* * *
‘Morning, Wing Commander,’ said Flight Lieutenant Brand. ‘Looking forward to going up in her, sir?’
The sleek DHC-1 Chipmunk looked just like Tom thought a modern airplane should look. He walked around her, admiring the low, tapered wings and narrow fuselage, which gave her the look of a small World War II fighter. He loved the enclosed tandem cockpit – complete with rear-sliding canopy – the aerodynamic lines, and her distinctive vertical fin; the signature of de Havilland designs.
‘She’s a beauty,’ said Tom. ‘A step up from what I learned to fly in, that’s for sure.’
The Chipmunk was being developed as a replacement for the Tiger Moth, which had become too antiquated to continue as a basic trainer. Today Tom was taking this prototype model on a test flight.
‘Ready when you are, sir.’
Tom briefly removed his new goggles. The leather was stiff and scratched his nose. He twisted them a few times to soften them before takeoff. It didn’t help. Tom put them on anyway, climbed into the cockpit, and automatically felt for the silver Karma pendant around his neck. He’d forgotten to put it on after his shower. It wasn’t in his pocket either. Tom’s stomach sank. For a moment he considered cancelling the flight, but shook off the notion as superstitious nonsense. How could he stay on the ground when the blue sky beckoned?
Flight Lieutenant Brand waved him away, and Tom primed the engine. The Chipmunk literally started with a bang, and the smell of cordite from the cartridge-type starter. Takeoff was as smooth as silk. He pushed the irritating goggles high onto his forehead and nosed into the light breeze, daydreaming that he was seventeen again and going solo for the first time.
The Chippie was a delight to fly. Tom began thinking about what to say in the review he’d write later that morning. He flew 360 degree turns with varying amounts of bank in both directions. Even complicated manoeuvres were a breeze; the controls light and responsive, although the rudder was a little sensitive. The Chipmunk would not tolerate a ham-fisted pilot, and as such was an excellent trainer.
In fact it was so nicely balanced that, once set up with power and trim, it became the perfect flying classroom. Add more power and it pitched up and yawed to starboard; reduce power and it pitched down and yawed to port. Flaps down and it pitched down, flaps up and it pitched up. The Chipmunk was a true thoroughbred; the modern benchmark against which other light planes should be measured.
Tom decided to have some fun, looping and rolling high above the beautiful Wiltshire countryside. Flying the Chippie solo with an hour’s fuel on a bright summer morning was an absolute joy.
It was only on his way back to the airfield that he noticed a problem – noises from the propeller, followed by an unusual vibration. He pulled back on the throttle, reducing speed, but the noise and vibration worsened. The blades began to wobble and bend, spinning more and more wildly.
Tom got on the radio. ‘Trouble with propeller. Am using full left rudder. Keep airfield clear for emergency landing.’
As he signed off – disaster. One blade snapped off at the shaft with a tremendous bang and went spinning into the void. Tom instinctively ducked. Plenty of pilots had died when broken blades shot backwards into the cockpit.
‘Mayday, mayday, mayday! Broken prop. Making forced landing.’ Tom radioed his position and shut the plane down to stop the unbalanced propeller from tearing the engine from its mounts. He let his wartime experience come into play, looking for a place to do a dead-stick landing and glide to the ground.
Tom had learned long ago that during each moment in the air, sightseeing should include there’s one I can land on thoughts. Keeping track had become second nature, almost a game, flying from one emergency field or clear roadway to the next, so he already had a mental map of the ground. The sparkling River Avon, wending its way through the countryside up ahead, helped him find his bearings.
Thankfully he had altitude and a light wind, so his options were good and his confidence rose. Tom considered trying to reach Boscombe Down, but he couldn’t risk falling short and crashing into the town adjoining the airfield. For the same reason he couldn’t use his parachute and abandon the plane, although he had enough height. No, Tom had made plenty of forced landings. He would bring the prototype Chipmunk down under control and intact.
* * *
The empty field looked perfect for his purpose; roughly the right size and shape with a slight uphill slope. Tom confirmed wind direction, reported his position and made his approach, mentally dividing the available landing distance into three and aiming at a point about one-third of the way along. A perfect approach and the Chipmunk was down, rushing along the rough ground on its fixed landing gear, rapidly losing speed.
It was then Tom saw it – a wide, grassy drainage channel that had been invisible from the air. He could only guess at its depth, and he was heading straight for it.
Tom struggled frantically to slide back the canopy and escaped the cockpit just as the plane flipped. Something cracked him on the head, knocking him sideways. A strong smell of fuel brought him to his senses. He stumbled to his feet and tried to run. But a deafening explosion and sheets of flame reached out to set him ablaze.
Tom’s limbs would not work as he fell to the ground, enveloped in white heat. He couldn’t open his eyes, or raise the scream in his throat.
* * *
Dimly, Tom became aware of willing arms rolling him on the cool green grass; of voices whispering words of comfort. ‘You’re all right, son. We’ve got buckets of water here, and the ambulance is on its way.’
They doused his smouldering body, clad in nothing now but burnt rags. Mercifully his clothes had offered some protection; thick overalls over his uniform, a woollen jumper, leather gloves and three pairs of woolly socks under his flying boots.
But his eyes – in the strain of landing, Tom had forgotten to pull his goggles back down.
A stink was in his nose now, the most evil and terrifying of smells — his own burnt flesh. Tom shivered uncontrollably, nauseated and suddenly cold. As shock set in, blissful unconsciousness claimed him.
Chapter 26
Tom wasn’t flying, he was falling; falling off a cliff into the sky, with the wind a dull, confusing roar in his ears. He reached for a hand that appeared before him, but it pulled away just as he thought he was safe. He screamed as Harry’s grinning face mocked him from the clouds. He was hot now, too hot, on fire. Dear God, the pain; he couldn’t bear it. Down and down he went, faster and faster. Past his horrified mother and frowning father. Past his weeping grandmother, who held his silver Karma out on a chain – too far away to reach.
A mirror floated past but he couldn’t see himself – only a hideous mass of swollen burnt flesh that might have once been his face. And then Emma was there, smiling and dressed in boy’s clothes two sizes too big, falling with him, holding his hands.
‘Tom?’ A woman’s voice broke through the fog of sleep. ‘Wake up, love.’
Emma? Tom tried to open his eyes. He tried to say her name but couldn’t move his mouth. His whole face was painfully tight and stiff, and when he reached up to feel it, he found it swathed in bandages. He dredged his mind, but was unable to remember. What had happened to him? Why couldn’t he move? Tom endured the agony of trying to sit, and discovered something extraordinary. His body hung in a kind of harness, a few inches above the bed.
‘You’ve had an operation. Don’t try to talk, love, and you won’t be able to see for a while. I’m Wendy, the nurse who’s come to change your dressings. But first, try to have a drink for me.’
A tube pressed against his lips and slipped into his raw, burning mouth. He gagged on the sweet liquid, despite his terrible thirst. ‘Just a little more, that’s right. I’ll give you a quick needle now, to make you more comfortable.’
A sting in his thigh, and the great tide of pain receded, but now Tom found it even harder to think. Why was he in hospital? Had he been shot down?
This was to be the patt
ern of his days. No sense of time. Three-hourly morphine shots making the pain tolerable, but keeping his mind in a confused stupor. Faceless nurses giving him agonising saline baths. Blind eyes itching under his bandages and not being able to scratch. Disgusting liquid feeds and umpteen bottles of lemonade and ginger beer that never quenched his unbearable thirst. Restless sleep peppered with nightmares of burning and falling.
* * *
‘Wonderful news,’ said a nurse one day; he couldn’t say which nurse or which day. ‘Mr McIndoe says you’re well enough for visitors. They’ve been lining up: your aunts, RAF buddies, and somebody very special.’ Her voice betrayed her excitement. ‘Tom, your wife is here to see you. We’ve all been so excited. None of us girls have ever met a real life movie star.’
His wife. Were they talking about Emma? They must be married. Why couldn’t he remember? And what did the nurse mean about a movie star?
‘Tom,’ said a woman with an American accent. Her heady perfume chased away the odour of disinfectant and the acrid stink of burnt, blistered flesh. ‘It’s me, Kitty. How are you, baby?’
Kitty? He didn’t know anyone called Kitty.
Now a warm male voice that Tom couldn’t place, speaking with the flat vowel sounds of a New Zealander. 'I’m Archie McIndoe, Tom, your surgeon. You’re going to be fine. We’re going to fix you up.’
He knew that name from somewhere.
‘Did you hear that, baby?’ Tom felt arms wrap around him, and cried out in pain.
‘Don’t touch him please, Mrs Abbott,’ said the voice of Archie McIndoe. Mrs Abbott? It made no sense. Tom didn’t know this woman. ‘Your husband has burns over most of his upper body. The prognosis for recovery is good for the areas where his clothes protected him.’
‘That’s fabulous, doctor.’ The voices moved away from Tom’s bed and lowered a little, but he could still hear. ‘My husband will be able to see, won’t he, when you take off the bandages?’
Tom racked his fuddled brain for clues. His eyes might not work, but his nose did. That fragrance; a rich scent of jasmine and orange. Flashes of a girl with hair like spun gold and bright blue eyes. He grasped for the memories, yet they remained as elusive as shadows. One astonishing thing was clear from the conversation. He wasn’t married to Emma at all. This woman with the American accent was his wife.
‘With proper care Tom will not lose his sight,’ said the doctor. ‘However he has deep-dermal flame burns to his cheeks, nose and lips. Unfortunately he was not wearing goggles, and suffered full thickness skin loss around his eyes. When he’s sufficiently recovered, I will need to replace his eyelids and rebuild his nose.’
A jolt of fear went through him, and there was no mistaking the woman’s horrified intake of breath. Now he knew where he’d heard the name. McIndoe was a pioneering surgeon, famous in the RAF for restoring the disfigured bodies of badly burned pilots. And Tom was in the special plastic surgery ward of the Queen Victoria Hospital at East Grinstead. He’d visited a friend there once, a man who’d had his hands and face burned off when trapped in his downed Hurricane. Never had Tom seen such a chamber of horrors. Men with missing ears; melted, misshapen noses and holes where their eyes should be. Men with bulbous lips and distorted crimson gashes for mouths. The faces of those poor airmen had haunted his dreams for weeks. And now he’d joined their ranks.
‘Understand, Mrs Abbott, that your husband must undergo some complicated facial reconstruction surgery in the next few months. He will require your unfailing support.’
It took a long time for her to respond. ‘Of course, doctor,’ she said at last. ‘Nothing matters more to me than Tom’s recovery.’ He could sense her coming close again; the waft of perfume, the sound of a chair being pulled over.
‘There’s some great news, baby. I’m starring in a new movie. It’s all settled; well, almost, but my agent says the part’s perfect for me. I play a New York heiress who travels to the west and falls in love with a handsome rodeo star who doesn’t know she’s rich. It’s a chance for me to do comedy. I’ve never done comedy, but I’ve always wanted to. You said I’d be good at it, remember?’
He didn’t. He barely remembered anything about her, just a shadowy face. Yet this was his wife. What a shock it must be for her, seeing him like this.
‘The thing is, I have to meet the producer in LA next week, so I’m flying out tomorrow. Don’t worry, baby, I’ll be back before you know it. Then, when you’re better, you can come to America while I’m making the movie.’
She was speaking fast, barely drawing breath, as if she couldn’t wait to be finished. The more she talked, the more he recalled. He couldn’t remember how he’d been burned, but he knew the war was over. And he remembered a few snatches of his life with this woman. Dancing at a glittering party. Watching sunsets over the Thames. Nothing more substantial. He could hear murmuring voices in the background, people asking for autographs.
‘Goodbye, Tom.’ Something lightly brushed his bandaged face. ‘I’ll see you as soon as I get back. Love you, baby.’
Tom listened for the footsteps to recede, the doctor’s matter of fact ones and the light trip-trap of his wife’s high heels. Then he slumped back and the pain built again. Shutting his eyes behind the dressing was more of a psychological exercise than a physical one. Still, he did his best and tried to summon up an image of Kitty. But no matter how hard he tried, it was always Emma’s lovely face that stubbornly came to mind.
Chapter 27
Emma read the news item with a sense of disbelief.
London, Friday: Australian RAF pilot, Wing Commander Thomas Abbott, was injured yesterday during a test flight. His aircraft flipped and burst into flames on crash landing. Abbott suffered serious burns to his face and body. His wife, Hollywood actress Kitty Munro, braved the media today, saying, ‘My husband is badly hurt, but he has a courageous spirit. We must all pray for his full recovery. Nothing matters more to me than Tom’s return to health.
Emma took the newspaper into the kitchen. Elsie, who’d become the family’s cook, was pickling vegetables, and her mother was making a pot of tea. Harry was up to his elbows in flour, kneading a big ball of dough.
‘How hungry are you lot?’ Harry was surprisingly good at making scones, and had made it a Saturday morning tradition. He’d also made it a tradition to eat most of them himself as soon as they were out of the oven, slathered with raspberry jam and clotted cream.
Mum found Harry’s penchant for Devonshire teas hugely amusing. ‘Why do you love scones so much?’ She strung her words together slowly, with a slight drawl, but was perfectly understandable.
‘A throwback from childhood,’ he said with a shrug. ‘And I don’t have to share this lot with my brother.’ He expertly rolled out the dough. ‘Tom always hogged the lot.’
‘Not like you then, Harry.’ Mum winked at Emma, but she was in no mood to appreciate the joke. Mum glanced at the wall clock. ‘Will you take my cuppa in, Harry? It’s time for my play.’
Harry obliged, and Emma was once again touched by how kind he was to her mother. Elsie sealed the last jar of pickled cucumbers and put it in the pantry. ‘Think I’ll join Eileen.’ She poured herself a cup of tea. ‘I’m hooked on those wireless serials of hers.’
‘Harry,’ said Emma, when Elsie had gone. ‘Look at this.’ She thrust the paper at him.
‘Not now, Em.’ He held up his freshly floured hands.
‘It’s about your brother.’
Harry paused. ‘Show me.’
She folded the paper to make the headline about Tom stand out. Harry took his time, his expression bland and unreadable. A slight twitch in his cheek was the only emotional giveaway.
‘He’ll be all right,’ said Harry at last. ‘Tom always did have the luck of the Irish.’
Emma drew back in surprise. She knew things weren’t right between the two brothers. She’d quickly learned not to talk about Tom, for fear of putting Harry into a black mood. But this was different. Tom could have been kille
d. He was seriously ill in hospital. Surely Harry could put aside childish animosities long enough to show some concern.
‘It’s hardly good luck to be burned in a plane crash,’ she said. ‘We should send a card, or a telegram. Maybe make a phone call to the hospital?’
Harry’s face turned hard, his eyes accusing. ‘You’d like that, wouldn’t you? Having a chat with my war hero brother, telling him how brave he is, and how much you admire him.’
‘I only meant—’
‘Oh, I know what you meant, all right. Tom was always your first choice. And me? What was I? Some sort of consolation prize?’
His unexpected anger wrong-footed her, partly because it seemed so out of proportion to her perfectly reasonable suggestion, and partly because there was more than a grain of truth in what he said. ‘If you’d been able to go to war, Harry, I’m sure you’d have been just as brave as your brother.’
‘Just as brave as my brother?’ His voice dripped with a bruising sarcasm and his face turned red. ‘I guess I’ll never know. Maybe I’d have ended up a snivelling coward, crying for my mother. But there’s one thing I do know. If my perfect brother ever found out that you were a whore, he wouldn’t touch you with a barge pole.’
Emma’s breath caught in her throat, and the room began to swim. Why was Harry saying this?
‘You see, Em, Tom’s always had a lovely view from the moral high ground. He sees the world differently from us. With him, people are either black or white, good or bad, in or out,’ he said, while savagely cutting out rounds of dough to the rhythm of his words. ‘And I have a strong feeling that women who sell themselves to the highest bidder would most definitely be out where my brother is concerned.’
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