“I thought I heard someone coughing,” one of the girls said, and he could hear the crack of wood and the slither of dirt as they came toward him. “Where are you?”

“Here,” he said. “Jeppers, it’s all right. Someone’s coming.”

“Where are you? Keep talking,” the second girl called after a moment, but he didn’t answer her. He was listening to her voice. It sounded somehow familiar.

“Here he is!” the first one shouted from what seemed like far away. He heard a scrabbling sound, and then, “I found him,” and he could tell from the tone of her voice that he was dead.

But I’m not, he thought. We survived the V-1—

“There’s another one here somewhere,” the second voice said, and something else—he couldn’t make out what. More scrabbling. “Over here!” she called, closer. Then she was there, bending over him. “Are you all right?”

He looked up at her, but the light from the fires wasn’t bright enough for him to see her face. All he caught was a glimpse of fair hair under the tin helmet. “You mustn’t worry,” she said. “We’ll get you out of here straightaway. Fairchild!” she called sharply. “Over here!” and moved down to his legs and began tossing aside bricks and pieces of wood. “I need a light!”

The girl she’d called Fairchild arrived. “Is he alive?” she asked, stooping down next to him, and the fire must have been growing brighter. He could see her face clearly. She looked very young. “How bad is he?”

“His foot—”

“That wasn’t the V-1,” he said. “It happened at Dunkirk.” But they didn’t hear him.

“I’ve tied a tourniquet. Go get the medical kit,” the first girl said to Fairchild. “And a stretcher. Is Croydon here yet?” she asked, and her voice sounded just like Polly’s.

“No,” Fairchild said. “Are you certain we should move him?”

“He’ll bleed to death if we don’t,” the girl who sounded like Polly said, and he could hear Fairchild run off across the rubble. “Telephone Croydon. And Woodside,” she called after her. “Tell them we need help.”

It can’t be Polly, he thought as she tried to free him. The deadline’s passed.

“You mustn’t worry, we’ll have you out of here in no time,” she said, bending so close he could see her face in the light of the fire, and it was Polly. He would know her anywhere.

No, oh, no, no. She was still here, and it was too late. Her deadline was already past. He hadn’t gotten her out. “I’m so sorry,” he croaked.

“It’s not your fault,” she said.

But it was his fault. He hadn’t been able to find Denys Atherton, and none of his messages had got through to Oxford. If they had, she wouldn’t be here. “I am so sorry,” he tried to say, choking on dust, on despair. It had all been useless—all those personal ads and wedding announcements and letters to the editor. His messages hadn’t got through. No one had come. She’d still been here when her deadline arrived.