“I can tell!” she exclaimed. “Don’t you dare come to me for warmth with your cold hands. Nobody made you go outside!” She mockingly pulled away from him. “You know the saying, ‘Only mad dogs and Englishmen go out in the noon day sun?’ Well, I think there must be one about crazy Americans and the midnight snow.”

Tusker laughed and slid his cold hand under her sweater against her warm, bare stomach. She shrieked but didn’t resist. He leaned in and kissed her hard, sliding his hand further up. Her mouth was warm and tasted of whisky.

“Get out of those wet clothes,” she whispered, pulling at his wool undershirt. “You’ll catch a chill.” He peeled off the damp shirt, then his ski pants and sat there, exposed, in front of the fire, which snapped and fizzed. He was buzzed from the scotch and dazed with desire.

“Your turn,” he said to Sam. This time, she said nothing but only met his gaze. She slowly got to her knees and pulled the sweater over her head. She wore nothing underneath. When she leaned close to him, he could hear her breathing. Her eyes were like black pools, and Tusker could see the fire reflected in them. He pulled her down. She gasped.

“See, winter’s not so bad, is it?” he said quietly. As if for emphasis, the wind outside moaned in the pines. A log fell in the fireplace, sending up a shower of sparks.

She grinned. “As long as you have someone to keep you warm.”

Epilogue

By the summer of 1942, the American atomic bomb program, known as the “Manhattan Project,” had gained momentum, despite getting a later start than the British Tube Alloys program. The sheer might and resources of the United States quickly outstripped the efforts of its ally across the Atlantic. By early 1943, with secrecy considered paramount, information sharing had dried up almost entirely between the US and the United Kingdom.

Sensing that his country’s nuclear ambitions were slipping away, British prime minister Winston Churchill finally negotiated terms of collaboration with American President Franklin Roosevelt. Signed in August, 1943, the Quebec Agreement formalized the absorption of Tube Alloys into the Manhattan Project, with a promise of collaboration, both “industrial and commercial.”

The agreement stated that, "First, we will never use this agency against each other; secondly, we will not use it against third parties without each other's consent; and thirdly, we will not either of us communicate any information about Tube Alloys to third parties except by mutual consent.”

On 9 August, 1945, at 8:15 local time, an American bomber dropped an atomic bomb, nicknamed, “Fat Man” on the Japanese city of Hiroshima. Three days later, a second bomb, called “Little Boy," was released over Nagasaki. They remain the only two nuclear weapons ever deployed in wartime. Japan formally surrendered shortly afterwards, ending World War II.

The HMAS Vampire, sunk by Japanese aerial attack on 9 April, 1942, has never officially been found.

Acknowledgements