Over a pot of tea, he’d told her, ‘It’s a special project. We’re developing some new radio technology for use in the field. We’ll be needing a fluent French speaker, who understands how things work, to help train operatives and put together instructions that can be communicated to our contacts at the other end. I’m afraid I can’t tell you more than that for the time being, Miss Lennox. I think you understand that there are many different aspects to the fight against the Axis powers in this war. Some of our methods are required, by their very nature, to remain confidential. In undertaking this project, your discretion will need to be ensured. You will be briefed further, on a need-to-know basis, when you reach your destination on the west coast. Would you be able to work under these conditions, do you think?’
She’d nodded. ‘Mr Brown, as long as what I am doing will help our efforts in France, I’m eager to be of help in any way possible.’
‘Very well then. I shall be in touch once I’ve arranged transport for you. Please be packed and ready to leave by Monday.’ He’d stood and shaken her hand. ‘Thank you for your assistance, Miss Lennox.’
And then she’d left, but she had noticed that he watched from the steps of the hotel as she’d walked away along Princes Street, her back straight in the air-force blue jacket and her hair tucked neatly under her peaked WAAF cap, to catch the bus for home.
In the kitchen at Arisaig House, the officer nodded approvingly at her clean plate. ‘You made short work of that! You really must have been hungry. Would you like some more? No? A cup of tea then? – for both of us please, Sergeant McKay,’ he asked the orderly.
As she sipped from her steaming mug, Ella glanced over its rim to take in her surroundings. She felt completely disoriented, suddenly finding herself in this new and strange place, away from the familiarity of Edinburgh and Gulford.
‘Is there anything you’d like to ask me about what you’re doing here?’ The officer set his own mug down on the table and reached for a biscuit from the plate the orderly had put in front of them.
Ella laughed. ‘Am I allowed to?’
‘Now that you’re safely here in Arisaig, yes.’
‘Alright. What am I doing here? All I know is it’s a top-secret project, something to do with wirelesses, and you need things translated into French.’
He nodded. ‘Let me start at the beginning. Have you heard of the SOE?’
‘The Special Operations Executive? Yes, vaguely, it’s rumoured to exist and I did once speak to a girl who might have been an agent, though I never really knew if she was.’
The orderly, who was topping up her mug with more tea, guffawed. ‘Oh, it exists alright. Some say it stands for the “Stately ’Omes of England” – or in this case Scotland – ’cos they’ve taken them all over. Otherwise fondly known as the Baker Street Irregulars.
‘Yes, thank you, Sergeant McKay, that will do.’ The officer dismissed the orderly’s interjection. ‘Well, that’s who we are, whatever you choose to call us. Arisaig is one of the SOE’s commando training centres, where we prepare our agents for deployment in the field. The remoteness of this place makes it easier to keep it a secret and the rugged terrain is perfect for our purposes too. And so, where do you come in? Well, the organisation has been developing some new technology. We’re calling it the S-Phone. It’s a UHF radio-telephone, a kind of wireless, and it will enable our agents to communicate with incoming pilots and help them to locate unmarked drop zones in France far more accurately so that we can coordinate landings or the dropping of agents and supplies. Your linguistic skills will be helpful in training up our agents here and in preparing instructions for our colleagues in France, who will need to learn to use the ground transceivers that will be delivered to them. You come highly recommended, Miss Lennox. We’ve done our homework on you, you see.’
Ella felt slightly dizzy, her tired mind struggling to take in so much information at the end of such a long day. Perhaps it was the emotional strain catching up with her as well.
‘But anyway, that’s enough for tonight. You’ll be properly briefed in the morning. Sergeant McKay here will drive you to your billet now and someone will be back to pick you up tomorrow morning at nine o’clock sharp. Make sure you have a good breakfast,’ he added with a grin. ‘You’re going to need it!’
‘We meet again, Miss Lennox.’ The man standing outside the croft house where she’d spent the night held out his hand.
‘Mr Brown. I wasn’t expecting to see you here.’
He smiled, the lines on his face creasing into an attractive grin that extended to his amused eyes: they were a candid blue, she realised, and his skin was tanned, hinting at days spent outdoors – reinforcing the impression that she’d gained of him in the Palm Court at the hotel.
‘Actually, it’s Angus Dalrymple.’
She laughed. ‘I should have known. Are all you undercover agents called Mr Brown?’
‘No,’ he replied, mock serious, ‘some of us are called Mr Jones. And I believe there are one or two Mr Smiths as well.’
‘Pleased to meet you – properly – Angus Dalrymple.’ As Ella shook his hand, she noted his firm grip and wondered whether he’d noticed the calluses on her palms from her work at the airfield.
‘Jump in,’ he gestured to the car, a utility vehicle fondly known as a ‘Tilly’. It was a glorious morning and, as she climbed into the cab, Ella paused for a moment to look around and get her bearings. To the east, the sun had risen through the hills which were tinted purple with summer heather above the dark evergreen woodlands in which their lower slopes were clad; in the opposite direction, a bay of golden sand could be glimpsed below them, and beyond it a series of jagged, blue-grey islands, which seemed to float upon the breath-taking clarity of the sea. The breeze carried to them the faint scent of seaweed which mingled with the peat smoke that was issuing from the chimney of the croft. A kittiwake mewled above her, reminding her of times spent sailing out over this same ocean from another island a thousand miles to the south. She took a deep breath, drinking in the pure, clear air, noticing how fresh it was after the coal-smoke smog of Edinburgh and the faint perfume of gasoline fumes that had always pervaded the air at Gulford, in spite of the constant blustering of the North Sea wind.
They rattled up the road, away from the beach, back to Arisaig House. In the light of a glorious west-coast day, the building looked a good deal less forbidding than it had last night, its square-paned windows glinting in the sunshine. ‘Come in,’ said Angus, ‘and I’ll introduce you to the team.’
The house was elegant and welcoming, with the morning sunlight streaming in on to polished oak floors and a grand staircase leading to the upper floors. He led her into the drawing-room, where a group of people were clustered around a mahogany table on which sat piles of papers and a piece of apparatus consisting of a curved metal box, an aerial, several small battery packs held together by canvas straps, a set of headphones and a small microphone. Ella recognised the components as a radio, although it was a good deal more compact than the ones she’d learned to operate at RAF Gulford.
‘Harry, Dougal, Anja, George, Stefan – this is Ella.’ She noted that surnames were not used, presumably a policy of the centre. They were all dressed in casual clothes and she suddenly felt out of place in her WAAF uniform.
In fact, as she discovered over the next few days, after the disciplined, orderly routine of RAF Gulford, here at Arisaig she felt as if she’d fallen down a rabbit hole and ended up in a wonderland where odd groups of people seemed to be doing bizarre things at strange times of the day and night. No one batted an eyelid when sudden explosions were heard from the other side of the hill behind the house; at lunch, she sat next to a man whose face was blacked out with camouflage as he drank the hearty broth Sergeant McKay had served up. It was not unusual, when they were ensconced in the drawing-room, learning how the components of the S-Phone worked, to glance up and see a group of commandos stealthily creeping towards the window with lethal-looking knives held in their fists; and one day when two local women came to the kitchen door with a basket of herring to sell, Sergeant McKay suddenly guffawed with laughter half-way through their negotiations and said, ‘Very good, Alf! Charlie! You bloody nearly had me there!’