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Judith considered working on the engine, but knew she was exhausted enough to make mistakes. If something slipped from her clumsy fingers, was replaced crookedly, or was not tightened far enough, they could break down.

She was asleep within moments of lying down in the back of the ambulance, but she woke stiff and uncomfortable while it was still dark. She could hear Lizzie moving slightly on the other side, a couple of feet away, but she did not know if she was awake, too, or just stretching or turning in restlessness, dreaming of fear or loss.

There had been no time for the two of them to talk, and she did not know what to say anyhow. She did not even know if Lizzie wanted to keep the baby, or if she would be relieved to lose it. Perhaps both were true, at different times. One thing she was certain about; she had seen it in Lizzie’s face, in a dozen small actions even in the short times they had all been together: She loved Joseph. And—perhaps in a more lasting way, the thing that would carry them over the pain, the doubt, the times of failure—she liked him. She was not looking for a solution to her own need, or an answer to any difficulty; she liked him for himself. It was there in the quick, rueful laughter, a brief moment of teasing, the acceptance of help and criticism. Underneath the present fear and the knowledge of future pain, she was comfortable with him.

Judith lay on her back on the hard surface and stared up into the complete darkness of the ambulance, letting the near silence wrap around her. It was almost like being at home again after a long and violent journey. There was no sound but the rain on the roof, and that was intermittent now. Perhaps by morning it would have stopped altogether.

That comfort was the kind of feeling she had about Mason also—at least most of the time. And when she looked at his face, she saw certainty in him, as if he had found at last something he had been looking for, and for longer than he knew.

But he must be afraid underneath the courage. He could not imagine that the prime minister would accept his unmasking of the Peacemaker—with all his own involvement in the plot, and his knowledge that it intended to bring about the surrender of Britain—and then simply allow him to walk away. The fact that he had believed that it was for the purpose of a greater world peace was immaterial. Just the knowledge of such plans, in wartime, was treason, and the punishment for treason had always been death. She closed her eyes tightly, even though she could see nothing in the dark anyway. Death by hanging. These few days of exhaustion in the rain and the ruin of Belgium, the channel crossing, and then the drive to London, were all the time they had left together.

But then, for how many women was that true? She was only one more who would lose the man she loved. It was selfish and cowardly to cry as if she were the only one. She was one of millions, all over Europe, all over the world. It was the price of the battle she had never doubted they should fight. Yet that did nothing to lessen the pain. Every man she looked at, she would wish were him: every man with thick, dark hair, or who stood very straight and turned with grace, or who spoke of wild open spaces as if they were antechambers of heaven.

Would he change his mind about surrendering himself when he got to London and the final moment closed in on them, irreversible at last? Perhaps past loyalties and old dreams would overtake his present sense of duty, and he would find that he could not say the words that would hang the Peacemaker.

But it was equally imaginable that he was going with them to turn at the last moment, betraying them and saving Sandwell so he could help create a peace that would allow Germany to rise again, soon, and resurrect the old plan for dominion.

That was a wild and useless thought, and she would be better asleep. Before they set off she must work on the ambulance engine, then drive all day again. Whatever any of them did, it must