Chapter 47

FROM BLETCHLEY BLETHERINGS, DECEMBER 1942

The final couplet of “Spark, ” sonnet from Mired: Battlefield Verses by Francis Gray:

The spark is snuffed—and then another, too—

Too fragile-fine to flame above the rue.

Two sparks have gone out, and Bletchley Park mourns alongside one of its own.

There were more people present at the funeral than Osla expected—a group of Francis’s colleagues from the Foreign Office, some Coventry friends, his London publisher, a handful of literary admirers. . . and Mab. The widowed Mrs. Gray in the front pew of the Keswick church, red lipstick perfectly applied, black dress contrasting against a curiously frivolous straw hat with a blue ribbon.

“Why did Mab decide to bury him here? ” Giles whispered when the service ended and the mourners filed toward the graveyard.

“Because she and Francis were happy here. ” Osla hadn’t wept during the service, but she nearly wept now, thinking of Mab’s happy face after her Lake District weekends.

“But you’d think she’d do it in Coventry where he died, ” said Beth.

“Why would she ever want to go back there? For God’s sake. . . ”

Beth flushed dully over her ugly black dress. “It’s not the town’s fault. They didn’t know the raid was coming. Even if they had, they couldn’t have evacuated in time. ”

Osla choked down the urge to scream. You’ve said that about eight times, Beth. What did it matter if the town couldn’t have evacuated if they’d known? No one had known that one of the bigger raids of the year was coming to hit poor little Coventry all over again.

“Even if they’d had word, the town couldn’t have emptied in time, ” Beth insisted, as if she had to convince someone.

“It doesn’t matter. Mab doesn’t want to bury Francis in Coventry, and he has no family to say otherwise, so why shouldn’t she please herself? ”

Mab hadn’t spoken to either of her billet-mates since the Coventry raid. She’d gone straight to London and refused to come to the telephone when they rang. Mrs. Churt had been the one to tell Osla, hoarse voiced, that Lucy had been buried already. Here, where our family could attend. Mabel’s gone to Keswick now, to put her man in the ground.

The mourners clustered around the grave as the coffin was lowered in, and Osla wished the Mad Hatters could have come. But Mab hadn’t spoken to any of them, either, and only Osla, Beth, and Giles were able to get last-minute leave.

They watched Mab drop the first clod of earth into the grave. Her face was a pale mask, the same mask Osla had seen when she was wrenched away from the terrible heap in the Coventry garden. Her rending shrieks had stopped as if a switch had been flipped. Oh, Mab, come back, Osla pleaded silently, looking at her friend’s empty face.

Would Mab come back—not just to herself, but to Buckinghamshire? What would Bletchley Park be like without Mab?

Somehow the graveside service was over. The mourners broke up, shepherded by a middle-aged woman in black crepe. “There’s a bit of luncheon laid out in my parlor, ” she told Osla. “Do come get a bite, dear. How did you know Mr. Gray? Such a fine man. . . ”

Osla watched Mab walk out of the churchyard in her pale hat. “Yes, he was. ”

Beth was still looking at the grave. “Coventry couldn’t have been evacuated, ” she whispered when the middle-aged woman hurried off.

“Shut up! ” Osla exploded.

Beth started as if she’d been slapped. Giles put a consoling arm around her, and Osla looked away, strangling her black-bordered handkerchief. She knew she should apologize, but she couldn’t. All she could see was her own fingers letting go of Lucy’s tiny wrist—the silent, terrible heap of stones and beams—Mab on her knees in the rubble, cradling a tiny riding boot and giving those terrible choked screams. . .

In the hotel parlor, Mab managed to accept a tight hug from Giles before being walled off by suits and condolences. Osla and Beth stood with untouched plates of prune pudding, waiting for a chance to speak with her, but there wasn’t one. At some point the crowd cleared, and she was simply gone.

“She went walking, ” the hotel landlady said, clearing plates. “Around Derwentwater, up to the lookout. A lovely view up there. ”

Osla and Beth exchanged glances with Giles, and Osla knew they were all sharing the same thought.

Mab wouldn’t throw herself off. . . would she?

No, Osla thought. Not Mab.

But her stomach rolled in sudden terror, and her mind flashed with a horrifically clear image of Lucy’s tiny body, pulled from the rubble. It was your fault, the thought whispered. You let go of Lucy. And if something happens to Mab, that will be your fault, too.

“Go, ” Giles said, moving to head off some incoming gossipers. “She needs you both right now. ”

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