“Unfortunately, yes. Has her ladyship gone?”
Una nodded. “What will we do with more children?” she wailed. “We already have so many!”
And Una would never be able to manage the billeting forms. Eileen glanced at her watch. Half past two. The children wouldn’t be home from school for another hour. I’m already leaving her and Mrs. Bascombe in the lurch, Eileen thought. At least I can get the new evacuees settled before I leave. “Go make up three more cots in the nursery,” she said, “and I’ll go and speak with her. Where are they?”
“In the morning room. How will we manage thirty-two children with only the three of us?”
The two of you, Eileen corrected, hastening down to the morning room. Lady Caroline would simply have to exert herself and find a new maid. Or pitch in and do that bit for the war effort she was always talking about. She opened the door to the morning room. “Mrs. Chambers, her ladyship asked me to-”
Theodore Willett was standing there with his suitcase. “I want to go home,” he said.
He has missed the bus.
Saltram-on-Sea-29 May 1940
MIKE STARED AT THE GIRL. “WHAT DID YOU SAY?” HE asked. He had to have heard her wrong.
“I said, the bus came yesterday. It comes on Tuesdays and Fridays.”
Which meant today was Wednesday the twenty-ninth, and he’d already missed three days of the evacuation.
“It used to be every day,” she said, “but since the war-”
“But Friday’s the thirty-first,” Mike exploded. “There has to be a bus before then.” The entire British Army would have been evacuated by then. He’d have missed the whole thing. “What about Ramsgate? When’s the next bus that goes there?”
“I’m afraid that’s Friday, as well,” the girl said. “It’s the same bus, you see.” She’d retreated warily up a step, and he realized he’d been yelling.
“I’m sorry,” Mike said. “It’s just that I was supposed to be in Dover this afternoon to cover a story, and now I don’t know how I’m going to get there. How far’s the nearest train-I mean, railway-station?” If there was one in the next village, maybe he could walk to it.
“Eight miles,” Daphne said, “but there haven’t been any passenger trains from there since the start of the war.”
Of course. “What about a car? Is there one in the village I could rent-I mean, hire? Or someone I could pay to drive me into Dover? I could pay-” Oh, Christ, what was the going rate for renting a car in 1940? “Three pounds.”
“Three pounds?” Her eyes widened. “I always heard Yanks were rich.”
Which meant that was way too much. “I’m not rich. It’s just really important I get there today.”
“Oh. Mr. Powney might be able to take you in his lorry,” she suggested, “but I don’t know if he’s back yet.”
“Back?”
“He went to Hawkhurst yesterday to buy a bull,” she explained. “He may have decided to stay over. He hates driving in the blackout. I’ll ask Dad. Back in a moment.” She ran back up the stairs, glancing flirtatiously over her shoulder at him as she went. “Dad?” he heard her say. “Is Mr. Powney back from Hawkhurst yet?”
“No. Who’s that you’re talking to, Daphne?”
“A Yank. He’s a reporter.”
Mike couldn’t hear the rest of the conversation. After a minute, Daphne ran back down the stairs. “Dad says he’s not back, but he should be sometime this morning.”
“And there’s no one else here with a truck-I mean, a lorry? Or an automobile?”
“Dr. Grainger has one, but he’s not here either. He’s visiting his sister in Norwich, and the vicar donated the tires on his to the rubber drive. And what with the petrol rationing, I-oh, here’s Miss Fintworth,” she said as a thin, frowsy-haired woman came in. “Our postmistress. Perhaps she’ll know when Mr. Powney’s coming back.”
She didn’t. “Would you give this to him when he arrives?” she asked, handing Daphne a letter. Daphne stuck it with several others behind the bar, and Miss Fintworth went out, brushing past a toothless old man on his way in.
“Mr. Tompkins will know,” Daphne said. “Mr. Tompkins,” she called to him, “do you know when Mr. Powney’s coming back?”
Mr. Tompkins muttered something Mike couldn’t make out at all, but Daphne apparently understood it. “He says Mr. Powney told him he planned to start back as soon as it was light. So he should be here by nine or half past.”
Nine-thirty, and then it would take them at least two hours to drive to Dover, which would put him there by noon. If Powney didn’t have to put his new bull away first or milk the cows or feed the chickens or something.
“Here, I’ll make you a nice cup of tea while you wait,” Daphne said, “and you can tell me all about the States. You said you were from Omaha? That’s in Ohio, isn’t it?”
“Nebraska,” he said absently, trying to decide whether he should walk north of the village and try to hitch a ride or whether he was better off waiting here.
“That’s in the Wild West, isn’t it?” Daphne asked. “Are there red Indians there?”
Red Indians? “Not anymore,” he said. “How many-?”
“Do you know any gangsters?”
She was clearly not an historian. “Nope, sorry. How many vehicles go through here in a day, Daphne?”
“A day?”
“Never mind,” he said. “I will have that cup of tea.”
“Oh, good. You can tell me all about-where did you say you were from? Nebraska?”
Yes, but thanks to Dunworthy changing my schedule, I didn’t have time to research it, so I don’t know anything about it. It was obvious Daphne didn’t either, but he’d still better avoid the subject. “Why don’t you tell me about the village instead?”
“I’m afraid there’s nothing to tell. Scarcely anything happens in this part of the world.”
Less than fifty miles from here the British and French armies were being pushed into a desperate corner by the Germans, a makeshift armada was being organized to go rescue them, and the outcome of the entire war depended on whether that rescue was successful or not, and she didn’t know anything about it. He guessed he shouldn’t be surprised. The news of it had been kept out of the papers till the evacuation was nearly over, and the only contemps who’d known about it were those who’d seen Dunkirk’s smoke on the horizon or the trains full of wounded and exhausted soldiers arriving home.
And Saltram-on-Sea didn’t have a train station. But it did have boats, and Mike was surprised the Small Vessels Pool hadn’t been here. Its officers had driven up and down the Channel coast commandeering fishing boats and yachts and motor launches and their crews to go pick up the stranded soldiers.
“I suppose you’ve been in lots of exciting places,” Daphne said, setting a cup of tea in front of him. “And seen lots of the war. Is that why you need to get to Dover? Because of the war?”
“Yes. I’m writing a story for my paper on invasion preparations along the coast. How has Saltram-on-Sea prepared?”
“Prepared? I don’t know… we’ve the Home Guard…”
“What do they do? Patrol the beaches at night?”
“No. Mostly they practice drilling.” She dropped her voice to a whisper. “And sit in here bragging about what they did in the last war.”
So whatever had kept the drop from opening last night, it hadn’t been the Home Guard. “Do you have any coastwatchers?”
