She felt Marlene tug on her arm, heard her screaming something, yet she was powerless to turn away from the awesome sight of the plane drifting silently now above the roofs of the shops along the High Street in the direction of the ocean. Then she saw why Marlene was still pointing at the sky after the bomber had passed over. Floating gently down to earth was the white silky mushroom of a parachute.

The man dangling beneath it swayed to and fro in the sea breeze. Marlene jumped up and down at Elizabeth’s side, still grasping her arm-something she would never do under normal circumstances. A commoner never actually touched the lady of the manor unless it was a matter of life and death. Which it could very well be, Elizabeth thought with remarkable composure as she watched the enemy pilot falling more rapidly now as he neared the ground.

“The silly sod’s going to land on the village green!” Marlene yelled.

At the sound of her words, bedlam erupted inside the hairdresser’s shop. Rita’s booming voice rang out in an attempt to restore order as the women bolted into the street. “Wait, you blithering idiots! We have to capture the prisoner!”

“You bloody capture him!” one woman yelled. “I’m going home and locking myself inside.”

“Rita’s right,” Elizabeth called out, suddenly coming to life. “We can’t let him get away. Get everyone out in the street!” Even as she shouted the words, she could see people spilling out from the shops.

Jack Mitchem rushed out of his butcher’s shop carrying a wicked-looking knife, followed closely by Harold, the greengrocer from next door, who brandished a shovel.

Afraid now that they’d kill the German, Elizabeth started running toward the green. She heard a dull explosion in the distance and guessed the plane had landed on the beach, no doubt on a landmine. The beaches were covered with them in case of an invasion.