All Clear

Kent—April 1944

“WORTHING!” CESS CALLED, AND OPENED THE DOOR.

“What is it now?” Ernest asked, typing, “To the Editor of the Clarion Call: I have the misfortune—”

Cess looked offended. “You asked me to tell you when Lady Bracknell got here,” he said. “He’s here.”

Ernest nodded, typing, “—to reside in—”

He broke off. “Where’s the dummy camp Prism and Gwendolyn are building?” he asked.

“Just north of Coggeshall,” Cess said.

“—in Coggeshall, near the American paratroop base, and I am appalled by the number of beer bottles and—” He paused, fingers poised above the keyboard. “Will they print the word ‘condoms’ in the newspaper?”

“No,” Cess said. “He wants to see us.”

Ernest typed, “—and contraceptive appliances in my lane on Sunday mornings. I have spoken to the camp commander, but to no avail.”

“He wants us in the common room now.”

“This is the last one. Listen to this. I need your advice.” He read it aloud to Cess.

“Oh, it’ll definitely fool the Germans,” Cess said. “There’s no clearer proof that there’s an army in the area than beer bottles and used condoms.”

“No, I need advice on who wrote the letter. Do you think it should be from an irate country squire or a spinster?”

“A vicar,” Cess said promptly. “Now come along.”

“I’ll be right there,” Ernest promised, waving Cess out of the room. He typed two more lines, signed the letter “The Reverend T. W. Ringolsby,” put it and the carbon into the envelope with his articles, hid the envelope in the “Forms 14C” file, and went down to the common room.

Gwendolyn was making his report to Lady Bracknell as Ernest squeezed into a seat next to Cess. “Camp Omaha has been completed,” Gwendolyn said. “Fifty barracks, a motor pool, a mess hall, and a camp kitchen with smoke coming out of its chimney, but I’m not certain how long that will last, so if a German reconnaissance plane could get through our coastal defenses soon, that would be excellent.”

Lady Bracknell nodded. “I’ll arrange it for tomorrow afternoon. The meteorological report is for fair weather till tomorrow evening.” He made a note. “We’ll need soldiers walking between buildings, unloading supplies, and drilling in formation.”

“And guess who those soldiers will be,” Cess whispered to Ernest. “Just my cup of tea—drilling in the pouring rain.”

Lady Bracknell fixed them with a gimlet stare. “All of you except Chasuble and Worthing will report to Camp Omaha at fourteen hundred hours tomorrow.

Chasuble, I need you to arrange a ribbon-cutting ceremony for the airfield in Sissinghurst for Friday next.”

Chasuble frowned. “Does Sissinghurst have an airfield?”

“It will by Friday next. Worthing, I need you to go to Dover.”

“To the hospital?” Ernest asked warily.

“No, to the harbor. I need you to deliver a parcel to a boat that’s docked there.”

“Alone?”

“Yes, alone, Lieutenant Worthing. How many people does it take to deliver a single parcel?”

“Sorry, sir,” Ernest said, trying to look chagrined rather than thrilled. Here was his chance. Finally. He’d be on his own and with transport. He could finally get to London. And he’d be able to deliver his articles to the Sudbury Weekly Shopper and the Call without Cess or Prism looking over his shoulder. Especially the Call.

The editor, Mr. Jeppers, always insisted on reading through all of the articles before he okayed them and on asking all kinds of questions.

He’d be pushed for time if he wanted to do both, but luckily, Dover was far enough away that a few hours more or less wouldn’t look suspicious. Unless Lady Bracknell wasn’t sending him right away. “When do I leave, sir?” he asked.

“As soon as you can. His boat will only be in port a day or two. We need to catch him before he goes out again.”

Better and better. He debated asking when Lady Bracknell expected him back from the mission and then decided that was looking for trouble. “Yes, sir,” he said.

“Report to me when you’re ready to leave.”

“Yes, sir.” And as soon as the meeting broke up, he went to borrow Chasuble’s peacoat and see who had a suitable shirt. The sooner he left, the less likely it was that Bracknell would change his mind and decide to send someone with him.

No one had a shirt that could pass for a sailor’s, but Cess produced a shapeless, dingy gray pullover and a pair of canvas sneakers. “The jumper’s Moncrieff’s and the plimsolls are Prism’s,” Cess said.

Prism’s feet were smaller than his, but it didn’t matter. He’d be driving the entire way. “Perfect. Thanks,” he said, yanking the pullover on. “You wouldn’t have a duffel bag, would you?”

“Yes,” Cess said, and returned immediately with a heavy canvas bag and an umbrella. “You’ll need this as well.”

“Hardy seafaring men don’t go about with umbrellas,” Ernest said, shoving a change of clothes into the bag. “And why are you so certain it’s going to rain?

Bracknell said it’s supposed to be fair.”

“He also said that pasture hadn’t any bulls in it,” Cess said, holding out the umbrella. “And it always rains when we have to be outside. Remember the oil-depot ribbon cutting?” He laid the umbrella on the desk and left. As soon as he was gone Ernest opened the file, retrieved the envelope from “Forms 14C,” and put it into the duffel bag under his clothes.

Cess leaned back in. “Bracknell wants to see you.”

I knew it was too good to be true, Ernest thought, but Bracknell only wanted to give him the parcel—a large rectangular box that looked heavy but weighed almost nothing—and a letter. “You’re to give both to Captain Doolittle on the Mlle. Jeannette.”

“The Mlle. Jeannette?”

“It’s a French fishing boat.” He told Ernest where it would be docked. “You’re Seaman Higgins. You’re from Cornwall. Can you do a Cornish accent?”

He nodded. “I’m an old hand at accents.”

Bracknell handed him a sheaf of forms. “These are your papers. You were invalided out of His Majesty’s Navy, and you’re looking for work. You’re to say to Captain Doolittle—and only to Captain Doolittle”—he read aloud in his precise upper-class accent—“ ‘Seaman Higgins, sir. Admiral Pickering said as how you was hiring on a crew,’ and Captain Doolittle will reply, ‘Admiral Pickering! How is that old devil? and then you give him the package.’ ”

“Yes, sir.” He repeated his line back to him in what he hoped was an out-of-work sailor’s accent and then said, “Am I taking the Austin or the staff car?”

“Neither. You’re going on foot.”

I knew it was too good to be true, he thought. “You want me to walk all the way to Dover?”

“No, of course not. I want you to hitchhike. That way you’ll be able to discuss the invasion with farmers and other locals. And you’ll be able to stop at pubs along the way and engage the denizens in conversation about the invasion as well.”

But he wouldn’t be able to deliver his articles or get to London.

“The conversations will corroborate the disinformation in our radio transmissions and newspaper articles,” Bracknell said.

“Speaking of which,” Ernest said, “the Call’s and the Shopper’s deadlines are both tomorrow, and if I miss them, there won’t be anything about FUSAG in either paper till week after next. There’ve been planted stories about the American and Canadian troops in every issue of both papers. If they suddenly stop—and in more than one paper—the Germans may notice. And as you’re always saying, sir, in an enterprise like this, if any one piece is missing, the entire scheme will collapse.”

“I am well aware of what I’ve said,” Bracknell snapped. “Have you written the stories?”

“Yes, but—”

“Then Cecily can deliver them for you.” And before Ernest could stop him, he shouted, “Cecily!”

“But Cess doesn’t know the editors. It would make more sense for him to go to Dover and me to stay here. I could deliver them on my way to Camp—”

“No, Algernon specifically requested you make this delivery.”

He did? Why? he wondered.

“Yes, sir?” Cess said, appearing in the doorway.

“Ernest needs you to deliver his planted articles to the newspapers tomorrow morning. Take the Austin,” he said, adding insult to injury, and waved them out of his office.

“Thank you,” Cess said out in the hall.

“For what?”

“For trying to get me out of drilling in the rain. I appreciate the attempt, even though it didn’t work.”

“That’s the story of my life,” Ernest said, more bitterly than he meant to. And when Cess looked curiously at him, “Attempts that don’t work.”

“Where are the articles you need me to deliver?”

“I’ll fetch them,” Ernest said, and to get rid of Cess, asked “You wouldn’t have a pair of dungarees I could borrow, would you? These trousers of mine look too good to be a sailor’s.”

“What about the ones you wore the day you had that run-in with the bull?” Cess said. “They surely look bad enough.”

“You’re right,” Ernest said, and tried again. “Ask Prism if he has a knitted cap I can borrow.” As soon as Cess had gone, he shut the door, dug the envelope out of the duffel bag, and pried the sealed edge open. He took the papers halfway out and began pulling out the ones he couldn’t let Cess take.

“Did you find your cap?” Cess’s voice said outside in the corridor.

“Yes, it’s in fairly bad shape, though,” Prism said.

I should have marked the coded articles somehow, Ernest thought, leafing through the papers. Or written them in red ink that would dissolve when it got wet, like the bigram books.

There were four of them. Where the hell was the fourth one? There it was. “Lost, locket inscribed E.O.…”

He yanked it out, jammed it and the other three sheets of paper into the duffel bag, resealed the envelope, and was putting his razor and shaving soap into the bag when Cess came in, carrying a cap even grimier and more ragged than the jumper. “Perfect,” Ernest said, handing the envelope to Cess. He tried on the cap. “What do you think?”

“Very seamanlike. All that’s wanted is the smell of fish and a two days’ growth of beard. Which means you won’t be needing that razor,” Cess said, reaching for the duffel bag.

Ernest jerked it out of his reach. “That’s what you think,” he said, cinching it shut. “On my way back I’m supposed to stop at assorted pubs and talk about Calais, and I wouldn’t like to frighten the barmaids.”

“Yes, well, stay away from the Bull and Plough,” Cess said. “Chasuble doesn’t want anyone poaching on his time with Daphne.”

“Daphne?” Ernest said sharply.

“The barmaid. You know her. Pretty little blonde, big blue eyes. Chasuble’s head over heels about her. Where do I take these articles?”

“The originals go to the Weekly Shopper in Sudbury and the carbons to the Croydon Clarion Call,” Ernest said, pulling on the canvas sneakers, which already hurt.

“The office is just off the high street. Mr. Jeppers is the editor.” He tied the sneakers. “They’ve got to be there by four tomorrow afternoon.”

He stood up and slung the duffel bag over his shoulder. “I don’t suppose you could run me up to Newenden? I’ll have a better chance of catching a ride from there.” And there’s a train I could catch from there to London and then take one to Dover in the morning.

“Sorry. Chasuble just left,” Cess said, “and Moncrieff won’t be back with the Austin till tonight. Here.” He handed Ernest a tin of pilchards.

“What’s this for?”

“I thought you could pour a bit on your trousers for authenticity.”

“I’ll wait till I get there,” Ernest said, eager to get away. London was out, but with luck he could catch a ride to Hawkhurst in time to make the bus to Croydon and get his articles in before Cess delivered the others, though how exactly would he explain the necessity of two separate deliveries to Mr. Jeppers?

I’ll work that out later, he thought, after I’ve caught the bus. And a ride.

But after half an hour of limping along the road in the too-tight sneakers, no one at all had come along. It’s too bad the First Army’s not really here. I could hitch a ride with one of them.

He was finally picked up by an elderly clergyman going to the next village to substitute for the local vicar. “He’s volunteered to go over with the troops as a chaplain,” he leaned out the window to tell Ernest. “The village is only two miles on. Are you certain you don’t want to wait for a better ride?”

Ernest wasn’t certain at all, but by then his feet hurt so badly, he climbed in, only to immediately have a Jeep with a pretty WAC driving it appear out of nowhere and shoot past them. So when the clergyman let him out, he turned down a ride in another lumbering farm truck—a truck that turned out to be the last vehicle on the road for three hours.

He didn’t make it to Hawkhurst till nearly ten that night, which, when he reflected on it—and he’d had hours to reflect on it—was probably just as well. There was no way to guarantee that Mr. Jeppers wouldn’t mention his having been there to Cess when he got to Croydon, and if he did, Cess would want to know what was in those articles that was so important. And he was already too interested in what Ernest was typing.

Ernest was too bone-weary to sit in the pub room nursing a watered-down pint and spreading false rumors about the invasion. He hardly had enough energy to wrench the sneakers off his blistered feet, fall into bed, and sleep through his best chance of a ride to Dover. “You just missed Mr. Hollocks,” the barmaid told him when she served him breakfast. “He was going all the way to Dover.”

The story of my life, he thought, and spent the next day inching toward Dover in lorries filled with chickens, pig muck, and a bull he was convinced was the same one he’d faced down in that pasture. He was glad when the farmer turned down a muddy lane and let him out, though he was still “some way” from Dover and it looked like it was going to rain.

It did. By the time he reached Dover in midafternoon, on the back of an army corporal’s Douglas motorcycle, it was pouring, with a blustery wind that drove the rain straight into his face.

Poor Cess, he thought, heading for the docks. On the other hand, Captain Doolittle would still be here. No one would take a boat out in this.

He made his way along the rain-slick dock between wooden crates and coils of rope and tins of petrol, reading the names painted on the boats’ bows—the Valiant, the King George, the Dreadnought. No Mary Roses or Sea Sprites here, he thought. The war had changed all that. They all had either militant or patriotic names, and their decks were hung with camouflage netting. The Union Jack, the Dauntless …

The damned Mlle. Jeannette was going to be the very last one. He’d be drenched by the time he got there. The Fearless, the Britannia …

Here it was. The Mlle. Jeannette.

But it couldn’t be the boat he was looking for. Its hull was covered in barnacles, and its paint was peeling. It didn’t look like it could stay afloat long enough to make it out of the harbor, let alone do a mission for British Intelligence. It looked almost as unseaworthy as—

“Ahoy, there,” a tough-looking young man called from the bow. “You got business ’ere?” He was wearing a jersey and denim trousers and had evidently been working on the engine. His face and hands were streaked with black, and he was holding an oily wrench as if it was a weapon.

“I’m looking for Captain Doolittle,” Ernest shouted up to him. “Is this his boat?”

“Aye.” He motioned Ernest aboard. “ ’E’s below. Cap’n!” When there was no response, he went over to the hatch and shouted down it, “Cap’n Doolittle!

Sommun’ ’ere to see ya!” and returned to the engine.

Ernest hurried up the gangplank and then stopped, staring around at the unvarnished deck in bewilderment. This couldn’t be … she’d been sunk. But the ship’s wheel, the lockers, even the hatch looked exactly like it.

Oh, my God, he thought. The Mlle. Jeannette. I should have recognized the name.

“What in tarnation are you bellowing about now?” a voice from below shouted, and there was no mistaking that voice, that yachting cap, or, as he emerged from the hatch, those bright eyes and that grizzled beard.

You’re alive, Ernest thought wonderingly.

“Who are you? And what the bloody hell do you want?”

He doesn’t recognize me, Ernest thought, thanking God for the knitted cap and the stubble on his face. “Are you Captain Doolittle?” he asked.

“I am.”

“I’m Seaman—”

“Come below out of this rain,” he said, and motioned Ernest to follow him down the ladder.

Ernest climbed down it after him. The hold looked exactly the same—the littered galley, the bunk with its heap of gray blankets, the same four inches of brackish water on the floor. And the dim, flickering hurricane lamp over the table, which, hopefully, wouldn’t illuminate his face too much. If he could deliver the package and get out of here quickly enough …

He descended the last two rungs and started across the hold, but before he’d waded two steps, the Commander had him in a bear hug. “You’re a sight for sore eyes!” he bellowed, pounding him on the back. “What the bloody hell are you doing here, Kansas?”

For many years the prince wandered until at last he came to the lonely place where the witch had left Rapunzel.

RAPUNZEL