they may be here any minute, so I’d better make my way back to where I’m supposed to be.” He let go of the palm tree and stretched out his hand to grab the windowsill.
“No, wait, don’t go,” Tensing said. “I wasn’t hiding from you just now. I was hiding from my nurse, hoping she’d think someone had taken me back to the ward so I could do the same thing you were doing. As a matter of fact, I was treading exactly the same circuit when your nurse wheeled you in and nearly caught me red-handed. Or is it red-footed?”
Mike glanced down at Tensing’s feet, but there was no cast.