Free Mr. Churchill's Secretary by Susan Elia MacNeal Page A

wants the
moon
!” she whispered, biting her lip and trying not to wail in frustration.
    “Ah, the moon, you say? Well, that’s easy. I shall get you the moon, my dear Maggie—not to worry.” And with that, he turned on his heel and left.
    Maggie sat down at her desk and tried to organize the mountains of papers, with little result.
    David returned. “Here you are,” he said, handing her a sheet of paper. It was a schedule of the phases of the moon.
    “The
moon
. Of course,” she said, knowing that the phases of the moon were crucial for planning nighttime raids. “Thanks, David. I mean it.”
    Finally, late, late one evening after being roared at for more than ten minutes (and she watched the clock tick those minutes away as the Prime Minister shouted, stomped his feet, and kicked the wastebasket), Maggie had had enough.
    Something in her face must have changed, for the P.M.suddenly stopped. “What is it, girl?” he said, jabbing his cigar at her. “Cat got your tongue?”
    Maggie was silent.
    “Tell me!” the P.M. raged, kicking the wastebasket again, this time hard enough to knock it over. The sound reverberated through the room as papers spilled onto the carpet.
    “Sir,” she said, slowly and calmly, “with all due respect, I’m not the enemy. If you plan on treating me like a Soldaten of the Wehrmacht, I’d like to request a transfer.” A pause. “Sir.”
    The P.M. blinked. Once, twice.
    Three times.
    None of the women who typed for him had ever spoken to him like this. How dare she! This, this
—girl
.
    But …
    Perhaps this was what Clemmie had warned him about in her letter, lecturing him on the danger of being “disliked by your colleagues and subordinates because of your rough sarcastic and overbearing manner.”
    His face softened. Perhaps he had been too hard on her. On the whole staff, for that matter.
    “But I
need
Hope in my office,” he said, his tone now wheedling, like a little boy’s. “You can’t leave. I simply won’t allow it.”
    Maggie understood the risk she had taken in standing up to him—and also that this was as close to an apology as she was ever going to get. “Yes, Prime Minister.”
    “Keep Plodding On, Miss Hope. KPO,” the P.M. intoned, making a stabbing motion at the typewriter with his cigar, referring to his motto. “That’s what we do here—KPO.”
*  *  *
    “Can’t I just address the letter?” Claire asked, sitting at Pierce’s long walnut desk in his Cadogan Square apartment’s study.
    “No, the handwriting inside the letter has to match the outside,” Pierce replied. “Don’t forget that all mail’s opened and read now—we don’t want anything to tip off the government censors.”
    Claire reread the words in front of her, then began copying, her handwriting decidedly feminine. “I don’t understand. It just seems like a regular letter to me—the weather is good, the food is terrible, hope you’re well.…”
    “Ah, look carefully, my dear,” Pierce said.
    Claire read and then shrugged her shoulders.
    He rose to his feet and came around behind her. “What do you see if you read down the left-hand margin?”
    Claire scanned her eyes down the left side of the page. “It’s in code!” she exclaimed.
“ ‘Reinforcements for the enemy expected,’ ”
she read slowly.
    “Exactly,” he said, placing his hand on her shoulder. “And this innocuous letter, in your charming handwriting, will go to some of our dear friends in France and let them know what’s coming. They’ll pass word on to Berlin.”
    “How did you get this information?” Claire asked, eyes wide, lips parted.
    “Can’t reveal my sources,” said Pierce, stroking her hair. “Let’s just say I have it on good authority.”
    David wanted Maggie to succeed at No. 10; after all, he was her friend, and also the one who got her the job. He felt a strange kinship with her. She was American, female, and a bit of a bluestocking. He was Jewish and slept with