Elsie continued to cycle the perimeter of the aerodrome until she reached The Street. Above her, the sky was turning a milky shade of blue, revealing more and more detail in the shadows. Houses—ordinary houses—surrounded her and, for a moment, she questioned the address to which she had been told to report. She stopped her bicycle and pulled the letter from her greatcoat. Maypole Cottage, The Street, Hawkinge, she confirmed, stuffing it back into her pocket. Glancing left and right, she spotted it, just a short distance away; a long rectangular brick house with only one thing to separate it from the others on the road: the soldier standing guard outside.
She added her bicycle to a chaotic throng beside the house, then approached the officious sentry, who immediately lost interest in conversation upon production of her papers. He stood back and permitted her entry.
Elsie straightened her cap and glanced down at her appearance, before she opened the front door and stepped into an empty lobby. The interior was stark. Bare walls, plain floorboards and bright, shade-less light bulbs. But from somewhere in the house there came the definite hum of activity.
‘Hello? Anybody home? It’s the savings stamps lady,’ she called, nervousness draining the intended humour from her greeting.
A small man in an RAF uniform, with a neat black moustache and slick black hair suddenly appeared in a fug of smoke in the doorway. A pipe, protruding over his lower lip, jiggled as he looked Elsie up and down.
Elsie saluted. ‘Hello, I’m Elsie Finch. Reporting for duty, sir,’ she muttered, flushing slightly from her silly entrance, as she handed over her identity card and appointment letter.
The man screwed up his face as he studied the contents. He pulled out his pipe and said, ‘Ah, Sergeant Finch—another German specialist—good—just what we need. I’m Flight Officer Scott-Farnie and this,’ he gestured with open arms, ‘is the hub of the Wireless Service—Y-service for short.’
Elsie paused, glancing around the barren room, totally ignorant of the work conducted within these walls. ‘What is it exactly that goes on here?’
Scott-Farnie looked surprised. ‘Didn’t they tell you in training?’
Elsie shook her head. Training had largely consisted of drilling, cleaning billets, inspections, and endless marching. A handful of days had been spent on aircraft identification, Morse code and wireless procedures, but there was no hint at the type of work that she would be undertaking once the training had been completed.
‘It’s work of the utmost importance, Sergeant Finch. You’ll be listening to the enemy. Come with me,’ he said, leading the way to a narrow wooden staircase which rose steeply from the corner of the room. He continued his nebulous explanations as they climbed. ‘We maintain a twenty-four-hour watch in six-hour shifts, seven days a week.’ He stopped at the top of the stairs and turned to face her, his little moustache twitching at the sides. ‘It can be gruelling and oftentimes tedious work, but, and I cannot stress this enough, the importance of what you’ll be doing for the war effort is highly significant.’
Elsie nodded. The war effort—there it was again. Only this time it actually meant something, not having her pretentious neighbours passing hollow compliments on her garden to raise—what would it be? —an absolute pittance, that’s what. A thinly veiled memory of her home and of her old life wafted into her mind like an ill-defined and unwelcome cloud. She dismissed it and all traces vanished, as she stepped into a large room at the front of the house: the nucleus of the activity. She smiled inwardly.
‘This is where you will be based,’ Scott-Farnie proclaimed, standing back and allowing Elsie to take stock of the room. Two bare bulbs poking through the ceiling cast a vanilla glow over four WAAF women. Elsie studied each of them in turn. They were huddled over individual wireless sets on long trestle tables. Headphones clamped to one ear. Strained faces. Dials being turned. Pencils frantically scribing on the paper beside them.
Scott-Farnie leant in and spoke softly. ‘You’ll be operating on the 40-megacycle Very High Frequency band. Non-Morse and radio telephony.’
‘I see,’ Elsie replied, matching his low tone. She didn’t see—not really. The technical parts of her training had been brief and had left her with the distinct impression that the advisor was also not sure what he was doing, or else he had been a very bad teacher; either way, the inner workings of a crystal set were definitely not Elsie’s area of expertise.
‘As you can see, we’ve got a mixture of sets here—old civilian Hallicrafter receivers, plus a set recovered from a German aircraft. Those last two machines over there,’ he whispered, pointing to the end of the room, ‘brand new—top notch.’
The nearest of the women sighed, set down her headphones and stretched.
‘Mike,’ Scott-Farnie called to her. She turned with an inquisitive smile. ‘Can I give you our newest recruit—Sergeant Finch?’
‘Of course, come over.’
‘You’re in safe hands,’ Scott-Farnie said, patting her on the arm before leaving the room.
‘Mike?’ Elsie questioned.
‘A nickname—I’m sure you’ll get one, too. Grab that chair over there and I’ll show you the ropes. What’s your name?’
‘Elsie,’ she answered, pulling the seat to beside Mike, all the while wondering at the silliness of her name. She couldn’t think that it was short for anything remotely feminine. ‘What’s your real name? I can’t bring myself to call you Mike.’
‘It’s Aileen,’ she said with a laugh. ‘But really, I don’t mind. I’ve rather become fond of it now—like a comfy pair of slippers or an old faithful hound.’
Elsie guessed that Aileen was a just a few years older than she—perhaps in her
