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lowered his voice, so his officemates couldn’t hear him. ‘It’s good that you’re coming with me,’ he said. ‘Having a woman along to interview civilians is good intelligence practice. It puts the subjects at ease.’
    If a woman accompanied Collins, in other words, the Martins wouldn’t take the interview as seriously as they might otherwise.
    ‘I’ve requisitioned a car,’ he said. ‘We need to go today. St Leonard’s about a hundred miles away, and it will take us about three hours at the war speed limit, I reckon. I know my way around the western shore of Maryland, though; I vacationed there when I was a kid.’
    A bitter wind swept the government parking lot, sending chewing gum wrappers and cigarette butts skittering along the pavement. Collins opened the passenger door of a two-door black Chevy sedan with government license plates. I stepped on the running board and slid inside. I was grateful it wasn’t an open Jeep and appreciated the blast of heat that enveloped me once the engine started.
    Getting out of Washington was not as difficult as I had expected despite the icy condition of the streets. Our tires were brand new, and chains rattling on the rear wheels gave us traction. It wasn’t long before we found ourselves in rural Maryland, driving east, then south, on state roads, more or less parallel to the western shore of the Chesapeake Bay.
    On the inland side of the road lay fallow tobacco fields, barns, and empty wood hogsheads waiting for spring and summer, interrupted by picturesque farmhouses and dairy barns. The fields were empty. In this cold weather livestock huddled together inside sheds and barns to keep warm.
    On the beach side of the road, turn-offs were marked for the famous western shore beaches – North Beach and Chesapeake Beach. I wondered how these Maryland beaches differed from those lining the coast of North Carolina. Collins noticed me studying the signs.
    ‘I went to the northern beaches every summer when I was a kid,’ he said. ‘We camped in Seaside Park for a month. To get there we caught a steamer from Baltimore. We bathed in the ocean, rode the carousel, fished from the pier. My father would fry whatever we caught over our campfire. Sometimes we’d go out to eat dinner at a crab house and then get ice cream at Forest’s Ice Cream Garden. I thought it was heaven.’
    Growing up in Wilmington, North Carolina I knew how much tourists loved summers at the shore. Those summers were much less fun for the locals. Waiting on tourists was long hard work. For me, life in a big city like Washington was heaven!
    ‘It’s so different in the winter,’ Collins said. ‘The campgrounds, piers and dance pavilions are closed. Even during the season there’s not much going on at night. Can’t have too much light and sound near the Bay these days anyhow.’
    ‘Seems a bit silly,’ I said, ‘all the paranoia on the coast when the war began, what with the fortifications on the Chesapeake. A Nazi canoe couldn’t get through. And the Nazis don’t have a single aircraft carrier.’
    The Bay bristled with military bases. There was Fort Storey, Fort Custis, Camp Pendleton, Portsmouth Naval Yard, and Langley Field, all within a few miles of each other at the mouth of the Bay. They were linked to each other with gun batteries, minefields, submarine nets, searchlights, radar stations and a couple of lighthouses. Further up the Chesapeake a submarine net closed off the Rappahannock River to protect Richmond. Washington itself was circled by Fort Hunt, Fort Washington, Andrews Air Force Base, Bolling Air Force Base, Fort McNair, and the Navy Yard.
    The Potomac River had its very own submarine net, though the gates were left open and the mines set on safe mode most of the time to keep our own shipping from damage.
    St Leonard, where we were headed to meet the Martins, was located on a narrow peninsula bordered by the Patuxent River and the Chesapeake Bay. The Patuxent River Air Station