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He was shocked to see that the girl was defying wartime regulations by standing at the edge of the cliff. He paused to catch his breath and adjust the armband he wore on the sleeve of his Ministry of Defence–issued raincoat. Having assured himself that his badge of authority was prominently displayed, he limped onward in the teeth of a cold wind, toward the place where the tall white cliffs stood against the onslaught of the battering waves of the English Channel, and the armies of Adolf Hitler.
He squinted into the fading twilight, hardly able to believe what he was seeing. For a moment he thought it was Vera Chapman from the village; it would be just like her to disobey regulations. As he drew closer, he realized that it was not Vera. This girl had longer hair and was wearing a good quality coat. No one in the village had a coat like that.
Well, if it wasn’t Vera, it had to be the other young woman. Everyone knew there was a strong resemblance, but no one commented on it. That’s just the way it was with the aristocracy. Vera Chapman’s parents were village folk; had been for generations. The Earls of Southwold had been sowing their wild oats in Rose Hill for centuries, and sometimes the evidence presented itself in the face of a new generation. He could not imagine that the Earl’s daughter was signaling to the German Army just thirty miles away on the French coast, but rules were rules.
She had her back to him and was staring out to sea, with the wind tugging at her hair.
“Excuse me, Your Ladyship.”
The wind grabbed at Sam’s words and whipped them away. He took another couple of steps and stood beside her.
“Your Ladyship.”
She spoke without turning her head. “Where are they going?”
“Who are you talking about?”
She reached out and pulled him forward to the edge of the cliff.
Sam looked down and saw more ships than he could have ever imagined still existed. This was not the time to ask where they had come from or how they had been concealed. This was it. The day they had been waiting for.
He should have realized that this was about to happen. The Americans had been confined to barracks for the last few weeks with rain and storms lashing the coast, and nothing but rumors to explain their absence.
Late that afternoon, as the sky cleared, he had felt the ground shaking as truck after truck pulled out of the barracks and headed for the harbor. He should have known. He should not have been surprised.
“Where are they going?” the girl asked again.
Sam could think of only one answer. “France.”
“France,” she repeated forlornly.
“Don’t breathe a word of this,” Sam warned. “You’re not supposed to be out here.”
Lady Sylvia turned to face him, and Sam was surprised to see that she had tears streaming down her face.
“All of them?”
“Yes, I’m sure it’s all of them; the Yanks, the Canadians, our own boys, all of them.”
“Will the Americans come back?” she asked.
Was that all she could find to say? Momentous events were unfolding before them. The invasion of Europe had begun, and the soldiers who had waited idly in their barracks were finally on the move. Would the Americans come back? He didn’t know and he didn’t care. By the time the sun came up in the morning, these ships would be somewhere off the French coast, and these troops would be going ashore.
Lady Sylvia scrubbed at her eyes with the back of her sleeve. The wind was not causing these tears; these were tears of anguish, or maybe anger. Her face twisted. Yes, she was angry.
“He didn’t tell me,” she said.
“It was a secret. I’m sure your father—”
“Not my father.” Her lip curled contemptuously. “My father is nothing in this war. No one tells him anything.”
“Who do you mean?”
He had to ask. If someone had been passing secret information to her, he would have to tell the authorities.
“I thought he would know. Captains know things, don’t they?”
“An American captain?” Sam asked. Perhaps there was nothing to report. If the captain was on one of those ships, he was no longer Sam’s concern.
“Captain Jack Harrigan,” Sylvia said.
Sam kept quiet. Let her talk. Let her tell him if he was American.
“I’m not like those village girls throwing themselves at Americans,” Sylvia said. “I told him, if he wanted a date with me, he’d have to take me to the Savoy.”
She scrubbed at her eyes again, wiping away her tears. “Well, that’s not going to happen now, is it? They won’t be coming back, will they?”
“No,” said Sam. “God willing, they’ll push on through France to liberate Paris, and then on to Berlin, and then it will all be over.”
He didn’t at that moment want to think of his own war and the possibility that the whole great Allied army might be stalled somewhere in the French countryside. It would be unpatriotic to dwell on the trenches and the war of thirty years before. Not now, not when the ships were already at sea.
So Lady Sylvia had been hoping for tea at the Savoy with an American officer. He could not share in her disappointment.
“Come away from the cliff,” he said. “Rules are rules.”
Lady Sylvia sniffed and turned away from him, taking the path toward the turrets and mullioned windows of Southwold Hall.
Sam stood alone at the edge of the cliff. With the wind from the south, the village would awake to the thunder of the German eighty-pounders on the French coast. In the past the guns had been a reminder that Europe was held captive. Tomorrow the Allies would be returning fire. Tomorrow, God willing, was the beginning of the end. He pulled himself upright and raised his right hand in a salute. Despite his aching back, he held the salute until the armada had been swallowed up by the darkness.