Iris hated sailing. She was not reassured.
Still, she and Aunt Vivian set about packing a robust and mostly alcoholic picnic for the journey. The restless sky had turned to drizzle, so the children stayed indoors, where Burgess drew them caricatures—he was really a clever artist—that left them in stitches of giggles. When the charm of that amusement faded, he and Sasha and Davenport gave them horsey rides all around the house, neighing and pawing and rearing and racing, culminating in the Honeysuckle Guineas around the drawing room, all furniture moved to the middle （Burgess won, piloted by a shrieking Little Viv）。
Eventually someone looked at his watch and said Good God, we’re going to be late. Pandemonium. Sasha and Davenport pushed all the furniture back in place, on Iris’s orders. Aunt Vivian put on lipstick and changed her clothes. Iris scurried around the kitchen and the pantry chasing last-minute necessaries—napkins, champagne glasses, a knife for the cheese, a first aid kit because of knives and champagne—while Burgess did the necessary work of soothing Mrs. Betts’s frayed nerves after all this commotion.
As a result, they were almost an hour late making their way down the cliff path to the rendezvous. The schooner captain was understandably cross. He asked them whether they understood about tides and wind and how they were subject to change according to the time of day, and that he couldn’t possibly think of nipping up the Solent now—they’d have to tack around the entire damned island to reach Abingdon’s place.
Burgess looked at his watch and shrugged. “What’s another hour among men of honor?”
The journey started off well enough, after that dodgy beginning. Sasha and Davenport—both reasonably experienced sailors—helped the captain cast off, while Burgess opened a couple of champagne bottles. The rain lifted. Everybody came out from the shelter of the deckhouse and sprawled comfortably near the bow, drinking champagne and nibbling sandwiches. Iris lay on her stomach and stared at the gray-green water, rising and falling, until she realized she was getting seasick.
“Stare at a fixed point on the horizon,” Sasha said helpfully, so Iris stared at the white chalk cliffs of the island ahead of them and took long, slow breaths of the salty air, until her insides righted themselves.
Behind her, Aunt Vivian talked to Burgess about silkworms. Davenport came to sit beside Iris and sympathize. “Rotten show, seasickness. My brother’s a navy man, doesn’t bother him a bit. Cigarette?”
“No, thank you.”
He took one out and stuck it in his mouth. “Like Beauchamp, eh? Chap’s so chilly, he’s never required a smoke in his life.” He cupped his hand around the end of the cigarette and lit it carefully in the draft. “Intelligence man, you know.”
“Yes, I’d heard.”
“Had you? Well, so much for official secrecy and that.”
“You just told me, didn’t you?”
“Yes, I suppose I did.” He blew a long cloud of smoke into the draft and lowered his voice. “They say Beauchamp pulled off stunts you wouldn’t credit. Dropped him into France, you know, to stir up trouble. I knew a chap who ran a few of them. Told me one story that made my hair stand on end.”
“What happened?”
“Oh, some village in the occupied zone—not sure where, exactly. Beauchamp’s radio operator happens to be some local girl. Possibly he’s sleeping with her, c’est la guerre and all that, one doesn’t ask awkward questions. Anyway, the girl’s just been taken by the local Gestapo, put in some jail in the next village for questioning. I expect you know what that means.”
“They torture her, don’t they?”
“Yes, and if that doesn’t work they’ll drag in her parents, too, and torture them right in front of her, and by the end of it she’s singing like a canary, as you Americans say, and when she can’t sing any more they put her on the train for the prison camps.”
Davenport paused to suck on his cigarette. Iris couldn’t speak, couldn’t even ask what happened next. The sun had begun to set behind them, and it turned Davenport’s hair a fiery shade of red.
“Now, it so happens they’ve got a plane coming in two nights hence, a supply drop. They fly in on this ruddy old airplane called a Lysander, dark of the moon, collect the reports and drop off radios and money and cigarettes and that kind of thing. And sometimes personnel, too. Land some fresh agents and cart away the ones that have cracked up or had their covers blown. So Beauchamp’s got a plan. He’s going to rescue this girl from prison and take her to the rendezvous and put her on that plane for England.”