I didn’t know what to do. If I went in, wouldn’t Jane and I both be trapped? One smallish fifteen-year-old girl and one tottering eighty-two-year-old woman with a sprained wrist were not going to overpower a strong young airman, even if he had been locked up underground for a week.

His footsteps crossed the room as he made for the door.

I fled down the passage and through the first doorway I came to that was standing open—the loo.

I darted behind the open door. Better not to try to close it.… Was I breathing too loudly, and why was he taking so long?

I forced myself to take slow, deep breaths. He might hear me if I panted, and I wouldn’t be able to hear him. I listened, trying to think of a sensible thing to do—

And I heard one of Jane’s sticks tapping.

The German airman was escorting her down the passage. She must have asked for help to reach the toilet. And, since she seemed to be a friendly, cooperative, ancient German native, he offered his strong arm for support. He coaxed her in German, and I heard her grateful response. She struggled through the doorway into the loo on her own.

Jane closed the door and saw me standing in the dim light cast through the arrow-slit window below the high-up water tank. She raised her bandaged hand to her lips to warn me to be quiet.

We heard the airman go downstairs. I slipped my arm around Jane’s waist so she didn’t have to put all her weight on one stick.

“How did he get in?” Jane whispered.

“It must have been the kitchen door!” Morag said she would lock up, but she might have only done the front. He could have come in any time that day. No one would have questioned anybody in a flight suit, even if they’d noticed him. “He must have used the service stairs at the back. Is it Althammer—the navigator? What does he want?”

“He’s looking for the coding machine. I played dumb, but he’ll try to find it now.”

“Perhaps that’s what Baer meant by a trap.” I gasped. “A trap for the machine itself! If the Luftwaffe bombers can’t destroy it from the air, perhaps they sent Althammer to try to destroy it on the ground!”

My voice had risen.

“Shhh,” Jane hushed. “I thought of that.”

“What should I do?”