Chapter 34

FROM BLETCHLEY BLETHERINGS, MARCH 1942

It’s not every day we see a vice admiral at BP, but the chief of combined operations himself turned up for a tour out of the blue. Isn’t the whole point of an installation like this one that the top brass can’t drop in whenever they feel like it? Commander Travis looked like he’d swallowed a moth. . .

Uncle Dickie, what are you doing here? ” Osla blurted, jumping up from the translators’ table. Not just Uncle Dickie but an entourage of naval types and some harassed-looking BP staff cramming into the room behind him.

“I knew my favorite goddaughters were here. ” The vice admiral beamed at Osla and Sally Norton, who stood equally frozen, though not so frozen they weren’t hastily turning over the work in front of them. “I thought I’d see how you’re getting on, eh? Show me this cross-reference index I’ve heard about. . . ”

Osla saw tight, angry glances from the BP officials behind her godfather. Oh, topping; Commander Travis was absolutely going to flip his wicket. She tried to fade back as Sally led Lord Mountbatten to Miss Senyard’s section, but her godfather pulled Osla’s arm through his as the party trailed through Hut 4.

“You keep looking after my scamp of a nephew! Philip gets into trouble when you’re not around. Smashed up my Vauxhall last weekend, racing with David Milford Haven. The lad sails all over the Mediterranean getting shot at and earns his first wound in a London blackout. . . ”

Osla laughed dutifully as the naval party had their look-round, then trailed outside. This morning’s rain had tailed off; the air was bright, and a good many curious codebreakers had nipped outside for a gander at the visitor in his gold braid. “Though after Churchill, how chuffed can one get over an admiral? ” she could hear Giles saying, ambling over from Hut 6.

“We’re sunk, ” Sally said, low voiced, at Osla’s side. “Travis is going to have us hanged, drawn, and quartered. ”

“Don’t talk slush. Not our fault Uncle Dickie showed up out of the blue. ”

“They can’t shout at a vice admiral, so they’ll shout at us, just you wait. ”

“I’ve no intention of waiting. I’ve got work to do. ” Osla saw her godfather off to the mansion, then fought her way back through the milling crowd toward Hut 4. Goodness, but the Park was getting crowded, every week bringing new recruits: Oxford boys and secretarial-pool women, shopgirls and invalided-out soldiers. . .

Hut 4 was almost empty, the workers yet to straggle back after the naval interruption. Osla’s eyes were dazzled, coming into the dark hut after the flare of sun outside, and as she shaded her eyes she saw the flick of motion—a jacket, or a skirt—quickly sidling out of the room.

“Hello? ” she called, puzzled. There were people coming and going in-hut all the time, but generally muttering and juggling mugs of tea, making no secret of their exit. Not furtively slinking out as if trying to remain unseen.

Osla followed the whisk of motion, coming into what was laughingly called the Debutantes’ Den. Miss Senyard’s neat shelves of box files had become a proper index room, boxes stacked on boxes, everything filed and cross-correlated within an inch of its life. . . and two lids sat crooked on boxes of indexed reports, as if someone had been rummaging in a hurry. Probably someone who made a request for information, she told herself. But she went and poked her head into each of the other rooms. Nothing out of place at her own section; Mr. Birch’s office was still locked. . . she thought she heard another footstep, a quiet creak of shoe leather on lino, and reversed back across the hut.

The door to the outside was still swinging. Osla pushed through, coming to a halt. The path between Hut 4 and the mansion was still thronged with people, not just codebreakers but aides from Uncle Dickie’s entourage. Whoever had slipped out just ahead of Osla could be anywhere in this crush. And she had no idea what she was looking for, if that furtive whisk of a hem had been a skirted woman or a man in a jacket.

It likely wasn’t anything sinister, Osla thought with a little mental shake. Just a filing girl hurrying for a look at the top brass, leaving a few boxes open in her haste. Slowly Osla went back inside, going through the two boxes with the lids askew. Hundreds of notecards; impossible to tell if anything was missing. Surely nothing was.

But she heard her own voice just a matter of weeks ago, arguing to Travis: How simple it would be to smuggle messages out of BP. . . it’s the simplest thing in the world to tuck a slip of paper in your brassiere when everyone’s yawning on night shift.

Or distracted by an admiralty’s worth of distinguished visitors.

Someone had been in here. Osla drew a deep breath to steady herself, and the back of her neck prickled. She smelled something that teased her memory, something tantalizingly familiar. A cologne or perfume, hanging on the air? She inhaled again, but the room was heavy with the fug of coke stoves, overlaid by the morning’s rain and the Odo-Ro-No some woman had dabbed under her arms this morning. Whatever that smell was that had prickled Osla’s skin, it was gone.

You’re imagining things, she told herself. But she went to see Commander Travis anyway as soon as Uncle Dickie’s staff car had purred away, only to find Sally in tears before his desk, swearing that she had never peeped a word to her godfather about the naval section. Before Osla could say a thing about rifled file boxes, she was coming in for a rating, too. “Lord Mountbatten may be privy to a certain amount of information about Bletchley Park, but if you or Miss Norton have given him specific details about your work—”

“We have not. ” For a long moment, Osla could feel her job hanging in the balance. The job she had worked so hard for. Sally was sobbing; Osla managed just barely to keep the tears out of her own eyes.

“All right. ” Travis sounded gruff, but he offered Sally a handkerchief. “I believe you, young ladies. Mop up, now. ”

“Sir, if I could report one more thing. . . , ” Osla began, and trailed off. What had she seen, really? A whisk of skirt hem or jacket, a box left open, a familiar scent. . . and Travis was already in a flap. Do you want to look like a champagne Shirley having the vapors?

“Miss Kendall? ”

“Never mind, sir. Nothing important. ”

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