“Fairchild!” a voice called, and a vividly pretty brunette in a FANY uniform and cap burst in. “You will not believe what I just heard.”
And so much for my observing pre-rocket behavior, Mary thought.
“What are you doing here, Talbot?” Fairchild said. “I thought you’d gone with Maitland and the others to the applecart upset.”
“No, but I should have done. I’m so sick of the Yellow Peril, I could scream.”
The Yellow Peril? What did Japan have to do with an ambulance post? I should definitely have done more research on World War II slang.
“I was at the motor pool,” Talbot said. “The Major insisted I go pick up Bela Lugosi,” and thank goodness Fairchild had explained about the ambulance names, or she’d be completely lost. Could the Yellow Peril be some sort of vehicle as well?
“I told the Major it wouldn’t be ready,” Talbot went on, “but she-who’s this?”
“Mary Kent,” Fairchild said. “She’s our new driver.”
“But you can’t be!” Talbot cried, and Mary looked up sharply. “Sorry. It’s only that I had a wager with Camberley that even the Major couldn’t get a new driver out of HQ. For a pair of stockings. Now what am I going to do? I lent my only good pair to Jitters, and she simply shredded them.”
“She means Lieutenant Parrish,” Fairchild explained. “She’s keen on jitterbugging.”
“I simply must have stockings. Philip’s taking me to the Ritz on Saturday.”
No, he’s not, Mary thought. There’ll be more than a hundred V-1s coming over on Saturday. You’ll be transporting the wounded.
“I don’t suppose you’ve an extra pair you’d be willing to lend me, have you, Kent?” Talbot asked.
No, and even if I had, I wouldn’t admit it. It would instantly expose her as the impostor she was. No woman in England had had presentable stockings by this point in the war. “Sorry,” she said, pointing down at her much-mended cotton stockings. “I’m sorry if I caused you to lose your wager.”
“Oh, well, it’s my own fault for betting against the Major. I should know better. Have you met the Major yet, Kent?”
“No, she hasn’t,” Fairchild said. “The Major’s in London. She was called to a meeting at HQ.”
“Well, when you do, you’ll find she’s extremely determined, particularly when it comes to obtaining equipment and supplies-and personnel-for our post.”
Fairchild nodded. “She’s convinced that the winning of the war rests entirely on our shoulders.”
“Though I’d scarcely call driving officers with roving hands vital to the war’s outcome,” Talbot said. “I hope you’re skilled at fending off amorous advances, Kent.” She turned to Fairchild. “When do you expect Maitland and the others back?”
“I rather expected they’d be back by now,” Fairchild said.
“Where was this applecart upset?”
“Bethnal Green.”
“Oh. I’m going to go bathe before they get back.” She took off her jacket and started for the door.
“Wait,” Fairchild said. “You can’t go yet. You still haven’t told us what you heard.”
“Oh, yes, I nearly forgot. I went to the motor pool, and they told me Bela would be ready tomorrow, which is what they always say.” She undid her skirt, stepped out of it, and began unbuttoning her blouse. “And I said we must have it today, and that I’d be willing to wait.” She shrugged out of her blouse and stood there in her slip, her arms akimbo. “But that was a mistake. All they wanted to do then was stand about and chat me up.”
I can imagine, Mary thought. Talbot was not only pretty, she had a stunning figure. It was easy to see why she’d been engaged four times. “So I finally went across to the canteen to have a cup of tea, and Lyttelton was there waiting to drive a captain assigned to Coastal Defences back to Dover-”
She definitely knew about the V-1s. Coastal Defences had known that the Germans were planning to send over unmanned rockets for weeks. They’d been sworn to secrecy, but obviously the captain had told his driver, and she’d told Talbot.
“And you won’t believe what she told me,” Talbot went on. “She said that Captain Eden’s married. To a WAAF.”
“Captain Eden who took you to Quaglino’s last week?”
“And to the Savoy the week before that, and rang me up three days ago to ask me to a play.”
“The cad,” Fairchild said fervently.
“A complete bounder,” Talbot agreed. “And it was a play I desperately wanted to see. On the other hand, he was a dreadful dancer, and this will give me a chance to go out with an American who hopefully will be so smitten he’ll present me with a pair of nylon stockings.” She slung a towel over her shoulder. “Ta ta, I’m off to bathe,” she said and left.
“And I need to show you the rest of the post,” Fairchild said. “You can unpack later. We haven’t much time.”
And I haven’t either, Mary thought, following her, because even though Talbot hadn’t known about the V-1s, the returning girls definitely would. Fairchild had said they’d gone to Bethnal Green, and that was where the second V-1 had fallen, damaging a railway bridge. So she’d been right, they had been sent out to collect fragments. That meant an “applecart upset” must be an incident. But why would Talbot have said she wished she’d gone with them?
“This is the common room,” Fairchild was saying, “and that’s the door to the cellar. Our air-raid shelter is down there.” She opened a door onto a steep descending staircase. “Though we never use it. The siren’s only sounded once in the past three months, and that was when some children broke into the Civil Defence post and cranked it up for a lark.”
There hadn’t been any sirens last night? But that couldn’t be right. The sirens had definitely sounded for all four V-1s. A ten-year-old planespotter had carefully written down the times of every alert and all clear in his log. They must not have been able to hear them here in Dulwich.
“And now that our boys are in France, we shan’t have to worry about any more air raids,” Fairchild said. “The war can’t last much longer-” She stopped, listening. Mary heard the slam of a car door and then voices.
“The girls are back,” Fairchild said, hurrying into the corridor.
A trio of young women in FANY uniform were coming in from the garage, their arms full of clothing. “I still say we should have got that ecru lace,” the first one, a chunky blonde, was saying to a tall redhead.
“It was too small,” the redhead said. “Even Camberley couldn’t get the slide fastener up.”
“Grenville might have been able to let it out for her,” the blonde said.
“Were you successful, Reed?” Fairchild asked.
“Only partly,” the redhead said, coming into the despatch room and dumping the clothes she held onto the sofa. “We were only able to snag one evening frock.”
“And Camberley was nearly killed getting that,” the blonde said. “She had to fight two girls from Croydon’s St. John’s Ambulance for it.”
“But I won,” the third one, a tiny elfin-looking girl, said. She pulled a floor-length pink net frock out of the pile and held it up triumphantly. “Champion of the St. Ethelred Applecart Upset.”
Which solved one mystery. An applecart upset was slang for a clothing exchange. Exchanges had been common during the war, a result of rationing and the shortage of fabric, which was all being used for uniforms and parachutes.
“It’s a bit short,” the redhead Reed said, “but there’s a good deal of fullness in the skirt we can use to add a ruffle, and-” She stopped. “Who’s this?”
“Lieutenant Mary Kent,” Fairchild said. “Kent, this is Captain Maitland,” she pointed at the chunky blonde and then at the redhead and the elfin one, “Lieutenant Reed, and Lieutenant Camberley. Kent’s our new driver. Headquarters sent her from Oxford.”