“No one wants to think there are enemy spies about, but it does no good to hide from it, sir. In times of war, we must face the truth!”

“Mustn’t we also face it in times of peace?” asked Old Tom, happy to discuss minute philosophical points, but again the soldier was having none of it.

“Don’t you worry, sir. My men are here to protect these shores, and protect them we will!” said the soldier.

“Well, gosh,” said Old Tom. “Thanks. You wouldn’t consider planting some potatoes while you’re at it?”

“Ha, ha, sir, good one,” said the soldier. “We must keep our sense of humor in times of war!”

“Good night,” said Old Tom, who had been perfectly serious. It had always seemed to him a terrific waste of manpower to have a whole barracks full of men, doing essentially nothing, when there was farmwork to be done. He closed the door and crept back upstairs, making his way to the third-floor maid’s room where we had stowed Flying Bob. When he came in, Sina put a finger to her lips. I had crept up to join Sina when I heard the downstairs door close. Old Tom joined us by the side of Flying Bob’s bed.

“He woke up twice,” Sina said, gesturing to Flying Bob. “He’s had a bad concussion, I think, and I hope nothing more. But, Tom, he remembers nothing. He doesn’t know where he is or how he got here. He’s never met me, so that probably further confused him.”

“That’s a blessing,” said Old Tom. “Because he was half off his head in the plane. I wouldn’t trust him not to give the whole show away if he remembered it.”

“He’s sleeping now. I’ll keep an eye on him. I’m thinking if we can keep him away from his children and you, which might jog his memory about the events of the night, and if we can somehow put him on the roadside somewhere, maybe we can convince him that he had some kind of car accident coming down island and anything he remembers was only a dream. He must never suspect that he was the one to take the Argot because he is certain to be grilled intensely when he gets back to the base and he must believe his own story. But we won’t know until morning just how much memory he will recover.”

“It seems like a long shot,” said Old Tom.

“We have to try,” said Sina.

And then what followed was a very long night for me and Old Tom and Sina. Old Tom paced in the hallway outside the bedroom where Flying Bob lay, while Sina and I remained at his bedside. We were hoping that he wouldn’t wake up too completely but that he would wake up enough that we could be sure he hadn’t slipped into a coma.