The Germans hadn’t scrubbed up as well as us, even the two who hadn’t taken a beating. They didn’t have pressed uniforms to change into; they were wearing the flight suits they’d arrived in. I longed to get a good look at Baer, and turned my head ever so slightly to try to study him. His broken nose was taped with sticking plaster, while the rest of his swollen face was beginning to turn purple.

This was my informer—our conspirator.

Baer glanced around, too, and his eyes settled on the gramophone. Then he gazed at Louisa for exactly the same length of time.

Then he looked away. His battered face was absolutely blank.

They didn’t let on that they recognized each other.

A thunderous, ringing silence seemed to fall, like the still moment when an aircraft’s engine shuts down. Cromwell looked around impatiently.

“Where’s the old girl?” he asked.

Louisa:

Jane took a long time in the bathroom and didn’t want help. Waiting in our room, I heard the Tilly laboring up and down the hill as Ellen brought people over from the airfield. I opened one of the southeast windows, trying to eavesdrop. Doors slammed, and there was a hubbub of men’s excited—maybe angry—voices. But they were muffled by the corner of the house and I couldn’t understand a word.

I went to check on Jane. She’d been bolted in the bathroom for at least half an hour.

She opened the door when I knocked.

That old woman had transformed herself into a film star. I’m not sure what part she was playing—judge? Ambassador, perhaps? No—ambassador’s wife? She’d changed into a long, tight-fitting black knit dress with a high neck and ruffles at the wrist and down the front. It was stylish and modern, though it couldn’t be new. Her short silver bob was pulled back with glinting jet combs.

“Oh, Jane, you are stunning!” I exclaimed. “No wonder people can’t tell how old you are!”

Jane smiled modestly and turned around. “Zip me up, please, darling. I simply cannot reach my own back anymore.”

I zipped.

“Now, then, these ridiculous sticks. How I detest them! It will take me forever to get down the stairs and I know the young men are here already. Run ahead and tell them I am on my way.”

Off I went back down, like a courier racing between army units.

The awful commander was busy looking at a map with David Silvermont when I came in, and I didn’t like to interrupt. I stood against the wall waiting for a gap. Then I was glad I did, because it gave me a moment to set my face and not smile or frown or anything when Felix Baer looked me straight in the eye.