To Say Nothing of the Dog by Connie Willis Page B

air-raid siren started up again and then as abruptly stopped. I shook my head, trying to clear it, and then took several long, deep breaths.
    I wasn’t cured yet, but I soon would be, breathing in this clear, pure air. I gazed up at the cloudless sky, at the plume of black smoke. It seemed higher in the sky and nearer—a farmer burning weeds?
    I longed to see him, leaning on his rake, untouched by modern worries, modern haste, longed to see his rose-covered cottage with its white picket fence, its cozy kitchen, its soft feather bed, its—
    The air-raid siren sounded again in short sharp blasts. Like a factory whistle. Or a train.
    Adrenaline is an extremely effective drug. It galvanizes the body into action and has been known to produce impossible feats of strength. And speed.
    I snatched up the satchel, the hamper, the portmanteau, the carpetbag, the boxes, and my hat, which had somehow fallen off again, chucked them all down the near side of the embankment, and chucked myself after them before the plume of black smoke had cleared the trees.
    The covered basket that Finch had been so concerned about was still on the tracks, sitting squarely on the far rail. The adrenaline leaped across, scooped it up, and rolled down the embankment as the train thundered past in a deafening roar.
    Definitely not totally recovered. I lay at the bottom of the embankment for a considerable time contemplating that fact and trying to start breathing.
    After a while I sat up. The embankment had been fairly high, and the basket and I had rolled a considerable way before coming to a stop in a mass of nettles. As a result, the view was very different than that from the tracks, and I could glimpse, beyond a thicket of alders, a corner of some white wooden structure and a glimpse of fretwork. It could definitely be a boathouse.
    I disentangled the basket and myself, climbed up the embankment, and looked carefully up and down the tracks. There was no smoke in either direction, and no sound at all. Satisfied, I sprinted across the tracks, gathered up my etc., looked in both directions, bolted back across, and set off through the woods toward the boathouse.
    Adrenaline also tends to clear the brain, and several things became remarkably clear as I trudged toward the boathouse, the foremost of which was that I had no idea what to do when I got there.
    I distinctly remembered Mr. Dunworthy saying, “Here are your instructions,” and after that a jumble of Stilton spoons and collars and the All-Clear, and then he’d said the rest of the two weeks was mine to do with as I liked. Which obviously meant that a portion of it wasn’t. And when I’d got in the net, Finch had said, “We’re counting on you.”
    To do what? There was something about a boat and a river. And a Something End. Audley End. No, that didn’t sound right. It began with an “N.” Or was that the water nymph? Hopefully, it would come back to me when I got to the boathouse.
    It wasn’t a boathouse. It was a railway station. There was a carved wooden sign on the wall above a green bench. Oxford, it said.
    And what was I supposed to do now? Oxford had boathouses and a river. But if I’d come through at the railway station, perhaps I was supposed to take a train to this Something End and then a boat from there. I seemed to remember Mr. Dunworthy saying something about a railway. Or had that been the headrig?
    My coming through at the railway station might have been due to slippage, and I was really supposed to have come through down at Folly Bridge. I distinctly remembered something having been said about a boat and the river.
    On the other hand, I had a great deal of luggage for a boat.
    I looked across the tracks to the platform. On the far side of the green bench was a glass-covered notice board. The train schedule. I could look at it, and if Something End was listed, I’d know I was supposed to take the train, especially if one was due shortly.
    The platform was empty, at least