‘Home time, Finch,’ Scott-Farnie barked. ‘And you, Noble.’
Elsie and Susie glanced at each other, knowing better than to argue. Their shift had officially ended at eight am, but they had volunteered to stay on.
With a yawn and stretch, Elsie collected her belongings and made her way outside, shortly followed by Susie. The racket from the siren was deafening but there was little point in seeking shelter, knowing that the Jerries would practically be back on their bases in France by now. The all-clear would sound at any moment.
‘Christ, my muscles feel like tightropes,’ Elsie called above the din, rolling her head around her shoulders and flexing her fingers. With trembling and cramped hands, she just about managed to open her packet of cigarettes. ‘Want one?’
Susie nodded and plucked one from the pack. ‘Thanks,’ she mumbled, collecting her bicycle from the usual untidy heap beside the cottage. ‘Well, that was a bit intense today.’
‘I just feel so helpless,’ Elsie said, puffing out short, shallow breaths of smoke. ‘I wish Group would get their act together and get our planes up there more quickly.’
Susie nodded but said nothing, and Elsie placed her hand in the small of her back, suddenly realising how hard it must be for her. The last thing that she would want, was her boyfriend up there, a hair’s breadth between survival and death.
As usual, they headed to the tea van. Annie greeted them with a big, toothy grin. ‘Afternoon, ladies,’ she yelled, ‘shouldn’t you be in the shelter?’
‘Shouldn’t you?’ Elsie returned with a smile.
‘They’ll have to carry me in at gunpoint!’ Annie chirped, wiping greasy hands on her apron. ‘I’m not going to let my boys down. Or girls, for that matter. What can I get you?’
Annie spoke to Susie but her question was met with a vacant expression.
‘Two teas and two ham sandwiches, please,’ Elsie said, stepping up to the counter. Susie was fixed on the aerodrome gates, then she turned back to Annie. ‘Do you know what just went up?’
Annie frowned and thought for a moment. ‘Defiants, I think they were. Getting quite the expert, I am!’
Elsie watched as the light returned to Susie’s eyes and colour flushed in her cheeks. Evidently her boyfriend was not a Defiant pilot. She was a good match for him, Elsie considered, both being exceptionally good-looking. Susie had a mass of curly light-blonde hair that she struggled to keep stuffed under her hat and very soft, feminine features.
Elsie sat down on the grass bank, took a bite of her sandwich and watched as Susie flattened herself out and thrust her head backwards towards the sun, gently puffing grey haloes of smoke into the air above her, looking like she didn’t have a single worry in the world. As Elsie watched her, she thought of the warning that her boyfriend had given her three days ago. Since that day, Elsie had been trying to find an opportunity to speak alone with Susie. Finally, one had now presented itself.
‘What does your boyfriend fly?’ Elsie asked.
‘Hurricanes, mainly,’ Susie answered, with a proud smile. ‘One of the squadron’s best, by all accounts.’
‘He seems nice,’ Elsie said.
‘He is.’
‘I’ve only spoken to him once, mind you. He said something a bit peculiar.’
Susie sat up, looking puzzled, and raised a hand into the air to act as a sun shield. ‘Oh?’
‘He asked if I was staying up at Cliff House and when I told him that I was, he told me to be careful.’
Susie laughed—but there was a moment’s pause first and the delay betrayed her—Elsie had seen the flash of a knowledge deeper than that to which she was about to admit. ‘It’s just Daniel worrying about you—a single girl all alone when the rest of us girls are shacked up together.’ She waved her hand dismissively, took a mouthful of sandwich and laid back down. ‘Delicious,’ she said.
Elsie eyed her suspiciously. The sandwiches were never delicious. They were pappy, bland, rationed.
They ate and drank under the continual drone of the siren until Susie sat up and spoke again. ‘How do you cope, Elsie?’
‘Cope with what?’
‘Life,’ Susie clarified, ‘I mean now that you’re a widow. How do you cope without him? I don’t mean practically; I mean inside.’ She took a deep breath. ‘I’ve not known Daniel all that long but he’s like a part of me now—a real, functioning part of me—like an extra limb or organ. I’m sure my body couldn’t go on without him.’ She held her left hand aloft, fingers splayed. ‘I can’t wait for the day when I become Mrs Daniel Winter.’
‘It’s different for me,’ Elsie began, trying to find the words to explain. ‘Laurie and I—we never had that…we were never like that.’
‘What do you mean? You never had the feeling that you wanted to spend every minute of every day with him and when you’re apart you feel like you might burst?’
Elsie shook her head. ‘At the start, maybe. Then he changed—he wasn’t the man that I thought he was.’
‘Then why did you marry him?’
Elsie shrugged. It was a question that she had asked herself many times over, but now it felt callous to even think it. She was glad, really, that Laurie had experienced a fleeting glance of marriage before he had died. ‘It all happened so quickly and I didn’t get a great deal of say in the matter; it was almost all arranged between Laurie and my dad—they worked together, you see and my father only saw one side to him.’
‘Christ!’ Susie exclaimed. ‘But look at you, Sergeant Finch—you’re the last girl I would have taken for a pushover.’
Elsie smiled, choosing to skew Susie’s statement as a compliment. ‘I changed, a little.’
Susie laughed. ‘As little as a caterpillar changing into a butterfly.’
Elsie grinned, liking that analogy of herself.
With a yawn, Susie declared herself ready for bed. ‘I’ve got to get my beauty sleep ready for the dance tonight. You should come.’
‘No, I don’t think so,’ Elsie said. ‘It wouldn’t be right.’
Susie shrugged, leapt up, planted a kiss on top of Elsie’s head and picked up her bicycle. ‘Well, it’s up to you—I don’t think it’s a problem. For now, I bid you good day, Sergeant.’
Elsie did a mock salute. ‘Good day, ma’am.’ She watched Susie all the way until she disappeared at the end of the road, then she mounted her bicycle, shouted a goodbye to Annie and began down the lane beside the aerodrome.
Elsie cycled slowly, allowing the bicycle to glide as she enjoyed the warmth of the sun on the nape of her neck. Her sun-baked thoughts were directed at just one thing: Susie and Daniel. She tried to replay both the conversations in her mind but the elapsed time had since erased small pieces and filed away at the firm edges of her certainty. Had she really seen the glint of indecision in Susie’s eyes just then, as she had considered her answer? Was Daniel’s warning as simple as Susie had suggested? That he was just worried about her living arrangements? Doubt had crept in, but not enough to completely counter her instincts.
In the brief trough of quiet before the next drone of the siren, Elsie caught the sound of shouting. She applied the brake and glanced about her. At first, her eyes passed over the aerodrome fence, but then something caught her eye and she turned back to see William Smith, waving like a lunatic with a big inane grin. She couldn’t help but smile at his impish face. He beckoned her over. He was dressed ready to fly with his helmet on his head and a bright yellow life-jacket on. At the fence, she noticed other pilots sitting outside their dispersal hut, also prepared to fly.
‘What can I do for you, Pilot Officer Smith?’ Elsie asked aloofly.
‘Say yes?’ he said, feigning a peculiar sadness. His thin fingers clung to the wire fence, giving him the impression of being a specimen in a zoo.
‘Say yes to what?’ Elsie asked.
‘To accompanying me to the RAF dance tonight at the village hall. If I make it through today, I’ve got two days’ leave and I can stay in Hawkinge.’
Elsie shook her head. It just wouldn’t be right, given her circumstances; and she could only imagine the look of horror on Agnes’s face at being told that she would be going to a dance with a chap from the RAF. ‘No, sorry.’
The dejection cut genuine sadness into his face. ‘Please? The last one was a hoot. I’ll be all lonely—all you WAAF girls are going,’ William pleaded. ‘I know your situation—I won’t try any funny business.’
‘Sorry, but no,’ Elsie maintained.
From somewhere behind him, a telephone rang and all the colour drained from his face and his eyes widened with fear as a bell began to ring.
‘Oh, damn,’ William murmured. ‘Sorry.’
‘What is it?’ Elsie asked, drawing closer to the wire.
‘We’re being called up to help those poor bastards in the Defiants—they’re likely being torn to ribbons up there.’
‘Scramble! Scramble! Scramble!’ one of the pilots yelled from behind him.
‘Goodbye,’ William whispered, barely able to draw breath. He turned and ran towards the waiting aircraft.
‘I’ll come!’ Elsie shouted. But he never turned back, just kept running. ‘I’ll come,’ she repeated loudly, watching as he climbed into a waiting Hurricane. She stood at the fence, biting her lip, wondering if he had heard her, as she watched plane after plane roaring into life and coursing across the grassy runway. Twelve went up.
‘Oh! Will you just shut up, moaning Minnie!’ she suddenly yelled in the general direction of the air raid siren. Where was the damned thing, anyway? The sound appeared to be coming from everywhere—as if the trees, tarmac and all the surrounding houses chimed in like some awful tone-deaf choir, stuck on the same tune. Given a weapon and half the chance, she would quite happily have shot the bloody thing off its pole.
Elsie stood holding her bicycle, watching the Hurricanes until the only trace of them was the dispersing cotton wool vapour trails hanging loosely in the blue sky. Then she made for home.
She noticed that the closer she drew to Cliff House, the slower she was cycling. Any slower and she would fall off. The house came into view and she dismounted, preferring to walk the last stretch. She remembered, then, what William had said about the Defiants being torn to pieces and suddenly felt guilty for having earlier wished those aircraft into battle. Those planes were full of Daniels and Williams.
In her mind, she was dissecting William’s choice of phrase: torn to ribbons. What did that mean, exactly? She hoped that it meant that, although they were being shot at, they were still capable of flying. Then the answer came, in part.
A pair of Defiants, clearly in trouble, were making the left-hand circuit approach for landing at the aerodrome. One of them had only got one wheel down in preparation to land, and the other was flying with an odd tilt to its left wing.
Elsie held her breath and watched as, one after the other, they disappeared down behind the aerodrome fence. Her sense of relief was cut short and she fell to the ground as another flew in—what felt just a few yards above her head—ablaze from wingtip to wingtip. She shrieked, as the searing ball of heat passed overhead. ‘Get out! Get out!’ she shouted at the stricken pilot.
He wasn’t going to make the hill that lead up to the aerodrome—he was far too low. She couldn’t bear to watch and covered her eyes at the last moment. Then came the explosion. Opening her eyes, all she could see was an orange and red ball funnelling thick plumes of black smoke into the air. ‘Oh, you poor, poor man,’ she sobbed quietly.
Above her, came another roar as two more Defiants swept up towards the aerodrome. ‘Please make it, please!’
She wanted to close her eyes, but she needed to know if they had made it over the fence safely. She held her breath as the two aircraft banked around then went in, one after the other.
She grabbed her bicycle and pedalled furiously up the hill towards the house. She swept down the long drive, dropped her bicycle near to the front door and ran inside. Thankfully, the house seemed deserted and she didn’t need to explain herself. Upstairs, she dashed into Laurie’s old room, grabbed his telescope and carted it into her bedroom, setting it up at the window. The eyepiece took some fine-tuning, but finally she had a clear, unobstructed view of the aerodrome boundary.
And there, almost without blinking, Elsie watched and waited.
It seemed to take an age for the first of the Hurricanes to arrive back. They flew in low, appearing like a flock of crows in the viewfinder, in the standard formation of groups of three. Thank God, there were four groups; all the Hurricanes had made it back to the aerodrome. William had made it back safely.
Elsie felt her heart rhythm change a gear and slow down to something like a normal beat. For the first time in what felt like hours, she started to relax. She changed out of her uniform, putting on a light cotton dress and went downstairs. Aside from the continual siren droning on and on, the house was still and she wondered where Agnes, Kath and Gwen had got to. Not that she really cared; they had done very little to make her feel welcome since her arrival and every conversation seemed to underline the fact that they didn’t want her in the house. The more that she thought about it, the more minded she was to find another billet.
She ran herself a glass of water from the kitchen tap and stood drinking it at the window, looking out over the coast. Then, at last, the war maestro changed his tune and played the single continuous note that announced the all-clear.
The skies and seas before her, silent and empty, were restored to their former ageless harmony; all traces of the previous violence and destruction had gone.
Then, she spotted the three women in the garden, spilling out of the Anderson shelter. Elsie couldn’t help but smile at the sight of them: the grieving mother—all in black—and two hugely pregnant women, stooping, hobbling and stretching from hours of inactivity. Elsie pulled open the back door to let them inside.
‘Oh!’ Agnes murmured. ‘And where did you spring from?’ She set her knitting down on the table—the early stages of some hideous dress, by its appearance.
‘My bedroom,’ Elsie answered.
‘You should have been sheltering,’ Gwen said, eyeing her suspiciously.
Elsie wanted to say that she would rather take her chances with the Luftwaffe than sit for hours on end in a glorified tin can, knitting with three odious women, but instead she said, ‘Well, the twenty Messerschmitts that bombed Dover are now back at their base in Cap Gris Nez. The Defiants and Hurricanes sent up to chase them off are all safely tucked up at the aerodrome with their pilots enjoying a nice cup of tea; so, there seemed little point in sheltering.’ Her answer was false, churlish, in breach of the Official Secrets Act and mocked the terrible horrors that she had just witnessed, yet Elsie took a strange pleasure in knowing more than did they; every conversation between them seemed to actually be a game. A puerile pointless game.
‘So, what did you get up to today, then?’ Kath quizzed sweetly, lacing her arm through Elsie’s. Every day at least one of them had attempted to extract from her the precise nature of her work, and every day she had relished the opportunity to string them along.
Elsie returned the sweet smile. ‘Well, of course, I should have finished work at eight this morning but there was a terrible amount to do—all highly important for the war effort.’
‘Really,’ Agnes breathed, somewhere between mocking and disbelieving.
‘Work connected to the highest levels of government,’ Elsie added enigmatically.
‘And they let a simple teacher like you in on it all?’ Agnes asked.
‘Churchill himself was at the aerodrome just a week ago,’ Elsie said, truthfully. ‘Just before I arrived.’
Agnes made a scoffing noise and turned away, rummaging in a cupboard.
‘I won’t be here for dinner tonight,’ Elsie said.
‘Churchill want you to work, does he?’ Gwen smirked.
‘No, I’m going to a dance.’
Agnes looked up with fiery eyes. ‘A d
ance?’
‘That’s right. I’m going with the other WAAF girls.’
Agnes shook her head. ‘You’ve barely been widowed a month and you’re going to be cavorting with other men? I can’t believe it of you, Elsie—really I can’t.’ She looked incredulously at Kath and Gwen. ‘Can you believe what you’re hearing?’
They shook their heads.
‘I shan’t be cavorting,’ Elsie defended, fully expecting this reaction. ‘I shall be spending some time with my girlfriends from work, then I shall come home.’
‘Well,’ Agnes muttered. ‘I hoped you would at least show some respect for my poor son, lying on a French beach somewhere—probably in tiny pieces—and not dance with other men.’
‘I shan’t be dancing, Agnes,’ Elsie said. ‘Really, it will probably just be a gramophone, a few dried sandwiches and a bit of fun with the girls.’
Agnes shook her head. ‘I’m disappointed in you, Elsie. When my husband died, I was in mourning for years, not minutes.’
‘I can be in mourning and still live my life,’ Elsie said, turning her back on the three women’s disgusted gawps. She heard mumbling and murmuring as she left, but didn’t turn back.
Up in her bedroom, Elsie closed the door and fell onto the bed with relief. This musty-smelling room with its lumpy bed had become her haven of refuge. She stared at the yellowing ceiling, mulling over her decision to go to the dance. The truth was, she didn’t know if it was appropriate or not. Maybe things would be different if she had loved Laurie. Maybe not. She thought of her parents and wondered what they would think. She looked across at their photo on her dresser, wondering how they were getting on in Coventry. She still had plenty of time to get ready, so she decided to write to them, intending a happy newsy letter that would set their minds at ease. She lay on the bed with the paper propped on her pillow and began to write. But, after twenty minutes, all that she had to show were three screwed up balls of paper on the floor. The combination of the restrictions over her job and the knowledge that every letter leaving the coastal defence zone was opened by a censor, had left her letters devoid of anything but the banal. She tossed the writing paper under her bed, picked up The Adventure of the Sussex Vampire and shuffled herself around the bed bumps into a comfortable position.
The Spyglass File (The Forensic Genealogist Book 4) Page 8