The Secret Ministry of Ag. & Fish Read Free Page B

to wonder
how many more of Hitler’s personal friends had crept into the Lycée. Then reason came to the rescue, and I cheered up. Not Tilly! It wasn’t possible. She was far too jolly.
    Vinegar-face had her pen raised ready to despatch me that very afternoon to a factory.
    ‘Tilly was born in Germany,’ I panted earnestly, forcing a smile and hoping to awaken a spark of human kindness in her. But her spark, had it ever existed, had gone out. ‘Her
parents sent her to England to live with a family in ’33 when Hitler came to power. She’s Jewish,’ I added lamely, and immediately realized I’d said the wrong thing.
Vinegar-face’s eyes narrowed. She was certainly a member of Oswald Mosley’s Fascist gang. I could see her sporting a black shirt and marching resolutely behind him carrying a banner,
her arm raised in a Nazi salute.
    ‘In other words, an enemy alien,’ she sneered.
    I shrugged and gave a deep sigh. ‘If you say so,’ I ended wearily, abandoning any further attempt to placate her.
    ‘Can’t have such people in the armed forces,’ she sniffed, as if Tilly were a bad smell.
‘That’s
why she’s allowed to work at the BBC. But it
isn’t your case.’
    Her pen, held aloft until then, descended. ‘If you still haven’t made up your mind, I’ll put you down for a factory.’
    She had insulted my friend and destroyed my dreams, and I suddenly saw red.
    ‘I will
not
go to work in a factory,’ I shouted, getting up and stamping my foot to emphasize my determination.
    The door opened and a city gent, wearing a bowler hat, with a copy of
The Times
tucked under his arm, walked in. He raised his eyebrows enquiringly in my direction. I was by now puce
with rage. Vinegar-face, taken off her guard by my outburst, was staring at me, her mouth gaping open like a question mark, obviously not expecting what had appeared to be a nicely brought-up young
lady to behave like a Marseilles fishwife.
    ‘I’ve been offered a job in the BBC French Service,’ I exploded, ‘and
she
says I’ve got to work in a factory. Well, I
won’t
.’ My feet
may have given a few more stamps to emphasize that my decision was irrevocable.
    His lips twitched. He seemed to find the situation amusing.
    ‘I’ll take over this case, Miss Hoskins,’ he said, holding out his hand for my file, which Vinegar-face had been gleefully massacring since our morning meeting. ‘Come
with me, young lady,’ he smiled and, leading the way down a long corridor, entered a small office, tucked at the far end, and motioned me to a seat.
    ‘Now then,’ he said, sitting down at his desk and looking carefully at Vinegar-face’s Victorian scrawl. ‘I see you have just left the French Lycée.’
    I nodded, wondering what was coming next. ‘So you speak fluent French?’
    ‘I’m bilingual,’ I replied, now on the defensive.
    He continued to study my file. Then, putting it aside, he began asking me a great many questions that had nothing to do with the warship I had expected to be invited to command, jumping
backwards and forwards between English and French like a demented kangaroo. He seemed surprised that I was able to keep up. After a few more linguistic gymnastics, he made an incomprehensible
telephone call, scribbled on a piece of paper and told me to go to this address, where someone was expecting me. The address meant nothing to me. But, relieved to be out of Vinegar-face’s
clutches, I took the paper and, with a final triumphant smirk in her direction, stalked from the building. My smirk was wasted. She didn’t even look up. She was too busy destroying another
candidate’s hopes.
    My mystery destination turned out to be the Foreign Office, and the room I was to find a windowless broom cupboard filled by an Army officer. The room was so small that he and I were practically
rubbing noses across his desk while he asked me a lot of bewildering questions which had nothing to do with the Navy. It was the beginning of a series