“What?” Rumford cupped her hand to her ear again.

“I said, why did—oh, good, she’s here,” Talbot said, pointing at the far side of the exhibit where a plump, friendly-looking woman was rummaging in her handbag. “Goody Two-Shoes!” Talbot called, and when she didn’t look up, “Lambert! Over here. Eileen!”

Do you know why they’re waving as we come along? We’re all bloody heroes.

—SERGEANT LESLIE TEARE ON
ARRIVING IN ENGLAND AFTER BEING
EVACUATED FROM DUNKIRK

Kent—June 1944

“28 JUNE 1944,” ERNEST TYPED. “DEAR EDITOR, I LIVE IN Sellindge, near Folkestone, and our little village has always been a charming, tranquil place. For the past fortnight, however, that tranquility has been destroyed by a constant stream of troop transports. I’ve been forced to hang my washing inside because of the dust, and my cat, Polly Flinders, has nearly been run over twice. How long will this continue? When I spoke to Captain Davies, he said it might last until—”

He paused, wondering what date he was supposed to use for the invasion. Immediately after they’d invaded at Normandy, they’d discussed July first as an invasion date, but that was when the longest they were hoping the deception would hold was D-Day-plus-five. It was already D-plus-twenty-two, and there was still no sign the Germans had caught on.

“They’ve got to tumble to it soon,” Cess had said disgustedly the night before in the mess. “There are over five hundred thousand Allied forces in France. What do the jerries think they’re doing there? Picking flowers?”

“You’re only annoyed because you lost the pool,” Prism had said.

Ernest had lost the pool, too. It’s too bad I didn’t study the post-invasion period, he thought. I could have won fifty pounds. He’d guessed the eighteenth of June—D-plus-twelve—even though he’d privately believed the whole deception would collapse the moment the troops hit the beaches of Normandy. But here he was, in the last week of June, still typing phony wedding announcements and irate letters to the editor.

He went to find Chasuble, but he wasn’t in his office, and Prism didn’t know where he was.

“Gwendolyn might,” Prism said, and Ernest went out to the garage to find him.

Gwen was underneath the staff car. Ernest leaned under and asked, “Do you know where Chasuble is?”

“He went to Station X to drop off the radio messages,” Gwen said.

Damn. “Do you know—” he began, then stopped and looked up, listening. There was a faint putt-putting off to the east. It sounded like a motorbike approaching.

“That’s odd,” Gwen said, sliding out from under the car. “I didn’t hear the siren.”

“Perhaps they’ve stopped bothering with them.”

Gwen nodded. “Or worn them out.”

It’s possible, Ernest thought, listening to the putt-putt grow louder. In the two weeks since the V-1s had started, the sirens had sounded at least five hundred times.

“What did you ask me before?” Gwen asked.

“I asked you,” Ernest said, raising his voice over the chugging of the V-1, “if you knew when we were invading France.”