Secret Sparrow by Jackie French is a historical fiction novel about the contribution a female signallers to the war effort during World War I. Sixteen year old Jean McLain works in a post office in England. When she wins a national Morse code competition, the British army approaches her to become a clandestine signaller in France. Her contribution could help Britain win the war.

Jean was fast. Faster than her older brothers, who had learned Morse code from the crystal radio sets they’d built. Before the war they tapped out message to each other on their bedroom walls.

Jean will be one of a team of women at Rouen receiving and sending messages for the army, working in 12 hours shifts without so much as a toilet break. The British army wished to hide the involvement of women so much that they burned every document evidencing how women and girls were working in the trenches and battles of World War I. Soon, Jean is sent to the front due to her exceptional skills to help at the ill fated Battle of Cambrai.

The motorbike swerved wildly, jumping up onto the footpath then into the slightly higher ground of the new park, tearing through the marigolds. Bikies don’t care about flowers, thought Arjun, then realised the figure he held wasn’t the sturdy shape of a bloke, but a woman’s, skinny under the leather jacket. Her helmet hid her face.

The story of Secret Sparrow is told in 1978 by an old postmistresses, about her time as a ‘telegraph girl’ in WWI. She she tells her tale to Arjun, a young boy, after she rescues him from a flood on her motorbike in the country town of Burrangong. She relays her story to pass the time while they are sheltering in a bin on top of a hill above floodwaters trying to keep warm in the rain. 

But women signallers? She’d never heard of such a thing. There’d been no reports of women doing any such work in the newspapers.

Secret Sparrow is based on true events and gives women who were involved in the war effort a voice. The story sets a cracking pace, and while it does not shy away from describing the terrible conditions of war, it is crafted to be suitable for readers of 12+.