The man opened the back door of the car and laid the suitcase on the seat, pushing it gently into the middle. He motioned to Ena to get in. She sat down, lifted her feet up and swung them into the car. After closing her door, he went round to the other side, by which time Freda was sitting in the car with the door closed. He nodded and took his place behind the steering wheel.
During the short drive to Bletchley Park, Ena looked out of the window. On the left were allotments, on the right, a wire fence, and beyond that rows of single-storey buildings.
The car stopped and the driver wound down his window. Ena could see the security gate and the waist and legs of a man in uniform. She craned her neck and looked over the top of the driver’s seat as the man’s torso, and then his head, came into view. An RAF corporal, his face, framed by the driver’s open window, looked first at Freda, and then at Ena.
‘Got your identity papers, Ena?’ Freda asked, hers already in her hand. Ena took the grey National Registration Identity card and Mr Silcott’s Bletchley Park pass from her handbag and gave them to Freda. When the man appeared at the back window, Freda wound it down and handed him their documents. He looked at Ena’s papers and then at her face, keeping eye contact with her for what seemed like minutes but could only have been seconds. He glanced at Freda and nodded. Freda gave Ena her papers, and after a short exchange with the driver, who Ena heard explain why she was using Herbert Silcott’s pass, the guard waved the car through.
As the car cruised along the drive, a huge red brick and sand-coloured stone building came into view. Ena looked at Freda and whispered, ‘What a strange-looking building. I imagined it to be like Foxden Hall, a big country house. This looks like four country houses, from four different periods in history, all joined together. Look at the battlements, and the big green dome on the end.’ Ena laughed. ‘It looks like it belongs in the Hansel and Gretel fairy tale.’ Freda nodded in the direction of the driver, put her finger to her lips, and mouthed shush. ‘Sorry.’
The car pulled up outside the mansion’s main entrance. The driver, first out of the car, opened Freda’s door, before walking swiftly round the back of the car and opening Ena’s. Clambering out, she looked up at the house and, overawed by the sheer size of it, stood on the drive in a daze.
She turned to Freda, but she wasn’t there. She and the driver were standing in the doorway of the mansion waiting for her to join them. Ena ran and caught them up, side-stepping around one of two evil-looking stone griffins that stared at her from plinths on either side of the main entrance.
Before entering the mansion, Ena took her case from the driver and, breathless with excitement, followed Freda into the building. The inside was as dramatic as the outside. The stone arches and green and red stained glass windows reminded Ena of Lowarth Church. The floor was polished wood, and walls and ceiling wood panelling. Walking along the main corridor, their footsteps echoed, as if the building were announcing their arrival.
Ena offered Freda the case. She shook her head. ‘I’ll come with you, but you can sign the work in.’ Ena felt the nerves in her stomach tighten as she followed Freda to the reception desk.
‘This is work from Silcott’s Engineering in Lowarth,’ she said nervously to a man wearing an army officer’s uniform with a security badge on the lapel.
The man smiled at her, stepped round the side of the desk, and took the work. Opening a large ledger, he turned it round so the pages were facing Ena and handed her a pen. ‘If you’ll sign here, miss?’ He pointed to a blank line three-quarters of the way down the book.
Ena wrote her name in her best longhand and thanked the man. Pushing the large book back to him, she took out her identity card. The officer turned the ledger, and picked up the card. After studying both signatures, he said, ‘If you’ll take a seat.’
Ena and Freda crossed the reception area to a bench by the window and sat down. ‘What happens now?’ Ena asked.
‘Commander Dalton, who commissions the work, may want to see us as it wasn’t Herbert who signed in the work.’
‘Oh.’ Ena pulled a face and pretended to bite her nails.
Freda laughed. ‘Don’t look so worried. He’ll only want to know where Herbert is.’
‘Oh.’
‘And stop saying, oh. You do an important job. If it weren’t for us, and people like us, the boffins here wouldn’t be able to do their jobs.’ Freda nudged Ena. ‘The reception chap’s coming over.’ As he drew near, both women stood up.
‘Commander Dalton would like to speak to you, Miss King. Would you follow me? You too, miss,’ he said to Ena, who was about to sit down again.
The two women followed the officer along a maze of corridors to an oblong hall. On the left was a window looking out onto a lake, in front of them a door, and on the right a young woman sat behind a desk furnished with a notebook and a telephone. Commander Dalton’s secretary, Ena thought.
‘If I can take your coats?’ the young woman said.
Freda slipped out of her mackintosh and handed it over. Freda straightened the skirt of her suit with the flat of her hands, before pulling on the lapels of her jacket. Ena envied Freda her sophistication, her style. In a charcoal-coloured pencil skirt, with a kick-pleat at the back, matching jacket nipped in at the waist, and a dove grey blouse, she
