Page 10 of The Words Beneath the Noise

Better than what we'd eaten in the field. Better than nothing.

I found a seat at the end of a table, back to the wall, sightlines to both the main door and the service entrance. The noise pressed against me, but I'd learned to let it wash over without penetrating. Just sound. Just people. Nothing that could hurt me here.

That's when I spotted Pembroke.

He was at the far end of the room, wedged into the corner where the last table met the wall. Hunched over a notebook, one hand moving in quick, precise strokes while the other cradled a mug he wasn't drinking from. He'd built himself a fortress out of empty space, papers spread around him like a barricade, and even from this distance I could see the tension in his shoulders.

I knew that posture. The way you made yourself small when the world got too loud. The way you carved out territory and defended it with silence because that was all you had.

I turned my attention back to my food and ate methodically, not tasting anything, keeping one eye on the room. The noise ebbed and flowed around me, conversations bleeding into each other, and I let my mind drift into that detached state where I could observe without engaging.

Across from me, a young man in civilian clothes was holding court, voice carrying further than it needed to. Peter, the cipher clerk I'd seen around Hut X. Always moving, always talking, the kind of nervous energy that set my teeth on edge.

“...and my sister writes that half the street's gone now,” he was saying, gesturing with his fork. “Just rubble and rats. But the pub's still standing, so everyone's moved the sing-alongsthere. Can you imagine? Bombs falling and they're all bellowing 'Roll Out the Barrel' like it's a celebration.”

Laughter from the people around him. Someone muttered about Londoners being mad.

Rowe grinned and pulled a cigarette from his pocket. Good tobacco, white paper, not the rubbish they issued. “Anyone want a smoke? Got these from a mate in town. Proper ones.”

Hands reached out. Rowe distributed them with the air of a man bestowing favours, and I watched, saying nothing, filing the observation away. Black market cigarettes weren't unusual. Everyone knew the underground economy existed, and most people looked the other way as long as it didn't interfere with operations.

But good cigarettes cost money. More money than a cipher clerk's wages should allow.

“You're the new security bloke, yeah?” Rowe's attention had shifted to me, eyes bright with curiosity. “The sniper?”

Every head at the table turned. I kept my expression flat. “Security detail. Not much call for sniping here.”

“Still.” He took a drag, exhaled slowly. “Must be strange. Going from the action to this. All these boffins and their puzzles.”

“It's a posting.”

“My cousin was in the infantry. Normandy.” He leaned forward, that hungry gleam in his eyes that I'd learned to recognise. The fascination people had with violence they'd never experienced. “Said it was absolute hell over there. Bodies everywhere, couldn't tell friend from enemy half the time.”

“Your cousin talk a lot about what he saw?”

Something flickered across Rowe's face. “Well, no. Not much. You know how it is.”

“I know exactly how it is.” I held his gaze until he looked away. “Which is why I don't talk about it either.”

The table went quiet. Rowe stubbed out his cigarette with more force than necessary and muttered something about needing to get back to work. The others drifted away in ones and twos, and I went back to my food, feeling the weight of their curiosity like eyes on the back of my neck.

I was scraping the last of the cabbage off my plate when the argument started.

“That's incorrect.”

Pembroke's voice. Clipped, precise, carrying across the room despite its lack of volume.

I looked up.

He was standing now, notebook closed in one hand, facing a stocky man I recognised as one of the older cipher clerks. Morrison, I thought. The one who'd spent three hours on intercepts that Pembroke had cracked in one. The conversation around them had died, creating a pocket of silence that spread outward.

“I beg your pardon?” Morrison's face had gone red.

“The Hamburg raid you're describing. It wasn't the fifteenth of March. It was the sixteenth. And it wasn't seventy aircraft. It was eighty-three, with twelve losses.”

“I think I know what I'm talking about, Pembroke. I have a brother-in-law in Bomber Command.”

“Then his letters are inaccurate.” No malice in Pembroke's tone. Just statement of fact, which somehow made it worse. “The fifteenth was clear conditions, no operations scheduled. The sixteenth was overcast, ideal for the pathfinder approach. Eighty-three aircraft deployed. Twelve failed to return. It's documented.”