time. In my day, I’d already have been at sea. Well? What sort of ship have they given me? Battleship? Cruiser?”
“I’m not from the government at all. I’m a reporter.”
The Commander’s face fell.
“For the Omaha Observer.”
“Omaha. That’s in Kansas, isn’t it?”
“Nebraska.”
“What are you doing in Saltram-on-Sea?”
“I’m writing a story on Britain’s invasion preparations.”
“Preparations!” the Commander snorted. “What preparations? Have you been out on the beach here, Kansas? It looks like a bloody holiday spot. No barricades, no tank traps, not even any barbed wire. And when I complained to the Admiralty, do you know what the young pup there said? ‘We’re waiting for authorization from headquarters.’ And do you know what I said? ‘If you wait much longer, you’ll be asking Himmler!’ Can you swim?”
“Swim?” Mike said, lost. “Yes, I—”
“In my day, every man in His Majesty’s Navy had to know how to swim, from the admiral on down. Now half of ’em’ve never even been to sea. They sit in London, typing up authorizations. Come here, Kansas, I want to show you something.”
“The reason I came was to ask you—” Mike began, but the Commander had already disappeared down a hatch. Mike hesitated. If Mr. Powney showed up, Daphne wouldn’t know where he’d gone. Mike didn’t want to miss him. But he also needed to find out if the Commander would be willing to take him to Dover. If he would, it’d be the fastest way to get there, and it would solve the problem of how to get out onto the docks so he could interview the returning boats. And if they kept close to the shore, the Channel wouldn’t be all that dangerous.
Mike looked over at the head of the quay. The three old men were still lounging there. They’d tell Daphne where he was. If she can understand what they say, he thought, and climbed down after the Commander.
It was dark inside the hatch. Momentarily blinded, Mike groped for the rungs as he climbed down the ladder and stepped off it.
Into a foot of water.
What country, friends, is this?
—WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE, TWELFTH NIGHT
Oxford—April 2060
THE SHIMMER WAS ALREADY SO BRIGHT POLLY COULDN’T see the lab or even the draperies, only the opening drop. She knew there wasn’t enough time to tell Badri and Linna to give her apologies to Colin, but she made the attempt. “Tell Colin what happened,” she shouted into the brightness, “that there wasn’t time to let him know. Tell him I’m sorry and that I said thank you for all his help, and I’ll see him when I get back,” but it was too late. She was already through.
In a cellar. In the near-darkness, she could only just make out a brick wall and a black door from which the paint was peeling badly. There were brick walls on either side, too, and a low ceiling, and behind her, three steps leading up to the rest of the brick-paved cellar, which was filled with barrels and packing cases. Ordinarily a cellar would be a good place to come through, but this was the Blitz, when cellars had been used as shelters. She stood still a moment, listening for the sound of voices—or snoring—in the part of the cellar she couldn’t see, but she couldn’t hear anything. She quietly tried the door. It was locked.
Wonderful. She’d come through in a locked cellar, and one that, as she peered more closely at it in the gloom, looked as though it had been locked a very long time. A spiderweb, with several dead leaves caught in it, was strung from the lower door hinge to the dirt floor, so unless there was a window she could climb out of, she’d have to wait here till the drop opened and make Badri find another site. And hope Mr. Dunworthy didn’t cancel her assignment in the meantime.
There’d better be a window, she thought, going up the steps. There was a scattering of dead leaves on them as well, and when she reached the top, she saw why. This wasn’t a cellar. It was the narrow passageway between two buildings, and the locked door she’d tried was a recessed side door into a building. The ledge above the passage would at least partially keep the drop’s shimmer from being seen from above, but what about the street at the end? If the shimmer could be seen from there, the drop would only be able to open when no one was about and would be effectively useless.