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Spoilers Ahead!
May 1940
On a country lane a young woman dismounts from her bicycle, climbs a telegraph pole and snips the cables with a pair of wire cutters.In London, British soldiers are among those going into a building outside of which is a sign advertising a meeting of the Friday Club. Detective Sergeant Paul Milner meets the speaker Guy Spencer as he is walking past and queries his proposed subject. "Whose War?" Spencer, noting Milner's crutches, asks if he is a casualty and when Milner answers yes, says, "Well it clearly wasn't yours."
Milner is persuaded to go in and as Spencer lectures, finds himself used as an illustration. "Here's a young soldier just back from Norway, a true hero who served his country and has been crippled and cast aside. Has he benefited, or has he been used as canon fodder in a war that we should never have begun?"
Outside the building a young man shouts at two of Spencer's men that they should find somewhere else for their filthy rabble-rousing. As Spencer assures his audience that the Friday Club does not believe in violence, his men beat up the protester in a nearby alley.Spencer concludes his talk by saying that this is an unnecessary war but the British Government is determined to hide the truth. Milner is thoughtful.
* * *
In the Hastings police station Detective Chief Superintendent Christopher Foyle comments to a colleague that the Germans being on the coast south of Boulogne puts them only thirty miles away. He adds that it's a bit worrying that the
King has felt it necessary to call people to a national day of prayer.Foyle questions Edith Johnstone, a timid girl who has been arrested for cutting telegraph wires near a military camp. She believes the Germans will soon invade and conquer England, and tells him that when it happens he will be in jail and she will be laughing. Nervously, she gives a heil Hitler salute.
* * *
Foyle asks Milner to find out what he can about Edith and the White Feather hotel where she works.
As Sam drives Foyle to the White Feather she asks a series of questions about his investigation until he silences her with a stern "Sam!"
In the hotel Foyle speaks with Margaret Ellis, who runs it with her husband Arthur, and is told that Edith last worked in the Crescent Hotel near Hastings. When Foyle has gone Ellis reminds his wife that they are breaking the law. She tells him that in a week there will be no law.Foyle questions a waitress at the Crescent and learns, with a little unexpected but welcome help from his new driver that prompts the girl to say more than she was willing to, that Edith has a boyfriend called David Lane.
At the White Feather Margaret mingles with guests who have come to attend a meeting in the hotel next day, among whom is Miss Rosemary Harwood, who works in Whitehall.
In reception Arthur Ellis checks a man called Robert Woolton into the hotel. Margaret appears and points out that they do not take Jewish guests, but Woolton assures her that he is not of the Hebrew faith. In the kitchen of their home, Paul and Jane Milner have a strained conversation. Jane cannot come to terms with the fact that her husband is maimed and has a prosthesis.
In his hotel room, Woolton fires an empty gun three times at an imaginary target.
***
On Sunday morning while the people of Hastings are gathering in church to pray for peace, Margaret reads aloud from a newspaper to her guests at breakfast, smiling as she recounts the story of the fall of Boulogne.At home Milner reads a Friday Club booklet entitled "The Jewish World Problem". His wife is getting ready to go to church and remarks that it will take a while to get to there, adding pointedly, "It's not as if you can drive."
A while later as Foyle and Sam leave the service they meet the Milners. The sergeant gives Foyle the information he has collected on Edith and tells him that David Lane is a fisherman in Hastings.
Foyle finds David Lane and his father Ian on the beach. When Foyle says that Edith is under arrest for sabotage the boy becomes angry and goes for him. Foyle explains that he is trying to help and needs information. Resentfully, David tells him that Edith had at first been fun to be with, but had changed, seeming to be fearful. She talked about the war but the words were not hers. She had been seeing him less frequently, for which he blamed Mrs Ellis. He would have gone to the hotel and sorted the woman out if his father hadn't stopped him. "Maybe I still should!"Continue on...