The Ops Room Girls

by Vicki Beeby

  It seemed to take an eternity for the fire fighters to douse the flames. By the time they were able to force the canopy open, Alex knew it would be too late. He watched as the rescuers pulled the pilot’s limp form from the cockpit and lowered him to a stretcher. One of the ambulance crew draped a blanket over the pilot, then they loaded the stretcher into the ambulance and slammed the doors. It drove away slowly. No bell ringing. No dash to save a life.

  The stricken Hurricane had belonged to Catseye squadron. Alex found his feet directing him to their dispersal hut. As he walked his mind returned yet again to what Evie had told him about Karol. No matter how it pained him to consider one of his men might be a spy, he couldn’t seem to shake off the suspicion.

  James Fitzpatrick, Catseye’s squadron leader, leant against the rear wall of Catseye’s dispersal hut, smoke spiralling from a cigarette in his hand. As Alex approached, he raised it to his lips with a shaking hand and took a long draw then blew out a stream of smoke in a shuddering exhale.

  ‘Ghastly way to go.’ Fitz jerked his head in the direction of the still smouldering Hurricane. ‘That’s two men bought it today.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Walker and Parsons.’

  Alex bowed his head, studying the dozens of trampled cigarette butts around his feet. He didn’t know Parsons, but Flight Lieutenant Rob Walker had been at Amberton longer than he had. He’d been one of the station’s most experienced pilots. If he could be shot down, what chance did anyone else have?

  ‘Was that you in the other Hurricane?’

  James nodded. ‘There were three of us out on a routine patrol.’ He raised his cigarette to his lips again, but not quick enough to hide the way the corner of his mouth convulsed. ‘It’s like they knew we were going to be there,’ he said, wreathed in another cloud of smoke. ‘I swear those 109s were waiting to bounce us.’

  Alex said nothing. What could he say? He knew the helpless feeling of unaccountably surviving when others had died, knew the relentless, exhausting cycle of self-doubt. Was there anything he could have done differently? Why was he still alive when the others weren’t? In the end, the only way he’d been able to function was to slam the door on his inner voice and focus on getting through each day one step at a time. Or that’s how he’d operated until Evie had come along. Now he found himself getting painful glimpses of a possible future with her, a bittersweet longing for a life he would probably never have. It was growing harder and harder to take each day as it came.

  James finished his cigarette, flung it down and ground it beneath his heel. ‘Better get back. Letters to write. God knows what I’m going to say to Parsons’ mother. He was only here a week.’

  He moved to walk away but Alex stopped him. ‘Wait. I’m trying to track down some of my pilots.’ What was he saying? He didn’t suspect Karol. But James’s words were going through his mind: it’s like they knew we were going to be there. ‘Have any of my lads been hanging around here today?’

  ‘That Karol was here earlier. Not here now, though.’

  Alex heard the last few words through a dull roar in his ears. Somehow, he managed to force out the words, ‘Send him to me if he turns up again.’ Then he was walking away, towards Brimstone’s dispersal hut, on legs that didn’t seem quite connected to his body.

  His pilots might be stood down, but the dispersal pens were swarming with ground crew patching holes, mending instrument panels and servicing the engines. Thankfully Sergeant Rawlins was out of earshot of the others, whistling cheerfully as he adjusted the gun sights of Alex’s Hurricane. Without giving himself a chance to reconsider, Alex strode up to the sergeant and said, ‘I want to see the gun camera footage from Pilot Officer Šimek’s machine.’

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  The sun had already set when Evie and Jess trudged out of The Hole after their last watch of the day.

  Jess yawned. ‘Thank goodness we’ve got the night off.’

  A kind sergeant with a blackout torch helped to direct them to their bikes. He insisted upon checking the shielding on their front lights before letting them ride off.

  ‘If this watch system carries on much longer, I’ll definitely be applying for officer training,’ Jess remarked as she pushed off and climbed into her saddle.

  ‘I won’t miss the to and fro in the dark,’ Evie agreed. ‘But I’ll miss everything else.’ Alex and her friends most of all. She half dreaded getting confirmation of a place on the Filterer Officers’ training course. She found herself hoping her orders would arrive after the present crisis was over. The general feeling was that if they could hold out until October, the Germans would be forced to delay their planned invasion.

  The girls didn’t speak much during their ride. They needed all their concentration to navigate the twists and turns of the lane in the darkness. Now the nights were drawing in, more and more of their rides would be in darkness. Evie still considered it worth it for the privilege of living in High Chalk House. Wherever she ended up, she doubted she’d ever have a billet as good as the one she had here. Her late-night cocoa and gossip sessions with Jess and May in the cosy schoolroom would soon be a thing of the past.

  Before long, Evie sensed rather than saw the patch of deeper darkness that indicated they had reached the gateway. They turned into the drive, their tyres crunching on the gravel, and steered for the back of the house. After propping their bikes against the wall, they went in through the scullery door, which was always left unlocked to accommodate the girls working odd hours.

  Up in the schoolroom, Evie was delighted to find a letter waiting for her on the mantelpiece addressed in Cornelia’s elegant copperplate handwriting. May must have brought it back, knowing Evie would be too tired to check for post at the end of an exhausting day. She snatched it up and curled up in an armchair, kicking off her shoes, while Jess, yawning, retired to her room.

  The opening paragraphs contained news of a paper Cornelia was writing on the applications of lambda calculus. Evie skimmed them, promising herself she would read it properly tomorrow. What she wanted to know was the answer to her question about Alex and officer training. She found it in the fourth paragraph.

  My dear, you must seize this new opportunity with both hands. You don’t know how long this war will last, so do the job that plays to your strengths and where you can find the most fulfilment. Assuming the war does end soon, and you decide to take up your studies again, having worked in a mathematical field will stand you in good stead.

  I was delighted you introduced me to Alex Kincaith while you were in Oxford. I found him a most thoughtful, steady young man. However, on the question of your relationship I can only give general advice. Matters of the heart are not as easily resolved as mathematical equations. What I can say with certainty is that you must consider very carefully if your young man loves you for who you are or who he wants you to be. If the latter, you’ll never be truly happy with him. When I was an undergraduate at Oxford I met and fell in love with a charming man. I even agreed to marry him. I thought because he knew I was reading maths that he would understand I wanted to pursue an academic career. It turned out that he assumed I would abandon my career and be happy to be his unpaid housekeeper while he pursued his own career. Ending our engagement was the hardest thing I’ve ever done, but I’ve never regretted it. He would never have accepted me as I am. If your young man does love you for who you are, if he encourages you to become the best version of yourself, then you’ve found a rare treasure.

  Evie read Cornelia’s words through several times, her heart full. She’d never pictured Cornelia as a young woman in love before. It was funny to think of the tweedy academic as a late Victorian girl complete with sweeping gown and full bustle. But her words resonated with Evie. If he encourages you to become the best version of yourself. Yes, that was what she needed from a relationship. It was why she had found such good friends in Jess and Evie: they brought out the best in each other. Was that what she and Alex did? He certainly seemed impressed by her m
athematical abilities. But was that as an Ops Room WAAF or a potential wife?

  She folded up the letter and switched off the light, overcome by a sudden urge to gaze out at the night sky, as if she would somehow be able to read her destiny in the stars. She groped her way to the window and pulled the blackout curtains aside, but clouds must have rolled in, for there was nothing but pitch darkness outside.

  Then a light caught her eye, a faint pinprick wavering alongside the hedge, at the far end of the airfield. Was it a routine patrol? But Evie had never noticed anyone patrol that section of the airfield before. Then the light disappeared, and Evie thought she must have imagined it. That was until the light suddenly reappeared on the other side of the hedge, in the garden of High Chalk House.

  Evie’s heart hammered. Should she fetch one of the officers? Then the light briefly caught the arm of the stranger, revealing a sleeve in air force blue. She was fairly certain she caught a glimpse of a band near the cuff denoting an officer. Relief washed over her. She was aware some of the WAAFs had secret assignations with men from the station but hadn’t realised any dared do so in the Waafery under the noses of the officers. Whoever it was had better be careful with that light or they’d get the wrath of the ARP warden on them as well as getting the girl in question dismissed in disgrace if she was found out. As a candidate officer, Evie knew she should probably report it, but she didn’t want to get one of her sister WAAFs in trouble.

  She had to admit to curiosity over the man’s identity. Straining her eyes, she could just about make out a shadowy figure brushing himself down. He was certainly keen. There was a chain-link fence alongside the hedge, so he must have cut through that first before forcing his way through the bushes. From her strolls in the garden, Evie knew how dense the hedge was. He’d probably had to cut several branches away before he could get through.

  The dim light was barely more than a pale glow on the ground, but Evie had no trouble tracking it through the darkness. The figure moved up the garden to the path. To Evie’s surprise the light didn’t follow the path towards the door but went in the direction of the driveway. She was still trying to work out what to make of this when the crescent moon appeared briefly from behind the clouds, illuminating the officer’s face in silvery light. Evie gripped the windowsill in shock. There was no mistaking him. It was Karol.

  She backed away from the window, tripping over a small table in her haste. Rubbing her bruised shin, she stumbled to Jess’s door and knocked. ‘Jess, are you awake?’

  The last word had hardly left Evie’s mouth when the door opened, spilling lamplight into the dark schoolroom. Jess stood in the doorway holding a blue enamelled hairbrush. She’d removed her tunic and was in shirtsleeves; her golden hair hung loose over her shoulders. ‘What’s going on?’

  Evie reached behind Jess, shut the door to block the light, then grabbed Jess by the arm and dragged her to the window. ‘Look!’ she hissed, stabbing her index finger towards the indistinct figure now nearly at the corner of the house.

  Jess pressed her face to the window. ‘Who is it?’

  ‘Karol.’

  ‘What are you doing?’ May’s voice came from the nursery doorway.

  Evie spun around from the window to see May’s shadowy outline approach. Fortunately, she hadn’t turned on the light in their shared bedroom, or it would have flooded out of the uncovered window, alerting Karol. She beckoned May to join them then described what she had seen.

  ‘What’s he up to?’ May asked.

  ‘No idea, but it’s suspicious.’

  Another shaft of moonlight lanced from the clouds. Craning her neck, Evie could just see Karol making his way down the driveway. There seemed to be something lumpy on his back.

  ‘A satchel,’ Evie cried. ‘He’s carrying a satchel, just like that time I saw him in the woods.’ She thought quickly. ‘I bet he’s got a transmitter.’

  She strode to the chair and sat down, pulling on her shoes. ‘I’m going to follow him.’

  ‘Not alone,’ Jess said. She tied her hair into a knot at the back of her head. ‘I’m coming with you.’

  ‘Shouldn’t we tell one of the officers?’ May asked.

  ‘There’s no time. If we don’t go now, we’ll lose him in the dark.’ Evie paused in the act of tying her laces. She’d feel happier knowing backup was on the way. It was no good phoning the police because the road to Amberton was still out and phoning the station at this time of night wouldn’t connect them to anyone who could help. She doubted anyone would wake Alex on the say so of a lowly WAAF. ‘I know. May, get dressed, then go and wake up Ellerby. She knows you well enough to understand you’d only disturb her in a genuine emergency. She’ll know what to do.’

  May nodded. ‘Be careful.’

  ‘Don’t worry. We won’t let him see us. I just want to keep him in view so we can see what he’s up to.’

  May darted back into the nursery while Evie and Jess crept out of the schoolroom and down the stairs. Months of working irregular hours meant they knew all the creaky steps and floorboards to avoid, so they made it down to the kitchen without disturbing anyone. Evie opened the back door and peered out but there was no sign of Karol. The two girls slipped outside and jogged to the front of the house. They were careful to keep off the gravelled path, so the crunch didn’t alert Karol. When they reached the driveway, they were rewarded by the sight of the dim glow of Karol’s torch bobbing up and down at the other end of the drive. A moment later it turned right.

  ‘He must be heading for the track,’ Evie breathed. ‘Come on.’

  Running as fast as she dared, she led the way to the entrance. Concealing herself behind one of the pillars, she glanced out into the lane. Sure enough, even though the torch light was no longer visible, she saw shadowy movement on the track leading into the fields.

  * * *

  Alex couldn’t sleep. He couldn’t stop seeing the images from Karol’s gun camera: streams of tracer fire aimed at empty sky. Evie had been right about that. Was she right about everything else? It was one thing to suspect a pilot of cowardice, or ‘lacking moral fibre’ as the RAF liked to term it; it was quite another to suspect him of spying and sabotage. It made him feel sick to suspect one of his own pilots. Even worse was the knowledge that there could have been a spy in his squadron all this time, and he hadn’t noticed.

  He owed it to the rest of the squadron, not to mention the unfortunate Aircraftman Sykes, to find out for sure. First thing tomorrow he would lay the whole matter before the station commander and the RAF police. They were best placed to handle it. He just hoped they didn’t end up needing reinforcements if Karol turned out to be guilty and tried to make a run for it. It would be difficult for anyone to get here with the road impassable.

  The road is out! Alex sat bolt upright, eyes wide, staring into the darkness. What if that wasn’t a coincidence? What if the attack had been a deliberate ploy to block access to Amberton? That would mean… God help them all, it would mean an attack was imminent, taking advantage of Amberton being cut off from help.

  He swung his legs out of bed and pulled on his clothes. Karol shared a room with Jiří on the floor below. The first thing to do was check if he was there. If he was, Alex had some questions for him. If he wasn’t… Well, he’d cross that bridge when he came to it. He bounded down the stairs two at a time and knocked at Karol and Jiří’s door. There was a mumbled reply, and Alex pushed open the door and looked inside.

  Jiří raised his head from his pillow and frowned at him as though trying to focus. ‘Is it time to get up?’

  Alex glanced at the other bed. It was empty. The sheets smooth and neatly tucked in. He felt no surprise, just a dull resignation. He glared at Jiří. ‘Where’s Karol?’

  Jiří yawned and rubbed his eyes, then his head dropped back to his pillow, and he looked as though he were on the point of falling back to sleep.

  Alex snapped on the light switch, then in two strides he was by Jiří’s bed. He shook him by the shou
lder. ‘Kde je Karol?’

  Jiří sat up again with painful slowness, squinting his eyes against the harsh light of the bare light bulb. Then he looked across at Karol’s bed and grinned. ‘He said he was seeing a WAAF.’

  ‘When did he leave?’

  Jiří shrugged. ‘Around midnight, I think.’

  Alex glanced at his watch. It was only half past twelve now. Plenty of time to catch Karol if only he knew where to look. ‘Where did he go?’ Then another thought struck him. ‘How did he get past the gates?’ If Karol was up to no good, he wouldn’t want to risk being seen and questioned.

  Jiří seemed to be more awake now. He tapped the side of his nose. ‘I think he’s found another way.’

  Alex drew himself up to his full height. He’d never found it necessary to pull rank or intimidate his junior officers, but now he had no time to lose. ‘Tell me right now, before I put you under close arrest for disobeying a senior officer.’

  The barked command must have got through for Jiří straightened his shoulders as though he were on parade. The effect was slightly spoiled by the fact he was wearing stripy pyjamas and his hair stood up in clumps. ‘Yes, sir. I think he has a tool for cutting through the hedge.’ He mimed using wire cutters. ‘I saw him putting them in his rucksack when he thought I wasn’t looking.’

  ‘Hell’s bells. So there’s nothing to stop him cutting through to the Waafery.’ And from there he had easy access to the fields, where he could signal to the attackers. There wasn’t a moment to waste.