“Zowee!” he said, doing a double take. “I thought you said you wouldn’t kiss me goodbye.”

“I did, but then I remembered Mr. Churchill said we must do everything we can for the war effort.”

“And that was what you were doing?”

“No,” she said and batted her eyes. “But it’s everything I can do in a railway station.”

It was also her job to come out on the stage in a very short skirt when the sirens sounded, turn her back to the audience, bend over, and flip up the back of her skirt to reveal satin bloomers on which were sewn red flannel letters spelling out, “Air Raid in Progress.”

The bit was wildly popular, and by the end of her fifth week with ENSA, Mr. Tabbitt had put her photograph (smiling, hands on hips, not bent over) with the caption “Air Raid Adelaide” up on the display board at the lobby entrance and told her glumly that ENSA’s head wanted her to go on tour to the RAF’s airfields starting the third week of April.

“It’s more money,” he said. “And you’ll have top billing.” And it would get her away from Eileen and Alf and Binnie, whom she still held out hope might survive.

But Hattie, who had never done her any harm, had already agreed to the tour, and they would have to share a room and spend hours on crowded buses together, so Polly turned it down.

“Oh, marvelous,” Mr. Tabbitt said, and the next night had her put on her Air Raid Adelaide costume and went out in front of the curtain. “I have an official announcement,” he said. “If the Luftwaffe attacks tonight, the ‘Air Raid in Progress’ notice will be displayed.”

Whistles, applause.

“I repeat, if the Luftwaffe attacks tonight, and only if the Luftwaffe attacks tonight—”

Cheers, applause, and a long, low “woo-oo-ooh” from the second row, rising to the up-and-down wail of the alert as several others and finally the entire audience joined in.

Mr. Tabbitt cupped his hand to his ear. “Hark, is that an air-raid alert I hear?” he said, and Polly walked out (cheers, whistles, hoots), turned to face the curtain, and bent over.

He was so pleased he decided to make the bit a regular feature of the show, and by the end of the week Polly was doing it up to six times a show and getting bouquets and boxes of candy addressed to “My Favorite Siren.”

Don’t notice me, Polly thought in despair, and asked Mr. Tabbitt to let Hattie do it instead, but he refused. “You’re bringing them in in droves,” he said.

I am so sorry, she thought, looking out at the soldiers’ eager faces. But at least here she wasn’t endangering Alf and Binnie or the girls at Townsend Brothers or Sir Godfrey and the troupe.

The next night at intermission, the stage manager, Mutchins, stuck his head into the dressing room.

“You were told to knock!” Cora said, outraged, and Hattie clutched a towel to her front.