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on September 1, 1939. The United Kingdom and France declared war on Germany two days later. By early October, Poland had been carved up between Hitler and Stalin. The Russians, signatories of a secret pact with Germany, had taken the hapless Poles from the rear. Polish cavalry against tanks. By November, mobilization in Great Britain was still in full swing and Doctor Fingal Flahertie O’Reilly, Royal Naval Reserve, was one of the hundreds of thousands being called up. Today, he would be leaving Ulster. His friend of Trinity days, Bob Beresford, had already volunteered and been accepted into the Royal Army Medical Corps.
    Fingal held Deirdre’s chair, saw that she was seated, took his own place, and as soon as the waiter arrived ordered a cream tea with assorted pastries for two. “I never thought I’d be wearing my bloody uniform again,” he said, glancing down at his undress jacket with its three groups of three gilt buttons and a single gold stripe on each cuff. “I told you, Deirdre, I’d only joined the Royal Navy Reserve for the money. Back then, in 1930, I was twenty-two and needed cash to go to medical school. And we really did think the Great War had been the war to end all wars. I reckoned joining up was money for old rope. Never ever expected to be called up.” He looked fondly at her.
    â€œYou look very handsome in blue, Fingal,” Deirdre Mawhinney said, her own blue eyes smiling.
    The waiter reappeared and set Delft cups and saucers, a silver teapot, hot water jug, and sugar and milk on the table’s pristine damask cloth, then placed a multiple-tiered silver cake stand between Deirdre and Fingal. She poured. He offered her a pastry. She took a scone with clotted cream and strawberry jam. He helped himself to a fig roll then sipped his tea.
    She leant forward and covered his hand with her left one. It was warm on his and the little gold band with its tiny solitaire diamond encircled the third finger.
    Fingal looked at it for perhaps a moment longer than necessary. It had been a bright, cloudless July day when he’d put it on her finger. While they’d walked hand in hand through Strickland’s Glen and back to the car they’d happily made plans for a May wedding in 1940 when Fingal would have saved enough. Mister bloody Hitler and his gang of nasty Nazis—in his head Fingal pronounced it “Naaahzees,” the way Winston Churchill did—had put the kibosh on that, and he knew how much it was costing Deirdre to try to be cheerful on this their last time together until—until when?
    She followed the direction of his gaze. “And we thought,” she said, “that when Mr. Chamberlain announced ‘Peace in our time’ last year that things were going to settle down in Europe. I know the Japanese have been at it in China for years. Nobody knows how that’s going to end. But it’s an awfully long way away and doesn’t really concern us, and yet…” She shrugged. “Not many people, except perhaps Mister Churchill, expected this horror to happen so close to home. Not again.” She took a small bite from her scone.
    â€œTrue on you,” he said. “Too bloody true.” And because of the war today he must say good-bye—no, damn it, not good-bye, au revoir —to the girl he loved, and God alone knew when he’d see her again or the familiar things of his home in Ulster. He finished his fig roll and glanced around the palm court of the fashionable hotel, where other couples and family groups were taking afternoon tea. Several aspidistras, each in its brass pot, were arranged around the walls. The scent of expensive cigar smoke flavoured the air. As was expected in polite society when dining out, conversations were kept hushed. Over the low murmurings he heard a little boy in short pants and a Methodist College blazer yelling, “But I wanna Jaffa cake, so I do,” and the stern masculine