“Every person here, subject to the King of England, is bound in the strictest confidence to anything witnessed here today.” He singled out the civilians. “Mrs. Campbell and Miss Adair—do you understand how weighty this matter is? If you ever speak of anything you have heard here, under the Official Secrets Act you will be considered accountable for treason.”

Louisa nodded seriously and whispered, “Yes, sir.”

Nancy Campbell just nodded.

Even I knew that wasn’t going to be good enough for Cromwell.

“Pennyworth!” he bawled. “Get back in here. I want you to make a list of all those present and get them to sign it.”

While Phyllis got to work, the Old Roundhead allowed Nancy to tiptoe about the room serving cups of tea, which we all very much needed. She wouldn’t go near the Germans, though.

“Louisa,” she whispered, “would you offer this to them, please?”

Their navigator, Althammer, stubbornly waved the tea aside. The gunner, Moritz, stared at Louisa curiously—the first Jamaican girl he’d ever seen?—and accepted his with a nod.

But that girl stood one second too long in front of Felix Baer as she held out the tea tray, and he stood one second too long searching her face before he picked up his cup.

Not staring, like Moritz. Communicating. Looking for the answer to a wordless question in a mutual language.

Louisa:

It was a crazy thing to do. But I wanted him to know we had the Enigma machine.

Face-to-face with him, I thought of a way to do it.

I lowered my head over the teapot and cup as I held out the tray. He could see my eyes, but I wasn’t looking straight at him, so maybe no one else would notice. While his hand trembled faintly over the cup, I blinked my eyelids in Morse code.

I spelled out the only German word I knew: danke. Thank you.

I wasn’t even sure he noticed.

Jamie:

“Danke,” he said to her, lifting the teacup, and she turned away quickly.

For such a quiet wee thing she seemed to have nerves of steel. She didn’t spill a drop.

Louisa:

Jane created a distraction of her own.

She stood up. She never stood as dramatically as she sat, so long as she had something to push against, and just now she leaned on the table. “Sticks, Louisa,” she demanded. I gathered them up and gave them to her, and she toddled over to the piano.

Wing Commander Cromwell watched her, gaping a little comically—he hadn’t told her she might stand, but he couldn’t scold her the way he would have scolded Jamie.

“Louisa!” Jane called. “Wind the gramophone, please. There’s something I’d like us all to hear. An Italian version of a German composer recorded in London by a Polish pianist—”