by Kate Quinn
“I’ve got you.” He put his lips to her ear, murmuring, “Thrash all you like, I won’t let you fall.” Mab clung, limbs coiling through his like a vine, his hands under her hips holding her steady, and by the end she trembled so she could hardly stand. Francis looked wry, touching a red mark on her breast and then rubbing his day’s worth of stubble. “I didn’t shave this morning,” he said. “Bachelor habit—I’ll have to do better.”
He was lathering up over the washbasin in the bathroom, all bare feet and trousers and braces, as Mab closed the door just for the purpose of sliding the note under it. She heard him unfold it.
Lunch?
For the first time since meeting Francis Gray, she heard him laugh.
SHE WAS ON the train the next day. It had rained the entire weekend, and Mab hadn’t set foot out of the room. She ate meals Francis brought up on trays from the coy landlady, plowed through half of For Whom the Bell Tolls (next week’s Tea Party pick, since all men save her husband appeared unwilling to read Jane Eyre) when Francis left on his morning walks, made love to him when he came back, passed notes back and forth in a strange competition to see who could say the fewest words and write the most, made love again. He said nothing on the train platform, only picked up her hands, turned them over, dropped a kiss into each palm.
“You’re not returning to London?” Mab asked finally.
“Some business in Leeds first.” A half smile. “I’ll see you when the stars align for another weekend, lovely girl.” Who knew when that would be. Mab kissed him fiercely, not at all sure if she was relieved or upset. She had never felt so turned upside down and inside out—part of her welcomed the thought of BP’s frenetic routine and midnight cups of Ovaltine; nothing unexpected to leave her unsettled. But part of her wanted to stay with her silent husband, and see where he led her next.
It wasn’t until Mab settled into the compartment that she found the letter Francis had slipped into her coat pocket.
Darling girl—you’re asleep as I’m writing this. You wonder why I sit up every night smoking and looking out the window, don’t you? The truth is, I haven’t slept more than four hours at a time since coming home from the trenches in ’19. There used to be thrashing and shouting, hallucinations, dreams—but I found over the years that a cigarette and an open window does the most good, and then a walk at dawn to clear the cobwebs away. It doesn’t leave me entirely settled, I’m too much a patched-together pot for that, but at least the pot is fit to hold water through the day to come.
There—now you know. It was troubling you, wasn’t it? —F
Mab put her head back on the seat and blinked rapidly, wondering if she knew another man anywhere who would simply admit something like that in black and white. In her experience men either denied such things altogether or, if forced to acknowledge them, did so with crude jokes and rough shrugs.
She looked at the sheeting rain, buffeting down on the curve of the railroad track ahead. She still had the sensation that she was naked, even armored in her coat and gloves. Even though he was no longer here. Before the feeling faded and the armor was back, she took a pen from her handbag.
His name isn’t important, she wrote on a scrap of notepaper, her mouth utterly dry, but I thought I loved him. She wrote out the whole story of Geoffrey Irving and his friends, factual and ugly; stuffed the page into an envelope; addressed it to Francis’s London boardinghouse; and sealed it before she could change her mind.
You can trust me, Mab.
I hope so. She dropped it in the nearest postbox when she changed trains, heart thudding. Don’t ask for any more of my secrets, Francis.
Because I can’t give you the last one.
Chapter 34
* * *
FROM BLETCHLEY BLETHERINGS, MARCH 1942
* * *
It’s not every day we see a vice admiral at BP, but the chief of combined operations himself turned up for a tour out of the blue. Isn’t the whole point of an installation like this one that the top brass can’t drop in whenever they feel like it? Commander Travis looked like he’d swallowed a moth . . .
* * *
Uncle Dickie, what are you doing here?” Osla blurted, jumping up from the translators’ table. Not just Uncle Dickie but an entourage of naval types and some harassed-looking BP staff cramming into the room behind him.
“I knew my favorite goddaughters were here.” The vice admiral beamed at Osla and Sally Norton, who stood equally frozen, though not so frozen they weren’t hastily turning over the work in front of them. “I thought I’d see how you’re getting on, eh? Show me this cross-reference index I’ve heard about . . .”
Osla saw tight, angry glances from the BP officials behind her godfather. Oh, topping; Commander Travis was absolutely going to flip his wicket. She tried to fade back as Sally led Lord Mountbatten to Miss Senyard’s section, but her godfather pulled Osla’s arm through his as the party trailed through Hut 4.
“You keep looking after my scamp of a nephew! Philip gets into trouble when you’re not around. Smashed up my Vauxhall last weekend, racing with David Milford Haven. The lad sails all over the Mediterranean getting shot at and earns his first wound in a London blackout . . .”
Osla laughed dutifully as the naval party had their look-round, then trailed outside. This morning’s rain had tailed off; the air was bright, and a good many curious codebreakers had nipped outside for a gander at the visitor in his gold braid. “Though after Churchill, how chuffed can one get over an admiral?” she could hear Giles saying, ambling over from Hut 6.
“We’re sunk,” Sally said, low voiced, at Osla’s side. “Travis is going to have us hanged, drawn, and quartered.”
“Don’t talk slush. Not our fault Uncle Dickie showed up out of the blue.”
“They can’t shout at a vice admiral, so they’ll shout at us, just you wait.”
“I’ve no intention of waiting. I’ve got work to do.” Osla saw her godfather off to the mansion, then fought her way back through the milling crowd toward Hut 4. Goodness, but the Park was getting crowded, every week bringing new recruits: Oxford boys and secretarial-pool women, shopgirls and invalided-out soldiers . . .
Hut 4 was almost empty, the workers yet to straggle back after the naval interruption. Osla’s eyes were dazzled, coming into the dark hut after the flare of sun outside, and as she shaded her eyes she saw the flick of motion—a jacket, or a skirt—quickly sidling out of the room.
“Hello?” she called, puzzled. There were people coming and going in-hut all the time, but generally muttering and juggling mugs of tea, making no secret of their exit. Not furtively slinking out as if trying to remain unseen.
Osla followed the whisk of motion, coming into what was laughingly called the Debutantes’ Den. Miss Senyard’s neat shelves of box files had become a proper index room, boxes stacked on boxes, everything filed and cross-correlated within an inch of its life . . . and two lids sat crooked on boxes of indexed reports, as if someone had been rummaging in a hurry. Probably someone who made a request for information, she told herself. But she went and poked her head into each of the other rooms. Nothing out of place at her own section; Mr. Birch’s office was still locked . . . she thought she heard another footstep, a quiet creak of shoe leather on lino, and reversed back across the hut.
The door to the outside was still swinging. Osla pushed through, coming to a halt. The path between Hut 4 and the mansion was still thronged with people, not just codebreakers but aides from Uncle Dickie’s entourage. Whoever had slipped out just ahead of Osla could be anywhere in this crush. And she had no idea what she was looking for, if that furtive whisk of a hem had been a skirted woman or a man in a jacket.
It likely wasn’t anything sinister, Osla thought with a little mental shake. Just a filing girl hurrying for a look at the top brass, leaving a few boxes open in her haste. Slowly Osla went back inside, going through the two boxes with the lids askew. Hundreds of notecards; impossible to tell if anything was missing. Surely nothing was.
But she heard her own voice just a matter of weeks ago, arguing to Travis: How simple it would be to smuggle messages out of BP . . . it’s the simplest thing in the world to tuck a slip of paper in your brassiere when everyone’s yawning on night shift.
Or distracted by an admiralty’s worth of distinguished visitors.
Someone had been in here. Osla drew a deep breath to steady herself, and the back of her neck prickled. She smelled something that teased her memory, something tantalizingly familiar. A cologne or perfume, hanging on the air? She inhaled again, but the room was heavy with the fug of coke stoves, overlaid by the morning’s rain and the Odo-Ro-No some woman had dabbed under her arms this morning. Whatever that smell was that had prickled Osla’s skin, it was gone.
You’re imagining things, she told herself. But she went to see Commander Travis anyway as soon as Uncle Dickie’s staff car had purred away, only to find Sally in tears before his desk, swearing that she had never peeped a word to her godfather about the naval section. Before Osla could say a thing about rifled file boxes, she was coming in for a rating, too. “Lord Mountbatten may be privy to a certain amount of information about Bletchley Park, but if you or Miss Norton have given him specific details about your work—”
“We have not.” For a long moment, Osla could feel her job hanging in the balance. The job she had worked so hard for. Sally was sobbing; Osla managed just barely to keep the tears out of her own eyes.
“All right.” Travis sounded gruff, but he offered Sally a handkerchief. “I believe you, young ladies. Mop up, now.”
“Sir, if I could report one more thing . . . ,” Osla began, and trailed off. What had she seen, really? A whisk of skirt hem or jacket, a box left open, a familiar scent . . . and Travis was already in a flap. Do you want to look like a champagne Shirley having the vapors?
“Miss Kendall?”
“Never mind, sir. Nothing important.”
Chapter 35
* * *
FROM BLETCHLEY BLETHERINGS, APRIL 1942
* * *
Hut 8, what on earth is wrong? You all look like you haven’t slept since the Yanks were “those bloody colonials” rather than allies. BB has no idea what’s going on in there, obviously, but get some sunshine and some gin before you all keel over.
* * *
The Mad Hatters had been holding their monthly Tea Party for nearly two years, but it was the first time Beth could remember anyone coming to blows.
“Gone with the Wind is a lousy book,” Harry snapped.
“How dare you,” Osla laughed. “It is an absolutely topping book.”
“It’s too long,” Giles complained, lounging under the overadorned top hat. “Eight hundred pages . . .”
April had come in silky and fresh, and they’d taken the meeting to the lawn outside the mansion, the women sitting on their coats, the men leaning on their elbows in the grass. Beth arrived late, coming from a visit to Dilly, and now she wished she hadn’t come—Harry was snappish, and his irritation was spreading.
“It’s rubbish.” He tossed Gone with the Wind to the center of the circle. “All that guff about the slaves being happy and grateful—does anyone believe that?”
“Scarlett does because it’s what she’s been taught,” Mab pointed out. “It’s mostly her point of view; we can’t see things she doesn’t.”
Harry yanked a slice of bread off the plate. He was thinner, Beth thought, and his big hands had a fine tremor. She was trying to be more observant of her friends since realizing how colossally she’d failed to notice Dilly’s deterioration. “Scarlett doesn’t deserve to be the heroine,” Harry went on. “She’s a selfish cow.”
“Agreed,” Giles yawned. “She’s hard as a fistful of nails.”
Mab rolled her eyes. “God forbid women in books be any harder than a powder puff—”
“God forbid women in life be harder than a powder puff.” Osla’s dark curls ruffled in the breeze. “Living in a war zone isn’t all fizz and bobbery. All of us have harder edges than we did a few years ago, and we don’t have Germans actually setting fire to our homes like the Yankees with Tara. Why shouldn’t Scarlett be hard?”
“She supposedly adores Mammy but never once calls her by name, or even seems to know if she has one,” Harry began.
“Taking it a bit personally, aren’t you?” Giles drawled.
“Maybe if your father-in-law asked you to your face if you had Negro blood, you’d take it a bit personally too,” Harry said shortly.
“It’s a flawed book.” Beth tried to steer a middle course. “But I like Scarlett. I can’t remember the last time the heroine of a book was good at maths or numbers—”
But Harry and Giles were still going at each other, ignoring the discussion. “. . . bit touchy, aren’t you?” Giles said. “Learn to laugh, Harry. No need to be thin skinned as well as dark skinned.”
In an eyeblink, Harry grabbed Giles by the collar and levered him halfway off the grass. Beth froze, seeing his fingers ball into a fist, but Mab grabbed his elbow before the blow could fly. “Not where Commander Travis can see you,” she said sharply. “He’s cracking down on everything since those Hut 3 decrypts got misplaced. He sacked two Decoding Room women just for trading BP gossip at the station, and you’re going to start brawling within view of his office?”
Harry’s arm dropped. His face was set and furious.
Giles looked contrite. “Sorry, old boy. Didn’t mean anything by it.” He proffered his pack of Gitanes. “Peace?”
“Go fuck yourself,” Harry said very clearly. He rose in a fluid, angry motion and stalked off down the bank.
“Clearly we need a less controversial book next month,” Osla said, trying to lighten the mood. “How do we all feel about A Little Princess?”
Mab spun on Giles and started giving him hell. A few of the others joined in, some defending, some arguing. Beth rose and followed Harry.
He’d gone down to the lake, sitting with his elbows resting on his drawn-up knees. He looked at Beth briefly as she sat beside him, then looked away.
“I wish I’d hit him,” Harry said.
“I know this isn’t only about what Giles said,” Beth answered. She wasn’t any good at comforting people, but she understood Harry a bit better than the others did, so she felt obligated to try. Share a desk for forty-eight hours decrypting battle plans, and you get to know someone. “Is it work? Or something at home?”
“Sixty-four days,” Harry said.
“What?”
“Sixty-four fucking days we’ve been locked out of the U-boat traffic.” Harry looked at her, eyes sunken. “Admiral Dönitz set the submarine codes to a different key than the surface naval vessels, and”—he snapped his fingers—“we’re out.”
“You can’t tell me that . . . ,” She couldn’t help flinching.
“You don’t know the name of the key, you don’t know the details. Besides, half of BP has probably guessed. One look at the bloody papers, and anyone could see the number of sunk ships in the last sixty-four days.” Harry was ripping up grass by savage handfuls. “We’re locked out. And I have no idea how we’ll get back in.”
“You’ll do it.” She remembered banging her head on the Spy Enigma all those months. “It took me six months to get my most recent break.”
“But we haven’t got any cribs. The key’s been changed on us, and we’ve got nothing. We all sit there, day after day, night after night, trying to wedge a foot in and getting nowhere. Sixty-four days of goddamned failing—I’m going mad with it, Beth. It’s driving me bloody mad. I see the traffic coming, those bloody five-letter clusters, night day night day night day. It never stops. Even when I’m asleep it just keeps spooling—”
His voice cracked. Breakdown, Beth thought sickly. She’d missed it happening to Peggy, but there wasn’t any missing it here. Harry was on the edge, and Beth had no idea how to make it better. Let me help, she wanted to say—maybe ISK could lend her out to Hut 8, as 8 had lent Harry to them during
the Matapan crisis. But ISK couldn’t spare her, not with Dilly gone and Peggy still not back from her attack of pleurisy. No one else broke the Abwehr traffic as fast as Beth. “Keep it up,” Dilly had told her this afternoon. “I’ve been informed that the information from our Spy Enigma decrypts has built up such a good picture of Abwehr operations, MI-5 is in control of every German agent operating in Britain.” They wouldn’t keep up that level of success if Dilly’s section couldn’t turn over the Abwehr traffic at speed.
“I wish I could help,” Beth told Harry at last. “I’m sorry.”
“I’d give my liver to have you at my desk, but it wouldn’t make any difference. It’s not more brains we need, it’s information to get us in the door. One good look at a U-boat weather book to see how they’ve changed their methods . . .” He gulped in a breath, and Beth realized his enormous shoulders were heaving. “We need a bloody miracle, Beth. Because convoys are going to be coming from America, bringing that aid we were so damned happy about getting when they joined the fight in December. As things stand, those ships are sitting ducks. Thousands and thousands of—”
His shoulders shook again. He turned away from her, roughly, and lay back in the grass, folding one elbow over his eyes, chest rising and falling like a bellows. Beth sat there, desperately looking for something to say.
“Did I ever tell you,” she began at last, “about the funniest Enigma break I ever had?”
“No.” His voice was hoarse. “Please tell me.”
“Italian naval Enigma . . . old news, so it’s nothing you can’t hear.” Beth lay back in the grass, too, her shoulder firm against Harry’s. She looked up into the endless sky, not at him. “I picked up a message, and I knew right away there was something off. A second later, I had it—there wasn’t a single L in the entire page. All twenty-five other letters of the alphabet, no L. And the machine can’t encrypt any letter as itself, so . . .”