Connie Willis - All Clear

The MP was already saying it. “Never heard of any of them. Are they on the road to Por—”

“We’re looking for Captain Atherton,” Ernest cut in, leaning across Cess. “Can you tell us where to find him?” and Cess shot him a look of relief he hoped the MP

didn’t see.

He didn’t. He’d pushed back his helmet and was scratching his head. “Captain Atherton?”

“Yes, we were told he was up ahead. Go tell him—”

“What’s the holdup?” the Wren who’d been driving the jeep demanded, walking up to the MP. “Why are we stopped?”

“You can’t get through this way,” the MP said to her, and Ernest grabbed the opportunity to squeeze out the door—snatching up their papers as he went—and dart around to the passenger side of the car, where the MP was explaining to the Wren that the Jeep would have to turn around. “This whole division’s being moved to their transit camp,” he was saying. “There’s no way you can get through.”

The Wren looked annoyed. “But I must get through to Por—”

“I need to speak to Captain Atherton immediately,” Ernest barked. “Take me to a field telephone. Now, soldier.”

“Yes, sir,” the MP said.

“Wait!” the Wren said. “What about—”

“And move that Jeep, Lieutenant!” Ernest ordered her.

“This way, sir,” the MP said, and led Ernest past the lorry. “I’ll take you to Captain Atherton right away, sir.”

If only that were true, Ernest thought, following him. It was unbelievably tempting to make the MP get on the field telephone and try to locate Atherton, but he didn’t dare, not in the middle of hundreds of soldiers, any of whom might blurt out “Portsmouth” at any second. Finding Denys wouldn’t mean a thing if von Sprecht told Hitler troops were massing in southwestern England. He had to get them out of here. Fast.

So, as soon as they were out of earshot—Cess still hadn’t rolled the damned window up—Ernest stepped ahead of the MP and said in a low voice, “We’re on special assignment from British Intelligence. It’s imperative that we reach Portsmouth by fourteen hundred hours.” He pulled the papers out of his pocket and flashed them at him so the MP could see the “PRIORITY” and “ULTRA-TOP-TOP SECRET” stamped at the top. “Invasion business.”

The MP’s eyes widened. “Yes, sir,” he said, looking ahead at the traffic jam. “I’ll see to it that these vehicles are moved out of your way—”

Ernest shook his head. “There’s no time for that. Just move those that are blocking us in.”

“Yes, sir.” He started back toward the car.

The Wren was coming toward them, looking determined.

“Have you moved your vehicle?” the MP demanded.

“No. Officer, you don’t understand, it’s imperative that I get to Portsmouth.”

Ernest shot a look at the car. Cess had finally rolled up the window, thank God.

“I have an important dispatch to deliver,” the Wren was saying.

The MP ignored her. “Do you still want me to locate Captain Atherton, sir?”

Ernest shook his head. “There’s no time for that.”

“Atherton?” the Wren said. “Do you mean Major Atherton?”

Ernest stared at her.

“No,” the MP said. “The lieutenant wanted Captain Atherton—”

Ernest cut him off. “Major Denys Atherton?” he asked her.

“Yes,” she said.

Jesus. “Do you know where he is?”

“Yes. At the holding camp at Fordingbridge.”

“How far is that from here?” Ernest demanded.

“Thirty miles,” she said, and the MP added, “It’s just outside Salisbury.”

Which meant going there today was out, but it didn’t matter. He had the name of the camp. If Atherton didn’t move to a transit camp in the next few days, like this division.

division.

The Wren was rummaging in her shoulder bag. “I’ve got his number,” she said, produced it, and handed it to him.

And that was that. After over three years of plotting and searching, it had been handed to him, just like that. It can’t be this easy, he thought. Something will go wrong at the last minute.

But it didn’t. The Wren, smiling and waving, moved her Jeep, Ernest got into the car and said, “The whole division’s moving to their transit camps. Patton’s orders.

He said we’ll have to go all the way back to Aylesham and take the other road to Dover”; the MP held up traffic till they were turned around; and the Winchester Road was not only empty of traffic but lined with B-17s and Flying Fortresses.

“That was brilliant,” Cess said when they stopped to check on a fictional knocking sound in the engine. “I thought we were for it back there, but you saved the day.

How did you know Atherton was there?”

“I didn’t,” he said, keeping his voice low so the colonel wouldn’t hear. “It was a lucky shot. I used a name from one of my letters to the editor.”

“Well, it was a very lucky shot. And lucky we went past those bombers. Did you see the colonel’s face? He’s utterly demoralized. We’ve fooled him completely.”

“If nothing happens between here and London,” Ernest said grimly. “We’ve still got to get through Portsmouth—”

“You mean Dover,” Cess corrected.

“Through Dover, and the next roadblock we run up against, we may not be so lucky. And there’s still London. If he sees St. Paul’s in the wrong spot—”

“I suppose you’re right,” Cess agreed. “The moment you think you’re in the clear is when something disastrous always happens.”

He was right. They were no sooner back in the car than the cloud cover began to break up and patches of blue began to show. Ernest jammed his foot down on the accelerator, praying it would be cloudier near the coast.

It was. By the time they reached Portsmouth, wisps of fog were beginning to drift across the road.

I hope it doesn’t get too foggy, Ernest thought. We won’t be able to see the ships, but they were clearly visible, troop transports and destroyers and battleships riding at anchor as far out as they could see. The fog actually helped, obscuring the surrounding coast so that when Cess asked, “Which way are the white cliffs of Dover?”

he was able to point confidently off toward an invisible shore and say, “Over there.”

Cess sang, “There’ll be bluebirds over the white cliffs of Dover,” and then said, “How long do you think it’ll be before the”—he glanced back at the colonel, who promptly closed his eyes, and dropped his voice—“before … you know?”

“Not before mid-July at the earliest,” Ernest said. The fog looked like it was beginning to thin. He started inland from the docks before the colonel could see there weren’t any cliffs, white or otherwise. “One can’t count on good weather before that. And the American troops haven’t all arrived.”

Cess said, “My brother—he’s in the Second Corps in Essex—says it’ll be August, but he says they”—another surreptitious glance at the “sleeping” colonel—“may launch an attack somewhere before that to fool the Germans. Turn here.” He consulted the map. “And then at the next street, right again, and that will be the road to Kingston.” And they were safely out of Portsmouth and on the road to London.

“I don’t care what you say about not getting overconfident,” Cess said jubilantly when they stopped at the border of the staging area to show their papers. “I say we’ve pulled it off.”

Yes, Ernest thought, and so have I. In spite of impossible odds and obstacles, he’d found out where Atherton was, and with over a month to spare. And even if he couldn’t get to him in that time, he could phone him and tell him where Polly and Eileen were.

I need to do it as soon as possible, though, he thought, driving through Haslemere, in case his drop’s somewhere outside the staging area or is on a once-a-week schedule like Eileen’s was. But how? He couldn’t phone him from the post. If Cess or Prism saw him making unauthorized calls …