‘Hopefully it will mean a quiet night for us,’ Kath said. She saw the look of confusion on Elsie’s face and clarified. ‘Hawkinge is a forward airbase—nothing is permanently based there. They fly in first thing in the morning and then leave again in the evening.’
‘Why is nothing permanently based there?’ Elsie asked.
‘Too dangerous.’
Elsie was slightly perplexed. ‘And yet here we are, perched on the edge of the cliff top. Does that not strike you…’
‘Sit down please, girls,’ a voice commanded. It was Agnes, holding two plates aloft.
Elsie returned to the table and slunk into her seat. In front of her was a plate with little on it. One slice of beef, a heap of cabbage and a few carrots swimming in a pasty brown liquid that she suspected was masquerading as gravy.
‘Not much to go around, I’m afraid,’ Agnes said pointedly.
‘It’s lovely, thank you,’ Elsie lied.
Several minutes passed where the only sounds to be heard were the chinking of cutlery meeting crockery. Then Agnes addressed Elsie. ‘I must say that we were most surprised at the speed of your transition from war widow to this,’ Agnes remarked, her eyes running up and down Elsie’s uniform. ‘Weren’t we, Kath? One can only assume that the lethal combination of war and solitude led to such an unfathomable decision.’
‘I just want to play my part, that’s all,’ Elsie responded.
‘Very admirable,’ Agnes said. ‘Have you heard anything more from the War Office?’ Agnes asked. ‘About Laurie.’
Elsie shook her head. ‘Nothing. I wonder if we ever shall.’
Agnes stopped chewing and set down her knife and fork, the unspoken words cutting through her that her son’s body might never be found or laid to rest.
‘I’m sure we’ll learn something once things settle,’ Kath offered quietly, before pausing a moment then turning to Elsie. ‘And what is it exactly you’ll be doing up at the aerodrome? Tea-making?’
‘Something like that, I should think,’ Elsie replied. ‘I’m sure it will be terribly dull.’ It wouldn’t be dull, not here and not with the skills that she had to put to the job. The epitome of dull was her old life in Bramley Cottage. ‘Besides,’ she added with a playful smile, ‘I’m bound by the Official Secrets Act, so I couldn’t possibly say.’
Gwen whispered something to Kath, who glanced at Elsie with a subtle look of disdain.
Elsie watched them in her peripheral vision. They were a curious pair. Neither had wedding bands on their fingers and no explanation had been given as to their circumstances. Not that she cared. She was tired of tittle-tattle from the likes of Mrs McKay, people whose lifeblood seemed to flow from drama in others’ lives.
‘Here’s my ration book,’ Elsie said, passing it across the table.
Agnes acknowledged her compliance with a nod and quickly slid it into the front pocket of her apron. ‘I doubt I shall be cooking for you too often, anyway. I’m sure you’ll find plenty to eat up at the aerodrome.’
‘Not that she could tell us, mind,’ Gwen muttered. ‘Official Secrets Act.’
Elsie ignored the comment and continued eating.
Silence presided over the remainder of the meal and then Agnes suggested that Elsie take to her room ready for her early start in the morning. Elsie agreed, thanked her for the food, then proceeded to climb the stairs to her bedroom.
‘Don’t forget to put the blacks up,’ Agnes called after her.
Elsie turned to see the insidious jointly shared stare of the three women. She nodded and continued on her way.
With the closed bedroom door to her back, she lit a cigarette and sighed. She inhaled slowly, the orange glow from the tip momentarily brightening the dusky light filtering in from the open window. What had she done, in coming here? She emitted a low, quiet laugh at the three strange women downstairs. What truly odd people they were. Her previous impressions of Agnes and Kath had not changed. When Laurie had brought her here last summer, just weeks before their wedding, they had remained cool and aloof the entire time and Elsie had been keen to leave from the moment that they had arrived. The next and only other time that she had seen them was at her wedding.
She padded over to the open window, curled her upper lip and blew the smoke out towards the distant hills, now falling into a tree-lined silhouette. It was a curious, unnerving notion that the aerodrome runways just beyond the woods were empty and silent from dusk to dawn.
Finishing her cigarette, Elsie closed the window and set the blackout frames in place, plummeting the room into total darkness. She switched on the bedside lamp, changed into her nightdress and climbed into the bed. She reached for her book, The Adventure of the Sussex Vampire by Arthur Conan Doyle. She smiled as she held the book, secretly thrilled to have met his daughter.
The gentle pull of sleep vied with Sherlock Holmes for the final minutes of Elsie Finch’s day. Despite the lumpy ancient bed and the creeping apprehension about her new life, sleep eventually enveloped her.
The following morning, dawn gently lifted the giant blackout that had shrouded Hawkinge in a deep, uncompromising darkness. Rising with the laggard sunlight came homes, shops, the myriad of requisitioned buildings and the aerodrome that had dominated the village since 1915. If she hadn’t known any better, Elsie would have sworn that the large hangars and long stretches of grassy runways that she was now cycling alongside were entirely deserted, expectantly awaiting the first aircraft. However, it had been the four-twenty am arrival of a squadron of Hurricanes that had woken her this morning. The sound was a low rumble that, in the first moments of wakefulness, she had believed to be an assembly of tractors clattering through the
