1: Huts
January 1963
When she woke up, one of Deborah Hall's feet was absolutely freezing. She pulled it back under her quilt as soon as she was awake enough to realise, snuggling back into the warmth of her bed and hoping desperately in her head that there were still a few hours before the wake-up call came. It was still dark outside, so she tucked her cold foot under her warm one and squeezed her eyes shut, trying to drift back off to sleep.
Unfortunately, as soon as she got comfortable and warm again, an alarm clock started ringing in a shrill tone. She groaned, using the quilt to block her ears, but someone stepped past her and flicked on the electric light, filling the hut with an orange glow and hurting her eyes.
"Oh come on, it's way too early," she complained, rubbing some sleep out of her eye and dragging herself into an upright position.
"I don't care," a voice replied, a voice which Debbie knew belonged to their hut leader, Jennifer Adamson. Jennifer was a year older than her and made sure Debbie knew who the boss was.
The air temperature in the hut wasn't much above freezing and Debbie shivered as she slid out from under the nice warm quilt and tucked her feet into threadbare slippers. Opposite her, her best friend Elaine Marshall did the same, except that Elaine's slippers were fur-lined and gorgeously warm. Debbie had always been jealous of them, never more so than this morning.
"Wakey wakey Hut Four," a harsh voice shouted from outside the door of the hut. "Breakfast in thirty minutes." This time the voice was that of Madame Bechard, the head of girls' training who also taught French. Debbie had hated her guts ever since Basic Training, when she'd shaved Debbie's head as punishment for failing a training exercise. Her brunette curls had fully grown back, but Debbie still hadn't forgiven the training instructor.
"It's bloody freezing," Elaine said plainly, using one hand to run a comb through her long blonde hair whilst wrapping the other arm around her to keep warm.
"I swear it gets colder every year," Debbie complained, tucking her hair behind her ears before grabbing a used handkerchief from her bedside table. It was grubby from the previous day, but she found a clean corner and gave her nose a good blow.
"Still feeling that cold?" Elaine asked, her voice sympathetic. Debbie had caught a nasty cold just before Christmas and she'd been a snotty mess right through the festive period. The worst was over, now, but the cold weather didn't help.
"I'll live," Debbie said, stamping her feet to try and get some warmth into them as she bustled around making her bed, tucking the blanket into the corners until it was neat and tidy.
"Do my bed too? I'll owe you," Elaine asked in a pleading tone. "You know it takes me twice as long and the sooner it's done, the sooner we can go."
Debbie rolled her eyes but did as she was asked, tucking the blanket into Elaine's bed in the same way while her friend used a hand mirror to examine the acne that was plaguing her chin.
"I put that cream on last night but no luck," she said unhappily, picking at one of her spots before Debbie slapped her hand away.
"You'll regret it if you make it bleed," Debbie warned her. "Anyway, come on, the sooner I'm in a hot shower the better."
Hut Four had been Debbie's home for the past four years, ever since she'd passed Basic Training. Left over from the war, when campus had been an American airfield and training base, the huts didn't have central heating so unless someone got up to put more fuel in the heater, they quickly got very cold. None of the huts had showers, or even running water, so all the Cherubs who didn't live in the old school had to cross the short stretch of grass to the gymnasium to use the toilets and shower in the morning. Most of the boys didn't bother, preferring to stay smelly and gross until after their PT (physical training) was done for the day, but all of the girls wanted a shower.
"Come on Elaine, we're already cutting into our time," Debbie shouted from the entrance to the hut, stamping her feet to keep them warm. There was a thick layer of snow on the ground, a fresh fall overnight covering up the path they'd cleared the previous day.
"I know, I know, I couldn't find my soap," Elaine apologised, rushing up behind Debbie. The other two girls who shared Hut Four, Jennifer and Sally, had already left, so they had to waste more precious seconds closing the door behind them.
There was only one set of showers at the gymnasium, which had been designed for boys only, so in the morning the girls got a turn for ten minutes and then the boys did. This was strictly enforced, and Instructor Takada wasn't above throwing a girl out in just a towel if she took too long. Debbie was already feeling anxious that she wouldn't be done in time, and the queue of boys standing outside the block never helped.
"Nice barnet you've got there, Debs," someone yelled, causing a round of snickering.
"Leave off," Debbie snarled, pushing through towards the showers, grabbing Elaine's hand to drag her in too.
"Here, Elaine, are you up for the pictures on Saturday?" someone else said, and Elaine hung back to talk to them.
"No, Elaine, not now," Debbie said, giving her arm a hard pull. "You can discuss dating later." The big clock on the wall of the gym was showing just six minutes until the boys' turn.
Walking back to Hut Four with wet hair felt like having needles driven into your scalp, but at least the fresh snow had been packed down by people walking on it. Elaine had wanted to hang back and talk to the boys, but there were only ten minutes to dress and be ready for breakfast. All Cherubs, boys and girls, wore the same uniform: olive green army-surplus trousers, black boots, and a coloured shirt to show your rank. Debbie and Elaine were both navy shirts, while their hut leader Jennifer was a black shirt. Several of the older agents, and some of the staff, were resentful of the new shirt colour system, since they'd had their own hierarchy before it had been introduced. The chairwoman, Eileen McAfferty, had a habit of awarding higher ranked shirts for outstanding mission performance instead of just for who'd been there the longest, and it had upset the balance. When Debbie and Elaine had done Basic Training, they were one of the first groups to wear the now-standard blue shirts, and they didn't know what all of the fuss was about. But you had to be careful not to talk about 'shirt privilege' in front of some people, or you'd get your head stuffed down the toilet.
Once Debbie had helped Elaine do her hair and tidy up the hut, they were already late for breakfast, so they had to speed-walk across the snowy paths to get to the big Nissen hut which acted as a cafeteria.
"Hurry up ladies or you'll get my boot!" Instructor Bivott bawled at them from across the field when he spotted them. "Needed extra time to do your makeup?"
"Ignore him," Debbie hissed as they slipped and slid on the icy path.
"I know, I'm not stupid," Elaine hissed back.
Madame Bechard was waiting for them when they arrived, stamping snow from their boots.
"Late," she tutted. "It's always Hut Four. Extra cleaning duty for your hut today."
"But Madame, we got delayed by the boys in the queue," Elaine tried to protest. This wasn't exactly true, but Bechard was sometimes sympathetic if you blamed the boys.
"You were late leaving the hut," Bechard replied, not believing it. "Extra cleaning, all four of you." This last part she said loudly so all the Cherubs could hear, and Debbie saw Jennifer and Sally glaring at them. Even though collective punishment was supposed to foster a spirit of teamwork in each hut, in practice Jennifer and Sally would just make Debbie and Elaine do their share of the work too.
At least there was no seating plan in the cafeteria, so once the girls had picked up trays of scrambled eggs and toast, they could sit as far away from Jennifer and Sally as possible. Nobody was allowed to start eating until the chairwoman was ready, so Debbie watched her eggs go cold as Ms McAfferty had a hurried conversation with a woman called Boo who worked in the administration building. Both breakfast and dinner involved everyone on campus, even the staff, which meant formal rules applied. Lunch was more ad hoc, depending on what was going on, which meant it was more relaxed and, usually, an opportunity to gossip.
"Okay, sorry for the delay," McAfferty finally announced in a soft Scottish accent. "Please tuck in."
Their usual timetable called for PT in the morning and then lessons in the afternoon, with half an hour for lunch and then free time in the evening. Boys and girls did PT separately, so Debbie had come to dread the endless drills and sparring matches with the other girls, especially when it was so cold. The boys used the gym, since it was larger, and the girls instead got to help clean up after breakfast and then used the cafeteria hut for PT when it was too cold to be outside. Everyone, at least, all the girls, thought this was sexist, since the boys made a mess and never had to clean up, but some rules never changed. Once all the tables and chairs were clear, usually everyone took their shoes off and set up thin mats which stopped you from breaking bones when you were thrown to the floor, but before they could get that far, Debbie was surprised to see Instructor Bivott appear in the doorway.
"Are they ready?" he shouted. Bivott's only volume was shouting. Debbie didn't think she'd ever heard him talk at a normal level.
Madame Bechard nodded. "All ready," she replied.
Unsure what was going on, the girls whispered to each other as Bivott marched up to the front of the hut, where the chairwoman had been eating until a few minutes ago.
"Silence!" he roared, his New York accent coming through. Everyone stopped talking.
"Stand to attention, I want black shirts on my left, navy in front of me, grey on my right," Bivott shouted, pointing to the three areas. Standing to attention meant lining up in rows of three, standing up straight with arms by your side. They'd drilled this hundreds of times so it only took twenty seconds for everyone to find their usual place. Generally Debbie stood in the second row, behind a girl called Lucy, but she was away on a mission which meant Debbie moved to the front.
Instructor Bivott stood coldly at the front, surveying them, looking for any minor fault in posture or uniform which would give him an excuse for a screaming fit. Nobody dared meet his gaze, staring straight forward and trying not to move a muscle. He seemed satisfied.
"Ladies, as I am sure you have noticed, it is very cold outside," he began, lowering his voice by a couple of decibels from deafening to merely very loud. "We training instructors have been talking and we think that these luxurious huts and hot showers are turning you all soft.
"As such, we have designed an all-day training exercise, taking place today, which will test your outdoor survival skills- HOWDAREYOUMOVE YOU MISERABLE LITTLE CREATURE!"
It took all of Debbie's willpower to keep her eyes forward. An all-day training exercise in this weather would be torture, and one of the grey shirts had made the mistake of letting this show on her face.
"Who's this disgusting toad who doesn't fancy doing her training?" Bivott barked, pointing at the grey shirt. "Name?"
"K-Katherine Field, sir," the girl said, in a voice so quiet you wouldn't have heard it if it hadn't been completely silent in the hut.
"Field doesn't want to get cold," Bivott spat. "You sicken me, Field. In the last war, Russian soldiers would have considered these temperatures tropical. Where would we be if they'd all decided to go home to their nice warm huts instead of fighting?"
Nobody dared answer.
"I remember getting out of my bunk on my destroyer and doing the night watch in the Arctic Ocean at temperatures that would make this feel like a teddy bear's picnic," Bivott went on, working himself up into a rage. "Field, one leg position, now!" He screamed. One leg position meant Katherine would have to balance on one leg with her left arm stretched out in front of her. Debbie felt sorry for her when she heard her sob, but mostly Debbie was just happy it wasn't her being picked on.
"As I was saying," Bivott resumed, the redness of his face and neck fading, "You will be split into teams of four. Each member of each team will receive a coloured flag, which you must protect. You can steal other teams' flags by physically taking them using any unarmed combat move. The use of weapons is strictly prohibited. The team with the most flags will receive one week of double rations. The team, or teams, with the least will spend all of Sunday doing extra PT with me."
Suddenly, Bivott lunged forwards, bringing a length of cane down hard on the back of Katherine's hand as her foot touched the floor. She let out a whimper, and Debbie winced to think how painful it was, especially in the cold.
"Hand back up, Field," Bivott warned. "Anyone finishing the exercise with zero flags will be severely punished. All understood?"
There was a chorus of "Yes, sir," from all the girls.
"The exercise will end at exactly eight pm this evening. Madame Bechard has your teams. You will have ten minutes of planning time, then a ten minute ceasefire period to move around campus. You must not leave campus, you must not go inside any of the campus buildings except in an emergency, and you must not enter the unexploded bomb area. If you are in distress and need assistance, blow three blasts on your whistle, repeated every thirty seconds. If you hear a three-blast call on the air raid siren, there will be a ceasefire until you hear a four-blast all-clear call."
Bivott looked smugly around the room, which was still silent except for the occasional sob from Katherine.
"You have ten minutes," he said, finally, striding past the rows of girls and out of the hut.
