Churchill’s Angels

by Ruby Jackson

  ‘Why didn’t she put an address on it? She asked me to write and she hasn’t put an address. Did she never have anything in her life that was new, Mum? And she paid her share of Sally’s costume. Why didn’t I help her?’

  Flora pulled Daisy into the alcove and sat her down on one of the rickety chairs. ‘Pull yourself together, our Daisy, and think. Of course you helped her. She wrote to you, didn’t she, not to anybody else? And she had new things; me and your dad and Sally’s mum and dad, we gave her something new every Christmas, even if I made it myself. I want you to put on your outside clothes and go over to the picture house and tell the Brewers because they’re worried too. Grace will write when she’s ready, when she’s got used to her new life.’

  ‘She was happy in her little garden, Mum.’

  ‘Then think of the fun she’ll have in a blooming great field. In the meantime, there’s work needs doing here so you can pop round the Brewers when the shop closes. Days are getting longer and so you can run down to the theatre if Sally’s not at home.’

  Daisy gave in gracefully. ‘All right. What needs doing?’

  ‘Be a good girl and fetch in a carton of the Bonn’s digestive biscuits. They’re a good seller and there’s only one or two packets left. And I think there’s a roll of nice, yellow Lancaster cloth somewhere in there. Your dad was just after saying the shelves need a bit of brightening along of our spirits.’

  Those two jobs, plus attending to customers who always came into the shop late in the afternoon in the hope that something perishable had been marked down, kept Daisy busy. Two boys in particular worried her. The older one tried always to seem tough but Daisy felt it was all a pose. When she could, she slipped something extra into their bag, earning a look of scorn from the older boy and a dazzling smile from the younger one.

  As soon as her father had locked the shop door she hung up her apron, rushed upstairs to wash, and changed her shop overall for a smart lightly fitted blue wool skirt and a round-necked striped blue and white short-sleeved woollen jumper.

  ‘I won’t be late back,’ she called to her parents, and hurried out.

  She was prepared to find the house in darkness as Sally’s parents were usually in the picture house. She was therefore delighted to see a light on in the Brewers’ front room.

  Sally herself, looking as if she was dressed for a special meeting, opened the door and was equally thrilled to see her friend. ‘How terrif, Daisy. Mum and Dad are at work but I have lines to learn. We’ll have a cuppa and you can hear them for me. It’ll be like old times. Remember doing our homework together in primary school?’

  Daisy nodded. ‘Yes, Sally, and I’ll be thrilled to listen to your lines, but I’ve got a letter here I need to show you.’

  ‘Sounds scary, Daisy. Who’s it from?’ She was leading the way into the kitchen. ‘Sit down and tell me.’

  Daisy handed the letter to Sally.

  Sally stood quietly beside the table and read the letter. Daisy was not surprised when Sally, the great dramatic star of stage and screen, started to cry. ‘Oh, Daisy, poor, poor Grace. She must have been so miserable and we didn’t notice.’

  Sally, a much loved and, to be honest, somewhat indulged only child, was not given much to introspection. She had accepted some responsibility for Grace because the twins had accepted her, and they always did things together, but she had not really thought about what it must be like to live, an unwelcome guest, in a home without love.

  Daisy, a member of a large loving family whose creed could have been ‘we are responsible for those less well off than ourselves’ knew what Sally was feeling and gave her a quick hug.

  ‘You’re right, we didn’t realise how miserable she was, but we did know her life wasn’t happy. How could it be – living with that horrible, selfish sister? And, look, she loves our mums – and dads too, probably. So, cheer up, we can’t have been too bad. Next time we hear from her we’ll write back to tell her she’s always welcome with us.’

  ‘We can’t,’ said Sally, pointing dramatically at the letter, ‘unless she tells us her address.’

  ‘Don’t go looking for trouble,’ Daisy quoted her father. ‘It finds us easy enough.’

  ‘I have to go,’ she said some time later, after the girls had gone over and over the problem. ‘She’ll write again and she’ll write her address, but we have to be patient and wait till she’s ready. Now you go and learn your lines and we’ll all come and see the play. We’re all looking forward to it.’

  A few days later, the Dartford Chronicle spread out in front of her, Daisy was totally involved in a report of German aggression all over Europe when she heard the melodic ping of the shop bell. She looked up. A tall fair-haired young man in air force uniform was standing looking at her with a puzzled expression on his face.

  Cigarettes, Daisy decided, and stood up with a friendly smile. ‘Can I help you?’

  ‘Yes, if you really know how to take an engine apart, clean it, and put it together again.’

  ‘Well, if you don’t scrub up well.’ The words came tumbling out of her mouth before she could stop them, and Daisy wanted to bite her tongue at this evidence of her lack of sophistication. She just knew that no one had ever spoken to him like that before. Girls from his class weren’t rude.

  To her surprise he laughed. ‘So my grandmother used to say.’ He held out his hand. ‘Adair Maxwell.’

  Daisy took his hand and the most pleasurable jolt went through her whole body. Why, why, why had she not put on the dark blue real linen dress with the pale blue Peter Pan collar that Mum had found in the market? She blushed furiously but obviously the jolt, or whatever it was, had not been felt by the young man in front of her, and so she managed to stutter, ‘Daisy Petrie.’

  ‘Who was born with a hammer in her hand, or was it a spanner?’

  Had it been one of her brothers or one of the hordes of boys and young men who had been in and out of her home all her life, Daisy would have known how to answer. She would not have been left standing, as she thought, like a raving idiot while a real live pilot stood before her.

  He put her out of her misery. ‘I have a twelve-hour pass, drove to the farm, and Alf passed on your extremely generous offer.’

  She looked at him. Was this some kind of joke? How was she supposed to respond? ‘You’re welcome, I’m sure’ or, ‘Think nothing of it’? Again she said nothing.

  ‘Miss Petrie,’ he began, and then he laughed. ‘Your eyes shot open like one of those toys – what do they call them – automatons. I’ll start again. Miss Petrie, Daisy, I am extremely grateful for your offer of assistance with … my plane. Thank you very much.’

  Daisy, who was now staring at the floor, said, ‘You’re welcome.’

  Adair looked at his watch. ‘Nine hours and twenty-three minutes left, twenty-two, twenty-one.’

  ‘Stop laughing at me.’

  ‘Oh, my dear Miss Petrie, I’m not laughing at you, but it’s very difficult to talk to someone who finds the floor so fascinating. Did you mean it? Will you come out with me and have a look at her? Damn, you’ve done your automaton again – and lovely eyes they are too.’

  A strange feeling travelled right down Daisy’s spine. She should have worn her new frock. He said she had lovely eyes. Sally had lovely eyes; everyone said so. She gained control of herself. ‘Right now? You want me to come and see the plane right this minute?’

  ‘Yes, please, my car’s outside.’ He looked again at his watch.

  ‘I’ll have to find my dad.’

  He was startled. ‘You’re perfectly safe with me, Miss Petrie.’

  ‘Maybe, Mr Adair Maxwell,’ said Daisy, and this time she was laughing, ‘but somebody’s got to mind the shop.’

  THREE

  I’m helping a pilot friend maintain his aircraft …

  I am doing war work, as it happens. I’m working on an Aeronca. You don’t know the Aeronca? American, of course, and practically the aircraft that started the entire craze for owning a p
lane.

  Adair had to drop Daisy at the end of the back-street as he was already in grave danger of returning late to base, an unpardonable offence in the military. She walked slowly down the dark length of the street, feeling the euphoria of the afternoon seeping away, desperately trying to recapture some of it; trying out ways in which she might astound friends and family, and especially her brothers, by telling them about the experience. None of her carefully prepared little remarks would work with her brothers, of course. They would just laugh at her.

  She got the fright of her life when she collided with a rather solid form.

  ‘Look where you’re going, young Daisy. You almost had me on my backside. What are you doing out by yourself at this time of night in the freezing cold?’

  ‘Sorry, Mr Griffiths. I was …’ She stopped. ‘I was working on an aircraft’ would not be believed, and besides, might it not be possible that Adair would prefer that the fewer people who knew of the aeroplane’s existence, the better? ‘I’ve been out with a friend. I’m on my way home. Dad’ll be looking out for me.’

  Mr Griffiths, their local ARP warden, turned and looked up at the black shape that was the Petrie flat. ‘They better not be showing any lights, my girl. You get on home and tell your young man to see you to your door in future.’

  ‘Yes, Mr Griffiths,’ said Daisy again.

  ‘Your young man.’ Heavens. Mr Griffiths actually thought Daisy Petrie had a young man. She laughed. Adair Maxwell was not a ‘young man’. He was much more important than that. He was a pilot.

  She carried on to the shop, feeling her way carefully. Not only was it impossible to see any distance at all because of the blackout and the starless sky, but the ground under her feet was very treacherous. She was relieved to put her key into the keyhole and happier still when she slipped inside. Immediately there was the glow of a muffled light from the top of the stairs. Her sister stood there with a candle.

  ‘Mum and Dad are in bed, too cold to stay up,’ she explained quietly as Daisy climbed the stairs. ‘We’re out of coal. Was it fun? Have you had a fantastic time? Did you get to sit in it, the plane? Come on in the kitchen and we’ll have some cocoa, and there’s a sausage and some mashed potatoes left if you didn’t have your tea. Crikey, look at your nails,’ she went on as they sat down in the kitchen. ‘No one’s going to want to buy butter from you tomorrow, Daisy Petrie.’

  Daisy was tired and somehow too deflated to talk. She sat quietly, watching Rose prepare the cocoa.

  ‘Want the sausage, Daze?’

  ‘No, thanks. Nancy made us coffee and we had a big slice of what she called a game pie, whatever that is. It were …’ she began and then corrected herself, ‘… it was delicious.’ Daisy smiled quietly. She was learning more than just how to maintain a plane.

  ‘Come on, tell us all.’

  ‘We drove out to The Old Manor and—’

  ‘Tell me about the car and about him, this pilot person.’

  ‘I won’t be able to tell you anything if you don’t stop interrupting.’

  Rose carefully undid a curl, rearranged it and pinned it down securely with a kirby grip before picking up the cold sausage. She began to eat it and so Daisy talked. She remembered little about the motorcar, having been too aware of Adair Maxwell to concentrate, but she described the little aircraft in detail, enumerating all its parts and telling Rose just what its owner thought needed to be done in order for it to be offered to the Royal Air Force.

  ‘Doesn’t seem to be too much, Daisy. Not too different from a lorry.’

  ‘Adair says he learned to fly in just a few hours, simple controls.’

  ‘A few hours? Don’t believe it. Two hours and you could maybe get it to go along the ground but how does it get up in the air?’

  ‘No idea, but I’m going to find out. He talked about something called …’ she thought for a moment, ‘… aerodynamics, whatever that is. Didn’t tell him I hadn’t a clue but I’ll find out.’ She clenched her fists. ‘Somehow. Anyway, he says when we get it ready, he’ll take me up. It’s got two seats, one behind the other. Remember Sam’s big go-kart?’

  Rose nodded.

  ‘It’s like being in that but with higher sides.’

  ‘Time you two was sound.’ Their father, wearing his pyjamas, his disreputable old dressing gown, his hat and a scarf, was standing at the door. ‘You’re at the factory early tomorrow, Rose, and you need to clean your hands, Daisy. Picture the poor vicar’s face if you was to cut his cheese with hands like that.’

  Daisy, laughed, said, ‘Aircraft oil,’ as nonchalantly as she could and blew out Rose’s candle.

  Rose had the last word. ‘Sally’ll be ever so excited, Daisy. Mrs B told Mum she thinks Sal will get a real theatre job soon with real actors an’ all, not just training, and here’s you meeting a toff and being friends. You two are for the high life.’

  ‘Don’t be daft, our Rose. Adair and me … and I … are working together is all.’

  ‘I know, Daisy, and I sing as good as Vera Lynn.’

  Daisy became accustomed to such phrases as dual ignition, interchangeable ailerons, magneto generators, which soon became as easily recognisable and understandable as spark plugs, brakes and crankshafts. By May of 1940 she was as at home in the cockpit of Adair’s beloved little yellow plane as she was in the driving seat of the family’s old van. Adair managed to get away only twice in those months but he wrote long letters in which he answered Daisy’s many questions and each time reinforced his feelings of gratitude towards her. Never, however, did he repeat his promise to take her for a flight. She had not expected it, and so was not overly hurt. After all, he was one of those brave young men who, every day and night, flew on what they called missions. Some never returned, having sacrificed everything so that others might live in peace.

  She did keep the letters and read each one several times – for the information, she told herself, not because they were from a rather handsome young man.

  Adair managed a pass early in May and, for once, had been able to bring Daisy to the farm. Usually she cycled, as petrol was now very scarce and the Petries’ allowance was needed for deliveries. Daisy had watched for him, one ear on her customer, the other desperately listening for the sound of his motorcar on the street outside.

  ‘I’ll pick you up about eleven,’ he had written, and Daisy knew that meant that Adair Maxwell, pilot, would come into the shop and happily introduce himself to whichever parent was there. For a reason she could not quite understand, Daisy did not want that to happen.

  Was it because her parents, solid hard-working people, did not quite trust young men like Adair, who had been born, not in a crowded flat above a shop, but in a magnificent manor house surrounded by thousands of acres of family-owned land? She pushed the disturbing thought away.

  The trees around Old Manor Farm were in glorious pink, white or purple bloom. The scent of lilacs floated gently around them as, after working hard for a few hours, Daisy and Adair sat on the ground under a great beech tree to enjoy the sandwiches Flora had prepared for them.

  ‘This is too good of Mrs Petrie,’ Adair said as he bit happily into a fish paste sandwich. ‘I never think of sensible things like food, and I ought to bring your mum something.’

  ‘She’s used to feeding boys.’

  He looked straight at her and Daisy felt her face warming, and not from the May sunshine.

  ‘I’m not a boy, Daisy,’ he said as he reached for a second sandwich.

  Daisy was speechless. No, he was not a boy, he was a man, a very exciting man. A thought entered her head and she tried to stifle it. Could he possibly be reminding her that she was no longer a girl? At eighteen, she was a woman. A woman who could … who could what? Love a man? Be loved by him in return? That thought was just too much. She was someone who could help him repair his engine and that was all.

  After a few minutes of slightly uncomfortable silence Adair spoke again. ‘You ought to go into the WAAF, you know; you’re was
ted in a shop.’

  Daisy knew what the WAAF was: the Women’s Auxiliary Air Force. She had read about it in the Chronicle, and even the London papers, which a few of their customers ordered. She thought she could learn how to pack a parachute and probably she would be qualified for a catering job – after all, she had washed dishes and peeled potatoes all her life – but how could she be a meteorological officer or work with ciphers and such? She almost wept as she realised she scarcely knew what the words meant, let alone how to do the jobs.

  ‘Thanks a lot, and which job do you think the air force might be anxious to give me?’

  ‘You’re a good mechanic; we need mechanics.’

  ‘You need bits of paper, Adair. I left school at fourteen. I walk in there and say I’d like to be a mechanic in the WAAF and, after they’ve all had a good laugh, I’ll be dishing out plates of egg and chips to people like you.’

  ‘Vision, Daisy. You could train to be a pilot. Damn it, woman, you’re smart. Sometimes education is what goes on after you leave school, you know.’

  Woman. Her heart began to beat more quickly. What was happening to her? She felt wonderful but strange. She tried to joke. ‘You’re mad, Adair Maxwell, nice but mad. Come on, finish the apple pie and let’s get back to work.’

  He stood up and, reaching down, pulled her up to stand beside him. ‘I’ll teach you. Every day I teach men who’re not half as smart as you are.’

  Now her pulse was racing. She tried to remain calm and focused. Never once had she thought seriously that she might learn to fly. Her vision, as Adair called it, had allowed her to think, hope, pray that perhaps she might be accepted to help out with aircraft engines, but flying …

  ‘You don’t mean that.’

  He held her by her shoulders. ‘Dash it; I didn’t when I said it. The words popped out … but, Daisy, why not? You know my little plane every bit as well as I do myself. Besides, she’s basically a glorified powered glider; she always lands gently, very different from some of the planes I’m flying as an air force pilot. Next time I can get away I’ll take her up; I wasn’t going to tell you, but she’s ready, thanks to you. If I bring her down again safely, then we’re in business.’