Elsie mustered a smile. ‘How lovely to see you, again. Did you get my letter?’ she asked, ascending the short flight of stone steps.
‘It came this morning and it was a bit of a shock, to be honest,’ Agnes said grimly. ‘I certainly hadn’t prepared for having an extra guest with so little warning.’
It had been a bad idea to come. ‘Sorry,’ Elsie apologised, setting down her suitcases. ‘It’ll just be for a very short time, until I can find something else.’
‘You’re here now,’ she said, meeting Elsie with her mistrusting, humourless eyes. With a raised eyebrow, she took a delicate step backwards and ushered Elsie into the square hallway. A single oil lamp in one dim corner struggled to counter the gloom created by the green wallpaper and myriad of closed doors. Its fine features—the ornate fireplace, the cornicing, the ceiling rose and the chandelier—were all lost in shadow. Elsie followed Agnes up the staircase to a dark corridor.
‘Here we are,’ Agnes announced, pushing open the door to a north-facing bedroom. ‘Dinner will be served at six sharp. Bring me your ration book when you come down.’
‘Pardon?’
‘Your ration book—if I’m to be cooking for you, then I shall need your coupons.’
‘Yes, of course.’
Agnes turned and left.
Elsie closed the door and put down her suitcases. The room was simple and bare and smelt sour, like old books. Just a single bed, bedside cabinet, dressing table, thin wardrobe and a chest of drawers. On the walls hung several Van Gogh reproductions in cheap frames. In the centre of the wooden floor was a plain green rug that matched the equally plain curtains. She strode to the window, threw it open and looked out; fields, paddocks and woodland rose up towards the village of Hawkinge three miles away. She smiled and breathed deeply. Somewhere at the top of that hill was the aerodrome and close to that was the building requisitioned by the RAF in which she would be spending her war. A million miles from Bramley Cottage.
She spent the time before dinner sedately unpacking. The larger of her two suitcases contained a condensed microcosm of her old life: clothing now termed as civilian, an ablutions bag, a vanity case, a stationery set, a Sherlock Holmes book and two photographs—an obligatory one of her and Laurie on their wedding day and another of Elsie and her parents taken on a windswept Norfolk beach in the early 1930s. Beyond her physical appearance, there was little recognition of herself in either photo. Placing the pictures on the dresser, she began to unpack the smaller case, the one containing her new life: the letter confirming her appointment; a gas mask, untouched since fitting; and a spare uniform, identical to that which she was now wearing. She carefully transferred it into the chest of drawers and wardrobe, taking stock of each item. A straight, knee-length skirt. A blue cotton shirt with a detachable collar. Several pairs of thick grey stockings. A black tie. Two pairs of suspender belts. Two bras. Then there was the jacket—hastily produced and modelled exactly on the men’s equivalent—even buttoning from left to right; the design did have its advantages: the breast pockets were conveniently located to accommodate extra padding. Lastly were the four pairs of thick black knickers with elastic at the knee. Very fetching, she thought with a laugh, recalling the nickname that had arisen for them during training: anti-passions.
She looked at her watch. It was just before six. Pulling open the door, Elsie quietly stepped out into the hallway. From downstairs rose a clattering of pans and the pungent odours of a dinner cooking.
Standing quietly, she waited. Several seconds passed then she crossed the corridor diagonally, stopping in front of a closed white door. It was this one, if she remembered correctly. As she placed her hand on the doorknob, she half expected the door to resist, but it didn’t. She cringed as the hinges creaked and cracked from lack of use. The curtains were drawn on the little room, yet it was just as she remembered it from last summer. Laurie’s old bedroom. It was a boy’s bedroom, not a man’s. Models and pictures of aeroplanes adorned the pale blue walls and a collection of Biggles books were stacked neatly on a bookshelf. Aimed at the closed blackout curtains was a telescope. Elsie recalled Laurie saying that on fine days he could make out the detail of the French cliffs. The realisation that Laurie had spent his childhood watching the beaches, on which he was to one day end his life, nipped at the edges of Elsie’s heart. Tears formed in her eyes as played-out images of Laurie being slaughtered on a French beach projected in her mind. Killed by what? A gunshot? An explosion? Was it quick or had he suffered? She had no idea. The tears ran down her cheeks now as her mind rehearsed Laurie’s end in a series of horrible mini clips. It was the not knowing that upset her the most—whether he might have suffered or died alone.
‘Elsie,’ a quiet voice said, startling her.
She turned to see Laurie’s sister, Kath. Her usually slight, diminutive figure was changed and it took Elsie a moment to see the cause: a large swelling in her belly. She stared—a little longer than she ought to have done, perhaps.
‘You’ve noticed, then,’ Kath said softly. ‘My little secret.’
Elsie blushed and looked up. ‘Sorry…I…I didn’t realise. But you’re not…’
‘Married?’ Kath cut in. ‘No, I’m not.’
‘Sorry, I didn’t mean to sound so terribly Victorian. It just took me by surprise, is all. I had no idea, you see. When are you due?’
‘Next month—and not a moment too soon with this heat.’ Kath touched Elsie’s arm and cast a glance over the room. ‘It’s a bit of a shrine,’ she whispered. ‘Poor mother will never get over it, I’m sure. Laurie was everything to her—and to you, I know.’
Elsie couldn’t hold the look in Kath’s sullen eyes and glanced back to the telescope, hoping that she hadn’t spotted the truth about her feelings for Laurie.
‘Come on, let’s get out of here. Dinner’s ready and there’s someone downstairs whom I want you to meet.’
‘Oh,’ Elsie replied, intrigued. The father of the baby, she guessed, slightly surprised that Agnes was so willing to accept her daughter in such a condition.
The sounds and smells from the kitchen increased their assault on Elsie’s senses as they made their way to the dining room. The mysterious guest, briefly obscured by Kath as they entered the room, stood from the dining table. It was a woman. A heavily pregnant woman.
Elsie smiled and extended her hand; she wasn’t about to look like a pious grandmother again. ‘Elsie,’ she introduced.
The girl—for she could not have been older than seventeen—stood and took Elsie’s hand. It was a rough, worker’s hand with nails snagged and torn. ‘Gwendoline—Gwen.’ She had feisty distrustful eyes that conveyed little cordiality.
Elsie stood uncomfortably, waiting for some kind of an explanation as to who the girl was, but none was forthcoming. Kath sat down beside Gwen and motioned for Elsie to sit opposite her.
‘How was the journey here?’ Kath asked.
‘The train was jam-packed the whole way—it was as though every soldier and his wife were coming to Folkestone.’
‘They probably were—it’s a busy place at the moment,’ Gwen said, ‘what with the fall of France. Dunkirk and all that.’
Elsie was aware of the sideways look that Kath gave to Gwen, but she was distracted by a low reverberation that began to rattle the house. She turned towards the large window that overlooked the cliff top as the noise crescendoed ferociously, taking the breath from her lungs and the words from her mouth. Three weeks of training had heightened her senses and she dived under the table. The roar continued, shaking the house violently. Elsie covered her ears, waiting for the imminent explosion. But it never came. As quickly as it had arrived, the sound faded to silence. Above her, Kath and Gwen were in fits of laughter.
‘You can come out now,’ Kath laughed.
‘Oh dear, you’re not going to last long working near an aerodrome!’ Gwen teased.
Elsie appeared from under the table, doing her damnedest to hide her embarrassment. ‘What was that?
’ she stammered, glancing across at the empty window.
‘Just a couple of seagulls,’ Kath mocked. ‘They’re very noisy in Kent, you know.’
Elsie ran to the window and stifled a gasp. ‘German planes,’ she spluttered. ‘Four of them.’ She squinted at their fading outline, trying to recall aircraft identification from her training. ‘Messerschmitts!’
‘Oh, golly, you’d best sound the air raid siren, then!’ Gwen said, leaping up in her seat. Kath joined her, looking horrified.
Elsie stood uneasily, shifting her gaze between the two girls. Then they laughed an empty scornful laugh that left Elsie feeling foolish.
‘They’re just on their way back to Germany or France or wherever they’re based,’ Gwen explained. ‘They don’t usually cause a fuss on their way home. If you go and look out of one of the front windows, you’ll likely see the Spitfires and Hurricanes leaving Hawkinge for the night in the opposite direction.’
‘Hopefully it will mean a quiet night for us,’ Kath said. She saw the look of confusion on Elsie’s face and clarified. ‘Hawkinge is a forward airbase—nothing is permanently based there. They fly in first thing in the morning and then leave again in the evening.’
‘Why is nothing permanently based there?’ Elsie asked.
‘Too dangerous.’
Elsie was slightly perplexed. ‘And yet here we are, perched on the edge of the cliff top. Does that not strike you…’
‘Sit down please, girls,’ a voice commanded. It was Agnes, holding two plates aloft.
Elsie returned to the table and slunk into her seat. In front of her was a plate with little on it. One slice of beef, a heap of cabbage and a few carrots swimming in a pasty brown liquid that she suspected was masquerading as gravy.
‘Not much to go around, I’m afraid,’ Agnes said pointedly.
‘It’s lovely, thank you,’ Elsie lied.
Several minutes passed where the only sounds to be heard were the chinking of cutlery meeting crockery. Then Agnes addressed Elsie. ‘I must say that we were most surprised at the speed of your transition from war widow to this,’ Agnes remarked, her eyes running up and down Elsie’s uniform. ‘Weren’t we, Kath? One can only assume that the lethal combination of war and solitude led to such an unfathomable decision.’
‘I just want to play my part, that’s all,’ Elsie responded.
‘Very admirable,’ Agnes said. ‘Have you heard anything more from the War Office?’ Agnes asked. ‘About Laurie.’
Elsie shook her head. ‘Nothing. I wonder if we ever shall.’
Agnes stopped chewing and set down her knife and fork, the unspoken words cutting through her that her son’s body might never be found or laid to rest.
‘I’m sure we’ll learn something once things settle,’ Kath offered quietly, before pausing a moment then turning to Elsie. ‘And what is it exactly you’ll be doing up at the aerodrome? Tea-making?’
‘Something like that, I should think,’ Elsie replied. ‘I’m sure it will be terribly dull.’ It wouldn’t be dull, not here and not with the skills that she had to put to the job. The epitome of dull was her old life in Bramley Cottage. ‘Besides,’ she added with a playful smile, ‘I’m bound by the Official Secrets Act, so I couldn’t possibly say.’
Gwen whispered something to Kath, who glanced at Elsie with a subtle look of disdain.
Elsie watched them in her peripheral vision. They were a curious pair. Neither had wedding bands on their fingers and no explanation had been given as to their circumstances. Not that she cared. She was tired of tittle-tattle from the likes of Mrs McKay, people whose lifeblood seemed to flow from drama in others’ lives.
‘Here’s my ration book,’ Elsie said, passing it across the table.
Agnes acknowledged her compliance with a nod and quickly slid it into the front pocket of her apron. ‘I doubt I shall be cooking for you too often, anyway. I’m sure you’ll find plenty to eat up at the aerodrome.’
‘Not that she could tell us, mind,’ Gwen muttered. ‘Official Secrets Act.’
Elsie ignored the comment and continued eating.
Silence presided over the remainder of the meal and then Agnes suggested that Elsie take to her room ready for her early start in the morning. Elsie agreed, thanked her for the food, then proceeded to climb the stairs to her bedroom.
‘Don’t forget to put the blacks up,’ Agnes called after her.
Elsie turned to see the insidious jointly shared stare of the three women. She nodded and continued on her way.
With the closed bedroom door to her back, she lit a cigarette and sighed. She inhaled slowly, the orange glow from the tip momentarily brightening the dusky light filtering in from the open window. What had she done, in coming here? She emitted a low, quiet laugh at the three strange women downstairs. What truly odd people they were. Her previous impressions of Agnes and Kath had not changed. When Laurie had brought her here last summer, just weeks before their wedding, they had remained cool and aloof the entire time and Elsie had been keen to leave from the moment that they had arrived. The next and only other time that she had seen them was at her wedding.
She padded over to the open window, curled her upper lip and blew the smoke out towards the distant hills, now falling into a tree-lined silhouette. It was a curious, unnerving notion that the aerodrome runways just beyond the woods were empty and silent from dusk to dawn.
Finishing her cigarette, Elsie closed the window and set the blackout frames in place, plummeting the room into total darkness. She switched on the bedside lamp, changed into her nightdress and climbed into the bed. She reached for her book, The Adventure of the Sussex Vampire by Arthur Conan Doyle. She smiled as she held the book, secretly thrilled to have met his daughter.
The gentle pull of sleep vied with Sherlock Holmes for the final minutes of Elsie Finch’s day. Despite the lumpy ancient bed and the creeping apprehension about her new life, sleep eventually enveloped her.
The following morning, dawn gently lifted the giant blackout that had shrouded Hawkinge in a deep, uncompromising darkness. Rising with the laggard sunlight came homes, shops, the myriad of requisitioned buildings and the aerodrome that had dominated the village since 1915. If she hadn’t known any better, Elsie would have sworn that the large hangars and long stretches of grassy runways that she was now cycling alongside were entirely deserted, expectantly awaiting the first aircraft. However, it had been the four-twenty am arrival of a squadron of Hurricanes that had woken her this morning. The sound was a low rumble that, in the first moments of wakefulness, she had believed to be an assembly of tractors clattering through the nearby fields. She had removed the blackouts from the window and watched the aircraft swoop down, cutting through the inky sky. She had hastily washed and dressed and was cycling down the lane before anyone else at Cliff House had even stirred.
Elsie continued to cycle the perimeter of the aerodrome until she reached The Street. Above her, the sky was turning a milky shade of blue, revealing more and more detail in the shadows. Houses—ordinary houses—surrounded her and, for a moment, she questioned the address to which she had been told to report. She stopped her bicycle and pulled the letter from her greatcoat. Maypole Cottage, The Street, Hawkinge, she confirmed, stuffing it back into her pocket. Glancing left and right, she spotted it, just a short distance away; a long rectangular brick house with only one thing to separate it from the others on the road: the soldier standing guard outside.
She added her bicycle to a chaotic throng beside the house, then approached the officious sentry, who immediately lost interest in conversation upon production of her papers. He stood back and permitted her entry.
Elsie straightened her cap and glanced down at her appearance, before she opened the front door and stepped into an empty lobby. The interior was stark. Bare walls, plain floorboards and bright, shade-less light bulbs. But from somewhere in the house there came the definite hum of activity.
‘Hello? Anybody home? It’s the savings stamps lady
,’ she called, nervousness draining the intended humour from her greeting.
A small man in an RAF uniform, with a neat black moustache and slick black hair suddenly appeared in a fug of smoke in the doorway. A pipe, protruding over his lower lip, jiggled as he looked Elsie up and down.
Elsie saluted. ‘Hello, I’m Elsie Finch. Reporting for duty, sir,’ she muttered, flushing slightly from her silly entrance, as she handed over her identity card and appointment letter.
The man screwed up his face as he studied the contents. He pulled out his pipe and said, ‘Ah, Sergeant Finch—another German specialist—good—just what we need. I’m Flight Officer Scott-Farnie and this,’ he gestured with open arms, ‘is the hub of the Wireless Service—Y-service for short.’
Elsie paused, glancing around the barren room, totally ignorant of the work conducted within these walls. ‘What is it exactly that goes on here?’
Scott-Farnie looked surprised. ‘Didn’t they tell you in training?’
Elsie shook her head. Training had largely consisted of drilling, cleaning billets, inspections, and endless marching. A handful of days had been spent on aircraft identification, Morse code and wireless procedures, but there was no hint at the type of work that she would be undertaking once the training had been completed.
‘It’s work of the utmost importance, Sergeant Finch. You’ll be listening to the enemy. Come with me,’ he said, leading the way to a narrow wooden staircase which rose steeply from the corner of the room. He continued his nebulous explanations as they climbed. ‘We maintain a twenty-four-hour watch in six-hour shifts, seven days a week.’ He stopped at the top of the stairs and turned to face her, his little moustache twitching at the sides. ‘It can be gruelling and oftentimes tedious work, but, and I cannot stress this enough, the importance of what you’ll be doing for the war effort is highly significant.’
The Spyglass File (The Forensic Genealogist Book 4) Page 6