April 1942
It was six o’clock on a Friday, at the tail end of a long week that had featured very little by way of good news, when Ruby’s phone began to ring.
“Picture Weekly, Ruby Sutton speaking.”
“Ruby. Dan Mazur here. How are you?”
The last time she’d seen her colleague from The American, at her farewell party, he’d been three sheets to the wind and about to usher one of the secretaries into a coat closet. She hadn’t spared more than a passing thought for him since.
“Very well, thank you. When did you arrive? I assume you’re calling from London.”
“Sure am. Got in a couple of days ago. Hell of a crossing. Don’t know why they wouldn’t cough up for a plane ticket. Anyway, I’m at some rinky-dink hotel on Cockspur Street, wherever the hell that is—”
“Near Piccadilly,” she told him. “Not a bad place to be. You’re around the corner from our embassy, and Whitehall is just down the road.”
“If you say so. Haven’t actually left the hotel yet. So, where was I? Oh—Mitchell said I should look you up. Said you might have some pointers for me on how they do business here. I know you’ve been stuck on the women’s pages and all, but—”
“Picture Weekly doesn’t have women’s pages, Dan. I work on the same stories as anyone else. Not to mention my column in The American.”
“I wouldn’t count on that. No room for filler during a war. Mitchell’s looking for hard news, not—”
“I’d hardly call reporting on the Blitz ‘filler,’ Dan.”
“All right, all right. Calm down. You know I didn’t mean anything by it. So what do you say? Do you want to meet up somewhere?”
“How about Monday evening?” she said after a pause. She’d had to unclench her teeth and remind herself that he was a colleague and it was only civil and courteous to help him. Not that he’d ever have done the same for her. She recalled, suddenly, how he’d once delighted in asking her to fetch him cups of coffee, even though the percolator had been within arm’s reach of his desk. “I can spare some time after work. There’s a Lyons Corner House not far from you, at the junction of Coventry and Rupert. I’ll meet you there at half-past six.”
“Sounds like a plan. See you then.”
She left work early on Monday, having explained her obligation to Kaz, and arrived exactly on time.
The teahouse was packed to the rafters, and from what Ruby could tell, the war hadn’t slowed down business one bit. It helped that restaurants were off ration, and since the set menu was a reasonable one-and-six, it was a popular destination for families and young couples alike. She’d been a few times, most recently with Vi, and was always impressed with the efficiency of the waitresses in their black-and-white uniforms and smart little caps. For some funny reason they were called Nippies, perhaps because they nipped from table to table so swiftly.
At twenty minutes to seven she made eye contact with a passing Nippy and ordered a cup of tea, a soft-boiled egg, and two slices of buttered toast. She had nearly finished her egg, the first one she’d eaten in weeks, by the time Dan made his appearance at a quarter past seven.
“Sorry I’m late,” he said, after shaking her hand and taking his seat across the table from her. “I got turned around. Guess they never got the hang of the grid system here.”
“I guess not. Although that’s often the case with cities as old as London.”
“Fair enough. So what do they have here? The food at the hotel is god-awful.” He opened his menu, read it swiftly, and turned it over. “Is this it?”
She glanced at her own menu; it was the same as his. “I’d say you’re spoiled for choice. It’s a set menu, so for one-and-six—that’s one and a half shillings, which is about thirty cents—you get a main, a dessert, and a cup of tea or coffee. You could try the vegetable hot pot, or there’s the sausages and mash if you want something a little more filling.”
He made a face and scanned the menu again. “I was hoping for a steak, or at least a couple of pork chops. I’m ready to chew off my own arm.”
“Well, meat is in short supply here, and has been for a while. You do realize this is an island, don’t you? An island that’s been under siege for two and a half years?”
“Ha, ha. Explains why everything looks so run-down. Fine, then.” He flagged down a passing Nippy and placed his order, though not before questioning her closely on the composition of the sausages.
“I’ve heard stories about the sausages over here. Full of sawdust and horsemeat.”
The Nippy’s bland expression crystallized into a rictus of extreme horror. “I assure you, sir, that our sausages contain nothing but the finest—”
“Please excuse him,” Ruby interjected. “He’s new in town. I’ll set him straight.”
“Very good, madam.”
“So,” Ruby said, turning her attention back to Dan. “You said you wanted my advice on how to get around.”
“It was Mitchell who suggested it,” he said, his expression reminiscent of a disgruntled adolescent. “Said you’d show me the ropes since you’ve been here awhile.”
“And I’m happy to do so. Let’s start with the basics. Do you have a press card yet? No? Then you’ll need to head over to the Ministry of Information and get that sorted.”
“Sounds straightforward enough.”
“You’ll also need an identity card and ration books for food and clothing,” she continued. “I’m not sure where the nearest police station is, but the staff at your hotel will know. Food in restaurants is off the ration, but if you decide on half or full board at your hotel, you’ll need to give them your ration book.”
“What do you do?” he asked. “Are you in a hotel?”
“Not anymore. I live with friends and we pool our rations. It’s cheaper than eating out all the time.”
Their Nippy delivered his supper, which looked and smelled wonderfully appetizing, and after poking at the sausages several times Dan overcame his initial doubts and began to eat heartily.
“In terms of clearance for your pieces,” Ruby plowed on, “you’ll have to talk it through with your information officer at the MOI. I have to admit I’m not sure what the process will be for approval.”
“I’ll need British government approval for pieces being published in an American magazine? You’ve got to be joking.”
“Dan, listen to me. I am not joking. None of us like having our work censored, but it’s a fact of life here—and I’ll bet a year’s pay that it’ll soon be a fact of life back home, too. My work goes through the MOI as a matter of course, so the pieces that end up in The American have already passed the censor here. Do not, under any circumstances, try to send anything back to New York without approval. That’s the fastest way to get your press card pulled—I guarantee it.”
“So I’m supposed to work with some government pencil pusher breathing down my neck?”
“There’s no point complaining. Just find out what your information officer expects and don’t try to do a workaround.”
“How do you stand it? All these controls over what you can write—over what you can eat, even.”
“I don’t have a choice,” she said. “So why bother whining? Now, if you don’t have any more questions I had better get home.”
“You’re going to leave me alone to eat my mystery-meat sausage? And drink this sludge they call coffee?”
“I am, but I’ll let you in on a little secret before I go. People here have been through a lot. For that matter, I’ve been through a lot—and I’m not complaining. I’m just stating a fact. In 1940 I lived through fifty-seven straight nights of bombing, just like most of the people sitting in this restaurant. I lost everything I owned when my lodgings were blitzed that December.
“But I’m getting on with it. I’m managing without coffee or chocolate or any one of a hundred little luxuries I used to accept as my due. And I am not going to whine about it, because there’s no point. It just wastes time and irritates people.” She stood, ready to summon a Nippy and pay her share of the bill. It was getting late, she was exhausted, and she would much rather be at home with Vanessa than sit with Dan Mazur for one more minute.
“Ruby, hold on. I’m sorry. I really am. It’s just . . . well, I’m a little nervous, that’s all. It’s my first time overseas, and I didn’t think it would be so different here, you know?”
Ruby sat down, took a deep breath, and reminded herself that she, too, had been nervous and uncertain when she had first arrived in England. “It is different,” she agreed, “but those are surface things like accents and unfamiliar words and warm beer. The important stuff is the same. The questions you’ll ask are the same. ‘How are you doing?’ ‘What do you think?’ ‘How does this work?’ It’s really pretty simple, when you boil it down.”
“I guess you’re right. You know, Ruby—and don’t take this the wrong way—but I was surprised as hell when they sent you here. You’d hardly written a thing for the magazine, and you looked like you’d faint if anyone said boo to you. I couldn’t figure out why Mitchell chose you.”
“Thanks a lot.”
“Let me finish,” he said, holding up his hands defensively. “That’s what I thought then. But I’ve been reading your pieces as they come in, and they’re good. They’re really good. And, well, I’m glad Mitchell sent you. Even if it’s only because that means I know one person in London now.”
“You do, and you’ll make more friends in no time. Just try to keep a lid on the complaints, at least until you know people better.”
By the time she got home, her irritation had faded. She sat in the kitchen with Vanessa and told her everything, and only then did it occur to her that she might have inadvertently stepped on just as many toes upon her arrival in England.
“I do hope I wasn’t that annoying.”
“I doubt it,” Vanessa said calmly, “otherwise Bennett or Kaz would have set you straight.”
“And Mary,” Ruby said, smiling at the memory of her friend’s inability to suffer fools gladly. “For that matter, can you imagine if she’d been there tonight?”
“Nothing less than a bloodbath, I expect.”
“I don’t doubt it. Oh, Vanessa—if you could have seen the look on that poor Nippy’s face when Dan accused the restaurant of serving sausages made of horsemeat and sawdust. She didn’t know what to do, poor girl.”
“For my part I’d have thumped him, and been sacked for my troubles. Oh, well—you set him straight, and in far nicer a way than anyone else would have done. Good for you.”
Dispatches from London
by Miss Ruby Sutton
April 14, 1942
. . . People here don’t complain, and it’s something worth remembering as America gets used to life during a war. They may whinge, which is their term for letting off steam, but they don’t whine. They just get on with it, which means darning their socks until they’re more darn than sock, and drinking their tea without sugar or milk most days, and some days without much tea at all . . .
THE NEXT MORNING dawned bright and fair. The sun was shining, it was warm enough for her to go without a coat for the first time that year, and best of all, she’d been successful in her quest for new stockings. Vi had rung up to say that Selfridges had new stock of both cotton lisle and rayon stockings, and even though Tuesdays were the busiest day of the week at PW Ruby hadn’t hesitated: she’d been waiting when the department store’s doors had opened that morning at eight o’clock, and had managed to buy three pairs—enough to get her through the summer and even the autumn if she was careful with them.
With that one critical errand finished, she had left the store and walked north along Baker Street. It would be faster to take the Underground from Oxford Circus, but she didn’t feel like shutting herself away from the sun just yet.
It was the first time she’d been in this part of London. There wasn’t anything particularly notable about Baker Street itself, which was a long and boring run of office buildings, blocks of flats, and shop fronts. Some of the buildings were so new and modern, in fact, that they reminded her a little of Manhattan.
She couldn’t say, later, what had caught her attention about the man crossing the street ahead of her. He was dressed in uniform, like so many other men she’d passed already, but there was something familiar about the way he held himself. It couldn’t be—but it was, for when he turned his head fleetingly to check for traffic, she recognized his profile. Bennett.
She was so surprised that she stopped short, hardly even noticing when a man walking behind bumped into her and, cursing under his breath, brushed past her roughly. Still she stood frozen, her heart racing. He was much too far away for her to catch his attention or even hear her if she called out his name, so she hurried after him, hastening her pace until she was all but running.
Before she could catch up, though, he vanished inside a nondescript building. If she hadn’t seen him go in, she’d have walked right past, for there was nothing remarkable about it at all. Nothing, apart from the small plaque by its door. INTER-SERVICES RESEARCH BUREAU, it read. Just as he had once told her.
She stood on the sidewalk for several minutes, trying and failing to think of a single decent excuse to follow him inside. It was an awfully vague name, even for a government department, and nothing she saw about the building, or the people who came and went as she stood there, looked the slightest bit suspicious or even interesting.
Rather than continue to hover outside, which was not only pointless but also a bit pathetic, she continued north to the Underground station at the top of the street and headed off to work. All that day she kept herself busy as they rushed to get the issue out the door and off to the compositors, not letting herself dwell on the questions that clamored for her attention.
Bennett didn’t call that afternoon, nor that evening—he didn’t even ring up Kaz, which she’d assumed he always did when he was in town. What was he doing in London, when she and all his friends had been led to believe he was somewhere else? And what sort of work was he doing at the Inter-Services Research Bureau? Was he a minor cog in an obscure, bureaucracy-driven ministry? Or was there something more to the bureau than the carefully dull facade of its offices might suggest?
The next morning she finally took a moment to chase down her suspicions. Her first call was to a contact at the Ministry of Labor. “I was wondering if you might put me in touch with someone at the Inter-Services Research Bureau,” Ruby explained. “We’re thinking of doing a story on the ways that different ministries and departments are reducing waste by working together.”
“Ah. Yes. May I take your details and ring you back presently?”
A few hours later her telephone rang, but instead of the woman from the Ministry of Labor, it was the same information officer from the MOI who handled most of her stories. The man was as slippery as an eel, but he’d been reasonably helpful the few times she’d needed to deal with him directly.
“Miss Sutton? Robert Tuttle here. You were asking about the ISRB?”
“Yes. Can you connect me with anyone there?”
“Unfortunately I can’t. The ISRB is actually part of a scientific ministry whose workings are classified. You know how it is.”
“I guess so.”
“What was the story you were working on? I may be able to help you.”
“Oh. It was, ah . . . I was hoping to speak to someone about efforts to avoid duplication of efforts between government ministries. How you’re freeing up manpower and resources for the war effort by coordinating your efforts. That sort of thing.”
“I see—it sounds like a very interesting story. Well, here’s what I can tell you off the top of my head . . .”
TWO WEEKS LATER, Ruby was waiting for a press conference to start at Macmillan Hall in Senate House, which was the headquarters for the Ministry of Information’s press operations in London. She was early, for the press conference on Churchill’s visit to Washington and his meetings there with the president wasn’t due to begin for another twenty minutes. That left her with enough time to scribble down a few questions and read through the memos she’d picked up on her way in.
She was vaguely aware when the chairs behind her were taken up by a pair of men, one American, one English, but as she recognized neither of their voices, she didn’t bother to turn around and greet them.
“D’you think it was the crew from Baker Street who got Heydrich?” the American whispered.
“No way of knowing,” came an equally furtive reply. “I’m certainly not about to ask.”
“Can you imagine?” said the first man, who had a vague sort of transatlantic lilt to his accent. Either he’d lived in England for a while, or was affecting it to better fit in. “‘May I ask if anyone from the Inter-Services Research Bureau was involved in the planning and commission of Reinhard Heydrich’s assassination?’ Heads would roll for sure.”
Ruby couldn’t believe what she was hearing. Surely they were mistaken.
“I heard a new cover name the other day. Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries,” said the Englishman.
“That one’s new to me, too. There’s the Inter-Services Research Bureau, the Inter-Services Signals Unit, the Joint Technical Board, the Ministry of Economic Warfare . . .”
“Have you ever been inside?”
“Their HQ on Baker Street? Not for all the tea in China,” said the American. “Have you seen some of the types who come and go from there? Give me the chills.”
“I’m with you there. You know, I did hear from one fellow—he works at arm’s length from them, but knows just enough to get himself in real trouble, if you know what I mean. He told me they’re sent out with nothing more than a cyanide tablet to do themselves in, and a garrote to take care of anyone who gets in their way.”
She couldn’t breathe. What they were saying . . . it all made sense now. Horrible, terrible sense.
“Thank God we have them on our side.”
“I suppose. Still, it—oh, right. Better leave off for now. You never know who might be listening.”
Ruby didn’t take any notes during the press conference, nor did she ask any questions. For the rest of the day, and the night that followed, she could think of nothing else. Nothing but trying to assemble the puzzle pieces of what she’d heard. Assuming what the men behind her had said was true, and further assuming that Bennett was actually a part of it, what was she to do?
Nothing. As dawn came, as a new day began, she had her answer. And she’d known it all along. If she were to keep asking questions, keep burrowing away in an effort to exhume the truth, she would endanger Bennett. She might even cause a terrible breach in security.
It wasn’t a question of doing her job or exposing the truth or even getting her hands on a great story. None of that mattered, not set against Bennett’s safety and that of his colleagues. The truth would come out one day, but when it did, the story would be told by other writers. And that was a price she was more than willing to pay.