The news from the front was grim. With the British soldiers being hemmed in, and forced to head towards Dunkirk, there were preparations already in the works to retrieve them. But Superintendent Christopher Foyle wished he was a part of the war, instead of being stuck in Hastings where the only fighting he saw came from pub fights and solving crimes.
Foyle threw the paper down in irritation, wishing that he was allowed to leave Hastings and do something constructive, but his superiors had told him he was needed here as the rise in black marketeering called for his expertise.
Sam, who was bringing over some tea and scones, watched him for a moment before placing their refreshment on the table. Like him, she had her helmet and gas mask underneath the table. Sam jutted her chin out towards the newspaper.
"Anything new, sir?"
Foyle shook his head. "No," he replied with a sigh. "The Germans are pushing our boys closer to Dunkirk."
Sam frowned. She took a scone, cut it in half and smeared enough cream and jam on one half to paper a wall. "Why do you want to leave so badly, sir?"
Foyle was stunned for a moment at the unusually blunt question. Well, alright Sam did have a habit of testing the boundaries of her statements with her attitude, but she normally was more subtle than this. "I beg your pardon?" He asked. He wasn't angry, just curious.
"Why do you want to leave when all our boys are coming back home?" Sam asked, shrugging. "Say you left…say…tomorrow," she went on, "what then? It could be years before the army is ready to go back and take the fight towards the Nazis. Would you join the RAF, like Andrew has?"
If Foyle had been startled by the last question, he was even more befuddled by how far Sam had just reasoned all of this out. "I don't know," he shook his head in thought. "Well, you see Sam, I was a soldier in the last war, the Great War," he added with a dark look of scorn all over his face as he remembered how everyone had referred to the war, unwisely, as it had turned out, as the war to end all wars. "I joined up to serve my country."
Foyle did not add he had done it when he was an extremely young man, his eyes and ears ringing with the patriotic aura surrounding the posters, the call-up signs and the desire to march into war.
"And you want to do it again?"
"Yes. I do. I want to do my part, Sam. I feel I can do some good," Foyle said as he tried to reason with Sam and to discuss his own plans. Foyle normally wouldn't explain himself, but there was something about Sam Stewart that meant he was more open with her than he would have been normally.
Sam crinkled her eyes in thought. "Do you think being in the army is the best way to do that? Why don't you try to apply for a different service, like the RAF?"
Foyle shook his head. "I'm not sure I'd qualify for that, Sam," he said honestly. "I don't know if they'd take me because of my age; it would take a lot of stamina to be a pilot, but I definitely don't want to join the Navy."
"Were you awkward knowing that Andrew is a pilot as well?" Sam asked mischievously.
Foyle rolled his eyes. "Yes. But at the same time, my superiors don't want me to leave Hastings. They think I'd be more useful than serving on the front."
"They're right, with all respect, sir," Sam said, surprising and annoying Foyle all at the same time. "You're a good detective. And we need good detectives now; after all, what sort of country do you want our boys to return to? A country where food is stolen, traitors are in the shadows, and criminals just see things as business as usual?"
Foyle didn't know what to say about that.