A Kestrel Rising

by S. A. Laybourn

  Pearl Harbor was a shock. I’ve heard that quite a few of my countrymen over here are all afire to go and have a crack at the Japs. The RAF isn’t too happy about it, but they don’t have to worry about me. I’d miss my Spitfire, so I’m staying for as long as the RAF will have me. I guess things may change at some point when the US gets organized enough to send more planes and men over here, but, until then, my loyalty is to the Brits. After all, they didn’t have to let some wet-behind-the-ears Yank fly one of their planes. I think they like me anyway, because I look after my planes and haven’t broken many. As much as I moan about the God-forsaken places we get posted, at least I know that, somewhere close by, there will be a decent pub.

  Now for the really good news. In spite of all the upheaval, I get to have a few days off at Christmas. So, I’ve been thinking, since it looks like we’re traveling on the same days and my train journey takes me, more or less, where you are, why don’t we travel together? I’ll let you know which train I’m on and save you a seat. That way, even if it’s standing room only, we can keep each other company. Let me know what you think. I know that talking to me is a bit different from writing letters, but I think we’re over the awkwardness of our first couple of meetings and can probably manage a crowded train journey without sniping.

  Right. That’s this letter done. It’s getting dark and you know what that means. We’re off to escort your Bomber Boys again.

  Regards, etc.

  Francis

  “So, will you take him up on his offer?” Grace asked.

  “I think so. He’s right about the train journey. It goes quicker if you have someone to talk to. I’m sure our families would be pleased to think we can all sit down and have Christmas dinner together without bristling and snarling at each other.”

  Grace laughed. “Your mum will be glad that there won’t be any scratch marks on the dining room table, I’ll bet.”

  “Not from me, anyway. Now all we need is snow and for Papa to bag some pheasants for dinner and it will be a lovely Christmas.”

  Chapter Ten

  Ilona stood shivering on the platform at Cambridge while the Norwich train slowed and rolled into the station with the slow hiss of brakes. A cloud of steam billowed into the frosty morning air while doors slammed up and down the platform. She peered along the carriages and tried to find Francis amidst the chaos until a sharp whistle caught her attention. She spotted him about five cars along, waving while he stood by a carriage. She picked up her bag, waved back and hurried along the platform as doors began to close.

  “Hello.” He grinned and took her bag. “We’re lucky. I have seats and the heating is working.”

  She smiled back. “I have sandwiches and a flask of tea.”

  “How did you manage that?” He led her along the carriage, squeezing past soldiers.

  “A friend in the canteen. One of the advantages of being a WAAF on a base where there aren’t many is we’re all friends. She does it for all of those who are traveling, because she hates to see us go hungry.”

  “Here we are.” He pointed to two empty spaces beside a sleeping soldier. “It’s a bit of a squeeze but as neither of us are carrying much weight at the moment, we should be fine. Now, do you want to be sandwiched between me and a perfect stranger or sitting on the aisle staring at another stranger’s belt buckle?”

  “Since you put it like that, I’ll take the middle seat. Your legs are longer than mine. You need the aisle.”

  He crammed her bag into the last gap on the luggage rack and sat beside her. It was a squeeze but it was better than standing. It was worth the discomfort knowing that, at the end of the journey, she would be home for the first time in sixteen months.

  They spent the first part of the journey reminiscing about Christmases before the war. His always seemed to involve lots of snow—and flour all over the kitchen from his mother’s annual attempts to make mince pies.

  “It’s a running joke in our family,” he told her. “Mom’s mince pies taste terrific but the kitchen always looks like a bomb site by the time she’s finished. It’s never that bad when she makes anything else, just mince pies.” He looked at her. “Can you cook?”

  “Not a thing. I’ve been deplorably spoiled.”

  He laughed. “At least you’re honest.”

  “I really should learn. I know I won’t be living on canteen food or home cooking forever. Perhaps I should buy a cookery book.”

  “Or do what Mom did and persuade the Reardons’ cook to teach her. That worked well because me and Dad never went hungry.”

  “I’ll get a cookery book. Mrs. Maplin would never let me near the stove.”

  Crossing London was a stark reminder that there was a war in progress, with sandbags everywhere on the Underground and walls plastered with posters with worthy advice and warnings. She was glad to reach Paddington and even happier that her companion appeared to have a knack for finding empty seats, this time unshared by any strangers. She handed out the sandwiches and they shared the mug from the flask between them as the train rolled away from the gray London suburbs and into the open countryside. The sun was sinking to the west and violet shadows stretched across fields still touched with frost. A luminous rosy light washed the landscape, promising a bitterly cold night. Ilona didn’t mind because she would be in her own bed with a fire roaring in the fireplace after a lovely home cooked meal. They both fell silent and watched the fields slip past and be replaced by trees and hills as they neared their stop.

  “So what are you looking forward to most about being here?” she asked.

  “Sleeping…in a real bed.” He sighed and it was rich with longing. “What about you?”

  “The same.”

  The train slowed. Ilona recognized the house alongside the track and the way the track curved toward the bridge and the station. “We’re here.”

  Francis took her bag down from the rack, retrieved his own and carried them both to the door of the carriage. “I can see your parents.” He leaned out of the window. “Does that mean I get a lift home?”

  “I should think so.”

  The train stopped. Francis opened the door and helped her onto the platform. For a moment, she remembered her previous homecoming and was relieved this one wasn’t colored with the dreadful, black grief that had flooded the last one. This time her mother smiled when she swept her into an enthusiastic hug. It was good to climb into the car and leave the long journey and the WAAF behind, if only for a handful of days.

  “Your sister is so excited that you’re home,” her mother told her.

  “What’s Charlie like?”

  “Loud. Nice enough, but loud.”

  “Oh dear.” Ilona guessed that she would be spending a lot of time in her room or outside. There were plenty of long walks to be had, if the weather held.

  Her father turned the car onto the Reardons’ drive where frost lingered in hollows beneath the trees and pulled up in the broad gravel circle by the front door. Francis retrieved his bag and thanked him for the ride. He kissed Ilona quickly on her cheek. “Thanks for your company and the sandwiches.” He slid out of the car. “I’ll see you soon.”

  “You two seem to be getting on rather well.” Her father observed, as they turned back down the drive.

  “Yes, we are,” Ilona said, surprised at her own answer. “He is nice. You were right, Mama.”

  “It’s just as well,” her father replied. “Being as you’re being thrown together over the next few days.”

  “We are?”

  “Lady Woodplumpton’s Christmas Eve party tomorrow night,” her mother said. “Then the Reardons are coming to us for Christmas Day, and then, of course, we go to theirs for Boxing Day, so your father is right. It’s good that you’re getting on. It wouldn’t have been much fun having you two bristling at each other all the time.”

  “No, you don’t have to worry about that.” She felt relief and contentment wash through her when they pulled up in front of the house. The windows glowed go
lden in the dusk and Aislinn waited at the front door. Ilona had barely climbed out of the car before being engulfed in her sister’s perfumed embrace.

  “Ooooh!” she exclaimed. “It’s so good to see you!”

  Ilona hugged her back. “It’s lovely to see you too,” she said into the black cloud of her sister’s hair. “It’s been ages.”

  “Two years.” She stepped back. “Don’t you look lovely in your dress blues.”

  “Tired and travel-stained, more like.” She took her sister’s arm and they walked into the house. The hall was softly lit and warm and the aroma of something wonderful stole out of the kitchen.

  “I’m so excited for you to meet Charlie.” Aislinn giggled. “He’s been dying to meet you.”

  “Same here.”

  On cue, a man appeared in the doorway of the small sitting room. He wasn’t much taller than her sister was and he grinned hugely. “Hullo, I’m Charlie. It’s nice to meet you.”

  Ilona took his hand and felt hers squeezed. “It’s nice to meet you too.” She noted the Brylcreemed black hair, the large white teeth and dark eyes and wondered if her sister had lost her mind.

  “I’ve heard a lot of about you.”

  “I’ve heard a lot about you too.” She wanted to get to her room, get out of uniform, and she excused herself. “I really ought to wash and change for dinner.”

  “Don’t worry, love. Plenty time to catch up.”

  “I look forward to that.” He couldn’t be all that bad if Ash loved him. There must have been something in him worth her sister’s adoration.

  She picked up her bag and retreated up the stairs. Her room was ready for her. A fire roared in the hearth and her mother had put a vase filled with holly and evergreen boughs on her dressing table. The bed looked tempting and, had she not been hungry, she would have been happy just to crawl under the freshly laundered sheets and eiderdown and sleep. Instead, she washed, changed and headed back downstairs in search of a pre-dinner sherry.

  * * * *

  Ilona couldn’t remember the last time she had slept so well and without dreams. She awoke to gray, wintry light slipping through the curtains and to the sounds of the house coming to life around her. She dressed and went down to breakfast, where Charlie and Aislinn giggled over something and her father took refuge behind his newspaper. Her mother greeted her arrival with obvious relief as she sat down beside her and helped herself to tea and toast.

  “Did you sleep well, dear?”

  “I did. Thanks, Mama. It was lovely to be back in my own bed again.” She reached for the marmalade and glanced out of the window. The icy brightness of the previous day had been replaced by sullen clouds and she wondered whether it was going to snow. The prospect of a white Christmas outweighed any annoyance created by her sister’s fiancé, who was relating some story about his best mate’s greyhound chasing a neighbor’s cat up a tree. She envied her father his newspaper and finished her breakfast quickly. She asked if anyone wanted to join her on her walk, but both Aislinn and Charlie declared that it was much too cold and they would rather stay warm by the fire. She suspected that her father would retreat to the greenhouse and her mother had mentioned something about repairing the dress she was going to wear to the Woodplumptons’ party.

  Ilona ran upstairs and grabbed her coat and boots. She hurried out of the front door and headed for the woods with the dogs in pursuit. It was a cold day, but still, and the air was damp. She thought it would snow before the day was out. She kicked her way through the carpet of leaves in the beech wood and onto the grassy verge at the edge of the barley field. A few seagulls hopped between the dark furrows and the smell of damp soil rose to meet her as she walked up the hill. She followed the path as it swung to the right and to the Reardons’ garden wall. The bench was still there, veiled with dead vines once more. She cleared them away then sat down to enjoy the view. The land slept under the spell of winter. The trees that bounded the fields were black lace against the leaden gray of the sky. Only the squabbling gulls broke the silence. Ilona decided to sit there for a while. She cleared her mind of everything that could have hurt and watched the smoke drift idly from the farmhouse chimney in the coombe below while the dogs flopped at her feet. The war and all its baggage seemed like a lifetime away from this landscape frozen in time.

  The scrape of the door in the wall made her jump. She turned around in time to see Francis shoulder his way through it. She was surprised to see him blush.

  “Hello. I wasn’t expecting any company.”

  “I was just sitting for a while and enjoying the view and the peace and quiet.”

  “Until I blundered through.”

  She laughed. “That’s all right.”

  He sat down beside her. “That’s good. I wouldn’t want to think that I’d interrupted anything.”

  “Heavens, no. I was just thinking how peaceful and unchanged it was—especially peaceful.”

  “So, Charlie is loud then.”

  “Sadly, yes. I know I’ll sound like a dreadful snob, but he’s a bit of a spiv and I can’t for the life of me imagine what Ash was thinking.”

  “What on earth is a spiv?”

  “A wide boy, a wheeler and dealer.”

  “All right, I get the idea and, no, you don’t sound like a snob. I gather I will have the pleasure of meeting him at the Woodplumptons’ party tonight.”

  “Yes, you will.”

  “If it’s anything like last year’s party, which I also had the pleasure to attend, I’ll be too busy providing the entertainment.”

  “Entertainment?”

  “I made the mistake of sitting down and tinkering on the piano. Before I knew it, I was playing requests for the remainder of the evening…and I never got a single tip.”

  “Oh dear.”

  “Never mind, it was fun and it was better than making small talk with a bunch of strangers. Since you’re there tonight, it won’t be so bad. We can avoid your future brother-in-law together.”

  Ilona thought about walking again. It was too cold to sit still for long. She stood up. “I think I’d best carry on walking, before I freeze to the spot.”

  “Would you mind some company?”

  “No, I don’t mind at all, but I’ll warn you, I’m taking a long walk.”

  “That’s fine by me. I can’t sit around all day. I’d go crazy.”

  They strolled down the grass track around the edge of the field down into the coombe and past the farmhouse. The farmer’s wife waved when they ambled past, following an old footpath along the side of the farmyard. The path took them out onto the road and Ilona turned right, heading down toward the river. The woods were still and gloomy and the leaves left a soft, damp carpet beneath their feet. The wind stirred, rattling the bare branches. The dogs snuffled through the undergrowth, idly rooting under branches and logs.

  “You do like long walks, don’t you?” Francis said as they followed the path along the river.

  “When I get the chance, yes. I spend all my working days sitting in a lorry. It’s nice to stretch my legs.” The path led along the bank to a little half circle of yellowed grass, a favorite picnic and fishing spot when she and Aislinn were children. She sat down on the old log, worn smooth by generations of anglers and picnickers and gazed at the black, still waters of the Loddon.

  Francis sat beside her. “Nice spot.”

  “It’s a favorite fishing spot…and for picnics. It’s lovely here in the summer.”

  He put his hands into his pockets. “Dad told me about this place. Mom asked him to join your mom and her brothers the first day they met.”

  “She did?”

  “She did. He told me that he was helping his aunt peel potatoes in the Reardons’ kitchen and Mom came running down the stairs in search of the picnic basket. He said he took one look at her and was lost.”

  “I remember Mama telling me about that, and how she missed it all because she spent the afternoon asleep on the grass.” Ilona laughed. “She hated missi
ng out on all the fun, because she’s terribly nosy.”

  A cold, damp breeze stirred the water and rustled through the dry reeds on the far bank. The field beyond was fallow and a flock of starlings wheeled overhead. It didn’t seem possible to her that there was a war on. They sat in silence for a while, llona watching the starlings, her companion lost in thought. Only when the first flakes of snow drifted idly earthward did either stir. Ilona spotted them first. “Snow. How lovely.”

  “It snows here?”

  “Sometimes, not as much as where you live. Far from it.” She rose. “You’ll probably laugh because a big snowfall to us is about four inches.”

  “At least it’s not so much to shovel away.” He stood up. “I guess we had better get back. You look a bit cold.”

  “I am,” she admitted. “But I can’t bear the thought of going back to that noise and chatter.”

  He glanced at his watch. “It won’t be for that long. Have an afternoon nap then you won’t hear a thing.”

  * * * *

  By the time they were ready to walk to the party, the snow was falling in earnest, thick, whirling flakes. It settled into a deep blanket that wrapped the world in silence and gave off a pale light of its own when they ventured down the drive. Even Charlie was silenced by it and Ilona enjoyed the peace and the soft whisper of the flakes as they settled. The Reardons waited at the bottom of their drive and all the talk was of the snow and how perfect that it was Christmas Eve.

  “Did you have your nap?” Francis fell into step beside Ilona.

  “I did, thank you.” She concentrated on not slipping in the snow.

  He offered her his arm. “I wouldn’t want you to fall on your ass.”

  “Thank you.” She took his arm. “I should’ve worn boots.”

  The village was in darkness because of the blackout and the only sign of life from the Wheatsheaf was muffled laughter through a crack in the door. Everything seemed to be sleeping. The illusion was put to rest when they reached the Woodplumptons’ and walked into a house full of chatter, cigarette smoke and music. Lady Woodplumpton greeted them warmly, kissing Ilona on both cheeks.