by Jules Wake
Judith smiled. ‘I like films too.’ They shared a quick glance of acknowledgement. She went as often as she could to the cinema. It offered a few hours’ escape from real life and she wondered if, perhaps, someone like Betty needed escape as much as she did. With her movie-star looks and confidence, Judith found it difficult to believe.
‘Casablanca’s my favourite. I cried,’ declared Betty.
‘I liked it.’ Judith couldn’t say it made her cry. Her tears had run dry a long time ago.
For the next fifteen minutes, Betty chattered away about the films and shows she’d seen in London. Judith, entranced by the other girl’s vivacity, was quite happy to listen and make the odd comment as Betty said ‘Don’t you think so?’, ‘Wasn’t he lovely?’ and ‘Isn’t she wonderful?’
‘Well, this is us coming up,’ said Betty, jumping to her feet and pulling a kitbag from the luggage rack. ‘Good luck and maybe I’ll see you at the house. It’s some sort of distribution centre.’ She scrunched up her nose. ‘Doesn’t sound that interesting to me.’ She shrugged, ‘But needs must, eh?’
Judith nodded, feeling anxious. She had no idea what she had come to but she’d faced worse. Leaving everything she’d known, to start again. Nothing could ever be as bad as that again and she wasn’t going to let it. Getting close to other people was too much of a risk. She’d learned to cope with loneliness by keeping herself to herself and not allowing her emotions to get the better of her. It was easy to keep them under lock and key by keeping her distance.
She stared out of the window at the rolling hills and thickets of trees, spreading across the dents and bumps of the landscape. Her spirits lifted. They were in the country. She hadn’t even known that the underground came out of the city. In her time off, she could explore the area, she told herself; something that she could do on her own without that awful pervading sense of loneliness and isolation that had dogged her in the confines of the northern town she’d just left. But she knew she probably wouldn’t.
‘Chalfont and Latimer. Chalfont and Latimer,’ called the guard on the platform.
Betty jumped off the train onto the platform and Judith followed, a little like a cautious cat, keen to see where she was.
‘Well, this is me,’ said Betty. ‘See you around.’ With that she gave Judith a cheery salute and marched off, her hips swaying and her bag swinging.
‘Bye,’ said Judith, her voice trailing away as she looked around at the rapidly emptying platform. Picking up her bag, she followed everyone out to the road where there was a corporal in uniform beside a large dark car.
‘Hello,’ she said hesitantly. ‘I’m Judith Stern.’
‘Ah, Private Stern. Another German lady?’
She nodded, stiffening a little, but he seemed indifferent to her nationality.
‘Good to have you on board.’ He gave her a friendly smile. ‘Welcome to No. 1 Distribution Centre.’ He looked over her shoulder and frowned. ‘I’m waiting on one more.’
‘Betty?’
He shook his head. ‘Who? No. We’ll give it a minute. I hope she didn’t miss the bloody train. I’ll have to come back again. Honest to God, I’m up and down that lane a dozen times a day at the moment.’
They waited for a few minutes and Judith was quite happy to stand there in the warm spring sunshine listening to the birds flitting through the nearby trees. It seemed so peaceful and quiet, it was difficult to believe that the rest of Europe was at war, with such a large portion under German occupation.
Suddenly there was a roar of an engine and a big grey car came speeding up the road and then stopped dead beside them.
‘Gawd. Look at that,’ said the corporal.
‘Hello,’ called the young woman in the driving seat in a very carrying voice. She exuded rosy good health, with round cheeks and twinkling eyes as if the world were here to entertain her. Judith couldn’t help noticing that she looked rather resplendent in a smart Navy Wren’s uniform. ‘Am I in the right place. Chalfont and Latimer?’
‘Yes. The station.’
‘Hallelujah. Made it. I’m Lieutenant Evelyn Edwards-Brooke reporting for duty. Sorry I’m a bit late. Got stuck behind a cart. Isn’t it pretty round here?’
The young man gawped and gazed at the car.
‘Beauty, isn’t she?’ Evelyn patted the steering wheel, while Judith stared at her. She’d never seen anyone with so much elegant self-possession.
‘It is, ducks. And I was expecting you on the eleven o’clock. You’d best follow us up to the house.’
‘Jolly good,’ she called.
The corporal nodded to Judith. ‘Sling your bag in the back and hop in.’
After a slight hesitation, she put her case on the back seat of the car and joined him in the front.
‘Did she say Lieutenant?’ she asked, still bemused. She’d not come across many female officers and certainly not a Lieutenant. At the barracks she’d been based at, the officers were all men.
‘Got all sorts at this place, you’ll see. You’ll probably be promoted before you know it,’ he said as they drove out of the small town. ‘This is Little Chalfont. Trains run regular to London. Nice neck of the woods, if you don’t mind it being a bit quiet, but better that than running down the Anderson shelter every night, I figure.’
She nodded, busy taking in the open fields and hedges around them. A few minutes later they turned left onto a smaller lane and a small village came into view. Judith stared out at the terrace of black and white timber-framed cottages with tiny dormer windows set into the red-tiled roof and slightly crooked chimneys grouped together in the centre of the building. It was an England she’d heard of but never seen before. A world away from Berlin, from Hull, from Kensal Green, from everything she’d known before. She let out a breath and hugged the tiny kernel of hope to herself as the Jeep swung left and the corporal gunned the engine up the short sharp incline, past a few more houses and then out onto a straight road.
‘Here it is.’ The corporal nodded ahead to a pair of red-brick pillars. ‘Latimer House.’
As they passed through the gateway and drew closer, Judith’s eyes widened. ‘House?’
He laughed. ‘Grand, isn’t it?’
‘It’s like a palace or a castle.’
‘Don’t get your hopes up. We don’t get to stay in the house. Round the back it don’t look so fancy. There’s a prefab village. That’s where we get billeted.’
Judith didn’t care; she couldn’t take her eyes from the house and its imposing three-storey facade with decorative brick corners, the grand stone porch, tall intricate chimneys and what she later learned were mullioned windows. To the left, the grounds sloped away, giving the house a commanding view of the valley and the wide expanse of river that curved away into the soft, lush green clouds of trees.
Behind them came the growl of the grey car that had followed them up the drive.
‘Well, isn’t this rather wonderful,’ exclaimed the woman. Judith eyed her tall, slender figure. Even in uniform she managed to look as if she’d stepped off the front page of a magazine.
‘It is, isn’t it,’ she agreed, taking some consolation that the sophisticated woman was as impressed as she was.
‘Oh, you’re German,’ exclaimed Evelyn, with seeming delight which shocked Judith, holding out her hand. ‘Wie schön, dich zu treffen. Ich bin Evelyn. Wie heiẞen Sie?’
‘I’m Judith. Pleased to meet you too,’ she replied, shaking Evelyn’s hand with a genuine smile. When was the last time that someone had been pleased to meet her, an enemy alien? She couldn’t remember.
‘Sorry to interrupt, ladies, but you need to report for duty. My orders are to take you straight up to the Colonel. He’s a busy man. Get those stars out of your eyes. You are here to work.’ Despite his words, the corporal’s face held a smile.
‘What do they, we, do here?’ asked Judith.
‘Yes, I’d like to know that too,’ chimed in Evelyn, exchanging a bright-eyed glance with her. ‘I have no id
ea.’
The corporal sobered. ‘I’m just the driver. And what I do know, I’m not at liberty to discuss. It’s a house of secrets. And we all know careless talk costs lives.’ He tapped his nose and led the way as Judith stared up in fascination at the vaulted roof of the stone porch through which they passed, her shoes clicking on the black and white tiled floor. She turned slightly, startled by a shadowy figure in an alcove and then smiled to herself, realising it was a real-life suit of armour, complete with a terrifying-looking mace in one hand. What an amazing place and what on earth did they do here? She couldn’t begin to imagine but she was glad that this other woman seemed as in the dark as she was.
Chapter Six
Evelyn
Evelyn was perplexed. It had been a relief to receive the telegram and see that she’d not been demoted but this place was a long way from the sea and the other woman sitting next to her, a German no less, was ATS, a different service altogether. Maybe she was still being punished in some other way even though she’d kept her stripes. They were both sitting outside a closed door in what was now an office with a Wren busy typing at the desk opposite. Clearly, judging from the pretty feminine pale-blue floral carpet and the co-ordinating pastel drapes, it had once been a lady’s bedroom.
At last, the door opened. ‘Lieutenant Brooke-Edwards?’
‘Yes, Sir.’
‘Do come in. I’m Colonel Myers.’ He stepped back and invited her into what must have once been another bedroom even though it was now lined with books. The enormous desk, with neat piles of folders and papers, which had clearly taken up residence in more recent years, looked rather incongruous against the stylish wallpaper of vines and ferns. There were three other desks lined up in a row at the back of the room, equally piled with papers, which gave the impression the occupants had recently stepped away to run some errand. The room looked out over the long drive leading down to Latimer village and provided a useful view of anyone arriving or departing.
She stood with her arms behind her back, still a little tense.
‘Welcome to Latimer House, Lieutenant. Nice to have you with us. I’ve heard excellent reports of your work with prisoners of war in Falmouth. Captain Jennings was very impressed.’
‘Oh,’ she squeaked, her head buzzing with questions. Jennings had recommended her. Was this a good or a bad thing? Where on earth had she come to? What was this place?
He smiled. ‘Why don’t you take a seat and I’ll explain a few things. One of the reasons you’ve been recruited is because of your fluency in German. How did you learn your German?’
‘My mother’s sister married a German professor at the University in Heidelberg. We spent every summer there.’ She smiled at the memories of sunshine-filled garden parties with her cousins and their friends. She, David and her parents had visited every summer for as long as she could remember. Except for the last few years, of course. ‘I made some good friends there.’ Her smile dimmed as she thought of all those dear people. ‘And now I have no idea what has happened to them. The country changed but not all of its people did. Not all Germans are Nazis and not all of them support Hitler.’
‘I know that only too well. My sister’s husband is German and many of his family are still living there.’ His face clouded.
‘I’m sorry. It’s difficult, isn’t it?’ Their eyes met in a moment of shared affinity. He understood the uncertainty of not knowing how or where your friends were. Since the suspension of postal services between England and Germany on the third of September 1939, there had been no way of contacting anyone over there.
‘I think it is one of our strengths when we know our enemy and understand that in many ways they are like us. Did you visit any other parts of Germany?’
She frowned at the question.
‘Sometimes if you can talk about a place with a prisoner, you can develop a relationship with them. It’s part of our,’ he paused, ‘our overall strategy.’ She wondered at that pause and what he wasn’t saying but he was looking at her expectantly.
‘I was also in Bavaria. In 1938, in preparation for going up to Oxford. I spent,’ she broke off and bit her lip, ‘I was supposed to spend a year there but it was cut short.’ He didn’t say anything so she pressed on. ‘I stayed with a Graf and Gräfin.’ Her smile dimmed, thinking of the lovely old couple in their castle who were nobility in Germany. ‘They were very kind and although they were discreet about it, they were anti-Nazi.’ She paused, wondering whether she should admit the next part. In hindsight it seemed childish and not very disciplined. ‘There was a diplomatic incident.’
Myers raised his eyebrows.
‘I and another girl who was also staying there… well, we were rather incensed by the attacks on the Jewish people, especially a particularly nasty anti-Jewish newspaper, Der Stürmer.’ She shuddered in disgust. ‘It was awful. They wrote the most hideous, inflammatory things and it was put up in the town centre for everyone to read. It was shocking.’ Evelyn could feel her vocal cords tightening as the remembered rage came back. ‘I couldn’t believe they could treat people like that.’ She collected herself. ‘And now I realise it was ill-advised and rather immature. I’d like to think that I’ve grown up since then, but I had to tear one down. I’m afraid I did it rather publicly in the centre of the town.’
She could have sworn she saw the Colonel quirk his lips very quickly.
‘Unfortunately someone saw me and reported it and … well, I was an embarrassment to my hosts, and then the Foreign Office got wind and it was decided it would be best if I came home.’
‘I see, and then you went to Lady Margaret Hall to read modern languages.’
‘That’s right,’ she said, relieved that he hadn’t commented further. She wasn’t exactly ashamed of her behaviour but now she realised how ineffectual and silly her actions had been. ‘And then I left in 1940, when my brother was taken a prisoner of war. I wanted to do something.’ She’d wanted to serve, to make a difference in the way that her brother, her father and uncles were all doing. All her life she’d been constrained by what she could do as a woman; as a girl climbing trees with her brother, insisting he taught her to drive, to shoot and to fish. It had always been a battle to be able to do the same things as him. Even going to university, she was restricted to an all-ladies college. The advent of the war had changed all that. Women were allowed to do things that they’d never been able to do before and she’d been determined to seize that opportunity.
Myers nodded. ‘Well, you’ll be doing something here, that’s for certain. What I must impress upon you is that the work we conduct on this site is of the utmost secrecy. You come highly recommended. You’ll sign the Official Secrets Act and you won’t be able to talk of our work here, not even with colleagues. Latimer House to outsiders is known as Camp 30 or No. 1 Distribution Centre. It’s actually one of three Combined Services Detailed Interrogation Centres and your role here will be with Naval Intelligence.’
Evelyn nodded, still reeling from the shock of the words ‘highly recommended’.
‘You will be involved in interrogating German prisoners of war.’
She frowned, looking out of the window. ‘You have some here? This is a POW camp?’
Colonel Myers smiled rather wryly. ‘Officially no. We’d rather keep a low profile. We like to think of it as more of a transition camp. We receive newly arrived prisoners deemed of sufficient rank to harbour useful information and glean as much as we can from them before sending them elsewhere. They’re here for a short period only. Hence the official title of Distribution Centre.’
‘Ah, I see, Sir.’
‘You’ve already had training in interrogation techniques, so you’ll be aware of our strategy. The POWs think it’s because we have so few men and are so desperate we have to recruit women to do men’s work. As a result, they often relax their guard. Forgive me, but as military men they don’t take women, especially women officers, very seriously.’
‘I have come across that before, sir.’<
br />
He looked back at the folder on his desk. ‘Yes, you have an excellent record of success.’
Evelyn nodded again and for the next half hour Myers explained a little more about the work before another officer arrived.
‘Ah, Wilkins. Excellent timing.’ He stood up and shook her hand. ‘Good to have you on board, Lieutenant. I think you’re going to fit in here just fine. Once you’ve been through all the paperwork with Lieutenant Wilkins, here, someone will show you your quarters.’ He directed them to one of the desks opposite.
‘Thank you, Sir.’
‘Although I would appreciate it, if you have any trouble with fellow officers, if you refrain from breaking their jaws.’
Evelyn froze and stared at him, her pulse kicking at his words, but his expression remained perfectly impassive. She could feel the heat racing across her chest and she prayed that it wouldn’t reach her face.
‘Yes, Sir. I mean, no, Sir. I won’t, Sir.’
‘That will be all.’
With her face blushing furiously, she avoided Lieutenant Wilkins’ eyes as with a shaking hand she signed the Official Secrets Act. She backed out of the room and closed the door behind her before leaning against the wall, her hand across her eyes. ‘Oh my God.’
When she straightened she looked into the eyes of the shy German girl, Judith.
‘Is everything all right?’ she asked, looking nervous.
‘Oh, it’s fine. It was … something from my last posting.’ She allowed herself to shudder properly now. How in heck’s name had she got away with it? Now she grinned at Judith. ‘Good old Captain Jennings, what a poppet.’
Clearly thinking she was quite mad, the other woman nodded slowly. ‘Do you know what you will be doing here?’
‘Yes, but it’s all hush-hush. He’ll tell you.’ She cast her eyes to a young woman at the desk beyond them. ‘Excuse me. Would you know about our bunks? Where the cabins are?’ She picked up her suitcase.
Judith frowned and she laughed. ‘Navy terms. They always use ’em even though we’re not at sea.’
