Wartime with the Cornish Girls

by Betty Walker

  ‘Hey, who are those boys?’ Eva whispered to Hazel, nudging her with a sharp elbow. ‘Nice suits.’

  Hazel peered round at their audience, and her eyes widened. ‘Trainees,’ she whispered back.

  ‘What kind of trainees?’

  ‘Right clever ones. They work in the underground rooms. Listening to all them secret messages that come in along the undersea cables, I daresay.’

  ‘How exciting.’

  But Hazel clapped a hand over her own mouth, clearly aghast. ‘Oh Lord, I shouldn’t have said that. Me and my runaway tongue. You know what they’re always saying, careless talk costs lives.’

  ‘I won’t tell anyone,’ Eva said soothingly.

  ‘Yes, but I had to sign the Official Secrets Act on my first day. I … I could probably be imprisoned just for telling you that.’ Hazel turned pale. ‘Or shot, maybe. Do they shoot people for talking out of turn?’ She bit her lip. ‘I’ve got a son. Charlie. He’s only fifteen. He needs his mother.’

  ‘And he’s not going to lose you over a few words spoken out of turn.’ Eva used her most reassuring voice, leading her further along the corridor. But Hazel did not seem reassured, tears welling in her eyes. ‘Listen, I don’t think anyone’s going to shoot you. Or clap you in irons either, so please don’t look so pasty-faced. There are no Germans here.’

  ‘Is that you, Eva?’

  ‘Oh, blimey.’

  She turned guiltily, recognising the deep, booming voice that had echoed down the corridor. Until he found her something more useful to do, her father had told her strictly not to loiter about the main house, but to spend most of her time in her quarters, reading improving books or sketching in the small hardback book he had provided for her artistic endeavours. Almost as though, as she had said at the time, she was back in finishing school.

  But who could stick to such a monastic routine? Certainly not her …

  ‘I’d better go,’ she told Hazel hurriedly, adding, ‘But let’s get together later and talk about organising a local dance. It’ll be a blast, I promise.’

  She strode past the gaggle of young men, who were now standing straighter and carefully averting their eyes, and navigated her way past the guards to stop at the bottom of the stairs.

  ‘Yes, Daddy?’

  ‘Ah, Eva, good.’ Her father gazed down at her from the floor above, a pipe in his hand, a cloud of thick smoke about his head. To her relief, he was smiling. Not on the warpath as she’d feared, then. ‘I thought I could hear your dulcet tones. If you’ve done with your chit-chat, come up here a minute, would you? I need to talk to you.’

  She ran lightly up the stairs, and hugged him. ‘Good morning, Daddy.’ She coughed as his pipe smoke wafted about her. ‘Goodness, that reeks!’

  ‘I’ll open a window. Your mother could never stand the smell of my pipe either.’ He patted her cheek affectionately. ‘Come into my office, my dear.’

  His ‘office’ was a converted sitting room with high ceilings, its faded grandeur quite appealing after the stark décor of her bedroom in the officers’ quarters. There was a tarnished gilt mirror over the mantel, a vast potted plant that gave the room the air of a jungle, and several sofas and armchairs dotted about. The floor-length curtains were only partially open, so the room was both dimly lit and steamy as hell, not least because the old-fashioned ceiling fan was stationary.

  She did not sit down but explored the room restlessly, only stopping to study a row of framed photographs on the wall, all very stiff and starchy-looking men with grey hair and bushy beards, presumably previous occupants of the house.

  There was a large metal radiator near her foot. She could hear a faint tapping from the metal, as though it was cooling. Why would they be running the heating in summer? The weather was damp, for sure. But it was not cold.

  Her father opened one of the windows a few inches, barely enough to let the smoke escape, and then sat down behind a large mahogany desk near the fireplace.

  ‘Now,’ he said briskly, not wasting any further time on pleasantries, ‘you can’t spend your time here wandering about like a schoolgirl, with nothing to do but chat to my staff and generally get underfoot.’

  ‘Now, that’s not fair.’ Eva put a hand on the radiator. It was cold. But she could still hear a repetitive tapping from the metal. ‘I’ve only just arrived.’

  ‘Nonetheless, my dear, I do feel I should put you to work in some capacity. I apologise, I know your sainted mother would turn in her grave if she could hear those words, but … There is a war on, after all, and unmarried young ladies are expected to pull their weight.’ He tapped his smouldering pipe out into a huge glass ashtray. ‘Only problem is, I haven’t the faintest idea what you can do.’

  ‘Well, I can’t cook for toffee. So the kitchens are right out.’

  ‘You’ve some nursing skills.’

  ‘True, but no empathy.’

  ‘I’ve never met a nurse with empathy yet.’

  ‘I can’t stand the sight of blood,’ she lied, not wanting to spend the rest of the war cooped up at a nurse’s station, bandaging the wounded or cleaning out bedpans. ‘And as for diseases … No, thank you.’

  He frowned, looking at her suspiciously. ‘Cleaning, then.’

  ‘Daddy!’

  ‘Well, for goodness’ sake …’ He shook his head, sounding exasperated. ‘What did that finishing school teach you, apart from how to avoid hard work?’

  ‘I can speak several languages, including German,’ Eva pointed out meekly.

  ‘We all speak English here.’

  ‘Not in your intercepted messages from the enemy.’

  The room went quiet.

  ‘That’s men’s work,’ her father said in the end, and shook his head. ‘And there’s a lot more to that job than eins, zwei, drei.’

  ‘You mean, like cracking codes?’

  ‘Exactly.’

  ‘Spelling out a message in Morse code?’

  ‘Ah now, there you’ve got me. It’s a damn shame, but these boys, they haven’t learned Morse code, and we don’t have the personnel on hand to teach them. People stopped using it, you see. Now it’s come back because of the war, and it’s a full-time job manning the machines and writing down the messages that come through.’

  ‘Dah-dah dah-dah-dah di-dah-dit di-di-dit dit,’ she said dreamily.

  ‘I beg your pardon?’

  ‘Dah-di-dah-dit dah-dah-dah dah-di-dit dit.’

  ‘Eva?’

  ‘M.O.R.S.E,’ she said, spelling out the letters she had just heard being tapped out through the metal radiator beside her. ‘C.O.D.E.’ She turned to her father, grinning. ‘Sounds like somebody’s using your heating system to teach Morse code!’

  Her father stared at her blankly. ‘Good God.’ Then he slammed a hand down on his desk, so hard that his pipe jumped out of the ashtray. ‘What a fool I am. I taught you Morse when you were a little girl. You used to send me messages through the wall with it at home.’ He laughed heartily. ‘SOS, and so on. And where’s me dinner?’

  ‘I haven’t forgotten.’

  ‘Well, there’s a turn-up.’ He got up and strode across the room. Flinging the door open, he bellowed down the landing, ‘Templeton? In here a minute!’

  A moment later, a man strolled through the door who had Eva’s instant attention. Somewhere around thirty, by her guess, he was tall and athletic-looking. Attractive, too. Clean-shaven but with dark sideburns that lent his face a hard-edged air, and cheekbones that would not have looked out of place on the cover of a fashion magazine. Despite her father’s urgent summons, he showed no sign of hurrying, but walked with his hands stuck in his trouser pockets, his shirt slightly dishevelled under his tweed jacket. He was more Oxford don than daring flyboy, it had to be admitted. But she liked intelligent men.

  ‘Colonel Ryder?’ he said coolly.

  ‘Templeton, this is my daughter, Eva. Come down from London to stay with me.’ Her father looked on with satisfaction as they shook hands. ‘Eva, this i
s Professor Templeton. He used to teach mathematics at Cambridge but I’m glad to say he’s been seconded to our unit for the duration of the war. Excellent fellow, very good with the men.’

  So, she hadn’t been too far off with her assessment of him, Eva thought, and covertly looked the professor up and down. In a just world, he would be far too sexy for a dusty old Cambridge don, of course. But there was no arguing with those leather patches on his elbows. Or the tortoiseshell spectacles he wore with debonair aplomb.

  Teaching mathematics at university and now seconded to a listening post? She suspected he must be a code specialist, but said nothing. That kind of information was definitely need-to-know-only, and she’d promised her father she would try to be more discreet at Porthcurno.

  ‘My daughter heard your message through the radiator,’ the colonel said proudly.

  ‘My message?’ Professor Templeton repeated, turning to look at her in surprise.

  ‘Morse code,’ her father explained, and tapped the start of the message out again on his desk. ‘Dah-dah dah-dah-dah, and all that. Taught her myself when she was a child. What do you say to that, Templeton?’

  The professor, who had been looking Eva up and down in his turn, raised one eyebrow in admiration.

  ‘I say it sounds marvellous, Colonel. I was using the radiator to demonstrate Morse code to some new trainees.’ He smiled at her. ‘But it seems you don’t need lessons, Miss Ryder.’

  ‘I could probably do with a quick brush-up on basics,’ she admitted.

  ‘How astonishing.’

  ‘Because I’m a woman?’ she asked, a little tartly.

  ‘Because so few people know the code these days, actually,’ he told her, and again she read amusement in the lift of one eyebrow. ‘I’m not that much of a dinosaur.’

  Her father cleared his throat, glancing from one to the other. ‘I thought she could help out around here, Templeton. An extra pair of hands. Or ears, in this case. What do you think? Could you put her to use in the training school? I’ll be frank, you’d be doing me a favour.’

  ‘It would be my pleasure, sir,’ Templeton said, and clasped his hands behind his back, a faint smile on his face as he gazed directly back at her.

  ‘Will you be free later to show her around?’

  Templeton turned to look at him. ‘The underground area too, sir?’

  ‘Good God, man, she can hardly help you out if she can’t accompany you into the tunnels.’ Her father took a manila folder out of his desk drawer. ‘You’ll have to sign these papers, Eva.’ He removed several sheets and passed them across the desk to her. ‘Official Secrets Act. Not allowed to work here without that.’

  ‘Of course.’

  Her father nodded at the professor. ‘That will be all, Templeton. I’ll send my daughter through to the training room when she’s done here.’

  ‘Very good, sir.’

  Once the professor had wandered out again, closing the door behind him, Eva took an ink pen from the desk and sat down to read through the Official Secrets Act she had to sign. Though it was hard to concentrate. Her heart was beating fast and she felt light-headed, her cheeks suddenly warm. The professor was nothing compared to Max, of course. But she couldn’t help being drawn to his warm smile, and there was no harm in looking.

  She only hoped her father wouldn’t notice her response to meeting Templeton. He had an annoying way of interfering in her affairs.

  ‘Excellent, excellent.’ Her father gave her a brusque, approving nod. ‘Well, that’s taken a weight off my mind. It seems you do have a useful skill, after all.’

  ‘Yes,’ she said, and signed her name with a bold flourish. So she was to be permitted entrance to the underground rooms, along with those young men in suits. Not to mention the dashing Professor Templeton in his tortoiseshell spectacles. This was better than lounging about in her room all day with some improving tome. She only hoped her rusty Morse code would be up to the job. ‘Rather exciting, isn’t it?’

  ‘That’s one way of looking at it.’ He frowned, flicking open a dossier on his desk and picking up his pipe again. ‘No funny business though. Understood?’

  ‘Funny business?’

  ‘No getting giddy over all these trainee chaps.’

  ‘Oh, Daddy!’ Eva handed him back the signed documents, shaking her head in mock hurt. ‘I do wish you would learn to trust me.’

  ‘Hmm’ was his dry reply.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  Violet stretched up to unlock the feed store, and groaned at the pain in her back and thighs. She’d told her aunt on arriving that she wasn’t afraid of hard work. But the sheer number of jobs that needed to be done about the farm, and the long hours they involved, had changed her mind.

  Her heart had begun to sink whenever her uncle sent her on an errand, as more recently these had included chopping logs, digging holes for fence poles and then sinking them – one of the most physically exhausting tasks she had ever been given – and she had even been sent clambering up onto the old stable roof to check its state of repair. Now every muscle in her body was aching, and she never wanted to see another hammer or axe again. Except she would, and possibly even later that day.

  This morning’s task was pleasant enough, though. Feeding the chickens, scattering seed and grains across the dirty backyard where they pecked merrily at her feet, clucking and hopping about.

  ‘Isn’t that Lily’s job?’ she’d asked her aunt on being instructed to add chicken feeding to her list for today.

  ‘She’s helping your uncle in the barn this morning.’

  Violet had looked round at her, surprised. ‘In the barn? Why’s that, then?’

  ‘Never you mind,’ her aunt had snapped, tea towel in hand as she dried the breakfast dishes Alice had just finished washing. ‘Moving hay bales, I daresay. Just get on, would you? Standing about gossiping and poking your nose in where it isn’t wanted … This isn’t a holiday camp, you know.’

  Cleaning out the sink, Alice had rolled her eyes at this aggressive response, and then shot Violet a warning look when she opened her mouth to reply.

  They had all agreed not to antagonise Aunt Margaret this week, not after the huge fracas caused by Violet allowing That Woman to enter her kitchen.

  Remembering her promise, Violet didn’t press the point, but nodded and went about her chores without further questions.

  ‘Yes, Aunt.’

  Apparently, Hazel Baxter was despised by Aunty Margaret and Uncle Stanley for having ‘a drunkard and a liar’ as a husband, an unpleasant man who’d once had the temerity to speak rudely to Margaret at a local fete, and had ever since been considered their enemy. The husband had left Cornwall now for the front, but the feud still continued in his absence, with Hazel one of a long list of locals thoroughly loathed by the ageing couple.

  ‘There you go, chickens,’ she said, nudging one persistent little pecker away with her foot. ‘Yes, cluck, cluck, cluck. That’s enough for now.’

  That poor woman, she thought, putting the chicken feed back in the wooden store near the barn. Her husband’s bad behaviour was hardly her fault. But Aunt Margaret had refused to listen to reason, as usual, describing her scathingly as ‘no better than she ought to be,’ whatever that was supposed to mean.

  Hazel had seemed a perfectly nice woman, Violet thought, if a little frazzled and uncommunicative. Though that was understandable, given her accident, the heavy rain and her lateness for work, any one of which would be enough to upset anyone. Besides which, she had helpfully suggested there might be an opening available at the Porthcurno listening post, if any of them wanted alternative employment.

  But how could any of them leave?

  Violet imagined her aunt’s fury if she chose to work elsewhere than at the farm, and knew it to be impossible. She could fantasise about giving up her chores on the farm. But that was all it would ever be. A silly daydream. Her aunt and uncle would turn them all out on the street if she dared take a job at what Uncle Stanley had called ‘
the listening post’ the other night, not realising she could hear their whispered conversation, and she had the girls’ welfare to consider. She might just be able to support herself, but Alice and Lily too?

  She was about to return to her chores in the house when a muffled cry made her turn in sudden consternation.

  What on earth …?

  ‘Hello?’ she called out, looking about the farmyard and adjacent buildings. ‘Is … Is someone hurt?’

  But now there was only silence, apart from the busy clucking of chickens.

  Had she imagined it?

  Almost ready to give up, she heard the cry again, a kind of stifled, wordless scream. This time she was sure it had come from inside the barn.

  Running towards the closed double doors, Violet dragged them open, staring inside. She couldn’t see anything but stacked bales of hay at one end, the sunny air spinning with dust motes and pieces of hay.

  ‘Lily? Is that you? What’s wrong?’ She stumbled inside, peering desperately about. ‘Please answer me, sweetheart.’

  There was a strange scuffling sound, then one of the stacked hay bales tumbled to the floor, revealing a red-faced Lily kneeling up in the straw, her dress half off one shoulder, her long fair hair dishevelled.

  Violet stopped dead, shocked. ‘Lily?’

  ‘Oh, Aunty Violet …’ Lily’s voice broke, her eyes full of tears. ‘Please don’t be cross … It wasn’t my fault. I … I tried to stop him.’

  ‘Stop who?’

  Then another hay bale fell away, and there was Uncle Stanley, also red-faced and puffing, hurriedly snapping his braces back into place.

  Violet felt sick. ‘Uncle Stanley? Wh-what have you done?’ Though she did not need him to answer that; it was obvious what had been going on. Horribly obvious. She could barely speak, suddenly light-headed and breathless with disgust. ‘And to Lily … She’s only a child, for God’s sake!’

  ‘Get out of my barn,’ he thundered at Violet. ‘Nosy bloody crow! What business is this of yours, eh? She bain’t no child, she be a grown woman, near enough.’

  ‘I’m so s-sorry, Aunty Violet. I didn’t know what he were up to till it were too late.’ Lily wept, head down, hair hiding her face. The girl was clearly ashamed, as though she were to blame for this. Which she absolutely wasn’t. ‘I told him no. Only he wouldn’t stop …’