He whisked through the vestibule with his wooden box, and there was a lot of slamming of doors as he loaded his things in the Tilly. He ran up to Room Number Four again, and this time came down carrying Jane’s gramophone in one arm and the armful of records in the other. He set these politely on the piano and the shelf in the cupboard beside it.

“Danke—thank you,” Felix Baer told us, smiling. He pointed upstairs, mimed sleep, and said, “Thank you, ladies.”

“Aye, right,” Nancy Campbell repeated bitterly.

“Come,” he commanded Ellen.

She flinched. Her pale face was fish-belly white again, as if she expected her head to be chopped off.

Now was my chance to help her.

I swallowed hard, linked my elbow with Ellen’s, and said to the airman, “I’m coming too.”

Ellen squeezed my arm and turned her head to give me the faintest hint of a grateful smile. We stood side by side as if we were the best of friends determined to do a job together, not two strangers who’d only just met for a few minutes the day before.

The German pilot seemed perplexed. Then he figured out what I meant. He shrugged and jerked his head toward the door, beckoning us both. “Come, two girls. It is good.”

He was going to let me go along without a fight.

I stepped away from Ellen so I could pull on my mother’s winter coat.

Then we followed the German pilot into the windy dark.

Ellen:

Gripping that black pistol, the Jerry pilot chivied Louisa into the Tilly ahead of him.

“You all right?” she whispered as I climbed in on my side.

“Aye, no bother,” I muttered. “Better not chat.”

She sat squashed between me in my woolen overcoat and himself in his shiny leather one. “He thinks we’re friends,” she said. “We should chat. We should act like we’re not scared. He’ll tell us to stop if he minds.”

I tried to get a keek at her face as I started the engine, but it was too dark. She seemed a quiet thing. But she was bolder than she looked, and clever with it.

The Jerry pilot kept his pistol pointed at me, his arm across the dashboard.

“Don’t wave your hands or look as if you’re going to fight him,” Louisa said sensibly. “Just chat about the road and how long it takes to get there and things like that.”

“Well, then,” I said, and swallowed. “Um. Bit cold for the time of year, aye?”

“Is it? This is my first time in Scotland. Everyone always asks me if I’m cold! I’m used to being cold. I lived in London for three years, but I grew up in Jamaica.”