The Ops Room Girls

by Vicki Beeby

  Beside her, May was gazing around, her eyes wide. ‘It’s so…empty,’ she said. ‘Nothing like Birmingham.’ She smiled. ‘I think I’m going to like it here.’

  Finally Jess announced, ‘Here we are.’

  They had arrived at a white gate flanked by two stone lions. The sign on the gate had ‘High Chalk House’ painted in flowing gold script. A smaller gate was set into the wall a little way to the left of the imposing entrance, and Jess led them through it.

  Beyond the gate a driveway wound through a clump of larches, the first tinges of green dotted on the fringed branches. On the other side was the remains of a sweeping lawn now dug into vegetable plots, recalling happy Sunday afternoons in Cowley, working in the back garden with her father. Stan would have loved this garden. Maybe it was the strangeness of her surroundings, but Evie was struck afresh by the realisation she would never see him again, never work beside him in the garden, getting dirt in her fingernails, chatting about the latest fascinating fact she had learned at school. A wave of desolation swept over her and she blinked away the tears, praying the others wouldn’t notice.

  May put a timid hand on her arm. ‘Is something wrong?’

  She shook her head. ‘Just missing home.’ She forced a smile. ‘Come on. I’m dying to see inside.’

  High Chalk House stood on rising ground on the other side of the erstwhile lawn. Seen up close, it was even larger than it had appeared from the airfield.

  ‘We don’t have to go through there, do we?’ May pointed to the imposing main entrance at the top of the drive. Steps led up to a towering pillared portico and a huge set of double doors. May looked as intimidated as Evie felt. They were the kind of doors opened by footmen for women in furs and sparkling jewels. She could almost hear her mother’s voice telling her it was too grand for the likes of her.

  Much to Evie’s mingled relief and disappointment, Jess shook her head. ‘They’re bolted. This way.’ She led them down a path that skirted the side of the building and round the back into a yard. There were various outhouses, for storing wood, vegetables and gardening equipment, Jess told them. Now Evie could see that the imposing front was little more than a facade, hiding a more homely looking half-timbered building.

  ‘There are two wings,’ Jess said, leading them to a door with peeling black paint and a stained-glass panel of a peacock. ‘We get this one, officers the smarter one.’

  The door opened into a large kitchen. A huge old-fashioned range occupied one wall and a sturdy scrubbed oak table dominated the rest of the room. ‘Pantry and scullery are through there.’ Jess pointed to a door in the shadows to the right. ‘The main rooms are this way.’

  She led them down a flagstoned passage to a small sitting room. Its polished floorboards were covered with a large rug patterned with scattered rosebuds, and the rosebud theme carried over to the wallpaper. A tiled fireplace dominated one wall, flanked with bookcases on either side. Several ancient, sagging sofas and armchairs were ranged around the room. A couple of WAAFs were curled up in armchairs, knitting or darning stockings, and they greeted Evie and May with smiles when Jess introduced them.

  ‘I’ll show you to your rooms. We’re right at the top.’ Jess led them back out into the passage, then up two flights of narrow, creaky stairs. Evie guessed this must have been the servants’ staircase in former times. Once at the top, they went along a long corridor. Just as Evie was starting to wonder if she’d ever have the energy to make it back to her room after a late watch, the corridor ended in a large square room with three doors leading off. There were three armchairs, even more decrepit than the ones in the Rose Room, and a large window with a cushioned window seat. She looked out and saw it had a view across the airfield to a patchwork of fields beyond.

  ‘Best view in the house,’ remarked Jess. ‘This used to be the schoolroom. I’m sharing the nursemaid’s old room with one of the WAAFs you met downstairs, but you two have the old nursery.’ She opened the door and Evie and May walked in.

  Evie gasped at the size of the room. It was far bigger than the cramped room she’d had in Cowley. Two beds with iron frames stood on each side. Like the beds she’d had during training, they were stacked with three separate ‘biscuits’ – square cushions that had to be placed end to end to end to form a mattress – blankets, sheets and pillows. A corner room, there were large windows on two of the walls and Evie was delighted to see it had the same view of the airfield that she’d seen from the schoolroom. The curtains were a faded pale green, with blackout curtains fitted behind. A frieze of rabbits, mice and ducklings decorated the walls.

  ‘I’ll leave you to unpack,’ Jess said. ‘Give me a shout when you’re ready and we’ll head back to the station. I’ll show you where to report tomorrow, then we can grab a bite at the NAAFI.’

  * * *

  An hour later, Evie doubted she’d ever find her way around the station unaided. She’d seen the Admin block, the locations of the air raid shelters, the entrance to the Operations Room, the equipment and transport sections and, finally, the squadrons’ dispersal huts. The dispersal huts were where the pilots waited before being sent on training flights or missions, and Evie couldn’t imagine needing to go there in the normal course of her duties. She decided Jess had wanted an excuse to flirt with the pilots. Finally, her head spinning, she was relieved to go into the NAAFI, which was situated in an ugly wooden building next to the Admin block. They queued at the counter and received bowls of lentil and barley stew, chunks of bread and butter and steaming mugs of strong tea.

  ‘So tell me,’ Jess said when they were sitting at a table, mopping up the last of the stew with their bread, ‘what made the pair of you join up?’

  May raised her chin. ‘I wanted a career, but my father and brothers thought I should stay at home to wait on them hand and foot.’ She gave a small smile. ‘I knew if I signed up they wouldn’t be able to stop me, so I gave them the slip one day and did the deed. It was agony, waiting for my call-up papers. When they came, I thought Dad would have a stroke, he was that angry. But he couldn’t stop me leaving once it was official.’ She swallowed her last mouthful of stew. ‘I can’t tell you how good it feels to eat a meal I didn’t have to buy all the ingredients for, cook and clear up afterwards.’

  Evie stared at May in surprise. She’d dismissed the girl as nothing more than a mouse, albeit a tall, gangly one. ‘That was brave of you. It’s hard to go against family.’ She swallowed, remembering her mother’s grim face when Evie had received her call-up papers after an agonising six-week wait.

  ‘I can’t tell you how free I feel, being here,’ May said. ‘I’m never going back. They’re bullies. They worked my mother into an early grave, and I would have gone the same way if I hadn’t escaped.’

  ‘Good for you.’ Evie raised her mug in a salute. ‘We all seem to be looking for a better life in the WAAF.’ She explained what had led her to join up.

  ‘Was your mother angry?’ May leaned forward.

  Evie nodded. ‘Still is. She hasn’t answered any of my letters yet.’

  Jess patted her arm. ‘She’ll come round.’

  ‘I hope so, or my first leave is going to be a bundle of fun.’

  Once they’d returned their empty dishes to the kitchen and cleaned their eating irons, they trooped outside.

  ‘Halloway!’ Jess sprang to attention. A WAAF officer was advancing on Jess, her expression grim. Her auburn hair was scraped back into a bun with not a single strand out of place; her uniform looked as though she had spent hours pressing every seam. ‘You’re not in some tawdry revue now. Straighten your collar.’

  ‘Yes, ma’am.’ Jess hastened to comply.

  The officer turned her icy gaze on Evie and May, and it was all Evie could do not to take a step backwards. ‘Who are these? New girls?’

  ‘Yes, ma’am.’ Jess introduced them.

  ‘Ah, so you’ll be joining us in Ops.’ The officer looked Evie up and down when Jess said her name, and it struck Evie that this mu
st be the dreaded Flight Officer Ellerby. ‘I wasn’t pleased to be sent a girl straight from training. I requested an experienced plotter. Are you any good?’

  ‘I…I think so, ma’am.’

  Ellerby didn’t look convinced. ‘Well, I’ll be watching you. Any mistakes and I’ll have you transferred to the Orderly Room. There’s no place in Ops for a girl who doesn’t know what she’s doing.’

  Evie watched Ellerby’s departing back with a sinking heart. She’d been looking forward to the excitement of Ops – the hub of an RAF station’s activities – but if she ended up operating a filing cabinet in the Orderly Room, she’d go mad with boredom. No matter that she’d excelled in training, she was bound to make blunders with Ellerby’s gaze boring between her shoulder blades.

  ‘Blimey, I’m glad I’m not in Ops,’ May said, regarding Evie with shocked sympathy. ‘Thank God I learnt to drive.’

  Evie wished she could drive. Right now, she’d rather steer through a hail of bullets than do her first watch under Ellerby’s baleful stare.

  Chapter Four

  By the next morning, Evie’s stomach was a writhing knot. Her hand shook as she showed her pass at the entrance to The Hole where the Operations Room was located. It didn’t matter that she had excelled at all the exercises and tests during training, she just knew she was going to make a terrible blunder and end up being ordered out by an irate Flight Officer Ellerby. She could only pray that Ellerby wasn’t on duty this morning. If she could get through her first watch without Ellerby assessing her every move, she could probably cope with future watches under Ellerby’s eye.

  She descended the steep flight of concrete steps into a gloomy tunnel lined with exposed pipework and cabling. At the foot of the steps was a large steel door. Evie opened it and peered through, half expecting to see a dungeon with damp stone walls and water dripping from the ceiling. Instead she saw a large, brightly lit room, set up in a very similar fashion to the mock-up room she had trained in. It was dominated by the large plotting table that held a map of the south-east corner of England and the Channel. There were blackboards on the whitewashed walls, with information on squadron readiness, status reports and weather, and there was also a wall-mounted clock that had each five-minute interval coloured alternately in a red, blue or yellow triangle. A wooden platform stood at one end of the room supporting a row of desks equipped with lamps and telephones. Her heart gave an unpleasant lurch when she saw Ellerby occupied the middle desk.

  Evie’s legs shook as she walked up to the senior controller and saluted, trying to avoid looking at Ellerby.

  The senior controller, a red-haired man in his late twenties or early thirties, greeted her with a jovial smile. To Evie’s mind, he looked like a vicar in his pulpit. ‘Ah, the new girl,’ he said after returning the salute. ‘You’ve picked a good day to start – should be quiet with just a few training exercises. As you can see, the table is a hive of activity.’ He pointed at the other plotters around the table, most of whom were sitting in silence, knitting, crochet or darning in their hands. ‘I’m Squadron Leader Peter Travis, by the way.’ He turned to introduce his Ops ‘A’ and Ops ‘B’.

  He turned to the Ops ‘A’. ‘This is George Parry.’ The man indicated gave her a cheerful wave. ‘And this’ – Travis pointed to a tousle-haired man in his mid-twenties – ‘is Alex Kincaith, Scourge of Ops. Not long arrived himself and here until his squadron is back up to strength.’

  Evie smiled at him, but Kincaith merely scowled without so much as a glance at her. A shame, as he’d be good looking without the permanent frown. Something about the curve of his mouth and the laughter lines winging his eyes gave the impression he wasn’t always ill-tempered. In fact, Alex Kincaith wouldn’t look out of place on the screen of a Hollywood picture.

  ‘Bishop!’ Evie jumped at Ellerby’s voice. ‘What are you waiting for? Take your place.’ Ellerby pointed to a chair. ‘I can’t see the table through your head.’

  Cheeks burning, Evie sat in the place indicated. She took some comfort in seeing she was next to Jess.

  ‘The cheek of her,’ hissed Jess, when Ellerby consulted her clipboard. ‘It’s not as if there’s anything on the table to see yet.’

  The other girls around the table shot her sympathetic smiles. Heartened, Evie checked the box of pieces beside her place to make sure she had all the necessary arrows, blocks and numbers and noted the clock’s current colour. It changed every five minutes, and woe betide the plotter who placed an arrow that failed to match the clock’s colour. She picked up her headset, but at that moment Jean Ellerby looked up from her notes and frowned at her. Evie fumbled the headset and it fell to the floor.

  ‘Careful!’ Ellerby snapped. ‘Do you know how much one of those costs? Well?’ she demanded, when Evie didn’t answer.

  ‘No, ma’am.’ Evie wished the Germans would come right now and drop all their bombs upon the Ops Room.

  ‘I don’t, either,’ the senior controller said in a mild voice.

  There was a soft twitter of laughter from the plotters, and Evie shot him a grateful glance. She picked up the headset and put it on, taking great care not to drop it this time. Flight Officer Ellerby subsided and sat back in her chair, seeming to be making a detailed study of whatever was written on her clipboard.

  Evie took advantage of the inactivity to study the numbers and call signs of the squadrons at Amberton. These were written on a blackboard at the back of the room followed by a long list at the various possible states of readiness. There were three squadrons: Wagtail, Popcorn and Catseye. At present, none were in the air, but Wagtail was at readiness.

  For a while there was no sound but the clicking needles of the girls who were knitting. Then the controller turned to Kincaith. ‘Right, let’s get Wagtail into the air.’

  Kincaith picked up his phone and gave the order. He spoke in a soft Scottish accent, Evie noticed. A short while later the report came through from the observation tower, informing them that twelve Hurricanes had taken off.

  Travis picked up his receiver. ‘Wagtail leader, this is Belfry. Vector one niner zero at Angels two zero.’

  ‘Wagtail leader, received and understood. Climbing to Angels two zero.’

  A plotter standing on the other side of the table picked up a wooden block, labelled it with the squadron number, number of Hurricanes and altitude and placed it upon the table, pushing it into position with a long wooden rake.

  Evie watched, glad that she was on the ‘hostile’ side of the table, so would be unlikely to have to place any plots today. Seeing the plotter at work reminded her that she did know what she was doing. Her nerves eased. As reports from various observation stations filtered through, Evie watched the plot approach the coast, where the squadron would go through its training exercise.

  Time flew by and before she knew it, she was released for a short break. She climbed the steps and emerged, blinking, into bright sunshine and headed for the NAAFI. She was delighted to see May just settling at a table, spreading out a map. Evie joined her.

  ‘How’s your first day going?’

  ‘I haven’t done much, just finding out where all the tools are stored. But I’m driving an officer to the railway station this afternoon, and I’m terrified I’m going to get lost. With all the signposts being removed, I’ve got to memorise the route.’ May indicated the map.

  ‘At least you haven’t been dressed down by an officer in front of the entire Ops Room.’

  May’s eyes filled with sympathy. ‘Oh no! What happened?’

  Evie described her encounter with Flight Officer Jean Ellerby. ‘She’s everything Jess said she was,’ Evie concluded. ‘I know why she calls her “Hellerby” now. My only hope is that she’ll be transferred. Preferably to the north of Scotland.’

  ‘I’m sure the rest of your watch will be better.’

  ‘Ask me again when I’ve survived it.’ Evie drained her tea and stood. ‘Well, I’d better get back. Good luck with your first trip. I’m sure it will b
e fine.’

  May grimaced. ‘Ask me again when I’ve found the station without going via Edinburgh.’

  The girls laughed and went their separate ways. Evie descended the stairs into The Hole with a lighter heart. She’d never known before how sharing a problem, being able to laugh about it with someone else, made it weigh less heavily. So what if she’d been reprimanded by Hellerby? By all accounts she wasn’t the only one, and she’d certainly earned the sympathy of the other plotters in the process.

  She took her seat at the plotting table and settled in for the remainder of her watch. She envied the girls who’d had the foresight to bring knitting or books with them. Tomorrow she’d bring something to do.

  She was so absorbed in deciding whether she could get away with bringing a text book that she almost didn’t register the information that suddenly came through on her headset. But the stir around the table brought her back to the task at hand. Oh heavens, it was on her section of the plot. Of all the ways to start her job properly! With trembling fingers, she picked up a wooden block and quickly slotted the numbers H01 onto the top row: the first hostile plot of the day. Then came the estimated number of aircraft: one. Using the rod, she pushed it into position.

  The senior controller leaned over his desk and frowned down at the table. ‘Where did that come from?’ He turned to Evie. ‘It was definitely reported as a hostile?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  The other plotters confirmed she’d plotted it correctly, even, mercifully, Jean Ellerby, although judging from her pursed lips, she’d make mincemeat of Evie if she made a mistake.

  Peter Travis rose and walked along the platform, frowning down at the table as though trying to view it from all angles. He had an odd, lurching gait. He studied the table a moment longer then returned to his desk. ‘I’ll check with Group.’

  Another update crackled through her headset. While Travis spoke on the phone, she moved the marker to its new position, then placed an arrow on the table indicating the direction the plot had moved from its previous position. Thank goodness she’d kept a close watch on the sector clock, so she’d immediately known to select a blue arrow to match the colour indicated by the minute hand. She was all too aware of Jean Ellerby’s critical gaze.