He had said ... something, and when she'd heard the words, they'd set up an echo of someone else, saying the same words ... and for an instant it had all made sense-Alf and Binnie blocking Eileen's way, and Mike unfouling the propeller, and the measles and the slippage and A Christmas Carol. If she could only remember ...

Hunter had said, "You can't get out that way. It's blocked." Like their drops. Hers had been bombed, and Mike's had a gun emplacement on it, and Eileen's had been fenced off and turned into a riflery range, blocking their way back. Like Alf and Binnie had blocked Eileen's way, like the station guard had kept Polly from leaving Notting Hill Gate and going to the drop the night St. George's was destroyed- It has something to do with that night, Polly thought. The guard wouldn't let me leave, and I went to Holborn- "This won't hurt," the attendant said, clamping the oxygen mask down over her nose and mouth and holding it there. "It's only oxygen. It will help clear your head."

I don't want it cleared, Polly thought. Not till she remembered what he'd said, not until she'd worked it out. It was a puzzle, like one of Mike's crosswords. It had something to do with Holborn and Mike's bus and ENSA and her shoe.

No, not her shoe-the shoe the horse had lost. "For want of a horse, the battle was lost. For want of a battle, the war ..."

The ambulance jolted to a stop, and they were opening the doors, carrying her inside the hospital past a woman at a desk.

Like Agatha Christie that night at St. Bart's, Polly thought, and for an instant she nearly had it. It was something to do with Agatha Christie. And that night she'd gone to Holborn. The sirens had gone early, and the guard wouldn't let her go to the drop, and so she hadn't been there when the parachute mine exploded, she had thought they were all dead and had staggered into Townsend Brothers, and Marjorie had seen her and decided to elope with her airman- "Let's get you out of those clothes," the nurse said, and they were taking her bloody swimsuit off, putting her into a hospital gown and a bed, bombarding her with questions so that she couldn't concentrate. She had to keep explaining that her name wasn't Viola, it was Polly Sebastian, that she wasn't a chorus girl at the Windmill, that she wasn't injured.

"It's not my blood," she insisted. "It's Sir Godfrey's."

She'd nearly forgotten about Sir Godfrey, she had been so fixed on remembering what Hunter had said, but if he'd died on the way to hospital, it didn't matter. If she hadn't saved his life ...

"Is he here?" she asked. "Is he all right?"

"I'll send someone to see," the nurse promised, taking her pulse, pulling the blankets up over her. "This will help you to sleep."

"I don't want to sleep," Polly said, but it was too late. The needle was already in her arm.

"Marjorie," she murmured, determined not to lose her train of thought. Marjorie had decided to elope with her airman, and so she'd been in Jermyn Street when it was hit, and so she'd ...

But the sedative was already working, her thoughts already breaking up like fog into wisps of thought, already drifting from her grasp. She couldn't remember what Marjorie ... no, not Marjorie. Agatha Christie. And the measles and a horse and that night at Holborn. There hadn't been anywhere to sit, so she'd stood in line at the canteen waiting for the escalators to stop, and Alf and Binnie had run by, had stolen the woman's picnic basket. Alf and Binnie, who'd kept Eileen from going to St. Paul's ... no, that wasn't Eileen, it was Mr. Dunworthy. They'd kept Mr. Dunworthy from going to St. Paul's, and he'd collided with Alan Turing. No, Mike had collided with Alan Turing. Mr. Dunworthy had collided with Talbot, and her lipstick had rolled into the street, and Sir Godfrey ...

Polly must have called out his name because the nurse hurried over. "He's resting comfortably. Now try to sleep."

I can't, Polly thought groggily. I have to be there. "If you aren't, there will be no one there to avert the inevitable disaster," Hunter had said. No, that was Sir Godfrey, talking about Mrs. Wyvern and the pantomime. Hunter had said, "It was lucky you knew what to do."

I learned it in Oxford, she thought, so I could pose as an ambulance driver and observe the V-1s and V-2s. But the Major sent us to Croydon to find John Bartholomew. No, not to Croydon, to St. Paul's. But the streets were roped off because of the UXB, and I sneaked past the barrier and up the hill, but it was a cul-de-sac. I'd gone the wrong way- Wrong way. That was what Hunter had said.

"Wrong way," Polly murmured, and saw the ginger-haired librarian at Holborn holding an Agatha Christie paperback, heard her saying, "I'm convinced I know who the murderer is, and then, when I'm nearly to the end, I realize I've been looking at the entire situation the wrong way round, that something else entirely is going on."

No, the librarian hadn't said that, Eileen had, that day in Oxford. No, that wasn't right either. But it didn't matter. Because Polly had it-the idea she'd been pursuing all the way across the wrecked theater. And it all-Talbot and Marjorie and St. Paul's and the measles and the stiff strap on her gilt shoe-fit together. It all made sense, and she knew it was vital to hold on to it, not to let it drift away, but it was impossible, the sedative was already closing in like fog, obliterating everything.

"Like the spell in Sleeping Beauty," she tried to say, but she couldn't. She was already asleep.

There just isn't any way we're gonna live through this thing.

-NAVIGATOR LIEUTENANT LOU BABER,

467TH BOMBARDMENT GROUP.

Croydon-October 1944 "WE WEREN'T KILLED," ERNEST TRIED TO SAY TO MR. JEPPERS. "The V-1 didn't kill us." But he couldn't find the editor in the smoke. It billowed up blackly around him.

They must have hit the Arizona, he thought, coughing, trying to see out across the deck of the New Orleans.

But that couldn't be right. I never got to Pearl Harbor, he thought. Dunworthy changed the order of my assignments. Oh, God, I'm still at Dunkirk. My foot ...

But that wasn't right either, because he was lying down. There hadn't been room on the boat to lie down. He'd had to stand up, mashed against the rail the whole way. And the smoke was too thick for it to be Dunkirk.

He couldn't see anything. It was completely dark. He must be belowdecks. He could see flames through the smoke and hear fire bells. They're going to an incident, he thought, and remembered the V-1. I hope it didn't damage the printing press. I've got to get that picture of St. Anselm's in. And take a photo of this incident.

He looked around, trying to see if the name on the newspaper office was still there. If it was, Cess could crop off the word "Croydon," and they could say it was the Cricklewood Clarion Call. But the fire wasn't bright enough to light more than the few feet beyond him, and there were no landmarks there, only bricks and broken timbers shrouded by orangish dust. It hadn't been smoke. It was plaster dust. That was why it was so choking, why he couldn't stop coughing. He had to try several times before he managed to say, "Mr. Jeppers! I need a flashlight so I can look at your sign!"

Mr. Jeppers didn't answer. He can't hear me for the fire bells, Ernest thought. They got very loud and then stopped, and he could hear doors slamming, and voices.

Perhaps they had a flashlight. "Hullo!" he called to them, and stopped to cough. "Do you have a flashlight?"

But they must not have heard him because they were walking away from him. "No, over here!" he shouted-a mistake. It caused him to suck in a huge amount of plaster dust and choke.

"I thought I heard someone coughing," one of the girls said, and he could hear the crack of wood and the slither of dirt as they came toward him. "Where are you?"

"Here," he said. "Jeppers, it's all right. Someone's coming."

"Where are you? Keep talking," the second girl called after a moment, but he didn't answer her. He was listening to her voice. It sounded somehow familiar.

"Here he is!" the first one shouted from what seemed like far away. He heard a scrabbling sound, and then, "I found him," and he could tell from the tone of her voice that he was dead.

But I'm not, he thought. We survived the V-1- "There's another one here somewhere," the second voice said, and something else-he couldn't make out what. More scrabbling. "Over here!" she called, closer. Then she was there, bending over him. "Are you all right?"

He looked up at her, but the light from the fires wasn't bright enough for him to see her face. All he caught was a glimpse of fair hair under the tin helmet. "You mustn't worry," she said. "We'll get you out of here straightaway. Fairchild!" she called sharply. "Over here!" and moved down to his legs and began tossing aside bricks and pieces of wood. "I need a light!"

The girl she'd called Fairchild arrived. "Is he alive?" she asked, stooping down next to him, and the fire must have been growing brighter. He could see her face clearly. She looked very young. "How bad is he?"

"His foot-"

"That wasn't the V-1," he said. "It happened at Dunkirk." But they didn't hear him.

"I've tied a tourniquet. Go get the medical kit," the first girl said to Fairchild. "And a stretcher. Is Croydon here yet?" she asked, and her voice sounded just like Polly's.

"No," Fairchild said. "Are you certain we should move him?"

"He'll bleed to death if we don't," the girl who sounded like Polly said, and he could hear Fairchild run off across the rubble. "Telephone Croydon. And Woodside," she called after her. "Tell them we need help."

It can't be Polly, he thought as she tried to free him. The deadline's passed.

"You mustn't worry, we'll have you out of here in no time," she said, bending so close he could see her face in the light of the fire, and it was Polly. He would know her anywhere.

No, oh, no, no. She was still here, and it was too late. Her deadline was already past. He hadn't gotten her out. "I'm so sorry," he croaked.

"It's not your fault," she said.

But it was his fault. He hadn't been able to find Denys Atherton, and none of his messages had got through to Oxford. If they had, she wouldn't be here. "I am so sorry," he tried to say, choking on dust, on despair. It had all been useless-all those personal ads and wedding announcements and letters to the editor. His messages hadn't got through. No one had come. She'd still been here when her deadline arrived.

"I thought if I left, I could get you and Eileen out," he said, looking up at her, but the fire must have burned out, he couldn't see her face, though he knew she was still there. He could hear her scrabbling at the bricks and wood, pushing them off his chest, freeing his arm.

"I didn't think you'd be here-"

"Don't try to talk." She crawled over him to reach his other arm.

"You weren't supposed to be here," he tried to say. "You were supposed to be in Dulwich."

But the only part that came out must have been "Dulwich," because she said, "We'll take you to Norbury. It's quicker. You mustn't worry about that. That's our job."

He could hear her raise her head suddenly, as if she had heard something, and then he heard Fairchild call from a long way off, "I can't get the stretcher out! It's stuck!"

"Leave it! Just bring the medical kit," Polly called back.

But Fairchild must not have heard her because she shouted, "What? I can't hear you, Mary!"

Mary? "Mary?" he said.

"Yes," she said, so softly he could scarcely hear her, and relief broke over him in a great wave. She wasn't here after her deadline. She wasn't Polly. She was Mary, and this was her rocket-attacks assignment, and he wasn't too late. None of it had happened yet-she hadn't even gone to the Blitz-and there was still time to save her, to already have saved her, and he must be weeping with relief and the tears must be running down his cheeks into his mouth because he could feel wetness on his tongue, in the back of his throat.

"Fairchild!" she shouted. "Bring the kit! Hurry!"

He had to tell her the drops wouldn't open, had to warn her. "You mustn't go! There's something wrong with the net. The drops won't open. Don't go!"

But she didn't understand. "I need to," she said. "I'm going," and started to leave.

"No!" he shouted, and grabbed hold of her wrist. "You can't go! You'll be trapped there!"

"I won't leave you trapped here. I promise."

"No! You don't understand! You can't go to the Blitz!" he cried, but he couldn't get the words out, the tears and dust in his mouth had mixed into a choking mud. "Your drop, it won't open-" And there was a sudden, shattering noise and a blast so powerful it knocked them both down.

No, that wasn't right. He was already down. The Arizona, he thought. It took a bomb right down its stack, and the concussion knocked her off her feet.

She was getting back to her feet, running toward him. "No!" he tried to call to her. "Get down! The Zero's coming around again!"

She hadn't heard him, she was still running. "Hit the deck!" he called, but it was too late. The Zero had already strafed her. She fell across him.

"Where are you hit?" he asked her, afraid she was dead, but she wasn't. She was getting to her knees, fumbling with his collar.

"It was a V-2," she said, but it couldn't be. He'd made the Germans shorten their trajectories so they'd fall on Croydon.

"I need to go," Polly said, bending over him, or had he said that? He couldn't tell.

"I have to leave," he said again, in case it hadn't been him who'd said it. "It's the only way I can get you out before your deadline." But she wasn't listening. She'd stood up and was running across the deck.

And he had been wrong about its being a Zero. It was a Stuka. It had dropped a stick of bombs and sunk the Grafton. And the Lady Jane was pulling away from the mole, leaving without him. "Don't go!" he shouted. "The Germans will be here any minute."

Then, miraculously, she was back, bending over him again, and he had to tell her something, only he couldn't remember what. Something important. "Tell Eileen Padgett's was hit," he said, but that wasn't it.

What was it? He couldn't think for coughing. "Tell her to take the stairs," he said, thinking of the stuck elevator, and remembered. He had to warn Polly not to go through to the Blitz.

"It's a trap," he said again. "You won't be able to get out!" But it wasn't her, it was a soldier wearing a helmet.

Oh, God, it's the Germans. I didn't get off Dunkirk in time.

The German shone a flashlight full in his face, and he flinched away from it. They've captured me, and they're interrogating me. If they find out about Fortitude South, they'll know we're going to invade at Normandy.

But it was an English soldier. "How badly are you hurt?" he was asking, bending over Ernest, and his helmet was the tin hat of an ARP warden. "What's your name?"

He thinks I'm Cess, Ernest thought. Thank goodness he's not here, and tried to tell the warden about Cess's having traded duties with Chasuble, and his having traded with Cess, and about the harvest fete and Daphne at the Crown and Anchor.

No, that wasn't right. That was the other Daphne, and she wasn't there. She was in Manchester, and she was married ...

The warden was shaking him. "Davies?" he asked, wiping the plaster dust from his face. "Michael?"

Yes, he thought. But he wasn't sure, it had been so long since he'd heard his real name, and he'd had so many names since he was killed ...

The warden was shaking him and saying urgently, "Can you hear me, Davies? Michael?"

"Yes."

"Oh, thank God. Michael, listen, I'm here to take you back to Oxford. I'm Colin Templer."

But he couldn't be. Colin was only a boy. "You're too old," he murmured.

"I've been looking for you for a long time."

"You got my messages," Ernest said, feeling sick with relief. They were here, they could warn Polly not to go to the Blitz. And they could ...

"You have to get Charles out," he said, trying to raise himself by his elbows. "He's in Singapore. You have to get him out before the Japanese-"

"We did," he said. "He's safe. He's waiting for you in the lab. Do you think you can stand up?"

He shook his head. "You have to tell Polly-"

"She's alive? She was alive when you left her?"