by Vicki Beeby
Another crash from the dispersal hut made him flinch. ‘I’d better show you the dispersal hut while it’s still there.’ This was met with chuckles, and gradually the dread lifted. Beyond belief, it seemed as though all his former pilots were happy to have him back as their CO. He gave his first genuine smile of the day. ‘It’s good to have you all back. Brimstone squadron wouldn’t be the same without you.’
He led the way to the dispersal hut. ‘I’ll introduce you to the new lads, but then we’ll have to leave you to it for a while. They’ve got their first English lesson.’ More bursts of laughter escaped from the hut. ‘God help the poor WAAFs who are supposed to be teaching them.’
* * *
The English lessons would be held in Briefing Room 2, located in one of the wooden huts behind the Admin block. When Evie and Jess arrived, they found that the sun, pouring through the windows, had heated the room to a stifling degree. They flung open the windows to let in some air, then arranged the room for the lesson. Evie, her heart pounding, eyed the large map covering one wall right up to the rafters.
‘That’ll be useful when we cover bearings, but we won’t need it today,’ said Evie. She found it oddly difficult to draw breath. Why couldn’t the station commander have asked them to do something easier? Parachute into Germany and single-handedly take Hitler prisoner, for instance.
Jess didn’t seem to be suffering from nerves at all. She looked around the room, hands on hips, then pointed at a blackboard propped in a corner. ‘We can use that, though.’
Evie blew out a shaky breath and nodded. Between them, they picked up the board, but Evie’s hands were trembling so hard she lost her grip and it crashed back to the floor. By the time they’d placed the blackboard and arranged ten rickety wooden chairs in an arc facing the board, she felt as though she had hundreds of butterflies fluttering in her stomach.
Then the door banged open, and the Czechs walked in on a wave of laughter and cigarette smoke. They nudged each other when they noticed the girls and muttered to one another, grinning. Their walks became swaggers; they made a show of straightening their tunics and smoothing back their hair. Heat seared Evie’s cheeks, and it took all her strength not to flee the room. The only thing that kept her in place was the thought of the tongue-lashing she would receive from Flight Officer Ellerby if she failed in her duty.
Jess edged closer. ‘Chin up. Don’t let them see you’re scared,’ she murmured so that only Evie could hear. It was easy for Jess to say; she was used to facing a crowd. Still, she endeavoured to imitate Jess. She straightened her shoulders, raised her chin and set her face in what she hoped was a confident expression. As confident as anyone could look with cheeks the colour of beetroot. Oddly, though, faking unconcern did make her feel better. Even when the men sat, arms folded, and raked the girls with bold gazes, she managed to swallow her nerves and pretend she was doing nothing more terrifying than teaching fractions to a group of ten-year-olds.
She’d expected to feel self-conscious in Alex’s presence, but when he swept in, she felt a surge of relief. He rapped an order in Czech and the men sat up and fell silent. Then Alex approached the girls. ‘I’ll keep them in order. Just give me a nod if you need me to translate anything.’ He took a seat in a corner at the back, and some of Evie’s tension eased.
Before the lesson, Evie and Jess had decided to cover simple introductions, and move on to numbers if there was time. Jess had volunteered to start, leaving Evie to teach the numbers.
Jess stepped up on the dais, squared her shoulders and clasped her hands behind her back. From where Evie was standing, she could see Jess’s fingers were tightly knotted, but that was her only sign of nerves. She gave the group a wide smile and spoke in her best BBC accent. ‘Good afternoon. My name is Jess Halloway, and this’ – she gestured towards Evie – ‘is Evie Bishop.’
There was a mumbled greeting that sounded more like cattle lowing than any actual words. To Evie’s admiration, Jess’s smile didn’t waver. Instead, by drawing a clock on the blackboard and setting the hands to different times, she explained the differences between ‘good morning’, ‘good afternoon’ and ‘good evening’. Then she went around the group and got everyone to introduce themselves. She repeated their names, stumbling a little over unfamiliar pronunciation, and that seemed to break the ice with most of the group. They laughed at her mistakes but not unkindly.
One man, however, slouched against the wall, watching the proceedings with his black brows pulled together. He had jutting cheekbones, dark hair and piercing blue eyes. Evie braced herself when it was his turn to speak, but he simply said, ‘Good afternoon. My name is Milan Mašek.’ From the easy way he spoke, albeit with a strong accent, she guessed his English was far more advanced than the other pilots’. She had the sense he was biding his time, waiting to make some kind of point, although what that was, she couldn’t guess.
When Jess moved on to pointing at one of the men and asking another, ‘Who is he?’ one of the men – a sergeant pilot called Josef Kaspar – laughed and replied, ‘Je to úplný blázen.’
Judging from Alex’s glare, it wasn’t complimentary. Alex half rose, but a pilot officer – Karol Šimek if Evie remembered correctly – stood up and let loose a stream of angry Czech. Eventually he turned and said to Jess in broken English, ‘I tell him to be sensible.’
Jess smiled and thanked him, then continued the lesson. Evie glanced at Alex again; Karol must have translated correctly, because Alex made no further move to interfere.
By the time it was her turn, Evie’s mouth was so dry she feared she would be unable to speak. She picked up the chalk to write the numbers from zero to twelve on the board. Her hands trembled violently; her number three was distinctly wobbly. Halfway through number five the chalk snapped and fell to the floor. There was no way she was bending down to pick it up with all those men watching. Face flaming, she grabbed the other stick from the ledge. Then that piece broke. Now she was left trying to write with only the stub of chalk that she’d thankfully managed to hold on to. If only someone would speak or even laugh, she would feel better, but the silence stretched out to eternity. The only sound was the scratch of the chalk and the thundering of her heart. She’d never realised before how long it took to write thirteen numbers. The butterflies in her stomach performed spectacular aerobatics, and she was profoundly aware of the scorch of nine pairs of eyes upon her back. Oh, God, she was going to throw up or faint. She’d never live down the disgrace.
Then an image hovered in front of her, an image that had never been far from her thoughts since the day in Brighton. Yet again, she saw the crowd of wounded soldiers, the horror of what they had suffered etched upon their faces. She drew a steadying breath. Evie Bishop, if those men can endure spending days under fire, trapped on a beach, you can cope with teaching a few men to count in English. Surely it’s not too much to ask.
She swallowed and opened her mouth, but the sullen man, Milan Mašek, raised a hand. ‘A question, please?’
Oh no. Why now? ‘Of course.’ By some miracle she managed to force out the words. She gave him what she hoped was the kind of confident smile Jess had used, but it felt more like a strained grimace.
‘You ken fly?’ She presumed ‘ken’ was his way of pronouncing ‘can’.
Where was he going with this? ‘No.’
He folded his arms and slouched even lower. ‘Then you have nothing to teach me. I am here to kill Germans. That is all.’
Alex sprang to his feet, but somehow Evie knew what she had to say. If she let Alex answer for her now, she would never gain the respect of the class. She flung out her hand to stop Alex intervening. ‘Just translate for me, so everyone is absolutely clear,’ she said to him. She had no doubt Flying Officer Mašek would understand without a translation, but she needed everyone to hear this, so they all knew neither she nor Jess were to be treated with contempt. ‘I may not be able to fly, but I won a scholarship to Oxford University to read maths, so I think I’m just about qu
alified to teach you to count to twelve. You want to fight the Germans, well, believe me, I want you to be up there fighting them too. The station commander has made it clear to me that you won’t be allowed in the air until you can all speak English well enough to communicate over the radio, and it’s up to me and Miss Halloway to make sure you can do so. If you’re not prepared to learn, I’m sure you can find a bomber crew only too willing to throw you out over Germany, where you can fight Nazis to your heart’s content.’
Quite where all the words came from, she didn’t know. Something that had been building up inside her ever since Brighton, she supposed. She bit back a smile when Alex’s eyebrows rose at her comment about the bomber crew, but he translated anyway. She knew when he’d got to that part, because a ripple of laughter broke out. She glanced at Milan, expecting more hostility, but he gave her a grudging nod and sat up straighter. She couldn’t resist glancing at Alex. His mouth curved in a slow smile, and he gave her the thumbs-up. Her heart leapt. She couldn’t have felt more proud if she’d been awarded first class honours at Oxford.
After that the lesson passed without incident. Evie’s confidence increased, and she even managed to explain, with a little help from Alex in the translation, that over the radio, they should pronounce five as ‘fife’ and nine as ‘niner’.
By the end of the lesson, she was pleased with how it had gone, but she felt like she could sleep for a year. She opened her mouth to dismiss the class, but Milan put up his hand again.
God, give her strength. What now? ‘Yes?’
‘One more question. Will you both come to the pub with us tonight?’
She relaxed and allowed herself the first genuine smile of the lesson. ‘We’d be delighted.’ She said a sad mental goodbye to the idea of a quiet night in the schoolroom of High Chalk House, drinking cocoa with Jess and May. They would find it much easier to teach Brimstone squadron if they could make friends with them.
* * *
The snug at the Horse and Groom was Brimstone squadron’s undisputed territory that evening. It was a warm evening, so all the windows were wide open, and Alex feared the raucous Czech folk songs drifting up the lane would put off Evie and Jess from joining them.
‘How did their first training flights go this morning?’ Peter Travis had to shout to make himself heard above a particularly rousing chorus. In the middle of the group of pilots, Jiří Stepanek was sitting on Josef Kaspar’s shoulders and, arms outstretched like wings, they raced around the room in time to the music, dodging between the tables. Alex winced as Jiří struck his head on a particularly large horse brass dangling from one of the roof beams. If Evie had any sense, she’d turn round and go straight back to the Waafery.
He tried to ignore the twinge of regret that thought caused while he answered Peter. ‘No one died and no one crashed. They even remembered to lower their undercarriages before landing.’ It had been a close-run thing in a couple of cases, though. Alex had stood helplessly on the ground, yelling and waving frantically at planes as they made their final approach with the undercarriages still up. Alex was surprised his hair hadn’t turned white. Not for the first time, he wished there was such a thing as a dual-control Hurricane. Watching his pilots take off in a high-performance fighter with no prior experience of one was the most helpless feeling in the world. Still, near-misses with the undercarriage aside, they’d all performed well, putting their Hurricanes into rolls and dives with ease. ‘We’ll start on interception exercises tomorrow. See how well they’ve learnt their numbers.’
Peter raised his eyebrows. ‘What’s that smile for?’
Alex had been unaware he was smiling. ‘Oh, I was just thinking of the way a certain red-headed WAAF managed to face down a roomful of rowdy Czech pilots.’
As though summoned by his thoughts, Evie walked into the snug, followed by Jess and the shy, gawky driver. Although judging from the way Peter’s face softened, he didn’t seem to consider her at all gawky.
Alex rose, intending to get the girls a drink and move the men away from the corner table so they could all sit down. But a cheer went up from the pilots and they milled around the girls, making it impossible for Alex to get close. Each pilot bowed to the girls and bade them ‘Good evening’ in an exaggerated English accent. Then they took delight in counting how many pints each had drunk.
‘Poor May,’ Peter muttered. ‘I don’t think she’ll be enjoying this. I’ll see if she wants to sit outside.’ He’d scarcely finished speaking before he was forcing his way to May’s side. He spoke in the girl’s ear, and then guided her out of the door. Alex had to admire how quickly he’d taken advantage of the situation. He tried to force his way through the crush to Evie and Jess, but could only watch as Karol Šimek – the man who’d rebuked Josef for not taking the lesson seriously – did what Alex had intended to do, and moved men away from the corner table so Evie and Jess could sit down.
At least it meant Evie was sitting next to him, but his hackles rose when Karol fetched the girls their drinks and sat beside Evie, placing himself between her and Alex. Couldn’t she see his charm was fake? He was only acting that way to get what he wanted. He’d thought Evie was more intelligent than to fall for a line like the one Karol was now spinning. He was forced to simmer in silence while Karol described to the girls how he had stolen a German officer’s car and used it to escape into Poland. A likely story. The Nazis would have shot him before he’d so much as started the engine.
When Karol went to the bar to get another drink, Alex took the opportunity to move next to Evie. ‘I didn’t get the chance earlier, but I wanted to tell you both how impressed I was with your lesson and the way you handled the men.’
Evie smiled, but it was Jess who answered. ‘I was gobsmacked when Evie tore into that Milan bloke.’ Alex had to smile at the way her BBC English slipped when she was excited.
At that moment, Milan himself pushed through the crowd to stand at Jess’s elbow. Jess glanced up at him and scowled. ‘You should be ashamed of yourself, speaking to Evie like that. It’s obvious you speak English well, so you should be helping us, not making our jobs more difficult.’
Milan gave her a half bow. ‘You are right, of course. That is why I am here – to apologise and buy you both a drink. And you, of course, sir,’ he added with a nod to Alex.
They gave their orders, and Milan elbowed his way to the bar, Jess going with him to help carry the drinks. Suddenly it was just Alex and Evie alone at the table. It seemed to Alex that the noise receded. The haze of cigarette smoke seemed to blot out all the other people in the room, and he could only see Evie’s sweet face before him.
‘You’ve made an impression on Milan,’ he said. She’d made an impression on Alex, too, but he wasn’t going to let her know that. ‘You’ll have no trouble with him any more.’
The smile she gave punched him in the gut. ‘I wonder what happened to him to make him so…’
‘Pig-headed? Annoying?’ he suggested with a smile.
She laughed. ‘Something like that.’
He shrugged. ‘We can’t know what they’ve been through. They’ve had to leave behind their families and friends to the tender mercies of the Nazis. They arrived here with little more than the clothes on their backs. All they want to do is lash out at the Germans, and what they see as our petty rules are preventing them from doing that.’
Her brow puckered. ‘Do you have family in Czechoslovakia?’
He shook his head. ‘Well, not any I’ve met. I must have distant cousins, I suppose, but I don’t know anything about them.’
He glanced at the bar, but Milan was still waiting to be served. That gave him a few more minutes alone with Evie. Nothing could come of it, but he was starting to look forward to these brief moments with her. At times like this he could forget there was a war on, pretend he was free to pursue a relationship with a woman. ‘What about your family? Where are you from?’
‘Oxford. My mum still lives there, but my dad…’ She pressed her lips tightly
together, but she couldn’t quite hide their quivering.
‘I’m sorry.’ Alex felt an impulse to take her hand, but he resisted, doubting she would welcome it. He racked his brains for a change of subject. Then he remembered one of the things she’d said in her spirited tirade. ‘Did you really win a scholarship to Oxford?’
‘Yes. Why – don’t you think girls belong there?’ She was obviously too upset to filter her speech. Alex bit back a smile when her face turned scarlet and a look of horror formed on her face at the realisation she’d snapped at an officer. ‘I’m sorry, I—’
‘Don’t apologise. And you’re right, in a way. A few years ago, I’d have been very surprised to hear of a girl reading maths at university, but seeing how well you and the other WAAFs cope I’ve been forced to rethink my opinion.’
‘I’m glad to hear it.’ Evie smiled at him, and his heart swooped.
‘I think you’ve changed more minds than mine. What made you give up your scholarship?’
Evie’s pretty face clouded. ‘I didn’t give it up. My mother turned it down for me. It’s not just men who think women belong at home.’
‘Maybe she’ll change her mind when she learns about the difference you and all the WAAFs are making to the war effort. What would she think if you became an officer?’
Evie gave an incredulous laugh. ‘Me? She’d definitely think I’d got too high and mighty for my own good.’
‘I’m serious. You displayed definite officer material, the way you handled Milan. You should think about it.’