Mr.Churchill's Secretary(20)

She single-spaced lines instead of doubling them. She typed right instead of ripe, fretful instead of dreadful, and perverted instead of perfervid. She made mistakes from anxiety, wanting to please so badly, and also from ignorance—making a mess of foreign names and places until she grew to know them.

Then there were just plain dumb errors. One day, in a move that reduced David to tears of laughter, she’d typed the Air Minister—as opposed to the Air Ministry—was “in a state of chaos from top to bottom.” Needless to say, when the Prime Minister saw the memo, he roared his disapproval, kicking the wastebasket across the room and shouting, “I’ll feed you to Rota!”—the lion from the London Zoo.

At least the rest of the staff thought it was funny.

Late one evening, he’d commanded, “Gimme klop!” Klop? Klop? Maggie panicked, not knowing what a “klop” was. After searching frantically, she brought in an entire series of books, written by Professor Kloppe, that she’d found in the library. No. Wrong. He’d meant the klop—the hole punch—as Mr. Churchill always required things punched and tagged instead of stapled or paper-clipped.

For “Gimme Prof!” Maggie was expected to know he meant Lord Cherwell, his science adviser. One night, in a vile humor, he bellowed, “Gimme Pug!” She thought he was going to take off her head when she brought in one of the small, wriggling pug dogs who freely roamed the halls of No. 10, along with Nelson, the cat, and a poodle named Rufus. No, no, no! She was a fool, she was an idiot, and he stamped his feet in frustration. No, by “Pug” he’d meant General Ismay, the link between Churchill and the Chiefs of Staff Committee, whose face did have certain puggish qualities.

David watched in amusement as Maggie learned her way around No. 10, looking more like a decapitated fowl than a brilliant math scholar. While nothing could quite extinguish her looks, often her red hair would come free from her tortoiseshell clip, creating a halo of fuzzy curls. On the days when she wore makeup, a smudge of mascara would inevitably land on her cheek or flecks of red lipstick migrate to her teeth.

An order from the Old Man to “Gimme moon!” nearly sent Maggie over the edge.

“Why, good evening, Magster,” David said in passing. Then, taking a closer look at her dark-shadowed eyes and slightly hysterical expression, “What’s the Old Man got you running after tonight?”

“He 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.”