“That’s true.” Pamela grinned. “But think—you get the room to yourself. One less for the bathroom.”
“That would be ducky if I could find a way to smuggle a chap upstairs,” Trixie said. “Not that I fancy anyone here. Why couldn’t at least one chap have been given brains and looks, too?” She paused, then turned to Pamela. “I say, I hope you can get time off for Jeremy’s party. I can’t tell you how much I’m looking forward to it. It’s the one bright spot in my current life of gloom.”
“I hope so, too. They haven’t told me about days off. We’ll just have to play it by ear. But they can’t expect me to work seven days a week, twenty-four hours a day. That is slave labour.” She closed her suitcase. “I’ll see you in a couple of days, I expect.”
“You wouldn’t mind if I went to Jeremy’s party if you couldn’t go, would you?” Trixie asked.
Pamela hesitated. Trixie had already made it clear that she was attracted to Jeremy. But it was a party, after all. A flat full of people. “Of course not,” she said airily. “I’ll write down the address for you. And I’ll try to send a message to let you know how I’m getting along and how long I might be occupied.”
Then she picked up the suitcase and left. An army staff car was waiting to take them to the radio receiving station.
“Windy Ridge. It hardly sounds inviting, does it?” Froggy said. “One step away from Wuthering Heights.”
“I don’t think there are too many Wuthering Heights in Buckinghamshire,” Pamela replied. “We will be in a building. And it is summer.”
“That’s the spirit. A girl who is ready for anything,” he said. “I say, I don’t suppose you’d like to go out with me when we get an evening off?”
She glanced at him. Not bad-looking, especially by Bletchley standards. Good sense of humour. But then she already had Jeremy—dashing, rich, handsome Jeremy. What more could any girl want. “Thanks awfully,” she said, “but I’m afraid I already have a chap. An RAF flyer.”
“Just my luck,” he said. “All the good ones are already taken. Ah, well, probably better if we keep on purely professional terms, what?”
The Humber drove up a hill and halted at a barbed-wire fence. Beyond it were Nissen huts and aerials. A sentry admitted them, and they were shown into a large room full of WAAFs, sitting with headphones on. “It’s like a giant telephone exchange, isn’t it?” Froggy whispered.
An officious female sergeant showed them where they should sit, the supply closet next to the kitchen where they could set up their camp beds. “You might as well get started right away,” she said. “No time like the present.”
Pamela put on the headphones. They felt heavy. She sat, doodled on her pad, and thought about things. The first broadcast came through at 7:30 p.m. A short burst of Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony, then, “This is your New British Broadcasting Station, broadcasting on 5920 kilocycles, 63 metres.” Pamela felt a chill run down her spine as she listened to it. How many homes in Britain were tuned in to this, she wondered. There was news of Allied ships sunk, then another voice, “Have you ever given any thought to the fate of your children? You realise that the government’s evacuation plan, or should one say, their complete collapse, may have a profound effect on your boys and girls in years to come.” It went on to say that four hundred thousand children were receiving no education because of the confusion. Clever, Pamela thought. Playing on every parent’s deepest fears.
A propaganda outburst on the Jewish question followed. Then another musical interlude before messages home from boys in prison camps in Germany.
The broadcast ended. Another came later that evening, then four the next day.
“So what do you think?” Froggy asked her. “Any light dawning yet?”
Pamela shook her head. “There is nothing really. Voices rather like the real BBC announcers, lacking any sort of individuality. Interspersed with bits of stirring German music.”
“Beethoven mostly,” he agreed. “And Handel’s Music for the Royal Fireworks, wasn’t it?”
Pamela looked up sharply. “Could that be something? Royal fireworks? A plot to blow up the royal family?”
He stared back at her. “Now that’s a thought. Communicating through music. Dashed clever. Let’s make sure we listen carefully to any music tomorrow.”
Pamela slept fitfully for a few hours, only to be awakened by the early shift coming in to make tea. She washed in cold water and resumed her place at the table. By the end of the day she was heartily sick of the lies and propaganda.
“What do you have?” Froggy asked her.
“Beethoven’s Fifth to announce the broadcast. Different music before the news, commentary, and messages from our boys. I’m afraid I’m not well up on music. All German, I assume?”
“Yes. Luckily, I come from a musical family,” he said. “I studied the cello. My family all played instruments. You might say we had music rammed down our throats. I noted two passages from Beethoven’s Seventh Symphony. The messages home were mostly Bach’s Brandenburg Concertos, but there were two excerpts from Wagner—‘Ride of the Valkyries’ and G?tterd?mmerung.”
“Impressive,” Pamela said. “Now try and find a meaning to them.”
“The only one that gives us anything to go on is Handel’s ‘Royal Fireworks,’ isn’t it? We should report in that one.”
“But I can’t see any details—no how and when. The piece that followed was about evacuating children. I’ve pulled that apart, and I can’t find any hidden message.”
“And if there was a message, it couldn’t be too complicated, could it?” Pamela said. “I mean, then the average German sympathiser couldn’t understand it.”
“Unless they have codebooks and the word child means ‘tomorrow’ and the word education means ‘guns.’”
“But then we’d have no chance of interpreting unless we had the codebook. Let’s ask Commander Travis if any such books have been captured.”
“Good idea.” He got up. “Let’s call it a day, shall we. My bottom is numb from sitting on a hard seat for hours.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
London
It was pouring hard when Ben arrived back in London, late at night. He had endured three fruitless days of crowded trains, uncooperative people, and constant rain. He had seen no terrain that resembled the photograph, nor learned any details of the battles that might have relevance today. He stomped up the steps to his billet at the rooming house on Cromwell Road. It had been an inferior sort of hotel before the war, now requisitioned to house those working for the government. The rooms were spartan, with bed, wardrobe, table, chair, and a shelf in one corner with sink, cupboard, and gas ring. He had to drop sixpence into the meter for gas. As he put in his key, the door across the hall opened, and Guy’s face peeped out. “God, you look like a drowned rat,” he said. “Come on in. I’ll make some tea, and I’ve still got a few drops of brandy to put in it.”
“Kind of you, but I really don’t . . .” Ben began.
In Farleigh Field: A Novel of World War II
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