Nan turned her back, not even able to take a keek at us while we talked.

“Phyllis said she’d ring if she gets news,” I said. “They might have landed away like they did the first time Windyedge got bombed. Sometimes if they’re shot up they’ll land at the nearest base, any old base, instead of coming home.”

“Oh.”

Poor disguised Elisabeth Lind stared at her newspaper. Anybody could tell she wasn’t reading it.

One of the firemen came in through the front door. We spun around.

“We’ve just got the last Jerry out,” he said. “Do you mind if we bring him in to warm him up? Not sure where Old Cromwell wants him, but he’s had a pretty rough time and he’s not in any shape to march to the aerodrome—he’s been fair buried alive for a solid day.”

Nancy faced the fireman with empty eyes and shrugged. “Do what you like,” she said.

And they brought in our old friend, that Jerry pilot Felix Baer.

He was all over dust. His hair and face were all one color, gray as gray. His eyes were black pools in the gray dust.

Elisabeth Lind jumped to her feet, but Louisa was there first. She leaped forward and snatched at his hand.

The gray dust cracked around his lips as he smiled at her faintly.

Louisa:

He took my other hand too. I thought of piano keys beneath those bony, nimble fingers; I could feel his ring with the engraved bear cool against my palm. They were things that made him whole before the war and were still part of him.

He leaned down quickly and I stood on my toes and we kissed each other’s faces.

I felt the gray dust come off on my cheek. He let go of one hand to brush it off me; he didn’t let go of the other.

I pointed to Elisabeth Lind. “That is Calypso. Not me.”

She nodded in agreement, looking as if she were about to cry. “It’s true,” she said. “I am Calypso.”

I didn’t dare say anything else; the room was full of guards and firemen.

Miss Lind pulled Jane’s comfortable chair close to the fire. The men from the aerodrome covered it with a blanket to protect it, and they let Felix Baer sit and lean forward with his hands close to the flames.

He spoke haltingly, trying to explain himself.