short shrift and departed still not knowing. An unhappy fate indeed for those women. Garish posters caricaturing large mouths and black Homburged spies despoiled elegant panelled walls and warned of security.
The introductory talk given by the Commanding Officer resembled a speech by the prosecution in Kafka’s Trial . ‘I’m sorry girls, I cannot tell you what I’m talking to you about. But you mustn’t talk about it either and that makes it easier for you.’
The large baronial hall was converted into a neat double row of cubicles that gave it the appearance of a beauty parlour. For three weeks we sat in pairs inside these mysterious blacked-out cubicles staring pop-eyed at a small screen illuminated with a wayward fluorescent green light that glowed eerily in the darkness and threw a deathly pallor on our faces. We fiddled and fussed with knobs, endeavouring to locate any green blobs of light that showed persistence or constancy among the bewildering variety of flashes and oscillating lines appearing on the screen. At the end of the working day we emerged from our cubicles eyes red-rimmed with strain and still echoing the elusive blobs. Every night the ‘Riot Act’ was solemnly read to us with dire warning against indiscreet talk.
The blobs of light were finally baptized as ‘echoes’. The addition of a compass scale on the locating control failed to hint to us the nature of our work. By the third week those of us still remaining on the course could give the compass bearing and approximate distance of any echo appearing on the screen. Not, we thought, a particularly commendable achievement.
The monotony of our training, the secrecy and confinement – we were not permitted outside the manor grounds – brought boredom and restlessness. I might have been a submariner for all the relationship this bore to flying. The hot-house atmosphere bred turgid romance, for which the darkened cubicles were exploited unmercifully. Predatory females became peculiarly anxious to improve their echo spotting and emerged sans visible eye-strain.
On the last day of the course we gathered in the lecture hall for the unveiling ceremony. The Commanding Officer commiserated with us and thanked us for our patience. Our work was, of course, Radar Interception. The echoes would be, in the future, enemy aircraft approaching the coasts of Britain. We left the lecture rooms happily; the boredom and restlessness gone. Our work was simple but vital. Women rarely ask for more.
O ur farewell party lingered far into the night as cubicle-inspired romances jerked fitfully in the throes of rigor-mortis. I primly evaded the zero-hour attempts to storm my notorious unsusceptibility.
‘Come on, Jackie; have a drink.’
‘She thinks she’s too good for us.’
‘Just a little drink...’
‘She’s funny that way.’
‘If she doesn’t want to drink, why should she?’
‘It’s hot in here. Let’s...’
‘She’s a Brylcreem girl. Officers only.’
‘Let’s dance. You do dance? ... ’
I stayed until the last cigarette was extinguished, the last drink quaffed and joined the also-rans on the terrace. We sucked the crisp coolness of the night into our jaded lungs and listened to the trees snoring softly in the gentle breeze. My eyes were drawn to the sky. To the stars that twinkled with remote unapproachable beauty. I was melancholy at the sky’s infidelity as is a lover, discarded and miserable, who sees his ex-mistress continuing to smile and laugh with someone new. In those days of banishment I was comforted only by rain for, in my maudlin sentimentality, I imagined the sky to be weeping at my absence.
The next day we scattered to the coasts of Britain. Our destinations were various but identical. A small camp on high ground or on cliffs overlooking the shiftless seas. A lonely wooden hut nestling beneath and dwarfed by tall spindly masts towering with functional beauty into the skies. In these huts, isolated and stark, we
The introductory talk given by the Commanding Officer resembled a speech by the prosecution in Kafka’s Trial . ‘I’m sorry girls, I cannot tell you what I’m talking to you about. But you mustn’t talk about it either and that makes it easier for you.’
The large baronial hall was converted into a neat double row of cubicles that gave it the appearance of a beauty parlour. For three weeks we sat in pairs inside these mysterious blacked-out cubicles staring pop-eyed at a small screen illuminated with a wayward fluorescent green light that glowed eerily in the darkness and threw a deathly pallor on our faces. We fiddled and fussed with knobs, endeavouring to locate any green blobs of light that showed persistence or constancy among the bewildering variety of flashes and oscillating lines appearing on the screen. At the end of the working day we emerged from our cubicles eyes red-rimmed with strain and still echoing the elusive blobs. Every night the ‘Riot Act’ was solemnly read to us with dire warning against indiscreet talk.
The blobs of light were finally baptized as ‘echoes’. The addition of a compass scale on the locating control failed to hint to us the nature of our work. By the third week those of us still remaining on the course could give the compass bearing and approximate distance of any echo appearing on the screen. Not, we thought, a particularly commendable achievement.
The monotony of our training, the secrecy and confinement – we were not permitted outside the manor grounds – brought boredom and restlessness. I might have been a submariner for all the relationship this bore to flying. The hot-house atmosphere bred turgid romance, for which the darkened cubicles were exploited unmercifully. Predatory females became peculiarly anxious to improve their echo spotting and emerged sans visible eye-strain.
On the last day of the course we gathered in the lecture hall for the unveiling ceremony. The Commanding Officer commiserated with us and thanked us for our patience. Our work was, of course, Radar Interception. The echoes would be, in the future, enemy aircraft approaching the coasts of Britain. We left the lecture rooms happily; the boredom and restlessness gone. Our work was simple but vital. Women rarely ask for more.
O ur farewell party lingered far into the night as cubicle-inspired romances jerked fitfully in the throes of rigor-mortis. I primly evaded the zero-hour attempts to storm my notorious unsusceptibility.
‘Come on, Jackie; have a drink.’
‘She thinks she’s too good for us.’
‘Just a little drink...’
‘She’s funny that way.’
‘If she doesn’t want to drink, why should she?’
‘It’s hot in here. Let’s...’
‘She’s a Brylcreem girl. Officers only.’
‘Let’s dance. You do dance? ... ’
I stayed until the last cigarette was extinguished, the last drink quaffed and joined the also-rans on the terrace. We sucked the crisp coolness of the night into our jaded lungs and listened to the trees snoring softly in the gentle breeze. My eyes were drawn to the sky. To the stars that twinkled with remote unapproachable beauty. I was melancholy at the sky’s infidelity as is a lover, discarded and miserable, who sees his ex-mistress continuing to smile and laugh with someone new. In those days of banishment I was comforted only by rain for, in my maudlin sentimentality, I imagined the sky to be weeping at my absence.
The next day we scattered to the coasts of Britain. Our destinations were various but identical. A small camp on high ground or on cliffs overlooking the shiftless seas. A lonely wooden hut nestling beneath and dwarfed by tall spindly masts towering with functional beauty into the skies. In these huts, isolated and stark, we
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