Chapters (52)
- Cover
- Margaret Dickinson
- Dedication page
- Contents
- Part One
- One
- Two
- Three
- Four
- Five
- Six
- Seven
- Eight
- Nine
- Ten
- Eleven
- Twelve
- Thirteen
- Fourteen
- Fifteen
- Sixteen
- Part Two
- Seventeen
- Eighteen
- Nineteen
- Twenty
- Twenty-One
- Twenty-Two
- Twenty-Three
- Twenty-Four
- Twenty-Five
- Twenty-Six
- Twenty-Seven
- Twenty-Eight
- Twenty-Nine
- Thirty
- Thirty-One
- Thirty-Two
- Thirty-Three
- Thirty-Four
- Thirty-Five
- Thirty-Six
- Thirty-Seven
- Thirty-Eight
- Thirty-Nine
- Forty
- Forty-One
- Forty-Two
- Sow the Seed
- Note
- ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
- Copyright page
Before she could move, he had opened the door himself and got out of the car, his long strides taking him towards the building without looking back at her.
Kate bit her lip. Now she did not know whether to wait here for him or go back to the MT yard. Sighing, she got out of the car and followed him. It would be better to hang about waiting for him even if he didn’t want her, than to disappear and be missing when he did!
He was in the Met Office on the ground floor talking to Edith who was standing, not exactly to attention, but rigidly upright, answering his questions with a clipped ‘Yes, sir,’ ‘No, sir’.
Kate saw Philip’s glance flicker over her but he looked away and concentrated again upon Edith.
Kate went up the concrete stairs to the upper floor. The walls were freshly painted, the top half cream with bottle-green at the bottom. The smell of the paint still lingered. She passed the Signals Room and peeked round the door of the Control Room. Directly in front of her sat Mavis with headphones over her short, springy brown hair. Beside her sat Isobel, leaning forward and listening intently to what Mavis was telling her. There were all sorts of instruments and telephones on the long desk in front of them and on the walls were maps and clocks and blackboards giving local weather conditions and target information. Most interesting of all to Kate was the large operations blackboard with ‘SUDDABY’ painted in white at the top followed by its call sign, then the squadron numbers and their call signs. In the middle was the word ‘RAID’ with a blank space for the name to be chalked in each time. Below that was a blank white-painted grid where a WAAF would stand to fill in all the details of each aircraft as it took off on a raid giving the pilot’s name, the take-off time and the column everyone watched anxiously: ‘RETURN’.
To Kate’s left as she stood in the doorway, sat a man at a table. This must be the famous Dave, she thought.
As if feeling her gaze upon him, the Flight Sergeant looked up and grinned at her.
‘Hello. Come to see what we get up to here?’
‘I’m with the CO,’ Kate said. ‘He’s downstairs.’
Dave winked. ‘Thanks for the tip-off.’
At the sound of Kate’s voice, Mavis looked around. ‘Hello, Kate.’ But immediately she turned back to the instruments on her desk.
Dave nodded towards her. ‘She’s good, is our Mavis. Friend of yours, is she?’
Kate nodded.
At that moment, hearing footsteps on the stairs and seeing Philip appear in the passage behind her, she moved aside to allow him to come into the Control Room.