Whittaker shifted into his very good British accent. "I'll be dashed if it isn't Her Grace," he said.
"Fancy meeting you here, Your Grace. Might one inquire what you're doing here at this unspeakable hour?"
"I knew you would need transportation, Captain Whittaker, and I wanted to make sure you didn't take the wrong tram, so
to speak."
"Am I going to be needed here, Dick?" Whittaker asked. The chief of station answered for him.
"I think between Canidy and Captain Fine we can get all we need," he said.
"If we need you, we'll send for you."
"In that case, I think I'll let Her Grace take me out to Whitby House."
"Get a good night's rest. We may need you," the station chief said.
"Yes, Sir." He followed the duchess to the stolen Ford and got in the front seat beside her. "Like bloody hell you will, Jimmy," Her Grace said. "Like bloody bell I will what?"
"Get a good night's rest," Her Grace said.
"Not on this tram."
END NOTE The refining of sufficient quantities of uranium ore to manufacture nuclear weapons, should this theoretical possibility actually prove feasible, began in early September 1942 at a secret facility at Oak Ridge, Tennessee, using a stock of uranium ore secretly imported from the Belgian Congo at the direct order of the President of the United States. On December 2, 1942, in a laboratory under the seats of the University of Chicago's stadium, the first chain nuclear reactor, composed of graphite and uranium, operated as predicted, resulting in the sustained, controlled production of atomic energy. An atomic bomb was now possible. It would be irresistible against any enemy. The problem now became to produce a functioning weapon before the Germans could build one...
The End