‘I told the intelligence officers. He said he remembered me from the last time he travelled on the 9:45 train.’
‘And that was--?’
‘November 15th 1940.’
‘You seem very sure of the date?’ he said, a touch of sarcasm in the commander’s voice.
‘I am. Coventry, the nearest city to Lowarth, was blitzed to smithereens the night before. Mr Silcott had to go to see his in-laws, so I came down to Bletchley with Freda King. It was my first time.’
‘Of course.’ The commander took a file from the middle of the pile and began reading. ‘He went to see how badly the Williams Engineering factory had been damaged, is that right?’
‘Yes. Williams Engineering is owned by Mr Silcott’s in-laws. It is, was, our parent company. It’s so long ago now,’ Ena blustered, ‘I can’t remember the exact details.’ The commander nodded slowly. ‘Anyway, it was the day after the bombing that I accompanied Miss King to Bletchley. We travelled down by train and we sucked pear drops during the journey. I always do. I get travel sick and the pear drops…’ Exhausted, Ena stopped speaking. ‘You do believe me, don’t you?’
The commander looked at her for a long minute. ‘Someone must have told the man in your compartment – if it was him who stole the work – what you were carrying and where you were taking it. That same someone must have told him you had pear drops in your handbag.’ Ena was beginning to see what the commander was getting at. ‘And the man had to have been given this information well in advance of your journey, because you cannot buy drugs that put a person to sleep in the local newsagent’s. Do you understand what I’m saying, Miss Dudley?’ Ena nodded. ‘So, if it was not you who told him, who was it?’
In shock, Ena slumped against the backrest of the chair. ‘I don’t know,’ she said at last. ‘But I don’t believe it was anyone at Silcott Engineering.’ She looked sternly into the commander’s eyes. She wasn’t having him accuse her or her workmates of betraying the country. ‘Have you considered that it might have been someone at Bletchley?’ she asked. ‘I suck pear drops when I’m here, and I offer them round. It could be any one of a dozen people.’
The commander’s face turned scarlet and his eyebrows knitted together in a dark frown. For a second, Ena thought he was going to explode. Instead he leant his elbows on his desk, made a steeple of his fingers, and said, ‘Go to reception, Miss Dudley, I shall arrange for a car to take you to the station.’
‘I’d rather walk, thank you.’ Ena got to her feet and looked around the room. Her belongings were on a chair by the door. Walking over to them, she could feel the commander’s eyes boring into her back. She put her coat on as quickly as she could, swung her gasmask over her shoulder, and grabbed her handbag. She turned to face the commander. He was staring at her. He probably hadn’t taken his eyes off her since he had told her to go.
‘Goodbye,’ she said, turned and opened the door. He didn’t reply.
Closing the door behind her, Ena took a couple of faltering steps. She reached out for the window ledge, to stop herself from falling, and looked through tears of anger at the lake.
She wanted to scream with the injustice of it, the unfairness, especially from Commander Dalton who had blindly assumed it was her, or someone from Silcott Engineering, betraying the country. Ena clenched her teeth. She had known most of the women for years. They were ordinary wives and mothers working to keep a roof over their heads so there was somewhere for their husbands and sons to come home to. They wouldn’t risk losing their jobs, they couldn’t afford to. Then the reality of what would happen if Commander Dalton took the contract of work away from Silcott Engineering hit her.
Worried that the merest doubt about security at Silcott’s would cost the women their jobs, Ena turned back to the commander’s door, knocked, and went in. ‘Forgive me for barging in like this, sir, but I need to explain something.’ He reached for the telephone. ‘Before you have me thrown out, would you please give me five minutes of your time?’
He looked at his watch. ‘Five minutes!’
‘Thank you. Firstly, I did not know the man on the train. I had nothing to do with the theft of my work, nor did anyone else at Silcott’s.’ Trying to ignore the look of fury on Dalton’s face, she said quickly, ‘Secondly, I am asking you not to take work away from Silcott Engineering. The workforce, mainly women whose husbands are overseas fighting for our country, depend on the money they earn at the factory to pay the rent, bills, and to feed and clothe their children.’ Dalton made a show of looking at his watch. ‘But it isn’t only for them that I’m asking, it’s also for me. I know you think I was somehow involved in the sabotage of my work, but I was not. I can’t go into what my sister and brother are doing in the war, except to say that my brother is on the front line and my sister’s work, also overseas, is highly classified. I should not have told you that, but I think I can trust you.’ Ena thought she saw a twinkle of a smile in the commander’s eyes. She didn’t react. ‘I just want you to know that I am proud of them both, and I hope that one day they will be proud of me.’
The commander looked at his watch, again.
‘I’ll get to the point. Please don’t stop the work Silcott Engineering does for the MoD and for Bletchley Park. If you don’t trust me, I won’t do any more sensitive work. I’ll go back to the factory floor.’ Ena felt tears stinging the back of her eyes. ‘And if that isn’t good enough for you, I’ll hand in my notice, I’ll leave. I’m sure, in time, Mr Silcott will find someone else to do my job. Please,’ Ena begged, ‘don’t make everyone at Silcott’s suffer because of me.’
Commander Dalton pushed back his chair and stood up. His lips twitched. Ena thought he was going to speak. When he didn’t, something inside her snapped. ‘All those women, mothers, will be out of work.’ Her eyes widened with anger. ‘If that happens, I hope you’ll be able to live with yourself, Commander Dalton. I know I shan’t!’
Turning away, Ena marched to the door, opened it, and left without looking back.
CHAPTER TWELVE
‘Ena?’
A man was calling her name. Pretending she couldn’t hear him, Ena picked up her step and walked on.
‘Ena?’
She shot a look over her shoulder. The man was waving. Recognising him, she stopped. Henry Green was running towards her. Having ignored her in the hut, Ena wondered what he wanted with her now.
‘Hello?’ Henry beamed her a smile. ‘I could hardly believe my eyes when I saw you with Horace Dalton.’
‘Oh? I didn’t think you recognised me.’
Henry laughed. ‘Of course I did. But I thought if you were in some sort of trouble, I’d be better placed to help you if no one knew we were friends. I had no idea you worked at Bletchley.’
‘I don’t really.’
‘But the X-board?’
‘Well yes, but…’ Ena wondered if Commander Dalton had asked Henry to come after her and trap her in some way. Thinking about it, there hadn’t been much time for such a conversation. Even so, not knowing who she could trust and not wanting to get into more trouble, she decided to tell him what he already knew. ‘I did some work for Bletchley that was sabotaged. Now my credibility is in question, which I’m sure you are aware of.’ She stopped and checked herself. ‘I work at Silcott Engineering in Lowarth, and what I do there ends up here.’ Her vision blurred as her eyes filled with tears. ‘Oh, Henry,’ she cried, ‘I’ve got myself into terrible trouble.’
Before she could tell Henry more, a mountain of a security guard came lumbering towards her from the mansion’s main door. ‘Oh no!’ Ena wiped her tears with the back of her hand.
The guard arrived red faced with beads of perspiration on his forehead. ‘Excuse me, sir,’ he wheezed, ‘I have been looking for this... Miss Dudley...’
‘Why?’ Henry asked.
‘I have orders to escort her off the premises. If you’d like to come with me, miss, I’ll take you to the railway station.’ The security man clamped a hand the size o
f a plate, with sausage-like fingers, around the top of Ena’s arm. ‘There’s a car waiting to take you.’
‘Hold on a minute, old chap,’ Henry said, seizing the man’s hand and removing it from Ena’s arm. ‘Who ordered you to take Miss Dudley to the station?’
‘Commander Dalton, sir.’
‘Then go and tell the commander that Miss Dudley is an old friend of mine, Henry Green,’ The security guard nodded as if to say he knew who Henry was, ‘and that I shall take her to the station.’
The security guard looked from Ena to Henry. ‘But my orders are to put Miss Dudley on the next train to Rugby.’
‘Damn your orders, my friend. I shall put Miss Dudley on a train to Rugby. So be a good chap and go and tell Horace.’
‘If you’re sure, sir?’
‘I am.’
As the security guard walked back to the mansion, Henry winked at Ena.
‘You won’t get into trouble, will you?’
‘No. Horace is a bit of a stickler for protocol, but he’s a good sort. I poked my head round his door and said goodbye. So he knows my shift has just finished. And he knows the station is on the way to my digs, so he’ll be fine about me escorting you. I’m afraid I don’t have a car, so we’ll have to walk.’
Ena laughed. ‘I’d rather walk five miles with you, than sit in a security car for five minutes with that gorilla.’
Arriving at the station, Henry checked the times of the trains. ‘There’s a train to Rugby in two minutes, or,’ he raised an eyebrow, ‘we could have a cup of tea in the buffet. But if we do that, you’ll have to get the 4:25 and you’ll be late getting back. What do you think?’
‘Tea please. I’m parched.’
There was a vacant table by the window and one against the back wall. Ena didn’t want to risk being seen by the security man, if he had followed her, and made her way to the table at the back of the room. The thought of a hot drink, in the company of someone who wasn’t there to accuse her of anything, made Ena feel better.
Henry joined her after ordering them both tea. When the waitress brought the cups over, she also had a thin slice of Victoria sponge on the tray.
‘I wanted to buy you something nice by way of a peace offering, but that’s all they had left.’ He turned his attention from Ena to the waitress and grimaced. ‘It looks a bit dry.’
The waitress looked down her nose, and with more than a little sarcasm in her voice, said, ‘If it isn’t good enough for you, sir, I’ll take it back.’
‘No! Please don’t do that,’ Ena said. ‘It looks wonderful.’ She frowned playfully at Henry before taking a bite of the cake. ‘It’s delicious. Thank you,’ she said to the waitress, who swooped down directly in front of Henry to pick up a used cup and saucer. Ena put her hand up to her mouth and smothered a giggle as she watched the waitress flounce back to the counter. ‘You deserved that,’ she laughed.
‘Her performance has cheered you up, I’m pleased to see.’
‘It has. So has this cake.’
‘Am I forgiven then, for not letting on earlier that I knew you?’
Making a show of deciding whether or not to forgive Henry, Ena looked at him steely-eyed and bit into her cake. ‘All right then. I didn’t have any lunch; I’m too weak to argue!’
Henry laughed. ‘You didn’t miss much. The food in the canteen…’ He shook his head. ‘So, how are your mother and father? And how’s Bess and your other sisters?’
‘Dad’s working at the Foundry in Lowarth. When the lads and grooms were called up, Lord Foxden had the horses taken to his estate in Sussex, so Dad lost his job as head groom. Mother’s well. She worries because Dad joined the ARP and is always in the thick of it. Bess worked in London, as a teacher, until the children were evacuated at the end of 1939. But she’s home now. She turned the Foxden Estate into arable land. Not on her own,’ Ena laughed. ‘She’s got what they call an army of land girls working with her.’
‘And Tom?’
Ena’s expression became serious. ‘Tom’s in the army, in France. We haven’t heard from him for a while. Margaret’s in London,’ she said, brightening. ‘She married Bill Burrell. I’m not sure you’d know Bill.’ Henry shook his head. ‘Anyway, Margaret’s a dancer now in a West End show. She started as an usherette, then got a job in the chorus. She’s having a whale of a time. And Claire’s in the WAAF.’ She thought it best not to mention Claire’s work. She didn’t know anything about it anyway, so left Claire stationed at RAF Morecambe in Lancashire.
Ena ate the last of her cake, washing it down with a drink of tea. She picked at the crumbs on the plate. ‘Thank you, Henry,’ she said, then burst into tears. ‘I’m sorry.’ She fished in her handbag for her handkerchief.
‘What is it?’ Ena shook her head. ‘Come on, it can’t be that bad.’ Finding and discarding the ball of sopping handkerchief from her tears earlier in the day, Ena picked up the paper serviette that the cake had been on, dabbed at her eyes, and pushed it into her pocket. She sat for some time staring at the condiments in the middle of the table. Absentmindedly she lifted her cup. It was empty.
‘Would you like more tea?’ Without waiting for a reply, Henry got up and made his way to the counter. Ena wondered whether it would be safe to tell Henry what had happened. He was a friend of Commander Dalton’s, which might help. On the other hand it might not.
‘Was it that oaf of a security guard who upset you?’ Henry asked, returning with two cups.
‘No! Well, a bit.’ Ena took a sip of her tea. ‘Can I talk to you in confidence, Henry?’
‘Of course you can, Ena.’
‘Commander Dalton had two intelligence officers interrogate me and it’s left me… I was going to say tearful, but truthfully it’s left me terrified. It wasn’t the intelligence officers’ fault; they were only doing their job. No,’ she sighed, ‘the fault was mine. Well, it wasn’t my fault, not really, it was Mr Silcott’s. But he couldn’t help it because he wasn’t there. And,’ Ena let out a loud sob, ‘I don’t know where he is.’
Henry put his hands up. ‘Slow down, Ena, you’re not making sense.’ He took a handkerchief from his coat pocket. ‘Dry your tears, and when you’re ready, tell me what happened.’
Ena wiped her face, looked at her sister’s old boyfriend for several minutes, and decided against it. She desperately wanted to tell Henry, but she had told Commander Dalton that she hadn’t spoken to anyone about the work she did for Bletchley, and she’d promised him she never would. ‘I can’t tell you, Henry, I’ve signed the Official Secrets Act.’ Tears began to well up in her eyes again. ‘I can’t tell anyone.’
‘I’ve signed the Act too,’ Henry said, sympathetically. ‘I work with the machines you make parts for at Silcott’s. That’s why I was there when you discovered your work had been sabotaged.’
Unable to keep it to herself a second longer, the words poured out of Ena’s mouth in a torrent. ‘I am suspected of espionage; of leaking information to the person who stole my work.’ Henry’s eyes widened. ‘Which I didn’t do! I would never do anything like that, Henry. And,’ she took a shuddering breath, ‘now I’m petrified that because of me, the commander won’t give Silcott’s any new contracts. If he doesn’t, the women who work there will be unemployed and their families will go hungry – and it will be my fault.’
Henry took hold of Ena’s hand. ‘If you tell me what happened, I might be able to help.’
Ena looked into his kind face. The skin at the corners of his brown eyes creased when he smiled, as he was doing now. She ached to tell him, share the burden, but shook her head. ‘I’ve said too much already. Please don’t press me.’
They heard the train come in to the station. ‘I’d better go,’ Ena said. Henry helped her into her coat. She picked up her handbag and gasmask, and the two old friends left the buffet.
‘Thank you for the tea and cake, Henry,’ Ena said, when they were on the platform. ‘I’m sorry I couldn’t tell you more--’
‘Don’t b
e sorry.’ Henry opened the door of the train and gave Ena a warm smile. ‘Will you come to the Park again?’
‘After today? I doubt it,’ she shrugged, ‘but you never know.’ The brakes released and the train jolted, catching Ena off balance. She stumbled. Henry caught her and she looked into his eyes. ‘I’d better board,’ she whispered, ‘or I’ll miss this train too. Goodbye, Henry.’
‘Goodbye, Ena. I’m sorry I can’t send my best wishes to the family, but no one knows I’m here.’
‘Don’t worry, I won’t say anything.’ She laughed. ‘They don’t know I’m here, either.’ The whistle sounded along the platform. ‘I’d better get on the train.’
Henry bent down and kissed Ena on the cheek. His lips were soft and warm. She smiled up at him. A tingling sensation in the pit of her stomach almost took her breath away. It was a strange, exciting feeling. ‘Take care,’ he said, as she mounted the steps.
‘I will,’ Ena called, from the train’s open window. She waved until she could no longer see Henry, then found a seat.
By the time the train arrived in Rugby, it was dark. The air smelled of engine oil and damp coal, and fine drizzle made patterns like spiders’ webs on her woollen coat. She turned her collar up against the wind and looked along the platform. Fog as dense as a blanket hovered above the northbound tracks.
She walked quickly down the station tunnel and up Railway Terrace to the bus stop. She didn’t have to wait long. Sitting on the first seat inside the door, she gave the conductor a shilling. ‘Lowarth please.’ The bus conductor turned the handle on his ticket machine: out came a ticket. He tore it off and handed it to Ena, with sixpence change.
With the ticket in her hand, Ena relaxed and looked out of the window. It was too dark and too foggy to see anything. She was tired but daren’t close her eyes in case she fell asleep. Worse still, she might be sick.
The bus wound its way along the Rugby to Lowarth Road, lurching to stop and pick up or put down in every village. Instinctively, Ena went into her handbag for pear drops. They weren’t there. They were being analysed somewhere by one of the commander’s medical people. Ena took a shaky breath and swallowed down the feeling of nausea. The journey to Lowarth seemed to take forever and by the time Ena left the bus on Coventry Road she felt very sick and very tired.
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