Maman made no objections as Margot slipped out of Room 40 and into the room across the hall, where Commander Willie James was bent over his desk. Up until a few months ago, it had been Herbert Hope at this desk, and Margot hadn’t yet grown accustomed to the style of their new head of day-to-day operations. But then, he hadn’t quite grown accustomed to them either.

Now, for instance, he was staring rather blankly at Frank Adcock. “I haven’t the foggiest notion what you just said, old boy.”

Adcock huffed. “Well, I say, Bubbles, if you’d but pay attention, you’d have puzzled it out. It’s a poem, I tell you.” Adcock shook the telegram. “Not one of the standard codes at all, but a key of some sort.”

Margot pressed her lips against a grin when the man scowled at the name Bubbles. The teasing had been merciless in the office ever since someone had realized that a painting of him as a child staring up at a bubble he’d just blown had been used in a soap advertisement years ago.

But despite the mutual bafflement between their new leader and the staff, Commander James had managed to organize them far more effectively over the course of the summer. Margot needn’t ask which basket she was to put her decrypts in; she had only to slide the stack into the one marked Intelligence and slip back out.

Maman stood in the hallway waiting for her, their lunches in hand. “Outside, perhaps? The sun is shining again.”

And they’d better enjoy it while it lasted because all too soon autumn’s rains would be upon them. Margot nodded and accepted one of the brown paper bags. She tried not to ponder how little was in it. One would think that after three years at war—including a few months in Belgium, where food had been so scarce they’d been waiting in bread lines within the first several weeks—that she’d be used to the lack.

But one never really got used to it. Especially not with the newspapers full of images of newly arrived American troops. Doughboys indeed. To European eyes, all the Americans looked pudgy.

“I think I had better begin knitting that cardigan for little Zurie tonight. How big do you think she will be by Christmas?” Maman asked as they started down the stairs.

Margot sent her mother an amused look. “Well, in my considerable experience with small children, I think they probably grow at a rate of—”

“Never mind.” Maman laughed and bumped their shoulders together. “I forgot with whom I was speaking. Perhaps instead I should ask what you decided to make for your niece.”

Margot shook her head. “I have decided that I love my niece enough that I will not make her anything.”

Maman turned wide eyes on her. “Margot!”