The 9 by Madalyn Morgan (tools of titans ebook .txt) 📕

They heard the train come in to the station. ‘I’d better go,’ Ena said. Henry helped her into her coat. She picked up her handbag and gasmask, and the two old friends left the buffet.

‘Thank you for the tea and cake, Henry,’ Ena said, when they were on the platform. ‘I’m sorry I couldn’t tell you more--’

‘Don’t be sorry.’ Henry opened the door of the train and gave Ena a warm smile. ‘Will you come to the Park again?’

‘After today? I doubt it,’ she shrugged, ‘but you never know.’ The brakes released and the train jolted, catching Ena off balance. She stumbled. Henry caught her and she looked into his eyes. ‘I’d better board,’ she whispered, ‘or I’ll miss this train too. Goodbye, Henry.’

‘Goodbye, Ena. I’m sorry I can’t send my best wishes to the family, but no one knows I’m here.’

‘Don’t worry, I won’t say anything.’ She laughed. ‘They don’t know I’m here, either.’ The whistle sounded along the platform. ‘I’d better get on the train.’

Henry bent down and kissed Ena on the cheek. His lips were soft and warm. She smiled up at him. A tingling sensation in the pit of her stomach almost took her breath away. It was a strange, exciting feeling. ‘Take care,’ he said, as she mounted the steps.

‘I will,’ Ena called, from the train’s open window. She waved until she could no longer see Henry, then found a seat.

By the time the train arrived in Rugby, it was dark. The air smelled of engine oil and damp coal, and fine drizzle made patterns like spiders’ webs on her woollen coat. She turned her collar up against the wind and looked along the platform. Fog as dense as a blanket hovered above the northbound tracks.

She walked quickly down the station tunnel and up Railway Terrace to the bus stop. She didn’t have to wait long. Sitting on the first seat inside the door, she gave the conductor a shilling. ‘Lowarth please.’ The bus conductor turned the handle on his ticket machine: out came a ticket. He tore it off and handed it to Ena, with sixpence change.

With the ticket in her hand, Ena relaxed and looked out of the window. It was too dark and too foggy to see anything. She was tired but daren’t close her eyes in case she fell asleep. Worse still, she might be sick.

The bus wound its way along the Rugby to Lowarth Road, lurching to stop and pick up or put down in every village. Instinctively, Ena went into her handbag for pear drops. They weren’t there. They were being analysed somewhere by one of the commander’s medical people. Ena took a shaky breath and swallowed down the feeling of nausea. The journey to Lowarth seemed to take forever and by the time Ena left the bus on Coventry Road she felt very sick and very tired.

She was certainly too tired to concentrate on cycling home through blacked-out Lowarth and low-lying fog. She had enough money left to pay for a taxi home to Foxden and decided to telephone Clark’s Taxi from the factory.

Ena walked up to Silcott’s. She had her own set of keys but she didn’t want a repeat performance of the last time she had let herself in after dark. Charlie Dawkins, the night watchman, had been dozing in his chair. He woke up, thought the Germans had invaded, rang the alarm, and in no time the air-raid sirens were wailing and Lowarth’s entire ARP brigade, including her father, were swarming all over the factory.

Ena knocked on the door and peered through the glass to see if Charlie was about. She rested her forehead on the door, sighed through a yawn, and closed her eyes. When Charlie opened the door, Ena fell into his arms. ‘You all right, Miss Dudley?’ he laughed.

Ena took a couple of stumbling steps before regaining her balance. ‘I am now you’re here, Mr Dawkins. Would you be a love and take me through to the annexe? I’m too tired to bike home. I’m going to see if I can get a taxi.’

‘Anything for you, Miss Dudley.’ The night watchman gave Ena a fatherly smile, and shining his torch on the floor, escorted her through the factory to the annexe. Ena took her keys from her bag, unlocked the door, and flicked on the light. ‘I’ll leave you to it, miss,’ he said. ‘Give me a shout when you’re ready to leave and I’ll see you out.’

Already at Mr Silcott’s desk, Ena picked up the telephone. She watched Charlie Dawkins amble back into the factory. When he had disappeared into the darkness, she put the telephone back on its cradle and closed the door.

Standing in the middle of the room, Ena looked around. She didn’t believe Mr Silcott or Freda were traitors. She knew them both too well. They were not spies, nor would they help a spy to steal her work. If it weren’t such a serious business, it would be laughable. She picked up the telephone again and waited for the operator. ‘But someone did,’ she said aloud.

‘Would you repeat that, caller?’

‘Oh, sorry. Clark’s Taxi, please. Woodcote 835.’

‘One moment.’ Ena heard the phone go dead and then, ‘Putting you through, caller.’

‘Thank you,’ Ena said, but the operator had already pulled the plug.

‘Clark’s Taxi,’ Ena heard her friend say.

‘Hello Beryl, it’s Ena. Would your dad be able to fetch me from Silcott’s?’

‘Dad’s finished for the night but I’ll come. We’re just having supper. Be with you in twenty minutes, all right?’

‘That’ll be fine.’ Twenty minutes would give her time to have a look around. ‘Thanks, Beryl,’ she said, putting the telephone down. Snooping on her friends felt wrong, but she knew that she hadn’t told anyone that she was taking work to Bletchley today