“I’ll find them, I promise,” Colin said, and put his arms around him.

Good, he thought. I won’t have to die alone.

“Why the bloody hell doesn’t the drop open?” Colin said angrily.

“It’s broken. We’re all trapped here in the Blitz.”

“Stay with me, Davies. We’ll be there any second. We’ll get you to hospital, and they’ll get you all fixed up, they’ll get you a new leg, and I’ll go fetch Eileen and Polly. They’ll be there before you come out of surgery. They’ll be so glad to see you. You’re a hero, you know.”

“I know,” he said. “I saved Cess’s life.” And Chasuble’s. And Jonathan’s and the Commander’s. And that dog’s. He wondered what had happened to it, and whether it had helped to win the war.

“Don’t quit on me, Davies,” Colin said. “You can do this.”

Ernest shook his head. “Kiss me, Hardy,” he murmured.

“What?”

He bent nearer, and Ernest saw that it was Hardy. “I’m glad I saved your life,” he said. “No matter what.”

“Finally!” Hardy said, “Thank God!” and scooped him up in his arms.

Just like at St. Paul’s, Ernest thought, the captain dying in Honour’s arms, though he’d never seen it—the sandbags had hidden it. And the captain hadn’t seen it either. He’d died the moment after he’d tied the boats together. He’d never known whether they’d won or not.

“Did we?” he asked Colin.

And he must only be a boy after all because he was crying. “Don’t do this, Davies,” he pleaded. “Not now. Michael!”

No, not Michael. Or Mike Davis. Or Ernest Worthing. And not Shackleton. “That’s not my name,” he said, and tried to tell him what it was, but the blood was everywhere, in his mouth, his ears, his eyes, so he couldn’t hear Colin, he couldn’t see the drop opening. “It’s Faulknor.”

Your courage

Your cheerfulness

Your resolution

Will bring us victory.

—GOVERNMENT POSTER,
1939

London—Spring 1941

THE SEDATIVE THE NURSE GAVE POLLY MUST HAVE BEEN morphine because her sleep was filled with muddy, mazelike dreams. She was trying to get to the drop, which lay just on the other side of the peeling black door, but it had already shut, the train was already pulling out, and this was the wrong platform. She had to get to Paddington in time for the 11:19 to Backbury, and the troupe was blocking her way. She had to step over them—Marjorie and the woman at the Works Board and the ARP warden who had caught her that first night and taken her to St. George’s. And Fairchild and the librarian at Holborn and Mrs. Brightford, sitting against the wall reading to Trot. “And the bad fairy said to Sleeping Beauty,” Mrs. Brightford read, “ ‘You will prick your finger on a spindle and die.’ ”

“No, she won’t,” Trot said. “The good fairy will fix it.”

“She can’t fix it,” Alf said contemptuously. “They got here too late.”

“She can so,” Trot retorted, going very red in the face. “It says so in the story. Can’t she, Polly?”