Not long after they had gone, they came crashing back through the front door. An Army lorry had ditched at the bottom of Shaft Hill on the Lowarth to Woodcote Road.
Bess and one of the land girls dashed off on foot, while Claire’s father and Mr Porter, who was Foxden’s estate manager before the war, followed on a tractor. Claire and Ena cleared the tables while their mother boiled water to make tea and Mrs Hartley began buttering bread for sandwiches.
The soldiers arrived as Mrs Hartley and Claire’s mother were laying the table with chicken and ham sandwiches, fruitcake and Christmas puddings. Ena and Claire brought in pots of tea, cups and saucers, and giggled when the soldiers flirted with them.
While the soldiers ate their meal the children sang a selection of Christmas carols, recited poems and nursery rhymes, and danced jigs. The entertainment ended with everyone on their feet singing “Give A Little Whistle”, followed by “Hands, Knees and Boomps-a-Daisy”. The soldiers, clapping their hands when they should have been slapping their knees, made the children laugh. Coincidentally they conquered the moves at exactly the same time and everyone cheered. Then, after taking theatrical bows, all but one of the soldiers returned to their seats.
The sergeant stood at the top of the table and looked around the room until there was hush. ‘On behalf of myself and the lads, I would like to thank you all. It’s been a long time since any of us have sat down with friends to eat. And, because we’re going overseas in the New Year, it may be a long time until we do it again. I think I speak for every soldier here when I say we will never forget what you did for us today. The next time we sit down with friends, wherever it is and whenever it is, we will remember today and every one of you.’ He looked at his fellow soldiers. ‘Look sharp, lads, it’s time we were on our way.’
The soldiers pushed back their chairs and stood to attention. As they made their way to the door they shook the hands of the children nearest to them and saluted those who were too far away. At the door they turned as one and saluted Bess and the women of the land army, who were gathered around the piano.
‘Time we made a move too,’ Claire’s father said when the soldiers had gone.
The Dudley family – except Bess, who lived at Foxden Hall – said goodbye and put on their coats. The walk home was pleasant. Claire and Ena, arm in arm, followed their parents along the lane leaving their footprints in the newly laid snow.
The following morning Claire was packing when Bess arrived. ‘Knock, knock,’ she said, opening the bedroom door. ‘I’ve come to take you to the station.’ Claire spun round in surprise. ‘What time’s your train?’
‘Twelve o’clock, I think. The man in the Enquiries Office couldn’t say for sure, with it being Boxing Day. He said they were expecting troop trains, so at least the trains are running.’
‘Good.’ Bess looked at her watch. ‘We’ve got plenty of time then.’
‘But I’ve booked Mr Crane’s taxi to take me to the station.’
‘I telephoned from the Hall and cancelled it. I think he was pleased not to have to turn out in this weather. Besides, I want to pay you back for helping yesterday. One good turn deserves another. And I want to take you. We can have a chin-wag on the way and you can tell me all about this trainer chap you’re sweet on. I’ll take your case down, shall I?’ Bess left the room without waiting for a reply.
Ena must have told Bess about Mitch. What made her think she was sweet on him, Claire wondered? By the time Claire arrived downstairs Bess had stowed her suitcase in the boot of Lady Foxden’s Rover and Ena and her parents were waiting by the front door. ‘Your coat,’ her father said, taking it from the hook in the hall and helping Claire into it. ‘Let me take your bag for you. Goodness, it’s heavy,’ he said. ‘What have you got in here, Lady Foxden’s jewels?’
‘Only books, I’m afraid.’
‘You’re as bad as our Bess with your books.’ He put Claire’s satchel on the back seat of the car. ‘Come home and see us soon, love,’ her father said, opening the passenger door.
‘I will.’ Putting her arms round her father, Claire held him tightly and kissed his cheek. Then she kissed her mother, promising to write soon, and hugged her younger sister. ‘Keep up the “sensitive” work,’ she whispered. ‘I’m proud of you, our Ena.’
‘Be careful,’ Ena said.
Claire winked. ‘I always am,’ she said, dropping onto the passenger seat. Bess put the car into gear and drove into the lane. Claire waved out of the window until they turned onto the main Lowarth road.
It started to snow as they pulled up at the entrance to Rugby Station. Taking her bag from the car, Claire said, ‘There’s no need for you to come up to the platform with me. You get back while the snow isn’t too heavy. I can manage both bags.’ She put out her hand to take her suitcase, which Bess had fetched from the boot.
‘It’s no trouble.’ Looking up, Bess said, ‘The snow won’t get heavier – there’s too much blue sky. Besides, I want to wave you off.’ She headed off along the tunnel leading to the platforms. ‘Come on.’
‘Bess – hang on, will you?’
‘What is it?’
‘I might as well tell you. You’ll know anyway, when I buy my ticket.’
‘Tell me what?’
‘I’m not going back to Coltishall. I’m going to London.’
‘London? Why?’
‘I can’t say. It’s a bit hush-hush.’
‘Is it to do with the RAF Task Force, or whatever it’s called, in France? Is that why you’ve learnt French?’
‘Not exactly. The Advanced Strike Force has disbanded, changed--’
‘What then? Claire, you’re worrying me. What have you got yourself into?’
‘I haven’t got myself into anything. Why do you always-- Sorry.’ She thought carefully about how much she could tell Bess without causing her to worry even more. Worse still, go home and tell her father. ‘I told Dad I was going to work as a translator, which is true. The thing is, translating is only a small part of the job.’
Frown lines appeared on Bess’s forehead. ‘What does the bigger part of the job entail?’
‘If I tell you, you must give me your word that you won’t tell anyone.’
Bess thought for a long minute. ‘You have my word.’
‘It’s top secret. I shouldn’t be talking about it, but if I’m not able to write home for a while, and Mam and Dad start fretting, I was hoping you’d cover for me if you understood how important the job is. Well?’
‘Of course I will.’
Claire bit her bottom lip. She shouldn’t be telling her sister, but she’d said too much now to go back. ‘Some people to do with the government came up to Coltishall and interviewed me because I speak French.’
‘So you are going to France?’
‘No! I don’t know. I’ve been asked to go for an interview.’
‘In London?’
‘Yes. And if they like me, if they think I’d be suitable, I’m in with a chance. But there’s a rigorous training programme to get through first, and endless intelligence tests, which I probably won’t pass. But,’ Claire said, ‘if I get through it all and they ask me to go to France, I will.’ Bess smiled, but Claire could see worry in her sister’s eyes. She put her hand on Bess’s arm. ‘You do understand, don’t you?’
‘If you’ve thought it through, and you’re aware of the dangers of the job… You are, aren’t you?’ Claire took a deep breath and nodded. ‘Then I understand.’
‘Thank you,’ Claire whispered.
‘So come on then,’ Bess said, ‘you don’t want miss your train, do you?’
‘I didn’t want to lie to Dad,’ Claire said, as they reached the platform. ‘He knows I’m going to be translating German military conversations. I just didn’t tell him it might be in France. You won’t tell him, will you?’
‘Good God, no! He’s worried enough about Tom going back to France and Margaret living in London. I don’t intend to add to his worries. It doesn’t s
top me from worrying though.’
‘But there’s no need.’ Claire threw her arms around her sister. ‘If I go – and it’s a big if – I shall only be observing and reporting back, so there’s nothing to worry about. Anyway, I haven’t got the job yet. I might not pass the tests.’
The train came into the station billowing steam. ‘Well, this is it! I mean, for the time being,’ Bess said, moving to the edge of the platform.
‘Yes, for the time being.’ Claire put down her case, took her handkerchief from her pocket and wiped her eyes. ‘I’ll write to you from London.’
‘The train will leave without you if you don’t get on. Here,’ Bess opened the door and Claire threw her case in. ‘Whatever happens, you’ll let me know?’
‘I will,’ she shouted, boarding. The platform attendant blew his whistle and Claire waved goodbye to her oldest sister.
Suitcase in one hand and bag in the other, Claire struggled past dozens of servicemen standing in the crowded corridor smoking. She looked in each compartment. Every seat was taken, so in a fog of cigarette smoke she dropped her suitcase and sat on it. Looking over the ledge of the window, she gazed out. The snow-covered fields of Warwickshire, and then Northamptonshire, disappeared from view as quickly as they appeared. The rhythm of the train was comforting and Claire closed her eyes.
‘Excuse me?’ Claire sat up with a start when someone tapped her on the shoulder. ‘Would you like my seat?’ a middle-aged man in a smart suit asked.
Stumbling to her feet, Claire looked around to get her bearings. ‘If you’re sure?’ she said, by which time the man was hauling her suitcase onto the overhead rack of the nearest compartment.
‘I need to stretch my legs. Besides, I shall be leaving the train soon,’ he said, picking up his briefcase.
Grateful to the man, Claire wriggled down in the seat, put her head on the backrest and closed her eyes. She woke when she was tapped on the shoulder again, this time by a porter at Euston.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Pushing though crowds of people clamouring to board the train that she had just left, Claire inched her way along the platform. She sighed, overwhelmed by the size of Euston Station and the number of people. She passed a couple of girls talking loudly about their sweethearts going off to their regiments. One of them burst into tears and her friend tried to console her: ‘He promised to come back and marry you, Maisie. Don’t cry now. Upsetting yourself like this isn’t good for the baby.’ Maisie looked at her friend, her eyes wide with incredulity, and howled. Claire looked briefly at the girl’s stomach. If he’s coming back to marry her before the child’s born, he’d better only be going away for the weekend, she thought.
A train came in and Claire was almost knocked over by women of all ages running across the platform. She turned to see servicemen waving out of the windows and doors. There were more tears, this time of joy. On a platform further along, girls were dancing round excitedly as another train came in. Claire turned away and, weaving this way and that, finally left the platform.
The concourse was no less crowded. In a sea of Navy, Air Force blue and Army brown, it looked as if half the armed forces were coming to, or leaving, London. Claire looked around and spotted the sign for the Underground. Moving against the tide, she pushed her way across the concourse. She suddenly felt very lonely and wondered when she would next see Eddie. They had been together since the first day at Morecambe. If Eddie had passed her French oral exam the SOE might have recruited her. She would have loved to have told Eddie about the SOE; her father too. She had never kept anything from her dad before. None of the Dudley sisters did. He was easy to talk to. He understood things, where her mother often didn’t. She wanted to tell him that all her hard work had paid off, make him proud of her, but she couldn’t. Claire bit her bottom lip. She shouldn’t have told Bess, but she knew that while Bess wouldn’t tell anyone, she would say the right things to put their parents’ minds at rest if she wasn’t able to write home. Claire smiled. Bess had always been there for her and her sisters. Always thinking and caring about other people. Claire wished her older sister could find someone to care for her, love her. If anyone deserved to be loved, Bess did. But she couldn’t think about Bess now, or anyone else. Leaning against the wall near the escalator, Claire took the Underground map from her pocket. Reminding herself that she needed to change at Leicester Square for Baker Street, she returned the map and stepped onto the moving stairs.
After travelling south through four stations, Claire left the train and followed the signs for the Bakerloo line. She jumped on the first train to arrive at the platform, checking first that it had Hammersmith on the front. The first stop was Piccadilly Circus, the second Baker Street.
Alighting at Baker Street, Claire felt the nerves on the top of her stomach flapping like a thousand butterflies. She quickly found number 64. It was an imposing five-storey building with rows of windows, one above the other. She focused her mind on the business in hand and, head held high, walked to the door. Lifting the brass knocker, she rapped twice.
The door was opened by a tall slim woman with dark hair that was loosely waved at the front with a small neat bun in the neck. She fingered her spectacles, which were attached to a gold chain around her neck. ‘Miss Dudley?’ Claire nodded. ‘The colonel is expecting you. If you’d like to follow me?’
Colonel Smith’s office was on the fourth floor at the end of a long corridor. The woman – his secretary, Claire thought – opened the door without knocking. ‘Miss Dudley is here, sir,’ she said, and stood back to let Claire pass.
The room was big and square – and cold. It wasn’t as smartly decorated as Claire had imagined it would be. Nor was it furnished adequately for someone of a colonel’s rank.
‘Sit down, Miss Dudley.’
‘Thank you, sir.’ Claire put her suitcase down by the door, walked across bare floorboards to the colonel’s desk, and sat in the only other chair in the room.
‘I hope you’re not cold. We moved into the building in October,’ he said. ‘You’d think the basics would have been sorted out by now.’ He was clearly annoyed that they hadn’t been.
Claire had noticed how cold it was as soon as she entered the room, but said, ‘I’m fine, sir.’
‘Good.’ The colonel looked down briefly at a sheet of paper on his desk, lifted his head and smiled. He seemed different, more relaxed than when she had met him at Coltishall. ‘Tell me about yourself, Miss Dudley – about your childhood, your family, where you were born and brought up.’
‘My father served with the Royal Mounted Engineers in the last war,’ Claire began. ‘His regiment built bridges, on horseback. He had five horses killed under him. The last was in 1918, three months before the end of the war. A bullet went through his knee and into his horse’s heart. The horse was killed and Dad was invalided out.’ The colonel said nothing, so Claire carried on. ‘Dad was a wonderful horseman. When his leg healed he got a job as a groom on a country estate called Foxden. I was born there, in an estate worker’s cottage.’
‘Tell me where you went to school,’ the colonel said.
‘I went to Woodcote Infant and Junior School in the village down the road from the estate until I was eleven. I passed the Eleven Plus, but my parents couldn’t afford to buy the grammar school uniform, so I went to the Central School in Lowarth. That’s the nearest town to Foxden.’
‘Was it at the Central School that you learned to speak foreign languages?’
A smile threatened. ‘No, sir. The Central School only taught English. I learned Polish from a pilot who escaped from Poland and crashed in France. He and his comrades were brought to England by officers of the RAF Advanced Air Strike Force. They had to crash land too, and brought the plane down in a field on the Foxden estate.’
‘I can see why that would make you want to join the AASF, but how did you know the Polish pilot?’
‘Foxden is a couple of miles from two Commonwealth aerodromes, Bitteswell and Bruntingthorpe.’ The
colonel nodded as if he knew both places. ‘Franek – that’s the name of the pilot who taught me Polish – was billeted with us while they built living quarters at Bitteswell. I taught him English and he taught me Polish – and some German.’
‘And French?’
‘I didn’t start learning French until I joined the WAAF and went to RAF Morecambe. When I was proficient in the language, I was sent to stay with a French family in the North East, before going to RAF Coltishall and taking my oral examination.’
The colonel nodded again and picked up Claire’s file. ‘Except for joining the WAAF, your life could have been lived in France.’ Claire tilted her head and looked at the colonel enquiringly. ‘All you need to do is change the name of the country estate, village, town and school, and you have a ready-made French history. We find if operatives base their French covers on their own experiences it’s easier to remember. Then, if you are interrogated, it will ring true. But that’s for another day.’ Colonel Smith stood up and walked to the door. Claire followed. ‘Miss Halliday, my personal assistant, will take you to your apartment. If there is anything you need she will be happy to help you.’ The colonel opened the door, proffered his hand and, leaning forward, looked into Claire’s eyes. ‘China Blue.’
‘Pardon?’
‘Your code name is China Blue.’
‘Thank you, sir.’ Claire shook his hand, picked up her case, and left with Miss Halliday.
Dusk fell and the wind blowing across Portman Square whipped the last of the winter leaves from the trees. Claire closed the blackout curtains and switched on the light. She sat on the settee and cast her eyes over the small neatly furnished sitting room. She had never lived on her own before and found the silence disconcerting. At home, in the cottage on the Foxden estate, she’d had her parents, brother and sisters – until last year when her second oldest sister Margaret married Bill and went to live in Coventry with his parents, before following him to London. Her younger sister Ena had been in service as a nanny but came back when war was declared and her older brother Tom, who she and her sisters looked up to, joined the Army. And when she joined the WAAF, and was stationed at Morecambe, she shared a room with Eddie; in Coltishall too. Now, for the first time in her life, she was living on her own.
China Blue (The Dudley Sisters Saga Book 3) Page 7