“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 FUSAG’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.”