The entire episode had taken less than a minute, but it had been long enough. Paige was nowhere to be seen. She attempted to find her, heading in the direction she'd last seen her going, and then gave up and struck out across the square toward the National Gallery.

Trafalgar Square was, if possible, even more crowded than the station and the street had been. Huge numbers of people were sitting on the base of Nelson's monument, astride the lions, on the sides of the fountain, on a Jeep full of American sailors that was, impossibly, trying to drive through the center of the square, horn honking continuously.

As she passed it, one of the sailors leaned down and grabbed her arm. "Want a ride, gorgeous?" he asked, and hauled her up and into the Jeep. He called to the driver in an exaggerated British accent, "Buckingham Palace, my good man, and make it snappy! Does that please you, milady?"

"No," she said. "I need to get to the National Gallery."

"To the National Gallery, Jeeves!" the sailor ordered, though the Jeep clearly wasn't going anywhere. It was completely surrounded. She scrambled up onto its bonnet to try to spot Paige. "Hey, beautiful, where you goin'?" he said, grabbing at her legs as she stood up.

She swatted his hands away and looked back toward Charing Cross, but there was no sign of Paige or Reardon. She turned, holding on to the windscreen as the Jeep began to crawl forward, to look toward the National Gallery steps.

"Get down, honey!" the sailor who was driving shouted up at her. "I can't see where I'm going."

The Jeep crept a few feet and stopped again, and more people swarmed onto the bonnet. He leaned on the horn, and the crowd parted enough for the Jeep to creep a few more feet.

Away from the National Gallery. She needed to get off. When the Jeep stopped again, blocked by the conga line writhing past, she took the opportunity to slip off. She waded on toward the National Gallery, scanning the steps for Paige or Reardon. A clock chimed, and she glanced back at St. Martin-in-the-Fields. A quarter past ten. Already?

If she was going to go back tonight, she needed to be back in the tube station by eleven, or she'd never make it to the drop, and it could take longer than that just to reach the National Gallery steps. She needed to turn back now.

But she hated to leave without saying goodbye to Paige. She couldn't actually tell her goodbye, since her cover story was that she'd been called home because her mother had been taken ill. Technically, she wasn't supposed to leave without permission, but with the war over, she'd have been demobbed in the next few days anyway.

She'd intended to go back tonight because, with everyone from the post in London, it would be easier to slip away. But if she went tomorrow-even though it would be more difficult to effect her escape-it would give her a chance to see everyone one last time. And she didn't want Paige to wait for her, miss the last train, and get into trouble.

But surely Paige would realize she'd failed to show up because of the crowds and go on without her. Now that the war was over, it wasn't as if her absence would mean that she'd been blown up by a V-2. And even if she did stay, there was no guarantee she could find Paige in this madness. The National Gallery steps were jammed with people. She'd never be able to spot ... no, there Paige was, leaning over the stone railing, anxiously peering out at the crowd.

She waved at Paige-a totally useless gesture amongst the hundreds of people waving Union Jacks-and elbowed her way determinedly toward the steps, veering left when she heard the "dunh duh dunh" of the conga line off to the right.

The steps were packed. She pushed over to the end of them, hoping it might be less crowded there.

It was, marginally. She began to work her way up, stepping between and over people. "Sorry ... I beg your pardon ... sorry."

There was the sudden heart-stopping, high-pitched whine of a siren, and the entire square fell silent, listening, and then-as they realized it was the all clear-erupted into cheers.

Directly in front of her, a burly workman sat on a step, his head in his hands, sobbing as if his heart would break. "Are you all right?" she asked anxiously, putting her hand on his shoulder.

He looked up, tears streaming down his ruddy face. "Right as rain, dearie," he said. "It was the all clear what did it." He stood up so she could pass, wiping at his cheeks. "The most beautiful thing I ever 'eard in me 'ole life."

He took her arm to help her up to the next step. " 'Ere you go, dearie. Let 'er through, blokes," he called to the people above him.

"Thank you," she said gratefully.

"Douglas!" Paige shouted from above, and she looked up to see her waving wildly. They worked their way toward each other. "Where did you go?" Paige demanded. "I turned round and you were gone! Have you seen Reardon?"

"No."

"I thought perhaps I might spot her or some of the others from up here," Paige said. "But I haven't had any luck."

She could see why as she looked out over the crowd. Ten thousand people were supposed to have gathered in Trafalgar Square on VE-Day, but it looked like there were already that many here tonight, laughing and cheering and throwing their hats in the air. The conga line, at the far corner, was weaving off toward the Portrait Gallery, replaced by a line of middle-aged women dancing an Irish jig.

She tried to take it all in, to memorize every detail of the amazing historical event she was witnessing: The young woman splashing in the fountain with three officers of the Royal Norfolk Regiment. The stout woman passing out poppies to two tough-looking soldiers, who each kissed her on the cheek. The bobby trying to drag a girl down off the Nelson monument and the girl leaning down and blowing a curled-paper party favor in his face. And the bobby laughing. They looked not so much like people who had won a war as people who had been let out of prison.

Which they had been.

"Look!" Paige cried. "There's Reardon."

"Where?"

"By the lion."

"Which lion?"

"That lion." Paige pointed. "The one with part of his nose missing."

There were dozens of people surrounding the lion and on the lion, perched on its reclining back, on its head, on its paws, one of which had been knocked off during the Blitz. A sailor sat astride its back, putting his cap on the lion's head.

"Standing in front of it and off to the left," Paige directed her. "Can't you see her?"

"No."

"By the lamppost."

"The one with the boy shinning up it?"

"Yes. Now look to the left."

She did, scanning the people standing there: a sailor waving his cap in the air, two elderly women in black coats with red, white, and blue rosettes on their lapels, a blonde teenaged girl in a white dress, a pretty redhead in a green coat- Good Lord, that looks just like Merope Ward, she thought. And that impossibly bright green coat was exactly the sort of outfit those idiot techs in Wardrobe would have told her was what the contemps wore to the VE-Day celebrations.

And the young woman wasn't cheering or laughing. She was looking earnestly at the National Gallery steps, as if trying to memorize every detail. It was definitely Merope.

She raised her arm to wave at her.

There won't be any next time if this war is lost.

-EDWARD R. MURROW,

17 June 1940

London-26 October 1940 FOR A MOMENT AFTER THE SIREN BEGAN ITS UP-AND-DOWN warble, Polly simply stood there with the stockings box still in her hand, her heart pounding. Then Doreen said, "Oh, no, not a raid! I thought for certain we'd get through today without one."

We did, Polly thought. There must be some mistake.

"And just when we were finally getting some customers," Doreen added disgustedly. She pointed at the opening lift.

Oh, no, what a time for Mike and Eileen to finally arrive. Polly hurried over to intercept them, but it wasn't them after all. Two stylish young women stepped out of the lift. "I'm afraid there's a raid on," Miss Snelgrove said, coming over, too, "but we have a shelter which is very comfortable and specially fortified. Miss Sebastian will take you down to it."

"This way," Polly said, and led them through the door and down the stairs.

"Oh, dear," one of the young women said, "and after what happened to Padgett's last night-"

"I know," the other one replied. "Did you hear? Five people were killed."

Thank goodness Mike and Eileen aren't here, Polly thought. But they could easily have been on their way up when the siren sounded and would be down in the shelter when they got there, and there would be no way to avoid the subject. And no way to convince Mike this didn't confirm the fact that there was a discrepancy.

"Were the people who were killed in Padgett's shelter?" the first young woman was asking worriedly. She had to shout over the siren. Unlike at Padgett's, where the staircase had muffled the sirens' sound, the enclosed space here magnified it so that it was louder than it had been out on the floor.

"I've no idea," the other shouted back. "Nowhere's safe these days." She launched into a story about a taxi that had been hit the day before.

They were nearly down to the basement. Please don't let Mike and Eileen be there, Polly thought, only half listening to the young women. Please ...

"If I hadn't mistaken my parcel for hers," the young woman was saying, "we'd both have been killed-"

The siren cut off. There was a moment of echoing silence, and then the all clear sounded.

"False alarm," the other young woman said brightly. They started back upstairs. "They must have mistaken one of our boys for a German bomber," which sounded likely, but it wouldn't necessarily convince Mike. Polly hoped he and Eileen hadn't been within earshot of the siren.

But the fact that the women knew about the five fatalities must mean it was in the papers, and if it was, it would be chalked on news boards and newsboys would be shouting it, and there'd be no way to keep it from him. And there was no way a shopgirl could ask a customer, "How did you find out about the fatalities?"

Polly hoped the young women might bring it up again, but now they were solely focused on buying a pair of elbow-length gloves. It took them nearly an hour to decide on a pair, and when they left, Mike and Eileen still weren't there. Which is good, Polly thought. It means the chances that they didn't hear the siren are excellent. But it was after two. Where were they?

Mike heard a newsboy shouting the headline "Five Killed at Padgett's" and went to the morgue to see the bodies, she thought worriedly, but when Mike and Eileen arrived half an hour later, they didn't say anything about fatalities or Padgett's. They had been delayed at Theodore's.

"Theodore didn't want me to go," Eileen explained. "He threw such a tantrum I had to promise to stay and read him a story."

"And then on the way back we went to the travel shop Eileen had seen, to try to find a map," Mike said, "but it was hit last night."

"The owner was there," Eileen said, "and he said there was another shop on Charing Cross Road, but-"

Miss Snelgrove was eyeing them disapprovingly from Doreen's counter. "You can tell me when I get home," Polly said. She gave them the coats, her latchkey, and Mrs. Leary's address. "I may be late," she added.

"Should we go to the tube station if the raids begin before you come home?" Eileen asked nervously.

"No. Mrs. Rickett's is perfectly safe," Polly whispered. "Now go. I don't want to lose my job. It's the only one we've got."

She watched them depart, hoping they'd be too busy settling in to their new accommodations to discuss Padgett's or daytime raids with anyone. She'd planned to go to the hospital tomorrow to try to find out if there really had been five fatalities, but if the deaths were in the newspapers, it couldn't wait. She'd have to go tonight, and poor Eileen would have to face her first supper at Mrs. Rickett's alone.

But she might as well have gone straight home. She couldn't get in to see Marjorie or find out anything from the stern admitting nurse, and when she reached the boardinghouse, Eileen was sitting in the parlor with her bag, even though Polly could hear the others in the dining room. "Why aren't you in there eating supper?" Polly asked.

"Mrs. Rickett said I had to give her my ration book, and when I told her about Padgett's, she said I couldn't begin boarding till I got a new one, and Mike wasn't here-"

"Where is he? At Mrs. Leary's?"

"No. He arranged things with her and then went to check a travel shop in Regent Street and then fetch his clothes from his old rooms, but he said he'd be late and not to wait for him, to go ahead to Notting Hill Gate and meet him there. When do the raids begin tonight?" she asked nervously.

"Shh," Polly whispered. "We shouldn't be talking about this here. Come up to the room."

"I can't. Mrs. Rickett said I wasn't allowed to till I'd paid her."

"Paid her? Didn't you tell her you were moving in with me?"

"Yes," Eileen said, "but she said not till I'd given her ten and six."

"I'll speak to her," Polly said grimly, picking up Eileen's bag. She took her up to the room, left her there, and went down to the kitchen to confront Mrs. Rickett.

"When I moved in, you said I had to pay the full rate for a double," Polly argued. "It shouldn't be extra for-"

"There's plenty as wants the room if you don't," Mrs. Rickett said. "I had three Army nurses here today looking for a room to let."

And I suppose you plan to charge them three times the rate for a double, Polly almost snapped, but she couldn't risk getting them evicted. Eileen would already have given Theodore's mother this address, and Mrs. Rickett wasn't the type to tell a retrieval team where they'd gone if they did show up. Polly paid the additional ten and six and went back upstairs.

Miss Laburnum was just coming out of her room, carrying a bag full of coconut shells and an empty glass bottle. "For Ernest's message in a bottle," she explained. "Sir Godfrey said to get a whiskey bottle, but with Mrs. Brightford's little girls there, I thought perhaps orange squash would be more suitable-"

Polly cut her off. "Would you tell Sir Godfrey I may not be at rehearsal tonight? I must help my cousin get settled in."

"Oh, yes, poor thing," Miss Laburnum said. "Did she know any of the five who were killed?"

Oh, no, Miss Laburnum knew about the deaths, too. Now she'd have to keep Mike and Eileen away from the troupe as well.

"Were they shop assistants?" Miss Laburnum asked.

"No," Polly said, "but the incident's left her badly shaken, so I'd rather you didn't say anything to her about it."

"Oh, no, of course not," Miss Laburnum assured Polly. "We wouldn't want to upset her." Polly was certain she meant it, but she or someone else at the boardinghouse was bound to slip. She had to find a way to get in to see Marjorie tomorrow.

"It's dreadful," Miss Laburnum was saying, "so many killed, and who knows how it will all end?"

"Yes," Polly said, and was grateful when the sirens went. "I'd appreciate it if you told Sir Godfrey why I can't come."

"Oh, but you can't be thinking of staying here with a raid on? Can she, Miss Hibbard?" she asked their fellow boarder as she came hurrying out of her room carrying a black umbrella and her knitting.

"Oh, my, no," Miss Hibbard said. "It's far too dangerous. Mr. Dorming, tell Miss Sebastian she and her cousin must come with us."

And in a moment Eileen would open the door to see what was going on. "We'll come to the shelter as soon as I've shown her where things are," Polly promised, to get rid of them. She escorted them downstairs.