by Iris Gower
‘No news. Come in, merchi, sit by the fire and talk to me before I go mad with loneliness.’
‘I’m no merchi,’ Hari said softly. ‘My girlhood is gone along with Michael and my sister. Where can they be, Jessie?’
Jessie ran her thick-veined hand through her grey hair. ‘The good Lord is the only one who knows that.’
She led the way into the warmth of the kitchen, which still bore signs of Meryl’s cleaning habits though it was gradually declining into the chaos that Jessie was accustomed to.
‘I have to stay in England for a while,’ Hari said. ‘I’ll leave you my address Jessie. If you hear anything, please, please write to me.’
Jessie nodded. ‘Same goes for you.’ She put her head in her hands. ‘They’re searching for him, the military, they think he’s a German spy and my boy loving Wales like he never lived anywhere else.’
‘Meryl is with him.’ Hari swallowed hard not wanting to admit to the jealousy that gnawed at her whenever she thought of them together. She should be glad that her quick-thinking, intelligent sister would use all her initiative to bring the pair of them home.
‘Please God they are not dead already.’ Jessie’s voice cracked.
A thrill of horror washed over Hari. ‘Try not to think of such things.’
‘I do try but at night I see them, bloody and dead in a ditch somewhere. Where can they hide?’
‘Trust Meryl, she’s good at inventing things,’ Hari said, ‘she’s clever, intuitive and a damn good liar.’ There was no malice in her tone. ‘They will survive this, you’ll see. Let’s pray the war will soon be over and then they will turn up like new pennies I’m sure of it.’ But she wasn’t sure, not at all.
‘How long will you be in England?’ It was as though Jessie had just digested Hari’s earlier words. Her face was lined and worried beneath her sun-dried, greying hair.
‘I have to be there at least a month,’ Hari said dully. ‘I’d much rather be home but, as everyone says, this is wartime and you can’t always do as you want.’
They were both startled as there was a sudden, loud rapping on the farmhouse door. Hari followed Jessie, ready to protect her against intruders.
‘You, Georgie Dixon, how dare you show your face around here after what your mother did?’
‘There’s a message.’ He thrust out a piece of crumpled paper.
‘From where?’ Jessie’s tone was still hostile. ‘If your mother is trying to apologize she can go to blazes.’
‘It’s not from my mother, it’s from some man. He was funny… foreign, didn’t understand why Mam wasn’t you.’
‘Oh, right then,’ Jessie said flatly.
Hari looked at George. He was taller now, a man, he should be serving in the forces by now. They returned to the kitchen and Jessie opened the paper. She sank into a chair, her face white.
‘It’s from Michael’s father.’ She handed it to Hari.
The words danced before Hari’s eyes. They were typed but smudged, and covered in stains. ‘Mrs Dixon’s had a good look at this.’ Hari’s voice was bleak. Jessie took the letter back and read it aloud.
‘Son and new bride doing well under my wing M.H.E.’ She looked up at Hari her face alight with joy. They’re alive, Michael and Meryl are with my husband in Germany, they’re safe!’
Hari sank into a chair. ‘And married!’
She stayed with Jessie until the daylight was almost fading; neither of them spoke much as there seemed nothing to say; their loved ones were alive but at what price?
Dawn was breaking as Hari took the long drive back through Pen Caws Road on the way through Swansea and back to England.
As she neared the town she heard the bombs crashing and whining as they hit the terraced houses on the slopes of Mount Pleasant. Fires burnt on Kilvey Hill as German bombers tried to beat the docks into oblivion, missing important targets but decimating the buildings and killing many of the inhabitants who scampered, too late, towards the comparative safety of the shelters.
She drove through it all and stopped outside her home. She would sleep at her home whatever happened and then, tomorrow, she would pack more of her things and shake the dust of Swansea from her feet and make for England and Bletchley Park. She might just as well stay there for good; Michael was now a married man, he had chosen her sister and her own hopes were in ruins.
Thirty-Eight
Only a few weeks after arriving in Germany I found myself, courtesy of Michael’s father, sitting behind a desk in a German signal office. I worked beside both men and women and they accepted my accented German knowing, or believing, I had lived in Ireland, and making allowances for my foreignness. If only they knew.
Michael had been taken away to be a pilot in the Luftwaffe and if it wasn’t so damn well serious it would all have been laughable.
I’d cried a little when he left me, unfamiliar in huge flying jacket and big boots. He’d hugged me close and whispered caution in my ears. This show of sentiment usually abhorred by the Germans was acceptable, even deemed sweet, in a young married couple. I watched Michael climb into the aeroplane for his lesson and my heart was in my mouth as he careered down the runway and took off into the skies.
He would be expected to bomb Britain, his home, his loved ones; it was grotesque and I didn’t know how he was going to get through it.
I heard footsteps behind me and glanced over my shoulder to see Frau Hoffmann standing behind me, watching; she was small and blonde and very pretty but we were all a little afraid of her.
‘Aren’t you doing any work today, Frau Euler?’ Her German was precise, sharp. I had to drag my mind to the task in hand trying to remember what I’d learned at Hari’s side in her funny little office.
I adjusted the earphones and began to take notes hoping my spelling in German was adequate to the job. As the messages were in code, I expect I could get away with it but there was no knowing with a woman like Frau Hoffmann.
When I had been helping Hari it had all been easy to me, a little experiment, a chance to show how clever I was. In the German language, it was tricky but I was quick to learn and the codes were similar patterns to those we used at home. Numbers allied to certain letters soon became translatable even with a sort of haphazard kind of accuracy and I began to earn the respect of my fellow decoders.
Simple messages came through, usually nothing of any consequence and I waited expectantly for something big to arrive, some plot of the enemy to communicate to someone, perhaps Hari in Wales. I would be a spy—how I didn’t know—but I would help my country win this futile war, that I was sure of.
After his training was over and before he was sent on active service Michael was given leave and we went together to his father’s farmhouse and talked. I wanted him to talk about us, about our marriage, sham though it was, but his first words were about Hari. I might have known.
‘Those radios you use, the signals you send, could you let Hari know how we are and all that?’
‘Tell her we’re married in name only, you mean?’ We knew the contents of his father’s brief message to England. ‘What do you think I am a witch? I’m struggling enough not to show myself up as it is—’ My tone was sharp—‘and you want me to take such a risk just to let my sister know you’re not unfaithful, is that it? You would risk my life and possibly yours for such a small thing?’
‘Speak German,’ he said, ‘it’s safer.’
‘Even when we’re speaking treason?’
‘Treason?’—he sounded wounded—‘I wouldn’t ask you to do that.’
‘That’s exactly what you are doing.’
‘No I’m not—’ he thought about it—‘well I suppose I am really. Sorry.’
‘If I signal Hari, if I manage to work out how, it will be about something far more serious than you and me, Michael.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Make a guess,’ I said, knowing my eyes were narrowed.
‘For God’s sake don’t take risks.’
‘It’s not trivial to me,’ he said.
I suddenly felt the anger, the fight, the hope go out of me. ‘I know.’
For the next few days we lived like a married couple except for one important matter, at night we went to separate beds and I would lie awake thinking of him, wanting him, most of all wanting his love. But I cooked for him, managed the unfamiliar foods. I washed his clothes, his intimate underwear, and all the time he treated me casually, as he always did.
Michael tutored me some more in German though by using it every day I was losing my foreign accent and speaking in the same guttural way as he and the rest of my working friends did. I thought of the word ‘friends’ with surprise; the Germans were our enemies and yet the very intelligent men and women I shared my days with were human just like the Welsh stock I came from.
I was glad to go back to Hamburg and to the office, glad to be free of the desire to fling myself at Michael’s feet and beg him to love me. And yet, once at my desk, with my headphones flattening my permed unruly hair, the idea of communicating with home began to grow and ferment.
Frau Hoffman seemed to soften towards me and, watching her, I knew, incredibly, that she was in love with one of the brilliant men who worked in the office that housed the weird machine that appeared to be a typewriter but was much more.
I went to have a better look at it one evening when the office was almost deserted. There wasn’t one but several of the machines and I couldn’t think how they worked.
‘A little out of your league, Frau Euler,’ Frau Hoffman said with a hint of a sneer. I was startled. I hadn’t heard her come up behind me.
I agreed with her at once, nodding my head as if I was in a Punch and Judy show.
She looked dreamy. ‘I was widowed, you know.’
This was unexpected. ‘Iron Drawers and Iron Jaw’ I’d named her in my mind. I didn’t know what to say but I soon realized I was not required to say anything.
‘It was in the early days of the war. He was a pilot, you know, just like your husband. They don’t last long, Frau Euler, so be prepared.’
She moved to another machine and touched it almost with affection. ‘But love can come again even to the most unlikely of us.’
Unwisely I offered my opinion. ‘I don’t think I will love any other man than Michael.’
‘You may never have the choice.’ Her tone was hard, she was Iron Jaw again in an instant. ‘Now get out of this office, you have no business to be here. Don’t you realize you could be regarded as spying? We break ciphers here so that we can bomb the enemy, the arrogant British, into oblivion.’
I looked as dumb as I could and apologized, shaking my head at the machine as though it was beyond me, as indeed it was. I retreated hastily and set off for the farmhouse on my bike.
I was fuming. How dare Frau Hoffman sneer at my homeland, my people? We were all human but then she had no humanity in her. This was a side of the German people that was beyond me.
It was a long ride home, giving me a chance to think. I would try to make my radio work somehow. Now I could take discarded pieces home from work, at least I had some important pieces of equipment. I would make contact with home—now I would be a spy, though unofficial and untrained, with a glad heart and a clear conscience.
Thirty-Nine
Hari looked around the bedroom of Mrs Buckley’s lodging house and knew it was her home at least for a month or two until she got a place to rent. Until now she’d stayed in a small room at the Bletchley Mansion but it had been temporary accommodation only. Her own house in Swansea was locked up though Hari was fully aware that at any time the building could be bombed and burnt to ashes, but now she was calmer she knew one day she would go back even if only for her father’s sake.
The room at the lodging house was nicely furnished but very floral, floral bedspread, floral curtains, even flowers on the lampshade. It was clearly what Mrs Buckley thought a well-brought-up lady required.
Hari unpacked her case and put away the few more essential clothes she’d brought: plain dark skirts, white blouses and a few good sweaters in case it got cold in the nights. She put her underclothes and stockings in the bedside drawer.
She washed at the small sink in the corner of the room and, once dressed, explored the landing, finding three single toilets and one very old bathroom with a big contraption fastened to the wall that she took to be the gas boiler.
Supper was at ‘seven prompt’ and Hari obediently went down the stairs and followed the sounds of voices to the dining room.
‘Miss Jones, please come and sit down. I’ve put you alongside another lady worker at the old BP buildings.’
‘I’m Babs.’ The girl at her side had a cheery face, dark hair turned back in a sort of roll and Hari felt conscious of her own free-flowing mane of unruly curls.
‘Hari.’ She took the proffered hand and decided that tomorrow morning she would tie back her hair into a bun before she went to work at the Park.
‘What do you do at the Park?’ Hari asked.
‘I work in hut six. You’ve been working on signals haven’t you?—But I understand you’re to come in with us. Don’t worry, it’s not so bad, there’s a lot of us civvies and no slave-drivers to irk us. So long as we do our work we’re left to our own devices.’ Babs had a very cultured voice.
Mrs Buckley could obviously see that Hari was impressed. ‘Babs went to Girton,’ she said proudly. ‘Most of my guests are from Cambridge colleges.’
‘Well, I’m not,’ Hari said. ‘I went to an ordinary grammar school in Swansea, didn’t even get to university, the war put a stop to that. In fact, I’m wondering what use I can be to anyone in hut six, it’s all beyond me.’
‘You must be very bright to be sent here,’ Babs said. ‘I’d rather someone bright and quick thinking than the somewhat stereotypical boffins you get at BP. I’ll give you a lift in tomorrow if you like.’
Hari nodded eagerly. ‘Thanks, it will be nice to have moral support.’
One of the other girls stifled a laugh. ‘That’s not what we’d call our Babs, is it girls? Good-time Barbara is more like it.’
‘Oh, shut up, Cicely,’ Babs said good-naturedly.
‘That will be enough of that silly gossip, young ladies’. Mrs Buckley’s voice was stern but there was a twinkle in her eye as she ladled out the soup.
In the morning, Hari was up early, anxious not to be late for breakfast and certainly not wanting to miss her lift to work. The dining room was quiet: everyone seemed subdued, even Babs; early morning blues perhaps. There was no sign of Cicely.
Hari looked at Babs questioningly and the girl shook her head. ‘Cicely’s chap is a pilot. He didn’t come back last night.’ Her voice broke. ‘She was out there last night counting the planes over and when there was one missing, she just knew… she just knew.’
Hari picked at her breakfast and thought of Michael, wondering where he was now, how had the Germans treated him, was he all right? She remembered the one night they’d had together when he’d made tender love to her, made her a woman, his woman. Now he was somewhere she couldn’t reach.
With a dart of guilt she remembered that Meryl, her little sister, was in Germany too. Together they would both survive, she was sure they would, wasn’t she?
The grounds of Bletchley Park were beautiful this morning and now she’d been away from it for a night she saw it with fresh eyes. It was an old country house and looked grand and solidly imposing. Small huts were built around the grounds. Hari was grateful that Babs was there to point her in the right direction for hut six.
‘I’m glad you’re in hut six with me,’ Babs said, drawing the car to a noisy halt. ‘You’ll listen when all the others just want to talk about themselves.’ She smiled, her teeth were very white; she was a fine, healthy-looking girl. ‘The work is not too difficult, don’t worry,
I’ll ease you into it.’
The first thing Hari noticed was how untidy the hut was. It was a long room with a series of tables to the sides and centre. At one end stood a cupboard, the doors half open. Overhead were strip lights rather high to the ceiling, one window shed some daylight.
Pieces of discarded sticky tape were spread across the floor in small strips; girls were already working, sat at machines, absorbed in whatever they were doing.
‘Morning,’ Babs said, and one or two of them waved a distracted hand in greeting. ‘Come and sit at my machine with me—’ Babs touched Hari’s arm—‘and don’t look so worried, this is well within your capabilities, you’ll see.’
Uneasily Hari perched on a chair and stared at the unfamiliar machine. She clearly wouldn’t be working on signals in here. What on earth did Colonel Edwards have in mind for her now? Since she’d told him she was probably staying in England he had changed his plans for her.
‘No!’ His voice had been stern. ‘I will be needing you here. You must come back to help me, I’m getting too old for all this, didn’t I tell you?’
‘I’ll explain.’ Babs voice brought her attention sharply into focus. ‘Don’t look so puzzled.’ Babs had seen her bewilderment. ‘Some of our clever blokes have found the key for today,’ she said cheerfully, ‘now it’s up to us to decrypt the words on to our machines.’ She tapped the metal surface of the cipher machine with her elegant finger.
‘Sounds simple then.’ Hari’s sarcasm made Babs smile.
‘Don’t worry, we just pass the stuff on to another hut and they somehow make sense of it all.’ Hari doubted her ability for the job but she paid attention just the same and as the day wore on she found she was actually enjoying the challenge of it.
That night Cecily came into dinner at the guest house. Her face was blotched, her skin mottled with weeping. Babs immediately hugged her and patted her back as if she was a distressed child.
‘It’s confirmed then?’ Babs spoke so softly Hari could scarcely hear her.
