All Clear (12 page)

Eileen shrank back against the wall, her hand up to ward off the mop. “I’m Eileen O’Reilly. I was here before,” she said, and the woman lowered the mop and held it out in front of her like a bayonet. “I’m looking for Mrs. Hodbin.”

“You and the greengrocer and the off-license,” the woman said scornfully. “Owes me four weeks’ rent, she does. And ten bob for the window in my parlor. As if ’Itler wasn’t breakin’ ’alf the windows in England, Alf ’Odbin’s got to smash the few we’ve got left. Threw a rock at it, ’e did, and when I get my ’ands on ’im and that sister of ’is …”

It’s like being back in Backbury
, Eileen thought. She’d had conversations just like this one with irate farmers at least a dozen times. But at least Alf and Binnie were all right, and apparently undaunted by the Blitz.

“Them two’ll end up ’anged, you see if they don’t,” the woman said, “just like Crippen and—”

“Mum!” a child’s voice called from inside the flat.

“Shut it!” the woman shouted over her shoulder. “If you find ’em,” she said to Eileen, “you tell ’em to tell their mother either she pays me what she owes, or all three of ’em’ll be out on the street—”

“Mum!” the child called again, shriller this time.

“I said,
shut
it!” The woman stormed into the flat and slammed the door behind her. There was a smack and then a wail.

Eileen hesitated. It was clear Mrs. Hodbin wasn’t at home and there was no point in going up, but the thought of having to come all the way back here again made her determined to at least knock on the door. And she’d best do it before the woman reappeared with her mop.

She ran up the stairs to their flat and knocked on their door, but there was no response. “Mrs. Hodbin?” she called, and knocked again.

Silence. “Mrs. Hodbin, it’s Miss O’Reilly. I brought Alf and Binnie home from Warwickshire.” She thought she heard a noise from inside. “I’m sorry to bother you, but I need to speak with you about something.”

More muffled sounds, and then a “Shh!” that sounded suspiciously like Binnie.

“Binnie? Are you in there?”

Silence. “It’s Eileen. Let me in.”

“Eileen? Wot’s
she
doin’ ’ere?” she heard Alf whisper, followed by an even fiercer “Shh!”

“Alf, Binnie, I know you’re in there.” She took hold of the doorknob and rattled it. “Open this door at once.”

More muffled voices, as if an argument was taking place, then a scraping sound, and a moment later the door opened a few inches and Binnie stuck her head out. “ ’Ullo, Eileen,” she said innocently. “What are you doin’ ’ere?”

She was wearing the same summer dress she’d worn on the train, with a holey cardigan over it, and the same draggled hair ribbon, the same falling-down stockings. Her hair looked like it hadn’t been combed in days, and Eileen felt a pang of sympathy for her.

She suppressed it. “I need to speak—”

“You ain’t ’ere to evacuate us again, are you?” Binnie asked suspiciously.

“No,” Eileen said. “I need to speak with Alf.”

“ ’E ain’t here,” Binnie said. “ ’E’s in school.”

“I know he’s here, Binnie—”

“Not Binnie. Dolores. Like Dolores del Rio. The film star,” she added unnecessarily.

“Dolores,”
Eileen said through gritted teeth. “I know Alf is in there. I just heard his voice.” She tried to peer past Binnie into the room, but all she could see was a line of not-very-clean-looking washing.

“No, ’e ain’t. There ain’t nobody ’ere but Mum and me. And Mum’s asleep.” Her eyes narrowed. “What d’you want with Alf? ’E ain’t in trouble, is ’e?”

Very probably
, Eileen thought. “No,” she said. “Do you remember that map Alf uses to do his planespotting?” She spoke loudly so Alf could
hear her from inside the flat, and noticed Binnie didn’t shush her on behalf of her sleeping mother.

“Alf never stole it,” Binnie said, instantly defensive. “You give it ’im.”

“I know,” Eileen said. “I—”

“It’s ’is planespottin’ map,” Binnie said, and Eileen was surprised Alf didn’t pop up to chime in in his own defense. Was he hiding? Or had he gone out the window? She wouldn’t put either past him.

“Binnie—Dolores—no one’s accusing Alf of stealing it.”

“Then why’re you takin’ it back?”

“I’m not. I only want to borrow it, so I can look at something.”

“At what?” Binnie asked suspiciously. “You ain’t a Nazi spy, are you?”

“No. I need to look for the town where a friend of mine lives. I’ve forgotten the name.”

“Then ’ow can you look for it?”

Eileen knew from experience that this sort of back-and-forth could go on all day. “I’ll give you this if you’ll lend me the map,” she said, showing her the film-star magazine.

Binnie looked interested. “Is Dolores del Rio in it?”

Eileen had no idea. “Yes,” she lied, “and lots of other good names—Barbara and Claudette and—”

“I dunno,” Binnie said doubtfully. “Alf’d be awful mad if ’e found out. S’pose ’e needs to do some planespotting?”

“If you’ll let me in, I could look at the map here,” Eileen said, but that had the opposite effect from what she’d expected.

“I dunno where it is. I’ll wager Mum threw it out,” Binnie said, and tried to shut the door.

Eileen put her hand on it to stop her. “Then wake your mother and tell her I’m here,” she said, “and
I’ll
ask her,” and was surprised to see Binnie look frightened.

“I got to go now.” Binnie glanced behind her and tried to pull the door to.

“No, wait!” Eileen said. “Binnie, is anything wrong?”

“No. I got to go.”

“Wait, don’t you want your film magazine?” Eileen asked, and the sound of an air-raid siren starting up suddenly filled the corridor. “What—?” She looked frightenedly up at the ceiling. Polly’d said there hadn’t been any raids over the East End today. She’d said there hadn’t been any daytime raids at all. And it was only half past three.

“Binnie! Where’s the nearest shelter?” she cried, but Binnie had already drawn her head in and shut the door.

AT CESS’S QUESTION, MONCRIEFF SLOWED THE CAR, AND
Prism twisted around to look at them. “Well,
are
you a spy?” Cess asked Ernest.

“Yes, Worthing,” Prism said, looking back at them from the front seat of the staff car. “Are you a German spy?”

“If I were,” Ernest said lightly, “I’d be working for our side, like all the other German spies.”

“All the spies we’ve
caught
,” Moncrieff said, without taking his eyes from the road. “Lady Bracknell evidently thinks there are some we haven’t caught, hence the memorandum.”

“So Bracknell thinks one of
us
is a spy?” Cess asked.

“No, of course not,” Prism said, “but this is a dangerous time. If the Germans were to find out that FUSAG is a hoax and we’re invading at Normandy instead of Calais—”

“Shh.” Cess put his finger to his lips. “For all we know, Moncrieff here is sending secret messages to the enemy. Or you are, Worthing. You’re always typing up letters to the editor. How do we know some of them don’t have secret codes in them?”

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.

He put the case to Moncrieff. “All right,” Moncrieff said. “We’ll leave as soon as we’ve loaded the beds back onto the lorry.”

“And got me out of this plaster,” Cess said.

The former was no problem—they had the lorry loaded and off by three. But Cess’s plaster cast was another matter. Both tin snips and a hacksaw failed to work.

“Can’t we do this back at the post?” Ernest asked, but they couldn’t get Cess through the door of the car with the cast on. A servant had to fetch a hammer and chisel.

It was nearly seven before they got home. “We’d better not have to blow up any more tanks tonight,” Cess said, limping inside.

They didn’t, but Ernest had to write up the hospital event for the London papers and then phone it in, and it was past ten before he was able to start in on his own news articles. It was much too late for Croydon, but he’d made Moncrieff feel guilty enough about it on the way home that he’d promised to let him drive them over to Bexhill to meet the
Village Gazette
’s deadline, which meant he’d have an entire afternoon to do what he needed to do unobserved.

He rolled a new sheet of paper in the typewriter and typed the letter he’d thought up about the bull, and then an ad for a dentist in Hawkhurst. “New patients welcome. Specializes in American dental techniques.”