The Code Girls

by Daisy Styles

  ‘Still four minutes between them,’ she said, as she checked her wristwatch.

  ‘They’ve been going on for hours, but they’re not speeding up like the midwife told me they would,’ Ruby fretted, as Maudie wiped her brow with a cool flannel.

  Before the next contraction, Ava and Maudie snatched a minute in private.

  ‘I’ve no idea how to deliver a baby,’ Ava panicked.

  ‘Me neither,’ Maudie whispered. ‘But we mustn’t let on we’re out of our depth. Ruby’s frightened enough as it is.’

  By three o’clock in the afternoon, Ruby was in screaming agony, and both of her friends were at their wits’ end.

  Neither of them had noticed, through the long, hard hours of Ruby’s labour, that a soft rain had started to fall, turning the snow that had piled up over the weeks into a grey slush. The sound of a horse’s hooves clip-clopping outside made them both jump. Peering over the garden hedge, Ava saw Tom riding towards Angel Cottage on Drummer Boy.

  ‘I don’t think I’ve ever been so pleased to see you!’ she cried, and virtually jumped over the hedge to run to him.

  ‘Thank God! Oh, Tom! Thank God you’re here.’

  Tom leapt off Drummer and hugged her. ‘I set off as soon as I heard the news from Lady Caroline,’ he said. ‘I knew I’d never get the Land Rover down the snowy lanes, so I came across country on horseback.’ He smiled as he patted Drummer. ‘Vets always travelled on horseback in the old days, so I thought I’d give it a go!’

  Ava quickly withdrew from his embrace. ‘Hurry!’ she urged, as she helped Tom unfasten his medical bag, which he’d secured to Drummer’s saddle.

  ‘How is she?’ he asked, tying Drummer’s reins to a nearby fence.

  ‘Bad,’ a frightened Ava answered.

  After examining Ruby, a grim-faced Tom took Ava and Maudie aside. ‘The good news is she’s well dilated. She’ll probably want to push soon. The bad news is the baby’s in the breech position.’

  Ava and Maudie covered their mouths to smother their anxious cries.

  ‘I’ve delivered breech calves and foals, but never a baby!’ Tom admitted.

  ‘Can you do it?’ Ava asked.

  ‘I’ll just have to do my best,’ he replied, with a small smile.

  Tom washed and sterilized his hands before returning to his patient.

  ‘You’re doing brilliantly,’ he assured the nervous mother-to-be, who clearly felt calmer now that Tom was in charge.

  ‘Will it take long?’ she asked.

  Tom smiled, and said, ‘You’re well dilated, you’ll probably feel the urge to push soon.’

  Tom was right: Ruby very soon wanted to push. Though she was weary, she used every ounce of strength she had trying to push her baby into the world.

  After an agonizing twenty minutes, just as they were all beginning to lose heart, Tom cried out, ‘I can see it! Keep going, Ruby! One more big push and I think you’ll have your baby,’ he said, and as she pushed, with infinite care he turned the baby before easing it out.

  When Ruby and Raf’s baby lay mewling between Ruby’s outspread legs, Tom neatly snipped the umbilical cord and announced joyfully, ‘It’s a girl!’

  Delirious with relief, Maudie and Ava burst into tears. Tom removed mucus from the baby girl’s lips and tapped her bottom to make her cry. The newborn’s cry stirred Ruby, and Ava and Maudie settled her against the pillows.

  ‘Say hello to your daughter,’ Ava whispered, as Tom handed the child, now wrapped in a sheet and warm blanket, to Ruby.

  ‘Raf’s beautiful little girl,’ Maudie said, as a radiant Ruby pressed her lips to her daughter’s soft, warm cheek.

  ‘Welcome to the world, my darling Rose,’ murmured Ruby, as tears of sadness and joy rolled down her cheeks.

  ‘Rose is a beautiful name,’ Maudie said approvingly.

  Ruby looked at Maudie, then at Ava, before adding with loving smile, ‘Her full name is Rose Ava Maud Bella Boskow. She’s named after all the people I love most in the world.’

  As tears flowed once more, Tom chuckled. ‘I think we need to put the kettle on!’ he said.

  As Ava brewed the tea in Ruby’s small kitchen, she heard, above the sound of the steadily falling rain the shrill sound of a siren. Alarmed, Ava threw open the front door and there, standing before her, was Lady Caroline in her ambulance driver’s uniform.

  ‘I got here as soon as I could. It’s taken a good part of the afternoon, what with all the melting snow and torrential rain,’ she said robustly, as she stepped inside the house, followed by Bella, whose face was strained with anxiety.

  ‘How’s Ruby?’ she asked.

  Ava smiled as she gave her anxious friend a reassuring hug. ‘She’s fine. Worn out, but fine.’

  Bella gave her a questioning look.

  ‘A little girl!’ Ava cried. ‘Rose Ava Maud Bella Boskow!’

  Bella clapped her hands in delight. ‘It’s probably the longest name in history, but it’s beautiful!’

  ‘She’s beautiful, too,’ Ava raved. ‘Come and see for yourself.’

  Lady Caroline wasted no time in getting mother and baby on to a hospital stretcher, then into her ambulance. Maudie stayed with Ruby and Rose, while Bella joined her mother in the cab. Before an exhausted Tom rode back home cross-country, Ava gave him a passionate kiss.

  ‘You’re my hero,’ she laughed.

  Lady Caroline briskly beeped the ambulance horn and waved impatiently out of the open window.

  ‘Come along, Ava. All aboard!’

  As Tom and Drummer set off at a brisk trot, Ava leapt into the back of the ambulance. Lady Caroline released the handbrake, then drove in the dark through the winding country lanes, now swimming in melted snow.

  ‘Let’s get mother and baby to hospital right away,’ she said to Bella, who gazed at her mother with a new respect. She had never been more proud of Lady Caroline in her entire life!

  37. New Life

  Ruby and Rose spent a week in Wells Cottage Hospital, where both mother and baby were thoroughly examined and declared well and healthy by the obstetrician. Experienced midwives helped Ruby with breastfeeding. It was difficult to start with, as Rose had little appetite, and Ruby’s nipples became painfully cracked. Everybody wanted to see Rose, who had her father’s pale blue eyes and silver hair.

  ‘It’s like Raf’s come back to me,’ Ruby sighed, staring in rapture at her sleeping baby. ‘I can’t thank you enough for helping me give birth,’ she told her friends when they visited her.

  ‘You’ve thanked us enough by naming your baby after all of us!’ Ava murmured, as she stroked Rose’s soft downy hair.

  ‘I wanted to put Tom’s name in there, too,’ Ruby admitted

  ‘I think that would be taking things a bit too far!’ Tom chuckled.

  As a cold March set in, the girls heard on the radio of the first major daylight bombing raid on Berlin by the Allies, then, a few days later, another radio announcement told of the RAF’s drop of three thousand tons of bombs during an air raid on Hamburg.

  ‘Wow!’ Maudie exclaimed. ‘We’re bombing the Germans hard these days.’

  ‘Not before time,’ Ruby said fiercely, as she hugged her baby close.

  ‘We must have bombed Hamburg off the map,’ Bella commented.

  ‘No more than they tried bombing London off the map during the Blitz,’ Ava reminded her.

  Once Ruby got her strength back, the Silver Cross pram was put to good use: she walked the three miles to Walsingham Hall most days. If Rose was sleeping, she left her in the hall’s back garden in the sunshine; if she was awake, she brought her below stairs, where everybody took it in turns to hold her.

  Upstairs, Bella’s code girls, halfway through their six-month course, were doing well. They were now familiar with creating cyphers and breaking codes but were being stretched even further by the rote learning of Morse code.

  ‘You’ve got to get your speed up to twenty words a minute,’ Bella told her boggle-eyed students.r />
  ‘I’m working so hard I actually dream in Morse code,’ one of the girls joked. ‘I can hear the da-da-dip-dips in my sleep!’

  ‘Good, that’s the way it should be.’ Bella laughed. ‘The quicker the better, not just for the sake of getting the message across but also because the quicker you are, the less time you give the person on the other end to track your location.’ Smiling at her suddenly serious students, Bella added, ‘So work on your speed, girls. Keep dreaming those da-dad-dip-dips ‒ you won’t regret it!’

  It was round about this time that Bella began to feel unwell. Usually the picture of good health and with an abundance of energy, Bella felt like she could hardly drag herself out of bed in the mornings.

  ‘I think I’m coming down with flu,’ she told Maudie, as she got dressed one morning, then, weak with exhaustion, fell back on to her bed.

  ‘You should rest today,’ Maudie advised.

  ‘But what about the trainees?’ Bella wailed.

  ‘You can set them some work,’ Maudie said firmly.

  Bella stayed in bed for several days, weak and bored at one and the same time. She was thrilled when Ruby appeared one afternoon with baby Rose in her arms.

  ‘We’ve come to cheer you up,’ Ruby announced, and handed Rose over to Bella.

  ‘I hope I’ve not got anything contagious,’ Bella said, rocking the wide-eyed baby, who, day by day, looked more and more like her handsome father.

  ‘I’ll pop downstairs and make us a cuppa while the baby’s quiet,’ Ruby said, and got to her feet.

  ‘Urgh! No tea for me,’ Bella responded with a loud groan.

  Ruby immediately sat back down on the bed. ‘Say that again,’ she said quietly.

  ‘No tea for me, it turns my stomach.’

  Ruby gave her a quizzical look. ‘Maudie told me you were feeling sick?’

  Bella nodded.

  ‘Are your nipples sore and tender?’

  Bella gave an experimental tweak. ‘Ow! Yes,’ she answered.

  ‘Have you missed a period?’

  Bella’s eyes shot wide open.

  ‘Have you?’ Ruby asked again.

  Bella tried to recall the number of weeks since her last period. ‘I got in a muddle with my dates round about the time Rose was born,’ she admitted.

  ‘That was nearly a month ago,’ Ruby said, and held Bella’s gaze.

  ‘Then I have missed a period,’ Bella finally answered.

  Ruby smiled, then burst out laughing. ‘You’re not ill, you silly sod. You’re pregnant!’

  Bella shook her head. ‘I can’t be!’ she protested. ‘We only had a night together.’

  ‘That’s all it takes,’ Ruby giggled.

  Though it was months now since Lucas had been put down, Ava desperately missed the beautiful golden-chestnut horse who she’d spent so many happy days with. She missed riding out with Tom, too.

  ‘Why don’t I borrow a horse for you, then we could go riding again?’ he suggested.

  Ava shook her head.

  ‘Is it because you don’t want to ride another horse?’ Tom asked sensitively.

  ‘Not entirely,’ Ava answered honestly. ‘What with Bella teaching and Ruby busy with Rose, it really wouldn’t be fair to leave poor Maudie running the show while I go galloping across Holkham beach.’

  ‘Fair enough, darling, but please can we spend a little time together soon?’ Tom implored.

  Later that week, when Maudie suggested that Ava took a couple of hours off, Ava shook her head. ‘No, Maudie, it’s just not fair.’

  ‘Please don’t feel guilty,’ Maudie begged. ‘If you take time off this week, maybe I can take a few hours off next week.’

  Thinking this was a much fairer arrangement, Ava smiled. ‘OK, it’s a deal,’ she conceded.

  Tom picked her up on a lovely spring afternoon, and they drove along the narrow country lanes flanked by cherry trees, which were decked in fragrant pink-and-white blossom. Ava smiled, visibly relaxing.

  ‘Oh, Tom, it’s so good to get out into the fresh air.’

  Birds whistled in the leafy treetops and, as they drove through the shallow waters of an unbridged ford, Ava laughed like an excited child as water flew up and splashed the car window.

  ‘This is fun!’ she giggled.

  Enjoying the day, Ava didn’t give a thought as to where they were going. She would have been perfectly happy to sit beside Tom and drive the length and breadth of Norfolk, so when Tom pulled over on to a farm track Ava was surprised.

  ‘Where are we going?’ she asked.

  ‘Just got to drop off some antibiotics for a sick calf,’ Tom explained, as they bounced their way over the rutted track that led to a traditional red-brick and flint Norfolk farmhouse surrounded by trim, green paddocks.

  When Tom stopped the car, Ava stayed in her seat. ‘I’ll wait here for you,’ she said, dreamily gazing into the bright blue sky.

  Tom opened the passenger door and held out his hand. ‘Come with me, darling. I want to show you something.’

  Thinking they were going to see the sick calf, Ava was curious when Tom led her to one of the paddocks, where a stunning silver Arab mare was peacefully grazing.

  ‘Hi, Hepzibah!’ he called.

  When the horse heard his familiar voice she raised her pretty head, then, with easy grace, she trotted towards the fence, where she nuzzled Tom’s outstretched palm.

  ‘She’s beautiful,’ sighed Ava, as she swept a hand along Hepzibah’s fine, long neck, then tickled her small, pricked, silver ears. ‘How old is she?’

  ‘I delivered her three years ago, and broke her in, too. She’s got a lovely nature, she’s warm and trusting, and she rides like a dream,’ he said, as he fed Hepzibah a carrot.

  ‘Maybe the farmer will let me ride her out one day,’ Ava said longingly.

  Tom turned to her with a twinkle in his eye. ‘You don’t need to ask the farmer for his permission, Ava – Hepzibah is yours!’

  Stunned, Ava gazed at Tom for several seconds before she finally blurted out, ‘But I’ve always been the girl who rides other people’s horses!’

  Tom laughed as he pulled her into his arms. ‘Not any more, my darling,’ he whispered in her ear. ‘I thought it was about time the local vet’s future wife had a good mount of her own.’ Before Ava could say a word, he smothered her lovely mouth in a deep kiss. ‘Marry me, Ava Downham?’

  ‘Tom! Tom!’ she cried, as she struggled free of his embrace. ‘Are you serious?’

  ‘Absolutely!’ he replied. ‘My divorce came through last week.’

  ‘Why didn’t you tell me?’ she asked.

  ‘Because I wanted Hepzibah to witness my proposal!’ he joked. ‘Well – will you or won’t you?’

  Ava flung her arms around Tom’s neck. ‘Yes! Yes! Yes!’

  Radiant, an ecstatic Ava trotted back to Walsingham Hall on Hepzibah, leaving Tom to drive on ahead. Throughout the whole journey home, she had a smile on her face and stars in her eyes. Two wonderful things had occurred in the space of five minutes. At last, she had her very own horse, and a silver Arab at that! And she had gorgeous Tom Benson for the rest of her life! Things just couldn’t get any better; all her dreams had come true in one glorious afternoon.

  They met back up at the paddock, and after Tom had left, Ava, bursting with happiness, hurried into the kitchen. But when she saw Maudie chatting to Ruby, who was sitting in one of the old Windsor chairs cuddling Rose, her heart sank. How could she even think of announcing her engagement when she knew Maudie was worried sick about Kit?

  ‘Had a good time?’ Maudie asked, as Ava walked in and lit up a Woodbine.

  ‘Fine,’ Ava answered blankly.

  Knowing her too well, Ruby wagged a finger at Ava. ‘What’re you not telling us?’ she asked in a teasing voice.

  Ava blew out a cloud of smoke before she replied. ‘Tom’s just given me a horse! A beautiful Arab mare.’

  Ruby and Maudie gazed at her in delight.

  ‘So
why aren’t you running round the kitchen screaming with joy?’ Ruby persisted.

  Ava sighed. She knew that tenacious Ruby wouldn’t stop questioning her until she got to the truth. ‘There’s something else …’ she said awkwardly. ‘Tom proposed.’

  Holding Rose, Ruby jumped up and ran to embrace Ava whose happy smile had returned. ‘Congratulations!’ she exclaimed.

  Ava turned anxiously to Maudie, who hugged her, before saying, ‘Were you trying to avoid telling us your good news?’

  Ava nodded, and said, ‘I know how worried you are about Kit, it felt like I was just rubbing salt in the wound.’

  Maudie looked levelly at her dear friend and, as their blue and green eyes locked, Maudie spoke honestly. ‘Some time soon, please God, my day will come, but until it does, I don’t begrudge any of you your happiness.’ Kissing Ava, she added, ‘I hope you and Tom have a long and happy life together.’

  ‘Amen to that!’ cried Ruby.

  38. The Baltic Connection

  During his time working on the Mermaid fishing vessel, Kit had cautiously chosen his time to send several radio messages home. He was more than aware that his messages could be intercepted and the Mermaid’s position located, thus putting Captain Claus Helsberg at risk, and his undercover operations, too. Back at Walsingham Hall, the radio operators in the sewing room were equally cautious about returning messages to Kit but, between them, over several months, they’d had several exchanges, and it was in one of these messages that Kit had learnt the shocking news of Raf’s tragic death. Devastated, Kit had gone up on deck, where he smoked several Capstans in rapid succession.

  ‘God!’ he’d murmured sadly, as he recalled Raf’s eager, smiling face. Anger clawed at Kit’s guts as he thought of Edward Walsingham and what he’d done. ‘If I ever lay eyes on the bastard again,’ Kit vowed, as he threw a cigarette stub into the dark sea below, ‘I swear I’ll tear him apart.’

  During their time together Captain Helsberg and Kit had become both friends and allies. They developed a pleasant nightly habit of having schnapps together as they chatted through the events of the day. Helsberg had a great admiration for Squadron Leader Halliday, who had proved his worth as an undercover agent. So far, he’d not put a foot wrong, which is why Helsberg had been in secret negotiations about Kit’s next posting. As the captain topped up their glasses one night, he said almost casually, ‘Allied intelligence have reported that the Germans have ordered the production of “heavy water” at the hydro-plant in Norway.’