“I can ask Miss Snelgrove if they need anyone at Townsend Brothers,” Polly said.
“This isn’t about a job,” Mike said. “It’s so they’ll have her name and address on file when the retrieval team comes looking for us.”
Which must mean the arguments I made to him this morning at Padgett’s convinced him he didn’t alter history after all, Polly thought. But after they’d curled up under their coats on the landing to sleep, he shook her awake and motioned her to tiptoe after him past the sleeping Eileen and down the steps to the landing below.
“Did you find out anything more about Padgett’s?” he whispered.
“No,” Polly lied. “Did you?”
He shook his head.
Thank goodness, Polly thought. When the all clear goes. I’ll take him straight to the drop. He can’t talk to anyone there. He can sit there till I come back from the Thank goodness, Polly thought. When the all clear goes. I’ll take him straight to the drop. He can’t talk to anyone there. He can sit there till I come back from the hospital. If I can get him out of here without Miss Laburnum latching on to us and blurting out something about how awful it is that there were five people kil—
“You said there were three fatalities, right?” Mike asked.
“Yes, but the information in my implant could have been wrong. It—”
“And the supervisor—what was his name? Feathers?”
“Fetters.”
“Said everybody who worked at Padgett’s had been accounted for.”
“Yes, but—”
“I’ve been thinking. What if it was our retrieval team?”
Metal makes guns! Keep your lipstick holder. Buy refills.
—MAGAZINE ADVERTISEMENT,
1944
Bethnal Green—June 1944
MARY FLUNG HERSELF DOWN IN THE GUTTER NEXT TO TALBOT, half on top of her, listening to the sudden silence where the putt-putt of the engine had been.
“What in God’s name are you doing, Kent?” Talbot said, trying to wriggle free from underneath her.
Mary pushed her back down into the gutter. “Keep your head down!” They had twelve seconds before the V-1 exploded. Eleven … ten … nine … Please, please, please, let us be far enough away from it, she prayed. Seven … six …
“Keep my—?” Talbot said, struggling against her. “Have you gone mad?”
Mary pressed her down. “Cover your eyes!” she ordered, and squeezed her own shut against the blinding light that would come with the blast.
I should put my hands over my ears, she thought, but she needed them to hold down Talbot, who was, unbelievably, still attempting to get up. “Stay down! It’s a flying bomb!” Mary put her hand to the back of Talbot’s head and forced it flat against the bottom of the gutter. Two … one … zero …
Her adrenaline-racing mind must have counted too quickly. She waited, arms tight around Talbot, for the flash and deafening concussion.
Talbot was struggling harder than ever. “Flying bomb?” she said, wrenching herself free and raising herself on her hands and elbows. “What flying bomb?”
“The one I heard. Don’t…,” Mary said, trying vainly to push her down again. “It’ll go off any second. It …”
There was a sputtering cough, and the putt-putting sound started up again. But it can’t have, she thought bewilderedly. V-1s don’t start up again …
“Is that what you heard?” Talbot asked. “That’s not a flying bomb, you ninny. It’s a motorcycle.” And as she spoke, an American GI came around the corner on a decrepit-looking DeHavilland, sped toward them, and careened to a stop.
“What happened?” he asked, leaping off the motorcycle. “Are you two all right?”
“No,” Talbot said disgustedly. She pulled herself to sitting and began brushing dirt off the front of her uniform.
“You’re bleeding,” the GI said.
Mary looked at Talbot in horror. There was blood on her blouse, blood trickling down her mouth and her chin. “Oh, my God, Talbot!” she cried, and she and the Gl began fumbling for a handkerchief.
“What are you talking about?” Talbot said. “I’m not bleeding.”
“Your mouth,” the GI said, and Talbot felt it cautiously and then looked at her fingers.
“That’s not blood,” she said, “it’s lipstick—oh, my God, my lipstick!” She began looking frantically around for it. “I only just got it. It’s Crimson Caress.” She started to stand up. “Kent knocked it out of my hand when she—Oh! Ow!” She collapsed back onto the curb.
“You are hurt!” the GI said, hurrying over.
“Oh, Talbot, I’m so sorry,” Mary said. “I thought it was a V-1. The newspapers said they sounded like a motorcycle. Is it your knee?”
“Yes, but it’s nothing,” Talbot said, putting her arm around the GI’s neck. “It twisted under me as I went down. It’ll be fine in a moment—Ow! Ow! Ow!”
“You’re not fine,” the GI said. He turned to Mary. “I don’t think she can walk. Or ride a motorcycle. Have you got a car?”
“No. We came up here from Dulwich by bus.”
“I’m all right,” Talbot said. “Kent can give me a hand.”
But even supported by both of them, she couldn’t put any weight at all on the knee. “She’s torn a ligament,” the GI said, easing her back down to sitting on the curb. “You’re going to have to send for an ambulance.”
“That’s ridiculous!” Talbot protested. “We’re the ambulance crew!”
But he was already mounting his motorcycle to go find a telephone. Mary gave him the exchange and number of Bethnal Green’s post. “No, not Bethnal Green,”
Talbot protested. “If the other units find out, we’ll be laughingstocks. Tell him to ring Dulwich, Kent.”
She did, but when the ambulance arrived a few minutes later, it was from Brixton. “Both of yours were out at incidents,” the driver said. “Jerry’s sending them over fast and furious today.”
Not over us, Mary thought ruefully.
Brixton’s crew took the news that she had mistaken a motorcycle for a V-1 in stride, but when she and Talbot got back to Dulwich, there was a good deal of merriment. “The newspapers said they sound like a motorcycle,” Mary said defensively.
“Yes, well, the newspapers said they sound like a washing machine, too,” Maitland said. “I suppose we’d best be careful when we do our laundry, girls.”
Parrish nodded. “I don’t want to run the risk of being flung down while hanging up my knickers.”
“It was a very old DeHavilland,” Talbot said in her defense, “and it did sputter and then die rather like a flying bomb.” But that only made it worse. The girls began calling her DeHavilland and Triumph and any other motorcycle name that was handy, and whenever a door slammed or a pot boiled over, someone shouted, “Oh, no, it’s a flying bomb!” and attempted to tackle her from behind.
The ribbing was all good-natured, and Talbot didn’t seem to bear a grudge, even though she’d been taken off active duty and assigned secretarial tasks and had to hobble about on crutches. She seemed far more upset about her lost lipstick and having missed the dance than about her knee.
On their way home from an incident the next morning Mary and Fairchild went to see if they could find the lipstick, but either it had rolled into the storm drain or someone had seen it lying in the street and taken it. They did find Talbot’s cap, which had been run over and was obviously beyond repair. And on the way home, they passed the railroad bridge Mary had gone to the dance to see—or rather, what was left of it. “It was hit by one of the first flying bombs that came over,” Fairchild said casually.
And if you’d mentioned that sooner, Mary thought, I’d have known my implant data was accurate, and I wouldn’t have injured Talbot.