It took her over an hour to find the post in Croydon, and then the FANY on duty couldn’t find the supplies. “I know they were set aside,” she said vaguely, and looked all over while the sirens went three separate times. She finally had to box up more lint and bandages and make Mary fill up a different requisition form.
By the time she’d finished, Fairchild was in the ambulance in the driver’s seat. Mary considered telling her she should drive because she knew the way, but the set look on Fairchild’s face made her decide not to. They’d only waste more time in arguing, and she wanted to get out of there before the sirens went again.
She climbed in the passenger side, and Fairchild drove along Croydon’s blacked-out high street and turned onto the road to Dulwich. Good, Mary thought. In another ten minutes we’ll be safely back inside the area I’ve memorized.
Fairchild pulled the ambulance over to the side of the road and stopped. “What are you doing?” Mary asked.
Fairchild switched off the ignition and pulled on the hand brake. “I lied about Camberley,” she said. “I was the one who asked to change shifts so I could come with you. I needed to talk to you, Mary.” Mary. Not Triumph or DeHavilland or even Kent. “That is, if you’re still speaking to me.” Fairchild’s voice faltered. “After the beastly way I’ve behaved to you. Are you?”
It was too dark to see her face, but Mary could hear the anxiety in her voice. “Of course I am,” she said. “You haven’t been beastly, and I wouldn’t blame you if you had been. But can’t we discuss this when we get home?” Or at least inside the area where she’d memorized the rockets?
“No,” Fairchild said. “This can’t wait. Yesterday Maitland and I pulled a thirteen-year-old boy out of the wreckage of his house in Ulvers-croft Road. It was a V-2.
His mother was killed. Direct hit, nothing left of her at all. The boy kept sobbing that he’d been angry with her for making him sleep in the Anderson, and he had to tell her he was sorry he’d called her an old cow. It was dreadful watching him, and I began thinking about how either of us might be killed at any moment, too, and how important it is to mend things before it’s too late.”
“There’s nothing to mend,” Mary said. “Let’s at least go somewhere warmer to talk. There’s a Lyons in Norbury. We’ll have a cup of tea—”
“Not till I’ve told you how sorry I am for the way I’ve been acting. It’s not your fault that Stephen fell in love with you and not me—”
“He’s not in love with me. He’s only interested because I represent a challenge by refusing to go out with him.”
“But that’s what I wanted to tell you. You should go out with him. I’d much rather he was in love with you than Talbot or someone else who might hurt him.”
“He’s not in love with me,” Mary insisted, “and I’m not in love with him.”
“You needn’t try to spare my feelings. I’ve seen the way you look at him.”
“No one’s in love with anyone, and I have no desire to go out with him. He’s your—”
“No, he’ll never think of me as anything but his little sister. I thought when he saw me in uniform, he’d realize I’d grown up, but he’ll always see me as little Bits and Pieces, six years old and in pigtails. Which isn’t your fault, Mary, and I don’t want this to ruin our friendship. It’s dreadfully important to me, and I couldn’t bear it if—”
“Shh,” Mary said, putting her hand up to stop her, even though Fairchild couldn’t see it in the dark.
“No, I need to say this—”
“Shh,” Mary ordered. “Listen. I thought I heard a V-1 …”
Hie you, make haste, for it grows very late.
—WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE, ROMEO AND JULIET
London—December 1940
MIKE HAD PHONED FROM BLETCHLEY ON THE WEDNESDAY after Polly’d gone to Hampstead Heath to say he’d run into Tensing, and Polly had told him to leave Bletchley immediately. Which meant he should have been back by Friday morning at the latest, but he wasn’t. He didn’t come Friday afternoon either, or telephone, or write, and Polly was nearly frantic. Where was he?
Tensing found him before he could get out of Bletchley, she thought, and talked him into working for him. He’ll never survive the background check.
“You didn’t tell Mike about the troupe deciding to do A Christmas Carol, did you?” Eileen asked. “Perhaps he’s been ringing up while we were at rehearsal. I’ll stay home tonight in case he telephones again.”
But he didn’t phone Friday night either, or over the weekend, and Polly could tell Eileen was just as worried as she was. She was irritable and jumpy, and she didn’t offer any optimistic theories or say anything more about being rescued just when she thought all was lost.
She scarcely said anything, and she was getting no sleep at all. Because of the rehearsals for A Christmas Carol, they’d abandoned the emergency staircase for the District Line platform, and whenever Mr. Dorming’s snoring woke Polly, she found Eileen sitting against the platform wall, arms huddled around her knees, staring bleakly into space.
Polly did her share of that, too, over the next few nights, and spent hours trying to think of a plausible reason he hadn’t phoned or sent a message. He found Gerald, she thought. He said he had a lead. What if Mike had run into him as he left Bletchley, and they’d gone back to Oxford?
They couldn’t have. If they had, the retrieval team would be here already. Unless there was slippage. Or it was Tensing Mike ran into, not Gerald, and Mike’s under arrest.
He knew how much danger he was in, she told herself. He wouldn’t have been stupid enough to stay. He’s simply having difficulty getting back to London. He’ll be here tomorrow morning.
But he wasn’t. If he hasn’t contacted us by next Monday, we’ll have to go to Bletchley and find out what happened to him, Polly thought.
But what if he was fine and by going, by inquiring after him, they jeopardized his safety or the safety of Ultra’s secret? Or what if Mike had already jeopardized it?
Polly hadn’t found any large discrepancies—Southampton and Birmingham and the air-raid shelter at Hammersmith had all been bombed on schedule—but the raids on Tuesday had begun ten minutes earlier than they were supposed to, and on Friday Townsend Brothers was evacuated for two hours because of a UXB on Audley Street which wasn’t in her implant.
Because it didn’t go off, she told herself, and while they were waiting in the shelter for the bomb to be removed, forced herself to concentrate on composing messages for contacting the retrieval team: “Lost, near Notting Hill Gate Station, cocker spaniel, answers to Polly. Contact O. Riley, 14 Cardle Street,” and “Dearest T., Sorry couldn’t come to Oxford as planned. Meet me Peter Pan statue 10 A.M. Sunday.”
“But if Mike comes on Sunday,” Eileen protested, “how will he find us if we’re in Kensington Gardens?”
“Not we, I. I’m supposed to be meeting my dearest Terence or Tim or Theodore. This is supposed to be a romantic tryst. If Mike arrives, the two of you can come fetch me.”
Eileen looked like she was going to argue, then turned away and began reading her Agatha Christie again, and when Sunday came made no attempt to go with Polly.
Kensington Gardens didn’t look much like a place for a romantic rendezvous. Two anti-aircraft guns stood on either side of the Round Pond, rows of half-tracks filled the lawns, and the Victorian railings edging the bounds of the park had been taken down, presumably for the scrap-metal drive.