Page 57 of The Girl with a Secret
“Are they?” Rosa didn’t know how she felt about that. What would she say or feel, if she were to come face to face with a Nazi soldier? Hopefully that would never happen, especially if she was closeted in an office somewhere, poring over transcripts.
“Anyway, I don’t suppose we should talk about it,” Peter conceded with a wry grimace, before his eyes lit up. “There’s a dance at the local pub on Friday—will you come to that? I’ve got two left feet, as they say, but I’d still be glad for a spin with you. A lot of the staff here go along, and it can be quite a laugh.”
“I’d love to,” she said.
Rosa smiled, filled with a shy pleasure at the thought. A dance, and withPeter.They were together again at last.
A short while later, having finished her tea and said goodbye to Peter, Rosa headed upstairs, following the directions given to her, to the room she would be sharing with another translator. The ground and first floors of the great house had been turned into a rabbit warren of offices; as Rosa mounted the stairs, she heard once more the murmur of voices, the click of heels, the rustle of paper and the clack of typewriters. Everyone seemed very busy.
Two more floors and she found herself in the attics, right under the eaves; the room halfway down the narrow corridor was clearly hers, with one side completely empty, regulation sheets and blanket folded on top of a bare mattress. Rosa put down her suitcase and let out a long, low breath. She still could hardly believe she was here, and really, she didn’t truly know whereherewas… or what it would mean for her.
She moved to the room’s one dormer window, stooping a little so she didn’t hit her head on the ceiling, as she peered out at the house’s grounds. Rolling parkland was covered withprefabricated huts and an L-shaped concrete-block building that she suspected must house the prisoners.
Prisoners of war, here! It was odd, she reflected, to go from one internment camp to another, and yet have a very different role in each. Now she was essentially on theoutsideof the barbed wire… her freedom had been gained so quickly she couldn’t quite believe in it yet. She was almost afraid to trust it, to test it. And what of the prisoners themselves? Rosa didn’t know if she would even see them, but the prospect gave her a shudder of apprehension. The last thing she wanted was to come face to face with a dyed-in-the-wool Nazi… again.
As for all the other things she’d learned—about her father, as well as Peter being here… Rosa pressed one hand to her cheek. It really felt like too much to take in.
She turned from the window and began to unpack her belongings, sliding her few garments into the drawers of the bureau at the end of her bed. The skirts and blouses she’d made do with for the last ten months at Rushen seemed worn indeed, but she supposed everyone would begin to look a little shabby, what with clothing about to be rationed. At least her mother had managed to freshen up a few of the pieces—new buttons on a blouse, stitching on a skirt.
Rosa had just finished putting it all away when a woman in the drab olive of the ATS uniform came into the room, stopping abruptly when she caught sight of Rosa.
“I say,” she exclaimed, “are you my new roommate? Jolly nice to meet you.” She was tall and strong-boned, with a friendly, freckled face, her auburn hair pulled back into a neat bun under her cap. She stuck out a hand which Rosa shook. “I’m Sally Heyward.”
“Rosa Herzelfeld.”
“Oh, are you German? How brilliant.” Sally sounded warmly enthusiastic, just as Elaine Lister had. “We truly do need the realdeal here, you know. We’re getting awfully stumped on some of the slang. You’re a translator, as well, aren’t you?”
“Yes,” Rosa admitted, still feeling cautious, despite Sally’s friendliness.
“Well, you know we’re not meant to talk about anything,” her new roommate confided with an amiable roll of her eyes, “but I guess you’ve gathered the gist of it?”
“We’re… we’re translating transcripts of the interrogations of prisoners of war, aren’t we?”
“That’s it, yes. Although not just their interrogations. It’s what they say in their cells that’s really important.”
Rosa frowned. “In their cells?”
Sally looked startled, and then guarded, and then she let out a laugh as she shrugged. “Did no one tell you about that? Well, it will be obvious soon enough, I should think, when you read a transcript and see the kind of things they’re saying. The trick here is that theythinkthey’re being interrogated and that’s all that’s happening, but it’s really not.” Her brown eyes gleamed with humor as she leaned forward, lowering her voice as she explained it all. “We’ve got the whole place bugged with microphones! Their cells, the social rooms, even some areas outside. That’s what we’re translating, really, along with the interrogations, but those aren’t nearly as useful. A lot of our interrogators play dumb to lull the prisoners into thinking they don’t know anything—and then they spill it to each other in their cells!” She let out a hoot of laughter. “Genius, really, isn’t it?” She stopped suddenly, an uneasy look crossing her face. “Golly, I hope I was all right in telling you all that. Maybe you’re just translating the proper interrogations and aren’t meant to know about the other stuff…”
“I won’t tell a soul,” Rosa promised her quickly. “And really, I imagine everyone knows more about what’s going on here than they’re letting on.”
Sally looked a little relieved. “Yes, I’m sure they do. They must do, if they’ve any sense! But pretend to forget I said all that, all right? My mum was always telling me off for having a big mouth. But this isn’t the place for it, that’s for certain!” She let out another laugh, this one sounding a bit hollow. Rosa could tell she was genuinely worried she’d said more than she should have, and in truth she probably had.
“No, it isn’t,” she agreed, smiling. She liked Sally’s easy friendliness and was grateful for her ready acceptance of Rosa’s nationality.
As for keeping quiet about such secrets… well, Rosa reflected with a sober ruefulness, she certainly knew how to do that.
CHAPTER 23
Rosa soon found herself falling into a routine that was both interesting and challenging. Each day, she showed up in the large, pleasant reception room on the first floor that served as an office for about a dozen translators, many of them, as Rosa had been told, Jewish émigrés like herself. Although they were busy with work and tight-lipped about what they did, they were friendly and approachable outside the office; those without officer rank ate together in the kitchen, at the big table where Rosa had had a cup of tea with Peter. In the evenings, there were card games or singalongs around the piano, or occasional forays out to the pub or village hall. It was more socializing than Rosa had had since she’d arrived in Great Britain, and she found she enjoyed it. She was finally starting to feel as if she belonged somewhere… somewhere she wanted to be.
Each day’s work followed the same format—she sat herself down at her desk and worked her way through the pile of transcripts that inevitably appeared in the wooden filing box. It hadn’t taken her long to discover that Sally had been right—the transcripts of the interrogations were far less informative and interesting than those of the prisoners talking to each other in their cells, when their words were unguarded. Rosa foundthe prisoners were either carelessly boastful or sorrowfully despondent, and both emotions, rather poignantly, came through in the transcripts.
Rosa translated conversations about movements of battleships and mine-laying techniques; engine sizes and U-boat losses. Everything she translated was sent onto another facility for analysis, only known as “Station X,” and while Rosa knew she wasn’t meant to make assumptions or judgments about what she translated, she found it was becoming abundantly clear that many of the German prisoners, especially those of lower rank, felt they were losing the war.
In one transcript, she translated that of the seventy U-boats in operation, thirty-five had already been sunk.And no trained crews to replace the ones that were lost,she translated.We’ll lose this war one boat at a time.
The mood at Cockfosters Camp was, Rosa found, cheerfully energetic and infectious. There could be no doubting that they were doing important work; the information they gathered and sent on was, she suspected, critical to intelligence operations. It put a spring in her step, a note of enthusiasm in her voice, to realize she was actually, amazingly, doing something important, when just weeks ago she’d been languishing back at Rushen, trapped behind barbed wire, wondering if she’d ever make a difference in the world.
