I have to get them off this subject, Ernest thought. “I think the bull’s your man,” he said. “He looked exactly like Heinrich Himmler. Is that Mofford House?”
“Where?” Cess said. “I can’t see anything.”
“There, beyond the trees,” Ernest said, pointing at nothing, and the three of them spent the next quarter of an hour attempting to catch sight of it, after which Cess spotted a turret and then the gates.
“I say,” Cess said as they drove in through them, “one can’t have a hospital without nurses. Have we got some?”
“Yes,” Moncrieff said. “Gwendolyn set it up.”
“Are they the same girls who helped us when we did the oil-refinery opening?” Cess asked. “The ones from ENSA?”
“No,” Moncrieff said. “These are the real thing. Gwendolyn borrowed them from the same hospital that lent us the beds.”
Ernest looked up alertly. “The hospital in Dover?”
“Yes, and don’t get any notions of flirting with them. There’ll be all sorts of higher-ups and Special Means people here. I don’t want any trouble.”
I don’t either, Ernest thought, and the moment they pulled up in front of the manor house, he snatched up his nightclothes and the boxes of bandages and took off for the house.
It was obvious why they’d chosen Mofford House. It had a moat and a distinctive turreted tower that the Germans would recognize, even though his newspaper story would say only, “One of England’s stately homes, whose name cannot be disclosed for security reasons, has been converted to a military hospital.”
He hobbled quickly across the drawbridge, hoping that since today this was supposed to be a hospital, he wouldn’t run into a butler at the door who’d demand to know where he was going.
He didn’t—only two soldiers attempting to wedge a hospital bed through the door. Beyond them he could see an entry hall and, off to the side, the room which was posing as the ward today. Inside it stood a cluster of older men in officers’ uniforms and several white-clad nurses.
He squeezed past the wedged bed, keeping out of their sight, down a corridor, and into the nearest unoccupied room, which turned out to be the dining room. He shut the door, wedged chairs against it, and, using the mirror above the sideboard, began winding bandages around his head.
He emerged ten minutes later in pajamas, robe, and slippers, his head and both hands swathed in bandages. “Where have you been?” Prism asked. “And what are you doing in that getup? You look like an escapee from an Egyptian tomb.”
Ernest pulled him off to the side. “You said they’d be taking photographs, and my picture was already in the newspapers from the opening of Camp Omaha. If the Germans see me in more than one photo, they’ll spot a fraud.”
“You’re right. Good show. Was Cess in the photo?”
“He wasn’t there. He was off doing dummy landing craft.”
“Good, then he can be the broken foot. Go help bring in the wheelchairs.”
Ernest did and then carried two oil paintings, three watercolors, and an antique writing table upstairs for Lady Mofford, made up the hospital beds, bandaged several other “patients,” and helped lay out tea in the library.
The tea included sandwiches, and he ate two, hid four more for Cess inside the bandages on his hands, and went to find him. Cess said, “You look like Boris Karloff in The Mummy. And don’t try to convince me you did it to keep from being recognized in the photo. I know the real reason.”
“You do?” Ernest asked cautiously.
“Yes. You didn’t want to be stuck in an itchy plaster cast all afternoon.”
“You’re right. You can have my wheelchair, and I’ll do the crutches,” he offered, then regretted it. The crutches dug into his armpits, the afternoon turned beastly hot, and he began to sweat under his bandages.
And the Queen was three-quarters of an hour late. “She’s royalty,” Moncrieff said when Ernest complained. “She can keep us waiting, just not the other way round.
Why don’t you spend the time writing up those articles you said were due?”
“I can’t.” He held up his bandaged hands.
“That’s not my fault. You were the one who decided to come as the ghost of King Tut. I don’t know why you felt it necessary to use so much bandage.”
Neither do I, he thought. Especially since it had turned out to be a false alarm. The hospital in Dover hadn’t been able to spare any nurses. These were from Ramsgate. He considered taking the facial bandages off, but just then the Queen—a stout, sweet-faced woman in pale blue—arrived along with a half dozen photographers from the London papers, and the affair commenced.
“You never did tell me how to address her,” Ernest whispered to Prism, who was in the bed next to him as they proceeded down the row.
“You don’t say anything unless she asks you a direct question,” Prism whispered. “And then it’s ‘Your Majesty.’ Shh. Here she comes.”
He should have asked him if she knew this was a hoax or not. It was impossible to tell. She spoke to the “patients” as if they actually had been injured in battle, asking them what unit they were with and where they were from. If she did know, she was doing an excellent job of acting. We could use her in Special Means, he thought.
The entire thing was over by half past two. The Queen declined to stay to tea and left at a quarter past, and the photographers took a few more pictures and departed. He could still make it to Croydon if they left now.
