“My name is Margery,” the woman with the broom said. “Give me another minute to finish up and I’ll take you home. It isn’t far.”
Audrey clung to Margery’s apron strings with one hand and to Eve with the other as they made their way to Margery’s cottage in the dark. Audrey hoped they wouldn’t take a wrong step and fall in the harbor as they skirted past it. Margery’s little cottage was clean but very primitive, and Audrey decided not to ask for soap and a towel after seeing how very little the woman had. Margery herself looked exhausted as she led them up the steep wooden stairs to an attic room. It had only enough space for a narrow bed and a chair, but Audrey was grateful for it. “It’s my son Ralphie’s room,” Margery said, setting the candleholder on a windowsill. “He’s one of the boys they’re trying to bring home from France.”
“We’ll pray that he makes it,” Eve said.
“Thank you so much for taking us in, Margery,” Audrey said. “Will you wake us, please, so we can help you in the morning?”
“It’ll be before dawn,” Margery said. “We fix jam toast and tea to give out as soon as the boats arrive.”
Eve stripped to her underwear and snuffed out the candle, falling asleep almost instantly. Audrey stayed in her clothes, lying awake for a long time as the harrowing boat trip played over in her mind. Her stomach felt as tightly clenched as a fist. The lumpy bed sagged in the center, and whatever they’d used to stuff the mattress made her skin itch. Or maybe it was the rough cotton sheet. Eve was accustomed to sleeping this way, and so were the London children who had stayed at Wellingford. They’d been content to sleep two and three to a bed or even on the floor. Audrey knew she was spoiled. If this war toppled the barriers between the classes as Miss Blake predicted, would Eve be raised to her level, or would she be reduced to Eve’s? Audrey doubted if anyone would be content to meet in the middle.
Audrey’s head ached when she awoke the next morning. Margery fed them weak tea and thick porridge before leading the way back to the church. Airplanes droned overhead in the dawn light, dozens of RAF planes flying south toward the Continent. The train must have come for the soldiers during the night because they were gone, the streets emptied. They neared the seaman’s shack and the wall where Audrey had tied up her boat last night.
“We’ll catch up with you at the church,” she told Margery; then she walked with Eve to the water’s edge. The flotilla was preparing to leave with all sorts of ships, from ferries and tugboats to paddle steamers and fireboats. Audrey spotted hers in the middle. She recognized the harried naval officer from last night walking toward her and wondered if he’d slept at all.
“Good morning, miss,” he said, tipping his hat. “I didn’t have a chance to warn you last night, but you should know it’s possible your boat may be damaged before we’re through. I’m sorry, but the channel is mined, and the Luftwaffe will attack our ships from the air. Mind you, the RAF will give them a run for their money, but enemy planes still hit some of their targets.”
“I would hate to lose our boat,” Audrey replied, “but there will be little need for it if we’re forced to surrender.”
“You’re right about that.”
Audrey felt useless at the church when it came to slicing bread and brewing gallons of tea, so she helped spread jam on the toast. They left for the dock just as the first ships neared the shore. Audrey stared in amazement at the sight. Soldiers in round tin hats and bulky life vests filled every inch of deck space on the vessels. A vast forest of men in olive drab, thousands and thousands of them, moved from ship to shore in long, silent lines like colonies of ants. Their faces had the weary, haggard look of beaten men. “Where do we even begin?” Audrey breathed.
“The most important thing,” Margery told her, “is for the men to see your pretty faces and smiles. They’ve been to hell and back, shelled while on land and attacked from the air. Your job is to welcome them home.”
Audrey waded into the stream of weary men, smiling as she passed out jam toast from her basket, searching the sea of unshaven, dirt-smudged faces for Alfie’s. Eve stayed beside her, pouring tea from a large kettle into the soldiers’ mess cups. “How will we ever find Alfie?” she asked Eve. “He won’t stand out among so many!”
“No, but we’ll stand out. He’ll see us, Audrey. If he’s here, he’ll recognize us.”