New people arrived – even some women, whom she assumed to be secretaries – and others left, but each day she looked forward to serving her favourites: Mac, Johnnie and a couple of others who always greeted her with cheery smiles. On the other hand, she came to dread the appearance of Frank, the weasel-faced man with ginger hair whose flirty remarks seemed designed to make her blush. ‘Morning, gorgeous,’ he’d say, or ‘What are you doing this weekend, sweetheart?’ It was innocuous enough, but it left her feeling uncomfortable. She longed to respond with a sharp remark, but knew that was not her place.

What she disliked even more was the way Frank made disrespectful and sometimes disparaging comments about the others, referring to Robert Watson-Watt, who was portly but by no means overweight and always acted the perfect gentleman, as ‘our chubby friend’, and to Johnnie as ‘the old man’ or ‘greybeard’, even though he wasn’t that old and was always clean-shaven.

But his most vicious remarks were saved for Mac, to whom he referred as ‘brown boy’, ‘smarty-pants’ and ‘too big for his boots’, even suggesting he should ‘go back where he came from’. Whatever had that mild-mannered man done to deserve such unpleasantness? Kath longed to report Weasel-face, but wasn’t sure what for, or to whom. Anyway, it wasn’t the place of an ‘assistant cook’ to comment.

As the weeks went by, she could sense the growing tensions between them. Only Johnnie remained his normal cheerful self. But Vic, normally so sweet and shy, seemed uncharacteristically taciturn and Frank more than usually snappy. Some days, she thought, you could cut the atmosphere in the dining room with a knife.

12

It was one of those days by the English seaside that arrive like a gift, all the more special for being so rare. The bluest of skies was only softened by the slightest of sea hazes, the sunshine only disturbed by the fluffiest of clouds. The wind that had for months punished the coastline had folded away its flail, and the sea was flat and glassy. For once the Met Office had got it right. It was the perfect day for a test flight.

As he walked the Cliff Path before breakfast, Vic felt sick with apprehension. There was no need, he told himself. Everything was arranged, down to the finest detail. Johnnie would be on board the plane and Vic would be in the receiver room, tuning the RDF frequencies and praying they could prove, once and for all, that their system would reliably identify the plane as a ‘friend’ and thus not a ‘foe’.

Scott would be with him in the receiver room as comms man, liaising on the telephone to his opposite number at the flying boat station. Dr Rowe would be there, too, breathing down their necks. The engineers would act as spotters, one at Bawdsey and the other at the station. Their system would have to be refined in due course. But if this first test failed, they might never get the go-ahead to pursue stage two.