The Grafton Girls - Annie Groves [46]
The atmosphere in the Dungeon had suddenly become very tense; even the air they were breathing tasted different somehow, Diane recognised, whilst the temperature had risen with the tension. There seemed to be a collective holding of breath whilst everyone waited for the next staccato burst of radio communication.
‘They aren’t going to Canada,’ Susan told her without moving her gaze from the blackboard. ‘They’re heading for Iceland and then from there, they’re going on to Murmansk.’
‘Well, if you ask me, it’s bad enough asking a man to risk his life to bring essential supplies into this country, never mind having him take even more of a risk with it to get tanks to them Ruskies,’ a small dark-haired young woman burst out angrily.
Diane’s heart lurched against her ribs whilst her stomach churned sickly on behalf of the convoy and the families they had left behind.
‘It’s all been hush-hush. Poor sods, if they get torpedoed in those seas they won’t stand a chance; they’ll freeze to death in minutes. Normally my hubby’s all in favour of everything Winnie wants to do, but you should have heard him when he learned about this. Talk about the air turning blue! We aren’t supposed to know,’ one of the Wrens told Diane, ‘but how can we not know when we can see the ships leaving Loch Ewe, where they assembled, and then heading out to Iceland? The convoy will sail from there to Murmansk. My hubby said he’d been talking to a sailor who told them about the kit they’d all been fitted out with: lambswool blankets, and lambswool waistcoats and even extra Calor oil heaters for the cabins, and of course they’ve been told to communicate with one another using flags instead of radio so that their messages can’t be picked up by the Luftwaffe or the U-boats. I’m just thankful that my John isn’t sailing with them, that’s all.’
The teleprinters had fallen silent. A naval officer, pale and hollow-eyed from lack of sleep and fresh air, was studying the new information, whilst Wrens moved swiftly to translate it onto maps and the chart, the whole room exhaling a sigh of relief when it became clear that the U-boat threat had been a false alarm and that, for the moment, the convoy was still safe.
‘We lost a plane up there a couple of months back,’ one of the girls chipped in starkly. ‘One survivor, but he’d got frostbite so badly they had to amputate his hands and feet. He died in the end. He was engaged to a girl I know. She didn’t recognise him when she went to see him in hospital. His face had turned black.’
‘That’s enough of that.’ Susan stopped the conversation quietly, and Diane remembered that Susan’s husband was on escort duty with the Arctic convoys.
‘Yes, Pat?’ Susan greeted the uniformed Wren hurrying towards her.
‘Can you lend us one of your girls, only we’re a couple short,’ she begged.
‘It depends how long you want her for.’
‘Only for the rest of the shift. We need someone to go up the ladder and write down information as it’s called out.’
‘You go, Diane,’ Susan instructed. ‘But I’ll need her back tomorrow,’ she warned.
‘Don’t worry if you haven’t done this before,’ the Wren reassured Diane as she hurried her to the huge information blackboards filling one wall. ‘All you have to do is write down what’s called out to you. You’ll need a quick hand and a decent head for heights, that’s all. You can take that ladder over there.’ She gave a brisk nod in the direction of the ladder, over twenty foot, closest to the door.
Obediently Diane did as she had been instructed, climbing up the ladder very cautiously, and listening out for the commands shouted up to her as she and the other girls worked to keep the blackboard information up to date. It wasn’t so very different from what she had been doing with her own team, except that they didn’t have to climb such high ladders, and of course she was dealing with the convoy itself rather than its air cover.
You certainly needed a good head for heights, Diane admitted, responding ruefully to the girl on the next ladder as she mouthed across, ‘It seems strange at first,