Victory for the Ops Room Girls

by Vicki Beeby

  Victory for the Ops Room Girls

  Cover

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Acknowledgements

  About the Author

  Also by Vicki Beeby

  Copyright

  Cover

  Table of Contents

  Start of Content

  For my family:

  Mum

  Duncan, Jana & Emma

  Chris, Katka & Elena

  Chapter One

  Jess bounced on her toes outside the Mansion House at RAF Bentley Priory, gazing across the extensive grounds. All around her, groups of men and women dressed in RAF blue hurried past, some engaged in earnest discussion, others striding towards one building or other. There was an air of purpose about them that set Jess’s pulse jangling. She could hardly believe she was here at last: Fighter Command Headquarters!

  A rumble overhead made her stomach clench and she glanced up at the sky. Towering black clouds loomed to the west, threatening to blot out the afternoon sunshine. As she watched, the flicker of distant lightning lit the base of the clouds with a coppery glow. She forced herself to relax. It was just a distant storm, not a raid. Now the Allies were advancing across Europe, everyone was confident Britain had seen the last of the bombing raids. Nevertheless, she doubted she would ever forget the horror of huddling in a bomb shelter, listening to the whistle of falling bombs, praying none of them scored a direct hit. All tension faded when she saw what she had been watching for – a gleam of red hair beneath a WAAF officer’s cap. Jess waved at the young woman who approached on the path from the main gate. The WAAF officer responded with an enthusiastic wave and quickened her pace.

  ‘What time do you call this, Evie Bishop?’ Jess called, the moment her friend was in earshot.

  ‘Sorry.’ Evie jogged the last few yards then clutched her sides, gasping. ‘Got held up in the Filter Room, and it’s uphill all the way from there.’ Then she glanced at her watch and frowned. ‘Wait. I said I’d meet you at 1630 hours. I’m five minutes early, you clot.’

  ‘I never said you were late. Just asked for the time.’

  Evie swatted her on the arm. The next moment they were hugging and laughing. Although they had met up as often as they could over the years, it wasn’t nearly enough for Jess, who had missed her friend terribly.

  ‘It’s so good to see you, Jess,’ Evie said in the end. ‘I can’t believe we’ll be back working together after all this time.’

  ‘I know. I keep having to look at my transfer orders to convince myself I’m not dreaming.’ She had spent the last year and a half as a Filterer Officer at RAF Watnall in Nottinghamshire, arriving only a month after Evie had been transferred from there to Bentley Priory. It had been frustrating to miss her, and Jess had spent the year longing for a transfer either to Bentley Priory or Rudloe Manor near Bath, where their friend May Lidford was posted.

  ‘Have you finished here?’ Evie asked.

  ‘Yup. I’ve been issued my passes, and I’m free until I report for duty tomorrow.’

  ‘Great. I’ll take you to the Mess. This way.’ Evie started to walk down the path then glanced back, her eyes sparkling. ‘By the way, you’ll never guess who else is here. Quite the Amberton reunion.’

  ‘Not old Hellerby?’ Jess quailed as she followed Evie, remembering the flight officer who had kept Jess and her friends on their toes during the Battle of Britain.

  Evie laughed. ‘Last I heard, Ellerby was still striking terror into the hearts of the plotters at Amberton. Anyway, you’ve nothing to fear from Ellerby now you’re an officer yourself.’

  Jess glanced down at her sleeve and the wide single ring denoting her rank of Section Officer. She had been commissioned eighteen months ago as an Assistant Section Officer, thanks in part to the encouragement she had received from Flight Officer Jean Ellerby when she’d been a plotter at Amberton. Then six months ago, her superiors had declared themselves impressed with her work and promoted her to Section Officer. However, it was still hard to think of herself as an officer rather than a lowly Aircraftwoman second class, trying to win the approval of her superiors.

  Evie gave her arm another tug. ‘Anyway, come on. I’m talking about someone much more exciting than Ellerby. I said we’d meet her in the anteroom.’

  To Jess’s surprise, Evie didn’t lead her to the Officers’ Mess in the mansion house itself, but set off across the grounds.

  ‘Where are we going?’ Jess asked, casting a glance back towards the impressive mansion. In the fading sunlight, its pillared portico gleamed white, contrasting with the darkening sky. ‘I thought you said we were going to the anteroom.’ She thought longingly of the comfortable armchairs there were bound to be in the mess anteroom; after a long day of travel she was looking forward to taking the weight off her feet. When she had learned of her transfer, she had pictured a mess shared with the RAF officers, mixing with some of the most senior officers in the air force. But it looked like there must be a separate mess for the WAAF officers.

  ‘We are. The one in No.2 WAAF Officers’ Mess,’ Evie replied. Then she added with a smile, ‘It’s a tidy step, but worth it.’ And Jess was reminded of Evie’s first day at Amberton, when Jess had been tasked with showing Evie and May around the base and taking them to the Waafery at High Chalk House. From Evie’s smile, Jess knew her friend was remembering the same thing.

  ‘Better than High Chalk House?’ she asked. The WAAFs of RAF Amberton had loved the stately home that had been requisitioned to serve as their living quarters.

  ‘Wait and see.’

  ‘Hang on,’ Jess said, her brain catching up with what Evie had said. ‘No. 2 Mess – you mean there’s more than one?’

  Evie darted a quick glance behind them and lowered her voice. ‘Those of us assigned to Special Duties are housed separately. I suppose the powers that be want to make certain we don’t let slip the nature of our work after one too many glasses of wine.’

  Jess felt a thrill at the reminder that here at Bentley Priory, she would be at the hub of Fighter Command and privy to a vast amount of secret information. As she followed Evie out of Bentley Priory and down Stanmore Hill she recalled the promise she, Evie and May had made at Brighton. They had just witnessed their wounded troops returning from the Dunkirk evacuation and for the first time the threat Britain faced had sunk in. At Evie’s prompting, they had vowed to take their work seriously and make a difference to the war. That vow had been a constant presence at the back of Jess’s mind, nudging her to keep going whenever she was tired or tempted to cut corners. Lives depended upon her. Now she was at Bentley Priory, the stakes had increased. The fact that the WAAFs who had signed the Official Secrets Act were separated from the others was a sign of the importance of their work.

  Although Jess was a Londoner through and through, her usual h
aunts were the East End and the fashionable West End. She had never been on this side of London before and marvelled at the tree-lined street and the common as they strode on.

  ‘Blimey,’ she muttered to Evie as they passed a house set back from the road with an elegant gravelled drive and a huge tree-filled garden. ‘A family of ten could get lost in there. I used to pity the poor people who lived right on the outskirts. How wrong I was!’

  ‘A bit posh for the likes of us,’ Evie said with a laugh. ‘I prefer the centre of London, but I don’t know it very well.’

  ‘Good job you’ve got me as a friend,’ Jess said. ‘First chance we get, you and me’ll have a night on the town.’

  ‘Just you and me?’

  ‘Oh. I suppose we can invite Alex if he’s around.’

  Evie gave Jess an understanding look. Too understanding. ‘That’s not what I meant.’

  ‘Who did you mean, then?’

  ‘You’ll see.’ Evie turned up a driveway. ‘Here we are.’

  Jess only held back a whistle of surprise because it would be most unbecoming of an officer. They stood in the garden of a large house with a thatched roof that wouldn’t look out of place in the West Sussex countryside. ‘You’re pulling my leg.’

  Evie shook her head, grinning. ‘Welcome to Bentley Manor. Makes up for losing High Chalk House, doesn’t it?’

  ‘I’ll say.’

  Evie led the way through the garden then into the house. Jess found herself in a large but cosy room, with timbered beams and a huge inglenook fireplace. This being August, there was no fire lit, but she could imagine how warm and welcoming the fire would be in the colder months. The walls were hung with pictures and the room was filled with comfortable armchairs that she longed to sink into.

  ‘Come on then,’ Jess said, only now remembering the comment Evie had made at Bentley Priory. ‘Who’s this person we’re to meet?’

  A young woman sprang to her feet from the depths of an armchair. She stood a head taller than the other women in the room, and her chestnut-brown hair gleamed in the electric light.

  Jess stopped dead. ‘May Lidford, as I live and breathe. When did you get here? I thought you were at Rudloe Manor.’

  May hurried forward to give Jess an enthusiastic hug, then, as they settled into armchairs, May said, ‘I know. I thought I’d be there for the duration, but my CO said they needed more Filterer Officers at 11 Group and recommended me. I wasn’t going to pass up the chance of us being all together again.’ There was barely a trace of the Birmingham twang that had prevented May from being posted as an Operations Room plotter when she had first joined the WAAF. Thanks to Jess’s tuition, May now spoke with the BBC accent expected of any WAAF whose duty required her to give aircraft numbers and positions under pressure without being misunderstood.

  ‘A reunion!’ Jess looked at her two best friends, hardly able to believe they were together again. ‘This calls for a celebration. Our first night off, we’re going to hit the town.’

  ‘Isn’t it wonderful we’re all together again?’ Evie’s eyes shone. ‘For more than just a couple of days, I mean.’

  ‘I know. And it will be the first time any of us have worked in the same place since May and I finished our RDF training,’ Jess replied.

  They had all served in various locations around Britain since then. After leaving Amberton, Jess and May had been trained to read the Range and Direction Finding – or RDF – system that sent radio beams out from Britain’s coastline, picking up incoming aircraft as blips on the screens. Since the Americans had joined the war, people were starting to use their term for RDF – radar. Interpreting these blips to tell how many aircraft, how high they were and how far away, plus whether they were friend or foe had required great concentration and skill. After passing the course, Jess had spent three months working at a remote RDF station, known as a Chain Home station, in Cornwall, plus another four months in East Anglia before being recommended as a Filter Plotter and finally retraining as a Filterer Officer. Filter Plotters worked in the Filter Room of one of the Group headquarters of RAF Fighter Command, each group covering a set area of Britain. Filter Plotters received readings from a Chain Home station and plotted it on a map. Filterer Officers then analysed this data, filtering it to provide a detailed picture of all aircraft detected off the coast of Britain. This information was then sent to Operations Rooms in fighter stations around the country, where it was plotted by Operations Room plotters – the role both Evie and Jess had when they had first joined the WAAF. Jess had been fascinated to be involved in all aspects of the Chain Home system, and her experience meant that even Evie deferred to her sometimes when it came to questions about RDF.

  Although they had managed to meet up every so often in the nearly four years since she and May had left Amberton, it had never been for more than forty-eight hours at a time. Their various duties had prevented them from getting any longer leaves together. Besides, Evie and May had understandably wanted to spend their longer leaves with Alex and Peter, their respective boyfriends who were both RAF pilots.

  Jess shook off the wistful twinge that she always felt when she thought about being the only single one in the group. While Evie and May had never made her feel excluded, it was impossible not to be aware that they both had other priorities, that they would always put spending time with Alex and Peter first. Jess couldn’t fault them for that. Even though the war was now going their way, pilots were being killed every day. It was only right that Evie and May would want to make the most of every precious moment with their boyfriends in case it was their last.

  Jess eyed Evie thoughtfully. Her boyfriend, Alex, was the Squadron Leader of Brimstone Squadron, one of the fighter squadrons that had been based at Amberton when she had been there. The same squadron as Milan Mašek. Jess swallowed. Evie might have news of Milan. Jess had been seeing him while at Amberton but had broken up with him when she left. Despite knowing it was for all the right reasons, no other man she’d met in the intervening years could compare with him.

  Evie glanced at her watch. ‘Still an hour before dinner. Let’s have a cup of tea and catch up.’

  Once they had been provided with tea, they settled in their armchairs. Evie looked at Jess with a little tilt of the head. ‘I hope you’re not too disappointed not to have a shared Mess,’ she said. ‘It does have the advantage of being a little less formal than if we were sharing with the top brass.’

  ‘Tell me about it,’ said May. ‘I was terrified when I started at Rudloe Manor.’ This was the headquarters of 10 Group, near Bath. ‘We had to eat under the eye of the great and the good and I hardly dared to eat in case I used the wrong fork and was hurled out of the Mess.’

  ‘Speaking of the great and the good,’ Jess said, with a nod towards Evie, ‘how does it feel to be leader of your watch?’

  Evie looked self-conscious. ‘To be honest, I keep expecting the CO to wonder what possessed her to put me in charge.’

  ‘She’ll be thinking nothing of the sort. If she’s got any sense, she’ll think you’re the best of the bunch.’ Jess grinned at May. ‘We’ll need to be on our best behaviour from now on, Lidford. No slacking with Evie keeping her beady eye on us.’

  ‘Do you suppose we’ll see out the rest of the war together?’ May asked.

  ‘I hope so,’ said Jess. ‘Can’t be long now the Allies are advancing. Won’t be much for us to do except track our own lads as they cross and recross the Channel.’

  Evie, however, looked doubtful. ‘There are still the flying bombs,’ she said. ‘It’s awful when we pick those up. There’s very little we can do.’

  ‘I thought we had them under control. I thought the anti-aircraft gunners could deal with them.’

  ‘They do for the most part, but a few get past. That’s not what worries me, though.’

  At Evie’s dark tones, Jess felt a chill of foreboding. ‘What? Don’t tell me London’s still in danger.’

  ‘I don’t know. But there are all sorts of ru
mours about another secret weapon on the way. Bigger. Faster. Intelligence have definitely got wind of something, but no one knows quite what it is.’

  A cold weight of dread settled in Jess’s stomach. ‘But I told my Auntie Vera it was safe to return home.’ It had taken all her skills of persuasion to get Vera to move out of London during the Blitz and stay with a cousin in Wales. ‘And she’s bringing little Hannah with her.’ If Evie was right, the two people most precious to her might be back in the firing line.

  * * *

  The dinner that followed in the mess should have been a celebration for Jess, reunited with her two best friends. Instead the food tasted like ashes. Somehow she had managed to find words to say to the twenty or so other off-duty WAAF officers that she’d been introduced to but she was sure she would be labelled the shy one instead of May. Thankfully, Evie and May hadn’t seemed to notice anything was wrong. They chatted to their neighbours at the polished dining table, laughing at all the jokes as though they hadn’t a care in the world. At any other time, Jess would have been proud of how May had conquered her shyness and joined in the conversation with confidence. Now, however, her overriding thoughts were of her Auntie Vera and Hannah. She would never forgive herself if they fell victim to some new weapon after she’d assured Vera it was safe to return to London. Vera and Hannah, together with Vera’s husband, Jack, were the last close family she had left. She couldn’t bear it if anything happened to them.

  Jess supposed she must have comported herself well enough through the meal, because the other women were smiling at her as the last of the dessert dishes were cleared away and the group moved through to the anteroom to take their coffee. She made more of an effort to pay attention to the conversation and put her worries aside. As soon as she had enough free time she would go to the little house on Farthing Lane and tell Auntie Vera she had to return to Wales. And it was only a rumour, Jess reminded herself. There had been talk of Nazi death rays and mysterious weapons throughout the war, but apart from the flying bombs, rumour had always proved more alarming than the reality.