In Farleigh Field by Rhys Bowen EPUP & PDF – eBook Details Online
- Authors: Rhys Bowen
- Publish Date: March 1, 2017
- Language: English
- Genre: Fiction, History, Thriller, Mystery, Suspense
- Format: PDF / EPUB
- Size: 2 MB
- Pages: 396
- Price: Free
- ISBN: 1477818294
Bletchley Park
May 1941
Lady Pamela Sutton stared at the dreary government-issued
posters on the wall of her small cubicle in Hut 3. Some of
them cheerful exhortations to do one’s best, to soldier on with
a stiff upper lip, and others dire warnings about letting the side
down. Beyond the blackout curtains that covered the windows,
dawn would be breaking.
She could hear the chorus of birds in
the woods behind the hut, still chirping madly and joyfully as
they had done before the war began and would keep doing
after it ended—whenever that would be. It had already gone
on too long, and there was no end in sight. Pamela rubbed her
eyes. It had been a long night, and her eyes were stinging with
tiredness.
According to civil-service regulations, women were
not supposed to work on the night shift with men, in case their
morals were compromised. She had found this amusing when
the shortage of male translators meant that one of the girls had
to do night-shift work. “Frankly, I don’t think my honour is in
danger from any of the chaps here,” she had said. “They are
more interested in maths problems than girls.”
But she had come to regret her bravado many times since.
Night work was brutal. Thank God her shift was soon coming
to an end and she could go to bed. Not that she could ever
sleep properly during the day with trains rattling past her
window.
“Bloody war,” she muttered and breathed onto her hands,
trying to induce some warmth into her fingers. Although it was
May, the huts were cold and damp overnight. The coke ration
had been stopped on May first. But that wasn’t entirely bad;
the cast-iron stove smoked badly and spewed out noxious
fumes.
Everything was so horrible these days. No decent food
to eat. Meals consisting of powdered eggs, canned corned
beef, sausages that were more sawdust than meat. Her
landlady obviously hadn’t been much of a cook before the war,
but what she cooked now was quite inedible. Pamela envied
those on the day shift.
At least they could take their main meal
in the dining room, which was supposed to be quite good. She
could go across and get some breakfast before she went off
duty, but she was always too tired to eat by the end of a long
night.
At the outbreak of the war she had been anxious to do
something useful. Jeremy had joined up on the first day,
welcomed into the RAF with open arms. He’d been one of the
most decorated pilots at the Battle of Britain, but then in
typical Jeremy fashion, he’d strayed too far into France
chasing a returning German plane and been shot down. Now
he was in the Stalag Luft, a camp for captured airmen,
somewhere in Germany, and nobody had heard from him in
months.
She didn’t even know whether he was alive or dead.
She squeezed her eyes shut so that a tear couldn’t form. Stiff
upper lip at all times, she repeated to herself—that was what
was expected these days. “We must set an example,” her father
had said in his normal thundering manner, pounding on the
table for better effect. “Never let anyone see you are upset or
afraid. People look up to us, and we have an obligation to
show them how it’s done.”
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