‘How cosy this shall be when the fire’s lit,’ Jane said.
The open hearth was plugged up and fitted with a gas fire exactly like the one Mummy and I had in the attic at Number 88, Gibraltar Road.
‘We’re lucky to have town gas and electricity,’ Mrs Campbell said. ‘They brought it to the village the same time as the aerodrome, five years ago, when they stepped up Royal Air Force training here. I don’t allow the rooms heated before three p.m. and there’s no hot water before six. You’ve got your own gas meter for the fire – it only takes shilling coins.’
‘We had one like it in London,’ I said.
‘Well, then you’ll know to treat it respectfully. If you don’t top up the money, the gas cuts off, and the fire will go out. Then if you forget to turn off the gas tap, next time you put a coin in, the room will fill with gas until you turn off the tap or light the fire again. I don’t want any explosions! It takes another shilling every two or three days if you’re careful. And don’t stuff it full of coins before the collection man comes to reset the meter – once the coin box is full you can’t get more gas until he empties it.’
‘Yes, that’s how ours at home worked,’ I said.
‘Well, be careful.’ She slipped a silver shilling into the meter. ‘Here’s a bob to start you off. Don’t turn it on until three o’clock. If you want a fire before then, you’ll have to sit in the bar.’
Oh, what a grouch.
But Jane caught my eye like a naughty child. I was sure she was trying to make me laugh. I looked away quickly.
I did like Jane.
How lucky I am to like her, I thought, as we unpacked. We each got a window sill to stack our books in; she had as many as I did.
‘I shall look forward to reading yours,’ she said. ‘I’m tired to death of my own.’
Room Number Five, the Limehouse, I realised, wasn’t a big change from her room in the alien detainment camp. Apart from the radio, of course. There was a bit more space, but now there were two of us. She’d had a bed to herself before. Now she had to share with me.
Would she mind? Would it be worse than the camp – would she feel she was being guarded all the time, with not even any privacy?
‘I could sleep in the chair,’ I said, hesitating to set Mummy’s Bakelite alarm clock next to the bed in case Jane didn’t want me to sleep with her.
‘Nonsense, what a ridiculous idea,’ said Jane. ‘The bed is large enough for a family of four. You will have to sleep by the window, as I often get up in the night.’
I hesitated. ‘Won’t you want me to help you?’ That would be the worst thing about always being watched.
‘I can manage the toilet perfectly well on my own, as you know,’ Jane answered.
In London I’d got used to sharing a bed with Mummy, except when Daddy was home, when I would gladly move to the settee for two nights or a fortnight or whatever it was. All through the last horrid weeks of 1940 I’d felt very alone in Mummy’s bed all by myself. I was glad Jane didn’t mind.
She wanted me to see to her gramophone downstairs.
After we unpacked we went down to the public bar, where Mrs Campbell said it would be warmer, and where I was hopeful of toast. Sure enough, the peat fire in the big hearth was alight, and there was a small table and a comfortable chair pulled close to it. Mrs Campbell didn’t say it was meant for her old aunt, but I thought it probably was. Jane hovered near my shoulder, leaning on her sticks as I found a place for the gramophone on top of the piano.
‘The loudspeaker needs to face the room,’ she directed.
Of course it did, silly me. I shifted the case around.
‘And the records over here …’ There was a low, narrow cupboard beside the piano with a mostly empty shelf holding a few glossy magazines.
Jane was particular about how she wanted the records arranged. I didn’t mind – it gave me a chance to look through them. There was a lot of jazz from the early 1930s, a bit of classical. A few pieces made my throat close up, thinking of Mummy playing them: Mozart’s 21st Piano Concerto in C, Debussy’s ‘Clair de Lune’.
At last Jane settled into the chair by the fire. After I’d tucked her woolly blanket in around her legs and laid her sticks out of the way, I stood back and got my first good look at the old fireplace.
Thick black beams held up the mantel, and more thick beams braced the chimney where it went through the ceiling. The black wood was split and cracked, and in the cracks, thin pieces of metal were wedged like studs. Most were black with soot or green with age. But a few still gleamed silvery and coppery, and I could see they were coins: the ones in the front of the mantel looked like pennies and tuppences. Others were wedged so far into the wood and so discoloured that you couldn’t tell what they were, or how old.
It was a bit unsettling. It gave me the same chill as the limekilns, and I don’t know why.
The knobbly, uneven column holding up the low ceiling at the corner of the bar was another tree trunk, painted black, like the tree trunks holding up the porch outside. It was also studded with coins, though not as many. And there were more coins in the black beam that crossed above the bar. All those gleamed, as if someone buffed them regularly with vinegar and salt. They looked like modern sixpences and shillings.
I ran my fingertips over the pennies in the mantel. That’s what I was doing when Nancy Campbell came out through a door behind the bar.
‘That’s dead men’s money,’ she snapped. ‘Leave it.’
‘Of course no one’s altering your decorations, Nancy,’ said Jane tartly.
I took my hand away and, though I was probably more annoyed than Jane at the idea I might be mining for gold in the mantelpiece, I gritted my teeth and bit my tongue again, determined not to create a stir on my first day. Also, I was curious about the coins.
‘Dead men’s money?’ I repeated.
In fact Mrs Campbell was busting to talk about it. She was just so tight-lipped she didn’t know how to start a conversation politely.
‘The wood in here is all from a wishing tree. It’s older than the Limehouse,’ she said. ‘Folk made wishes on it for hundreds of years before it fell. There were pennies in the tree when this place was built, two hundred and fifty years ago. Then the airmen from the last war put their coppers in the mantel for safekeeping before they went on a mission.’
She gestured towards the pennies I’d touched.
‘Those lads would put in a tuppenny bit and after a flight they’d take it out and buy a pint. All these still in the wood are airmen who never came back. Dead men’s money,’ repeated Nancy Campbell. ‘Wishes that didn’t come true. My lads. Same age as me in the last lot.’
She pointed.
‘That one was Cammy McBride. Cheeky daredevil with green eyes. I pulled his last pint. It was a reconnaissance flight – he got caught in clouds. And that was Ben Knox. His engine failed on a training flight. Just up there—’
She pulled her hand back, but not before I saw her fingers trembling. ‘Alan Anderson. Cannon fire from a German warship. They think. At any rate he didn’t come back either.’
She pointed to the coin nearest the bar, by itself at the edge of the mantel. ‘Mr Campbell,’ she said softly. ‘My Duncan. His dad ran the place before I took over. I worked behind the bar for them.’
Jane gave a soft little sigh. ‘Oh, Nancy!’
Then an unearthly shriek tore that moment apart. The hair on my spine stood on end – but of course it was just the kettle coming to a boil.
‘Tea?’ Jane added. ‘You are kind!’
Mrs Campbell wiped her hands on her pinny and took the kettle off the hob. ‘I was going to have a cup anyway,’ she said grudgingly. ‘But I’ll make enough for three.’
She clattered about with a teapot and china behind the bar. As she left the tea to stew she turned to me and demanded, ‘Ration coupons.’
She made it feel as if she wouldn’t give us the tea without them, though I knew she just needed our tickets to get extra
supplies for our meals when she did her shopping. I had to run upstairs to get them. Over the coconut matting, down the dark passage – strange to think this was my home now.
Back downstairs again, out of breath as I handed over our booklets, I looked up at the modern coins shining in the beam over the bar.
‘Those belong to the 648 Squadron lads,’ said Mrs Campbell, following my eyes. ‘From when they were based at Windyedge.’ Her hard face softened, as it had when she’d talked about the airmen from the last war. ‘They always prepaid their drinks. Their squadron is up in Shetland now.’
‘Will they come back?’ I asked.
‘Let’s hope so,’ said Nancy Campbell. ‘RAF Windyedge doesn’t feel right without a squadron at the aerodrome. Those lads at the anti-aircraft guns on the perimeter haven’t a thing to do other than smoke and play bridge and read the papers all day. Coastal Command is just asking for trouble, in my opinion.’
Ellen:
When he pressed the gun against my head, I moaned with fear, and everybody in the radio room clapped eyes on me. They all gasped together. How could one German pilot so handily get the better of a dozen Royal Air Force ground crewmen?
‘What’s he doing here?’ I cried out. He hadn’t told me to belt up. ‘Why did you let him land?’
The radio operator, whom we called Old Flash because he was about ten years older than everybody else, was the only one who seemed to ken what was going on.
‘We had to,’ he told me. ‘Orders. He has a code name on our list. He transmitted it correctly. Someone in Intelligence expected him.’
‘What are you all doing in here, then?’ I gasped.
‘He’s got some message he wants me to transmit to an Intel bigwig in England. Hard to understand him – nobody speaks his lingo, and he doesn’t have much English. Everybody kind of piled in to help – and to make sure he didn’t cause any bother …’
‘Aye, you did that well!’ I sobbed. ‘He’s no bother at all.’
The German pilot let his gun drop away so it wasn’t touching my face, and his fingers stopped digging into my arm. ‘Shh,’ he whispered soft at my ear.
I gulped air and stood tall. I didn’t think he was telling me I couldn’t speak – more hoping I would stop panicking.
‘Did you get an answer?’ I asked the radio operator. ‘From the bloke in England?’
‘We’re to refuel the plane and let him go! But we’re waiting—’
And then our Flash had to take down a message that was coming in. Everybody stood frozen, listening, no one but the radio operator being able to understand the string of bleeps and blips, even though we could all hear it and it wasn’t in code. Well, it was in Morse code. But in English.
When the transmission stopped, there was a long silence while we waited for more. I could hear the German pilot breathing.
Old Flash cleared his throat.
‘They’re saying Robert Ethan, that Intelligence chap from the War Office, is behind it. Remember him, all in tweed like Sherlock Holmes, with the thick specs that make his eyes look like billiard balls? He was snooping around the perimeter with binoculars last month. Maybe his tame Jerry’s giving him a lift to Norway. He left Intelligence a message in German for the pilot that they’re going to send.’
So we kept on waiting.
The German pilot never let me go. Every soul in that room believed he’d shoot me if we didn’t do as he wanted.
At last the German message arrived, and the pilot pushed me across to the communications desk so he could read it, nudging his wooden case along with his foot. He eyed the page, then sighed. Whatever it said, it wasn’t what he was hoping for.
For the first time since I turned up, he said something in English.
‘A room?’
He pointed to me, using his gun.
‘With the girls.’
Everybody gasped, and, oh, how fear swelled up in my chest! A room with girls? Who else was there but me, and what did he need with a room?
He added, ‘The Limehouse? A room is there.’
Old Flash said, ‘The Limehouse was mentioned in the German message. I think it said he should stay there tonight. Robert Ethan’s stuck in England on a stopped train. This is his alternate plan – he wants his man to wait for him.’
‘Oh!’ I gave a skrike of a laugh, fear and relief bundled together. ‘The Limehouse – with the girls. He means “Take a room in the hotel where the lassies stay”. Not that he wants – that he – not that.’
I couldn’t speak what we all thought he’d meant.
With his mate from Intelligence stranded, maybe the German pilot truly did just want a place to stop the night.
Everybody muttered. Then some cleversticks suggested, ‘Volunteer McEwen can drive him to Mrs Campbell’s for the night and bring him back tomorrow.’
‘You double-crossing bastards!’ I cried.
‘Don’t make a fuss, you’ll make it worse,’ said Old Flash. ‘We don’t want to scare him into pulling the ruddy trigger, do we? I’ll check with Intelligence before you go. If it’s orders it ought to be all right.’
Of course I was the driver for RAF Windyedge; this was my job. But – they were all so flipping helpless! ‘Some heroes you turn out to be,’ I sobbed. ‘You bloody bastards.’
I wriggled my arm up beneath the Jerry pilot’s and gingerly pushed his gun further away from my head. I sucked in a breath. I hated him like I’d never hated any man before in my life.
‘I’ll drive you there,’ I told him. My voice quaked. Then, because I knew he didn’t understand, I said very loudly, ‘A ROOM. THE LIMEHOUSE.’ I pointed to myself and mimed driving.
No one tried to keep us from leaving – they were still in a flap worrying he might shoot me.
We waited for the last message. Old Flash nodded as he listened to the beeping stream of dots and dashes. ‘He’s to give it till tomorrow morning. If Ethan doesn’t turn up, he’s to take off when it gets light, or he’ll be missed back at his own base.’
Flash took off his headset and turned to me. ‘Your Jerry’s got a code name,’ he said. ‘We’re supposed to call him Odysseus. He’s here for a reason, whatever it is, and I don’t think he’s likely to wreck things for himself by hurting you.’ The radio operator gave me a grim wee smile, trying to be encouraging. ‘You’ll be all right, lass.’
‘I’ll take him straight over the cliff if I’m not,’ I said through my teeth.
Jamie:
‘Well done, still in one piece as always,’ Silver said, holding up his ratty box of rosin.
‘You’re welcome,’ I said.
We were back on the windblown Shetland aerodrome where we’d been based whilst fighting our losing battles for the past two months. My two other crews pulled up safely alongside our Blenheim, and Silver pushed open the hatch above us.
I climbed through the canopy and jumped off the wing. Silver followed, and Chip came behind, climbing out of his own hatch forward of the rear gun turret. He stood on the wing, gazing critically at the Australian lads getting out of their plane. Then he exclaimed in his Texan drawl, ‘Aw, fer cryin’ out loud.’
About an inch off the top of their tail fin was shot away.
‘They took a hit,’ Silver exclaimed. ‘We shouldn’t have chanced it with a Messerschmitt!’
‘We didn’t have a choice,’ I pointed out.
Chip laughed. ‘The Kraut pilot didn’t do that. I’ll bet that new Australian gunner did it himself. Rookie mistake. You can’t fire straight behind you without hitting yourself in the rear end!’
‘Look at the turret,’ said Silver grimly, pointing.
One of the Perspex sheets in the dome was missing. The panel was completely blown away.
‘Dougie Kerr didn’t do that himself. They took a hit,’ Silver repeated.
One of the other turret panels had a small jagged hole in it. It was no rookie mistake. A German bullet had gone through one side of the dome and come out the other.
I’d
nearly lost another kid.
I squeezed my eyes shut and steadied myself with one hand against the cold hull of the plane. When I opened my eyes, breathing again, I could feel the blood burning in my legs.
‘Steady on, mate,’ Silver said, grabbing my elbow. ‘Not enough porridge this morning?’
But Dougie Kerr, the Australian wireless op and gunner with the gingery hair like a bottle brush, was alive and well on the ground, and so were his tall pilot, Harry Morrow, and his baby-faced navigator, Gavin Hamilton. All three were chattering like excited sparrows to the ground crew who came to take care of the planes.
‘They’re all right,’ Silver said to me quietly. ‘Stop acting like an old woman or everyone will notice.’
Chip leaped off the wing of our plane and scrambled on to the one next to us to get a look at the damage to the turret dome. He let out a long whistle.
‘Must have made a hell of a bang going through! That Aussie gunner had a close shave! You know what? I’ll bet he didn’t even notice. Probably too busy kicking himself for shooting up his own plane. If he knew he nearly had his crazy hair trimmed by a German bullet, the whole crew would be up here poking at the hole and patting him on the back!’
We pointed out the damage to maintenance, but they couldn’t sort it, and told me my new lads would have to fly with holes in the tail and turret – or a quick fix of cardboard and sticky tape – until the Air Transport Auxiliary could ferry another plane to us and take this one away to be mended properly.
Now I was hopping mad at the Jerries again, seeing red as I took off the bulky bits of my gear – Mae West, I mean life vest, and helmet – and fished cooled-down Ever-Hot bags out of my flight suit. I had to go be grilled by Flight Officer Pennyworth.
There wasn’t anything special about that interrogation. As the rest of Pimms Section filed out to get baths and sandwiches and cups of tea, Phyllis told me apologetically, ‘Wing Commander Talbot Cromwell wants you in his office.’
So I had to face the Old Roundhead by myself again.
The Enigma Game Page 6
