“Well,” said Flight Lieutenant Beaufort-Stuart of the Royal Air Force, and offered his hand to Jane to shake. “You helped us sink three German U-boats the other night. And I’m telling you so you know.”

She beamed at him over their clasped hands like a shopgirl making eyes at a film star.

“Aren’t we lucky!” she exclaimed. “Isn’t Windyedge lucky!”

“Yes,” Jamie said, beaming right back at her. “Yes, at last we’re going to be the lucky ones.”

Louisa:

He opened the jotter and held it so Ellen could read over his shoulder.

SEA PATROL SHETLAND HOLD HALF MOON

ABERDEEN SECTOR CLEAR YEAR END

ABERDEEN SECTOR CLEAR START XII UNTIL FURTHER NOTICE

JU LXXXVIII SPECIAL DETAIL LISTA TO DEESIDE SOUTH GREEN LIGHT

ABERDEEN SECTOR AWAIT DS COMPLETION

I worried that it sounded so mysterious. I said quickly, “We think the spacing’s right, but we’re not sure. There was a block of letter Xs between each line, so that seemed like where the breaks ought to be.”

Jamie Beaufort-Stuart stood studying the page, his face torn between joy and disbelief.

Jane patted the tufty bedspread, letting him know it was all right for him to sit down.

“Thank you, Mrs. Warner,” he said.

He sat carefully next to the coding machine and laid my exercise book open on the bed beside him. He wasn’t a big man, but it was tight with four of us in the room, and it was hard for me not to be in awe. A real RAF pilot, in uniform, sitting on my bed! I never thought I’d get so close.

But then, I never dreamed I’d have a German coding machine to share with him, either.

“I wonder how many of these there are in Britain,” Jamie said softly, running his fingertips lightly over the keys. “It must be jolly difficult getting them here. And jolly brave of the chap who brought it.”

“Yes,” I said, remembering the piano, the records, the gunshot in the van. Each bit had been awful, but it added up to bravery. “He was.”

“Did he tell you how to use it?” Jamie asked.

Ellen and I shared a look and then we joined in a high chorus of a laugh, remembering that night.

“He didn’t tell us a thing,” I said, when I got my breath back. “But he left instructions. They’re in the German leaflets. When he knew I was watching, he dropped a hint about where he’d hidden them. We’d never have managed without the leaflets—the settings change every day.”

Jamie frowned down at the puzzling English phrases in my jotter, narrowing his eyes at it.