Derfel Cledwyn, the Welsh navigator who used to be in another flight section, snatched peat logs from the stack. He pushed them into the grate below the wishing-tree mantel. Flames roared and sparks soared, and the lads joined their voices into one big bawl of a chant.
‘Nan-cy! Nan-cy!’
‘Come on, Nan Campbell, get behind that bar, we’ve missed you—’
‘Nan-cy!’
Our Nan was a new woman! She shone like the morning star, twenty years falling off her face in a moment. She glowed as if every one of these loud, foul, jaggy, bristly lads was her true love come home from a year at sea.
‘My darlins, you know it’s not permitted hours yet. Opening time is half eleven.’
They all moaned with disappointment, even the ones who’d never seen her before in their lives.
‘Just like a Scotswoman!’
‘Only a month till Christmas, Nancy Scrooge!’
‘And we’ve been in the air all night—’
‘And Flight Officer Pennyworth needs something to fortify her so she can make her report—’
Old Nan’s eyes shone as if they were full of tears. ‘Not a drop will be served until half past eleven,’ she said in a high voice.
‘It’s already gone noon in Norway,’ said Jamie.
‘Too right!’ Silver agreed. ‘Only three hundred miles away, an hour and a half in a Blenheim, closer than London!’
Everyone went back to drumming on the shining brass countertop, and Nan lifted the wooden yett to let herself behind the bar. There was a great howl and a thunder of applause.
‘No, no, no!’
Awash with pleasure, wisps of hair escaping their glittery grips and getting in her eyes, Nan Campbell smacked someone’s hands away from the ale taps and primly began screwing on the nozzles. ‘Now Chip, you know better!’
‘Huh!’
Our Chip was a short and sturdy lad, with stubbled hair that made his head look like a worn-out scrubbing brush. He set to complaining. ‘Aw, there’s no policemen in sight, and that hill’s so steep y’all can hear anything pulling up a mile away. Just one of your “wee drams”, ma’am – no one will know!’
‘Not until eleven thirty!’ said Nan firmly. ‘I keep lawful hours.’
Chip jerked his thumb over his shoulder, towards Louisa at the piano across the room.
‘If you’re so law-abiding, what’s the little darkie doing in here?’
I flinched and froze with hate.
In my head I heard ‘filthy tinker’ in place of ‘little darkie’. As if I expected it. It took a moment to realise he was being rude about Louisa and not about me.
And the stupid thing was that, being American, Chip wouldn’t have known me for a Traveller if I’d pitched a tent in his granny’s garden.
But the others would, the Scots and English and Welsh.
I knew how Louisa felt. Everybody turned to clap eyes on her, as if she’d been caught trying to nick something.
She leaped to her feet suddenly, pushing herself up with one hand on the piano keyboard so that it let out a crashing angry groan. She looked as if she were choosing whether to fight or to run.
She was holding it in. She was good at holding it in. But I could see she was afire with anger. I’d hidden my secret from these lads so well that now I was too feartie to open my gob and speak up for Louisa. As if she’d never sat between me and an enemy pilot with a gun, whispering warmth into my ear and holding my cold hands until they stopped shaking. She was brave enough to do all that, and I couldn’t say one word among friends for her!
My own mammy would be ashamed of me. Ashamed.
Louisa kept one hand on the piano keys as if that steadied her. She wore the wee frown that turned her bonny face into a pinched heart. Then Jamie’s friend Silver, all dark eyes and film-star good looks, spoke up for her. ‘You’re maybe thinking of the law in Texas, Chippo. The law here is different.’
They sometimes took the mick with Silver, too, because of him being Jewish. That didn’t stop him speaking up; I suppose it is easier if you are an officer and a gentleman.
‘Here it’s a free country,’ added Derfel, the Welsh lad. ‘We even let filthy English in the place.’
Everybody laughed.
‘Louisa is here to assist my aunt Jane,’ said Nan. ‘That’s Mrs Warner to you lads.’
‘Lay off Nancy’s guests, Tex,’ said Jamie.
You know, he is a wisp of a man, so short and slight and fair. And that boys’ school accent, as toffee-nosed as Robert Ethan’s. But Jamie is no coward. I have seen him fight with the steely purpose of a gamekeeper going after a poacher. His face closed up as he turned to Chip – lost the sunny smile, as if the effort of giving a command exhausted him, so different to his usual self before he’d gone up to Shetland.
But he added in a friendly way, ‘Nice to meet you, Louisa.’
‘Nice to have someone at the piano, too!’ Silver put in.
I pulled up a chair by Jane. ‘Come along, lasses, safety in numbers,’ I said, and I beckoned to Louisa. I still felt guilty for not saying anything myself, but at least I could make her welcome.
So me and Phyllis and Louisa and Jane settled in around the table by the fire. As I tucked in my chair I gave Louisa a quick pat on the knee. She was trembling with holding in her anger.
‘Don’t let it fash you,’ I whispered. ‘You’re British and he isn’t.’
Phyllis leaned over to shake her hand. ‘Hello, Louisa. Hello, Mrs Warner! I’m Phyllis Pennyworth – I’ll be staying here as well.’
Jane was like an excited kiddie at a pantomime, leaning forward, her pale blue eyes wide and alight. ‘Tell us who’s who,’ she said to me.
‘Aye, well! I don’t ken them all myself. Some of the lads are new.’ I tried not to think about the old ones, the missing ones. ‘The young man I came in with, fair hair and fox’s face, that’s Jamie Stuart. He’s got a heart of gold. You have any trouble with the others, Louisa, you take it straight to Jamie and he’ll put it right. He’s a pilot, the commander for B-Flight. Two sections, Pimms and Madeira, six aircraft, eighteen men. They take him pretty seriously.’
Did they? They used to. Silver still seemed to take him seriously.
‘His best mate is his navigator, the Prince Charming with the good manners,’ I added. ‘David Silvermont. He plays the fiddle, proper classical stuff – you’ll like him too. They get called Silver and Scotty.’
‘Aren’t they all Scotty?’ Louisa asked.
‘Jamie’s the only Scot in the squadron,’ I said, keeping my voice down. ‘The RAF squadrons come from all over. Aw, look at them. They’re like Nan’s bairns, her own babies. She doesn’t even ken half of them – those Aussie lads are all new.’
‘Chip Wingate, the American, he’s her favourite,’ Phyllis said. ‘He doesn’t need to be here: the USA is neutral, they haven’t entered the war. But he came anyway. She thinks he’s the most heroic of the bunch.’
Jane rapped her fingernails against her teacup.
‘I don’t understand,’ she said, ‘how anyone fighting the principles of Nazism, which envisions a master race that does not include the Negro, can articulate a complaint against a coloured person visiting a free establishment and not choke on his own hypocrisy.’
I shrugged. ‘Everybody thinks the world belongs to them. The Scots and the English aren’t any better. Just different. Chip’s a bit of a lad, never shuts up, always looking for a fight. But look. See why Nan loves him?’
He had his silvery toothbrush head down on the bar with his chin resting on his hands, and he was blinking up at Mrs Campbell like a loving pup. She swiped at him with a dishcloth. He was minding her rules, but he was making her sorry.
Louisa gave a wee superior sniff and looked away.
‘Chip’s the gunner for Jamie and Silver now,’ Phyllis said. ‘They’ve all swapped round. They had a rough time this month.’ She yawned, and added anxiously, ‘We ought to introduce them by their proper ranks, you know. Scotty’s got
a name a mile long, the Honourable James Gordon Erskine Murray Beaufort-Stuart. Volunteer McEwen is much too familiar with him.’
‘Och, he’s no’ fussed about his name!’ I protested. ‘And I’ve known him longer than you. Since he was in school. I knew his family from before the war.’
Phyllis yawned again. ‘I have to interrogate him every morning,’ she said. ‘I know him pretty well. I know ’em all pretty well. Even the new ones.’
The Australians were mucking about on the hearth, building a castle with peat blocks. Phyllis pointed them out one by one.
‘They all went to the same school and joined the air force together. None of ’em a day over eighteen, and you wouldn’t believe they were that old if it wasn’t on their papers. The ginger lad with the great mop of hair, that’s Dougie Kerr, their wireless op and gunner. The one who looks like he’s only about twelve, that’s their navigator, Gavin Hamilton. Harry Morrow is their pilot – the scarecrow. Harry shouldn’t really be a pilot – he’s too tall, doesn’t fit. He has to fly with his knees up around his ears. He’s a terrible softy – he’s got a photograph of his dogs back in Sydney that he sticks on the dashboard when he flies!’
The peat block castle tower fell to pieces. Sparks flew in the hearth, and our Jamie pushed himself away from the counter and grumbled, ‘Och, you can do better than that, surely, lads? Give it a bit of a base. Get the bricks interlocking as they go on up – come and lend a hand, Silver. These children don’t know anything about construction.’
So Britain’s finest set to work turning the Limehouse hearth into a building site.
‘The third pilot’s Polish,’ Phyllis finished. ‘Ignacy Mazur. He’s the one with the grand moustache – don’t you think it suits him? He walked across half of Europe to get here, after the Germans invaded Poland. Speaks pretty good English now, and a bit of Welsh, too, believe it or not. His navigator, Derfel Cledwyn, is Welsh. Derfel’s the one with the squashed nose.’
Louisa said, ‘What a funny name.’
‘A Welsh name,’ I said. ‘But he gets called Taff. Also because he’s Welsh. All Welshmen are Taff, just like all Scotsmen are Scotty, and the Texan is Tex.’
Phyllis laughed. ‘But their gunner’s just plain English, Bill Yorke – the other moustache, the thin one. He transferred from another squadron. I haven’t worked out Bill yet: a bit quiet. Unhappy about something, I expect. Perhaps he’s not quite used to Ignacy and Derfel shouting at each other in Polish and Welsh when they’re dropping bombs. They’re pretty tight, and he might feel left out.’
Jane laughed suddenly.
‘It sounds to me,’ she said, ‘as if they are your babies as well as Nancy’s.’
‘They’re not our babies at all,’ said Phyllis warmly. ‘They’re our brothers.’
Jamie:
The lads counted down the seconds to half past eleven as if it were the New Year.
‘Seven! Six! Five—’
They drummed on the brass countertop and stamped on the stone floor, chorusing, ‘Four! Three! TWO! ONE!’
Nancy slid a pint glass beneath a tap and began to fill it with ale that foamed like liquid carnelian.
‘See, we can cooperate when there’s a good reason for it,’ Silver whispered, and I laughed.
‘Who’s first, lads?’ Mrs Campbell called out.
I looked up at the black oak beam above the Limehouse bar. Gleaming silver, exactly where I left it, was the tanner I’d put there for luck six weeks ago. I swear, Nancy polished those coins while we were away. I reached up and twisted my shining sixpence out of the wood and slapped it down on the brass counter with a tinny clink.
‘Make that one Silver’s,’ I said. ‘I’m paying. Best observer in the RAF, he can see in the dark. Pull me a pint, too, while you’re at it, Mrs C. I’m parched.’
‘Right you are, Flight Lieutenant Beaufort-Stuart.’
She beamed at us over the taps, looking for faces she recognised. ‘How about you, Sergeant Wingate?’
‘Sure thing, Nancy,’ said Chip, and pulled his own sixpence from the beam.
When he turned around, Bill Yorke and the young Aussies were watching with interest. The wishing coins were new to them.
‘You put a tanner or a bob up there before an op,’ explained Derfel. ‘Then when you’re safe home, you take it out and buy yourself a drink.’
Along with me and Silver, Chip and Derfel, Ignacy was the only one of us who had left a coin there. The rest were new to Windyedge, and had to dig into their pockets. Nancy began to hand round pints as fast as she could pull them.
Dougie started to take a sip.
‘Not yet,’ Ignacy warned. The Australians all looked at me, confused.
I shook my head. ‘Wait for everybody.’
No one drank. Silver was right; they could cooperate.
When everyone held a brimming glass, I raised my own towards the untouched coins still shining in the ceiling. ‘Absent friends.’
The murmur went around the room. Absent friends. The girls raised their teacups.
‘Sergeant Colin Oldham,’ Silver said quietly, holding up his pint to me.
‘Cheers.’
We tapped each other’s glasses, remembering. Only two weeks ago.
‘Och, you’ll soon learn our ways,’ Nan told the new lads, her eyes wet and glinting. Then she went back to work, as she’d been doing for twenty-five years.
Everybody quieted down a bit now that there was something to drink. Nancy doled out tinned beef sandwiches. Bill Yorke pushed a chair across to sit next to the girls, and got out his cigarette papers. The first two he pulled out were torn, or wrinkled, or something, and instead of flattening them, he crumpled them up and dropped them in the ashtray. He rolled a cigarette for himself before offering them round.
Yorkie was nearly ten years older than the rest of us, a career RAF man, and his windburned face and thin moustache gave him a permanent cynical look. The West Indian lass edged away from him cautiously. I didn’t think she’d had much experience with men.
Bother, I thought; I ought to keep an eye on him.
But I knew that Phyllis already thought so too, and Ellen wouldn’t put up with any nonsense. And he wasn’t doing anything forward or suggestive – just being very generous with his cigarettes.
Louisa:
It was Ellen who fished the cigarette paper out of the ashtray.
She smoked faster than everybody else, no-fuss efficient. Phyllis looked like she was joining in to be polite, and Jane was taking her time, enjoying it. Bill Yorke showed me how to put my cigarette together, but I let it go out almost the second after he lit it. I’d never smoked, and I could just imagine what Mummy would say if I started now, in the pub surrounded by sweaty airmen! So everybody else puffed away around me.
Meanwhile I perched on the edge of my seat, trying not to show how excited and anxious I was, while they described how the U-boat sank the British ship and how maddening it had been not to be able to do any damage to it. Oh God, I knew how that felt. I was torn between wanting to leap up and tell them so, and choking on fresh anger that maybe Daddy’s ship went down because it wasn’t equipped to defend itself. Also, oh, I was jealous. I wanted to be Jamie Beaufort-Stuart, pointing my guns at the deadly underwater shadow. I wanted to be David Silvermont, able to see in the dark, up in the nose of the Blenheim, spotting lifeboats. I even wanted to be Chip Wingate, rescuing survivors by radio. I ached with it.
And I wished I knew how to smoke, because it would have been something to do with my hands, a way to pretend I was calmer than I felt. I thought of Mummy sitting on the veranda by herself one evening in May of 1935, quietly guarding the house by the light of her cigarette. Daddy was away and I was only ten. There’d been strikes and riots in the northern ports off and on all that month, and then, in a protest march in Kingston that day, a woman was shot by the police. Mummy didn’t seem scared; but she smoked and smoked all alone on the veranda long after she’d told me to go to bed.
I
am pretty sure that Ellen picked up the crumpled cigarette paper just because she wanted another cigarette and didn’t want to ask Bill Yorke for one. I wouldn’t have either; I didn’t like him any more than I liked Chip. He leaned in too close to your face when he talked, and kept clasping your knee or shoulder when you weren’t looking. I saw Ellen unfold the crumpled paper, frown faintly, and put it in her pocket. She reached for the other he’d tossed away and did the same thing.
I picked up my own unsmoked cigarette and handed it to her.
‘Have this one!’
She gave me a cool nod. ‘Ta, Louisa.’ Then she got out her own box of matches to light it.
The young men from 648 Squadron stayed three hours, till afternoon closing. When it was time for Mrs Campbell to shoo them away, two of the Australians – Harry, the tall pilot, and Dougie, the gunner with the wild gingery hair – had both fallen asleep at the long table in the middle of the pub with their heads pillowed on their arms among the empty glasses.
‘Flying all night will do that,’ Phyllis told us.
Jane said it made her feel exhausted just thinking about it.
‘I’d better go open up the Tilly,’ said Ellen. ‘They’ll never make it back on foot.’
Bill Yorke, too, had fallen asleep, slumped in his chair in his flight suit by the fire with his legs spread and his elbows cocked on the wooden arm rests. Ignacy and Derfel, the Pole and the Welshman, were still awake, but they were slouching against each other’s shoulders as if they couldn’t sit without support. Pimms Section’s commander, slender, sly-faced Jamie Beaufort-Stuart, looked relaxed now, but bone-tired. He was deep in conversation with good-looking David Silvermont, and as I watched I saw them click their mostly empty glasses together again.
Ellen stood up and reached for her overcoat. Jane lifted one drooping hand, like a dying opera heroine, and asked her, ‘You wouldn’t happen to have another cigarette on you, would you, darling?’
‘Aye, of course, Mrs Warner!’
Ellen rummaged in her pockets. She came up with a battered paper packet of Woodbines and gave one to Jane.
The Enigma Game Page 12