All Clear

London—November 1940

POLLY AND EILEEN WAITED TO MAKE SURE MIKE’S TRAIN actually left for Bletchley Park, and then Eileen went to Whitechapel to return Alf Hodbin’s map. “I told them I’d post it to them, but I promised Theodore Willett I’d go see him, so I may as well run it by. And I want to talk to Alf. I got the feeling last time that he and Binnie are up to something.”

“Like what?” Polly asked.

“I’m not certain, but knowing the Hodbins, it’s something illegal. There weren’t any Nazi child spies, were there?”

Polly saw her to her train and then went to the British Museum—“Darling, so sorry. If you can forgive me, meet me by the Rosetta stone Sunday at two”—to wait for the retrieval team. And fret.

In spite of Mike’s reassurances that they hadn’t affected events, she was still worried. Her actions hadn’t affected only Marjorie. They’d also affected the warden who’d found her and the rescue squad and ambulance driver, her nurses and doctors, the airman she hadn’t met who’d gone off on his mission thinking she’d changed her mind about eloping, even Sarah Steinberg, who’d been given Marjorie’s job, and the shopgirl Townsend Brothers had hired to replace Sarah. The ripples spread out and out. And now Marjorie was going to be a nurse. She was going to be saving soldiers’ lives.

Like Mike had saved Hardy’s. And unlike Hardy, there was nothing else which could have caused what had happened. Marjorie had said quite plainly that she’d decided to run off with her airman because of having seen Polly standing there looking so shell-shocked the morning after St. George’s was hit. That had led directly to her having been in Jermyn Street when it was hit, and to her deciding to become a nurse and thus altering who knew what other events. Polly saw now why Mike had been so worried that morning outside Padgett’s when he thought he’d saved Hardy.

And now Mike was on his way to Bletchley Park, where he could do far more damage to the war than a hospital nurse could. If Gerald Phipps hadn’t already beaten him to it.

But if he had, there should be more discrepancies than just a siren going off when it shouldn’t have. And Mike was right, there were all sorts of instances in history when an action which should have had a major effect had been counteracted by something else, like the Verlaine-poem invasion signal. Or the appearance of

“Omaha” and “Overlord” in the Herald’s crossword puzzle, which hadn’t affected the invasion after all.

But that was also an example of how a single small action could have tremendous consequences. A few words in a crossword puzzle had nearly derailed an invasion involving years of careful planning and two million men. If D-Day had had to be delayed, the invasion’s location would almost certainly have leaked out, and Rommel’s tanks would have been waiting for the invasion troops at Normandy. And all because of a bit of carelessness and a teenaged boy. “For want of a nail …”

So what sort of impact could the combined actions of Marjorie and Hardy, and Gerald’s and now Mike’s wandering around the place where the most important secret of the war was being kept have? If Mike got there. Just because he’d gone to Dunkirk didn’t mean he’d be allowed to reach Bletchley Park.

She gave the retrieval team another half hour to show and then went back to Mrs. Rickett’s to see if Mike had phoned. He hadn’t, and by the time Eileen returned, there’d still been no word from him. “Did you find out what the Hodbins were up to?” Polly asked her.

“No, no one was there,” Eileen said, frowning. “I had to slide the map under the door. Did Mike ring up?”

“No, not yet. His train was likely delayed by a troop train or something.”

But she must not have succeeded in hiding her anxiety, because Eileen asked, “No trains were bombed today, were they?”

“No.” Not in London.

“Was Bletchley bombed?”

“I don’t know, but there were never any casualties at Bletchley Park. Come along, it’s time for supper. One of Mrs. Rickett’s Sunday-night ‘cold collations.’ ”

Tonight it consisted of sliced tongue and nettle salad. “I’m sorry I ever got my ration card,” Eileen said when she saw it. “I can’t wait till Mike finds Gerald and we can go home. Perhaps that’s why he hasn’t rung us, because someone on the train knew where Gerald was, and he’s gone off to find him.”

But when Mike finally rang up, moments before Polly had to leave for Notting Hill Gate for rehearsal, it was only to say he’d arrived. He hadn’t even left the station yet. And he was in a hurry. He told them he’d phone them again when he knew where he was staying and rang off before Polly could warn him to be careful.

But if the problem’s an increase in slippage, then it would have prevented him from going to Bletchley Park if he could affect events. There’s nothing to worry about, she told herself, and forced herself to concentrate on the problems of the admirable Crichton and Lady Mary.

The troupe was in their final week of rehearsals, and Sir Godfrey was in a foul mood. “No, no, no!” he shouted at Viv. “You say, ‘Here comes Ernest,’ before Ernest makes his entrance! Again. From ‘Father, we thought we should never see you again.’ ”

They started through the scene again.

“No, no, no!” Sir Godfrey thundered at Mr. Dorming. “Why can’t you remember? This is a comedy, not a tragedy. At the end of Act Three you are rescued from this island.”

“By a prince?” Mrs. Brightford’s little girl Trot asked.

“No, by a ship. Or, considering the rate at which this production is progressing, by the end of the war.”

“I think it should be by a prince,” Trot said.

“Take it up with the author,” Sir Godfrey growled. “Try it again. From ‘Here comes Ern—’ ”

“Sir Godfrey,” Lila interrupted. “You keep saying it’s a comedy, but how can it be when Lady Mary and Crichton are separated at the end?”

“Yes,” Viv said, “and why can’t they be together?”

“Because he is a butler and she is a lady. You and Mary,” he said, glaring at Polly as though this was her fault, “are far too young to ever have loved someone whom, for reasons of social class or age or circumstance, you could not be with, but I assure you lovers do sometimes face insurmountable obstacles.”

“But if they didn’t have to part,” Viv said, “it would make the ending so much more romantic.”

“As I told Trot,” Sir Godfrey said dryly, “take it up with the author. Again. From the beginning. We are going to get this right if it kills me. Which it may very well do. Unless the Luftwaffe gets me first.” He looked up at the ceiling. “The raids seem rather excessive tonight.”

They did, but they began and ended when they were supposed to and hit the correct targets, and there was nothing in Sir Godfrey’s Times the next night about security breaches or captured spies, though Mike hadn’t phoned again.

Tuesday there was a letter for Eileen. “Is it from Mike?” Polly asked. Perhaps he had decided to write instead of phoning.

“No, it’s from the vicar, Mr. Goode,” Eileen said, smiling. She opened it and began to read. “Oh, no, he says he’s writing with bad news … But that can’t be right …”

“What can’t?”

“He says Lady Caroline’s son’s been killed, but it was Lord Denewell—”

“Read the letter,” Polly ordered.

“ ‘Dear Miss O’Reilly, I am writing with sad news. Lady Caroline’s son was killed on the thirteenth of November.’ ”

So it couldn’t have been an error in the death notice the vicar had read. Lord Denewell had been killed on the second.

“ ‘His plane was shot down over Berlin,’ ” Eileen went on, “ ‘during a bombing run.’ ”

It’s a discrepancy, Polly thought, a chill going through her. The son was killed instead of the father.

“ ‘This is such sad news,’ ” Eileen read on, “ ‘coming as it does so soon after Lord Denewell’s death.’ ”

So it wasn’t a discrepancy, after all, only a horrible coincidence of the war, and she should have felt reassured, but that night after rehearsal, as she and Eileen composed more messages for the retrieval team, she found herself looking through the newspapers for possible discrepancies, and the next morning she told Eileen she had to be at work early to tidy the workroom and went to Westminster Abbey to see if it had been hit.

It had, and the damage to Henry VII’s chapel and the Tudor windows and the Little Cloisters matched that which she’d read of during her prep. You didn’t alter events, she told herself. The drops won’t open because there’s been an increase in slippage. That’s why your retrieval team’s not here. Unless Mike was right, and they’re in the wreckage of Padgett’s.

Just because the three fatalities had turned out to be charwomen didn’t mean there couldn’t be other bodies buried in that pit. Or in the wreckage opposite her drop.

The retrieval team could have come looking for her that night that she was trapped in Holborn. They could have been leaving her drop to look for her just as the parachute mine exploded. No one would have had any idea they were there. Like Marjorie. If the warden hadn’t heard her, no one would have ever thought to look for her there in the rubble in Jermyn Street.

Or the retrieval team could have been killed on their way to her drop, in that burnt-out bus she’d seen on her way to Townsend Brothers. Or on the way to Backbury or Orpington.

Or what if Colin had come after her when he found out about the increased slippage? He’d promised to come rescue her. What if he’d followed her to Padgett’s? Or been killed in a raid on his way to Oxford Street?

Don’t be ridiculous, she told herself. He’d know better than to get himself killed. Besides, if he came here, he couldn’t catch up in age.

But she immediately began thinking she saw him—on the escalators at Oxford Circus after work, in a knot of soldiers, stepping off a train onto the District Line platform at Notting Hill Gate.

It wasn’t him. The soldier she saw was speaking fluent French. The man on the escalator had Colin’s sandy hair and gray eyes, but when he saw Polly looking at him, his answering smile was nothing at all like Colin’s crooked grin, and he was far too old. He was at least thirty, and Polly knew instantly that he wasn’t Colin, but in that first moment, her heart jerked painfully.

When the seventeen-year-old who looked like him stepped off the train, she was in the middle of the rescue scene with Crichton, and she stopped in midline and stared after him till Sir Godfrey said, “We are doing The Admirable Crichton, Lady Mary, not Romeo and Juliet.”

“What? I … sorry, I thought I saw someone I knew.”

“And I thought this misbegotten play was opening two nights from now,” Sir Godfrey grumbled, and kept them rehearsing till the all clear went.

On the way home Eileen asked, “Did you think you saw Mike?”

“Yes,” Polly lied.

“I’m certain he’ll ring us soon. Perhaps he hasn’t found a room yet. Or perhaps he’s having difficulty finding a place to phone from where he won’t be overheard.”

Or his asking about Gerald has attracted attention, and he’s been taken in for questioning, Polly thought, but she had no time to worry over it. The play opened on Friday, and Townsend Brothers was full of customers. Christmas shoppers were already beginning to come in.

Just after Mike had left, Polly had asked Miss Snelgrove if Townsend Brothers planned to hire on extra help for the holidays and, when she said yes, Polly’d told her about Eileen having lost her job at Padgett’s. Miss Snelgrove had hired her on the spot to help on third and then had had to move her up to the book department the next day when Ethel, who’d discussed ABCs and planespotters with Polly, was killed by shrapnel. But even though they weren’t working on the same floor, Eileen was grateful to be working in a department store which wouldn’t be bombed, delighted at being surrounded by so many Agatha Christies, and certain there was an innocent explanation for why Mike hadn’t telephoned yet.

Eileen was the only one who was cheerful. The troupe was nervy about the play, and everyone else was jumpy and ill-tempered from lack of sleep, even though the raids only happened intermittently now. Or perhaps because they did. In those first weeks, the raids had become background noise that it was possible to ignore, but now that they didn’t occur every night, there was constant discussion of whether and when “they” would come and in what nasty new forms—like delayed-action bombs wired to go off as they were being defused or magnetic mines which exploded when a wristwatch came near them—and discussion of what they could do.

By now everyone had a horror story. The rector’s sister had found a blown-off arm in her rose garden; a man Lila had gone dancing with had been blinded by flying glass; and everyone knew someone who’d been killed. It was no wonder everyone’s nerves were frayed.

The weather didn’t help—it had rained steadily since the day Mike had left—and neither did the shorter days. “It’s as if the darkness were closing in all round us,”

Miss Laburnum said, shivering, on their way to Notting Hill Gate.

It is, Polly thought, and was glad to enter the brightly lit tube station, in spite of its crowdedness and the overpowering smell of wet wool.

Friday and Saturday night they performed The Admirable Crichton in the lower-level hall of Notting Hill Gate. Opening night went perfectly except for the moment at the end of Act Two when the rescue ship arrived. Mr. Simms was supposed to cock his head and ask uncertainly, “Was that a gun I heard?” Unfortunately, he had to shout the line over a deafening anti-aircraft barrage. The audience roared, and an elderly man shouted out, “What are ya, lad, deaf?”

Mr. Simms was mortified.

“Nonsense!” Sir Godfrey, clad in rolled-up pants and the plimsolls Miss Laburnum had actually managed to track down, told him during the interval. “It was marvelous. You must see if you can work it into the show again tomorrow.”

The rest of the show came off without incident. “You and Sir Godfrey were simply wonderful together,” Miss Laburnum enthused to Polly.

“This has been wonderful for morale,” Mrs. Wyvern said. “It’s a pity we can’t do more than two performances. Perhaps we could arrange to perform it in other stations.”

Sir Godfrey looked appalled.

“We can’t,” Polly said quickly. “We’re only allowed to do two performances without paying royalties,” she lied.

“Oh, what a pity,” Mrs. Wyvern said, and Sir Godfrey whispered, “Again do I owe my life to you, fair maid.”

Saturday night went off even better. After the curtain, which consisted of Trot holding a placard reading Curtain, rang down and the cast had taken their bows to a necessarily standing ovation, Mrs. Wyvern gathered everyone on the platform to present Sir Godfrey with a copy of J. M. Barrie’s Complete Plays.

“ ‘Thus were the Trojans murderously undone, by treacherous gifts as these,’ ” Sir Godfrey murmured to Polly.

She was afraid he was right. “I have wonderful news!” Mrs. Wyvern said. “I met with the head of London Transport, and he has agreed to allow us to perform in the other Underground stations Christmas week.”

“But the royalties—” Polly began.

“Not The Admirable Crichton,” Mrs. Wyvern said. “A Christmas play.”

“Peter Pan!” Miss Laburnum burst out. “How wonderful! I love the scene where Wendy asks, ‘Boy, why are you crying?’ and Peter Pan says—”

“No, not Peter Pan,” Mrs. Wyvern said. “Charles Dickens’s A Christmas Carol!”

“The very thing,” the rector pronounced. “It has a message of hope and charity which is badly needed in these dark times.”

“And Sir Godfrey will make a wonderful Scrooge!” Miss Laburnum cried. And they were off and running.

“But at least it’s not Barrie,” Sir Godfrey whispered to Polly, and on the way home after the all clear, Eileen said, “It’s good that all the female roles are small. When Mike finds Gerald, they’ll be able to easily replace you.”

If Mike finds Gerald, Polly thought. If he’s not in the Tower, awaiting trial as a German spy.

Instead of going to the London Zoo to meet the retrieval team, as per the ad they’d put in the papers, she sent Eileen instead so she wouldn’t miss his call. Eileen didn’t mind. “I’ll take Theodore,” she said. “He’s been wanting to go. The zoo wasn’t hit, was it?”

“Yes.” It had suffered fourteen HEs. “But not today.”

“Oh, good. If Mike’s found Gerald and wants us to come to Bletchley, we’ll be in the elephant house. I won’t be home to supper, thank heavens. I’ll eat at Theodore’s.”

Mike didn’t phone, and Eileen was back by three. “What happened?” Polly asked. “How was the zoo?”

“Dreadful. The retrieval team wasn’t there, and neither were the animals. Nearly all of them have been moved to the country for safekeeping, including the elephants, which Theodore particularly wanted to see, and ten minutes after we got there he decided he wanted to go home. And when I got him home, his mother was just going out, so I wasn’t asked to stay to supper,” she said, looking as if she was about to burst into tears. “And now I’ll have to eat one of Mrs. Rickett’s horrid cold collations.”

“No, you won’t,” Polly said. “I can’t face it either. The play’s over, so there’s no rehearsal tonight. As soon as Mike phones, we’ll go to Holborn’s canteen and have sandwiches.”

“What if he doesn’t phone?”

“We’ll wait till seven—he’ll expect us to have left for Notting Hill Gate by then—and then go. And while you’re waiting, you can think about whether you’ll order a cheese sandwich or fish paste.”

“Both,” Eileen said happily, and went off to sit on the stairs with Murder in the Calais Coach so she could hear the phone. Polly ironed her blouse and skirt for work and worried about Mike’s failure to call. And about the retrieval team and Colin and her deadline and discrepancies.

It can’t be all of them, she told herself sternly. They’re mutually exclusive. If it’s increased slippage that’s keeping your drops from opening, then you can’t have altered events and the retrieval teams can’t come through, so they can’t be buried in the rubble at Padgett’s or your drop. And if they are, then the drops must be working again, so you didn’t lose the war, and you needn’t worry about your deadline. You can worry about one or the other, but not all of them at once.

Unless they were connected. Unless the slippage had increased because they’d altered events, and the net was ensuring that other historians didn’t make the discrepancies worse.

No, that wouldn’t work. The increase had happened before Mike rescued Hardy and before she’d come through to the Blitz. And before Gerald had gone to Bletchley Park. And it couldn’t have been anything she did before because she’d been able to go back through to Oxford after VE-Day. And Eileen had—

“It’s seven,” Eileen said, coming back upstairs.

Polly insisted they wait another half hour, and then they went off to Holborn, after first extracting a promise from Miss Laburnum to take down any messages for them and promising in turn to try to find a suitable candle for the Ghost of Christmas Past’s crown.

“And a green fur-lined cloak for the Ghost of Christmas Present,” Miss Laburnum said.

“If I had a green fur-lined cloak, I’d wear it myself,” Eileen said as they walked over to Notting Hill Gate. “My coat isn’t half warm enough for this horrid weather.

And black is so grim.”

“Everyone’s wearing black,” Polly snapped. “There’s a war on. And no one has a new coat. Everyone’s making do.”

“I didn’t…,” Eileen said, turning puzzled eyes on her. “I was joking.”

“I know, I’m sorry,” Polly said. “It’s only—”

“You’re worried about Mike,” she said. “I know. He knew you were busy with the play. He probably didn’t want to distract you by phoning.”

Distract me? Polly thought bitterly.

“I’m sure he’ll ring us tomorrow.” Eileen linked her arm through Polly’s and chattered the rest of the way to Holborn about how wonderful the play had been and how hungry she was and about Agatha Christie.

“Wouldn’t it be wonderful if I actually saw her? She lived in London during the war and worked as a dispenser in the hospitals. Unfortunately, she won’t be in the tube shelters. She had an irrational fear of being buried alive.”

Not all that irrational, Polly thought, remembering Marble Arch. And Marjorie.

But it was a pity they had no chance of encountering her. They could have used her help, though Polly doubted whether even Agatha Christie could solve The Mystery of the Drops Which Wouldn’t Open.

“I wonder if she took the tube to work,” Eileen said. “If she—here’s our stop—if she did, we might see her on her way home.”

They got off the train.

“I do hope the queue for the canteen isn’t very long,” Eileen said, starting through the clot of passengers getting off and on and down the platform past a band of urchins up to no good, toward a group of young women in FANY uniforms.

Polly stopped.

“Come along, I’m starving,” Eileen said, beckoning to her.

A sailor passed, going the other way. Polly turned and walked swiftly after him along the platform as the train pulled out and then, as she reached the safety of the archway, looked back.

Eileen was coming after her, pushing through the FANYs, calling “Polly!”

She hurried through the arch and along the tunnel to the hall and onto the escalator.

“Where are you going?” Eileen asked breathlessly, catching up to her halfway up.

“I thought I saw someone,” Polly said.

“Who? Agatha Christie?”

“No, an historian. Jack Sorkin.”

“I thought he was in the Pacific.”

“I know, but I could have sworn …,” Polly said.

They reached the top of the escalator. Polly looked around at the crowd, frowning. “Oh, it isn’t him, after all,” she said, pointing at a sailor on the far side of the hall.

“Too bad.”

“It’s all right,” Eileen said. “We can still go to the canteen.” She started over to the escalator to go back down.

“Wait, I’ve just had a brilliant idea,” Polly said. “Let’s go to Lyons Corner House instead.”

“Lyons?” Eileen repeated doubtfully. “Why?”

“There aren’t any raids tonight. They’re bombing Bristol. We can have a proper meal, and you can tell me all about Murder in the Whatever It Is.”

“The Calais Coach,” Eileen said. “Do you think they may have bacon at Lyons? Or eggs?”

They had both, and tea that didn’t taste like dishwater. And pudding that didn’t taste like wallpaper paste.

“That was the most wonderful meal I’ve ever had,” Eileen said blissfully on the train home. “I’m glad you thought you saw Jack.”

“You were going to tell me about Murder in the Calais Coach,” Polly said.

“Oh. Yes. It’s wonderful. Everyone has a motive for the crime, and you think, ‘It can’t be all of them. It’s got to be one or the other,’ but then it turns out … but I don’t want to spoil it for you. Would you care to borrow it? I’m sure the librarian at Holborn wouldn’t mind if I kept it a bit longer.”

Polly wasn’t listening. She was thinking about the slippage and their altering events. “Eileen,” she asked, “did Linna or Badri say anything about what was causing the increase in slippage?”

“No, not that I remember,” Eileen said, and when they got back to their room, she handed Polly a sheet of paper. “Here, I wrote down everything I could remember, the way you and Mike told me to.”

On the sheet was scrawled, “G had umbrella, ddn’t offer it—Badri wking console—Linna on tphne—mad abt. Bastille—L sd she kn R of T first.”

“What’s R of T?”

“The Reign of Terror. Linna was talking to this person on the telephone about the lab changing whoever it was’s drop to the storming of the Bastille, and the person on the other end was obviously angry, and she said, ‘I know you were scheduled to go to the Reign of Terror first.’ But she didn’t say anything about slippage to them.”

Whoever it was had been scheduled to do the Reign of Terror, and they’d changed it so he or she went to the storming of the Bastille. Which had happened before the Reign of Terror.

“Where was Mike going before his assignment got changed to Dunkirk?” she asked Eileen. “Was it Pearl Harbor?”

“I don’t know. I believe so. They’d changed his entire schedule.”

“Where else was he supposed to go?”

“I don’t remember. Salisbury, I think, and the World Trade Center. I wasn’t—”

Really listening, Polly thought, wanting to shake her. Of course not. Just like you weren’t listening to Gerald Phipps.

“You can ask Mike when he rings us,” Eileen was saying. “Why do you need to know?”

Because Pearl Harbor happened on December 7, 1941. And the storming of the Bastille was before the Reign of Terror.

Mike had said Mr. Dunworthy had been shuffling and canceling dozens of drops. What if he’d been doing it because the slippage increase was a matter not of months but of years? What if Mr. Dunworthy had been putting all the drops in chronological order and canceling ones where there was already a deadline because he had been afraid their drops wouldn’t open in time? What if the increase had been four years? Or the length of the war, and that was why she’d seen Eileen at VE-Day?

Because they hadn’t got out?

But if that was it, then why hadn’t he canceled her drop?

Perhaps the increase isn’t that large, she thought. Pearl Harbor was only a year and a half after Dunkirk. She didn’t know how far apart the two events in the Perhaps the increase isn’t that large, she thought. Pearl Harbor was only a year and a half after Dunkirk. She didn’t know how far apart the two events in the French Revolution were. The storming of the Bastille was July 14, 1789, but she didn’t know when the Reign of Terror had begun. If it was less than three years …

Or that might not be the reason they’d changed the schedules at all. It might be something else altogether. When Mike phones. I need to ask him the original order of his assignments and what it was changed to, she thought. If he phones. And in the meantime, it’s pointless to worry.

But it was impossible not to. She spent her lunch break going to Selfridges and Bourne and Hollingsworth’s to look at women’s coats—which were luckily all far too expensive for Eileen to afford, even at Bourne and Hollingsworth’s “Bomb Damage” sale. And when clothing rationing went into effect, it would be impossible to save up enough points to buy one. But it still made Polly more cheerful to see that the only colors available were black, brown, and navy blue.

Mike phoned Monday night, and it was exactly as Eileen had predicted. He’d had difficulty finding a phone where he could speak without being overheard. “Either I’m going to have to find a phone booth that’s closer,” he said, “or we’ll have to conduct our conversations in code.”

“You’re surrounded by England’s greatest cryptanalysts,” Polly said. “I wouldn’t recommend that.”

“You’re right, it’ll have to be letters. Does Mrs. Rickett steam open your mail?”

“I wouldn’t put it past her.”

“Well, don’t worry. I’ll think of something. I don’t suppose the retrieval team’s answered one of our ads yet?”

“No. You were supposed to do your Pearl Harbor assignment first, is that right?”

“Yes, and then the World Trade Center and the Battle of the Bulge, so I could use one L-and-A implant for all three.”

“And what did they change it to? Were Dunkirk and Pearl Harbor the only two they switched?”

“No, they switched them all around. After Pearl Harbor they wanted me to do El Alamein and then the Battle of the Bulge—”

I was right. They put them in chronological order. Polly felt the familiar flutter of panic. But El Alamein’s only seven months after Pearl Harbor, and the Battle of the Bulge is only two and a half years after that. It’s still not as great a length of time between as mine.

“—followed by the second World Trade Center attack—”

Which was nearly sixty years after the Battle of the Bulge.

“—and the beginning of the Pandemic in Salisbury,” Mike said.

Twenty years later.

But that didn’t prove anything. The lab might have put his assignments in chronological order because of Pearl Harbor, not the others.

I need to find out when the Reign of Terror began, Polly thought, and tried to think of who would know. Not Eileen. Polly didn’t want her to begin asking questions. And because Eileen was working in the book department, she couldn’t look it up in a book on the French Revolution.

Sir Godfrey would no doubt know—he’d almost certainly played Sydney Carton on the stage. But he’d ask questions as well, and he saw far too much as it was.

The librarian at Holborn, she thought.

When they got to Notting Hill Gate, she told Eileen she’d forgotten to give Doreen a message and had to go to Piccadilly Circus to tell her. Instead she took the train to Holborn.

“The Reign of Terror?” the ginger-haired librarian said promptly. “It began in September of 1793.” Four years and two months after the storming of the Bastille.

Don’t leave it to others.

AIR RAID PRECAUTIONS POSTER,

1940