The Code Girls

by Daisy Styles

  ‘All right, darling,’ she murmured, patting his golden flank. ‘Shall we have one last blow-out on the way back?’

  Giving Lucas his head, she sat low in the saddle as Lucas galloped full tilt across the beach. With her hair flying out behind her and Lucas’s silky mane lifting on the cold easterly breeze, Ava smiled in delight as they swept past the pine woods, where Lucas, tired after exerting himself more than usual, slowed down to a steady walk.

  ‘Good boy,’ she said, laying her head on his warm neck. ‘You’re the best horse in the whole wide world!’ She chuckled fondly. ‘But I’ve worn you out. Let’s get you home before you drop.’

  Back at the yard, Ava tethered Lucas to a ring in the stable wall and left him saddled up near a brimming bucket of water to quench his thirst while she ran indoors to boil the kettle for his favourite meal, a hot bran mash. Minutes later, when she returned with a bucketful that smelt warm and yeasty, Lucas had gone.

  ‘Where is he?’ she called out to Peter.

  ‘Miss Diana’s just galloped off on him,’ he replied.

  Ava gasped in dismay. ‘But he’s already exhausted after our long ride on the beach,’ she cried. ‘He’s in no state to go out a second time!’

  ‘Sorry, miss, I tried to stop Miss Diana, but she was having none of it. She told me to mind my own bloody business,’ he added disapprovingly. ‘I was just coming to find you.’

  In a flat spin, Ava ran to the bike shed, where she grabbed the first bike she could lay her hands on, then, pedalling furiously, cycled after Diana, praying as she went.

  ‘God, please God, don’t let her hurt him.’

  Back in the Walsingham kitchen, Peter, out of breath from running across the yard, was hurriedly telling Bella what had just happened. Alarmed by the urgency in Peter’s face, she immediately picked up the phone and phoned Tom at his surgery in Wells.

  ‘I’ll drive over right away,’ he promised.

  Meanwhile, Diana was galloping wildly along the track that fringed the woods. ‘I’ll show you what a real ride is,’ she yelled, whacking Lucas’s rump with a whip.

  Though already weary, Lucas did what he’d done all his life: he tried his best. Sweating profusely, foam flecking his muzzle and bridle, he pushed himself into an even faster gallop. Racing along on her bike, Ava eventually caught up with the frenzied Diana.

  ‘Stop! Please stop!’ she begged. ‘Lucas is exhausted ‒ you’ll kill him if you push him any harder.’

  Pedalling at breakneck speed, Ava rode alongside Lucas, who was wide-eyed with fear. Reaching out, she tried to grab his reins. ‘I beg you, stop!’ she implored once more.

  Diana raised her whip and slashed Ava across the face.

  ‘Bitch!’ she snarled. ‘I’ll do what the hell I choose with my bloody horse!’ Kicking Lucas hard in the ribs, Diana headed straight for a high hedge that was looming up in front of them. ‘Go! Go!’ she screamed.

  Ava gazed in complete horror at the high hedge; even if he wasn’t exhausted, Lucas could never jump so high, he was just too old, but Diana had no such thought in her mind. Whipping him even harder, she urged the poor beast to do the physically impossible. Rising up like the hero he was, Lucas lifted his front legs as high as he could and hurled himself at the hedge. Clutching the reins, Diana screamed as she realized the impossibility of clearing the jump. Losing her balance, she rolled off Lucas’s back and landed with a thud on the ground. Oblivious of Diana, Ava watched in horror as Lucas tumbled back down to the ground, where he rolled on his back, whinnying in pain. Horrified, Ava dashed towards him.

  ‘Darling, darling boy,’ she murmured, tears flooding down her face. Hearing her voice, Lucas turned his head towards her. The pain and fear in his eyes just about broke Ava’s heart. ‘Don’t worry, boy, you’ll be all right,’ she soothed. ‘We’re going to get you better,’ she added softly.

  Her gentle, calm voice reassured Lucas, who neighed softly as she stroked her hand along the length of his neck, which was running with sweat. Ava barely noticed Tom arriving, but suddenly he was there beside her, examining Lucas, whose eyes were beginning to roll in his head.

  ‘Tell me he’ll be all right. Tell me he’ll live,’ she pleaded, as Tom ran his hands along the length of Lucas’s front legs. As he did so, the poor beast groaned in pain.

  Not daring to breathe, Ava waited.

  ‘I’m sorry, darling,’ Tom said. ‘He’s broken a leg.’

  ‘No, no, no!’ she wailed, and buried her face in her hands.

  ‘Ava, he’s in pain. You know what I need to do,’ Tom said urgently.

  Heartbroken, Ava lay down beside Lucas. She stroked and soothed him as Tom retrieved what he needed from his bag and prepared to inject a massive dose of sedative into the horse’s neck. He acted quickly and, within a minute, Lucas’s eyelids fluttered and he drifted into unconsciousness.

  ‘Goodbye, my sweet love,’ Ava whispered softly, as she stood up stoically in order for Tom to finish the grim task ahead – shooting a bullet into Lucas’s forehead.

  The loud shot brought Diana round. Bruised and dazed, she staggered to her knees, demanding ‘What the hell’s going on?’

  Wild with anger, Tom turned on her. ‘You stupid, selfish woman!’ he raged.

  ‘How dare you!’ she yelled at him.

  ‘Oh, I dare, all right,’ Tom yelled back. ‘Because of you and your idiocy, I’ve just put down one of God’s best creatures.’ He pointed at Lucas, beneath the hedge. ‘Look what you have done – destroyed a perfectly beautiful animal.’

  Ava, who had dropped back down to the ground to stroke Lucas, looked up at Diana. With tears coursing down her cheeks, she cried, ‘You pushed him even when you knew he was too tired to make it ‒ you did it on purpose.’ Taking a deep, ragged breath, she added, ‘I could strangle you with my own bare hands!’

  ‘I’m not taking any more of this. I’m going home,’ Diana stormed. Clutching her head, she wound her uneven way back down the track.

  Peter brought the tractor and truck to winch up Lucas and take him away.

  ‘Go home, darling,’ Tom urged. ‘You don’t want to see this.’

  Back at the stables, surrounded by all Lucas’s tack, Ava started to cry all over again. Tara the Shetland snickered sadly. She’d spent all her life alongside Lucas, and she was bewildered that he hadn’t come back home to her. Tom later found Ava weeping inconsolably beside her.

  ‘She’s lost without Lucas,’ Ava sighed, as she rose to her feet and walked into Tom’s open arms.

  Seeing her lovely face muddy and tear-stained, Tom said tenderly. ‘We’ll have to find her a new friend to play with.’

  Ava shook her head. ‘No, Tom,’ she said, as she filled up all over again. ‘No horse will ever replace Lucas. He was the love of my life.’

  Back in the Walsingham kitchen later that night, among her friends, Ava reached into a drawer for her packet of cigarettes.

  ‘Diana did it out of sheer spite,’ she told them, inhaling deeply. ‘She killed Lucas just to prove a point – he was her horse and she could do whatever she wanted with him, regardless of the consequences.’

  ‘Well, the good news is she’s gone!’ Ruby announced. ‘She drove off half an hour ago with a bandage wrapped around her head.’

  Ava exhaled cigarette smoke and said bitterly, ‘I bloody well hope she dies en route!’

  Ava urged Tom to return to his practice in Wells. Worried about leaving her, he stroked her face, where a livid bruise caused by Diana’s whip was swelling up.

  ‘You know, Tom,’ she whispered, ‘we had the best ride of our lives on Holkham beach today. Lucas was so happy, he just kept neighing with sheer excitement.’

  ‘At least he had that ‒ he had his last great ride with you.’

  Tom reluctantly left, promising to return later for a New Year’s kiss. Ruby, who was bone-tired, willingly accepted a lift home from Peter.

  ‘I’ll be glad to get my feet up ‒ the little un’s been doing a fandango in
side me all day!’ she joked. Kissing Ava, she said, ‘I’ll be fast asleep by midnight, so I’ll say “Happy New Year” now, sweetheart.’

  ‘Happy New 1944!’ Ava said, kissing her back. ‘Let’s hope it’s a better year than this one.’

  As Ava soaked her weary body in a hot bath and Maudie mixed herb dumplings to go with the spinach soup she’d made earlier, a call from the sewing room made Maudie drop everything. Dashing into the sewing room, she saw a flushed and smiling Bella operating the radio transmitter.

  ‘Is it him?’ Maudie cried.

  Bella nodded excitedly. ‘He’s made contact, but there’s no message. It must be too risky,’ she said.

  Maudie threw up her arms and danced around the room. ‘My Kit’s alive, that’s all that matters,’ she said, and flung her arms around Bella’s neck and kissed her on both cheeks. ‘My love’s alive and, one day soon, please God, he’ll come home to me!’

  Part Four

  * * *

  1944

  35. The War Office

  January 1944 was a time of simmering jubilation across the country.

  ‘What with the Allies landing in Italy a few months back and the Soviets advancing into Poland, Jerry must be really starting to sweat,’ Ava gloated as she lit up her after-lunch cigarette.

  ‘Not used to being the underdog, eh?’ Ruby added gleefully, as she stroked a hand over her burgeoning tummy.

  ‘And what a victory for the Red Army!’ Maudie exclaimed. ‘Kicking the Germans away from Leningrad.’

  ‘Oh, but the state of those poor souls who survived,’ Bella sighed heavily. ‘It’s a wonder anybody’s left alive after a nine-hundred-day siege.’

  ‘I read in the paper that they were reduced to eating wallpaper and sawdust ‒ cats, even,’ Ruby said with a shudder.

  ‘A million people died,’ Maudie lamented. ‘It’s a crime against humanity!’

  ‘Bloody Germans!’ Ruby seethed. ‘I wonder what God will have to say to them on their day of judgement?’

  ‘Don’t take too long over that question, ladies,’ Ava chivvied, stubbing out her Woodbine. ‘We’ve got meat-and-potato pies to make for thirty-two hungry mouths – let’s get cracking!’

  In the same week that the Leningrad siege was lifted, the Brig received a letter recalling him back to his desk job at the War Office. His heart sank. Much as he loved his communications work in London, the sudden recall meant leaving Norfolk and the lovely young woman he’d fallen head over heels in love with. At the age of thirty-seven, handsome Charles Rydal, with a first-class Oxford degree in Mathematics, had had a number of relationships with several women. The last one had lasted over two years but had been suddenly cut short when Gladys had been posted to Orkney. If the truth were known, he was actually quite relieved that the relationship had ended when it did. He preferred his bachelor status to any romantic entanglement; they generally got in the way of him doing what he wanted: playing chess, listening to Mozart on his gramophone, having a drink with his old chums in his club, or going to the Oval to watch a game of cricket.

  And then along came his own sweet, adorable Bella, who had walked into his office. Pretty, so young and blushing, she’d embraced a new life working with code girls. He’d been intrigued by her right from the start, but he’d only really started falling in love with her when they met in the library to pursue her advanced training. When they kissed for the first time he realized he’d never, in all his thirty-seven years, felt like this before. Since then, their love had grown and grown, even through the terrible, hard times of Kit’s prolonged absence and Raf’s tragic death, which, for the rest of his life, the Brig would always hold himself responsible for.

  And now he was about to tell the love of his life that he was leaving. After reading his instructions from the War Office, the Brig tucked the letter in his pocket, then went about arranging some urgent business in nearby King’s Lynn. Later that evening, as he sat side by side with Bella in front of a cheerful fire in the library, he handed her the letter to read for herself. He watched her lovely, pale blue eyes scan the typescript, then she turned to him and burst into tears.

  ‘You’re leaving?’ she whispered. ‘You’re going away!’

  Close to tears himself, he hugged her tightly. ‘Darling, darling,’ he murmured, as he kissed her soft blonde curls and rocked her slowly back and forth. ‘It’s orders. They have to be obeyed.’

  Bella drew away to wipe her eyes with her handkerchief. ‘I’m sorry,’ she hiccupped. ‘This is pathetic behaviour.’ Squaring her shoulders, she added, ‘There are millions of women across Britain who said goodbye to their beloveds four years ago, when the war began. Here am I, moaning and weeping, when I’ve had you all to myself for so long.’ Just thinking about the blissful happiness they’d shared together brought tears welling up in her eyes again. ‘I’m being an utter baby,’ she said, starting to cry once more. As she dabbed at her eyes, a shocking thought dawned. ‘Oh, God! Who’s going to train the girls now?’ she gasped. ‘Please tell me it won’t be Miss Cox? I simply couldn’t bear that. You leaving is bad enough, but if she takes charge, life will be a nightmare both upstairs and below stairs!’

  ‘She won’t be taking over from me,’ the Brig assured her with a confident smile.

  ‘Oh, do you know who will be?’ Bella asked.

  The Brig nodded. ‘I was asked to find a suitable replacement.’

  Looking puzzled, Bella picked up the Brig’s letter, and peered at it closely. ‘It says here you’re to report for desk duty on Monday. That’s only five days away. How on earth are you going to find somebody so quickly?’

  ‘Luckily, I have just the right person in mind.’

  ‘Who?’ she cried in total frustration.

  ‘You!’

  Thunderstruck, Bella could only stare at him incredulously.

  ‘You’re the perfect candidate,’ he told her calmly. ‘You completed your training with distinction, then went on to study at a higher level. You’re exactly the kind of person I’d be looking for to teach new code girls.’

  When Bella’s voice did return, it was high-pitched and squeaky. ‘I can’t possibly!’

  ‘You can most definitely,’ he assured her. ‘You’re unquestionably the cleverest student I’ve ever taught. You’ll be an excellent tutor.’

  As she opened and closed her mouth like a goldfish, the Brig added firmly, ‘It’s a done deal. I submitted your name to the War Office as my possible replacement, and they accepted immediately.’

  ‘Oh, God!’ she wailed.

  ‘Stop worrying!’ he laughed. ‘If you have any problems, you can always phone me, and I can put you straight right away. You’ll be fine,’ he said, jumping her to her feet and kissing her full on the mouth. ‘Now, my dearest, darling, lovely Bella, there’s something else you have to do before I leave for London.’

  With her head in a spin, Bella cried, ‘What now, Brig?’

  ‘Marry me.’

  Once again, she stared at him incredulously. ‘Really, really?’

  ‘Really, really,’ he laughed, and lifted her into the air and spun her round. ‘I’m not leaving you alone in Norfolk for somebody else to snap up. You’re my wonderful girl – will you marry me?’

  When he had set her down on the ground, Bella laid her head against his shoulder. She’d never in all her life felt such a rush of ecstatic joy. Gazing up at the man she adored, she simply whispered, ‘Yes!’

  There was great celebration below stairs when Bella and the Brig broke the news to Ruby, Ava and Maudie, and Lady Caroline, too, who the Brig insisted on informing and involving. As they toasted the happy couple in vintage champagne provided by Lady Caroline from her late husband’s cellar, Ruby hooted with laughter as she said, ‘Oh, heck, Miss Cox won’t take the news well. She’s had her eye on the Brig right from the start.’

  ‘Actually, as part of the rearrangement, she’s been moved on to a training centre in Northampton.’

  ‘Thank God for that,’ said
Bella gratefully. ‘I don’t think I could do the job with her breathing down my neck.’

  As the Brig kissed his fiancée for the tenth time in less than an hour, Lady Caroline said warmly, ‘Congratulations to you both. I’ve been longing to find the perfect husband for my youngest daughter for years, but I see now she is perfectly capable of doing that for herself.’

  Bella blinked back tears – she really couldn’t spend the whole evening weeping with happiness!

  ‘Thank you, Mummy,’ she said, and hugged her mother, who squeezed her tightly in return.

  ‘At least one of my children has made a wise decision,’ Lady Caroline said, with a sad smile.

  The Brig approached to shake Lady Caroline’s hand, but she offered him both cheeks to kiss. ‘Do you mind if I call you Charles?’ she asked politely. ‘I really can’t go around calling my son-in-law “Brig”!’

  ‘It would be my pleasure, Lady –’

  She stopped him short. ‘Caroline.’

  ‘Caroline,’ he echoed, with a warm smile.

  ‘Have you fixed a date?’ Maudie asked.

  ‘I drove over to King’s Lynn this morning,’ the Brig replied, producing a piece of paper from his pocket. ‘I managed to get a special wedding licence. We’re getting married on Saturday.’

  ‘Saturday!’ squeaked Bella. ‘So soon!’

  ‘I thought it might be nice to have at least one night for our honeymoon,’ he said to a blushing Bella.

  ‘One night!’ Ruby sighed. ‘Me and my Raf had a whole weekend in Hunstanton.’

  ‘I hope you’ll spend your short honeymoon here at the hall,’ Lady Caroline said. ‘We could prepare the Dower House so you have some privacy.’