The Code Girls

by Daisy Styles

  ‘What’s the matter with you?’ cried Ava, when she saw Maudie’s face, which was as dark as a thundercloud.

  ‘Nothing!’ Maudie snapped, and started to pace around the kitchen table.

  ‘Looks like more than nothing to me,’ Ruby said knowingly.

  ‘Spit it out, lass, or you’ll curdle the cream,’ Ava added briskly.

  Maudie threw her hands up in the air and replied, ‘I was having a chat with that “handsome RAF officer”, as you call him, Ruby, just joking about the bloody pudding, of all things, when up swans damn Lady Diana, who, right in front of me, told him our food was basically pigswill!’

  She stopped short as Bella came out of the cold store with two dead hares. ‘Sorry, Bella, I’m talking about your cow of a sister!’

  ‘Talk away, sweetheart. Nothing you say about Diana could ever upset me,’ Bella reassured her. ‘What’s she up to now?’

  ‘Just being rude and offensive,’ Maudie answered.

  ‘Oh, she’s good at rude and offensive,’ Bella chuckled.

  ‘So who is this RAF officer that you and Ruby are going on about?’ Ava asked.

  ‘His name’s Kit Halliday, and he’s clearly a pal of Lady Diana,’ Maudie snapped irritably.

  ‘All right, all right. Keep your lacey hat on!’ Ava giggled.

  Still livid, Maudie bristled as she ranted on, ‘The way that blasted woman treats people! She seems to have nothing but contempt for anybody not of her social status. I’m not used to being addressed like a second-class citizen, and I don’t see why I should take it now, just because I’ve been forced to work below stairs. There’s a war on, we’re all making sacrifices ‒ unlike “Fancy Pants Posh Face”, who swans about like Marie Antoinette before they chopped off her head!’

  Bella threw back her head and laughed in delight. ‘ “Fancy Pants Posh Face” says it all! I wouldn’t waste your breath, Maudie. Believe me, my sister will never change. She’s wilful, vain, dim and ruthless – and that’s the truth.’

  ‘I don’t know how you got to be a Walsingham,’ Maudie marvelled.

  ‘I think somebody made a mistake and swapped me in the hospital,’ Bella answered good-naturedly, reaching over Ava’s shoulder to take a sharp knife from the rack that ran along the length of the kitchen wall.

  Maudie gaped at the knife and then at the hares. ‘Oh, God! Don’t start skinning and gutting those things in here!’ she begged.

  ‘Wimp!’ giggled Bella, as she walked out, swinging the hares. ‘I’ll hide in the back kitchen so you won’t have to smell their nasty little innards!’

  ‘We’d better clear away,’ said Ruby.

  Maudie hesitated. ‘They might still be up there.’

  ‘They’ll have gone by now,’ Ruby assured her, and they went upstairs together.

  Diana and Kit had left the dining room, but Maudie and Ruby caught sight of them strolling in the garden.

  ‘He doesn’t look very happy,’ Ruby remarked.

  ‘That’s his problem,’ Maudie answered, as she turned up ‘Worker’s Playtime’ on the radio and started to wash down the table-tops vigorously, to the cheerful rhythm of Glenn Miller’s ‘Little Brown Jug’.

  Outside, Kit wasn’t at all happy. He felt like he’d upset the sweet, green-eyed cook, who had just been beginning to loosen up and chat when Lady Diana barged in and rudely insulted the work of the staff below stairs. Now the wretched woman was intent on making all kinds of complicated arrangements, none of which he felt like falling in with.

  ‘You must have a few hours to spare,’ Diana said, in a voice that had lost its sweetness as she realized she was getting nowhere fast with this ravishing officer. ‘Do the RAF tie you to your desk with a ball and chain?’

  ‘I do have a heavy timetable and hardly any free time,’ Kit answered firmly. ‘Now, if you don’t mind, I really have to be making my way back, otherwise I shall be late for duty.’

  Not getting her own way, Diana looked suddenly sulky. ‘Promise you’ll at least pop upstairs for a glass of champagne next time you’re in the west wing. It would be rude not to,’ she said, with a limp smile.

  Not wanting to give her the slightest opportunity to think he might be available, Kit gave a curt nod and said farewell. ‘Good afternoon, Lady Diana. It’s been a pleasure.’

  She coquettishly offered him her hand to kiss, but he shook it firmly instead, then walked away. Frustrated and bored, Diana kicked the turf.

  ‘God damn this bloody place,’ she seethed, then headed indoors in search of the sherry bottle.

  15. Back to Business

  Kit found Johnny Hibbert looking a bit the worse for wear.

  ‘Been on a bender?’ Kit enquired, as he hung his flying jacket on the back of the office door and dumped his kit bag on the floor.

  Johnny just grunted and gazed blankly out of the window.

  ‘Well, speak!’ Kit laughed, as he started to go through the pile of mail on his desk.

  When Johnny still didn’t reply, Kit joined his friend by the window, which gave extensive views of the runway and the new control tower.

  ‘What’s up, man?’

  ‘Jenny,’ Johnny replied, and turned to Kit with tears in his eyes.

  Kit felt the muscles in his stomach clench in fear. ‘Is she OK?’

  Johnny shrugged hopelessly. ‘We don’t know.’

  Jenny, an experienced WAAF pilot, worked as a ferry girl. She was one of many accomplished female pilots who delivered newly built planes to airbases up and down the country. It was a service the WAAF fulfilled while the majority of male pilots were on active service.

  ‘Last thing I heard, she was delivering a Halifax to an airbase in Grimsby. All of their Halifax bombers were shot down over Belgium, and Jen and a couple of other ferry girls, were replenishing their depleted stock.’ Johnny took a deep, shuddering breath and put his head in his hands. ‘For some reason, Jenny’s radio cut out. The other ferry girls arrived safely at their destination, but not Jenny.’ He looked up at Kit with haunted eyes. ‘They can’t trace her.’

  Kit put a reassuring hand on Johnny’s chunky shoulder. ‘Come on, it could be nothing, especially with those damn new Halifaxes. Maybe she discovered a faulty switch or had a leak in her fuel tank – she could be bailing out in a parachute over a potato field in Hull right now,’ he added, with an attempt at a smile.

  ‘But we’d know by now. Jen’s a real pro. She knows the routine, she’d have radioed in before bailing.’

  Kit nodded. Johnny was right. Jenny had ferried more planes around Britain than any other female pilot he knew. Dropping the cheerful façade, he squeezed his friend’s shoulder hard. ‘We’ll just have to hope and pray,’ he said fervently.

  As Kit sat back down at his desk, Johnny took himself off to the communications centre, where he hoped he might pick up some information from central control. Raf quickly appeared with a pint mug of strong tea for his commanding officer.

  ‘So you like my Rubee?’

  ‘I most certainly do,’ Kit replied, and Raf glowed with pride. ‘And I like her red-headed friend, too.’

  Raf nodded knowingly. ‘Ah, Maudie,’ he answered. ‘Clever girl, speak Polish too, good cook.’

  ‘Very good cook … with beautiful green eyes,’ Kit added.

  ‘Czarownica!’ Raf pointed to his own pale blue eyes. ‘She has eyes like witch. Magic, yes?’

  Kit dreamily recalled Maudie’s cloud of golden-red hair and delicate pale face, spattered by a few golden freckles.

  ‘She’s magic all right,’ he thought, but he wasn’t about to launch into further discussion with Air Mechanic Rafal Boskow. ‘Thanks for the tea,’ he said briefly, and turned his attention once more to the pile of unopened letters. When Johnny returned, his face even paler than when he’d left, Kit stood up, grabbed his flying jacket and headed for the door.

  ‘Come on, old chum, you need a drink!’

  In the officers’ mess, holding a whisky and soda each, the two senior officers st
ood side by side at the bar. Determined to take his friend’s anguished thoughts, however briefly, off his girlfriend, Kit discussed the imminent arrival of Canadian airmen.

  ‘They’re an experienced bunch, I’m told. Years of active service, with a good number of gunners, too ‒ guys we’re desperately short of.’

  Johnny’s eyebrows flew up. ‘I’m a rear gunner down,’ he admitted. ‘Lost all of my Tail-end Charlies on bombing missions. They’re always the first to get shot at – poor buggers. The last one we literally hosed out of his turret.’

  Kit grimaced as he took a good slug of his whisky. ‘Tail-end Charlie’ was the RAF’s nickname for rear gunners, which was without doubt the loneliest and most dangerous job. The Lancaster’s seven-man crew consisted of pilot, navigator, bomb aimer, wireless operator, flight engineer, rear gunner and side gunner. Tail-end Charlies squashed themselves into the narrow gun turret at the back of the plane, hardly able to move, and working at times in sub-zero temperatures, with only a sheet of glass to protect them from an oncoming Messerschmitt blasting bullets from a machine gun aimed directly at the rear of the plane. They were unquestionably the bravest men in the crew; because of the nature of their job, their life expectancy was often short. They were incredibly heroic.

  ‘Here’s to them,’ said Kit, as he and Johnny chinked glasses, then drained them in a gulp.

  Setting his glass down, Johnny clapped Kit on the back. ‘Thanks, old man, I needed that. Think I’ll take a walk over to the control room, just in case,’ he said, then turned and left the bar.

  As Kit watched him go, he murmured, ‘Fingers crossed, mate.’

  When Johnny returned to their office with a plate of Spam-and-mustard sandwiches and a mug of tea, Kit’s heart lifted. Johnny usually had the appetite of a horse: the sandwiches had to be a good sign.

  ‘She’s safe,’ Johnny said, as he clinked mugs with Kit. ‘Bailed like you said ‒ bloody engine failure. She was picked up in a ploughed field in Lincolnshire, freezing, but safe, thank Christ.’

  ‘Glad to hear it, chum,’ Kit replied, lighting a cigarette.

  Johnny bit into his sandwich, devoured it a blink, then started on the second.

  ‘Jen will have something to say to the ground crew who assembled that duff Halifax she was ferrying. Poor bastards, she’ll have the skin off their backs for a cock-up that could’ve cost her her life!’

  ‘Those ferry girls are amazing,’ Kit replied, as he took a drag of his cigarette. ‘Flying all over the country, delivering new stock to airbases – don’t know what the RAF would do without them.’

  Johnny grinned as he polished off his second sandwich. ‘I bet bailing into a ploughed field pissed Jen off. She hates anything dirty.’ He chuckled.

  ‘She’s alive and well. That’s all that matters,’ Kit answered.

  As Johnny sat down at his desk, he winked cheekily. ‘Maybe you’ll land yourself a pretty ferry girl when they start delivering planes here?’ he teased.

  Kit shrugged his shoulders as he stubbed out his cigarette. ‘Maybe.’

  He’d never been really interested in having a relationship. Not that he wasn’t interested in women ‒ there was nobody more appreciative of a lovely woman with a fine pair of legs than Kit Halliday ‒ it was the ability to commit that he lacked. His life had always been planes. His father, a pilot in the First World War, called his son a grease monkey because, even as a little boy, he was never happier than when he was taking an engine to bits. Kit had his first flying lesson when he was sixteen, which was when his love affair with planes began in earnest. He was already at Cranwell College training to be a pilot when war broke out. There, in the service hangars with the ground crew, he’d spend every spare moment fine-tuning the beautiful engines of the Rolls-Royce Merlin Spitfires. Apart from flying itself, there was nothing in the world Kit liked more than getting down and dirty, helping the ground crew to dismantle and reassemble damaged Spits, which he knew every working part of.

  There was precious little time left for ‘canoodling’, as the chaps called it, though Kit had met a rather gorgeous brunette WAAF at one of the Cranwell dance nights. He’d enjoyed the kissing and cuddling, but she’d quickly cooled off when Kit repeatedly chose to spend his free time in the service hangar rather than walking out with her. As he cleared the report sheets and order forms off his desk, Kit let out a heavy sigh. Women! They were a mystery to him.

  At Walsingham Hall, the below-stairs staff had swung effortlessly back into their work routine. Bella kept to her word and cooked alongside Ava and Maudie, but she begged that they changed the weekly menus.

  ‘Why? What does it matter,’ Ruby said impatiently. ‘Anyway, I really want to talk about something else.’

  ‘I know set menus help but, honest to God, if I have to live through another shepherd’s pie Monday, or a cheese-and-tomato flan Saturday, I think I’ll have hysterics!’ Bella groaned.

  Maudie nodded. ‘We could vary things, just to ring the changes.’

  ‘We’re still basically stuck with meals we can make from the rations,’ Ava cut in.

  ‘But variations on a theme might stop us from going nuts with boredom!’ Maudie chuckled.

  ‘Don’t forget the lovely seasonal produce Peter brings,’ Bella reminded them.

  Ruby smiled to herself; she knew she wouldn’t get a word in edgeways while Bella was on a roll, talking about menus!

  ‘But we never know what and when, so we can’t rely on it on a daily basis,’ Ava pointed out. ‘How can we plan something when we can’t be sure of having the ingredients?’

  ‘I’ve been thinking that we could create menus based on rationed food but then change them if something else turned up,’ Bella quickly replied.

  ‘Like what?’ Ruby questioned.

  ‘Well, we could carry on cooking normal stuff ‒ pies, pasties, flans, rissoles using mock-mince, cheese, root veg ‒ but if we had a windfall from Peter,’ Bella said with a wink, ‘we could use minced rabbit and hare, pheasant and partridge ‒ depending on the season, of course. It’s excellent meat and it’s free!’

  Ava smiled fondly at Bella. ‘There’s a war on, rationing is getting stricter by the day, and there you are, dreaming up treats for the new code girls, who would eat anything you put in front of them.’

  ‘Come on, dinner ladies!’ urged Maudie, as she reached for her notebook.

  ‘Oh, God, here we go again!’ chuckled Ruby.

  With her pencil poised, Maudie began to call out the days of the week. ‘Monday?’

  All eyes turned to Bella.

  ‘You started this, lady, so you’d better get the ball rolling,’ Ava joked.

  Bella didn’t hesitate for a second. ‘Curried-corned-beef meatballs – or curried-game meatballs.’

  Maudie continued. ‘Tuesday?’

  ‘Savoury pancakes filled with mock-mince –’ Bella paused and smiled at her friends. ‘Or hare, spiced with fresh thyme and sage and a dash of Lea and Perrins, wrapped in a big fluffy pancake ‒ gorgeous!’

  Relentlessly, Maudie pressed on. ‘Wednesday?’

  ‘Stuffed cabbage, or marrow later on in the season,’ Bella answered.

  ‘Stuffed with what?’ Ruby enquired.

  ‘Sausage meat, when we can get it, mixed with a bit of bacon, parsley, Worcester sauce, breadcrumbs and chopped onion. Some weeks we might have to be creative, but we’ll make sure it’s always tasty.’

  ‘Thursday?’ Maudie rattled on.

  ‘Meat-and-potato pie,’ Bella replied.

  Ava held up a hand. ‘It’s OK, we can all guess what the meat will be if you send Peter out with a shotgun!’

  ‘It could be a pigeon found dead on the roadside!’ Bella giggled. ‘Anything free has got to be good.’

  ‘Friday?’ Maudie interrupted.

  ‘Fish pie – if we land a local catch – or cheese and onion, if we don’t,’ Bella answered.

  ‘Let’s keep the weekend meals as they are,’ Ava suggested. ‘Cheese-and-tomato flan
, and everybody loves Sunday’s mock-roast followed by fruit pie and custard. So we’re done!’

  ‘Puddings!’ Maudie cried.

  ‘You’re the master confectioner.’ Ava laughed. ‘Get on with it!’

  Maudie frowned as she considered the possibilities.

  ‘Starting from Monday,’ she said, as she scribbled in her notepad, ‘custard tart with cinnamon and vanilla flavouring. Tuesday, spiced fruity swirls. Wednesday, sticky gingerbread slices. Thursday, jam roly-poly ‒ we introduced that last term and the trainees loved it.’ She stopped to look down at her notepad. ‘Where am I? Friday … ah, apple strudel.’

  ‘Depends on how many apples are left in the apple store in the cellar,’ Ava cut in.

  ‘Loads!’ Maudie retorted. ‘I’ve checked.’

  ‘Thank God,’ cried Ruby. ‘There’d be a riot if we dropped strudel from the menu, led by Raf and me. We love it!’

  ‘Saturday,’ Maudie ploughed on, ‘mock-chocolate mousse – and jelly and custard on Sunday. Done,’ she announced, dropping her pencil on to the table.

  ‘Teas?’ Ava asked.

  ‘They can stay as they are. I’m exhausted.’ Bella yawned.

  Ruby pulled herself up to her full height. ‘Have you quite finished?’ she asked, barely able to suppress her excitement.

  Ava half rose in her chair. ‘I was just thinking of making a brew.’

  ‘No, not yet!’ Ruby cried.

  All eyes turned to her, and she looked suddenly flushed and nervous.

  ‘We’ve booked the Catholic shrine for our wedding, and I want all of you to be my bridesmaids,’ she blurted out.

  The girls, as one, rushed to hug little Ruby, who disappeared from sight as they gathered her into their arms.

  ‘Let me come up for air,’ Ruby laughed, as she surfaced from their embrace.

  ‘What date did you fix?’ Ava asked.

  ‘The first day of spring ‒ 21 March,’ Ruby replied.

  Looking panicked, Ava exclaimed, ‘Bugger! We need to get organized, there’s the wedding breakfast, the venue –’

  She was interrupted by a loud yelp from Maudie. ‘The cake!’