The Enigma Game

by Elizabeth Wein

  Nobody noticed. Or if they did, they didn’t wonder why I’d used it. Ignacy Mazur, the Polish bloke, told Yorkie, ‘You will never win a lady by questioning her character.’

  Dougie Kerr laughed. Then he opened his flapping gob and said, ‘Mazur, mate, you’re not qualified to give advice about girls.’

  They were all ready for a fight.

  ‘Shut it, you blabbermouthed Australian git!’ snarled Derfel. ‘You blab about every flight, you blab about every transmission – you blabbed to Morag that you’ve taken an oath under the Official Secrets Act, what kind of a chat-up line is that?’

  ‘I didn’t tell her anything!’ Dougie said, hurt. ‘I said I couldn’t tell her anything. Anyway, leave it out, Yorkie already had a go at me earlier. Careless talk costs lives – I’m not daft!’

  Chip said, ‘Taff’s not sore about careless talk. He’s sore because you’re blabbing about him and Ignacy.’

  Silver said, ‘Aw, keep quiet, you stupid Yank.’

  ‘I’m not a Yank, you stupid Jew!’

  Jamie swore – ‘Break it up! Silver! TEX!’ – and Nan cried, ‘Lads, lads!’ but Dougie blethered cheerfully: ‘A Scot’s a Scot, a Pole’s a Pole, a Taff’s a Taff. So why isn’t a Yank—’

  Derfel growled, ‘I said shut your gob, you Aussie prick.’

  Chip and Bill swapped glances, then both turned back to look at Derfel.

  Chip said, ‘A pansy—’

  And Pimms all lost their heads.

  ‘Oik!’

  ‘Pom!’

  ‘Sheep-shagger!’

  ‘Yid!’

  ‘Bloody ENGLISH!’ Jamie roared at his best mate, and Chip and Derfel tumbled over the flagstones trying to beat each other’s brains out.

  Jamie and Silver dived after Chip. Ignacy went for Derfel. A tableful of glasses crashed to the floor. Phyllis shrieked and jumped up, knocking over her chair; Jane knocked over her sticks. Louisa and I stared. It was like we’d chucked a match into a tank of petrol.

  Ignacy pulled Derfel off by the back of his collar. They fell into a guddle of broken glass and spilt beer, cursing in Welsh and Polish.

  That wildcat Chip Wingate wouldn’t stop. Jamie and Silver sat on him, but he kept fighting, and Adam Stedman piled in. They pinned him until he lay completely squashed, heaving angry breaths.

  What a way to win a war, aye?

  Poor Jamie looked up at us shocked women, me and Louisa and Jane and Phyllis by the fire, Nancy and Morag behind the bar. He glowed red to the tips of his ears.

  ‘I’m— I—’

  Nan Campbell stood agape with her hair bunching out of its grips. Never had I seen her so close to weeping.

  Then Morag babbled the most gobsmacking propaganda-poster display of British bulldog spirit: ‘Och, it’s to be expected. Boys will be boys.’

  God pity us, isn’t that the exact blether of Dougie’s that started off the stramash?

  I’d suddenly had enough.

  ‘To be expected! Tear up the place like a pack of wild dogs – it’s to be expected?’ I cried. ‘Shaness, nothing’s to be expected! I didn’t expect Louisa to talk so posh! We didn’t expect the Luftwaffe to fly in waving white flags! No one expected we’d win the Battle of Britain! If everybody went on doing what people expected, I’d be selling pins and willow baskets door to door instead of hauling this lot about between their battles! And you, Miss Morag Torrie, you’d be looking down your neb at me for being a Traveller lass, instead of mooning over my ATS driver’s badge and wishing you were old enough to join up! Everybody shoves their sixpences into that bar expecting to come back for another drink and look at how many of them never come back!’

  I saw the shiver go through them all.

  Morag’s mouth hung open. Nancy Campbell pushed hair out of her eyes and whispered, ‘Whisht, Ellen, lass, don’t say such things.’

  ‘Every other body says whatever they think!’

  ‘And you’re no’ a tinker.’

  ‘Aye, so I am,’ I said. ‘Your bonny English WAAF shares her room with a filthy tinker.’

  Phyllis grabbed my hand and squeezed. ‘She’s very clean, Mrs Campbell,’ she said.

  I pulled away from her in fury. ‘Nan knows that.’

  Nancy turned about and armed herself with a heather broom, probably made and sold to her by a relative of mine, and a pan and a cardboard box.

  ‘I hope you lads are all ashamed of yourselves,’ she said bitterly.

  They looked as if they mostly were.

  Jamie croaked, ‘Pass those here, Mrs Campbell, and we’ll tidy up for you.’

  He got to his feet and gave an order in a low voice. ‘Sort the mess and get back to base. The moon is full and we’re flying tonight. None of you will drink another drop the day, and you’ll not set foot in this place again until I’ve worked out how we’ll make it up to Mrs C. You’re all banned.’

  Derfel helped Ignacy to his feet. ‘I’ll manage him,’ he said to Jamie.

  Suddenly B-Flight were working together again. I suppose that wasn’t to be expected, either.

  Harry Morrow and Gavin Hamilton set to with the broom and the dustpan. David Silvermont and Adam Stedman picked up the table; Dougie Kerr and Bill Yorke squatted collecting broken glass. Now and then the English lads threw me curious glances, looking at me in a new way.

  Chip Wingate got stiffly to his feet. He put a chair right and sat on it.

  ‘Tex, get a move on. Help out or get out,’ Jamie barked.

  Chip leaned over his knees in silence.

  ‘Come back for him later,’ suggested Silver.

  ‘Volunteer McEwen will drive you if you’re too puffed to walk,’ said Jamie.

  Everybody looked at me all at once for a moment.

  Then they went back to work.

  Louisa:

  It was late when the Tilly pulled up at the Limehouse again with its gears screaming, and a few minutes later Ellen pounded up the stairs. She saw our light on under the door and didn’t knock.

  ‘Louisa, come and give us a hand. Oh – you’re in your night things!’ She looked me up and down. ‘We need another bod and you might have to go outside. Do you have boots? I’ll get you Nan’s wellies.’

  I pulled on a sweater and tucked my nightgown into a skirt. If 648 Squadron could do it, so could I. I already had on wool stockings because my legs were always cold, but thinking of Nan Campbell’s wellies, which she kept in the lean-to outside the kitchen door, I pulled on another pair of socks.

  ‘Windyedge is the most exciting place I have ever lived, which is saying something,’ Jane said, watching me jealously.

  ‘Please, please don’t go downstairs till I come back. Please. Here’s the torch, make sure you take it if you need the loo.’ I kissed the top of her head.

  ‘Take care,’ Jane called after me.

  ‘You take care!’

  Morag was washing up, her head lowered over the glasses.

  Chip Wingate was still there.

  He was snoring by the dead fire in Jane’s comfortable chair. Nan stood there, nervously holding a jug of water in one hand and twisting her pinny with the other. Jamie Beaufort-Stuart, dressed for flying, slapped his rear gunner back and forth across the face with a wet dishcloth.

  ‘Come on, mate – come on—’

  Chip shifted in Jane’s chair, trying to dodge the wet smacks.

  ‘You’re going to get the full jug in a moment,’ Jamie growled.

  ‘Aw, take a hike, Scotty, lemme alone!’ moaned his gunner.

  Jamie looked up at me and Ellen. ‘He’s still blind drunk and we’re flying in an hour.’

  ‘Where’s Silver?’ I asked, pulling on Nan’s boots.

  ‘Doing his job putting together tonight’s flight plan, and doing mine and checking out the kite, and making sure nobody notices Tex isn’t around to do his. If we get him on his feet maybe we can shoogle him out to the Tilly with me on one side and you two on the other—’

  Chip roused himself and said,
‘The gorgeous redhead’s gonna give me a hand? Miracles do happen! An’ the cute li’l darkie?’

  Did either of us need to help this good-for-nothing?

  Of course we needed to help Jamie.

  ‘One more wisecrack and I’m pinning today’s punch-up on you, Sergeant Chester Wingate,’ Jamie threatened.

  He got Chip’s arm over his shoulder. Bracing himself against the table, Jamie managed to get them both to their feet. They were about the same height, but Chip was heavyset. Ellen slipped herself beneath Chip’s other arm and he laughed.

  ‘Oh, I like this—’

  ‘Stow it, you clot,’ barked Jamie.

  Ellen said grimly, ‘Louisa, you’ll have to help.’

  I took a deep breath.

  But I did it. I slid in next to her, my arm around her waist, and hung on to Chip’s wrist where it dangled over my shoulder.

  ‘Get the door, Mrs C.,’ Jamie grunted. ‘What were you thinking, to let him get shot up like this!’

  ‘You left him here! You should have carried him out before, when the lads could have helped!’ Nan Campbell gasped. ‘He’s never flying in this state!’

  ‘If I don’t get him in the air tonight he’ll be court-martialled! And probably so will I, come to think of it.’

  ‘Don’t you fret, Tex is much less likely to cause trouble this way,’ Ellen told Nan. ‘He can sleep in the air.’

  I saw Jamie glance at the coins in the ceiling. Nan followed his gaze, her face pale.

  ‘In my pocket—’ Chip tilted his head. ‘Go on, Scotty, give her some of the funny money. Sixpence, a tanner, is that what you call it? A tanner for my next pint—’

  With a heavy sigh, balanced beneath Chip’s arm and not daring to tempt fate, Jamie managed to reach into Chip’s trouser pocket and somehow came up with a sixpence. He gave it to Mrs Campbell.

  ‘You keep that safe for him.’

  Ellen:

  Nan held the doors, and the rest of us heaved Chip through and slung him in the back of the Tilly. He was away with the fairies as he hit the floor.

  ‘You’d better come,’ I told Louisa.

  ‘Ride up front with Ellen,’ Jamie added. ‘I’ll keep an eye on Texas Sunshine.’

  ‘What about Jane!’ Louisa objected.

  ‘I’ll look in on her,’ said Nancy quickly. ‘Just this once. Of course I will.’

  Under the bright full moon I didn’t need headlamps – not that they’re worth much in wartime, narrowed to slits with black paint. Louisa offered her passport at the barrier, but Nobby saw her too often to care; he rolled his eyes and waved us through.

  Jamie coaxed and scolded his rat-arsed gunner all the way, but Louisa cracked away with me just as she’d done when Felix Baer took us for hostages.

  ‘What are tinkers?’ Louisa asked. ‘Is it like being a Gypsy?’

  ‘Aye, a mite like that. My folk are Travellers,’ I said shortly. ‘“Tinker” is what the gadgies call us. That would be like folk calling you a darkie – you wouldn’t call yourself that, would you? Filthy tinker.’

  ‘You must have stories!’ Louisa said.

  ‘But no address. No home to go to. People don’t like that – they think it makes you shifty. Lazy. Outsiders, not to be trusted.’

  ‘We were outsiders too,’ Louisa agreed. ‘Me and my English mum and Jamaican dad. We didn’t fit anyone’s rules, and it was hard being out and about together. But we loved being together. You have family to go to, as well, don’t you? Doesn’t that count?’

  We’d reached the barracks. I pulled up and jumped out. Louisa was close behind me as I opened the back of the van, and David Silvermont pounded across the moonlit airfield to join us.

  ‘Got him?’ Silver demanded.

  Best Jamie could do was make Chip sit up, but he wouldn’t get out of the Tilly.

  ‘Goddam it, Jamie!’ Silver exclaimed. ‘He isn’t suited up!’

  ‘I know it,’ Jamie said grimly. He sounded done in. ‘Get his gear and we’ll drive him to the plane.’

  We couldn’t get Chip into his flight suit, either. No amount of bawling in his earhole could stir him. Silver looked at the luminous dial of his watch.

  ‘Jamie, we take off in ten minutes. For God’s sake. Leave him. It’s not your fault. We’re on fishing-fleet escort; we won’t be taking headings and we can manage without a gunner. You can work the radio from the pilot’s seat.’

  ‘The start-up crew will notice if only two of us get in. And if my gunner gets court-martialled, I’ll be in for it too. If we could just get him into the plane!’

  Louisa knelt on the floor of the Tilly by the slumbering Texan, holding his flight suit.

  ‘Hey,’ she said slowly.

  She sat and hauled Nan Campbell’s boots off her feet. A moment later she began to climb into Chip Wingate’s flight suit. By the time she’d got her legs in and struggled to pull it up over her shoulders, I jumped up to help. In another second Silver was giving us a hand too.

  Every one of us wanted to save Jamie’s skin. We didn’t give a toss about Chip Wingate.

  ‘No, no, no,’ Jamie objected. ‘Not Louisa.’

  ‘Why not Louisa!’ I said. ‘We’ll leave Tex to sleep it off! He’ll be all right under blankets and canvas.’

  ‘No!’

  ‘We’ll have to swap her back the second we’re on the ground,’ said Silver.

  ‘I’ll wait here,’ I said. ‘I’ll drive up to the plane when you land and she can hop back in the van, and we’ll unload Texas Sunshine at the barracks door. No one will notice it wasn’t him with you the whole time.’

  ‘Tomorrow you can pretend he fainted on the flight back and had to be carried to bed,’ said Louisa, and Silver and I burst out laughing.

  Jamie:

  Were they all absolutely bonkers?

  Louisa thought we were likely to fly straight into a German deathtrap sometime in the coming day or two, and here she was trying to stow away on our next op?

  I took her by the hands as we crouched on the van’s wooden floor next to my snoring wireless operator/rear gunner. We knelt facing each other; I hadn’t put on my gauntlets, and her grip was firm.

  ‘Louisa, you can’t come,’ I said. ‘I’ve got enough on my plate, and I’m not going to let you risk your life for this tosser.’ I nodded over my shoulder towards Chip. ‘He’s not worth it. Don’t be a martyr.’

  ‘Why in the world would I do it for him!’ she exclaimed hotly. ‘Are you mad? I want to do it. I want to so much. I want to fly. I loved it before. And—’

  She spat the words under her breath. ‘And no one will let me fly like you, because I am a girl and what they told my dad – “not of pure European descent”.’

  Before I could protest again, she added quickly, ‘Well, also, I want to help you.’ She sucked in a breath. ‘I can practise receiving Morse code! I can listen to the radio for you!’

  I gave a gasp of a laugh. She wouldn’t even know how to turn the radio on. But she was so keen.

  ‘You could take me instead of Louisa,’ Ellen put in persuasively. ‘Only I’d be sick again, and I couldn’t receive Morse code. You’d let me come, aye? You’d let me.’

  ‘Yes, but – that’s not fair. You’ve left home. You’re responsible for yourself.’

  ‘So have I,’ said Louisa. ‘So am I.’

  As long as we didn’t get shot at, she’d be fine, and no one would know Chip hadn’t gone with us. Still – I shook my head. ‘You don’t need to be involved.’

  ‘I’m already involved. You know how much.’ She laughed.

  If anyone found out, I’d be in bigger trouble than she would.

  ‘Oh, let her come if she wants to that badly,’ said Silver. ‘It’s not a bombing run.’

  I sat back on my heels, throwing my hands in the air in surrender. If Silver was going to side with the girls, I was doomed.

  ‘Cheer up!’ he said as he climbed in next to us. ‘Think how much trouble she’ll save, not how much she’ll mak
e! Louisa never makes any trouble.’

  Ellen shut us all in the back of the van.

  ‘You’d better have another pair of socks,’ I told Louisa. ‘Or two. Silver, can you spare some socks? If we each give her a layer, no one will end up with frostbite.’

  Louisa laughed nervously as we dragged off our boots and passed her our socks in the dark.

  ‘What—’

  ‘You’ll get Tex’s chocolate ration, too!’ Silver exclaimed. ‘Make sure you eat it before you take off, so it doesn’t go to waste if we—’

  ‘Shut up, mate,’ I interrupted. ‘We won’t. Not this time.’

  Ellen gave Louisa her pullover. Outside it was colder than it had been on Christmas Day. The poor wee lass could hardly move by the time we’d packed her in woollens and stuffed a dozen Ever-Hot bags between the layers, but it helped bulk out Chip’s flight suit. With the legs and sleeves rolled up, it wasn’t too bad – he wasn’t any taller than me.

  Then we helped Louisa into his padded gauntlets and life vest, and finished off the disguise with his helmet and mask. She had her own oxygen and a microphone this time. You couldn’t see anything of her face but her eyes.

  So when Ellen pulled up by Pimms Section’s lead Blenheim, where the ground crew were still refuelling, three suited airmen climbed from the back of the Tilly.

  Standing next to the plane I knew we never had a chance of getting Chip into it. There was no way we could have lifted him on to the wing and through the rear hatch. We struggled enough getting Louisa up there, in Chip’s flight suit and Nan Campbell’s wellie boots, and she was lighter and more cooperative than Chip. I leaned over to cram my top half through the hatch behind her so I could show her where to stow her parachute and plug in her oxygen.

  ‘The rear gunner’s also the wireless operator,’ I told her. ‘Sit at the radio for take-off – once we’re in the air, hop into the gun turret if you want to see out. When I get the hydraulics switched on, you can make the gunner’s chair go up and down by twisting the handles.’ I pointed. ‘It’ll move the gun, too; careful you don’t hit the firing button by accident. You’re connected to the intercom so you can talk to me and Silver, and you’ll be able to hear the radio, but you can’t transmit to the other planes. Let me know if anything bothers you!’