Marjorie had watched him go, and now sat waiting for him to come back. The day she had dreaded more than any other had finally dawned, the day Billy was old enough to volunteer, and no sooner it seemed had the candles been blown out on the birthday cake specially baked by Mrs Alderman than Billy had been off, as fast as he could bicycle, to the nearest recruitment centre. Marjorie had long ago given up trying to persuade him to wait until his call-up papers came. Her assurances that they inevitably would arrive, fell on deaf ears.
‘I don’t wanna be called up, Marge!’ Billy would protest by way of reply. ‘That looks like you’re not willing! But I am, see? I’m dead willing – and I’m not going to hang about waiting. Some blokes I heard of, they don’t ever get their papers.’
‘Probably because they’re on some sort of fiddle. A lot of people buy their way out of getting conscripted, you know.’
‘Yeah, I’ll bet, Marge. But I’m not going to sit and wait for my papers. I’m going to make sure I get in the army – and the way I’m going to do that is blooming well go and blooming well volunteer.’
So off he had gone that morning, waved farewell by Marjorie and Kate after an extra early breakfast, since Billy faced a fifteen-mile ride to the nearest town with an enlistment centre and was determined to be first in the queue.
Kate had given Marjorie the warmest of hugs before they went their separate ways, knowing exactly how she felt, remembering only too well the day her own brother had gone off and enlisted and how heavy her heart had been that morning. But as so many thousands of women all over the country were finding out, mothers, sisters, wives and sweethearts, when their man was determined on fighting for his country, there was nothing that could be said to stop them. And like every other woman who felt the terrible pain of separation Kate had known the secret pride that went with it as well, that someone they loved obviously loved them back so much that he was willing to risk paying the final price for that love.
Marjorie had not yet reached that emotional point. All she could think of was Billy as she had first known him, a tiny, half-starved little boy in the terrible school where they both had been abandoned, a child who would hardly speak he was so deeply unhappy and so deeply hurt, who would have been a lost soul by now if Marjorie had not befriended him as if he was her brother, and if her wonderful Aunt Hester had not surprised them both quite utterly by adopting Billy into her little household.
They had grown up together, although Marjorie, being so much the older of the two, had always been the responsible one, the one who once Aunt Hester had been killed looked after Billy’s welfare and tried to make sure he was going to grow up in the right way. Privately she thought there was no need for him to fight. She felt sure the war was about to turn in the Allies’ favour, as most people did, and with America providing most of the troops there no longer seemed the terrible need for volunteer soldiers that there had been when Britain stood alone. No one would think less of Billy for not volunteering, she had argued, only for Kate to tell her gently that one person would, that was the person who mattered most – Billy.
And so she had sat at the window of the cottage as Billy cycled fast and furiously out of her sight. She had gone to work that morning feeling more miserable than she had for an age, hardly able to concentrate on anything that was put in front of her. Anthony tried to comfort her, but she was in her way inconsolable, for nothing could convince her otherwise than that the moment Billy put on a uniform he would be killed. That was what would happen. That was the way of war.
By lunchtime she expected him back, as promised, both of them having worked out how long the ride would take him, approximately how long the interview and subsequent medical would last, and finally how long the ride back, both of them concluding that if everything went well Billy would be back in time for a canteen lunch. But at half past one, nearly an hour after the predicted time, there was still no sign of Billy, and Marjorie was beginning to become concerned. Everyone in the know assured her that if anything had happened to him, she would have been informed, but Marjorie dismissed such notions as fallacious, reminding everyone there was a war on, and that the Germans had recently resumed their heavy bombing of key British towns and cities, one of which was being visited by her adopted brother that very day.
The afternoon seemed to drag by, with each second lasting a minute and each hour worth a day. When it was finally time to go home, Marjorie ran all the way to the cottage, half expecting the ever-cheerful Billy to fling open the door and behave as if nothing had happened, other than the usual half a dozen scrapes he had got into on his travels.
But there was no Billy, nor was there any news.
Then at nearly half past eight Marjorie heard something and leaped to her feet. Alone, with Kate away visiting Poppy in the house in the woods, at first she feared for her life, so loud and sudden was the noise, before she recognised it as the sound of a bicycle crashing to the ground. A moment later the door burst open and Billy fell in, trying to clutch at the doorpost to stop his fall, but failing to do so and tripping heavily to the floor.
Marjorie was by his side in a second, convinced that he had been the victim of some terrible accident, only to be greeted with an overpowering smell of drink.
‘Billy?’ she said in deep bewilderment. ‘Billy – Billy, have you been drinking?’
The young man on the floor did his best to look round, trying to focus the bleariest pair of eyes Marjorie had seen in a very long time, before collapsing at her feet once again.
‘Oh, Billy,’ Marjorie sighed tetchily. ‘You’re drunk.’
‘Yes,’ Billy muttered, face down. ‘I know. Sorry, sis. Sorry.’
‘But why, Billy? Why are you drunk? No – not just drunk – why are you so drunk?’
Billy lay still as a corpse for a moment then turned his head again to try to focus on Marjorie.
‘’Cos they wouldn’t ruddy well have me, sis,’ he muttered thickly. ‘I failed the ruddy medical.’
Marjorie couldn’t help but feel intense relief. Billy wouldn’t be joining up after all, which meant that all they both had to do now was survive the war raging overhead. And since Eden Park was a long way from any likely targets their chances of survival were fairly high.
It was young Billy’s chest apparently that was at fault, something to do with an irregular heartbeat, much to Billy’s disgust and dismay. Everything else about him had been absolutely A1, he told Marjorie the next morning when, sobered up but suffering from his first hangover ever, he recounted the events of the day before.
‘Mind you,’ he said, ‘I had to get me skates on, sis. We’d miscalculated how long it was going to take me by bike—’
‘You’d miscalculated, you mean. You’re the one who knows how fast you can ride your bike.’
‘Yeah – well, we didn’t take no account of the hills, did we?’
‘Any account of the hills, if you don’t mind, Billy – and you, not we,’ Marjorie corrected him as ever.
‘Point is it took a sight longer than I thought so I had to cycle like I never cycled before – and the last bit was all hill. About a one in five I reckon, and that’s not funny when you’re pushin’ on. So anyway, I get there OK – and I’m pretty much at the top of the line, and everything’s in perfect working order according to the MO. Fine physical specimen’s what he called me, till he checked the old ticker one more time, saying there was something he thought he’d heard but wasn’t too sure about.’
Marjorie nodded attentively, spreading a thin layer of margarine on a curling piece of stale toast and wondering whether the extra effort required by all the pedalling uphill might have exacerbated whatever condition it was the inspecting doctor thought Billy might have.
‘You got – I don’t know the exact words he used, Marge,’ Billy continued. ‘Sounded as if it had something to do with rhythm or something. Anyway, he said I got this heartbeat that in’t altogether regular. It sort of misses a beat now and then, and he said though it won’t kill me – least he didn’t think it would – he said he couldn’t pass me fit for active service as all the training and route marches and all that might well do me some harm.’
‘So that’s that, is it?’ Marjorie wondered, trying to look as disappointed as her adopted brother. ‘No second goes or anything like that?’
‘Nah.’ Billy shook his head and pulled a cross face. ‘All goes down on your record, don’t it? Dicky ticker – NGFA. No good for active service. A bloke afterwards said if I was still keen I could always apply for a desk job, or join the NAAFI or something, but that’s not what I want to do. I don’t want to sit behind no desk or serve in no canteen when I could be out doing something useful.’
‘These things are useful in war, Billy. Someone has to do them.’
‘Not me, Marge. Over my d.b.’
‘So what are you going to do then?’
‘I’ll think of something. Don’t you worry.’
With a look of sudden determination Billy then removed himself to go and try to walk off his hangover in the park. Marjorie watched him go from the door of the cottage. He was a young man now and whatever he chose to do next there was little she could do to stop him. Even so, the fact that he had failed his medical made her jump on her own bike and speed off to the main house whistling as merrily as any errand boy.
It was Anthony Folkestone who came to Billy’s rescue. With the amount of work on his desk he possibly would never have given the young man’s quandary a second thought had it not been for Marjorie, to whom Anthony found himself more and more attracted. Knowing that she had her superior’s total support, Marjorie now felt confident enough occasionally to discuss domestic or private matters whenever there was a slight lull in their office proceedings, which was how she came to tell Anthony of Billy’s disappointment. At first Anthony considered the possibility of getting him re-examined in case there had been an error on the part of the doctor, but since Marjorie much preferred the notion of Billy’s not being a member of the armed forces she did not encourage that suggestion, telling Anthony instead that a second disappointment following another failed medical could really break Billy’s heart.
‘Poor Billy,’ he said, although he was finding it difficult to concentrate on Billy’s difficulties because Marjorie was looking so pretty. The lace of her blouse showed off the small brooch he had given her at Christmas, and the line of her neck was emphasised by the fact that she had put up her hair, while the few stray curls which had fallen out made his heart turn a small somersault.
‘He’s so cut up you wouldn’t believe it, Anthony. As cut up as all sorts of other lads all over the country will be to receive their call-up papers and be passed fit. But that’s Billy all over.’
Anthony’s concentration reverted to the matter in hand.
‘Billy’s such a bright spark, he would be wasted in a normal wartime occupation. I mean – can you imagine Billy turning out rissoles in a NAAFI canteen? He would be getting the chef to try some new recipe or trying out some new way of increasing the heat, or how to make the hens lay faster or more furiously, or working out how to feed five hundred men in five minutes rather than twenty. It doesn’t bear thinking of. No, I know that Billy has to find something he can be good at, and useful. Something where he could make the best use of his inventions, and all the rest of his nonsense.’
‘I love the idea of Billy in a NAAFI canteen.’ Anthony smiled, but as he did so he was also looking thoughtful. Billy was a cracker, a one off, one of those bright sparks that the Colonel always liked to collar and make his own. He looked across at Marjorie. The only trouble was, he reckoned that if Marjorie knew which way he was thinking of using young Billy’s gifts it might well spell the end to romance.
Jack had his initial meeting with Harvey Constable out of sight of anyone, instructing Harvey to make his way up to a small suite of rooms in the attics that were reserved for the Colonel’s use only.
It was the first time since he had known Jack that Harvey saw him visibly disconcerted. Jack pretended he was in a bad mood because the stem of his favourite Dunhill pipe had broken, and being unable to get it repaired anywhere locally he was having to make do with keeping the pipe held together by a band of thick medical adhesive wound around the offending part.
‘Damned war,’ Jack growled, trying yet again without success to keep his pipe alight. ‘Can’t get any decent tobacco and now a chap can’t even get his best pipe repaired.’
‘Could you possibly smoke another pipe out of your vast collection, sir?’ Harvey wondered as idly as he could. ‘After all, every time I see you you’re wearing a different one.’
‘I don’t happen to have another pipe with me, chum,’ Jack replied, flashing Harvey one of his darkest looks. ‘You imagine I’d be putting up with this for a smoke if I did?’
Harvey had guessed of course at what was really disconcerting his friend. The same matter that was occupying his own mind: the loss of all those good agents, and the sabotaging of all the fine and brave work they had been doing. No one liked the thought of dealing with double agents in the field, but what was even worse was the thought of one at work within, as Jack put it. Harvey also knew that the wild-goose chase on which he had been sent by way of the false file had embarrassed the colonel, who did not appreciate being made a fool of.
But Jack Ward was not one to waste time or energy on self-blame, nor on too much self-analysis. Jack Ward, although known never to rush into anything, did on the other hand like to get on with the job, preferring to dispense with formalities and small talk so that problems could be readily faced and hopefully soon surmounted.
‘We know now it has to be someone inside,’ he said, once the subject had been broached. ‘No one else would have been able to pass off such a good personal file from before the war. I swear to God even the dust was regulation Ministry dust, and the whole damn thing was so authentic anyone would have been fooled by it. I shouldn’t have, but I was, dammit, and so a lot of valuable time was wasted.’
‘Mmm,’ Harvey said with a tight smile. ‘And now we’re licking our wounds, are we?’
‘You know me better than that, Constable.’
‘I hope we’re still on the god-daughter’s parents’ Christmas card list.’
Jack eyed him while putting another match to his recalcitrant pipe, deciding not to dignify Harvey’s needling with any reply.
‘Got a plan of action yet, chum?’ he wondered instead, gently fanning the match to extinction. ‘You’re going to have to get cracking, you know. If we’re going to have any agents left.’
‘Need to know what I’m going to be first, sir,’ Harvey replied. ‘This is obviously not a uniform job. So what’s the plot and which character am I?’
‘Decommissioned,’ Jack replied. ‘You’ve got a visible wound – at least, a visible list – so temporarily DC and doing a bit of office work to keep the mind active.’
‘When I get to interview level?’
‘In camera, and strictly confidential. No relating chapter and verse afterwards. You’ll be covered by the OS Act anyway, so you’ll be able to work that phase in complete confidence. So what’s your starting point?’
‘I’m going through everyone’s file first, naturally,’ Harvey replied, carefully examining his fingernails. ‘Not that I expect to find the bastard that way – I doubt very much if that sort of information leaps off the page at one. But what I might find is some interconnection somewhere, or some lapse, some interruption in someone’s daily round and trivial task. Then I shall do what I like to think of as a house to house.’
‘Going to take some time, interviewing all and sundry.’
‘Has to be done. And I’m a fast worker. Always been known for it, know what I mean?’
‘We have to consider the possibility that it might not be someone within,’ Jack said, carefully and slowly as always in his beautifully modulated voice. ‘That is to say not actually here in the Park. It could be someone in another branch of the firm, but somehow I doubt it because so many of the disastrous missions were ordered up from here.’
‘And it’s much more likely too, old man, that it’s someone behind a desk rather than in the field. As we know, agents don’t have much access to HC info – they know who’s who often enough, and who’s meant to be doing what – although even that is pretty well classified – but not the really confidential stuff.’
‘Agreed.’ Jack nodded then narrowed his eyes as he regarded the bowl of his pipe, which had once more gone out. ‘Anyway – in order to get the ball rolling, so to speak, some of my bogies are busy laying false trails across Europe. Starting here, of course, then across and down through France. False drops, phoney names, dead post boxes, safe houses that aren’t – that sort of thing. Don’t know what it’s going to throw up. Point is it’ll distract ’em. If we can get ’em to take their eye off the ball for a second . . .’
‘Then they might drop it. Hear hear! The very thing. I need to buy a bit of time while I plough through the Social and Personals.’
‘The agents that have been blown out cover quite a territory. They’re not just in France – we’ve lost agents and contacts in Belgium and the Low Countries. Worse, quite a few of the escape routes organised by Black Wing have been blown as well. Which suggests that whoever is doing this is determined to do a good and proper job.’
‘That it?’ Harvey enquired, looking at his watch. ‘I’m as anxious as you to kick on – so if that’s it.’
Jack nodded and tapped the unsmoked tobacco out of his pipe and back into his pouch. ‘I’m back off to town,’ he growled. ‘You know how to get hold of me.’
‘I do indeed,’ Harvey said, getting up and adjusting the cuffs of his uniform. ‘And for heaven’s sake while you’re up there, get yourself one of your spare pipes. Talk about a bear with a sore bonce. I mean to say.’
‘Hmmm,’ Jack murmured, gazing ruefully at his damaged briar. ‘One should never have a favourite. Never have a favourite anything. You always end up disappointed that way. Never does to get too attached to any one thing. Or any one body, now I come to think of it.’
Harvey half closed his eyes and nodded his agreement.
‘Arm’s length,’ Jack added. ‘Minimum distance for anything – or anybody. Keep it all at arm’s length,’ he finished, half to himself.
Unable to sleep the hours she had slept in the old days, Poppy found herself getting up earlier and earlier each morning, and automatically cleaning her little house from top to toe, even though that was, all too often, the last thing she had done before she had gone to bed the night before.
‘You’re going mad, Poppy Meynell,’ she told herself one morning when she found herself rearranging a perfectly well arranged set of silver ornaments. ‘George?’ she called to her dog who was having a blissful roll on his back in the middle of the room. ‘George, I think I am perhaps going round the bend.’
There were still two and a half hours to go before she had to leave for work, and once again Poppy was at a loss to know what to do with her time. After she had taken a long bath, drunk a cup of terrible coffee and smoked a cigarette there was still an hour and a half to kill, half an hour of which could be taken up with walking George, although this was a complete waste of time since she took George to work with her. The distance to the house was a good half a mile, so George got plenty of exercise without being forced to take more.
Before, when Scott had gone on his first mission without her, Poppy had filled her spare time with reading, playing the piano and gardening. Now she found she had neither the inclination nor indeed the energy to do any of the things she had so enjoyed previously. She was quite enervated, lacking enthusiasm for anything other than seeing her husband again, and even that filled her with a sense of dread lest Scott had in any way changed towards her as a result of his adventures – or, worse, as a result of his continuing intimacy with Lily, his now long-established partner.
It was eating her up, this jealousy, she decided, a jealousy which was becoming obsessive and was without any real foundation. She had absolutely no reason to believe that Scott would be unfaithful – until she remembered the thrill of the chase, as he had called it, the intense excitement they had mutually experienced when working together to try to thwart those intent on assassinating the Prime Minister. When she thought about it, which she often did, Poppy swore she could feel the adrenalin rushing through her system all over again, just the way it had when she and Scott had found themselves face to face with the putative assassins, and most particularly when she had to see down her very own husband as the leader of the traitors. So, she thought, she could after all have real and very good grounds for her growing anxiety, since there was no reason to believe that Scott and Lily wouldn’t be sharing exactly the same sort of thrill, the kind of excitement that can well and truly open up a relationship.
‘Stop torturing yourself,’ Kate advised her. ‘People can just work together, you know, without anything like that happening.’
‘I know, Kate. But being in the field with another woman – an attractive woman – makes the chances of that something happening a little higher, particularly if the woman happens to be Lily Ormerod.’
Worst of all, to add to anxieties that were already acute enough, Poppy found herself first resenting the officers in Eden Park and then actively disliking them, her old friend Jack Ward in particular, since she held him personally responsible first for separating her from Scott and then for sending him out in the field with another woman. Being Poppy she kept her feelings well under wraps, but possibly the fact that she was bottling everything up added to her physical deterioration.
‘Come along will you,’ Mrs Alderman said to her one morning as she caught her taking a short cut with George along one of the corridors in the staff quarters. ‘I don’t care what you say nor what you’re a-going to say, but we’re going to get some food into you if I have to sit you in a chair and hold your nose.’
Privately appalled by Poppy’s pallor and wraithlike figure, Mrs Alderman marched her straight into the kitchen where sitting her down like a child at the table she immediately busied herself cooking a plate of bacon, eggs and sausages with provisions taken from what she called her emergency store. Poppy tried to make some feeble protest about being late for work, which Cook dismissed at once as poppycock, saying she had a good twenty minutes before she had to be in her office and even if she was late, Mrs Alderman would testify that getting food into Poppy had now become a medical necessity.
Finally – and all too easily once the delicious smell of grilling bacon filled her nostrils – Poppy submitted and waited patiently for the breakfast being so lovingly prepared for her.
‘I got another letter,’ Mrs Alderman said over her shoulder as she busied herself at the range. ‘At long last too. Like to read it?’
Fishing the crumpled envelope out of her apron pocket, Mrs Alderman handed it backwards to Poppy as she skilfully flipped the fried egg over in the frying pan.
‘Tell you what, dear,’ she suggested. ‘Why don’t you read it out loud? I can never hear it too often.’
Poppy unfolded the letter, pencil-written on thin lined paper, and laid it on the kitchen table in front of her.
‘“Dear Ma,”’ she read. ‘“Not much to tell except it was turnips and cabbage for lunch and supper most of last week. But nine thirty is the time we get up – I say, don’t tell old Bushell, will you? When I get back and start work for him again he will think I’m a rite lazy bones! The Red Cross do us proud, really, and we have some good things from them. Well, that’s all for now. All the lads send you best wishes and all that. Can’t wait to taste your steak and kidney pie. I told them all about it. They think I’m the luckiest devil alive having you for a mum. That’s all for now. Your son John.”’
‘Good, eh?’ Mrs Alderman said as she put down the plate of food in front of Poppy. But she was referring more to the letter than to the fried breakfast. After all, Mrs Alderman saw food every day in some shape or another, but it was only every so often that she got a letter from her adored and captive son.
‘You’d never have thought it if you knew John to think he was such a good letter writer. But there you are. Appearances can be very deceptive. He’s got a good hand, too, see? Well taught he was at his writing. I always made sure of that. A good hand makes the man, I always say, and John’s got a very good hand.’
‘He certainly has,’ Poppy agreed, looking at the large, heavily looped handwriting. ‘It’s a whole lot easier to read than mine.’
‘We’ve always paid the greatest attention to handwriting in my family. My father used to make sure we all had a good hand. Gives you a proper start in life he used to maintain. And how about that?’ Mrs Alderman picked up the letter and tapped the relevant bit. ‘Not getting up till nine thirty, if you please. And there was I thinking he was slaving from dawn to dusk. Nine thirty, indeed. What a laugh I had over that, I can say.’
As Poppy ate her way through a breakfast that she could only describe as delicious, Cook stood at her shoulder reading through her son’s latest letter all over again, saying the words over in a barely audible whisper. Poppy smiled to herself, suddenly feeling better about life than she had for a long time.
‘I think I’ve just discovered what’s meant by someone saving your bacon, Mrs A,’ she said, setting her knife and fork down on a perfectly clean plate.
‘I should think so too,’ Mrs Alderman said, removing the plate with a told-you-so nod. ‘Can’t imagine what you’ve been doing to yourself these past weeks. Trying to starve yourself, were you?’
‘Not trying to, Mrs A, not really. Succeeding, though I suppose. Silly, really. Can’t think what came over me.’
‘It’s the war, dear,’ Cook said, putting the plate in the sink. ‘Does funny things to us all. Personally speaking I haven’t been able to think straight since September – what is it? Goodness gracious – since September four years ago! Who’d credit it? Four years ago come September. No wonder we’re all going a bit doolally.’
Cissie Lavington wanted to see Poppy the moment she arrived up in the office.
‘Now then, my dear,’ she said, shutting the door behind them. ‘Come in and sit down. I have some news for you.’
‘Good, I hope?’ Poppy said as she did as bidden, glancing quickly but anxiously at her superior.
‘I think so,’ Cissie replied, lighting a cigarette. ‘Looks as though your grounding is about to come to an end. Not that you’ve been sidelined for any reason, y’understand me, but you have been inactive for a good while now, through no fault of your own—’
‘You mean—’ Poppy interrupted, retracting as soon as she caught the look in Cissie’s eyes. ‘Sorry.’
‘Word has it that things are falling into place where they were not falling into place before. Plan is to send you off to meddle with some of Jerry’s toys – but ’fore you do, goin’ to have to go and get a few lessons in the noble art of sabotage. Learn a thing or three about finding your way round engines and the like. Aero engines, that sort of thing. We’ve been having a great deal of fun grounding Jerry at certain prime times, and what we’ve learned is they’re planning a bit of a special party for us – London especially – and we’d quite like to get in first. There’ll be a group of you – small but select – but when it comes to it, the sharp end of the business will be done by singletons. So.’
‘Good,’ Poppy said with a deep sigh. ‘I can’t tell you how I needed this.’
‘You make it sound as if we’re sending you on hols, dearie!’ Cissie laughed through a cloud of cigarette smoke. ‘Not going to be much of a holiday, I assure you. Anyway – here’s all you need to know for the moment. Pack your bag this evening and toddle off there tomorrow. And by the way, you’re allowed to take the doggie. Seems dogs are more than tolerated.’
The train journey Poppy had to make up to the Midlands was one of the longest she remembered, not for distance but for the time it consumed. The train kept stopping, or being shunted back and forth, or parked in a siding without apparent reason, full of weary passengers packed like sardines into the carriages without the relief of food or water until night finally fell and still they had not reached their destination. Then, during the later part of the evening, when darkness had finally fallen, everyone was ordered off the train at an unidentified railway station from where they were expected to travel onward, either by waiting for another as yet unscheduled train or by taking one of the buses that occasionally turned up at the blacked-out halt on its way into the nearest town, which might still be miles from their final target.
Poppy was one of the unlucky ones, forced to find a bed for the night in a small, characterless town where about fifty or so other people were looking for accommodation, many of them not averse to following those in the know to their lodgings and immediately jumping the queue by use of elbows and shoulders in order to make sure of a place. Having suffered at the shoulders and elbows of two lots of queue-bargers, Poppy was about to give in when a kindly soul took pity on the pretty young woman traipsing down the street with her little dog at her heels. Hurrying after her, the woman took her by the arm with a finger to her own lips, and led Poppy back to a small but immaculately kept terraced house.
Here Poppy managed to get her bearings, discovered she was still a good fifteen miles from her final destination, a large complex that stood in the middle of an even larger patch of seemingly uninhabited countryside in the flatlands. The woman who had taken her in knew of it only vaguely, hinting that it was some sort of place where a lot of hush-hush work went on. More to the point was that she did know a way of getting Poppy out there since one of her neighbours made deliveries to its aerodrome, which was used for training pilots, and she was quite sure that tomorrow was the day when he normally went. By the time Poppy had turned in, her hostess had even gone and checked with her neighbour, returning with the news that Poppy indeed had a lift to where she was required to go.
Far from being surrounded by security fences and guards, as she was half expecting, as soon as Poppy was decanted from the van that had ferried her out she was faced with a range of ramshackle buildings, a couple of what looked as if they had once been runways, but had now been reduced to a series of bomb craters, and a large tower above which blew a ragged windsock.
Clutching her letter of introduction in her hand, Poppy looked around the desolate landscape, seeing nothing but fens and flatlands for miles. Then she made her way to the building that looked the most likely to be offices of some sort. A notice on the door that announced No point in knocking – just barge straight on in indicated that she had made the correct choice, so as requested Poppy and George made their way inside the glorified Nissen hut, passing through a series of deserted rooms with the odd item of broken furniture until finally they reached a room at the end with a glass door and a light on within. She could hear the sound of men talking and laughing, so, after taking a deep breath, Poppy knocked on the door and waited.
A curly-haired blond man wearing a dirty fur-lined flying jacket and with a cigarette stuck between his teeth flung open the door.
‘Yes?’ he asked rudely, checking himself the moment he saw the apparition in front of him. ‘Hey – sorry!’ he said, mending his manners. ‘I had no idea they were making a film up here!’
At once three or four other young men appeared behind him to stare wide-eyed at their visitor.
‘Down, boys!’ the blond young man cried, in what Poppy now recognised as an Australian accent. ‘I saw her first!’
‘I wonder if you could help me actually,’ Poppy said coolly. ‘I’m looking for . . .’ She consulted the piece of paper in her hand. ‘I’m looking for a Mr Perkins.’
‘Mr Perkins?’ the young man said with a quick look at his friends.
‘A Mr Trafford Perkins. He’s expecting me.’
‘I doubt that very much, Miss . . . er?’
‘Meynell. Mrs actually. Mrs Scott Meynell.’
‘Beg your pard, Mrs Meynell,’ the flier grinned, managing to make Poppy’s name rhyme with kennel. ‘So you’re expecting to see a Mr Perkins, mmm? Then we had better take you to the right place, because one thing Mr Perkins don’t like is people being late.’
‘I’m not late. In fact I’m early if anything.’
‘In that case you shall live to see another day. Come along, sweetheart – let me show you the way.’
As he began to lead Poppy away all his friends surged forward to accompany him, only to be prevented from doing so by the flier’s shutting the office door in their faces and locking it from the outside.
‘Rough types,’ the flier said with a grin. ‘The name’s Mark, by the way. How do.’ He extended a hand that Poppy shook with a slightly quizzical look. This was not the sort of place and certainly not the sort of reception she had been expecting.
‘Mr Perkins doesn’t work in here?’ she wondered. ‘I couldn’t see what else might be occupied as offices or you know—’
Mark nodded to the control tower.
‘That’s where Mr Perkins works, Ma’am,’ he replied. ‘We’re a bit short of proper working offices here and hereabouts. Thanks to the attentions of Jerry.’
‘It certainly looks as though you’ve taken a bit of a hammering.’
‘Too right. Hasn’t been much of a party of late, I can tell you. OK – in you go – all the way to the top.’ Mark opened the door at the foot of the control tower. ‘Top floor – you can’t miss it. And the best of British to you. But I wouldn’t go in for too much of the Mr business if I were you. You might get a clout.’
With a wink and a grin, Mark turned and trotted away back to his friends, leaving Poppy to climb up the stone steps to the top of the tower.
The heavy wood door was closed so Poppy knocked firmly and stood back, waiting to be asked in. She didn’t have to wait long.
‘Come!’ a voice hollered almost immediately. ‘Come!’
Poppy pushed the door open and went in. Far from being confronted by the man in overalls whom she had been expecting to see, she found herself staring at a tall, elegant middle-aged woman in a spotless white motor racing suit, with a head of jet black hair and a full and beautifully painted red mouth, seated with her feet up on her desk fondling a small black pug dog that was sitting on her knee.
‘Good,’ the woman said, turning round in her swivel chair. ‘Young Poppy Meynell, I take it. Yes? Jolly good – come in then, come in. Survived the Antipodes, did you? They’re a good crowd of lads, don’t worry – in fact they’re a damn’ sight more than that. They’re an exceptional bunch of young men altogether, as you’ll see. This your dog? What a grand little fellow. Bring him over here at once so that he can meet Ron. This is Ron – he loves other dogs and I imagine from the way your chap is wagging his tail he likes a bit of company too. Why don’t you let him off his lead and I’ll put Ron here down and they can get to know each other while I put you in the picture. Have a good journey? Bet it was hell. Don’t go anywhere by train now if I can help it – best to fly where you can. Anyway, that’s neither here nor there, is it? Want a drink or something? Or still a bit early, is it? I’ve got some half decent whisky, or some totally decent French brandy – you choose. Tell you what – I’ll make us some coffee and we’ll lace it up a bit and get the old blood running, that’s the ticket. Now what have they told you about me? About this place? B—, knowing them. I’m Trafford Perkins, we know who you are, and you’re here to learn about budgering up engines and the like. Know anything about engines? From the look of you I should think you know not a thing. I certainly didn’t know a solitary thing about engines when I was a gel – all I knew was you turned a key, pressed a button and hoped it fired. Now I can strip a six cylinder in my sleep and put it back together. Nothing to it – you’ll see. Where’s the damn’ kettle gone? See? Told you they’d hit it off mmm? Told you.’
She pointed to the two dogs who were now busy playing together as if they had known each other all their lives, the way dogs can do, with George allowing Ron to best him since he was the newcomer and Ron was the boss.
‘How do you like your coffee? This is the real stuff, you know. Smuggled all the way from Holland. One of the good things about having an airfield is what sometimes comes in. You won’t find yourself going short of much up here. Flown, have you? Ever been up? Left the ground at all? I don’t imagine so. What chance? Unless you did any flying before the war – but I doubt that. You’d have been in pigtails and white socks still. I started flying in the Twenties, when I imagine I was possibly even younger than you are – no, I’d have been quite a lot younger. Considerably so. What age was I, in fact? Yes – nineteen. I was nineteen, of course I was. Still – that’s not what you’re here for, mmm? You are here to learn about engines. And how to budger ’em up.’ She gave a huge but not unattractive laugh, banged the tin kettle on a small gas ring, lit it, then sat back down in her swivel chair, thumping the desk that was set in front of her. ‘That’s part of a de Havilland engine,’ she continued, indicating a selection of oily bits and pieces that littered her worktop. ‘When you’re ready – because you certainly can’t work in those clothes – I’ll show you what goes where and what don’t. I’ll fix you up with some sort of boiler suit or some such – unless you fancy a set of these? Like mine? This is my old motor racing suit – not that I don’t or won’t still race, because as soon as this fudging war is over, yours truly’ll be back behind the wheel of her ERA before you can say Adolf’s dead, and pray God that will be tomorrow, if not sooner. Yes, the sooner I can get back behind the wheel the happier I shall be – like motor racing, do you? Sport of the gods, I tell you. I was in Italy for two years before all this nonsense started – thought I could drive until I met Signor Fabio. There was a driver. I have never seen a man handle a car the way Paulo Fabio handled a car. He’s dead now, sadly – great loss, crying shame. Shunted off by guess what – a German in the Italian Grand Prix. Took his line and shunted him into the trees. Boom. End of one of the world’s great drivers. Taught me everything I know about driving – we even got married for a while. Didn’t last – how could it? We both wanted to drive. Divine man, quite the best driver I have ever met. Not a bad lover either. Terrible husband, not a bad lover. Coffee. Let’s have that coffee, and a lace of the old French – then we must have a good chat and get to know each other. Mmm?’
That was Poppy’s introduction to a person she would come to consider to be the most astonishing character she had so far met. Previously she had put Cissie Lavington, Eugene Hackett and Jack Ward top of her list of People She Would Never Forget, but after meeting Mrs Trafford Perkins in an all but deserted aerodrome in the middle of the flatlands one misty September morning a new star was in the ascendancy. Even as she stood there for those first few breathtaking minutes of their newly formed acquaintance, Poppy knew she had just met someone who would have a profound influence on her life.
More than that, Poppy felt a sense of personal liberation, as if she was about to discover something entirely new about herself that would drive her life forward in a totally new direction. She was also all at once aware that she didn’t have to go on worrying herself half to death about Scott because there was simply no point. By doing so she was denying herself any sort of life and therefore the chance to help fight for the country she had grown to love so much. It was not a question of losing her affection for her absent husband. She still loved Scott, in fact as a result of her rediscovered determination probably more than she had ever loved him before, but she also had a duty to herself. You might give your heart to a man, she thought as she looked into the clear blue skies through the control tower window, but your soul had always to remain your own.
For a while Helen Maddox had some difficulty locating Jack, but then, as she thought to herself, working her way steadily through the crowded bar, when had it ever been otherwise? Jack Ward had the ability to disappear. As the chameleon blends with the greatest subtlety into its background, so too did Jack Ward have the knack of melting into whatever landscape he might be in. Like many before her and those yet to come, Helen had very soon appreciated this facet of Jack’s character, an ability he used to the full by never drawing attention to himself by his clothes, his mannerisms, or most of all his voice. Jack Ward never raised his voice. In one way he had no need to do so, since there was enough implicit authority in the way he spoke to bring anyone to heel. All he had to do to add some persuasion was to remove any trace of warmth from his famously melodic tones. Helen had seen him do it on occasion – a change of key very often accompanied by the slow removal of his spectacles and a subsequent steady gaze at the object of his attentions, and when she had seen the effect it had on the victim Helen had hoped and prayed that he would never turn such a power on to her.
But just at that particular moment she found herself wishing her friend and mentor wouldn’t make himself quite so invisible since she couldn’t see his familiar stocky figure anywhere. The saloon bar was packed with office workers like herself who had clocked off, all dying for some sort of refreshment before making their various journeys home.
‘Hiya, kid,’ an unmistakable voice said from behind her. ‘Of all the gin joints in the world, you had to pick this one.’
‘Jack?’ Helen said, turning round to see a familiar moon face staring at her over the top of an equally familiar and now happily mended briar pipe. ‘What was that you said?’
‘From Casablanca,’ he said, steering her to the bar. ‘Great flick with Ingrid Bergman and what’s his name. Humphrey Bogart. Saw it last night – and I wouldn’t mind seeing it again, it’s so good. We could go tonight. The usual?’
Helen nodded, thoughtfully chewing her bottom lip. There was nothing she’d love more than to go to the pictures with Jack that evening, but she had another appointment, one she couldn’t and mustn’t break. She didn’t know how to put it to Jack because even though he wouldn’t show any emotion at all she knew how disappointed he would be, yet she had to refuse.
‘One ever so luvverly gin and lime,’ he said, handing Helen her glass. ‘We could just catch the last house, if we hurry.’ He checked his wristwatch to make sure. ‘It really is one heck of a good flick. You’ll enjoy it.’
‘Could we make it another night, Jack? It’s a bit short notice.’
‘Short notice never did no one no harm, didn’t you know that?’ Jack mused, looking at her over his spectacles as he relit his pipe. ‘Carpe diem.’
‘I never know what that means.’
‘Seize the moment. Live the day. Something like that. How’s life in Baker Street?’
‘Much as I thought it might be,’ Helen replied. ‘Dull. All filing.’
‘Things have to take their course,’ Jack murmured. ‘Good things come to those who wait. Shallow end first and all that. So. What about the flick? Are you on?’
‘I have to get home Jack. As I said, it’s a bit short notice.’
‘You don’t have anyone to get home to,’ Jack said bluntly but with a slight smile. ‘Unless there’s something you’re not telling me.’
‘You’ll only laugh,’ Helen replied a little sadly. ‘It’s my cat. She hasn’t been at all well.’
‘Why should I laugh? You know I like cats. What’s wrong with her?’
‘She’s not eating. And she was sick all last night.’
‘Then you must get home at once, Helen. You shouldn’t even have bothered meeting me for a drink.’
‘I couldn’t get hold of you.’
‘When people don’t show, in this job, it’s my job to understand.’
‘But I’m not active, Jack,’ she laughed, but keeping her voice down. ‘I’m desk-bound.’
‘Mmm,’ Jack mused. ‘I might have some news for you on that front. You might have to go visiting some of your relations.’
Helen looked at him, widening her eyes slightly, a thrill of pleasure running through her at the thought of the possible chance of another mission.
‘So go on,’ Jack urged her. ‘Finish your drink and off you go to your cat. Hope she’s OK – and I’ll be in touch.’
He was gone by the time Helen finished her drink and put her glass down. She gave a long, slow look round but he had vanished as expertly as he had arrived. Helen pulled the belt on her raincoat tight, picked up her bag and went out into the fogbound evening.
She had not been walking very long before she became certain that she could hear a regular footfall behind her, as if someone was close on her tail, so she quickened her pace, crossing the road backwards and forwards in the ever thickening fog, so that by the time she had crossed the Marylebone road and was heading north to Swiss Cottage the streets directly behind her had fallen oddly silent.