“Yes. Why?”

“I can’t believe it,” he said, laughing. “Does he have a bull?”

“Yes, why? Have you heard of it? It hasn’t killed anyone, has it?”

“Not that I know of.”

“Well, I wouldn’t be surprised if it had. It’s the worst, most ill-tempered bull in England. How do you know of it?”

He explained about having waited around for Mr. Powney to come back from buying it so he could get a ride. “And I finally have.”

“Well, I wouldn’t be too glad about that just yet, if I were you,” she said. “This lorry has the worst tires in England.”

She wasn’t exaggerating. They had two flats between Dover and Folkestone, and there was no spare. They had to take the tire off both times and patch it—the second time in a driving sleet—and then reinflate it with a bicycle pump.

It was half past three and beginning to grow dark before they came within sight of Saltram-on-Sea. He could see the gun emplacement, flanked now by row after bristling row of concrete tank traps and sharpened stakes.

There was razor wire all along the top of the cliff, and signs warning, Danger: This Area Mined. He wondered what the retrieval team had thought when they’d seen all that.

“Do you mind if I drop you at the crossroads?” the land girl, whose name was Nora, asked him. “I want to get home before dark.”

“No, that’s fine,” he told her, but was sorry from the moment she let him out. The wind coming off the Channel was bitter, and the sleet was turning to snow.

Damn it, the retrieval team had better be here after all this, he thought, limping down into the village, his head bent against the wind, his coat collar pulled up around his neck. And the drop they’d come through had better be here, too.

At least Daphne will be, he thought, going into the inn, but she wasn’t behind the bar. Her father was.

“I’m looking for Daphne,” Mike said.

“You’re that American reporter, aren’t you?” her father said. “The one who went to Dunkirk with the Commander?” and when Mike nodded, “Sorry, lad. You’re too late.”

“Too late?”

“Aye, lad,” he said. “She’s already married.”

I pray you tell me, hath anybody enquir’d for me today?

—WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE,
MEASURE FOR MEASURE

Saltram-on-Sea—December 1940

“DAPHNE’S MARRIED?” MIKE SAID, PUSHING HIMSELF AWAY from the pub’s counter.

“Aye,” her father said, placidly toweling a glass dry. “To one of the lads what was putting in the beach defenses.”

I obviously didn’t need to worry about accidentally breaking her heart and keeping her from marrying anybody else, Mike thought ruefully.

“Beach defenses,” the pipe-smoking fisherman he’d talked to on the quay snorted. “Didn’t know much about defenses, if you ask me. Couldn’t defend himself against your Daphne, could he now?” He nudged Mike. “Looks like you couldn’t either, eh, lad?”

There was general laughter, under cover of which Mike asked, “Can you tell me where I can find her?”