one for the seventeenth? No, that’s what I was afraid of. Yes, well, let me know as soon as you do.” He came back out.
“Was that phone call about why you’re going to St. Paul’s?” Colin said. “Because if you need to find out something, I could go back to St. Paul’s and—”
“You are not going to St. Paul’s or World War II or the World Trade Center. You are going back to school. After you’ve passed your A-levels and been admitted to Oxford and the history program, then we’ll discuss your going to—”
“By then, it’ll be too late,” Colin muttered.
“Too late?” Mr. Dunworthy said sharply. “What do you mean?”
“Nothing. I’m ready to go on assignment now, that’s all.”
“Then why did you say ‘By then, it will be too late’?”
“Just that three years is ages, and by the time you let me go on assignment, all the best events will have been taken, and there won’t be anything exciting left.”
“Like the evacuated children,” Mr. Dunworthy said. “Or the Phoney War. And that’s why you cut class and came all the way up here to convince me to let you go on assignment now, because you were afraid someone else might take the Phoney—”
“What about this?” the tech said, coming in with a belted tweed shooting jacket and knee-length knickerbockers.
“What is that supposed to be?” Mr. Dunworthy roared.
“A tweed jacket,” she said innocently. “You said—”
“I said I wanted to blend in—”
“I must get back to school,” Colin said, and made his escape.
He shouldn’t have said that about it being too late. Once Mr. Dunworthy got hold of something, he was like a dog with a bone. He shouldn’t have mentioned Polly either. If he finds out why I want to go on assignment, he won’t even consider it, Colin thought, heading toward the Broad.
Not that he was considering it now. Colin would have to think of some other argument to convince him. Or, failing that, some other way to get to the past. Perhaps if he could find out why Mr. Dunworthy was going to St. Paul’s, he could convince him he needed to take him along. The tech had said something about the jacket’s being from 1950. Why would Mr. Dunworthy go to St. Paul’s in 1950?
Linna would know. He turned down Catte Street and ran down to the lab but it was locked.
They can’t have closed, he thought. They said they had two drops and three retrievals to do. He knocked.
Linna opened the door a crack, looking distressed. “I’m sorry. You can’t come in,” she said.
“Why? Has something gone wrong? Nothing’s happened to Polly, has it?”
“Polly?” she said, looking surprised. “No, of course not.”
“Has something gone wrong with one of your retrievals?”
“No… Colin, I’m not supposed to be talking to you.”
“I know you’re busy, but I only need to ask you a few questions. Let me in and—”
“I can’t,” she said and looked even more distressed. “You’re not allowed in the lab.”
“Not allowed? Did Badri—?”
“No. Mr. Dunworthy rang us. He said we aren’t to allow you anywhere near the net.”
I said to the man who stood at the Gate of the Year, “Give me a light that I may tread safely into the unknown.” And he replied, “Go out into the darkness, and put your hand into the Hand of God. That shall be to you better than light and safer than a known way.”
—KING GEORGE VI, CHRISTMAS SPEECH, 1939
Warwickshire—December 1939
WHEN EILEEN REACHED THE STATION IN BACKBURY, THE train wasn’t there. Oh, don’t let it have gone already, Eileen thought, leaning over the edge of the platform to look down the tracks, but there was no sign of it in either direction.
“Where is it?” Theodore asked. “I want to go home.”
I know you do, Eileen thought, turning to look at the little boy. You’ve told me so every fifteen seconds since I arrived at the manor. “The train’s not here yet.”
“When will it come?” Theodore asked.
“I don’t know. Let’s go ask the stationmaster. He’ll know.” She picked up Theodore’s small pasteboard suitcase and gas-mask box and took his hand, and they walked down the platform to the tiny office where freight and luggage were stowed. “Mr. Tooley!” Eileen called, and knocked on the door.
No answer. She knocked again. “Mr. Tooley!”
She heard a grunt and then a shuffle, and Mr. Tooley opened the door, blinking as though he’d been asleep, which was very likely the case. “What’s all this, then?” the old man growled.