A/N: I made a forum, since there wasn't one! It's over in the TV - F - Foyle's War section of the Forums

Tuesday 22 December 1942

… and I'm sure you can put the enclosed to good use in the officer's mess. We continue to muddle along here with as much good cheer as circumstances, and the Ministry of Food, allow. Sam's fine - no thanks to you! - and encouraging me to begin keeping chickens. I thought your room would make a suitable coop, don't you? since you seem to have flown it, so do make sure to give me some warning if your leave comes through. I needn't add how welcome that would be …

"Oh, this is hopeless!" Sam spoke aloud, although there were only birds and a mildly inquisitive cow to hear her. She sloshed another few steps through the river, Mr Foyle's borrowed-without-permission waders flapping around her legs. In her imagination, the river bottom had been a clear bed of pebbles against which Mrs Pawley-Chenard's missing locket would stand out sharply before she bent to scoop it up, returning in triumph to pick up Mr Foyle from the Reconstruction Committee meeting with it worn casually around her neck.

Although perhaps that wouldn't be very secret.

She edited the mental picture to show herself producing the locket from a pocket in the privacy of the car, then looked down at her feet, or at least at the cloud of mud obscuring them, and sighed. The only way to find something in this would be to dredge the entire bally river. And I didn't bring a sieve or a bucket or anything. And -

And oh golly the time!

Wading back to the bank, she hurried up the hill to the car. After a quick look around to make sure she was unobserved except by the cow which I'm sure has seen worse, she tugged off the waders, shucked the whitewash-splashed trousers that comprised pretty much her entire stock of not-good-clothes, and wriggled into her skirt. She shoved her feet into her shoes, bundled waders and trousers into the boot, and dived into the driver's seat.

When she pulled into the drive to Horscham House, she could see Mr Foyle on the front steps talking to Mr Standish. Bother bother botheration! She'd promised she wouldn't be late when pleading the inclement weather as a reason to head to a teashop instead of waiting in the car for Mr Foyle. Plurry heck!

She managed not to compound the offense by spraying gravel as she pulled up, and leapt out. Mr Foyle gave her the look that she always thought of as "Raised Eyebrow number four", which silently conveyed that her misdemeanor had been noted and filed for later action and said a few more words to Standish. Sam plastered a look of determined innocence on her face and stood waiting until the conversation ended and Mr Foyle came down the steps to the car.

"Nice tea?" he asked, getting in.

"Oh, yes, sir, very," Sam said, making herself very busy starting the car and praying that her stomach wouldn't give a betraying grumble.

"Mmmhmm," Mr Foyle said, and looked out the window in silence for a while. From the corner of her eye, Sam could see him furiously chewing the inside of his cheek. He took off his hat, looked inside it as if searching for something, and settled it back, then turned a little to look at her, arm resting along the back of the seat. "Look, Sam, none of my business, of course, completely understandable given the state of things, but 'your own time' and 'police time' have to be two different things."

"Yes, sir," Sam said meekly, relieved he was letting her off lightly. "How did you …?"

"Shoes are untied, skirt's backwards." Mr Foyle said shortly.

"Oh!" Sam said.

"And I do hope you're taking care," Mr Foyle said rapidly, almost under his breath. For some reason he seemed to be blushing.

"Oh, yes, sir, they were quite sturdy enough," Sam assured him.

Mr Foyle muttered something which sounded a lot like Good God! and pulled his hat further down on his forehead.

"Awfully hard to get these days of course," she went on. "It is absolutely champion of you not to mind me borrowing them."

Mr Foyle's eyebrows just about disappeared into his hat. "Borrowing - Miss Stewart, what are you talking about?"

"Your waders, sir," Sam said. "I promise I'll clean all the mud off them."

There was a small silence. At length Mr Foyle said quietly: "Just where have you been, exactly?"

Sam frowned. "At the river, sir, of course. I thought perhaps the locket might have come off when I was pulling Mrs Pawley out, and be in the water."

"I … see."

"What did you …?"

"Really doesn't matter," Mr Foyle said rapidly. "Glad I was wrong. Find anything?"

Sam sighed. "No. It was far too muddy. I suppose it was a long shot anyway."

"We-ell, it was a good thought," Mr Foyle said, quite kindly.

"Did Milner or Brookie see anything?" Sam asked, and as Mr Foyle opened his mouth, added quickly: "And don't tell me to 'watch the wall', sir, please."

"They didn't," Mr Foyle said. "And I think we can dismiss the idea of it still having been in the aeroplane, it's been carted off and no doubt searched thoroughly."

"It could have been sort of blown out," Sam said. "In the explosion, like shrapnel. It could be miles away, sir! Well, not miles, but a fair way."

"It could," Mr Foyle said.

"We'll never find it if that's the case. It'll turn up simply years from now inside a cow or something." She made the turn into the High Street. "Or a chicken."

"I, ah, think we'd better assume it isn't inside a chicken, Sam," Mr Foyle said.

"Yes, sir." She brought the car to a stop at the station. "Here we are!"

He put his hand on the handle of the door, but didn't open it. "Just take me through what you remember again."

"Well." She closed her eyes, seeing the scene again. "I stopped the car about a yard short of the bridge and you got out. The plane was at least a car length and maybe more upstream from the bridge. It was still all closed up. I opened the hatch and we saw the airman and you climbed up. That was awfully brave of you, sir. I was quite petrified!"

Mr Foyle made one of his non-committal noises, and Sam hurried on. "I think if anything had fallen out of the hatch at that point I would have noticed. You came back with - well, it turned out to be Mrs Chenard, but I didn't realize that. I sort of floated her to the bank -"

"Did you notice anything tearing or pulling when she was lifted down from the plane?" Mr Foyle asked.

"No, sir, in fact I almost dropped her, you let her down faster than I expected. I think if her clothes or perhaps the locket chain had been caught on something I would have felt it."

"All right," Mr Foyle said. "And then?"

"I pulled her away from the water and put her on her side and came back down to help you, sir." Sam said. She almost shivered at the memory of the dark bulk of the wreck, hatch showing flickering flames, her own headlong rush down the bank and back into the water, the current and the mud seeming almost alive, conspiring to slow her, to keep her from reaching Mr Foyle in time … Get hold of yourself, silly gel, she told herself firmly. Nothing bad happened and it's all over now.

"Who was there?"

"I'm not really quite sure, sir," Sam had to admit. " I know someone was because I could see them in the water. And Milner was there."

"Sure?"

"I heard him shout … something." Sam, no! Stop! "I'm sorry I can't be more help, sir."

"Not at all, you've been quite a lot of help," Mr Foyle said, and opened his door.

She leaned across the seat as he got out. "I have? How?"

Mr Foyle didn't hear her, heading into the station without pause. Sam sighed. He can hear a pin drop five streets away if the pin happens to be a hairpin dropped by a girl trying to get a wave on her lunch break, she thought, and then he's deaf as a post when I speak straight to him sometimes.

She got out of the car and opened the bonnet to remove the distributor cap and immobilize it, as per regulations. Probably something to do with all that shelling in the last war. Bound to do something funny to the old ears.

She was halfway to the door when her ears picked up the warning wail of the air-raid siren.