the hall below. Good. In a quarter of an hour she’d be at the drop and on her way home. She ran down the stairs and across the large hall to the door and opened it.
Samuels was standing there, with a hammer in one hand and a sheaf of large yellow papers in the other. “Oh,” Eileen gasped. “Has the doctor gone?” He nodded. “Oh, dear. Perhaps I can still catch him.” She started past him.
He stepped in front of her, blocking the way. “You can’t leave,” he said, looking pointedly at her hat and coat.
“I’m only going to fetch the doctor,” she said and attempted to sidle past.
“No, you’re not.” He handed her one of the yellow sheets. “By order of the Ministry of Health, County of Warwickshire,” it read at the top. “No one’s allowed in or out,” he said. He took the sheet back from her and nailed it up on the door. “Except the doctor. This house and everyone in it’s been quarantined.”
Another part of the island.
—WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE, THE TEMPEST
Kent—April 1944
CESS OPENED THE DOOR OF THE OFFICE AND LEANED IN. “Worthing!” he called, and when he didn’t answer, “Ernest! Stop playing reporter and come with me. I need you on a job.”
Ernest kept typing. “Can’t,” he said through the pencil between his teeth. “I’ve got five newspaper articles and ten pages of transmissions to write.”
“You can do them later,” Cess said. “The tanks are here. We need to blow them up.”
Ernest removed the pencil from between his teeth and said, “I thought the tanks were Gwendolyn’s job.”
“He’s in Hawkhurst. Dental appointment.”
“Which takes priority over tanks? I can see the history books now. ‘World War II was lost because of a toothache.’”
“It’s not a toothache, it’s a cracked filling,” Cess said. “And it’ll do you good to get a bit of fresh air.” Cess yanked the sheet of paper out of the typewriter. “You can write your fairy tales later.”
“No, I can’t,” Ernest said, making an unsuccessful grab for the paper. “If I don’t get these stories in by tomorrow morning, they won’t be in Tuesday’s edition, and Lady Bracknell will have my head.”
Cess held it out of reach. “‘The Steeple Cross Women’s Institute held a tea Friday afternoon,’” he read aloud, “‘to welcome the officers of the 21st Airborne to the village.’ Definitely more important than blowing up tanks, Worthing. Front-page stuff. This’ll be in the Times, I presume?”
“No, the Sudbury Weekly Shopper,” Ernest said, making another grab for the sheet of paper, this time successful. “And it’s due at nine tomorrow morning along with four others, which I haven’t finished yet. And, thanks to you, I already missed last week’s deadline. Take Moncrieff with you.”
“He’s down with a bad cold.”
“Which he no doubt caught while blowing up tanks in the pouring rain. Not exactly my idea of fun,” Ernest said, rolling a new sheet of paper into the typewriter, and began typing again.
“It’s not raining,” Cess said. “There’s only a light fog, and it’s supposed to clear by morning. Perfect flying weather. That’s why we’ve got to blow them up tonight. It’ll only take an hour or two. You’ll be back in more than enough time to finish your articles and get them over to Sudbury.”
Ernest didn’t believe that any more than he believed it wasn’t raining. It had rained every day all spring. “There must be someone else who can do it. What about Lady Bracknell? He’d be perfect for the job. He’s full of hot air.”
“He’s in London, meeting with the higher-ups, and everyone else is over at Camp Omaha. You’re the only one who can do it. Come, Worthing, do you want to tell your children you sat at a typewriter all through the war or that you blew up tanks?”
“Cess, what makes you think we’ll ever be allowed to tell anyone anything?”
“I suppose that’s true. But surely by the time we have grandchildren, some of it will have been declassified. That is, if we win the war. Which we won’t if you don’t help. I can’t manage both the tanks and the cutter on my own.”
“Oh, all right,” Ernest said, pulling the paper out of the typewriter and putting it in a file folder on top of several others. “Give me five minutes to lock up.”
“Lock up? Do you honestly think Goebbels is going to break in and steal your tea party story while we’re gone?”
“I’m only following regulations,” Ernest said, swiveling his chair to face the metal filing cabinet. He