Parrish, Maitland, and Reed dragged Mary to one in Walworth. Since she now knew what a V-1 sounded like—she’d heard one on a run to St. Francis’s—and since there weren’t any within a twenty-mile radius of Walworth on the day of the dance, she thought she could risk it.

She was wrong. She met an American GI with exactly the same “Haven’t we met somewhere before?” line as Stephen Lang, none of Stephen’s charm or wit, and no dancing ability at all. She came home limping almost as badly as Talbot.

The GI rang her up every day for a week, and on Thursday, when she and Fairchild got back from their second incident of the day—one dead, five injured—Parrish met them as they came in from the garage with “Kent, there’s someone waiting to see you in the common room.”

“American?” she asked.

“I don’t know. I’m only relaying a message from Maitland.”

“I do hope it’s not that GI who couldn’t dance.”

“Would you like me to come rescue you?” Fairchild offered.

“Yes. Wait five minutes, and then come tell me I’m needed at hospital.”

“I will. Here, give me your cap.”

She handed it to Fairchild, went down the corridor to the common room, and opened the door. Maitland sat perched on the arm of the sofa, swinging her legs and smiling flirtatiously at a tall young man in an RAF uniform.

It wasn’t the GI. It was Stephen Lang. “Isolde,” he said, smiling crookedly at her. “We meet yet again.”

“What are you doing here?” she asked. “Do you need a driver?”

“No, I came to thank you.”

“Thank me?”

“Yes, on behalf of the British people. And to tell you I finally remembered.”

“Remembered?”

“Yes. I told you we’d met before. I finally remembered where.”

Do not tell the enemy anything. Hide your food and your bicycles. Hide your maps.

PUBLIC INFORMATION BOOKLET,
1940

London—November 1940

EILEEN LOOKED UP WILDLY AT THE SOUND OF THE SIREN. It wound up to a full-throated wail, its rising and falling notes filling the corridor outside the Hodbins’ flat. “Binnie!” Eileen shouted through the door. “Where’s the nearest shelter?”

She rattled the knob, but the door was locked. “Binnie, you can’t stay in there!” she called through the door. “We must get to a shelter!”

Silence except for the siren, which seemed to be right there in the tenement with her, it was so loud. “Binnie! Mrs. Hodbin!” She pounded on the door with both fists. The tube station they’d come from that day she first brought the children home was over a mile away. She’d never make it in time. It would have to be a surface shelter. “Mrs. Hodbin! Wake up! Where’s the nearest shelter? Mrs. Hod—”

The door flew open and Binnie shot past her down the stairs, shouting, “It’s this way! Hurry!” Eileen ran after her down the three flights and past the landlady’s shut door, the siren ringing in her ears. She heard the outside door bang shut, but by the time she got outside, Binnie’d vanished. “Binnie!” she called. “Dolores!”