Connie Willis - All Clear

And no luck with the drop. “I stayed there till two,” Mike said, “and nary a shimmer of a shimmer.”

He’d spent the rest of the afternoon at the Herald, going through July and August editions for airfield names. As soon as they got to Notting Hill Gate and the emergency staircase—which was colder than ever—he tried them on Eileen. “Bedford?”

“No,” Eileen said. “I’m convinced it was two words.”

“Beachy Head?”

“That sounds a bit like it … no.”

“She thinks the second word begins with a P,” Polly said.

He checked his list. “Bentley Priory?”

Eileen frowned. “No … it wasn’t Priory. It was Paddock or Place or …” She frowned, attempting to remember.

He checked the list again. “No Ps,” he said. “How about Biggin Hill?”

Eileen hesitated. “Perhaps … I’m not certain … I’m so sorry. I thought I’d know it when I heard it, but now I’ve heard so many … I’m not certain …”

“It would be a logical choice,” Mike said. “It was in the thick of the Battle of Britain.”

“So was Beachy Head,” Polly said. “And Bentley Priory. And that’s the one nearest Oxford. Perhaps we should try that first.”

“But it’s not just an airfield, it’s the RAF command center,” Mike said, “which means security will be tighter. Biggin Hill’s closest. I say we try that first and then the other two. Now, what about messages we can send? Did you tell Eileen my idea, Polly?”

the other two. Now, what about messages we can send? Did you tell Eileen my idea, Polly?”

“Yes,” she said, and to prevent Eileen from launching into an account of mystery novels which hadn’t been written yet, she continued, “How’s this for an ad?

‘Historian seeks situation involving travel. Available immediately’?”

“Great,” Mike said, scribbling it down. “And we can do variations of your ‘Meet me in Trafalgar Square or Kensington Gardens or the British Museum.’ ”

“There are lots of notices looking for soldiers who were at Dunkirk,” Eileen mused. “What about ‘Anyone having information regarding the whereabouts of Michael Davies, last seen at Dunkirk, contact E. O’Reilly,’ and Mrs. Rickett’s address?”

Mike wrote their suggestions down. “What about crosswords?” He pointed at the Herald’s puzzle. “I could compose one with our names in the clues, like ‘This bird wants a cracker.’ Or ‘What an Italian tower might say if asked its name?’ ”

“Absolutely not,” Polly said.

“Because they’re bad puns?”

“No, because a crossword nearly derailed D-Day.”

“How?”

“Two weeks before the invasion, five of the top-top-secret code words appeared in the Daily Herald’s crossword puzzle: ‘Overlord,’ ‘mulberry,’ ‘Utah,’ ‘sword,’

and I forget the other one. The military was convinced the Germans had tumbled to the invasion and was ready to call the entire invasion off.”

“Had they?” Eileen asked. “Tumbled to it?”

“No. The puzzle’s author was a schoolmaster who’d been doing them for years. He told the military his students and dozens of other people composed the clues and that they’d have no way of knowing which puzzle they’d be in, and in the end they decided it was just a bizarre coincidence.”

“And was it?” Mike asked.

“No. Forty years later the Herald published a story about it, and a man who’d been one of the schoolmaster’s students confessed he’d overheard two Army officers talking and had co-opted the words for clues with no idea what they meant.”

“But the puzzle incident wasn’t till 1944,” Mike said. “It isn’t likely British Intelligence would be reading crossword puzzles now—”

“In which case the retrieval team won’t be either. I think they’re much more likely to read personal ads. There are lots of ‘losts.’ Perhaps we could do something with that.”

“Like ‘Lost: historian. Reward for safe return’?”

“No,” Polly said, “but we could say we’d lost something and give our name and address. Here’s one. ‘Lost: pair of brown carpet slippers on Northern Line platform, Bank Station. If found—’ ”

“Oh,” Eileen said. They looked inquiringly at her. “You told me to remember any detail, no matter how irrelevant, about my conversations with Gerald—”

“Does Gerald’s airfield have the word ‘bank’ in it?” Mike asked eagerly, grabbing for his list of names. “Glaston Bank?”

“No, not that part. The bit about the slippers.”

They looked blankly at her.

“ ‘Slippers’ sounds like ‘slippage.’ ”

“Slippage?”

“Yes. Linna was on the phone while I was talking to Gerald, and whoever she was talking to wanted to know how much slippage there was on someone’s drop, and then when I went through to Backbury, Badri was talking to someone about an increase in slippage, and Linna asked me if the slippage the last time I went through had increased from the other times.”

“And had it?” Mike asked.

“No, and when I told her that, she said, ‘Good,’ and looked at Badri.”

“Who was she talking to, do you know?”

“No. I assume it was Mr. Dunworthy. She called him sir.”

“And it was an increase?” Mike asked eagerly. “Not a decrease? You’re sure?”

“Yes. Why?”

Because then there wasn’t too little slippage, Polly thought. And it couldn’t have let Mike—or me—go to a place where we could alter events.

“They questioned Phipps on his slippage, too,” Mike said. “Did they say anything to you about it when you came through, Polly?”

“They asked me to note how much there was and tell them when I reported in.”

“And how much was there?”

“Four and a half days. It was only supposed to be an hour or two. I assumed there was a divergence point that—”

“I don’t think so,” Mike said excitedly. “I think a bunch of drops were experiencing an increase in slippage, and it was enough to worry them. Which means it couldn’t have been a few days’ worth. It must have been weeks. Or months.”

“And that’s why our retrieval teams aren’t here?” Polly said. “Because the slippage sent them to November or December instead?”

He nodded.

“So all we need to do is wait for them to come fetch us?” Eileen said eagerly.

“No. It might be a while before they get here, and in case you haven’t noticed, this is kind of a dangerous place. The sooner we can find a working drop and get out of here, the better.”

“But if there’s slippage, then Gerald’s drop won’t open either, will it?” Polly asked.

“Even if it doesn’t, he may know more about what the slippage problem is and how long we’re looking at. That means finding him’s still our first priority. And our second’s to make sure the retrieval team can find us when they get here. Eileen, have you had a letter from Lady Caroline?”

“No, not yet,” Eileen said, looking at Polly. She was obviously afraid he was going to ask her if she’d written the Hodbins.

“What about you, Mike?” Polly asked hastily. “Have you left a trail of bread crumbs for your team to follow?”

“What about you, Mike?” Polly asked hastily. “Have you left a trail of bread crumbs for your team to follow?”

“Yes, I wrote the hospital in Dover and Sister Carmody at Orpington, and I sent my address to the barmaid at the Crown and Anchor.”

“Barmaid?” Eileen said.

“Yes.” He told them about Daphne’s coming to see him in hospital. “She’ll tell everybody in Saltram-on-Sea. I’ll put this ‘Meet me in Victoria Station’ message in tomorrow’s paper when I go down to the Express in the morning. I’m going to see if I can talk the paper into having me write a piece on ‘Our Biggin Hill Heroes.’