“Is this call ended?” the operator interrupted.
“Yes,” Cole said.
“All done here, love.”
The line went dead, apparently ended without preamble by the efficient operator. Cole placed the earpiece on the cradle and walked back into the parlor. Rebecca still slept on the couch, fitfully, and the house was silent. A car or lorry, headlights blacked out, moved slowly along the street outside. They were on official business or had ration cards, or black market gasoline, but even their gentle rumble added no life to the scene. Cole was left to his own thoughts and they were no comfort.
He was abandoning Rebecca, probably forever. He wondered if she could survive — not so much without him but without someone to be near her so that her loneliness and guilt did not overwhelm her. Her demons, those demons of her own making and the ones forced on her by life, were always her constant companions. We all have demons, he thought, and he realized that his were never far away, they traveled with him everywhere he went. But Rebecca paid heed to hers, allowed them to control her, and permitted them, by the monumental guilt that she carried within her, to devour her bit by bit. She tried alcohol to find peace, to find any means to numb herself to the guilt, but that was only a temporary solution, if that.
Cole pulled his ready kit out of the closet, got his cap and the car keys for the MG out of a small pewter bowl on a shelf over the umbrella stand in the hall, and quietly opened the door.
When he stepped outside he could smell smoke; not heavy, simply the trace by-product of a fire that had been subdued, the common scent of London under siege. He closed the door, carefully, and locked it from the outside. He checked the blackout tape covering the headlights on his MG, making sure that it was still in place, climbed in, slipped the gearshift into neutral, and started it. It chugged once and turned over. He released the emergency brake, depressed the clutch, and pushed the gearshift into first. Then he slowly pulled away from the house at Warren Square.
Ducey was a small man with ears packed full of hair, and the first words out of his mouth were: “Yank, aren’t you?”
Cole was getting a little tired of the question. “Yeah,” he said. “For a long time now.” He followed Ducey to the aircraft, a Blenheim.
“When are you chaps going to get into the war?”
“I’m here, aren’t I?” Cole said.
“Not the same,” Ducey said as he motioned to the hatch. “Shed some blood first and you’ll be welcome into the fraternity.”
“I had a paper cut the other day,” Cole said, sick of being treated as a second-class citizen because his country hadn’t declared war yet. “Does that count?”
“Are all Americans as cheeky as you?”
“I never bothered to ask them.”
“Well, climb in and we’ll make short work of getting to Scotland,” Ducey said, holding the hatch open for Cole.
The takeoff was smooth and uneventful once they got clearance from the tower. There was no copilot on this flight and Cole sat next to Ducey. The aircraft was filled with spare parts and supplies, all neatly arranged and tied down securely. Ducey seemed eminently at ease in the pilot’s seat, his hands wrapped loosely around the yoke, eyes scanning the instrument panel or the horizon. It was only when Cole happened to glance at the altimeter to see that they were flying just over two thousand feet that he became concerned.
“Aren’t we a bit low?”
“Are you the pilot now?” Ducey said without bothering to take his eyes away from the panel.
“No,” Cole said, “but if this plane smacks into a mountain I’ll be just as dead.”
“Listen. I’ve flown this route since Christ was a corporal. I know every tree, hill, stream, and town. I could climb to a proper altitude but I see it as a terrible waste of petrol and time. Waste offends me.”
“Okay.”
“Besides,” Ducey said, “you’ve nothing to fear. Not only am I a superb pilot, but I am accompanied by angels.”
They came into Leuchars accompanied by a light mist. Cole knew that it was near dawn, but the sun was well hidden by the clouds. There were several men scattered around a string of lorries waiting to unload the aircraft, and Cole approached one who appeared to be a noncommissioned officer. The man immediately threw his cigarette to the tarmac, ground it out with the toe of his boot, and snapped to attention.
“Sir!” He was a sergeant and responded immediately to rank.
“I’m Lieutenant Cole. I’m to meet N-for-Nancy here.”
“Just a moment, sir,” he said, his manner softening when he recognized that he was speaking to an American with no power over him. “Pinky?” he shouted to another man at the lorry behind them. “N-for-Nancy? Is she on the hardstand?”
“She is,” Pinky said.
“Be a good sort and run this officer over to her, will you?”
“Righto,” Pinky said, anxious to get out of work. He jumped in his lorry and pulled up next to Cole. “Jump in, sir. Have you there in two shakes.”
Cole thanked the sergeant and climbed in beside Pinky, who gunned the engine and took off.
“American, sir?”
“Yes,” Cole said, wondering how Pinky could see in the deep gloom even with the help of the blackout lights.
“Wouldn’t know any movie stars, would you, sir?”
“You don’t meet many movie stars in Columbus, Ohio,” Cole said.
“How far is that from Hollywood, sir?”
“About fifteen hundred miles and two centuries.”
The lorry’s brakes squealed in protest as they stopped in front of N-for-Nancy. Cole recognized the crew suiting up, nearly undistinguishable forms in the darkness. He thanked Pinky and stepped out of the lorry. It shot off before he had a chance to close the door.
“King?” It felt good to Cole to hear Bunny’s voice.
“Made it,” Cole said, joining the group.
“None too soon,” Bunny said, shaking his hand. “We’re all set to go. You remember the other chaps, don’t you? Let me bring you up to speed. It seems the navy has a mystery on its hands. One of their ships had a set-to with the Germans. The Germans are supposed to have a battleship just out of the Denmark Strait. Going where, no one knows. Coastal Command has been ordered to get everything aloft and find this battleship. Yours, I believe.”
“The H-class ship.”
“Nobody’s given it a name yet and they haven’t given it a course, which makes our job doubly hard. They’re afraid it’s a commerce raider that’ll get among the convoys and annoy them.”
“We’ve got to be going,” Prentice said.
“Right,” Bunny said. “Get into your flight suit, King. It’ll be a long flight and a cold one.”
“Were are we headed?” Cole said, taking a bulky flying suit from Johnny.
“We fly on a course north-northwest, turn south, and then come home.”
“Simple enough,” Cole said, zipping up his suit. He sat on the hardstand, pulled off his shoes, and slipped his feet into the fur-lined flying boots.
“Bloody simple,” Bunny said. “We’re flying over the North Atlantic, King. Not a little puddle like the Kattegat.”
Cole smiled and held up his hand for Bunny to help him to his feet. “But I’ve got all the confidence in the world in you, Bunny.”
“A comedian,” Peter said as he climbed in through the door.
Johnny and Prentice followed him, and Bunny motioned Cole next. Cole had one foot on the short ladder and was just about to pull himself up when he looked over his shoulder at Bunny. “You did bring that good luck rabbit of yours, didn’t you?”
Bunny patted his chest. “Safe and sound close to my heart, King. Let’s hope that we won’t need any of her luck.”