The constant quest of the airmen for sex had nothing to do with love, nothing really to do with sex, if the truth were told. It was a reinforcement of life at a time when it was cheap. It reassured them that they were still alive, when they saw their comrades blown to bits on a daily basis. They were young, they were performing inhuman acts in a brutal war; they, too, needed to find coping mechanisms, and flower-pressing wasn’t on their agenda.
Some wanted to marry so desperately that they would propose to every female in the universe – that was their salvation, to know there would be someone to come home to. If both parties survived, many of these marriages proved to be enduringly happy, but just as many fell apart because husband and wife hadn’t known each other when the ring was slipped on, or didn’t know each other once the war had changed them – and those six years changed everyone. Still, even the hasty unions gave hope to many at a time when they needed it, so who could blame them?
Others, the vast majority, took the opposite view. They saw death beckoning and tried to pack as much living into each day as they could, or so the myth said. It was a myth because they mainly indulged in sex and booze, and there had always been more to life than both, so it could be argued that they packed each day with sex and booze as a means of coping with the nights, when they would fly over hostile territories with guns blazing at them, and drop their bombs on terrified people below. They risked death, saw it and brought it to strangers, so sex made them feel their lives were still going on. They were vital, and the booze dulled the horror of their vital lives. And the boys of the RAF weren’t alone in over-indulging, whatever that meant at the time. It was happening in every service, and post-war alcoholism would become a common problem, another marriage breaker.
As it was, heartbreak was always around. Daisy saw it so many times that she could spot it in advance, feeling truly older than her years. A remuster would take place and the empty bunks would be filled by young girls who hadn’t heard the aircrews’ lines before, whereas Daisy soon knew every one by heart. Once, in the NAAFI, she heard yet another ‘I could be dead tomorrow’ speech being given to a young WAAF and she wandered over and stood behind the pilot as he delivered his heartfelt entreaty.
‘He’s never felt like this before,’ Daisy said wearily, buffing her nails on her shirt then examining them intently. ‘And you’re not just another notch on his joystick. You didn’t think you were, did you?’
The pilot turned round, grimacing, and Daisy smiled sweetly.
‘And what’s more, he’ll still respect you in the morning,’ Daisy continued. ‘Now let me see, have I left anything out? Ah yes, and he hasn’t got a wife. How’s that?’
As the pilot slunk off to the cheerful catcalls of his crewmates, he turned to Daisy and said with a grin, ‘Do you never go on leave, Daisy?’
‘When are you next in the air, sunshine?’ she snarled back at him. ‘I’ll arrange it for then, OK?’ knowing that the last thing any of them wanted was for Daisy not to be in the tower when they were flying a mission.
‘Don’t you think it’s enough that we’re fighting one war already?’ he asked, laughing. ‘Then we come back to base and have to fight another one, with you!’
‘And that one, sunshine,’ Daisy said lazily, ‘is the one you will never win.’
In the hut, a day had passed for Molly without a letter from her Dave, then another and another. The girls reassured her as they always did. He was a Pathfinder, they worked flat out, she knew that, he’d be too exhausted to write, or there had been a hitch as usual. Any day now four or five letters would arrive together. How many times had that happened?
Only this time was different, and instead of those four or five letters from Dave there was one from his commanding officer with the news everyone dreaded. The instinct of the others was to throw their arms around Molly, to comfort and protect her, but she didn’t want anyone to touch her if Dave couldn’t.
Daisy understood that. She had felt the same when her family had been killed, and she advised the others to let Molly handle it in her own way, until she saw the girl grow paler and more withdrawn and reported it to their officer. Molly was taken to the sick bay and sedated, and when the girls visited her they found her distant and reluctant to even acknowledge their presence, far less talk to them. Within a few weeks she was taken to a civilian hospital and they never saw her again, nor heard what had become of her. She just disappeared from their lives as completely as her Dave had disappeared from hers. Every now and then, during the domestic nights imposed by the WAAF hierarchy when the girls had to sit around the stove together, mending and being ‘domestic’, inevitably there would be a lull in the conversation and someone would say wistfully, ‘Isn’t it quiet without Molly’s singing?’
‘I used to throw things at her to make her stop,’ another voice would reply. ‘I wonder where she is now and how she is?’
Then, just as they were settling down after that tragedy, Violet’s wedding plans came to a sudden halt only days before the big event, when it was discovered that her handsome, tanned Rhodesian Fly Boy was already married. He had been transferred to another unit where a former Langar girl working in Pay had discovered that some of his pay was being sent home to his wife in Bulawayo. Naturally, she passed this information on. WAAFs always protected WAAFs, after all.
‘Just as well you found out before you married him,’ Celia comforted Violet. ‘I mean, if you’d found out after you’d already, you know … done it … well …’
Only poor Violet had, and under her mechanic’s overalls she was hiding a healthy four-month pregnancy, so before she could think she was bundled off the base, out of the service and home to Darlington and a doubtful welcome from her parents.
‘What have I told you?’ Daisy demanded of the hut. ‘Keep away from Fly Boys, do not listen to Fly Boys, got it? They’ll leave you one way or another. If they don’t die they’ll put you in the club and scarper, usually back to their wives.’
The girls all nodded sadly. ‘He told Violet he might be dead tomorrow,’ Celia said wistfully. ‘Can you imagine Violet falling for that one?’
‘If I could get my hands on him he would die today!’ Daisy replied angrily.
‘What I can’t understand is that he went along with all the wedding plans,’ Celia said bemusedly. ‘Can you imagine? I mean, he would actually have shown up and gone through with it, knowing all the time that he already had a wife. Can you imagine it?’ she asked again.
‘I can, I can,’ Daisy said with feeling.
‘And he said, why wait, they were going to get married, weren’t they? She fell for that one, too, smartarse Violet of all people,’ Celia continued.
‘There we have it, girls,’ Daisy stated, walking up and down the hut. ‘He managed to come up with the most obvious lines of persuasion and poor old Violet fell for them. Now, what must we do?’
‘Keep away from Fly Boys!’ the girls chorused, giggling.
‘And if they give you the old lines?’
‘Tell Daisy!’
‘And what will Daisy do?’
‘Throttle the swines!’
A couple of nights later, not long after the bombers had taken off and so no one in the tower was expecting them back yet, a ‘Darky’ call came in from a plane from another base that was in trouble, the first Daisy had ever heard.
‘Hello Darky, hello Darky,’ said a voice. ‘A for Apple calling. I have to land.’
‘Hello A for Apple, this is Langar,’ Daisy replied. ‘Permission to land.’
The airfield lights were switched on and the crash crews and medics informed.
‘Hello Langar, I have one engine out,’ the voice said anxiously.
‘It’s a Wimpy,’ the Control Officer said, watching through binoculars.
‘I’ve lost him, Sir,’ Daisy said, and called again. ‘Hello, A for Apple, Langar here.’
‘Hello Langar …’
Daisy tried twice more and there was no reply, though the plane could b
e seen in the distance. There was a final despairing ‘I can’t …’ as the plane passed low over the runway, then there was loud creaking, followed by crashing, then an explosion from the far end, when flames lit up the sky with the orange glow everyone dreaded seeing. Still, the emergency teams were right there and the Control Officer had followed them. They’d get them out, they’d be OK.
Everyone waited, trying to make out what was happening through the darkness and the smoke, then the Control Officer came back, looked at Daisy and shook his head. Five boys dead, five silly, boozing, fornicating, brave, wonderful Fly Boys just snuffed out before her with that frantic voice still ringing in her ears.
The others all crowded round in silence, shaken and shocked, but the first of their own Fly Boys would be coming back home from the nights mission in a matter of hours, they had. to get a grip.
‘Tea?’ a voice said, and they all nodded. There was nothing like tea – indeed, in those circumstances it was all they had.
It had an effect, though, living that life, being efficient and businesslike at all times, though Daisy had a few lapses from military language from time to time. Daisy and Celia went to a film in Nottingham one night, something forgettably sentimental, when without warning someone in the audience was sniffing, followed by Celia, and finally Daisy. One by one they left the cinema and met up outside, both of them crying over nothing and trying to laugh then subsiding into more tears. A group of aircrew saw their chance and offered hankies. There was nothing quite like happening upon not just one but two WAAF damsels in distress.
‘Get lost, erks!’ Daisy snarled, and the girls laughed then cried again. Eventually, when they were completely exhausted, they stood looking at each other and blowing their noses.
‘What the hell was that all about?’ Celia demanded.
‘Oh, I suppose it’s just been a hard spell, what with Molly and Violet and then the boys in the Wimpy,’ Daisy sniffed.
Celia started crying again. ‘I thought it was just that rotten film!’ she wailed.
‘Oh, no,’ Daisy said, ‘it had to be something more than that. We’re WAAFs, we never fall for nonsense.’
‘Poor Violet did,’ Celia muttered, and they started crying all over again.
14
The crew of Lancaster Bomber ED498 EM-O arrived at Langar in late 1942, and Bruiser entered Daisy’s life, though she did everything she could to keep him out. His name was Graeme Shaw, a Canadian flight-engineer on one of the Lancs, but everyone called him Bruiser because of his habit of bringing irritating disputes to an end with a punch. Not that he was violent, so everyone said, but having taken on board that life was short, terribly short these days, he didn’t mess around making his point verbally if he thought there was no chance of his point being considered. Instead, without any malice or fury, Bruiser let go with a very good left-hook. It was the equivalent and had all the emotion of ‘check-mate’, as far as Bruiser was concerned.
Bruiser’s Lanc was the talk of Langar because it had ‘Lady Groundhog’ and a red maple leaf painted on the side. The maple leaf everyone could understand, with the pilot, Calli MacDonald, being Canadian too, but there was much discussion about Lady Groundhog’s origins.
‘It’s probably a sarcastic description of a female,’ Daisy opined. All she and everyone else on the base knew was that Bruiser loved her, and not in the lecherous way she was used to with Fly Boys but in the manner of a large abandoned adoring puppy she couldn’t shake off.
Passing him in the NAAFI one night, the other girls giggled as he gazed adoringly at her. Daisy remarked sourly, ‘Canadians everywhere’, which prompted Bruiser to loudly and joyously proclaim that Daisy was looking at him. Daisy tried to keep a straight face, she was now a Langar fixture, she had a position to keep up, but his puppy-dog eyes generally followed her in such a good-natured way that she couldn’t help smiling about him – not at him, that would have been fatal, but just when she thought about him.
When Bruiser had first arrived at the base he had approached Daisy as she sat on her own in the NAAFI, reading a fashion magazine she had read ten times before. He’d been put up to it, it was something of an initiation ceremony imposed on newcomers by the sweepstake organisers.
‘Can I get you something, Ma’am?’ he asked.
Without looking up, Daisy replied loudly and dismissively, ‘Go away, you idiot,’ and continued reading.
‘Yes, Ma’am, thank you, Ma’am,’ Bruiser said, bowing, then went back to his seat where the others were slapping each other and falling off their chairs laughing.
‘What did she say, Bruiser?’ one asked sweetly.
‘She said she loved me and begged me to go to her hut tonight,’ he replied, smiling stupidly at her.
A great raucous cheer went up.
‘But I said I’d rather save myself for our wedding night.’
Daisy looked up as she turned a page of her magazine, briefly making eye contact with him, and she couldn’t help smiling very slightly; and even though she tried to turn it into a grimace, he smiled just as slightly back at her. It was the start of Bruiser’s many and frequent approaches, all of which she firmly rebuffed, but he was so pleasant, so unthreatening, she could never bring herself to really squash him.
He went everywhere with his skipper, young MacDonald, which wasn’t unusual – crews were closer than most families. The younger pilot was not tall but strongly compact with a steadiness, a stillness about him that drew your attention. Handsome, too, with dark, crinkly hair and very direct brown eyes, whereas Bruiser was tall, thin and fair, with that incredibly silly grin whenever he looked at Daisy. The two of them – pilot and engineer – were always pushing each other and laughing. Bruiser’s talisman was a green scarf that he wore at all times, and he once approached Daisy and asked her if she would mind bestowing a kiss on it to ensure his safe return from that night’s mission.
‘Fine,’ she said calmly, ‘as long as I can bestow a fist in your mouth in return, sunshine.’
‘It would be an honour, Ma’am,’ Bruiser replied, ‘to be touched by you in any way.’
Daisy shook her head and walked away, hearing his voice in the background telling the others, ‘She’s thinking about touching me, she said so, she actually wants to touch me!’ and his friends yelling at him derisively.
There was just something about Bruiser that stopped her going for the jugular, but she didn’t know what, and it made her pay more attention to his kite, much as it annoyed her. When she was on duty in the tower she always checked where Lady Groundhog was and when it had landed safely, all the time reminding herself that this must be some kind of slippery slope. Attachment of any kind was a distraction she didn’t need.
Frank. There he was again, she thought savagely. Bruiser made her smile and Frank made her angry. Why was that? Celia had recently announced her engagement and, as ever in wartime, the marriage plans had been hurried along, though being Celia everyone had to know every tiny detail. To Daisy’s mild surprise her friend was lost in the romance of it all, as though by marrying Bobby the world would once again be full of roses. Daisy didn’t even think the world pre-war was like that, so she was troubled by Celia’s expectations. True, Bobby wasn’t quite a Fly Boy, he was an aircraft mechanic, so that was something, but you had to wonder about these rush-jobs that always took place in the first mad flush of love. How many times had she seen the more sensible ones cooling down in due course, so who was to say how many of these marriages wouldn’t do the same? In normal life only shotgun weddings took place faster than child-free ones did, but after living like this for years it was hard to decide what normal was.
Maybe life as Daisy had known it pre-war had gone for good. She was absolutely sure that Celia’s wasn’t a shotgun wedding, but her friend’s romantic view was full of fantasy, and every time she talked to Daisy about it the whole thing seemed to have become a tad more unrealistic than the time before.
Eileen Reilly arrived at the base with the latest consignment of
WAAF recruits in spring of 1943. Daisy had been on duty in the tower the night before, or she would have taken them in hand immediately, but she met up with them when she stopped off for a bite to eat before going back to the hut for some sleep.
Celia had returned from her short honeymoon the day before, and Daisy knew that when she went back to the hut Celia would be waiting to tell all, so she had taken refuge in the NAAFI to put the dreaded moment off for as long as possible. All she wanted to do was sleep, but if she went back to the hut she knew Celia would still be there, waiting to go on duty, so she sat sipping tea she didn’t want, wondering in a resentful way why she was always the one the girls came to, why they didn’t take their thoughts, fears and hopes to someone else. Why was she regarded as some kind of authority anyway?
‘Are you Daisy?’ a girl asked beside her, smiling.
‘And you are?’ Daisy said, looking at her over the rim of her cup.
‘Eileen Reilly,’ the girl said, holding out a hand. ‘I thought I’d better introduce myself, I’ve been given the other bed in your room.’
‘Oh, yes,’ Daisy replied. ‘Eileen Reilly?’ she said thoughtfully. ‘But you sound Scottish. Not exactly a Scottish name, is it?’
‘As Scottish as Daisy Sheridan is English!’ Eileen replied with a grin. She was a pretty girl, petite, Daisy thought they called it, with reddish-fair hair and bright blue eyes, and she seemed to be taking the horrors of early service life in her stride, even if she didn’t like them. Daisy approved of that; she had no time for the ones who sat down and wept for their mothers, even though she became all of their mothers while they were WAAFs together. If she didn’t look after them, who would? So she and Eileen obviously shared the get-on-with-it attitude, and the Irish thing, of course, though by the sound of it as they gleefully compared notes in the canteen that first morning, the bias was worse in Glasgow than in Newcastle.
‘When they meet someone new,’ Eileen explained cheerfully, ‘they ask “What school did you go to?” This is to sort out Catholics from Protestants. With a name like mine, though, they didn’t have to ask, they just saved time and snubbed me straight off.’
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