Chapter 23
The rain lashed down hard that morning on the windowpane as Jack gazed out over the shadowy fields as dawn broke, and he pulled himself out of bed. The sky was pewter grey with heavy dark clouds threatening more rain on the horizon.
If the landlady hadn’t taken pity on him after breakfast, he would have been drenched on the walk to work. The stout, good-natured woman bustled about clearing the breakfast dishes away when Jack finished his cup of tea and stood to leave.
‘You’re not going out in that downpour?’ she said, narrowing her eyes, her hands on her hips, reminding Jack very much of his mother.
Jack crossed to the window and saw that the rain was pounding the road and rivulets of water streamed across the surface as a few unfortunate souls rushed past, their heads bowed, and their necks huddled into their coat collars against the downpour.
When Jack turned from the window, the landlady had disappeared, but she soon returned, waving a tall, black umbrella in one hand.
‘Here, borrow this. Now, it’s my husband’s, mind, so make sure to bring it back.
I daresay he won’t be going out in this, so it won’t be missed, but you’ll catch your death of cold without it. ’
Jack smiled and accepted the umbrella. ‘That’s very kind of you. Thank you so much.’
When Jack reached Bletchley Park, the guard nodded to him from where he was sheltering, and the absence of staff weaving along the gravel paths was immediately noticeable. All Jack could hear was the rain beating down on the ground with a relentless rhythm.
The gabled frontage and the gilded masonry of the mansion had turned darker beneath the rain cascading down the gutters and pipes. The chimneys chugged out smoke, and Jack guessed the fires would work overtime today in the wet, gloomy weather.
Jack glanced towards the lake, which was usually a delight to behold.
This torrential morning, the ducks were nowhere to be seen, but he heard their cries and wings flapping in the foliage.
He hurried towards the wooden makeshift huts and saw the rain pounding on the rooftops, water pooling on the rough gravel around them and forming deep puddles.
Drenched bicycles were propped against the walls and Jack quickened his pace and entered the corridor as the rain fell even harder.
Lowering the umbrella, he shook it out and rested it against the wall.
In his hut, only two other staff members had made it in so far, and he guessed the rest were waiting somewhere for the rain to subside.
The indomitable Fletcher was already in position and wished him a bright good morning. It was women like Fletcher who were the glue of the place, Jack reflected as he hung his coat which was drenched despite the umbrella, on a hook and placed his sodden briefcase next to his desk.
‘Tea, sir?’ Fletcher asked, looking immaculate, and he wondered how early she’d arrived. ‘I’m just going over to get myself and Smith a top-up.’
Jack passed her his clean enamel mug, from where he stored it in his desk drawer, and thanked her.
He continued pondering the workings of Bletchley Park as he watched her go.
He usually got his own tea as she was rushed off her feet as it was.
The Wrens ran the Bombe machines in round-the-clock shifts which were the foundation of the critical codebreaking work on site.
The machine operators processed the signals and laid the groundwork for the decrypts, whilst others indexed, translated and transcribed and, like Fletcher, delivered the deciphered intelligence to their bosses’ desks.
Jack knew without it being confirmed that the women received little if any recognition and the senior roles at Bletchley were filled by men who got all the credit for any success.
Not that anyone could talk about their top-secret work, but at least the men’s superiors commended them when appropriate.
The thought reminded Jack of Lizzie’s recent observations about what fate would befall women after the war.
Fletcher returned with his mug of tea, and as he sipped it, he remembered the conversation with Lizzie before she left for Bern.
She had made some good points, and he thought it would be grossly unfair if the female workforce was herded back into the kitchen.
Women like Lizzie and Fletcher had developed such valuable skills and showed unwavering loyalty and dedication when they were most needed for the war effort.
The secret nature of the work would make it even harder in a post-war world because both men and women were bound by the Official Secrets Act and forbidden from revealing anything about their accomplishments.
Lizzie was probably correct that he would continue working in intelligence after the war.
He hadn’t given it much thought until she broached the subject, which only went to show how he took it for granted that there would be a role for him.
Unless, of course, Britain lost the war, but he never allowed himself to believe that would happen, even in the darkest days of the Battle of Britain when it was a genuine possibility that Hitler would invade the British Isles.
He shook his head. Those days were over, and he was even more certain the Allies would be victorious and would dismantle the Nazi regime.
Jack finished his tea and turned to the pile of documents he had requested from Fletcher, which she had just brought to his desk.
The minutes passed as he studied them and tried to identify something he could present to Gould to illustrate his point about the desperate need for more detailed reports to be sent in a timely manner to Baker Street.
Jack lit a cigarette and sat back against his hard wooden chair, blowing out smoke and contemplating his findings.
So far, he’d found nothing of any use, and the saying: looking for a needle in a haystack came to mind.
His thoughts whirred as he smoked and gazed around.
He’d been so absorbed; he hadn’t noticed the others coming in and that the hut was now full.
The air was thick with cigarette smoke, and he could hear a low hum of conversation from a dimly lit corner.
The others appeared to be lost in the complexities of their work, hunched over their desks.
The chill of the past few weeks had lifted with the heavy rainfall, and some men had their shirt sleeves rolled up, their blazers slung over the backs of their chairs.
There was a sense of quiet camaraderie and a commitment to getting the job done.
Jack raised his eyes to the clock on the wall and saw it was almost noon. He extinguished his cigarette, berating himself for his lack of progress that morning. Half an hour later, when his stomach started grumbling, he read something that made him sit bolt upright.
In her last message from the Legation, Lizzie mentioned she had been told The Lavender Network may be in increased danger.
Jack had checked with Baker Street and been advised that the Legation agent had been in touch but didn’t have anything tangible to report.
Val confirmed they were still waiting for Hannah or Lev to message them after going dark.
A period of silence wasn’t unusual, but given the Milice’s arrests in Languedoc, it was cause for concern.
Jack read something dated two weeks earlier that turned his blood cold. What lay before him was an original, raw intercept detailing Wehrmacht logistics, requesting trucks for a security operation targeting Resistance fighters in the Toulouse region.
Jack’s stomach lurched. Lev and Hannah’s network comprised mostly Jewish Resistance fighters, and had recently joined forces with the Maquis whose numbers had swelled significantly.
The warning he was reading had not reached Baker Street, as far as he was aware.
He must double-check with his secretary before jumping to conclusions, but this was a critical alert, and it had not been mentioned in the daily reports the motorbike courier brought to him from London.
It was strange for his secretary to have missed something this urgent, and he hoped with every fibre of his being that she had simply made an error in not including it, and that Baker Street had alerted The Lavender Network through one of their contacts.
Jack’s heart pounded as he considered the implications if London had not received this warning.
If the SOE was unaware of the development, their agent in Bern would not have been able to help them escape.
Fears for Hannah, who had so nearly become his sister-in-law and would always be a dear friend and his first Resistance recruit, tormented him.
He lit another cigarette to calm himself, but his urge was to confront Aubrey Gould with this damning example of his department's failure to give them what they needed to keep agents alive. Acting in anger would do no good, so he contained himself and dictated a letter for Fletcher to despatch to his secretary in London to clarify the situation. He stressed he understood if it had been an oversight, but he needed to know if they’d received the warning and had managed to send word to The Lavender Network.
He had a sinking feeling that there had been no error on her part, which revealed a much starker picture.
Fletcher saw to it that the letter was sent at the first opportunity, and Jack went to the canteen and tried to eat lunch, but his stomach refused to cooperate.
If there was something that turned him over, it was the threat of his agents being compromised and captured.
And the likelihood that he could have prevented the disaster filled him with rage.
Thank God Lizzie was safe in Switzerland, he thought for what seemed like the thousandth time. But Hannah, Lev, and their network may not have been so fortunate, thanks to the pigheadedness of men like Aubrey Gould.
Jack held himself in check and returned to the hut to resume his work. Fletcher had left more reports for him, and there was plenty to keep him occupied, which was just as well, or his legs might carry him to the mansion to give Gould a piece of his mind.
Keep your powder dry, Jack. There would be plenty of time to have it out with Gould once he confirmed if there had been a dangerous oversight. He knew he would have another restless night because he wouldn’t receive a reply from Baker Street until the following morning.