He didn’t—only two soldiers attempting to wedge a hospital bed through the door. Beyond them he could see an entry hall and, off to the side, the room which was posing as the ward today. Inside it stood a cluster of older men in officers’ uniforms and several white-clad nurses.

He squeezed past the wedged bed, keeping out of their sight, down a corridor, and into the nearest unoccupied room, which turned out to be the dining room. He shut the door, wedged chairs against it, and, using the mirror above the sideboard, began winding bandages around his head.

He emerged ten minutes later in pajamas, robe, and slippers, his head and both hands swathed in bandages. “Where have you been?” Prism asked. “And what are you doing in that getup? You look like an escapee from an Egyptian tomb.”

Ernest pulled him off to the side. “You said they’d be taking photographs, and my picture was already in the newspapers from the opening of Camp Omaha. If the Germans see me in more than one photo, they’ll spot a fraud.”

“You’re right. Good show. Was Cess in the photo?”

“He wasn’t there. He was off doing dummy landing craft.”

“Good, then he can be the broken foot. Go help bring in the wheelchairs.”

Ernest did and then carried two oil paintings, three watercolors, and an antique writing table upstairs for Lady Mofford, made up the hospital beds, bandaged several other “patients,” and helped lay out tea in the library.

The tea included sandwiches, and he ate two, hid four more for Cess inside the bandages on his hands, and went to find him. Cess said, “You look like Boris Karloff in The Mummy. And don’t try to convince me you did it to keep from being recognized in the photo. I know the real reason.”

“You do?” Ernest asked cautiously.

“Yes. You didn’t want to be stuck in an itchy plaster cast all afternoon.”

“You’re right. You can have my wheelchair, and I’ll do the crutches,” he offered, then regretted it. The crutches dug into his armpits, the afternoon turned beastly hot, and he began to sweat under his bandages.

And the Queen was three-quarters of an hour late. “She’s royalty,” Moncrieff said when Ernest complained. “She can keep us waiting, just not the other way round. Why don’t you spend the time writing up those articles you said were due?”

“I can’t.” He held up his bandaged hands.

“That’s not my fault. You were the one who decided to come as the ghost of King Tut. I don’t know why you felt it necessary to use so much bandage.”

Neither do I, he thought. Especially since it had turned out to be a false alarm. The hospital in Dover hadn’t been able to spare any nurses. These were from Ramsgate. He considered taking the facial bandages off, but just then the Queen—a stout, sweet-faced woman in pale blue—arrived along with a half dozen photographers from the London papers, and the affair commenced.