Now it can be told continued

I don’t think I slept at all. Morning finally came, and we at last found out where we were. The sign in the station said “Washington D.C.” and to our delight, we realized that we were to debark. Stumbling down the little steps to the platform, we were a bedraggled and grimy sight. Being herded onto a covered troop truck, along with our duffel bags and once again a sergeant, didn’t help a bit. Even Prima Donna had slipped from her usual standards and had managed to put on fresh lipstick, but her immaculate hair-do was lacking its usual array. But she didn’t seem to care, probably too tired to rally. Sad Sack had of course come completely apart and I wasn’t much better. We slumped down on the wooden benches arrayed at the sides of the truck, and rattled off, once again.
We didn’t go very far. In probably a quarter of an hour, the truck turned off the main thoroughfare and headed down a narrower street, past an imposing brick building with a sign in front that said “Arlington Hall.” I felt a jolt of hope, thinking that perhaps we were going to be stationed here, in some sort of college or training institution. Of all the possibilities open to us, this would have been my choice. I hadn’t enjoyed teaching school for the two years I had been in practice but this wouldn’t be bad! I could get used to this.
No, we didn’t stop there either. Down we went, the street getting narrower and dustier, down into a forest of pines at the bottom of a shallow hill. And there, in front of a high security fence, guarded by a soldier in full regalia, the truck stopped and our rumpled and exhausted group scrambled out. My thoughts were not of the most logical – all I could think of was prison. We were going to be incarcerated. What in God’s name had we done?
The sergeant presented our papers, and we were waved into the inner sanctum of an army base, spread out before our amazed eyes, neat and tidy.

From our vantage point, it looked like a model of an army base, with barracks arrayed on each side of the street, and with a church and library down at the end. The buildings were of wood, unpainted, but looking quite new. There were little lawns of green grass out in the front, and numbers of soldiers going to and fro from the various buildings, all in summer fatigues and all seemingly in a hurry.
The sergeant ushered us into a small building off to one side of the street and we were once more lined up in a row. A stern looking Captain sat behind a desk and wasted no time on us. “You are in the 2nd Signal Service Battalion,” he began. “It is a unit of the Signals Intelligence Service, and you are in the United States Army codebreaking devision. It is so secret that outside the office of the Chief Signal Officer, it does not exist.”
We listened open-mouthed while he instructed us to raise our right hands and swear ourselves to eternal secrecy. The penalty for discussing the work outside of approved channels could be death, as it was considered an act of treason during a time of war. The watchword was “don’t talk.” We were informed that no one was to know of our work. Anyone caught discussing it would be treated as a spy and shot.
I kept my oath. Down through the years I often remembered my service in that self-contained base, and felt proud that out of all of the privates who went through basic training only four of us were deemed worthy of this assignment. I wished I could have bragged a little to my family and especially reassured my mother that I had kept the faith and remained a virtuous woman. But as time went on, I almost forgot my experience. I consigned it to the remote and distant past. Until now. Now I will tell all.