‘Sir, we’ve just had reports that KGr 100 have left their base in Vannes and are heading over the channel. It looks like there are around fifteen of them. I’ve just heard one of the pilots asking if the beams have been adjusted correctly.’
‘And the reply?’ Jean asked, pulling her glasses from her nose.
‘Yes, the beams are set.’
The phone rang again and Elsie stood and waited as RKB answered it. It was a brief, one-sided conversation in which RKB only said, ‘Very good. Thank you,’ then hung up. He looked at the three women. ‘Thirteen raiders have just crossed the coast at Dorset.’ He glanced up at the clock. ‘They’ll be over the target in approximately fifty minutes. Get us anything you can, ladies.’
Elsie followed Aileen from the office, back into the operations room.
‘Anything else?’ Aileen asked Betty.
‘Not much,’ she answered. ‘They’re keeping pretty tight-lipped at the moment.’
Elsie and Aileen continually looped the room, checking with each operator and, on occasion, taking the headsets over for themselves.
The hands on the large operations room clock reluctantly moved on. At one stage, Elsie wondered if it had broken, confirming the time with one of the operator’s watches. At seven-fifteen one of the women raised her hand and began waving frantically, as she transcribed what she was hearing.
Elsie dashed over to her. ‘What is it?’
‘The lead pilot of KGr 100 has just confirmed that the incendiary bombs have been dropped accurately on their target,’ the operator relayed. ‘They’re heading back to base.’
‘Thank you,’ Elsie said, dashing back to tell RKB and Jean the news.
‘And now we sit and wait for the rest of the bombers,’ RKB said gravely from his desk. ‘How are you holding up, Elsie?’
‘Fine, thank you, sir,’ she lied.
‘That’s the spirit,’ he remarked.
Elsie headed back to the operations room where the twelve operators were listening to silence once more. Elsie surveyed the scene; it really was the calm before the storm.
Forty-five painful minutes of quiet airwaves followed.
At eight o’clock, RKB received another phone call and he called Aileen and Elsie back into the office to tell them that Fighter Command had confirmed that more than two hundred and fifty fires were alight around the city. One of which was the cathedral.
Elsie lowered her head and weakly nodded; her grandparents’ house was just a few streets from the cathedral. If the house hadn’t already been hit, it was within spitting distance of a huge burning landmark on a night with a full moon. She cleared her throat. ‘Do the people there know what’s coming? That those first bombs were simply markers?’
RKB shrugged. ‘I doubt it, Elsie. The air raid sirens have been going since ten past seven and they won’t stop until the raid’s over, so hopefully your family and the people of the city will take note and get out of harm’s way.’
A firm knock at the door made Elsie jump. It was Rusty, one of the senior WAAF operators. Ordinarily unflustered and calm, her manner as she burst into the room without waiting to be invited unsettled everyone in the office at once.
‘Sorry, sir—just thought you should know, we’re picking up the bombers. Hundreds of them by the sounds of it,’ she said breathlessly.
RKB led them all out into the operations room. In stark contrast to the place that Elsie had just left, it was now a veritable buzzing hive. Every operator was hurriedly jotting in their log books. Pages were being turned. The codebooks were being frantically flipped through and operators were leaning across, whispering to their neighbouring colleagues.
Elsie hurried over to the nearest operator and snatched up her log book. She had recorded the routine conversations that had taken place between pilots and their control base. In her log book alone, she had recorded the call signs of ten different pilots. Elsie moved to the next operator, Betty.
‘How many have you picked up?’ Elsie asked her.
‘Dozens,’ came the hasty response. ‘It must be a terrifying sight, Elsie, I tell you.’
By the time Elsie had completed a circuit of all the operators, she converged with Aileen, Jean and RKB and all of them reached the agreement that there must be close to five hundred bombers inbound to Coventry.
Elsie stood back from the conversation. They’d had it. Her parents. Her grandmother. Coventry.
It was all over before it had even begun.
The sun was rising, at last overpowering the treacherous moon. It was gone six am when the final bombs had rained down on Coventry, the city having been relentlessly pounded by wave after wave of bombers—all night long.
Elsie finally left the operations room and stepped out into the early dawn. She picked up her bicycle but was too tired to ride it. She began to walk it along the deserted country lane, her mind completely numb. It was too early to know the full extent of the damage and destruction, but she knew that her family’s chance of survival had to be very low.
Suddenly, she dropped the bicycle and vomited beside the road. She held onto her hat as the burning dark liquid cascaded down onto the grass verge. The cause of the sickness could have been anything. The effects of the night. Too much coffee and cocoa. Morning sickness. Stress. Probably, a combination of all of those things.
She wiped her mouth, picked up her bicycle and continued on slowly towards the billet. Her stomach, mind and heart were now empty; she walked on like the living dead.
Silently, she unlocked the front door. Inside, all was quiet. She faltered as she passed the sitting-room. Slumped back on one of the sofas was Violet, bizarrely wearing a flouncy yellow ball-gown and her WAAF hat. After the night she had endured, Elsie couldn’t help but smile. As she walked up the stairs to
