All Clear

London—Spring 1941

“SO YOU’RE TELLING ME ALF AND BINNIE ARE WAR HEROES?” Eileen said after Polly and Mr. Dunworthy had explained Polly’s theory to her.

“Yes,” Polly said. “You were right about their being a secret weapon. Only they’re on our side. Their jumping out in front of you when you were chasing John Bartholomew and delaying you was what was responsible for your being forced into driving the ambulance that night, so that you were able to save Captain Westbrook’s life—”

“And they delayed the train.”

“Train?” Polly said.

“When we came to London. They chased a headmistress out of our compartment, and she tried to have us thrown off the train, and it made us late leaving the station. And later we found out the railway bridge ahead of us had been bombed, and Alf said, ‘It was a good thing we was late.’ ” She looked up at Polly wonderingly. “They saved my life. And the headmistress’s.”

“And you saved Captain Westbrook’s.”

“And you two and Mike and I won the war?” Eileen said.

“Helped to win the war,” Mr. Dunworthy said. “Tipped the balance.”

“But I don’t understand. If they’d lost the war before we came, then how could you have been at VE-Day? There wouldn’t have been a VE-Day, would there?”

“Yes,” Polly said, “because by 1945, you’d already saved Captain Westbrook’s life and I’d already saved Sir Godfrey—”

“But you hadn’t done that when you were at VE-Day,” Eileen said, hopelessly confused. “You hadn’t even come to the Blitz yet.”

“Yes, I had,” Polly said patiently. “I came to the Blitz in 1940, and I went to Trafalgar Square on VE-Day five years later, in 1945.”

“But what about all those years before any of us came here, before time travel was even invented? The war was lost then, wasn’t it?”

“No,” Polly said. “It was always won because we had always come. We were always here. We were always a part of it.”

“The past and the future are both part of a single continuum,” Mr. Dunworthy said, and launched into a long and involved explanation of chaos theory.

“But I still don’t understand—”

“Don’t understand what?” Binnie asked, coming in and announcing that from now on she wished to be called Florence—“Like Florence Nightingale”—and become a nurse, which put an end to the conversation.

But the next morning after Alf and Binnie had gone to school, Eileen brought up the subject again. “So because Mr. Dunworthy ran into the Wren and Mike untangled the propeller and you saved Sir Godfrey, it changed things just enough that we won the war, is that right?”

“Yes,” Polly said.

“Then there’s no reason to keep us here,” she said, “and we can go home.”

“Eileen—”

“Mr. Dunworthy, you said every historian who’s come here has altered events, and they all went back to Oxford. And after you ran into the Wren, you went back to Oxford. So now that we’ve done what we were supposed to do, they should be able to come and fetch us, shouldn’t they? Or our drops should begin working again.”

She looked expectantly from Polly to Mr. Dunworthy and back again. “We need to go check them.”

“I’ll go to the drop in St. Paul’s this morning,” Mr. Dunworthy promised.

But after Eileen had elicited a promise that Polly would check her drop on her way to the theater and had left to drive General Flynn, he said to Polly, “She may, of course, be right about the drops—”

“But if she were, Colin would already be here.”

“Yes,” he said, “and the fact that he isn’t very likely means our part in this is not over.”

“I know,” Polly said, thinking of how Major Denewell had told her and the other FANYs the war could still be lost even during that last year.

“More may be required of us before the end,” Mr. Dunworthy told her.

Including our lives, Polly thought.

She had nearly died rescuing Sir Godfrey. The next time she might not make it. Like the countless rescue workers and ARP wardens and firemen who’d died digging people out of the rubble or taking people to shelter or defusing bombs. Or she might simply be killed outright by an HE, as Mike had been, and all the other people who’d died in the Blitz and in hospitals and prison camps and newspaper offices. Casualties of war.

But still even in death, doing their bit. Like Mike. It was his death that had made her go to the Works Board and volunteer to be an ambulance driver and be assigned to ENSA and save Sir Godfrey.

“I know there’s a good chance we won’t make it back,” she told Mr. Dunworthy, and as she did, it struck her that that was what soldiers said when they were leaving for the front.

“But it doesn’t matter,” she said, and meant it. “All that matters is that Sir Godfrey didn’t die and I’m not responsible for losing the war, and that I can see Miss Laburnum and Doreen and Trot without getting them killed. And if I’m killed, I won’t be the only one to die in World War Two. I’m only sorry I got you into this.”

“We got each other into it. And we may yet get out.”

“And if not, we still stopped Hitler in his tracks.” She smiled at him.

“We did indeed,” he said, and looked suddenly years younger. “And we, like St. Paul’s, are still standing, at least for the moment. Speaking of which, when I go there to check the drop, I intend to ask to be taken on as a volunteer. I have always wanted to serve on the fire watch and help save St. Paul’s—”

He stopped, an odd look on his face.

“What is it?” Polly asked. “Are you feeling ill?”

“No,” he said. “It’s just occurred to me … I think I may already have saved it. The night I came through, I crashed into a stirrup pump, and two of the fire watch came down to investigate and found an incendiary which had burned through the roof. If I hadn’t been there—”

“They might not have discovered it till too late, and the fire—” Polly said, and stopped as well, thinking of the fire on the desk which she had put out the night they’d been trying to find John Bartholomew.

“And if my being there did save it, then it may do so again,” Mr. Dunworthy was saying, “even if I can only be at St. Paul’s for two weeks. But you will need to help me persuade them. And convince Eileen.”

Convincing Eileen proved to be the more difficult of the two. “But it’s dangerous,” she said. “The north transept—”

“Won’t be bombed till April sixteenth,” Mr. Dunworthy said. “I’ll phone in and tell them I’m ill that night.”

“What about the big raids on May tenth and eleventh? You said the entire city—”

“St. Paul’s wasn’t hit either of those nights,” he reassured her.

And it doesn’t matter, Polly wanted to shout at her. He won’t be here. His deadline will already have passed. And the chances are I’ll only have two weeks after that. If she had another task, it almost certainly lay between now and the end of the Blitz. There would be only occasional raids after that, but they’d had far fewer casualties. Which meant her deadline wasn’t the end of 1943. It was May eleventh.

But she couldn’t tell Eileen that. In the first place, she wouldn’t believe her. And in the second place, the task at hand was to convince her to allow Mr. Dunworthy to join the fire watch. So instead Polly said, “St. Paul’s won’t suffer any more damage till 1944 and the V-1 and V-2 attacks.”

“But if there won’t be any more damage, then why do you need to be in the fire watch, Mr. Dunworthy?” Eileen persisted.

“Because I may be the reason there wasn’t damage,” Mr. Dunworthy said, which didn’t help his case.

“No,” Eileen said firmly. “It’s too dangerous. The incendiaries and the roofs … You might fall.”

“None of the fire watch was injured or killed in 1941,” Mr. Dunworthy told her, and Polly wondered if that was a lie, if Mr. Dunworthy was hoping to die at St.

Paul’s as well as work there.

“And being in the cathedral will give me opportunities to check the drop when no one’s around,” Mr. Dunworthy said, and Eileen eventually relented, though she insisted on walking him to and from the cathedral every night he was on duty.

“St. Paul’s may be safe,” she said, “but there’s still the journey there and back again. I have no intention of letting either of you get killed five minutes before the retrieval team arrives.”

“All right,” he agreed, and let her walk him there every night, except for the seventeenth, when he sent Eileen on an errand and had Polly accompany him instead so Eileen wouldn’t see the damage from the raids the night before.

“It left a huge crater in the middle of the floor,” he told Polly. “If Eileen sees it, I fear she’ll never let me go on working with the fire watch.”

“And she’ll see you can’t get to your drop,” Polly said, guessing the real reason.

“True, I can’t.”

When they reached St. Paul’s, Mr. Humphreys was delighted to see Polly. “Miss Sebastian, you must be an excellent nurse. Mr. Hobbe looks quite recovered.”

He insisted on showing them the north transept, or, rather, the mountain of plaster and splintered timbers and broken marble that blocked access to it. “Still, though, the damage could have been worse,” he said.

Far, far worse, Polly thought, going to the Alhambra that night, thinking of Hitler unvanquished, unstoppable, marauding and murdering his way through England and the rest of the world. And the future.

But we stopped him, she thought. We won the war.

“You look like the cat that swallowed the canary,” Tabbitt said. “Did you meet a handsome doctor in hospital?”

“You’re in awfully good spirits for someone who nearly bought it,” Hattie said.

The troupe noted her lightness of mood as well. “You’re too cheery by half,” Viv said when she went to the theater for the first pantomime rehearsal.

“It’s just that I’m so happy to see all of you,” she said. Sir Godfrey and Mrs. Wyvern had not only found another theater—the Regent—for them to stage the pantomime in but had managed to talk Mr. Tabbitt into shifting Polly to matinees for the duration and had bullied the entire troupe to be in the play.

Miss Laburnum was to be the narrator, Mrs. Brightford Sleeping Beauty’s mother and the Queen, and the rector the King and one-half of the Prince’s horse. Viv was the other half, Nelson was the prince’s dog, and Miss Hibbard was helping with costumes. “We’re happy to see you, too, my dear,” she said.

“And delighted to see you looking so well after your ordeal,” the rector added.

“It’s the spring weather,” Miss Laburnum said. “I find the coming of spring always lifts one spirits.”

“I say it’s a man,” Viv said.

“Well, whatever it is, it suits you,” Mrs. Brightford said. “You look positively radiant.”

But when she went backstage with Sir Godfrey, he said, “What is this fey mood which has come now upon you? Such moods are dangerous. Are you certain you’re fully recovered from your exertions on my behalf? Perhaps we should postpone the play.”

“No, better not,” she said and, when he looked up alertly, “I only meant the theater may not be available for an additional week. And ENSA may be sending me to the provinces in May. Not to Bristol,” she added hastily. “There’s no need to postpone. I’m all right.”

Which was true. She was only sorry she wouldn’t get to see Colin again, and anguished over what his failure to rescue her and Mr. Dunworthy would do to him.

It wasn’t your fault, she wished she could tell him. I know you would have come to rescue me if you could.

Sir Godfrey was looking worriedly at her. “Simply because you’ve cheated Death once,” he said, “doesn’t mean he will not try again. I could not bear to lose you.”

“Only because you’d have to find another principal boy,” she said, smiling.

And she seemed to have allayed his fears because he became his old tyrannical directing self again, bellowing at everyone and shouting orders at Mr. Dorming, who’d been recruited into painting sets. Mrs. Brightford’s three little girls had been enlisted, too, and, by the time rehearsals began—and over Polly’s protests—Alf and Binnie.

“Oh, I don’t think that’s a good idea,” Polly said when Mrs. Wyvern suggested it.

“It’s an excellent idea,” Mrs. Wyvern said. “The pantomime is being given to benefit the orphans of the East End. What could be better than having actual children from the East End in it? They can be in the christening scene.”

“We’re fairies,” Binnie told Mr. Dunworthy proudly.

“I ain’t,” Alf said. “Girls are fairies. I’m a goblin. And a bramblebush. First Bramblebush.”

“Liar,” Binnie said. “All the bramblebushes are the same. I’m goin’ to wear a beautiful glittery dress and wings.”

If Sir Godfrey doesn’t throttle you first, Polly thought, which seemed highly likely. They teased Nelson, trod in paint, bounced on Sleeping Beauty’s bed, and hit each other with the fairies’ wands and the prop swords.

“Those swords were borrowed from the Royal Shakespeare!” Sir Godfrey bellowed at them. “The next miscreant I catch with one will be strung up by his heels.”

Which had no effect on them at all. Polly had to talk Eileen into coming to rehearsals with her to keep them from destroying the theater, and Mrs. Wyvern promptly latched on to her and made her prompter.

“At least when the retrieval team comes, we’ll all be in one place,” Eileen said cheerfully.

She’d refused to give up hope, even though it was obvious by this time that no one had been able to get through. “The bombing of St. Paul’s must be a divergence point,” she said, “and the retrieval team can’t come through till it’s past.”

Nothing happened on the sixteenth or the seventeenth. On the eighteenth, Eileen said, “With us not in Oxford Street anymore and Mrs. Rickett’s house gone and the vicar not in Backbury, they’ve no way to find us. We need to go to Townsend Brothers and give them our new address. Do you think I should write to Lieutenant Heffernan at the riflery school at the manor?”

It doesn’t matter, Polly thought. If they were able to come, they’d have done it long before this. They know Mr. Dunworthy’s deadline is the first of May. And the weather was supposed to be clear for the next three nights. Perfect bombing weather.

“I’ll write to the manor tonight when we get home,” Eileen said. “Perhaps they moved the riflery range, and we can go to Backbury and use my drop.”

It won’t open either, Polly thought, and wished she could tell Eileen, You mustn’t blame yourself that we weren’t able to get out in time. It’s not your fault.

But Eileen would only say, “They’ll get us out. You’ll see. At this very moment, there are all sorts of things happening, all sorts of people working to rescue us,”

and Polly didn’t think she could bear it. So instead, after Eileen left to walk Mr. Dunworthy to St. Paul’s, she wrote what she had wanted to say in a note and added a list of the dates, times, and locations of every V-1 and V-2 in her implant.

She copied it out in case the original was destroyed when she got killed and hid the copy in Eileen’s Murder in the Calais Coach. The original she sealed in an envelope addressed to Eileen, then sealed the envelope and the half-charred lithograph of The Light of the World in a second envelope, which she put in her coat pocket.

Nothing happened on the eighteenth either. On the nineteenth, Eileen said, “Tomorrow I want you to show me the drop in Hampstead Heath. If the sixteenth was a divergence point, it might be far enough outside London to not be affected.” She pulled on her coat. “I’ll meet you at the theater. I need to walk Mr. Dunworthy to St.

Paul’s—he’s on duty tonight. Tell Mrs. Wyvern I hid the magic wands and the bramblebush branches on top of the costume cupboard so the children can’t get at them.”

“Are Alf and Binnie going with you?”

“No,” Eileen said, but they set up such a clamor that she gave in and took them along.

Polly was relieved, even though it would make them late for rehearsal and bring Sir Godfrey’s wrath down on her. But so long as they were with Eileen, they’d be safe—or at any rate, safer than with her. And Mr. Dunworthy would be safe in St. Paul’s. The cathedral hadn’t been hit again after the sixteenth.

Which meant he would be killed on the way back from there, or at home. It seemed possible that she would be killed at the same time, but she hoped not. She would like to be able to do the pantomime for Sir Godfrey.

She loved doing it in spite of Sir Godfrey’s loathing of pantomime, perhaps because it was the last thing she would ever do. And inside the theater she forgot the days remorselessly ticking down, forgot the war and parting and death, and thought only of lines and costumes and attempting to keep Alf and Binnie from destroying everything they touched.

The two of them had managed not only to wreak havoc backstage every night since they joined the cast but to corrupt every other child in the pantomime.

Especially Trot. After a week of being with the Hodbins, her hair ribbons were untied, her rosy cheeks were streaked and dirty, and when Polly arrived at the Regent, she was shouting, “I ain’t a dunderhead!” and whaling away at her sisters with her magic wand while Nelson barked wildly.

“I gave the wand to her,” an unhappy Miss Laburnum admitted, “so she could become used to using it, but perhaps that wasn’t a good idea.”

She had also given Mrs. Brightford (the Queen) her royal robes for the same reason and had forced Sir Godfrey (the Bad Fairy) to put on his Hitler-style mustache

“in case it shows a tendency to fall off.”

“Madam, I have had over fifty years of experience putting on false mustaches with spirit gum! I have never had one fall off!” he was shouting, and didn’t even note Alf and Binnie’s absence.

Half an hour later, Polly saw them come in through the doorway at the back of the house. They were alone. “Where’s Eileen?” Polly called to them, squinting out across the footlights. “Didn’t she come back with you?”

“Hunh-unh,” Alf said, slouching down the center aisle.

“Why not?”

“She said she had to do something,” Binnie said, “and for us to come ’ere so we wouldn’t be late.”

“And not to follow ’er,” Alf put in.

“And did you?”

“No,” Alf said with his best outraged-innocence air.

“We tried,” Binnie said, “but she was too quick for us, so we come ’ere.”

She’s gone to my drop again, Polly thought, wishing Eileen hadn’t. The sirens had gone while Polly was on her way here, and she could hear the drone of planes and the thud of distant bombs. Logic told her nothing could happen to Eileen, that she’d survived all the way to VE-Day, but she couldn’t help listening anxiously to the buzzing planes, trying to gauge whether they were over Kensington.

They seemed to be over the East End thus far. Polly went backstage, where Miss Laburnum gave her her principal-boy costume, belt, and scabbard, “so you can They seemed to be over the East End thus far. Polly went backstage, where Miss Laburnum gave her her principal-boy costume, belt, and scabbard, “so you can become used to wearing your sword.”

And when Polly protested that she needed to get onstage, she said, “There’s more than enough time. The fire-safety curtain’s stuck. They’ve been attempting to get it up for half an hour. Sir Godfrey’s absolutely livid.”

He was. When Polly came onstage in her doublet and hose, he was yelling at the rector—a scene made worse by the fact that Miss Laburnum had insisted Sir Godfrey try on his costume. In his Führer’s uniform and Hitler mustache, he looked positively dangerous.

“Vivien Leigh will be here at ten o’clock tonight to rehearse her scenes, and not only will they not be ready, but she will not even be able to get onstage!” he shouted. “Alf and Binnie had better not be behind this.”

“They only just got here,” Polly said, though that was hardly proof of their innocence. They could easily have booby-trapped the fire-safety curtain last night.

They’re a force for good, she told herself. They saved Captain Westbrook’s life. And Eileen’s. They won the war. But she had difficulty persuading herself of it, particularly when she found them dueling backstage with her sword and one of Mr. Dorming’s wet paintbrushes.

The rector and Mr. Dorming finally got the fire-safety curtain to work, but when they tried to raise the painted scrim with the forest and the castle on it for the transformation scene, it stuck. “Perhaps we should send for a carpenter,” Miss Laburnum suggested timidly.

“And where exactly will we find one this time of night, and in the middle of a raid?” Sir Godfrey said, gesturing with his riding crop at the ceiling. “We might just as well send for the walrus!” His mustache quivered. “Or the March Hare, who would be entirely appropriate in this madhouse.

“Well, what are you waiting for?” he said to the cowering Miss Laburnum. “ ‘Go and catch a falling star! Get with child a mandrake root!’ ”

Miss Laburnum scurried off to find a carpenter, and Sir Godfrey turned to Polly. “I knew I should never have agreed to do pantomime, Viola.”

“I think we should’ve done Rapunzel,” Trot piped up. “It’s got a tower.”

Sir Godfrey, his Hitler mustache quivering, raised his riding crop threateningly.

“And a witch,” Trot said.

“Trot, go fetch the other children, there’s a good girl,” Polly said, shooing her out of Sir Godfrey’s reach. And to him, “We can do the prologue and most of the first act in front of the scrim, and then, when the carpenter comes, we can do the transformation scene.”

“Very well. Prologue!” he called. “Places, every—”

There was a terrific clatter of metal from the wings. “Alf!” Sir Godfrey roared.

Alf came onstage, holding one of the prop swords, slightly bent. “I didn’t touch nothin’. They just fell over. I swear.”

They won the war, Polly repeated silently. They won the war.

“If any of you foul fiends touch anything else, anything,” Sir Godfrey said, looking apoplectic, “I will cut off your head and nail it to the theater door as a warning to all other children!” and even Alf looked impressed. “Give me that sword and go sit down out front. Close the curtain! Places!”

Polly stepped out in front of the curtain and delivered her prologue to the audience, which consisted of Alf, Binnie, a skeptical Trot with her arms folded belligerently across her little chest, and Nelson in the front row. Polly welcomed them to the pantomime, telling them they were about to see miraculous things, and assuring them that, in spite of appearances, it would have a happy ending. “ ‘His evil will not triumph. In the end,’ ” she said, “ ‘it is the Führer who’ll be round the bend.’ ”

The audience clapped and cheered, except for Trot, who apparently was still annoyed they weren’t doing Rapunzel.

“ ‘And now, to our tale,’ ” Polly said, sweeping her arm out toward the curtain. “ ‘Its beginning lies in a royal castle, with a King, a Queen, and their infant daughter.’ ”

The curtain, thankfully, opened, revealing Mrs. Brightford wearing a crown and holding a doll in her arms.

“Where is the King?” Sir Godfrey demanded, roaring out onstage.

“You mean the rector?” Binnie said. “He went with Miss Laburnum to fetch the carpenter.”

“ ‘My kingdom for a horse,’ ” Sir Godfrey muttered. “Mr. Dorming!”

Mr. Dorming appeared in the wings, paintbrush and bucket in hand.

“You’ll play the King.”

“I don’t know his lines,” Mr. Dorming said.

“Prompter!” Sir Godfrey roared.

“Eileen’s not here yet,” Polly said.

“I’ll play the King,” Binnie said, racing onstage. “I know all the lines.”

She went over to Mrs. Brightford. “ ‘My Queen, we must have a great christening and invite all the fairies in the land.’ ” She turned to Sir Godfrey. “See?”

Sir Godfrey rolled his eyes and waved at her to proceed, and they made it safely through that scene and the next, which involved, for some reason, a song and dance by the Three Bears, but they needed Miss Laburnum and the rector, neither of whom had come back yet, for the christening scene.

Eileen hadn’t arrived either, and Polly listened nervously to the bombs. It sounded like they were over Chelsea and moving northwest. Toward Kensington and Polly’s drop.

“I said, we’ll rehearse the Prince’s scene,” Sir Godfrey was saying. “If the bramblebushes haven’t deserted us as well.”

“Sorry,” Polly said, and went to find the children.

They were backstage, standing on Sleeping Beauty’s bed. Alf and Binnie were teaching Trot and the rest of the bramblebushes to thrust and parry with their branches.

“Onstage. Now,” Polly ordered, and they jumped off the bed, scrambled under the scrim, and formed a more or less straight line, their branches crossed in front of their chests.

“Where’s Nelson?” Alf said, and started off to find him.

“Stop!” Sir Godfrey roared. “Do it without Nelson.”

“But—”

“Now!” he ordered.

Polly hastily said, “ ‘Long years have I searched for this fair princess of whom I have heard,’ ” and thought of Colin. “ ‘Long weary miles have I ridden—’ ”

“Prince Dauntless,” Sir Godfrey interrupted. “This is a comedy, not a tragedy.”

“Sorry,” Polly said, putting what she hoped was a hopeful and undaunted look on her face. “ ‘Long years have I searched for this fair princess—’ ”

“Wait,” Alf said. “That’s s’posed to be Sleeping Beauty, ain’t it? And we’re s’posed to be guardin’ ’er, ain’t we?”

“Yes,” Sir Godfrey said, glaring.

“Well, where is she?”

“She will be here at ten o’clock,” Sir Godfrey said. “If I live that long.”

“I’ll play Sleeping Beauty,” Binnie said. “I know all the lines.”

‘She ain’t got no lines,” Alf said. “She’s asleep.”

But Binnie was already dragging the prop bed out from under the scrim. She flung herself onto it and lay down, crossed her arms decorously over her chest, and closed her eyes.

Polly was afraid Sir Godfrey would explode, but he only nodded wearily at her to begin.

“ ‘Long, weary miles have I ridden,’ ” she said, and put her hand to her scabbard. “ ‘What evil, dark forest is this? And what trees are these?’ ”

“ ‘Bramblebushes!’ ” Alf said. “ ‘We let no man pass!’ ”

Trot stepped forward. “ ‘Our thorns will tear you limb from limb!’ ”

“ ‘I do not fear a few brambles,’ ” Polly said.

“ ‘We are no ordinary brambles!’ ” Bess shouted.

“ ‘We’re Nazi brambles!’ ” Alf proclaimed. “ ‘I’m Goebbels!’ ” and opened his branchy arms to reveal a picture on his chest of the Nazi propaganda minister.

“ ‘I’m Göring!’ ” Bess said.

“ ‘I’m …’ ” Trot shifted from one foot to the other, frowning, and then looked at Polly. “ ‘I’m …’ ”

“Himmler,” Polly whispered, but it didn’t help.

“Who am I?” Trot asked plaintively.

“You’re Himmler, you noddlehead,” Binnie said, sitting up on the bed.

“I’m not a noddlehead!” Trot cried, and hit Alf, who was nearer, with her branch.

“Why isn’t that prompter here yet?” Sir Godfrey said, stomping onstage.

“I don’t know,” Polly said. “I’m worried that she—”

“You want me to go look for ’er?” Alf volunteered.

“No,” Sir Godfrey said. “Mr. Dorming! I need you on promptbook.”

Mr. Dorming nodded, stuck his paintbrush into his bucket, set them down where Alf was almost certain to knock them over, and went in search of the promptbook.

“Stop that,” Sir Godfrey said to Trot, who was still whaling away at Alf. “By God, it was easier to get Birnam Wood to Dunsinane than to get you six to do a five-minute scene.

“Line up,” he ordered the children, and looked over at Binnie. “Lie down. Take it again, from ‘We’re Nazi brambles!’ ”

And Sir Godfrey must have put the fear of God into Trot because she got her line and the ensuing “Song of the Brambles”—including their line about Fortress Europe, and the ending, which involved their lunging forward and thrusting their branches at Polly—letter-perfect.

“ ‘You shan’t stop me from getting through!’ ” Polly said, drawing her sword. “ ‘I’ll cut you down with my trusty sword, Churchill. En garde!’ ”

“Oh, no!” the children cried, and collapsed in a heap.

“No, no, no!” Sir Godfrey said, striding out onstage. “Not all at once.”

The children scrambled to their feet.

“You go down one after the other, like dominoes.” He put his hand on Bess’s head. “You first, then you, and you, on down the line.”

“They didn’t stick their branches up like they were s’posed to, neither,” Binnie said, sitting up on the bed.

“I did so—” Alf began.

Sir Godfrey silenced him with a look.

“And hold your branches up.” He turned to Binnie and roared, “Go back to sleep. Don’t move until you’re kissed.” To Polly, he muttered as he passed, “There is a reason Shakespeare never put children in his plays.”

“You’re forgetting the little princess.”

“Whom he had the good sense to murder in the second act. Again!”

Polly nodded, drew her sword, and stepped forward. “ ‘And my trusty shield—’ ”

There was a horrific crash somewhere backstage. Polly looked instantly at Alf, who was wearing his innocent expression.

“Can anything else happen tonight?” Sir Godfrey said, and stormed backstage, shouting, “And don’t follow me! When I come back, I expect you to be all the way through this scene and the next! And tell me the instant that carpenter arrives.”

The children looked interestedly after Sir Godfrey.

“Get back in line,” Polly said. “Cross your branches.” She raised her sword. “ ‘And my trusty—’ ”

There was a sound at the rear of the theater, and a man appeared in the doorway at the back. Thank goodness, Polly thought, walking out to the edge of the stage, still holding her sword. It’s the carpenter.

But it wasn’t. It was Mr. Dunworthy. His coat was open, his scarf dangled unevenly to one side, and he was bareheaded.

“Mr. Dun—Mr. Hobbe,” Polly called to him, shading her eyes with her free hand, trying to see out into the darkened theater. “What are you doing here? What’s happened?”

He didn’t answer. He took a stumbling step down the aisle.

Oh, God, he’s been injured, Polly thought.

Alf appeared beside her. “Did somethin’ ’appen to Eileen?” he asked.

Mr. Dunworthy made an effort to speak, but nothing came out. He took another step forward, to where Polly could see his face. He looked stunned, his face ashen.

No, she thought, not Eileen. It can’t be. Mr. Dunworthy and I are the ones with the deadlines. Eileen survived the war. She—

Binnie, trailing bedclothes, pushed past Polly. “Where’s Eileen?” she demanded, her voice rising. “Did sumthin’ ’appen to ’er?”

Mr. Dunworthy shook his head.

Thank God.

“Are you all right?” Polly called to him.

“I was at St. Paul’s …” he said, looking up at her and then back toward the doorway he’d come through.

A young man was standing in it. He started down the aisle, and Polly saw he had an ARP warden’s armband and a helmet, which he’d taken off and was holding in both hands. Oh, God, she thought. It’s Stephen.

But it couldn’t be. Stephen hadn’t even met her yet. He wouldn’t meet her till 1944. And the warden’s hair was reddish blonde, not dark. “Polly,” he said.

“Sir Godfrey!” Trot shouted into the wings. “The carpenter’s here!”

“It ain’t the carpenter, you noddlehead!” Alf shouted at her. “It’s an air-raid warden.”

No, it isn’t, Polly thought.

It wasn’t Stephen either, and the sword that Polly had been holding all this time, that she hadn’t realized she was still holding, fell from her nerveless fingers.

It was Colin.

Trying to unweave, unwind, unravel,

And piece together the past and the future

—T.S. ELIOT, FOUR QUARTETS