Disclaimer: these characters are the creations of Anthony Horowitz, as are all but the last two lines of dialogue in this piece. No profit is sought or made hereby, and would be refused if offered.
The all clear has sounded.
Leaving the fuel dump behind them, Foyle and his son make their way across the base to the Hastings Road. Foyle starts to wonder how they will get back to Hastings.
They may have to walk. Not undoable, although they most likely won't make it to Steep Lane before the blackout.
'Dad, wait,' Andrew says.
They both see the Wolseley pulling around the curve. Help is on the way.
'Here comes the cavalry!' Foyle replies. He sounds slightly sarcastic, still irritated by Andrew's carelessness.
'We were getting worried about you, sir,' Sam calls from the driver's seat. 'Are you all right?'
Milner, sitting next to her, notices that she is careful to address herself only to Mr Foyle, not to his son.
Sam's defences are raised, for lack of a better way of putting it. It's as though she has put on a suit of armour and lowered the visor.
'Well, no thanks to this one,' says Mr Foyle, but he has shaken off his annoyance. The narrowness of their escape – of Andrew's escape – is what remains with him now.
Milner starts to emerge from the car in order to move from the front seat to the rear, where he usually sits, but he sees Mr Foyle shake his head.
'Sir?' he queries, confused.
'We'll go in the back,' Foyle explains, ushering Andrew into the Wolseley.
Sam turns the car around and begins the drive back to Hastings.
Andrew sees his mistake at once.
Ought to have let Dad get in first, he thinks. Then I'd be able to see a bit of her face, at least. As it is, he is behind the driver's seat and can see only the back of Sam's head, the roll of her hair.
Bronze-gilt, he thinks.
At the Fairlight Road junction they are nearly overtaken by half a dozen Army lorries, all open to the weather, all filled with infantrymen in the highest of spirits.
Andrew watches as Sam raises one hand to the rear-view mirror and adjusts it. For an instant he can see her eyes.
He feels something opening up at the center of him, as if he were being cleared out of debris.
Sam decides not to let the lorries pass the Wolseley.
Aren't we doing our bit, she thinks, just as much as they're doing theirs? She presses down on the accelerator at first, to pass the junction; then, with the lorries behind her, she slows the car.
Within seconds the lead lorry is only twelve feet behind the Wolseley. Sam ignores it, refusing to give way. The driver begins honking his horn for all it's worth and draws even closer.
'Sometimes discretion is the better part of valour, Sam,' Mr Foyle says.
'Point taken, sir,' Sam answers. She sighs inwardly and pulls the car over to the side of the road.
The lorries pass them one by one, each slowing down in turn as it does so. The troops cheer, although at times it sounds more like jeering.
Milner tries to ignore the chill he suddenly feels and, with only partial success, to suppress a shiver.
A few soldiers salute after spotting the R.A.F. officer in the back (although he, preoccupied, ignores them), or perhaps they think Sam is A.T.S., or perhaps simply seeing a girl in the car is enough.
The display over, Sam moves the car back onto the road. The sun's angle is lower and it is growing red; Sam lowers the car's visor.
As they round the corner into Old London Road Sam once again reaches up and adjusts the rear-view mirror.
This time it is she who looks up and sees Andrew's eyes looking back at her, the same colour as her own. For a second he holds her gaze.
Only once before has he felt this opening-up sensation, something entirely new – a few mornings ago, standing in the hall at home, when Sam came to collect his Dad.
He can't put a name to it.
Sam's eyes snap back to the road.
FINIS