This is the thirtieth part of a fiction serial, in 754 words.

During the next two years, Hettie’s life changed a great deal. Edward got his long-desired move to the suburbs when they bought a pre-war semi-detached house in Beckenham, still in Kent but close to south London. He sold the goodwill of his businesses as going concerns in Greenwich and Woolwich, taking the lease on a double-fronted lock up shop in Beckenham High Street.

His intention was not only to sell shoes, but also accessories like handbags, belts, and umbrellas. The more expensive items like individual hand-made shoes were abandoned, and he became a shopkeeper rather than a shoemaker.

Hettie’s mum died not long after they moved. In fact, she never spent any time at the new house, as she was admitted to hospital while they were packing up to move. Alfred brought Dorothy to see the new house, and also had unexpected news. He and his lady friend were moving away, emigrating to South Africa. He had served there in the Boer War, and had always seen it as a land of opportunity. They planned to open a hotel in Durban. There were tearful farewells, as it seemed unlikely they would ever meet again.

Edward was immensely pleased with himself. He joined a golf club nearby, even though he had never played before. “It’s the modern way to do business, and to become known by other businessmen, Het. I will get a coach to teach me how to play”. He also employed a woman to come in two days a week to clean the house and do the washing.

Almost overnight, they had become a middle-class couple with good financial prospects, and it felt very strange to Hettie to find herself in that position. She also had to commute by train to her job in MI6, but that proved to be easy enough.

After the first few months in her job, Hettie had learned a lot about the strange atmosphere of working for Military Intelligence. For one thing, there was little involvement from the military. Most of her colleagues were university graduates who had gone to the best private schools and the prestigious colleges at Oxford and Cambridge. MI6 dealt only with foreign intelligence, double agents, spies in other countries, and the monitoring of the activities of their opposite numbers from what had now become enemy countries under the influence of Soviet Russia.

They jealously guarded their secrets from MI5, the domestic intelligence agency that had the remit to hunt down spies in Britain. At times it seemed to Hettie that those two organisations regarded each other to be the enemy, and spent more time trying to outwit each other than the jobs they were supposed to be doing. Fortunately for her, she had a targeted job involving Germany, specifically managing communications with spies and agents in Berlin and other cities there.

She had learned how to make use of documents photographed onto microfilm, and learned the codes used by agents sent by Morse or radio. Movement of Soviet army units and naval units, and the deployment of Soviet agents across countries like Bulgaria, Hungary, and Yugoslavia which were passed to the relevant colleagues dealing with those. Many of the informants were just doing it for money, and some were double agents from inside the Soviet Cheka, their intelligence service.

They had code names that had no relevance to the countries concerned. Names like Bullfrog, Dancer, Tourist, and Curly. Only Hettie kept a record of their real names and locations. There were others to deal with of course. British MI6 agents placed inside the country, often at great peril in very dangerous situations. There had code numbers which were random, with no indication whether they were male or female. Sometimes communication from them was erratic, and on a few occasions it stopped completely.

Everyone knew what that meant.

Some colleagues came and went, spending only short periods in the house in Victoria. Others were still there, including Richard. He had developed a strong working relationship with Hettie, but he never lost sight of the fact that he was in charge, that she worked for him specifically. So there were no friendly chats, no drinks after work, and definitely no gossip.

Conversations with the people who worked in photographic or technical were always businesslike, and she was only shown enough to allow her to understand what she needed from them.

As far as Edward was concerned, she was working at The Admiralty as department head keeping records of naval officers. And she left it at that.

This is the 29th part of a fiction serial, in 824 words.

On the long train journey back to London, Hettie made a decision. She would agree to move to the suburbs, allowing Edward to sell up his interests and buy the double-fronted shop he dreamed of. Given his patience with her work, his care for her mum, and guilty over her betrayal with George, she thought it was the least she could do. It would be easy enough to commute by train to her new job, the idea of which was already exciting her.

Delighted to see her home, and to hear her change of heart that they should move when appropriate, Edward gave her the warmest of welcomes. Her mum was worse than she had expected, barely able to remember who Hettie was, and referring to Edward as ‘that bald man’. She had also lost a great deal of weight, and looked much older than her years.

For the time being, Hettie pretended she would be returning to her previous job based at The Admiralty. She needed time to come up with a cover story about the job that she could tell him nothing about, and her preferred choice was not to mention it at all, letting Edward believe that nothing had changed. The carved H that George had made for her was secreted in her underwear drawer, a place she was certain her husband would never have cause to open.

After ten days of leave, Hettie reported to the address given to her by Miss Taylor. It was a normal-looking large house in Victoria, a short walk from the mainline station. When the door was opened, she showed her identity card as she had been told to, and the young man smiled and let her in. Most of the morning was spent familiarising herself with the layout, and her own responsibilities.

In the basement there was a large kitchen for staff to use, a table to eat at, and a bathroom. The ground floor had the Conference Room, a Lecture Room, and two smaller rooms at the back that she was not shown into. The young man who had let her in was called Richard, and he said they were radio rooms and were being used.

On the first floor he showed her a staff toilet, the large Records Room, and across the hallway there was what he called “One of the Listening Rooms”. He smiled as he added, “They’re soundproofed”. She wasn’t shown up to the top floor, but Richard pointed up the staicase and mumbled, “Photo stuff up there, camera store, developing room, print room, don’t worry about that for now”.

When the tour was completed, he showed her back down to the Conference Room and asked her to take a seat. “I will be your section chief, Henrietta. Just call me Richard, it’s not my real name anyway. In fact, you might be the only person here that will be using her actual name. Your first job will be to spend most of the week in the Records Room, getting to know all the code names of the agents we have in the field, and the target groups they are assigned to. Over the course of the week you will see various people around here, but as a rule we don’t ask any personal questions or get to know too much about our colleagues. If you need to know anything seek me out and ask me, okay? Any questions?”

Hettie had plenty of questions, but chose them carefully.

“So am I to work alone? You say you are section chief, so are there others in my section I will be working alongside?” Before she could ask more, he raised a hand. “All will become clear, once you are used to the setup. Everything here is on a need to know basis, and you rarely need to know what the others in your section are working on. When you are settled in, I will give you dedicated tasks, mostly managing surveilance on certain individuals. To help you with that you will have access to radio and photography technicians, and they will only be told as much as they need to assist the operation”.

She decided the best thing she could do was to keep her head down and see what the system was, learn on the job.

Richard concluded by smiling and offering his hand for a handshake. “So, welcome to MI6 Section Two. Feel free to bring in food for lunch tomorrow, and help yourself to tea in the kitchen. There are no set hours, but most of us are in by nine and go home when we have done all we can. Weekend working will be required as and when notified, but that won’t affect you for some time yet. You can go early today, see you tomorrow”.

On the bus home, Hettie was sure of one thing. It was nothing at all like she had expected it to be.

This is the twenty-eighth part of a fiction serial, in 772 words.

There was a hectic time before the invasion that would become known as D-Day, and after it happened, things at Craigie House became rather flat. There were no new intakes of students, as it was unlikely more would be dropped now the landings were progressing inland. For the first time, everyone was sure that Germany would lose. Things were not going so well against the Japanese, who seemed determined to die for every inch of ground their forces had occupied.

It was September when Hettie heard the first rumour that the training school was going to be wound up early the following year. Whatever positives she could take from the good news about the war were overshadowed by her fears of a return to domestic routine with Edward in Greenwich.

George came to see her privately at the end of the month, with the devastating news that he was to be posted back to his regiment in two weeks. They no longer needed his combat skills with nobody to teach them to. Yvonne was also leaving, with a posting to London where for now, she would continue to be employed by the SOE. She had no concerns about the war ending, as she had plans to travel back to France and work with the Displaced Persons Unit. They would have need of translators once hostilities were over.

The last night with George was not about passion and love-making, rather sadness and reflection. He promised to write to Hettie care of The Admiralty, though she couldn’t see much point in trying to continue a relationship that could never go anywhere once she returned to London. Although she no longer felt the same guilt about betraying Edward, she had no intention of ruining his life by leaving him.

Once Yvonne and George were gone, along with a good number of the other staff, the huge house felt empty. Army trucks arrived to remove box after box of records, all marked Top Secret. Hettie wondered if she should tell Edward in a letter that she would be coming home in a few months, but decided to leave it as a surprise. Letters from him had mentioned the rocket attacks carried out by the Germans, alongside the fact that her mum’s confusion had got to the stage where he had employed a woman to sit with her and look after her while he was busy in the shop.

Whatever she thought of her husband, she could never deny that he was reliable and loyal. He was an inherently good man.

On a cold November day, there was a summons to see the commandant. But it wasn’t him sitting in his office. Across the desk was a mild-mannered man in a three piece suit, and a stern-looking woman in her thirties. He introduced himself as Mister Simpson, and asked her to take a seat. The woman carefully polished her glasses as Hettie sat down. He waited until the woman nodded to him before speaking.

“Mrs Wheeler, we have heard nothing but good reports about you, and to cut to the chase, we are here to offer you a job. Miss Taylor here will explain”. The woman looked nicer when she smiled.

“May I call you Hettie? I believe that is how you like to be addressed. Well, Hettie, let’s say you have come to the attention of some people who need someone with your talents. Make no bones about it, this war will soon be over, at least in Europe. Craigie House will close the week before Christmas, and in normal circumstances you would return to your previous role in The Admiralty. But as one war ends, a new enemy will surface to threaten us. Stalin and his Russians have designs on the countries they currently occupy, and a lust for the technology being developed in America and here in Britain too”.

She took her glasses off and polished them again. Hettie decided it was a nervous habit.

“The new war will not likely be a shooting war, rather one of information, surveillance, spying, and subterfuge. It will involve monitoring communications, the placing of agents in hostile countries, and using the latest advances in recording techniques and photography. All skills I am sure you could adapt to very quickly. The job will be based in London, and you would still be a government employee at a departmental head grade. But you will not be able to breathe a word about your work”.

The glasses came off again, and she spoke as she worked the cloth on the lenses.

“What do you say to working for MI6, Hettie?”