All Clear

London—7 May 1945

THAT IS MEROPE, SHE THOUGHT, LEANING OUT OVER THE National Gallery’s stone railing to get a better look at the young woman in the green coat, standing there in Trafalgar Square. Oh, good. She wanted to do VE-Day. She raised her arm to wave and shout to her, then decided against it. She didn’t know what name she was here under.

Probably not Merope. That name hadn’t become popular till the twenties. And she didn’t know what her cover was or if she was here with one of the contemps. A middle-aged man in an RAF uniform stood next to her on her left.

She lowered her arm, but Paige had already seen her begin to wave. “Do you see Reardon now?” Paige asked her.

“No, I thought I saw someone I knew.”

“You very probably did. I think everyone in England is here tonight.”

Past and present, she thought.

“Reardon!” Paige shouted, waving wildly. She glanced over to where Paige was looking and then back to where Merope had been standing, but she was no longer there. She searched through the crowd for her—by the lamppost, by the lion, over by the monument. But there was no sign of the green coat, which she should be able to spot—it was so bright. Or of her red hair.

“Oh, no, I’ve lost sight of her,” Paige said, scanning the sea of people. “Which way did Reardon go? I can’t see her anywhere. She—there she is! And there’s Talbot.” She began waving wildly. “Talbot! Reardon!”

“I don’t imagine they can hear you,” she said, but amazingly, they were plowing determinedly through the crowd and up the steps toward them.

“Fairchild, Douglas, thank goodness,” Reardon said when she reached them. “I thought I’d never see you again!”

Talbot nodded. “It’s bedlam out there,” she said cheerfully. “Have any of you seen Parrish and Maitland? I got separated from them. They were over by the bonfire.”

They all obediently looked in that direction, although there was no hope of recognizing anyone with the fire behind them like that. “I don’t see them anywhere,”

Talbot said. “Wait—Fairchild, isn’t that your true love?”

“It can’t be,” Paige said, looking where Talbot was pointing. “He’s in France. He … oh, Douglas, look!” Paige grabbed her arm. “It’s Stephen! Stephen! I was afraid he wouldn’t get here in time, and he’d miss all this. Oh, Mary, I’m so glad he’s here!”

So am I, she thought. It was wonderful seeing him without the fear and strain that had been in his face when Paige was in hospital, without the fatigue and concentration he’d had when he’d been tipping V-1s every day. He looked years younger than the last time she’d seen him.

But he’s still too old for me, she thought regretfully, though it wouldn’t matter if she were a FANY and not an historian. She still couldn’t have him. He hadn’t found Paige in the crowd yet, but he was clearly looking for her, and when he did, he’d only have eyes for her.

I’m still glad I get to see him one last time, she thought, watching him work his way cheerfully through the jostling crowd, looking for Paige, his dark hair …

“He doesn’t see us!” Paige wailed. “Wave, Mary!”

She waved along with the others, and shouted, and Parrish emitted an ear-splitting whistle, which would have made her titled parents shudder but did the trick. He looked up, saw Paige, grinned that devastatingly crooked smile of his, and started straight for them.

“Oh, good,” Talbot said. “He’s seen—good God! Is that the Major?”

Talbot pointed three-quarters of the way across the square, beyond the bonfire, but they all spotted her instantly. And worse, she’d spotted them. “This is all your fault, Fairchild,” Talbot said. “If we hadn’t been waving at Stephen, she’d never have seen us.”

“What do you think she’s doing here?” Reardon asked apprehensively.

“If I know her,” Parrish said, “she’s probably come to tell us we’re all on report.”

“Or to send us to Edgware for sticking plaster,” Paige said.

“Should we start a pool on it?” Reardon asked.

Talbot laughed. “Oh, I’m going to miss all of you.”

“We’ll see each other again,” Paige said confidently. “You’re all invited to my wedding. Douglas is going to be my maid of honor, aren’t you, Mary?”

I can’t, she thought.

“Only if you promise not to make me wear the Yellow Peril,” she said lightly.

“I knew I was glad the war was over,” Parrish said. “It means I’ll never have to wear the Yellow Peril again.”

“Or drive the Octopus,” Talbot said.

Or be afraid you’re going to be killed any moment. Or dig body parts and dead children out of the rubble again, Mary said silently and thought of the man in the wrecked newspaper office in Croydon. After she’d got out of hospital, she’d telephoned St. Bart’s and Guy’s Hospital and then every ambulance unit within forty miles, but she hadn’t found any trace of him. He must not have been as badly injured as she’d thought, though that seemed impossible.

I hope he made it, she thought. I hope he’s here tonight to see this.

“Oh, no,” Talbot said. “The Major’s coming this way!”

“Do you think she’ll make us go home?” Reardon said.

No, just me, Mary thought. With the Major here, it was a perfect time to go back to the post, leave her a note saying, “My mother’s very ill. Must go,” and then head for the drop.

She was sorry she hadn’t got to see Maitland or Sutcliffe-Hythe or Reed one last time—she had grown amazingly attached to all the FANYs over the last year. But she was only experiencing what every person here in Trafalgar Square would be in the next few days and weeks. This wasn’t only an end to the war. It would be the end to who knew how many friendships, romances, careers. All sorts of partings, all sorts of goodbyes.

And if she was going, she needed to do it now, before the trains stopped for the night. And before the Major and Stephen got here. Stephen had nearly reached the foot of the steps. She gave him one last regretful glance and then looked at the other girls. Their eyes were still on the Major, on whose head an air-raid warden had just plunked a Nelson-style tricorn hat.

“Do you think we’d better flee while we can?” Parrish asked.

“No, it will only make it worse when she does catch us,” Talbot said.

“Perhaps she’s come to celebrate with us,” Reardon said.

“Does she look like she’s celebrating?” Talbot asked.

She didn’t, despite the festive tricorn. I’ll miss you, too, Major, Mary thought, and leaned toward Paige, who was still calling and waving to Stephen, and kissed her on the cheek. Paige didn’t even notice.

Mary edged slowly away from her and then turned, squeezed quickly along the porch to the steps, and down the same way she’d come up, taking her cap off and keeping her head down in case Paige realized she was gone and began looking for her.

If she did, Paige would hopefully assume she’d tried to get down to Stephen and been carried away by the crowd. Which could be true, she thought, reaching the front of the steps.

She set out at an angle across the square in the direction of Charing Cross. Halfway across, she caught a current that swept her in the direction she wanted to go and let it carry her. It looked like it might even deliver her neatly at the entrance to the tube station.

With time to spare, she thought, stopping at the edge of the square to look at her watch.

The little man in the bowler was still in exactly the same place. “Three cheers for Patton!” he shouted, but the “Hip, hip, hurrahs” were drowned out by the approaching beats of the conga line. She pushed through the crowd toward the Underground station. Hopefully, it would be less jammed than when they’d come.

Certainly none of these people showed any sign of going home any time soon, and once the train got past Holborn, it should be—

“Come on, ducks!” a burly merchant marine shouted in her ear. He grabbed her around the waist, thrust her into the conga line ahead of him, and forced her hands onto the waist of the soldier in front of her.

“No! I haven’t time for this!” she cried, but it was no use. The marine had an iron grip on her waist, and when she tried to plant her feet firmly on the ground and refuse to go, he simply picked her up and held her out before him.

She was carried remorselessly back into Trafalgar Square and across it by the snaking “dunh duh dunh duh”-ing dancers. They were heading straight back to the National Gallery. “You don’t understand!” she shouted. “I’ve got to get to the Underground station! I must—”

“Here then, let her go. That’s a good chap,” a man’s voice said, and she felt herself grabbed by the waist and plucked neatly out of the conga line. The marine and the rest of the line danced past her and away.

“Thank you,” she said, turning to look at her rescuer, but before she got a good look at his face—she scarcely had time to register the fact that he was a soldier and that he was wearing a clerical collar—there was a loud explosion over by the fountain.

“Sorry, I believe I know who did that,” he said, and strode off through the crowd, presumably to rescue someone else.

“Thank you again, whoever you are,” Mary said, and set off for the tube station again, this time keeping to the very edge of the square and the street.

The little man in the bowler was still standing outside leading cheers. “Three cheers for Dowding!” he shouted.

He’s going to run out of heroes to cheer, she thought, squeezing past him to the entrance, but she was wrong. As she ran down the stairs, she heard him shout,

“Three cheers for the firespotters! Three cheers for the ARP! Three cheers for all of us! Hip hip hurrah!”

Father, we thought we should never see you again.

—SIR J. M. BARRIE, THE ADMIRABLE CRICHTON