"Oh," she said, sounding vaguely disappointed.

"I went to Saltram-on-Sea to talk to you about it, and your father told me you'd gone to Manchester and that you'd got married. Congratulations to both of you. Your husband's a very lucky man."

"Oh, but I'm the lucky one," she said, blushing. "Rob's wonderful, so kind and brave. He's working on repairing the docks just now, but he's put in for combat duty. He's determined to do his bit for England. I said, 'You are doing your bit. You're seeing to it England doesn't starve, aren't you? It may not look as grandly heroic as shooting Germans or sinking U-boats, but-' "

And if he didn't cut her off, he'd be here all night. "If I could just ask you a couple of questions."

"Oh, of course. Where are my manners, keeping you standing in the door like that? Come through to the parlor. Would you like some tea?"

He'd love some tea-he hadn't had anything to eat since breakfast-and he'd love to take the weight off his foot, but he didn't want to do anything to encourage her to talk longer than she already was. "No, thanks, I have a train to catch. You said these two men came into the pub asking for me."

Daphne nodded. "Twice. The first time they asked everyone in the pub if they knew a war correspondent named Mike Davis, and Mr. Tompkins said I did, and they asked me if I knew how they could get in touch with you."

"And did you tell them?"

"No. I remembered what you said about letting you know straightaway if anyone came round asking for you. That's why I wrote to you instead of giving them your address."

Mike groaned inwardly. "Did they say why they were trying to get in touch with me?"

"No, they said it was something to do with the war, and that it was very important that they contact you, but they didn't say what it was."

"Did they tell you their names?"

"Yes. Mr. Watson and Mr...." She frowned and bit her lip. "I can't remember, it began with an H, like Hawes or ..."

"Mr. Holmes?"

"Yes, that was it. Mr. Watson and Mr. Holmes."

That cinched it. It was the retrieval team.

"They knew all about you having been at Dunkirk and in hospital," Daphne said. "They said one of the nurses told them you might have gone to Saltram-on-Sea."

Which meant they'd traced him as far as Orpington, but they obviously hadn't talked to Sister Carmody or she'd have told them he was in London. "What did they look like?" he asked. "Were they in uniform?"

"No. Civilian clothes. Very posh, and very posh accents, and they were both terribly handsome"-she cocked her head flirtatiously-"though not so handsome as you, speaking quite impartially. I'm a married woman, you know."

Yes, I know.

"You said they came in twice," he said, trying to get her back to the subject at hand. "The same day?"

"No, they came in on, let me see, when was it? The first Saturday in December, I think."

When he was in Oxford, trying to find out whether Gerald Phipps had been there.

"And then they came in again the next night, and that was when Rob got jealous and told me to stop flirting with them, and I said, 'I wasn't flirting, and even if I was, you've got no call to tell me not to, Rob Butcher. I'm not your wife,' and he said, 'I wish you were,' and the next thing you know he's been to Dover and got a special license so the vicar could marry us straightaway. Dad wanted us to wait, but Rob said no, who knew what might happen tomorrow or how much time we might have together, and then he found out he was being sent here, and-"

"When the men came the second time," Mike finally managed to get in, "what did they say?"

"They said if I did hear from you, to contact them immediately, and they wrote down their address for me. I meant to send it on to you, but then in the excitement of the wedding and all, I forgot. Oh, it was a lovely wedding. Rob looked terribly handsome in his uniform, and the church was all decorated with holly and-"

"Do you remember the address?"

"No."

Of course not.

"But I've got it. I put it"-she frowned in consternation-"now, where did I put it?"

Please don't say you stuck it behind the bar, and now I'll have to trudge all the way back across the country to Saltram-on-Sea for it, Mike thought.

"I put it ... oh, I know," she said. "I put it in my vanity case so I wouldn't go off without it. It's upstairs. Hang on." She started up and then turned to look at him over the railing. "You're not in any trouble, are you?"

Not anymore, he thought.

"I mean, the authorities aren't after you or anything?" she asked, concerned.

"No. I think I know who the men were. They're a couple of guys who were on the boat with me coming back from Dunkirk. Reporters."

"Oh, I wish I'd known they'd been at Dunkirk. I could have asked them about the Commander and Jonathan. They might know what happened to them."

"I'll ask them when I see them," Mike lied. "You were going to go get the address?"

"Oh, yes," she said, and pattered up the stairs, turning as she ran to give Mike one of those over-the-shoulder smiles that had no doubt snared her new husband. "I'll only be a moment."

She was as good as her word, reappearing almost immediately with a sheet of lined paper torn from a notebook like the one he carried. "Here it is," she said, handing it to him.

He looked down at the address. It was in Edgebourne, Kent. That must be where their drop was.

"It's near Hawkhurst," Daphne said.

Hawkhurst. Well, he wouldn't have to go all the way back to Saltram-on-Sea, but almost. He'd have to make that whole long, uncomfortable trip back in a packed train.

At least it wasn't on the coast, so he wouldn't have to deal with guards and checkpoints. But he was afraid it wasn't big enough to have a railroad station. But it didn't matter. Nothing mattered. He felt all the near panic of the last six months melt away. The retrieval team was here, and they were going home.

"Thank you," he said, and kissed Daphne impulsively on the cheek. "You're wonderful."

"Now, then," she said, blushing, "you mustn't do that sort of thing, you know. I'm a married woman. Rob-"

"Is a very lucky guy." And so am I. You have just saved my life. All our lives. "Listen," he said. "Be careful. When the sirens go, don't be a hero. Get yourself to the shelter. I don't want anything to happen to you."

"Oh, dear, I did break your heart, didn't I?" She smiled sympathetically at him. "You mustn't worry. You'll meet someone, and you'll be just as happy as Rob and I are. You'll see, it will all work out for the best. Rob says-"

The sirens went, and Mike used them as an excuse to leave. "Remember what I said," he told her. "You get to that shelter." And he limped off before she could tell him what Rob had said and what her wedding dress had looked like and how he'd find a nice girl.

I already have a nice girl, he thought. Two of them.

Who he needed to call and tell the good news to as soon as he got to the station. He hadn't wanted to call them before for fear he wouldn't be able to find Daphne or for fear she wouldn't have the retrieval team's address, but now they needed to quit their jobs and get ready to go. And he needed to ask Polly if Manchester had been bombed on the twenty-second and how badly.

In spite of the sirens having gone nearly fifteen minutes ago, he still didn't hear any planes. Manchester must have a longer warning period than London, since they were farther north and west. He didn't hear any guns either, and the only searchlights were out toward the docks. But they gave off enough light to see his way by.

He hobbled on toward the train station, cursing his limp. Which I won't have in a few more days, he thought. I'll have a brand-new foot, and Polly won't have to worry about still being here on her deadline, and Eileen won't ever have to suffer through another raid.

A man hurried past him, carrying a spray of holly.

We'll be home for Christmas, Mike thought. He pushed through the station door and headed for the line of red phone booths along the far wall to call Polly and Eileen. Would it be better for him to go back to London and get them, and the three of them go to Edgebourne together, or should he have them meet him there? That would be faster, and it would mean Eileen and Polly were safely out of London sooner. But if something went wrong and they got separated ...

Maybe he'd better go get them. That way they'd all be together and- What am I talking about? he thought. All I have to do is get to Edgebourne and tell them where Polly and Eileen are, and they can have another team go get them. Tonight if they want. Or the night I left for Saltram-on-Sea. This was time travel. Eileen and Polly were probably already in Oxford. In which case all he needed to do was get back to Kent and tell the retrieval team where they were the day he'd left.

He looked up at the departures board. There was an express leaving for Reading in six minutes. He limped over to the ticket counter. "One way to Reading on the 6:05," he said.

The ticket agent shook his head.

"Or on the next train east I can get a space on."

"No departures during a raid," the agent said, and pointed up at the high ceiling, where a sudden buzz of planes was becoming a dull roar. "You're not going anywhere tonight, mate. I'd find a shelter if I were you."

Happy Blitzmas!

-CHRISTMAS CARD,

1940.

London-December 1940 THREE NIGHTS AFTER MIKE LEFT FOR SALTRAM-ON-SEA, Eileen asked anxiously, "Shouldn't we have heard from him by now?"

Yes, Polly thought. They were at Mrs. Rickett's. The sirens hadn't gone and the rehearsal for A Christmas Carol didn't begin till eight, so Eileen had insisted on their waiting till the last moment to leave for Notting Hill Gate, hoping Mike would phone, but he hadn't.

"I doubt if he'll phone before next week," Polly said reassuringly.

"Next week?"

"Yes. He may not even be there yet, given all the wartime travel delays and no bus service from Dover. And the retrieval team may not be in Saltram-on-Sea. They may be in Folkestone or Ramsgate, or they may have gone off looking for Mike after they spoke to Daphne-"

"In which case it might take Mike days to locate them," Eileen said, sounding relieved.

"Exactly," Polly said, not mentioning that it didn't matter how long it took Mike to contact the team because this was time travel. If he did find them, all he needed to do was tell them where she and Eileen were and a second team could have been at Mrs. Rickett's immediately after Mike left for Victoria Station. Which meant either he hadn't found them or something had happened to him, and she had no intention of telling Eileen that. It would only frighten her, and Polly was already frightened enough for both of them-correction, for all three of them.

The letter from Daphne combined with Eileen having told him she'd witnessed the end of the war seemed to have convinced him they hadn't altered the future. He'd even brushed off his collision with Alan Turing.

But he didn't know about Eileen's withholding the City of Benares letter from Alf and Binnie Hodbin's mother. Or about Eileen's having given Binnie aspirin when she had the measles.

Mike had said Turing hadn't been injured by the collision, but he wouldn't have had to be. This was Alan Turing, the man who was behind Bletchley Park's success, and he still hadn't cracked the naval Enigma code. What if Mike's colliding with him had interrupted his train of thought at a crucial moment, and he didn't crack the code? Or what if Mike had done something else while he was in Bletchley which-combined with Hardy's rescue and what she and Eileen had done-would tip the balance of the war later on? Or what if he'd done something now in Saltram-on-Sea?

I should have warned him, she thought. I should have told him about the City of Benares and about the possible discrepancies. But she wasn't certain they were discrepancies. And he'd been so distraught when she told him about her deadline, and then, after he'd got the letter from Daphne, so certain that the retrieval team had come.

And if they have, then there's no reason to worry him with any of this. "Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof."

But what if they haven't?

"You are worried, aren't you?" Eileen asked anxiously. "About Mike's not phoning."

"No," Polly said firmly. "Remember, he said the phone at the Crown and Anchor wasn't at all private. He may have to wait till he arrives back in Dover to find one that is. Or the telephone lines may be out."

From the shelling Dover is taking every night, Polly added silently, wishing Mike would find a way to phone so she could tell him about the shelling and the upcoming raids. He'd be all right for the next few days-the raids would all be in the Midlands or the west-Liverpool on the twentieth, Plymouth on the twenty-first, and Manchester the night after that. But on the twenty-fourth Dover would undergo a major shelling, and two trains in Kent would be machine-gunned from the air.

They waited another quarter of an hour, hoping he'd phone. "It's twenty till," Polly said finally. "We really must leave, or I'll be late for rehearsal."

"All right," Eileen said reluctantly. "Wait, was that the phone? It's Mike. I knew it!" She pelted down the stairs to answer it.

It was Mrs. Rickett's sister, and it was clear they intended to talk for some time. "She's phoned twice in the past three days. Mike's very probably phoned already and couldn't get through," Eileen said as they walked over to Notting Hill Gate. She paused. "You knew Lady Caroline, didn't you? When you were in Dulwich." And when Polly looked at her in surprise, "The day I got the letter from the vicar about Lady Caroline and Lord Denewell, you said 'You worked for Lady Denewell?' "

And what else has she worked out? Polly wondered.

"Yes," she said. "She was my commanding officer."

Eileen nodded as if she already knew that. "And she made you do all the work."

"No. She was a wonderful commanding officer, hardworking, always thinking of her girls, determined to get us the supplies we needed. That's why I was so surprised. From what you'd told me about her-"

"I think it must have been because of losing her husband and her son. War changes people. It makes people do things they never thought they could," Eileen said thoughtfully. "In Mrs. Bascombe's last letter, she said Una's become quite a good driver in the ATF. You don't suppose the war will improve Alf and Binnie Hodbin, do you?"

"I very much doubt it."

"So do I," Eileen said as they turned onto Kensington Church Street. "Have you told the troupe that you may not be here for the performance of A Christmas Carol and that they need to arrange for an understudy?"

"Not yet," Polly said, wishing she could believe that Mike had simply been delayed and that the retrieval team would be waiting for them when they arrived at the tube station, or that when Mrs. Rickett came, she'd tell them Mike had phoned after she'd rung off.

She didn't, and there was no one at the tube station or at Townsend Brothers the next morning. "He'll phone today, I know it," Eileen said confidently, going up to the book department. "I'll see you at lunch."

But there was no time for lunch. There were Christmas decorations to put up-evergreen and cellophane garlands and paper bells (the aluminum-foil ones had gone to Lord Beaverbrook's Spitfire drive) and banners reading There'll Always Be a Christmas. And there was a horde of customers to contend with.

"The only good thing," Polly told Eileen when they met after work, "is that we've sold so much we've run completely out of brown paper."