If I can’t get through to Atherton, those letters to the editor had better, Ernest thought, driving into Croydon. He turned off the high street at the cinema so Cess wouldn’t spot the phone booth and drove past the Call’s office.
Mr. Jeppers’s bicycle stood outside it. Ernest had been lying to Cess about being able to make it to Croydon before the Call closed. He hadn’t expected the office to be open this late, but the printing press must have jammed again. Which meant he really might be able to get his articles in this week’s paper.
“I’ll drop you at the pub,” he told Cess, stopping in front of it, “and I’ll go deliver my articles. It may take some time. Mr. Jeppers likes to talk. Order for me,” he said, and drove back to the phone booth.
The operator put him through immediately, and the same young woman answered. “This is Lieutenant Davies,” Ernest said. “General Dunworthy’s aide. I telephoned earlier this afternoon, but we were cut off.”
“Oh, yes,” she said.
“I need to speak with Major Atherton.”
“Oh, dear, he came back, but he’s gone out again.”
Damn.
“Is it a medical emergency? This is his nurse. If it’s an emergency, I can try to contact Dr. Atherton.”
Dr. Atherton. He was a doctor. Which meant he wasn’t Denys. Historians posed as lots of things, but there were no subliminals for medicine. Even Polly’s driving an ambulance had been unusual, and all she’d had was emergency first-aid training. Which she’d done here. There was no way Atherton could have got a medical degree here since February.
“Sir?” she said. “Are you still there?”
“Yes. I think I may have the wrong Major Atherton. I’m trying to contact Major Denys Atherton.”
“Yes, sir. That’s Major Atherton’s name.”
“Tall man, dark curly hair, mid-twenties?”
“Oh, no, sir. Major Atherton’s fifty and has scarcely any hair at all. Is your Major Atherton an Army surgeon, too?”
No, he thought grimly. He’s an historian, and he’s not here under his own name. Dunworthy would have insisted Research run a check on the names of everyone involved in the invasion buildup. Two soldiers with the same name would automatically attract attention, and historians were supposed to blend in, to avoid being noticed.
There’s no way you’ll be able to find him if he’s here under another name, Ernest thought. He’d always known it was a long shot, but the knowledge still hit him with the force of a punch to the gut. He hung up the receiver and then just stood there.
I should go take the messages to Mr. Jeppers, he thought. It’s even more important now that I get them into the Call. But he continued to stand there, staring blindly at the telephone.
Cess was knocking on the phone-booth door.
Oh, Christ, he hadn’t just messed up rescuing Polly and Eileen, he’d been caught by Cess. He’d demand to know who he was phoning and why he’d lied about delivering the articles. He’d tell Lady Bracknell, and Bracknell would tell Tensing, and they’d have to cancel Fortitude South. They couldn’t take a chance that a German agent had infiltrated Special Means. And Eisenhower would postpone the invasion and try to come up with a new plan. And they’d lose the war.
Cess was still banging on the glass. Ernest opened the door. “Oh, good,” Cess said. “You remembered to phone Bracknell. I was going to tell you to, and then I forgot, so I came after you. You were right about their barmaid. Very pretty. What did Bracknell say? Were you able to reach him?”
“No,” Ernest said. “I wasn’t able to get through.”
I’m in this thing with you to the end, and if it fails, we’ll go down together.
—WINSTON CHURCHILL TO DWIGHT
D. EISENHOWER, BEFORE D-DAY
London—Spring 1941
POLLY RAN OUT OF THE ALHAMBRA AND THROUGH THE firelit streets to Shaftesbury, and into dense fog.
No, not fog. Dust from the explosion. It smelled of sulphur and cordite and was completely impenetrable. I’ll never find the Phoenix in this, she thought, but as she felt her way forward, it began to thin and she could see the Phoenix’s marquee. Reggie must have been wrong—it was still standing.
But the street in front of it was roped off. And as she came closer, she saw that half of the theater’s front was missing, exposing the lobby and the gold-carpeted staircase. An officer in a white helmet was standing next to the blue incident light, peering at a clipboard. Polly ducked under the rope and ran over to him. “Officer—”
“This is an incident,” he said brusquely. “No civilians allowed.”
“But I’m looking for—”
He cut her off. “The theater was standing empty. I must ask you to leave. Warden!” He beckoned to an ARP warden. “Escort this young lady—”
“But there’s someone inside,” she said. “Sir God—”
“Officer Murdoch!” another warden called from up the street. “Quick!” and the incident officer hurried off.
Polly started after him, but so did the warden he’d called to have her thrown out, and she was afraid he’d do it before she could explain. And even if he’d listen, they obviously had their hands full.
She darted across the street and climbed over the heap of wood and plaster that had been the front of the theater and into the lobby. Scarcely any damage had been done to it. The bomb must have been only a hundred-pounder, in spite of its loudness. She tried to open the double doors to the theater proper, but they were locked.
The mezzanine doors weren’t. She slipped through them.
Into chaos. The balcony and boxes had collapsed onto the rows of red-plush seats below, and the seats themselves were piled atop one another as though tossed there by a wave. The walls still stood, and there was still a ceiling except for a large, jagged hole on one side. Through it, the fiery sky lit this part of the theater with a pinkish-orange light. The front part of the theater and the stage lay in shadow.
“Sir Godfrey! Are you in here?” Polly called, and started carefully across the sea of openwork metal supports, cushions spilling out stuffing, and splintered mahogany from the balcony. Some of the rows of seats were still intact and upright, with discarded playbills still on their red-plush seats. But they were unstable, threatening to topple as Polly walked across them, grabbing for seat backs as she worked her way forward, and her shoes made it worse.
I have no business trying to do this in high-heeled shoes, she thought, stepping carefully over a curved panel which had been part of one of the theater boxes.
Sir Godfrey had said he’d be backstage looking at sets. She looked out across the jumble of upended seats, seeking something that would tell her when she’d reached the stage—a footlight or a curtain or a fallen catwalk—but there was nothing beyond the rows of tangled seats except what looked like a huge blanket, as if the rescue squad had covered the site with a tarpaulin to hide the wreckage.
As if it were a dead body, Polly thought, and realized what the tarpaulin was. The asbestos safety curtain. It had collapsed backward, draping the entire stage. At least it can’t catch fire, she thought, but if Sir Godfrey was under it, there was no way she’d be able to lift it off him. The one at the Alhambra weighed a ton.
She started toward the shrouded stage, calling, “Sir Godfrey! Where are you?” and stepping gingerly from seat to seat as if across stepping-stones. She remembered the governess at the pantomime telling her charges, “No, no, you mustn’t stand on the seats. You’ll tear the cloth,” and even as she thought it, her gilt heel went through the plush upholstery, her ankle twisted, and she fell sideways.
She grabbed for the back of the chair, which threatened to go over, steadied herself, and attempted to free her foot. The shoe’s heel was caught on something. One of the springs. She jerked her foot sharply upward, but it wouldn’t budge.