Page 40 of V2

‘Wednesday. Sorry.’ Sandy put his hand to his mouth and finished chewing. ‘Wednesday. You?’

‘Yesterday.’

She held her sandwich in both hands, savouring the moment, then took a bite. It seemed to her the most delicious thing she had ever tasted. There were no napkins. She wiped the grease from her chin as discreetly as she could with the back of her hand.

Bill was watching her. ‘Hungry?’

‘Starving.’

‘Whatever you do, don’t touch the local food.’

‘Why?’

‘Apparently they fertilise the crops with human waste – sorry to be crude about it. A couple of the men have already gone down with something nasty. They’re practically living in the latrines. Stick to stuff from cans. And don’t drink from the taps – bottled water only. In some of the towns the Germans poisoned the water.’

‘Right.’ She finished her sandwich and eyed the hotplate, wondering whether it would be greedy to go back for another, but the conversation had rather put her off.

The door banged open and Barbara Colville breezed in. ‘Oh, thank Christ, I thought I was late! Morning, all. That smells good.’ She threw her slide rule and logarithm tables down on the table and went over to the urn.

Kay looked at the slide rule in dismay. Sandy offered her a cigarette from a silver case. She shook her head. ‘No, thanks.’ The two lieutenants lit up.

Barbara came back with her tea and sandwich and sat down opposite Kay, who was still staring at the slide rule. ‘What’s up with you?’

‘I’m an idiot. I was in such a panic about being late, I left my stuff back in my billet.’

‘Oh, don’t worry about it. There are bound to be spares.’ She bit into her sandwich. ‘What’re your digs like?’

‘Spartan. Yours?’

‘I’ve struck lucky, actually. I’m with a widow who seems to have decided to mother me. She made me a vegetable pie.’

Bill said, ‘I hope you didn’t touch it.’

‘Why?’

‘Bill has heard some rumours about the local food.’ Kay introduced the two lieutenants to Barbara. As Bill repeated his lugubrious warnings, and Barbara made dutiful expressions of horror, she sipped her tea and cursed her absent-mindedness. She imagined Dorothy Garrod whispering in her ear, as she had when she’d first arrived at Danesfield House: ‘Concentrate, Kay, dear. Concentrate.’

Barbara took a cigarette from Sandy, leaned in to the flaring match. Kay noticed how she briefly touched his hand. She sat back and exhaled a jet of smoke through her nostrils. The door opened and Flight Officer Sitwell came in, followed by a major with a handlebar moustache. The three smokers quickly stubbed out their cigarettes in the ashtray. They all stood and saluted.

The major said, ‘Right then. Let’s get this show started.’

Sitwell looked with distaste at the smouldering ashtray, and then at Kay and Barbara. ‘Good morning, ladies.’

‘Ma’am.’

‘When you’re ready.’

They left the mess together and went out into the street. It was starting to get light. A few pedestrians were on their way to work. In the bank opposite, the windows were now lit. A sentry had taken up position beside the door. They showed their identity cards and went inside. The group separated with mutual wishes of good luck. The lieutenants followed the major left across the lobby – to a rear exit, presumably, allowing them access to the waste ground behind the bank where the radar vans were stationed. Kay and Barbara trailed Sitwell to the right, through the counter and down the steps to the vault. Knowsley was at his desk, talking on the telephone. At a table beside him sat a Signals Corps corporal. On the other side of the room three WAAF sergeants were already behind a row of desks. Kay and Barbara took their old seats in the centre. Kay was relieved to see that their places had already been set with slide rules, logarithm tables, pencils, notepads. She slipped off her coat and hung it over the back of her chair.

Sitwell stood in front of the blackboard. Behind it, an old-fashioned station clock showed two minutes to eight. She said, ‘All we need now is a V2. And while we wait, we practise. Let’s see how much you’ve forgotten.’ She turned and began chalking rapidly on the board.

As the morning went on, the vault began to get busier. WAAF sergeants came and went. Messages arrived by motorcycle courier. A colonel of the Survey Regiment, immaculate in his uniform, stiff as a guardsman, conferred with Knowsley then prowled around the room. He checked the maps and the telephones, looked at his watch, sat in the corner for five minutes and finally got up and left. Knowsley came over and perched on the edge of the central table, watching Kay and Barbara as they worked their slide rules, leafed through their logarithms, filled sheet after sheet with calculations. Sitwell timed them with her stopwatch: seven minutes twenty – no good. Six minutes fifteen – better. Five minutes fifty-two – that’s more like it. The wing commander lit a pipe and clamped it between his teeth. Pungent clouds of blue smoke drifted across the maps. His foot tapped nervously against the table leg.

Just before ten o’clock, Flight Officer Sitwell announced that they had practised enough. ‘Take a break. If you need the lavatory, go now. It’s upstairs. But one at a time. Be quick about it, and don’t leave the building.’

Barbara said to Kay, ‘Do you want to go?’

‘In a minute. You go first.’