The Light Over London(41)

Louise and Vera stifled laughs, the image of their stern bombardier exploding out of the notoriously voluminous ATS-issued bloomers was too ridiculous.

Lizzie only let Hatfield go when he was standing right in front of the empty chair at the head of their table. “Hatfield has news,” she announced.

“What is it, Gunner Hatfield?” Nigella asked, her cheeks a pretty pink. They all knew that Nigella, who was the youngest of them and delicate as a doll, had developed a crush on the broad-chested Hatfield the moment she set eyes on him. It made her at once painfully shy but also eager to speak to him at any chance she could get.

“I’m really not supposed to tell, Lizzie,” Hatfield said, taking off his cap and twisting it between his hands.

Lizzie stuck a finger in his face. “Don’t you back down on me now, Hatfield. It’s not fair to the rest of us.”

Each of the girls leaned in.

“Go on, Hatfield. It’s just us,” said Vera, her soft, posh voice pitched perfectly for persuasion.

Hatfield glanced to the other men. Williams puffed on his cigarette so furiously one might’ve thought he would fall down dead if he stopped, but Cartruse just shrugged.

“I want to know too,” Cartruse said.

Hatfield looked around and then sighed. Leaning in, he said in a low voice, “I’m not supposed to know this, but I think we’re being shipped out.”

“We’ve got our assignment?” Mary hissed.

“Where?” Louise asked.

“I really can’t—”

“Hatfield . . .”

Hatfield shot her a pained look. “London. We’re going to London. South of the Thames.”

They all sat back at that, stunned. If they’d wanted action, now they had it. Although not as frequent as they’d been in the Blitz last autumn, when the Luftwaffe had struck London on fifty-seven consecutive nights, the raids were still very real. After weeks of shooting at target balloons and markers and wondering when they would finally be allowed to use their skills on actual German planes, B Section was going to be sent right into the belly of the beast.

“Are you sure?” Charlie asked.

“Yes, how can you be certain?” Vera asked.

Cartruse laughed. “Hatfield has himself a bird, doesn’t he?”

“I don’t understand,” said Louise.

“He’s been necking with one of the girls in the base’s command office. Bet she saw our paperwork come through late yesterday,” said Williams around his cigarette.

Louise cast a quick glance at Nigella. Her friend was staring hard at her knitting.

“Why are we only finding out about this now?” Mary asked.

“Because he meets her around the back of the garage at her tea break every afternoon,” said Cartruse.

“Her commanding officer likes to take a snooze in his office, and no one notices if she’s gone for twenty minutes,” said Hatfield.

“Hatfield, you sly dog,” said Charlie with a laugh.

“Wait, that means you waited all this time to tell us?” asked Louise.

“And I had to drag him here to do it,” said Lizzie.

“No secrets in B Section,” said Cartruse, clapping Hatfield on the back.

London. They were going to be sent to London. Yes, it was dangerous, but as Paul had pointed out in all of his recent letters, her entire job was dangerous. And she would be in London. Wonderful, centralized London, where he was planning to start his leave. She wouldn’t have to travel to him. It would be so easy.

“You look happy, Louise,” said Charlie, as the others chattered excitedly amongst themselves.

“I was just thinking that I won’t even need to worry about train schedules now when Paul comes,” she said.

“It looks as though the ATS is determined to play cupid for you.” Vera glanced at Nigella and dropped her voice. “It’s a shame I can’t say the same for all of us.”

“Do you think she’ll be okay?” Louise asked. Nigella had started knitting again, but the needles trembled in her hands.

“She’ll be right as rain soon enough. A shame her falling for one of her own section though,” said Charlie.

“I don’t think she’s had much experience with men,” said Vera, in a way that told Louise that Vera had had more than she might care for.

“She wouldn’t, would she, what with her parents shutting her up in Catholic school,” said Charlie.

“Well, she has to learn. We all have our hearts broken at some point. It might as well be now,” said Vera.



Hatfield’s lady friend in the clerk’s office proved to be a reliable source of information. In just seventy-two hours, the men and women of B Section, 488 Battery, were on a train from Oswestry to London, headed for the Woolwich Depot, where they would be stationed for the foreseeable future. It was a long, slow journey, with several changes to be made, and rolling into Birmingham as dusk fell, they got their first real look at the devastation the air raids had left behind.

“There are whole houses gone,” Mary muttered, her hands braced against the train window.

“What did you expect?” Charlie asked, but the way she shivered when they passed the skeletal remains of buildings told Louise that, for all her bluster, the most outspoken one of their little band was just as affected as the rest of them.