Chapter 27

FROM BLETCHLEY BLETHERINGS, SEPTEMBER 1941

Nothing here surprises us anymore. A gaggle of Wrens singing madrigals by the lake, attacked by the meanest swans in Bucks? Old hat. A group of naval section boys sunbathing nude on the side lawn, shrieking women fleeing the sight of all that pasty skin? Yawn. General Montgomery spotted in the dining room at three in the morning, poking at a plate of corned beef and prunes? Pass the salt, General.

But frankly, BB fell over in a dead faint at the sight of our latest visitor. . .

Mab was on break from the bombe machines, and a group of codebreakers were playing a makeshift game of rounders on the lawn and arguing. “Cantwell’s not out. He got past the conifer—”

“No, it was the deciduous—”

Giles gave Mab a wave. “Come join, my queen. We need long legs on this team of waddlers. ”

The idea of stretching her legs sounded glorious. Hanging her new hat on the nearest tree branch, Mab rolled up her skirt and took a stick, which was all they had for bats. Ten minutes later she bashed the ball a great whack and sprinted for the tree. “Rounding one—rounding two—! ” But then she came to a halt, jaw nearly hitting the grass, because a cluster of dark-suited figures was advancing from the mansion like a small fleet, led by Commander Denniston, who was explaining something to a short bulldog figure. . . a figure Mab recognized.

Winston Churchill stumped past close enough to reach out and touch, giving the rounders players a nod.

Giles gaped. “Was that. . . ”

The PM wasn’t at all as Mab had imagined him. Shorter, limping badly, hair wispy above his black pin-striped suit. No sign of his famous hat, his cigar. Mab had always imagined he would be full of noisy bravado and bluster, but he walked along quietly, looking about him with a measured gaze.

“Is he touring the place? ” she whispered. “My God—” She bolted for her hut, sliding past the ministerial party when they detoured for Hut 7. She was in place at her machine’s side, skirt unrolled and hair combed, when the door opened and Churchill was ushered inside. The Wrens came to attention and saluted. Mab saluted with them. She was a civilian but it was the prime minister standing there on the oily floor, looking at the machines she hated so much.

“Wren Stevens, ” Commander Denniston said. “A demonstration, if you please. ”

Stevens stood frozen to the spot.

“This machine is called Agnus Dei, Prime Minister. ” Mab spoke up when it was clear her partner couldn’t summon a word. Crisply, she demonstrated: plugging up the back according to the menu, loading the drums, tweezing apart the fine wires. He fired questions, wanting to know everything—she answered as best she could. Wren Stevens eventually came forward and began responding, too. The PM whistled, impressed by the sheer din when Aggie and her sister machines were set into motion. Waiting for a full stop might have taken hours, so Mab called a halt, explaining what it meant when a bombe machine went quiet.

As Churchill thanked them, she felt an almost violent urge to nurture. He looked so tired, rings under his eyes, shoulders bowed—wasn’t anyone looking after him while he looked after the whole nation? She wanted to cook the prime minister a good soft-boiled egg and stand over him while he ate every bite; she wanted to tell him to have a long sleep and not worry about how bombe machines worked; she wanted to tell him they would do their jobs, never fear, so he should go home and get some rest before he dropped dead. She had to clasp her hands to stop from doing up his overcoat as he turned to leave.

Maybe her concern showed in her eyes, because Churchill—the most powerful man in the western world, Adolf Hitler’s chief antagonist—dropped one heavy eyelid in a wink. Mab clapped a hand over her mouth but the splutter of laughter got through. Wren Stevens looked appalled, but the PM gave a nod and said cheerily, “I must head along to congratulate the chaps behind these splendid machines. . . ”

They all looked at each other breathlessly as the door thumped shut. “The machines are already stopped, ” someone said. “No one else will be working while he’s here. . . ”

They all raced outside, following discreetly in the wake of the ministerial party. Churchill and his followers disappeared into Hut 8, and Mab saw to her surprise that one of the men left outside was Francis Gray.

“What are you doing here? ” she said low voiced as he came to join her by the tennis court. “I didn’t think you worked at Downing Street. ”

“No, the Foreign Office. ” He smiled, coat stirring about his knees. “The call came from Downing Street this morning—they were short a driver, and looking for someone who had already been to BP so they wouldn’t have to use one of the ordinary drivers who hadn’t been vetted at this level. Nobody needed me, so here I am. ”

“I haven’t seen you since dinner at the Savoy, ” Mab replied. “When was that, May? ”

“Russia joining the Allies made things rather busy after that. ”

“Hopefully the Yanks will get off their arses and follow Uncle Joe’s example. ” She said arses deliberately, hoping for a laugh. Francis Gray had never once laughed that she could remember. But he just gave his usual smile of remote warmth.

The prime minister toured Huts 8 and 6 in turn, and there was quite a crowd by the time he came out. Mab saw Osla on the other side and was pleased to see even her cosmopolitan friend goggling at the sight of Churchill. Mab expected the PM to head back to his car, but he hesitated, looking around, before climbing up on some building rubble. Mab’s throat caught, and she found herself pressing closer along with everyone else.

He stood a moment, one hand thrust in his vest pocket. “To look at you, one would not think you held so many secrets, ” he said conversationally. “But I know better, and I am proud of you. Here you are, working every day, working so very hard. . . I must thank you all for that. ” He stopped, looking down. Mab had heard him speak many times over the radio, had felt his confidence and his sheer force of will, but now he was just a rather short man standing on a heap of debris, clearly speaking around a lump in his throat, and she found tears in her eyes. “You should know how very important your skills are to the war effort, ” he went on. “Nothing could be more important, even if so few in Britain know what you are doing. ” He gave his sudden ebullient smile, and Mab tingled all the way to her fingertips. “You’re my golden geese, you know. The geese who lay precious golden eggs, but never cackle! ”

A roar went up from the crowd, and Mab realized she was roaring too, banging her hands together in applause. If a flight of German bombers had streaked across the sky to strafe Bletchley Park, every person there would have flung their body over the prime minister. Mab would have been at the front of the rush.

He gave a final wave, then stumped off in the direction of the mansion, phalanx of officials closing round him. The crowd lingered a moment, everyone talking excitedly before heads of huts began waving their people back to work. Mab realized she’d left her hat hanging on a tree branch in the middle of the rounders game—dashing to get it, she saw Francis waiting in front of the mansion, smoking a Woodbine. “Waiting on the PM? ” she called, reaching for her hat.

“You know what I heard him say to Denniston as they went in? ” A smile. “‘I know I told you not to leave a stone unturned recruiting for this place, but I did not mean you to take me quite so seriously. ’”

Mab laughed. “We’re a lot of odd ducks here, no question. Oh, no. . . ”

Francis raised his eyebrows.

“The brim got crumpled. ” Mab held up her new hat—a jet-black, dramatically brimmed take on a man’s fedora, garnet-red silk band round the crown. Mab knew it made her look like a cross between Snow White and the Wicked Queen, and it was probably the last pretty thing she’d be able to buy herself for months. “You have no idea how important hats are to women. ”

“Enlighten me. ”

“Hats aren’t rationed, at least not yet. I’ve sent most of my clothing coupons for the year to my aunt in Sheffield—she’s looking after my sister, and she doesn’t particularly want to, so I keep her sweet with a few coupons in the post. She’ll get a new coat and I’ll make do till next year, but at least I can still get a new hat. ” Mab sauntered toward the nearest ground-floor window, settling the hat over her head. She knew she was babbling—what was it about this man that made her feel the need to fill all the silences? “We ladies pinch and make do when it comes to darning stockings and using bootblack for eyeliner, but at least we can top a worn-out ensemble with a really smashing hat. That’s very good for morale, in wartime. ”

His voice sounded odd. “Is it? ”

“Of course. ” Mab surveyed her dim reflection in the window, brim slashing across her forehead. “We can’t do anything about the hours or the shift changes or the airless huts, but we can look smart as we head off to war every day. The Bletchley Park theatrical society is cooking up a song about that for this year’s Christmas revue—I’ve already heard them practicing. ” She turned, hands on hips, and sang:

Sophisticated black is de rigueur,

And a smart hat a woman’s cri de coeur!

She finished with a flourish, knowing she couldn’t sing. He was silent, cigarette burning between two still fingers, and her smile faded.

Mr. Gray, I officially give up trying to figure you out. You obviously find my conversation torturous. She checked her watch. “Well, I’ve got to get back—”

“Marry me. ”

She blinked. “What? ”

He didn’t repeat it. He stood there in the cold breeze, chestnut hair stirring, just looking at her, and there was no shield of distant amusement anymore. The veils had dropped away behind his eyes, Mab thought, revealing something that blazed like a torch.

She tried a smile. “Are you joking with me? ” That seemed quite a bit more likely than getting a marriage proposal from a man she hardly knew.

“No, ” he said, flicking the cigarette away. There was an odd note in his voice, as if he were as confused by the offer as she. “Marry me. ” Bemusement in his tone or not, his gaze was steady.

“I—” How she’d dreamed of this moment, when some gentleman whose boots Geoff Irving and his filthy friends weren’t fit to lick would make her an offer. She’d thought she’d be in command of things, having nurtured her suitor along a steady procession of milestones until he was brought to the precipice and thought it was all his own idea. Francis Gray hadn’t hit any of the milestones. They had gone on three dates, and Mab had done 90 percent of the talking on all three occasions. “Mr. Gray—you’ve caught me by surprise. ”

“It’s ridiculous, really, ” he said. “I’m sure there are far younger and more pleasant fellows making you offers. Still, I’m throwing my hat in the ring. ”

“. . . Why? ” Mab heard herself ask. “You don’t know me. ” But he did, she thought. All the talking she’d done, he’d listened. She was the one who didn’t know him, much as she’d tried.

He was silent nearly an entire minute, gazing at her as if he could see through her. He started to speak, then fell silent again. He reached out, touched the wing of her eyebrow, touched her cheekbone, touched her lips. “I know you. ” He wound a strand of her hair around his fingers and tugged her closer. She could have pulled away, but she let herself sink against him instead. Such a light kiss, to leave her so pinned in place.

“Marry me, ” he said, lips still brushing hers.

“Yes, ” she heard herself whispering back into his. Her heart wasn’t fluttering in her chest as she’d thought it would; it thumped slow and hard, as if too astonished to speed up. Francis Gray, war poet and Foreign Office official, had proposed marriage. She had said yes.

She tried to catch her breath, collect her thoughts. Who knew what had swept those curtains of polite distance away from his eyes and made him blurt out a proposal, but who cared? Three-day wartime marriages blossomed all over Britain. She’d have been an absolute fool to turn him down; he was everything she’d dared to hope for in a husband, and more. Kindness, courtesy, education, career. . . maybe he was a little older, but that meant he was steady, established, not some callow boy. Perhaps she didn’t know him very well, but she had the rest of her life to figure him out.

It was all so much more than she had hoped for.

His fingers untangled from her hair, picked up her hand instead. Turned it, looking at her long fingers lying across his broad palm. “This isn’t very good timing, ” he said, and gave a short laugh. “Next week I’m being sent to America. ”

Mab blinked. “America? ”

“Washington, DC. I’m afraid I can’t say anything more, but I’ll be overseas for months. ”

He hesitated, and Mab could tell it wouldn’t take much to be married within the week, before he left. To say Let’s run up to London and get it done! Servicemen and their girlfriends did it all the time, squeezing a wedding into a two-day leave. Mab nearly suggested it but bit her tongue. She was not going to race down the aisle without a few cautionary checks first; she’d known too many girls in Shoreditch who’d married in haste and repented at leisure. “We’ll do it when you get back, ” she said, giving his hand a squeeze. “Just promise you’ll meet my mother and sister before you go. ”

If she was hoping to bring Lucy into her home as a married woman, she had to see how Francis responded to that idea and how he got on with Lucy. If he put his foot down on it, well, that was that. But she didn’t think he would. He was going to love Lucy, and she’d have every advantage in the world: snow-white socks and a day school blazer and a pony. . .

“Damn it. ” Francis glanced over his shoulder. There was motion at the door of the mansion as the ministerial party began to move outside. “Ten more minutes, that’s all I ask. ” He looked up at her. “It will be a bit of a wait for you. Overseas post being what it is, I don’t know how often I’ll be able to write. ”

“As long as you let me know when you arrive safe, ” she said softly. Worry was already clutching hard in her stomach. Surely diplomats went back and forth across the Atlantic all the time; it wasn’t like the convoys, getting targeted by German wolf packs. He’ll be perfectly safe, she told herself. As soon as he came back, they’d be married. This man was going to be her husband. She’d make him the best bloody wife in Britain.

“Tea next week with your family, then, before I leave. ” Francis passed his thumb over her knuckles. “D’you want a ring? ”

“Yes, ” she heard herself laugh. “I want a ring. ”

“Bound to be a ruby somewhere in London that matches your lips. ” He let go of her hand, backed up toward the little fleet of cars. The prime minister had already climbed inside and his chauffeur was starting up; the aides hovered by the next vehicle, waiting for their driver. Francis looked at Mab another long moment, the curtains still swept aside from his naked gaze. No one had ever looked at Mab like that in her life.

Her fiancé climbed into the car. It moved off, and Mab walked, still in a daze, back toward her hut. Mab Gray, she thought. Mrs. Gray.

Mab saw Winston Churchill’s face turned out the window of the lead car as it swept around the drive toward the gates. She put up her hand and flashed a V with two fingers, his famous sign. V for victory. Because today she’d won, damn it. She’d won.

The prime minister put a hand out the window and flashed a V back.

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