by Daisy Styles
The girls were shocked by the sight of the first black-market delivery, of foie gras and champagne.
‘Typical Mummy, throwing money away. Bloody useless!’ Bella scoffed.
‘They must have taken a loan from the Bank of England to pay for this lot,’ Ava spluttered.
‘And paid a fat fee under the counter to the thieving spiv who found it!’ Ruby added.
‘You know your parents could go down for ten years for dealing with black-market crooks,’ Maudie said, in all seriousness.
Bella rolled her baby-blue eyes. ‘I should be so lucky!’
‘But seriously, kids,’ said Ava, as she surveyed the expensive but totally inadequate goods sprawled across the kitchen table. ‘This isn’t going to feed a mob.’ She pointed at the champagne. ‘They’ll be legless, but starving!’
Bella pulled out a chair and slumped down at the table. Seeing their dear friend sitting with her head bent, ashamed and embarrassed, made Ava, Ruby and Maudie feel very sorry for her.
‘I’ve had an idea,’ said Ava, winking at Ruby and Maudie. ‘Let’s give the toffs what we give the code girls!’
Catching her drift, Ruby and Maudie nodded and smiled.
‘Lord Woolton pie, sausage rolls with no sausage, fritters and pasties,’ giggled Ruby.
Maudie grabbed hold of a large tin of foie gras. ‘Let’s trade this rubbish in for real stuff ‒ Spam, corn beef, lard, beans, peas, sugar and flour.’
Bella looked at her amazing, supportive, wonderful friends and, though tears filled her eyes, she smiled. ‘Thank you, thank you,’ she sobbed, and stood up and embraced them. ‘What would my life be without you?’
Ava laughed as she hugged Bella long and hard. ‘What’s good enough for the code girls is good enough for them!’
In between cooking and cleaning and looking after the Walsinghams upstairs, Ava stole a few precious hours so she could see Ollie before he returned to his mother in London. The biting wind was almost unbearable on Holkham beach, where they were the only people in sight, but the little boy, with his cheeks blasted bright cherry-red by the north-easterly, laughed and giggled as the tubby little Shetland pony trotted along the water’s edge, tossing her thick mane and neighing with excitement.
‘Giddee-up!’ he chuckled, as Tara gathered speed and broke into a lumbering canter.
When it got too cold to be on the beach, they tethered the horses to a pine tree and the three of them snuggled down in Tom and Ava’s favourite sand dunes, where Ava produced a Thermos of home-made vegetable soup and a mock-chocolate cake, which Ollie fell on ravenously. Tom lovingly ran his hair through her newly grown, thick, brown hair.
‘I adored your long hair, but I love your new look,’ he murmured as he kissed her pouting lips. ‘I’d love you even in sackcloth.’
Ollie wiped smudges of cocoa off his mouth, then turned to Ava with a bewitching smile. ‘Come home with us, Avie,’ he begged.
‘I can’t, lovie. I’ve got to work,’ she replied sadly.
‘But it’s the Christmas holidays,’ Ollie cried indignantly.
Ava bent to cuddle him. ‘Try telling that to the Walsinghams, sweetheart.’
New Year’s Eve was cold and chilly, but the snow had cleared and the main roads in and out of Norfolk were open.
‘Thank God for small mercies,’ Ruby said, as they ran up and down stairs with crockery and cutlery. ‘Imagine if the guests were snowed in and holed up here for a week!’
‘If that happened, I’d move into the stable bock with the horses,’ Ava said, removing a tray of fairly meatless pasties from the bottom oven of the Aga. ‘The only thing that’s getting me through this blasted event is knowing that, by this time tomorrow, it will all be over and done with.’
‘And the day after that the new code girls arrive and it’s back to the grindstone for another six months,’ groaned Ruby.
Maudie frowned as she deep-fried parsnip fritters.
‘At least we’re dry and warm, unlike the poor Russkis holding back the Huns in Stalingrad … God help them,’ she said, with a heavy sigh.
Looking anxious, Bella came hurrying into the kitchen after paying her parents a brief visit above stairs.
‘Well, I’ve told them,’ she announced.
‘And how did they take to the idea of a rationing party?’ Ava chuckled, as she leant against the warm Aga and lit up a Woodbine.
‘They didn’t,’ Bella retorted. ‘Diana and Edward said they wouldn’t touch fritters and pies with a barge pole.’
‘Who bloody cares?’ Maudie snapped. ‘They can choose to choke on foie gras or Spam!’
The band arrived and were given supper below stairs, then they set up their instruments in the ballroom, where Dodds had put silver candelabras on tables and in cornices. As the girls finished laying out the last of their wartime food on a long table decorated with Union Jack flags, the band started to tune up and, in the empty ballroom, lit by dozens of glowing candles, Bella, Ava, Maudie and Ruby joined hands and danced to the strains of ‘In the Mood’, ‘Little Brown Jug’ and ‘Hang Out Your Washing on the Siegfried Line’. Laughing and gasping for breath, they jived and waltzed till the first guests arrived. When they were forced to stop dancing, the orchestra applauded them.
‘Hey, I’ve never seen kitchen girls dance as well as you do,’ the leader of the orchestra cried. ‘Pity you have to go ‒ you look so cute be-bopping in your lace hats and pinafores!’
‘Come back later and put on a show,’ the drummer called out. ‘Show the old stuffed shirts how to really let their hair down.’
Ava winked as she said, ‘We’ll be busy till midnight, but we might sneak back for the last dance.’
Bella stayed below stairs with Ava, serving up food, while Ruby and Maudie replenished dishes in the ballroom, where the buffet was laid out under the high leaded windows that looked out on to the dark garden. Timms hadn’t yet returned from her Christmas break, for which the girls were eternally grateful, but Dodds was on hand to serve champagne. Both Maudie and Ruby were flabbergasted by the guests’ response to their buffet supper.
‘Rationed goods!’ a portly man with flushed cheeks and monocle boomed. ‘Gets one into the wartime spirit, what ho?’
Ruby stifled a snort of laughter, which exploded out of her once the man had blustered off. ‘It’s clear he’s never had Lord Woolton pie before!’
‘He’s wolfed all the parsnip fritters,’ Maudie whispered, as she stared askance at the empty silver dish.
‘And now he’s eyeing up the curried-rabbit meatballs!’ Ruby chuckled.
It wasn’t just the man with the huge appetite who appreciated their efforts. Maudie and Ruby overheard many of the guests congratulating Lord and Lady Walsingham on their wise decision to serve rationed food. The girls hid their smiles as Lord Walsingham said, ‘It seemed the right thing to do in the circumstances, don’t ya think?’
The woman he was talking to nodded her tiara-topped head and earnestly replied, ‘It makes one quite sick to see people eating to excess while the poor Russians are starving to death.’
Lord Walsingham, who was clutching a rather soggy corned-beef fritter, took a deep slug of his champagne before answering gruffly, ‘Disgraceful! It’s sacrifices across the board, the Dunkirk spirit, hey what?’
Ruby couldn’t resist running downstairs to tell Ava and Bella. ‘They’re loving the grub up there,’ she cried. ‘They think the Walsinghams are setting a fine example by serving rationed food.’ Holding her sides, she broke into peals of helpless laughter. ‘Oh, you should have seen his lordship’s face when some posh woman praised him for his heroic war effort.’
‘His war effort!’ Bella shrieked. ‘I’ve got to take a sneak peek,’ she said, and nipped upstairs into the ballroom, where, standing in the shadows, she listened in on various conversations.
‘I say anybody who uses the black market should be flogged and sent to prison,’ a man talking to her ladyship bellowed.
‘P‒p‒prison!�
� Lady Caroline stammered, as she nervously eyed the champagne she’d had Dodds purchase at a high price from under the counter.
‘Quite! Banged up along with the spivs who are lining their own miserable pockets on the back of the war.’
By this time her ladyship was looking white and quite unwell. ‘If you’ll excuse me,’ she murmured, and moved on.
Bella was spotted by one of the guests, who was deep in conversation with Diana.
‘I have to hand it to you Walsinghams, you’re putting us to shame with the sacrifices you’re making – even your younger sister is hard at work,’ he said, pointing at Bella, who was desperately trying to make a quick exit.
Diana, who was three sheets to the wind on champagne, glared at her sister, who was dressed in her servant’s uniform.
‘It’ll be you next,’ the guest guffawed. ‘You’d look a picture in a pinnie!’
Tom, the Brig, Raf and Kit arrived at different times during the evening.
‘We give hands with washing-up,’ said Raf, grabbing a dishcloth and sticking his arms up to his elbows in warm suds.
Once supper was served and cleared, the girls could finally let their hair down. As the clock in the echoing marble hall chimed out midnight, Ava, Ruby, Maudie and Bella joined their partners and, in a circle, they sang ‘Auld Lang Syne’. As the strains of ‘Yours till the Star Lose Their Glory’ drifted down the stairwell, the Brig took Bella by the hand. ‘Care to dance, darling?’
Smiling, the four couples joined the guests on the dance floor, where, by candlelight, they danced until they were the only people left in the ballroom. As the orchestra played them out to Vera Lynn’s ‘We’ll Meet Again’, Bella laid her face against the Brig’s shoulder and sighed with sheer happiness.
‘We’re in the middle of a war, and I don’t think I’ve ever been as content in my entire life,’ she whispered.
The Brig bent to kiss her blonde curls. He didn’t want to spoil Bella’s perfect moment, but his heart was heavy. Could the year 1943 be the turning point of the war, as everybody hoped and prayed? Or would Hitler finally cross the Channel and occupy the country he loved with every bone in his body?
Part Three
* * *
1943
25. Walsingham Shoot
After dancing in the New Year, Ava, Maudie, Ruby and Bella and their devoted partners cleared away the remains of the ration-themed buffet and said reluctant farewells to each other. The exhausted girls fell into their beds at three in the morning.
‘The alarm’s on for seven,’ Bella yawned.
‘I don’t want to know about tomorrow,’ Maudie groaned, pulling the eiderdown over her head and falling into a deep, dreamless sleep.
Diligent Ruby was up first. Having brewed up, she woke the other girls with steaming mugs of hot tea and a brusque, ‘Get up! We’ve got three hours till the shoot party arrives.’
Bleary-eyed, the girls washed quickly, then struggled into their uniforms.
‘How can these people eat and drink so much and still get up early?’ Maudie grumbled, as she struggled to push her blazing, unruly hair under her lace cap.
‘Years of practice!’ Bella joked. ‘Breakfast, elevensies, lunch, tea, dinner, supper ‒ toffs can pack it away for England.’
‘The sausage rolls ‒ whoops, correction!’ Ava chuckled, as she lit up her first Woodbine of the day and inhaled deeply, ‘‒ the wild-bunny-rabbit rolls shot by Peter only last week ‒ are in the oven. We’ll serve them with the punch.’
Ruby, who’d done many a Walsingham Shoot, explained the procedure.
‘Leave Dodds to mix and serve the spiced rum punch,’ she said. ‘I’ll whip round with the rolls while you three press on with the shoot lunch. It’s served in the lake house, usually around midday.’
‘How do the shoot party get to the lake house?’ Ava asked.
‘Peter said he and my brother will drive them there in the blood wagons,’ Bella replied.
‘Ugh! Disgusting,’ Maudie cried.
‘Don’t panic,’ giggled Ruby, who loved teasing squeamish Maudie. ‘They’re just a couple of old Land Rovers, dripping with the blood of dead pheasants!’ she added naughtily.
‘Please, spare me the gory details,’ Maudie begged.
‘But we’ll have to cycle over there with the food. Peter can’t manage that, too.’
‘That should be a challenge,’ cried Maudie. ‘Balancing sprouts, mashed potatoes and a casserole in our bicycle baskets.’
‘Not to mention the coconut tarts and custard!’ Ava added. ‘How’re we going to warm it all up?’ she added as an afterthought.
‘There are a couple of old Primus camping stoves kept in the lake house for just that purpose,’ Bella replied. Seeing Maudie’s anxious face, she said, ‘They do work, promise.’
‘It’s not the food I’m worried about,’ Maudie admitted. ‘It’s being anywhere near your brother that’s troubling me.’
Bella looked her friend levelly in the eye. ‘I’ll stand between you and my foul brother,’ she promised.
Maudie put an arm around Bella, whose blue eyes were already burning with anger. ‘Thank you, darling, I’ll be safe with a lioness like you at my side!’
Late morning, with everything prepared, just before they set off, Ava gave Ruby strict instructions about the teatime menu. ‘Meat-paste sandwiches and scones with rhubarb jam ‒ and go easy on the sugar, we don’t want the toffs taking our code girls’ precious sugar rations,’ she said firmly.
Laughing themselves silly, Ava, Bella and Maudie jumped on their bicycles and cycled through the pine woods, balancing pans of food in their wicker baskets.
‘I don’t dare to try overtaking either of you in case I lose one of the courses en route!’ Bella joked.
It was a clear, bright, freezing-cold January day, which brought roses to their cheeks and a sparkle to their eyes.
‘It’s the kind of weather that whips up an appetite,’ Bella announced, as they parked their bikes by the lake house, which Peter had left unlocked after sweeping it out and setting up the long wooden trestle tables and benches. Propped up on one of the tables was a scribbled note left by Peter, which Ava picked up.
‘Looks like Peter’s got a problem,’ she said, as she read the letter. ‘Lord Edward’s not showed up all morning, so Peter will have to deliver the shooting party to the lake house in two trips.’
‘Trust bloody Edward to ruin the arrangements,’ Bella fumed.
‘It’s a real nuisance,’ Ava grumbled. ‘It’ll take us twice as long to serve two separate groups, and the food will have to be reheated ‒ not great for dumplings, they’ll be so hard we’ll be able to bounce them off the wall!’
Maudie, who could drive, quickly said, ‘I can go and collect the second Land Rover and help Peter with the driving.’
Ava and Bella glanced at each other and nodded. ‘Good idea,’ said Ava.
‘The Land Rovers are kept at the estate office,’ Bella told her.
‘You start heating up the lunch,’ Maudie said, as she dashed out of the open door. ‘Won’t be long.’
Mounting her bike, Maudie cycled back to the office, where there was a Land Rover parked on the drive. Relieved to find that Peter had left the keys in the ignition, she started up the rickety old vehicle, then headed off across the estate towards the sound of loud, blasting guns. As she bounced along the rutted track that ran alongside the pine woods, Maudie spotted two men in blue RAF uniforms hurrying through the bushes. Thinking they might be on their way to Holkham airbase, she drew up and called out to them. ‘Want a lift?’
The men turned to scowl at her, then, muttering to each other, they disappeared behind the thick bushes. Instantly suspicious, Maudie stepped out of the Land Rover and approached the bushes that fringed the track. Though the men had moved on, she could still hear them talking.
‘We’ve gone too far,’ one of them insisted.
‘No, Walsingham told us to take a right turn and cut through the w
oods to get to the airbase.’
‘I wonder if Kit knows about them,’ Maudie thought. as she got back into the Land Rover and drove away.
Less than a hundred yards down the track, Lord Edward himself stepped out in front of her, with a gun slung over his shoulder.
‘Oh, Jesus!’ Maudie cried, as she dropped gear in an attempt to swerve around him. The engine stalled and the Land Rover shuddered to a halt.
The sight of his bloated red face only a few feet away brought Maudie out in a hot sweat. She tried desperately to restart the car.
‘Shit!’ she cried.
Suddenly, a hand with a grip of iron grabbed her by the shoulder and yanked her out of the driver’s seat. ‘What the hell are you doing in my vehicle?’ Edward Walsingham demanded harshly.
Though she was terrified of Edward touching her, Maudie wasn’t going to cringe and quake in front of such a disgusting, blustering bully. ‘I’m going to pick up the shooting party you seem to have forgotten about,’ she snapped.
‘Bugger off!’ Edward snarled.
Shoving her roughly away from the car, he climbed in and turned the keys in the ignition. ‘You can walk back to where you came from!’ he sneered, roaring away at break-neck speed.
‘Brute!’ Maudie screamed after him.
Struggling to her feet, she dusted herself down, then breathed a sigh of relief. She certainly had a long walk ahead of her, but at least Edward hadn’t tried to molest her. Maudie broke into a run but stopped short when, yet again, she spotted the two RAF men slinking through the forest undergrowth. Suspicious of their furtive behaviour, she muttered out loud, ‘What are they up to?’
Holding her breath, Maudie slipped behind a belt of pine trees, then crept as close as she dared to the men, who had stopped to have a cigarette. Hidden, Maudie listened in on their conversation.
‘I wish Walsingham hadn’t left us to it.’
The second man shrugged. ‘He had to go to the shoot, otherwise it would arouse suspicion.’ He carelessly flicked his cigarette butt away as he added, ‘We have our orders, we know what to do – get the information and report back without being seen. We can do that with or without Walsingham.’
