On this particular day, however, the duchess was absent. To her credit, she showed up most mornings, picked up her spatula and flipped her share of eggs over easy, but she never did enjoy the best of health, and today was one of those days that word came down the telephone wire from Government House. Her Royal Highness—no giggles at the back, please—was unwell, and sent her regrets to the canteen staff.

At the time, I didn’t imagine there might be another reason for her absence. Like I said, the lady was subject to spasms of sickness from time to time. Mrs. Gudewill took the call—Mrs. Gudewill had a fondness for ringing telephones that I never could understand, I mean a ringing telephone was a harbinger of disaster so far as I was concerned—and announced the news. I don’t remember thinking anything at all about it. I just shrugged and wiped away the perspiration from my temples and turned back to that canteen grill, flipping and turning. There was a knack to sliding a finished egg whole onto its plate without folding over the white on itself or, God forbid, breaking the yolk. You had to concentrate a little, especially in that heat. You had no time to think about absent duchesses and murdered husbands and lovers sailing back to jolly England in a time of war. You had no time to think about your silly old conscience. And maybe that was why I dedicated myself so thoroughly to that canteen. Not for the morale of the troops, not to do my bit or to share in the excitement of war, the bumper crop of virile young men that wanted sowing in the dining room behind me. Because it was something to do. It occupied the long, lean hours. It occupied the space between my ears that might otherwise be filled with anguish.

At half past one o’clock, I hung up my apron, washed my face and hands in the lavatory, and climbed back on my bicycle. The air outside was dark and hot, threatening the kind of rain that did nothing to refresh you. Sometimes a gust of wind came off the water to batter me on my bicycle. I trundled on past my cottage, past the golf course, the stretch of barren road along the shore. There was a rumble of thunder. Then the good old British Colonial, brooding in the heat. Hardly a soul reclined on the sand outside. The harbor, now. That was bustling. A steamship was in the process of attaching itself to the dock. I cycled carefully around the excitement and came to a stop outside the Prince George. It was now past two o’clock, plenty late for a drink. I propped the bicycle against the wall outside and made straight for the bar.