‘Ivy.’ Nice voice. Sutton or Epsom. Somewhere round there. Grammar-school voice.
‘What’s the matter? . . . I heard you sigh.’ The car was in gear, and moving forward now. So were we.
‘I miss my boyfriend. He only gets down once a month.’ I wouldn’t have minded getting down a bit myself. My old mate Tommo once told me that some girls liked it.
‘What are you down here for, then?’
‘The money; what else? We’re saving to get married.’
‘Don’t worry,’ I told her – feeling as old as her father. She was probably as old as I was on my first night visit to Germany in the war. ‘. . . you’ve plenty of time yet.’
Minutes later we pulled up after Rob shouted, ‘Stop: we’re here!’ by a funny-shaped building with a sign saying The Pilot Inn above one of its doors. It looked a bit ramshackle, but if you’d had to withstand what the Dungeness weather threw at you for a hundred years you’d look a bit ramshackle too.
Before we got out I asked, ‘What is this place?’
‘Originally it was a fairly big wooden ship,’ Ivy replied. ‘The landlord says it was a smuggling ship, but nobody really knows. When it got stuck on the Ness the locals dismantled it and built a house out of her. The house became a pub.’
‘When was that?’
‘Seventeen something I expect.’
Rob said, ‘I like hearing you two getting to know each other, but can you get a bleeding move on? We’re freezin’ to bleedin’ death back here.’ It was the way the old Singer was built – only two doors, so we had to lean the front seat backs forward to let the rear passengers out.
‘I thought you’d never ask,’ I told him. ‘Mine’s a bitter, and Ivy’s a . . .’ I glanced at her and grinned.
She smiled back and said, ‘A port and lemon. A large one if you can afford it.’ She’d clearly said that before.
There was a public telephone in the small wood-lined passage before the saloon bar. I looked at my watch, but it was already too late to call Elaine, so I didn’t feel bad about it.
Two port and lemons and two pints later I asked Ivy, ‘What do you do, Ivy . . . I mean, what do you do really well?’
She smiled. It was a nice smile, but a bit goofy and lopsided. Her reply was slow coming. It wasn’t what I’d meant, but it would do.
‘Cling,’ she told me, then reached out and touched the rough cloth of my old blue battledress blouse.
Maybe I could put up with Dungeness for a fortnight.
Chapter Four
One o’clock jump
Lucy was someone you could never please entirely. I suppose that was what cut her out to be a member of the boss class in the first place. It’s people like her who turn the rest of us into raving socialists. I was a better bloody operator than most of the layabouts on the station, could transmit and receive Morse faster, and at times seemed to be the only one on duty capable of chasing a signal if it leapt from band to band. The Reds were getting quite good at that sort of thing; Rob thought they were so sharp that the switch must be operating mechanically, and independently of the signaller. The only problem he couldn’t solve was how they coordinated the jump for both receiving and transmitting stations at the same time, in order not to lose part of the signal. He spent all of his time at a small ill-lit bench in the corner, fiddling with a couple of oscillators, some tuners and a couple of new-fangled electric clocks from the Mallards factory. He swore imaginatively each time the device gave him a shock.
Lucy used to look over my shoulder, place a manicured finger on one of my log entries and tut-tut. She couldn’t fault me technically, so she homed in on my handwriting and spelling. I came on duty one afternoon to find two small dictionaries on my table – an English job, and a Polish–English equivalent. I flogged them to a schoolteacher in the pub that night and got threatened with five days’ CB and my pay docked after Lucy found out. But she told me she couldn’t be bothered with the paperwork a charge sheet would have entailed.
‘Get rid of me then,’ I said. ‘I’ve been here three weeks, so you must know by now whether you want me or not.’
‘Ma’am.’
‘. . . ma’am. Pass me or fail me.’
‘I passed you two weeks ago, Charlie. In theory you can go on to another unit, if you need more training, any time you like, but a Wing Commander Watson believes that once we let you go we’ll never see you again. So I’m stuck with you, apparently.’ Then she smiled, and said, ‘You may swear if it will make you feel any better; I did when I was told.’
That made me smile too. I didn’t hate her. Not any more than I’ve hated any other authority figure, anyway.
‘My work’s still OK then?’
‘Of course it is. Keep it up.’ I nearly offered the Art Mistress saying that to the Gardener, but bit my tongue. I didn’t think her indulgence would stretch that far.
Then she added, ‘They’ve laid on a bit of entertainment for you this week, anyway. It will help break the monotony. You’ve got to report to Lydd on Wednesday morning for a Course 42.’
‘What’s Course 42, ma’am?’
She shrugged. ‘God only knows. But 42’s the designation they use for anything they haven’t a proper name or number for. It can mean absolutely anything. Good luck.’ She looked down at the file on her desk, just like the first time I had met her. Dismissed again. I think it was still the same file. It was only as I was
