Vincent opened the door and the blaze of brilliant sunshine embraced him like a re-birth. Dazzled by the light he stumbled towards the gate. The baker’s voice followed him across the yard.
‘Get home now and get some sleep. Be here by ten sharp. What’s your name, boy?’
‘Vincent,’ he called back over his shoulder. ‘Vincent Drew!’ It rang out like a battle-cry.
28th September, 1934
The cooling ovens clicked and popped, a backdrop to the bakers’ final clear-up. The last of the loaves were racked for cooling and Vincent mopped the floor. He worked quickly despite a long night of mixing and kneading dough. Finishing with a flourish, he returned the mop and bucket to the cleaning cupboard. With arms folded across his chest he waited to catch his boss’s eye.
The old man looked up from packing deliveries, glanced at the floor, smiled broadly and nodded towards the door. Vincent treated the baker to a mock salute, hung his apron on the back of the door and trotted out into the gloomy morning.
The shift had gone well and Vincent had finished over an hour early. The darkness clinging to the lampposts should’ve warned him; the emptiness of the street ought to have given a clue. But Vincent remained unaware and hurried on towards his breakfast.
Vincent skipped around the corner into his deserted street. The two rows of solid terraced houses faced each other across a road uncluttered by front gardens. Each door opened straight onto the pavement with only the angled front doorsteps defeating the gradient. He’d made it halfway along before he saw his father closing their front door.
Their eyes met and Vincent stopped dead in confusion. He lurched backwards a step and steadied himself against the dizzying sickness clutching his guts. Trapped, he started forwards again, prepared to fly at the first hint of violence.
Samuel walked up the road to meet the boy. They stopped a yard apart and Vincent looked up into his father’s face, his jaw clenched tight against the fear rising in his chest. Samuel placed a hand on the boy’s shoulder.
‘Hello, son.’
The bile rose in Vincent’s throat. He swallowed hard against his revulsion and squirmed his shoulder away from his father’s touch.
‘It’s been a hard shift. I need to get home.’
With a quick ferocity his father’s grip tightened on Vincent. A hand used to guiding strong beasts to violent death closed like a clamp on the boy’s bony shoulder and the man’s eyes drifted out of focus.
A nearby door opened and a neighbour bent to put out milk bottles. The noise distracted Samuel and his eyes refocused. He looked back into Vincent’s face for a moment and his fingertips squeezed deeper into the boy’s flesh. Then Samuel flung him aside and strode off along the road. The neighbour watched him pass.
‘Good morning, Mr Drew,’ she said, pleased to witness his discomfiture. Receiving no answer, she turned to Vincent.
‘Good morning, Vincent.’ She pressed her intrusion with forced normality.
Vincent regained his feet and rubbed his shoulder gingerly. He nodded at the woman, not trusting himself to speak. He lurched the few remaining yards to his front door, opened it and slipped inside.
A faint sobbing drifted down into the hallway. Vincent moved through the gloom and walked up the stairs. The noise came from his mother’s room. Something in the timbre of the sound conveyed the deepest of misery. His mother’s door stood open.
Eileen lay on the bed in her underwear. Her long white petticoat was ripped and something discoloured her thighs. A long moment passed before Vincent recognised it as blood. His mother turned to him with eyes that welled tears. Even through the pain her face softened for him.
‘Oh, Vincent. My baby. I’m sorry.’
Vincent’s vision swam and an intense buzz gripped his temples. He staggered to his bedroom. Closing the door behind him he sank onto the bed as the first explosions sparked in his brain and his muscles clenched, arching his back in the paroxysm of seizure.
Chapter 5
Expecto
10th December, 1935
The house lights dropped and the screen flickered into life. Devline snuggled closer to Gerry and put her head on his shoulder. A March of Time newsreel preceded the main feature. Devline only half-listened as ranks of earnest politicians in suits took turns to speak. Abruptly the film cut to a dead child, its head covered in crawling flies.
‘…bombing Abyssinian tribesmen and their families with anti-personnel shrapnel bombs.’
Devline gasped at the sight and felt Gerry’s muscles stiffen.
The camera swept over a pile of contorted bodies. Men with cloths tied around their faces struggled to extricate the human knots tied by terror and death.
The narrator’s voice ground on: ‘…for these villagers. It seems they fell victim to gas shells fired by artillery or dropped from aeroplanes. The League of Nations has reaffirmed its determination to impose sanctions on Italy to prevent movement of the goods required to wage war. That means oil. Benito Mussolini, the Italian dictator, has said he considers such sanctions acts of aggression and they will be met by acts of war. Already apparently guilty of atrocities against Abyssinian civilians, it is for the world to wait and see what might be Mussolini’s next move.’
The images changed to smiling cheerleaders as the newsreel moved to a report on the recent Red Jackets’ football game.
The couple left the cinema at the end of the feature and walked to their borrowed pick-up. A hard-edged cold charged the air and froze the piles of snow in place like banks of ground glass.
Gerry unlocked the doors and they climbed in. The engine laboured into life and Gerry let it run to heat the cab. The shock of the cold after the over-heated movie theatre had thrown them into paroxysms of shivering. Panting their condensing breath into the cab they regained control of their quaking muscles.
Devline broke the silence: ‘It’s a long way away, Gerry. It is terrible, yes, but there’s nothing we can do about it here in Minnesota.’
Gerry’s head dropped to his chest and he heaved a heavy sigh. The truck’s heater blasted warm air into the cab and he dragged the woollen cap from his scalp.
‘Mussolini is bombing the Africans and Hitler is stringing up his own people. Something will have to be done. It will be the French and British who start it, and when they’ve taken it as far as they can it will be us that’ll go and finish it.’
‘No, Gerry.’ She spoke softly but an edge hovered in her voice. ‘It will settle down soon. They’re all too scared to go too far. They can’t possibly want to go through that again.’
Gerry put his arm around Devline and kissed her on the forehead. His voice softened to match hers. ‘Don’t you think if America had lost, we’d want to fight again and again until we won? That’s the way the Germans are looking at it.’
‘Why does it have to happen this way?’ She pulled away from him and twisted in her seat to look him straight in the eye. ‘Is it some secret boys’ game? Someone has to lose, Gerry. Someone has to get beaten and stay beaten or the whole sorry mess just spirals on forever. We should be thinking about Christmas. Peace on Earth and goodwill towards men. You and me, together. Except now one stupid boy has killed a village full of people so another bunch of boys have to go and kill him. And even if they win it doesn’t matter, because whoever loses is going to start the fight again somewhere down the line.’
Overwhelmed with frustration, Devline’s eyes welled with tears and she turned her head to hide them.
‘Anyway,’ she continued, ‘you’ll be 24 next year. By the time they get to calling you up it will be finished one way or the other.’
Gerry released the hand brake and put the truck into gear. Sure, he’d be third choice for the infantry if the draft came. But the people in the newsreel had been killed from the air, and over and above all other things Gerry was a pilot.
11th December, 1935
The azure sky above Andrew’s head formed a perfect dome of blue tranquility. Despite his altitude the wind buff
eting his head held no chill.
The squadron of Demons climbed west into another routine patrol. Glancing to his left Andrew could see Cairo’s streets laid out below like a model cast from sand. To his right the flat triangle of the Nile Delta faded into the haze, the river splitting into spidery fingers that groped for liberty in the Mediterranean Sea. Three feet behind him the gunner sat facing the tail, hands restraining the machine-gun in the slipstream’s swirl. Around them the other planes bobbed up and down.
Squadron Leader Malcolm Fenton levelled out, taking the formation into a bank to port, heading south. Cruising over the Egyptian landscape, the ragged group had nothing to do except scan the sky and hold formation. For 30 minutes they continued on course before Fenton waved his hand above his head, turning them back for home.
A tail-wind hastened the return journey and they stacked up over their airfield at Heliopolis 25 minutes later.
Andrew circled with the others, watching his comrades landing one by one on the dusty airstrip. His turn came and he side-slipped towards the runway. Andrew recognised Brian Hale landing before him.
Andrew swooped towards the runway and flattened out his approach. Dropping the flaps and throttling back, he brought the Demon down to 3ft above the hard sand. He cut the throttle and kept the machine flying straight. With the engine coughing at idle, the bi-plane stalled, lost buoyancy and sank to a perfect landing.
Andrew braked to taxiing speed and followed Bryan out onto the perimeter track. Behind him came the roar and bump of the next Demon down.
The squadron taxied away from the runway, parking their planes in line abreast.
Bryan completed his shutdown as Andrew pulled up. Gunners unbolted machine-guns and handed them down to ground crew. Then gunners and pilots strolled to the operations tent for debriefing. Andrew climbed out of the cockpit, jumped to the ground and saw Bryan waiting for him. They walked off towards the ops tent together.
‘When do you think they’ll ship us down to Somaliland so we can get a crack at the Eyeties?’ Bryan raised his voice against the engine noise as the squadron’s stragglers came in to park, gunning their engines to swing their aircraft into position.
‘No one’s declared a war yet, Bryan. We’re not going to get a crack at anything until the politicians make it legal.’
‘But they’re bombing the poor bloody peasants down there, Andrew. How long can it be before they put us in to bat? I heard the top brass has offered to bomb northern Italy from bases in France. And we’re stuck in bloody Egypt, thousands of miles from anything.’
‘The League of Nations—’
Bryan’s derisive snort cut Andrew short.
‘Bugger them! Bugger them in general and bugger Anthony Eden in particular!’ Bryan turned on his heel in mid-stride and stood, arms outstretched, looking back at the fighters.
‘All I want is to take one of those lovely silver floozies into the sky and shoot the arse off something Italian.’
Andrew gazed past Bryan’s outstretched arms to the aircraft shimmering in the haze, waiting to become sabres or coffins.
Bryan’s arms fell and he rested his hands on his hips. Silence hung over the field and the last aircrew trailed past them to the debriefing. Bryan’s head dropped and he turned back towards the tents.
‘Oh, and Mussolini,’ he said as they walked away from the planes, ‘bugger him too.’
12th December, 1935
Andrew glanced from face to face, each one illuminated by the stark light of the North African sun.
Bryan Hale flipped through a magazine, his eyes darting from picture to picture. His blond hair plastered across his forehead with the heat, he gave vent to exasperation with an occasional tut or sigh.
Next to him sat Alan Gold, snoozing sweetly as small beads of perspiration sparkled on his prematurely bald head.
Third in the ragged circle sat George Anders. His dark hair flopped over his hazel eyes as he picked the sand from under his fingernails.
‘Bugger it!’ Bryan threw down his magazine. ‘Has it started yet, for Christ’s sake?’ He stood and walked off towards the line of aircraft along the runway’s edge, scrubbing his hair with his knuckles.
His sudden movement stirred Alan from his slumber. Clicking his tongue against his thirst, he stood and made towards the canteen trailer to get water.
Andrew watched the two men walking away.
‘Are you scared, Andrew?’ George asked.
Andrew took a moment to consider the question. With a swell of emotion that pricked gently at his eyes he found his answer: ‘I want to live long enough to get married and have a child.’
‘Boy or a girl?’
‘A girl first. For her mother’s sake. In case one day I don’t come back.’
‘And her mother?’ George prompted.
‘I don’t know. Pretty, of course, but strong. Someone able to look after herself when I’m away. Someone who’s not afraid to laugh. Someone who can cope.’
‘Cope with what?’ asked Alan, slumping into his deckchair and slurping lukewarm water from his tin mug.
‘With suppressed psychopaths like Hale over there.’ It was George who answered.
They looked over to where Bryan stood, leaning against a wing, scanning the southern skies in the vain search for an adversary.
Alan sighed into the silence. ‘When it starts it will be soon enough for everyone.’ A congenial smile reinforced the wisdom in his words.
‘If it ever does start,’ George murmured. ‘We’ve got the force, we’ve got the equipment and we’ve got the targets. Why are we sitting about like pensioners on a pier?’
‘It’s better for the politicians to talk it through, George.’ Andrew dabbed sweat from his top lip with a handkerchief. ‘I’m as fed up as anyone, but it must be better for them to talk it out before we start shooting.’
‘It’s like dogs and children.’ Again, Alan smiled as punctuation.
The other two looked at him, nonplussed.
‘What is?’ asked George.
‘Well…’ Alan leaned forward to explain.
Bryan ambled back towards the group, hands in pockets, shoulders slumped. Andrew watched the desolate figure approach as Alan spoke.
‘…if you let dogs or children get away with too much at the beginning, they get used to it and expect the same kind of treatment all the time. So, later when you try to rein them in, they fight it. If the League of Nations lets these bullies get away with all this today, in a few years’ time we’ll be left holding the leash on a mad dog’ – he leaned back in his chair, this time without a smile – ‘or two.’
Bryan shuffled back into the group and sat down heavily.
‘Bugger it,’ he said to no one in particular.
Chapter 6
Terra
12th February, 1936
The flat Anglian landscape rolled past the window. Despite the prospect of a week’s leave, Andrew’s deflated mood worsened as the train chugged on. The dark earth sucked the watery sunlight from the blue-grey sky. Leaden fields stretched unbroken to the level horizon, impaled in places by a solitary pump-house or a huddle of squat farm buildings.
Andrew mused about the people who lived in those remote houses – how they might have celebrated the Christmas just past; whether they had known about their government’s military expedition in Africa.
The train pulled out of Ely, the squat megalith of the cathedral sliding away through the steam clouds from the engine. Then the monotone fields reasserted their dun dominance, slashed by an occasional watercourse, the smooth, reflective water running along the top of its own elevated bank.
Half an hour later the train pulled into King’s Lynn. Nearly all the passengers alighted here and Andrew watched as a young sailor searched for, found and embraced his girlfriend. The guard’s whistle pierced the air and the train clanked along the platform. Andrew’s window drew level with the young couple as they broke their clinch. The girl caught Andrew’s eye, beaming him a smile. T
he sailor bent to kiss her again and the train moved them out of sight. Andrew sat alone in the carriage.
The engine swung east and clattered through the port. As it broke free of the docks and warehouses, Andrew got a clear view of the North Sea. It seethed with hostile grey waves. Together with the washed-out blue of the late afternoon sky, it created a flat two-tone backdrop to a chill world.
A spiteful wind plucked at anything that moved. Gulls and terns careened through the turbulent airflow. One tiny tern bobbed in the wind currents, suddenly rolling over onto its side and tucking its wings against its body. Transformed from bird to bullet, it rocketed towards the water, hitting just behind the surf-line and emerging a second later with a thin, silver fish in its beak.
The surf curled a mint-green whiteness from the grey depth of the sea and crashed it onto the shingle beach. The purples and greys of the flint pebbles glistened in the foam like the entrails of a million tiny animals. The swoop of another tern pulled Andrew’s eyes back to the cold sky, made more ominous by the mountainous, rolling clouds of an approaching weather front.
Andrew glanced back into the carriage as a khaki-clad figure pushed up the aisle towards the engine. Something about the soldier’s demeanour caused a thrill of recognition. A few minutes later the heavily-built soldier lumbered back, his forage cap sitting askew on top of closely cropped ginger hair.
Andrew smiled and called out: ‘Private Peter Ellis.’
‘Yes, sir?’ Peter’s response came automatically and it was a moment before he spotted Andrew sitting near the window.
‘Andrew Francis! It’s been years.’ Peter moved to sit opposite Andrew and admired his friend’s uniform. He reached out and touched the wings on Andrew’s tunic.
‘I knew you’d joined the RAF, but I thought you’d be a fitter or something. When did they let you play with an aeroplane?’
‘It took about three years to convince them. Now they let me fly one all the time.’
‘So, your dream came true. That’s fantastic.’ Peter lowered his voice. ‘Don’t tell the C.O. but I still want to be a train driver.’
The Bluebirds Trilogy Box Set Page 5