Half an hour later, the orders poured in. Bacon and eggs, bacon and eggs, yet more bacon and eggs, because these chaps were accustomed to everything powdered and canned back home in darkest England, apparently, and here in Nassau we still had the genuine article, sent over from the Lend Lease office in Miami in vast American quantities from vast American farms. The smoke of frying bacon filled the kitchen. My arms flew. Spatula in each hand, the right turning eggs and the left turning bacon. I still remember that rhythm, still remember how the air inside that kitchen turned always as dense and hot as July, whatever the actual season—but especially in July—and how the perspiration collected on my scalp and ran down my temples and my spine. I remember the noise of the men enjoying their breakfast, the clatter of china and cutlery, as if that canteen still exists inside my head somewhere. Maybe it does.

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.