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‘Exactly. That’s the whole crux of the matter. Luftwaffe and Wehrmacht codes are little problem, or so I understand.’
‘That’s right.’
‘But the naval codes – well, we can gather in their signals with no trouble at all. What is so annoying is that they chatter all over the Atlantic airwaves – especially the U-boats – and there’s damn-all we can do about it. Can’t break ’em.’
‘We can, sir, but most often it’s too late.’
‘Far too late for our convoys, yes. We’re losing one merchant ship in every four that crosses the Atlantic and it’s got to stop. It’s immoral!’
‘So I’m to be part of an operation that’s going to get hold of an Enigma machine the German Navy uses?’
‘Yes. But don’t get butterflies, Purvis.’
‘I’ve already got them and they’re wearing clogs!’
‘Then don’t worry – at least not too much – because we think we’ve managed to get hold of one. Don’t ask me how or where. One thing we don’t do is expect our radio operators over there to transmit long-winded messages. But the information this far is that one is ready for collecting. That’s why we need someone like you to check it over and bring it back. I take it you’d know what you were looking for?’
‘No. But I’m familiar with the ones their Army and Air Force use, so I reckon I’d spot anything different.’
‘Then that’s all we ask. Churchill would give a lot to break the U-boats’ codes. We can’t go on losing ships the way we are, nor the men who crew them.’
Keth agreed, then asked, ‘So you don’t know the exact location of the machine?’
‘Only approximately. Like I said, our wireless ops in the field don’t waste time on claptrap. They set up their sets, hook up their aerials and make their transmissions as fast as they can. The Krauts have got special detector units and they like getting hold of one of our men – or women. That’s why our lot don’t go round like Robin Hood and his Merry Men. They’re mostly loners. The fewer operators they know, the better. You’ll rely on your contact and trust him, or her. Your contact will tell you only as much as you need to know, so don’t ask questions, or names, because you won’t be told. I understand,’ the older man chuckled, ‘that you asked a lot of questions at Castle McLeish.’
‘I suppose I did, but I’m learning.’ Keth tilted his glass again. ‘Can I ask when I’ll be going?’
‘In about forty-eight hours.’
It was, Keth supposed, like going to have a tooth filled, only worse. He drained his glass then got to his feet. ‘If you don’t mind, sir, I think I’m ready for bed now.’
‘Yes. Off with you. By the way, you don’t usually hit the bottle, do you?’
‘Hardly ever. But on this occasion, it has helped calm the butterflies. Good night, sir.’
‘’Night, Purvis.’ The elderly man watched him walk carefully to the door, relieved to find himself thinking that the young officer, inexperienced though he was, would fit the bill nicely. Strangely dark, he brooded. Black hair, black eyes. Gypsy blood, perhaps?
‘Purvis!’ he called.
‘Sir?’ Keth’s face reappeared round the door.
‘Any didicoy blood in you?’
‘No,’ Keth grinned. ‘My mother was a Pendennis. Cornish. They’re a dark people.’
‘Ah, yes.’
Didn’t take offence easily, either. And no matter what they’d said about him at Castle McLeish, he liked him. Purvis should do all right – as well as the next man, that was …
Grace Fielding was picking the last of the late-fruiting raspberries when a tall shadow fell down the rows. Without turning she said, ‘Hullo, Bas Sutton.’
‘Hi, Gracie. Marry me?’
She put down her basket and turned impatiently.
‘No, I won’t – thank you. And you always say that!’
‘Can you blame me when you always say no?’ He tilted her chin, then kissed her mouth.
‘And you can stop that in working hours!’ He always did it and in public, too! ‘Mr Catchpole’s going to catch you one day and you’ll be in trouble!’
‘No I won’t. I’ve just seen him – given him some tobacco. I shouldn’t wonder if he isn’t sitting on his apple box right now, puffing away without a care in the world.’
‘You’re devious, Bas Sutton, and shameless.’ She clasped her arms round his neck, offering her mouth because even if Mr Catchpole were not sitting on his box, smoking contentedly, the raspberry canes hid them. And she did like it when he kissed her, and she wanted nothing more than to say yes, she would marry him; would have said it, except for just one thing. Her sort and Bas Sutton’s sort didn’t mix. Not that she was ashamed of her ordinariness. She was what she was because of it and she loved her parents and her grandfather. She even loved Rochdale, though not quite as much as Rowangarth.
Rowangarth. Bas was sprung from the Rowangarth Suttons – the Garth Suttons, Mr Catchpole called them. His grandfather Edward Sutton had been born at Rowangarth, even though he married into Pendenys. And the Pendenys Suttons had the brass, she had learned, and one day Bas would inherit that great house – or was it a castle? – simply because his Uncle Nathan, who owned it now, had no children and in the natural order of things, the buck would stop at Sebastian Sutton – or so Bas once said.
But even if Bas refused Pendenys, he’d be rich in his own right because one day he would inherit one of the most prosperous and prestigious studs in Kentucky, while Gracie Fielding lived in a red-brick council house and would inherit nothing except her mother’s engagement ring. And the silver-plated teapot that had come to her from a maiden aunt.
‘What are you thinking about? You were staring at that weather cock as if you expected it to take off.’
‘I – oh, I was thinking it’s time for Mr Catchpole’s tea so you’d better kiss me just once more, then you can stay here and finish picking this row till I call you. And don’t squash them. They’re for the house, for dessert tonight, and Tilda Tewk doesn’t like squashy fruit!’
‘Yes, ma’am.’ He kissed her gently, then whispered, ‘I love you, Gracie.’
He always told her he loved her because one day she would let slip her guard and say she loved him too. One day. And when it happened, he would throw his cap in the air, climb to the top of Holdenby Pike and shout it out to the whole Riding!
‘I’m sure you do, Bas Sutton,’ she said primly. ‘But in the meantime get on with picking those rasps!’
‘You’re not interested in the candies I’ve brought you, or the silk stockings or the lipstick, then?’
‘Pick!’ she ordered, then laughing she left him to find Jack Catchpole, who was puffing contentedly on a well-filled pipe.
‘I’ve come to make the tea,’ she said. ‘Bas is carrying on with the picking.’
‘Ar. He’s a right grand lad, tha’ knows.’
‘I’m sure he is, but that’s between me and Bas, isn’t it, and nobody else!’
She stopped, horrified at her cheek, her daring, but Mr Catchpole continued with his contented puffing and his wheezy chuckling and didn’t take offence at all. Because he knew what the outcome of it all would be, despite the lass’s protestations. He’d said as much to Lily.
‘Mark my words, missus, young Bas isn’t going to take no for an answer. Things alus happens in threes and there’ll be three weddings round these parts, mark my words if there isn’t.’
And in the meantime, may heaven bless and protect GIs who brought tins of tobacco every time they came courting his land girl!
‘Make sure it runs to three mugs, Gracie lass,’ he called over his shoulder. ‘And make sure I get the strongest!’
Life on an mid-September afternoon could be very pleasant, be danged if it couldn’t – even if there was a war on!
5 (#ulink_c4aa23a9-c4fd-5825-bdeb-4e192f4d90bf)
Her watch over, Leading Wren Lyndis Carmichael scanned the letterboard beside the door at Hellas House. Everyone did it. It was automatic on entering quarters.
She reached for the one addressed to Daisy, recognizing Keth’s writing and the Censor’s red stamp. She would put it in Daisy’s top drawer with the one that came yesterday – a kind of welcome back after her leave.
It was only then she saw the letter bearing her own name, and a bright orange 20-cents Kenyan stamp. It had taken almost three weeks to arrive. Sea mail, of course. Very few letters came by air now.
She closed the door of Cabin 4A behind her, placing the letters on the chest of drawers. The midday meal was being served; she would read her own letter when she had eaten because it was from her father and the first since he had written telling her of her mother’s death – the woman she had thought was her mother, that was.
She glanced round the small, empty cabin. She missed Daisy. It was almost a year since a woebegone Wren in an ill-fitting uniform and flush-faced from a raging temperature came to Cabin 4A.
A lot had happened in that time. They became close friends, and shared runs ashore with Drew Sutton when his minesweeper docked in Liverpool. Lyn tried not to think about Drew Sutton now, because she had fallen crazily in love with him and ached for him to love her.
And so he would have, she thought despairingly, had not Kitty Sutton arrived from America. It had been a love-at-first-sight job for them both – or so Daisy had said on one of the rare occasions on which she now mentioned her brother.
It had been that, all right. Love, and everything else! Drew and Kitty spent that same night together and in the morning they were engaged. That was what hurt, Lyn acknowledged. Them sleeping together, because she had practically offered herself on a plate, only to be gently turned down by Drew Sutton. As if he were waiting for Kitty to come along, she thought, and amusing himself with Lyn Carmichael meantime, damn fool she had been for letting him.
She lifted her chin and bit on her lip. She no longer cried just to think of Drew, and Drew kissing Kitty and making love to Kitty. Not outwardly, that was. Her tears were gone because she had no more left to cry; only those inside her that hurt like hell; tears that didn’t leave her eyelids swollen and her nose red, but which writhed through her to stick in a hard knot in her throat and refuse to be shed.
She let go a deep sigh, then made her reluctant way to the mess. After early watch, kept-warm dinners were served and kept-warm dinners offered hard peas and gravy dried leathery. And it was the same with the custard, spooned over a sugarless pudding. Leathery, like the gravy she thought miserably, and at this moment she wanted to be miserable because a letter had come from her father and she didn’t want to open it.
Nor would she, she thought defiantly, taking a kept-warm plate from the serving hatch. She would not open the letter until Daisy came back from leave; pretend it had arrived only that morning. And then, because Daisy knew all about what had gone on in Kenya, and before Kenya, reading what her father had written wouldn’t seem so bad.
She speared a chunk of meat on the end of her fork, looking at it distastefully.
‘Roll on my leave,’ she said out loud to no one in particular. Roll on October when she would collect her travel warrant and her leave pass, and a seven-day ration card, and go to stay with Auntie Blod in Llangollen. At least in Llangollen there would be no chance of accidentally meeting Drew Sutton – with Kitty.
She began to mull over the idea of volunteering for overseas service and knew at once she would never do it; knew that she lived daily in the hope of seeing Drew, even with Kitty, because she loved him that much.
She would always love him.
Tatiana Sutton left the Underground at Knightsbridge and turned left into Brompton Road, thinking with pleasure of the rabbit, already skinned, and the pheasant, already plucked and wrapped in newspapers, in her leather bag. Daisy’s father had given them and Daisy’s mother prepared them, sending with them her very best love to Sparrow. And not only meat enough for four meals, but two large brown eggs given by Gracie, fresh from the nest only that morning and not weeks old like the rationed shop eggs Sparrow had to break into a cup and sniff suspiciously before using.
Sparrow would be pleased too with the bunch of Michaelmas daisies and chrysanthemums sent with Julia’s love, and the grave instructions to take care of herself now that the nights were drawing in, and to keep warm.
Dear Sparrow. So full of love and caring and cosseting. She had made life bearable again, and when the war was over and she had to return to Denniston House, she would miss Sparrow a lot.
She smiled as she crossed the road into Montpelier Mews, once upon a time the stables belonging to the big houses in the square. The little white house with its red tiled floors and shining brass doorknobs and handles was home to her now and Sparrow her best-loved person – apart from Tim, that was. It shamed her, sometimes, that if asked to place her right hand on the Bible and state who was most precious to her, she would in all conscience have to answer that it was Sparrow, hurt though her mother would be to hear it.
‘I’m home,’ she called, banging the outer and inner doors behind her. ‘Have you missed me?’
‘I’ll miss the peace and quiet now that you’re back. Are those flowers for me?’
‘You know they are. Aunt Julia picked them herself. She sends love and says you are to look after yourself.’
‘And is the dear lady well?’
‘She is.’
‘And happy?’
‘Very happy, Sparrow, and chasing around the parish doing her vicar’s wife bit and looking after Bas, who’s on leave for a couple of days.’
‘Your Aunt Julia should have had children of her own,’ Sparrow sighed, ‘but she left it over late. I suppose, now you’re back, I’d better make a pot of tea.’
Truth known, she had been waiting this hour past to make one and would have, were it not wasteful of the tea ration to use a precious spoonful for one person only, when that same spoonful could provide tea for two.
‘Yes, please. You put the kettle on whilst I unpack my gifts, food gifts! I tell you, Sparrow, you and I will be eating like lords this week!’
‘Hm. Well, I hope the food was honestly got, and not black market.’
‘It was – honestly got, I mean. Daisy’s father said he was sorry he couldn’t supply the butter to roast the pheasant in. And did any letters come whilst I was away and did Uncle Igor phone?’
‘No letters and no phone call – leastways, not from your uncle. But our Joannie rang to ask if you’d be busy on Tuesday night and I told her you wouldn’t be.’
‘But I’m doing escort duty with Sam from the convalescent home. We’re going up West to see The Dancing Years.’
‘She knows that. What she rang for was to see if you could manage an extra one. She thought the music might cheer him up. He’s at the same convalescent home as Sam, and waiting his turn to go for treatment.’
‘And is he –?’ There was no need to finish the sentence; no need to say the word.
‘Yes. Like all the others and in need of a kind word and a smile. Those smiles mean a lot, Joannie said. I’ll ring her back when we’ve had our cuppa and tell her you don’t mind taking one extra.’
‘No trouble at all, Sparrow.’
‘You’re sure, now, ’cos what I didn’t tell you is that he’s not only got burns – this lad got blinded as well.’
‘Hell!’ She shuddered, covering her face with her hands.
‘You don’t have to take him if it’s going to upset you.’
‘But of course I will. I want to. It was just that it doesn’t seem fair, does it?’
‘Life never is, girl.’
‘You don’t have to tell me. And I’ll manage all right. Sam will give me a hand, tell Joannie.’
‘You’re a good soul, Tatiana Sutton. You’ll get your reward in heaven.’
‘I’d rather have it here on earth. I’d swap all that heaven nonsense just to have ten minutes with Tim; say a proper goodbye.’
‘What do you mean – “heaven nonsense”? Blasphemous, that is!’
‘Well, I don’t believe in heaven and sometimes I don’t believe in God either – only in Jesus,’ she added hastily.
‘Well! I’m surprised at you! And what would your mother think to hear you say that?’
‘Nothing, because I wouldn’t say it in front of her.’
