“I think you’ll find they haven’t changed all that much,” Eileen said dryly.

“Good. I got through many a bad period by thinking of the time they painted blackout stripes on Farmer Brown’s cattle.”

“Remember the time you came to the station and helped Mum get Theodore on the train?” Binnie asked.

“I do,” Eileen said. She looked at the vicar. “You came to rescue me just in the nick of time.”

“If we don’t go to Piccadilly Circus now,” Alf whined, “they’ll have turned off the lights!”

“How about supper in Piccadilly Circus?” the vicar said.

“Are you certain you want to go with us?” Eileen asked him. He looked ready to drop. “Perhaps Mr. Goode would like to go home and get some rest.”

“And miss VE-Day?” He smiled at Eileen. “Absolutely not.”

“This ain’t the real VE-Day,” Alf said. “The real one’s tomorrow.”

“Then we’ll have to do that, as well,” the vicar said, and took Eileen’s arm. “What all’s happening tomorrow, do you know?”

Continued rationing, she thought, and such serious food shortages the Americans will have to send us care packages, and then Hiroshima and the Cold War and the oil wars and Denver and pinpoint bombs and the Pandemic. And the Beatles and time travel and colonies on the Moon. And nearly fifty more Agatha Christie novels.

Alf tugged at her sleeve. “The vicar said, ‘What’s ’appenin’ tomorrow?’ ” he shouted over the cheering crowd.

“I have no idea,” Eileen said, and smiled up at the vicar.

Well, come on. Let’s see if there’s still a war going on.

—GENERAL GEORGE S. PATTON,
6 July 1944

London—19 April 1941

COLIN WANTED TO TAKE THE TUBE TO ST. PAUL’S, BUT POLLY, remembering the guard who’d prevented her from leaving during a raid, said, “We can’t risk getting trapped in the station. We need to walk there.”

“Is there a chance we can find a taxi?” Colin asked.

“In this? I doubt it. Where did you say the raids are tonight?”

“Over the docks,” he said, looking down the street, trying to work out which way to go.

She watched him as he stood there against the backdrop of fires and searchlights, intent on finding a way to get them to St. Paul’s. Like Stephen Lang, trying to think of a way to bring V-1s down. He looked so much like Stephen. Was that because their jobs had required the same determination and resourcefulness? Or might Stephen and Paige Fairchild have been two of his—what would they have been?—great-grandparents?

“Since most of the bombing will be near the Thames,” Colin said, “I think the best plan is to take the Strand to Fleet Street.”

Mr. Dunworthy shook his head. “It’s too easy to get lost in the maze of streets in the City.”

“He’s right,” Polly said, remembering the night they’d tried to find Mr. Bartholomew.

“The Embankment’s the most direct route,” Mr. Dunworthy said.

“But that’s where the bombing is,” Polly objected.

“No, he’s right,” Colin said. “The majority of the bombs were east of Tower Bridge, and most of the raids occurred after midnight. So we need to hurry.”