Standing up, she straightened her uniform, picked up the typed report and headed for the door, hoping that she could make it to her bedroom to tidy herself up before she encountered anyone in authority. She pulled open the door and peered out. The corridor was empty, so she hurried purposefully back to her room.
‘Where have you been?’ Aileen demanded as Elsie crept inside. ‘I’ve been worried sick. I’ve not slept a wink.’ She was sitting on the side of her bed in uniform, fretting.
Elsie could see the concern on her friend’s face and regretted not having told her what she had been doing. ‘Sorry.’
‘What happened?’ Aileen asked. ‘Was that Woody you were with last night?’ Elsie gave a confirming nod then Aileen continued: ‘One moment you were there, then the next you’d vanished. You can imagine what I thought you were up to, so I didn’t worry until I got back here. But then when you failed to show up I didn’t dare go to sleep.’
‘Sorry,’ Elsie repeated. She handed over the report. ‘I was typing this—can you read it please? I’m going to hand it to Shorter then request to leave the island.’
‘What? Why?’ Aileen stammered.
‘Because I want to get away from this dreadful place,’ Elsie ranted. ‘Let’s face it, it’s doomed. With men like Shorter running the show it’s only a matter of time before the starving, bombed-out people of the island give in and I for one don’t want to be here when the Germans and Italians invade. Besides which, we’ve achieved what we came here to do.’
Aileen stood up and took Elsie’s hand in hers. ‘What’s the real reason?’
Her kindness was too much. Elsie broke down and told her everything.
Thirty-five minutes later, Elsie knocked on Wing Commander Shorter’s office door.
‘Enter.’
Elsie entered the office with a salute. Shorter was slouched behind his desk, reading some paperwork. Elsie placed the report on his desk.
‘What’s this?
‘Our findings, sir,’ Elsie answered.
Shorter chuckled. ‘Your findings. How lovely—I eagerly await to read those. Put them over there,’ he said, gesturing to a mountain of paper stacked precariously on a chest close to the door. He returned to his reading but Elsie didn’t move. He huffed and looked up. ‘Was there something else?’
‘Yes, sir. I’d like to leave the island, as soon as possible, please.’
Shorter set down his papers and sat up with a toothy grin. ‘Would you now? I expected as much. Too harsh for the fairer sex, I said it all along.’
Elsie wanted to object. Her desire to leave the island was nothing to do with being the fairer sex. But what was the point?
‘And the other one? Michael? Is she going too?’
‘No, sir. She would like to continue here for a little longer.’
He raised an eyebrow and nodded. ‘There’s a seaplane leaving this afternoon, I’ll see you have a seat on it.’
‘Today?’
‘Well, do you want to go or don’t you? Or did you want a bit of a holiday first?’
‘Today will be fine. Thank you, sir.’ She saluted and left the room. Her time on the island was over.
Stifling back her tears, she hurried to her accommodation and pushed the door shut. ‘I need a cigarette.’
‘What did he say?’
‘He said he would read it, but I know he won’t,’ Elsie complained, rooting around agitatedly in her suitcase. She pulled out a packet of Piccadilly cigarettes and lit one, flopping down onto her bed.
‘Not about that, about you leaving. What did he say about that?’
‘Oh. I’m going this afternoon—I can’t cope because I’m a woman, you see.’
‘Oh, Elsie! You can’t,’ Aileen protested. ‘At least stay for a few more days.’
Elsie turned to face her friend. ‘Sorry, but I need to go. I just can’t keep seeing Woody about the place; I really can’t. I need to get back to England and far away from all this.’ She sat up and addressed her friend earnestly. ‘You’ll be okay, but you will need to push Shorter to make any changes.’
‘That’s not likely going to happen, is it?’
Elsie drew a long drag on her cigarette and shook her head. ‘No. The island will have been taken over by the Nazis or bombed into oblivion before he takes any action.’
A heavy silence fell between the women. Elsie began to think of all the death and devastation already wrought upon the people here; she couldn’t bear the idea of walking away knowing that their report, which could save lives, would be forever consigned to a stack of meaningless paperwork.
‘Sod it,’ Elsie said, standing abruptly. ‘I’m going today anyway.’
‘Oh, what now?’ Aileen questioned.
‘I’m going to make him read it.’
Aileen laughed. ‘And how are you going to do that, exactly?’
‘Absolutely no idea,’ she grinned, stubbing her cigarette into the glass ashtray at the foot of her bed. ‘But I’m leaving later so I need to try something.’
‘Good luck.’
Elsie strode from the room, through the maze of tunnels until she reached Shorter’s office. There, she hesitated outside and the flurry of confidence that she had just displayed to Aileen vanished. How could she make him read it? And even if she did, he wouldn’t take any action. Shorter reading the report wasn’t the problem, she realised. Shorter himself was. She began to walk slowly away from his door, towards the entrance staircase, a vague notion of an idea forming in her mind; she needed to go above his head, and so she made for the one place where she knew that she would find the island’s military bigwigs.
As she neared the top of the staircase, she was thankful to hear the repetitive plink, plink of heavy rain on the armoured entrance. Rain meant no air raids. No air raids meant no sirens. No sirens meant that the people that she was hoping
