The Bannister Girls

by Jean Saunders

  It was the most calm and beautiful day, sweet-scented with flowers of early summer. Perfect for flying, Angel told herself over and over to quell the way her stomach turned at the thought. No one at the Abbey knew that today she was to make the most exciting journey of her life … she had to keep repeating those words to herself too…

  Jacques looked anxiously at the sky. His artist’s eye briefly acknowledged its beauty. Azure blue and corn gold, the great orb of the sun dazzled the eyes … Common sense of the practised flyer took over. It was just the setting for the German planes to hover, hidden between the British planes and the sun, waiting to pounce. A pilot would hear nothing but the throb of his own engines, the flap of canvas and the judder of metal, until out of nowhere came a sudden raucous whine of an alien engine, a flash of gleaming metal, a spitting of red fire from the weapon in the hands of a Jerry gunner…

  Jacques unclenched his hands, unaware until that moment that they had been tight with tension. Was he mad to have suggested flying to England with Angel as his passenger? If danger threatened they would have no defence. They would be shot to pieces, the way his first plane had been shot down, burning, burning, screaming towards the ground in its death-throes, the earth leaping to meet them before they exploded in a wild eruption of flames.

  Memories of that time surged into his mind with their usual nightmare proportions. He could still see Phil Brake’s skin shrivelling in front of him, the flesh curling, the stink more abominable than hell. He could hear Phil’s cries, mingling with his own, the sounds nothing short of demonic. Jacques’ blasphemy had been savage and unrelenting then, denying a God who had put this hell on earth, and begging Phil to die quickly.

  He had longed for death for himself, as he had crawled from the inferno of his plane with every inch of his skin on fire, abrasive with the shock of blisters bloating his body, his eyes raw and splinter-dry. And then the new, almost unbearable shock of finding himself at the edge of a lake, of plunging in and feeling the sweet icy water soothe him for an instant, before the new pain enveloped him.

  Such pain was inhuman … he gave up the struggle, letting himself float face-down and waiting for death … ragged and drowning, he suddenly screamed as hands that were not his own began dragging him out of the water.

  Hands that ripped the ravaged, tender flesh from his arms, and voices that shouted at him in his native language. Hold on, hold on … but couldn’t they see that he hadn’t wanted to hold on? He’d wanted to let the freezing water suck him down, soothing him into oblivion…

  He had wanted so much to die, and ever since, he had carried the memory of that thought inside him like a penance. It was wrong to seek death from a God who had given him life. His very upbringing condemned him for it. But if it was wrong to want death for himself, how much worse was it to spend every waking hour in senseless killing?

  Jacques had finally been forced to stop questioning things to which there were no answers. He was part of the machine of war. He had to go on, like everyone else, until one side or the other was the victor.

  But did he have to do this? It had seemed so simple an idea. To take Angel with him, and try to convey to her without words his own deepest feelings, never nearer to whatever god existed than when he was soaring high into the heavens, part of a great eternal universe.

  Was he right to risk taking her into danger, or feeding his own ego while he still searched to find himself out of the muddle of spent emotions since the crash? Even worse, was it just crass foolhardiness?

  He gave a grim smile. He preferred to think it was something he had in common with the great dare-devil air aces who were the products of this war. The exploits of them all were imprinted on every pilot’s brain. He could recite them parrot fashion, if asked…

  The inspiration of the RFC 2nd Lieutenant Albert Ball, fearlessly leading an SE5 squadron, was last seen flying into a cloudbank in May of 1917. Later found dead at his controls, badly mutilated when his plane crashed, not yet aged twenty-one…

  The brilliant German von Richthofen, shot down just last month. When his plane was found, it was rumoured that he was frozen to the controls. The leader of the great ‘Richthofen circus’ was dead.

  News of each death had struck Jacques as oddly comparable, symbolic of the love of flying. And like many of his fellow pilots, he was unable to separate in his mind the bravery and the loss of ally or enemy.

  He shook himself. The bus from St Helene was rattling along the dirt road towards him, scattering a fine yellow dust from every wheel. He had made the plans, and must stick by them. And not for a second must he reveal the fear that sometimes still crawled over his gut, as if to remind him that he was not invincible. He slammed shut the door of his car as he stepped outside it, shielding his eyes against the flurry of dust.

  As if through a mist, he saw Angel step through it, and just as instantly, his heart seemed to settle into its proper place. His brave and beautiful wife was here, and at the brief uncertainty he glimpsed in her eyes, followed immediately by a look of love and confidence in him, Jacques felt a fierce protective strength return. He had vowed to love and keep her, and he would do so until eternity.

  ‘Isn’t it a wonderful day?’ Angel said, taut with excitement when they had hugged and kissed, and he had stowed her baggage in the back of the car. ‘Oh, Jacques, I can’t believe we’ll actually be in England in a few hours!’

  He laughed, her exuberance lifting him.

  ‘I promise you it will be an unforgettable experience, chérie! Just remember to do exactly as I tell you. Don’t move too quickly to left or right and rock the plane, and wear your goggles at all times. Don’t be tempted to take them off to wipe away the oil and grime they collect, or you’ll have stinging eyes for the rest of the day.’

  She listened, wide-eyed, half amused at the seriousness in his voice, teasing him in return.

  ‘Yes, sir! I didn’t know I was going to get a lecture!’

  ‘You’ll thank me for it, Angel –’

  ‘Is there anything else I should know?’ she asked laughing, yet with a sudden catch in her breath. The journey ahead of her was so awe-inspiring to the uninitiated. It was something she had tried not to think about too deeply.

  Jacques laughed too. ‘Don’t fall out! I want to get you home all in one piece.’

  Home. It was a word she hadn’t even thought of as yet. The transfer to England had been more a frustration than anything else. Being away from the proximity of Jacques’ unit. Leaving the Abbey with which she was now so familiar.

  But now she swallowed hard. She was going home. The war wasn’t over yet, but for Angel at that moment, it almost seemed as though it was. Her throat felt thick, and it seemed as if Jacques was reading her mind. His voice was gentle.

  ‘This is only au revoir to France, chérie. After the war, we’ll both return, and see it all with different eyes.’

  ‘But it is all so changed,’ she said sadly, scanning the countryside. Yet here, the waving grasses of the fields were still lovely, giving no hint of the carnage that was such a short distance away in the valley of the Somme and the Western Front.

  ‘France has survived all through history, dearest,’ Jacques spoke without expression. ‘She’ll rise again, like a phoenix from the ashes, you’ll see.’

  There was a catch in Angel’s voice. ‘But she’ll have lost so much, just like Britain and all the Allied countries. So many young men who will never grow old beside their wives. So many grieving young women –’

  She shivered, and it was as if a cloud had passed over the sun, even though the day was still sparklingly bright. Jacques brought the car to a halt on the grass verge, switched off the engine, and turned to her. There was a great and gentle quiet about the countryside now, as if no threat of killing existed. He took her in his arms.

  ‘Listen to the silence, chérie. Can’t you hear that France and all the world is waiting for the miracle that will come soon? These fields will echo to the voices of children singing agai
n, free to gather wild flowers and roam where they will. And for you and me, there will be time to grow old together, my Angel. Never doubt that.’

  ‘And all those others?’ For some reason, she couldn’t rid her mind of their ghosts. ‘Will we forget them so soon?’

  ‘The world will never forget. I guarantee it.’

  It was as solemn as a vow. Two people who had so far survived a war kissed and clung, almost sensing the grateful sighs of all those lost comrades in the shimmering soft green grasses of France.

  ‘It looks so flimsy!’ Angel exclaimed, when at last they stood beside the tiny plane. The car had been safely stowed away until Jacques’ return, and Jacques had given her brief instructions as they prepared to climb into the open cockpits.

  Angel’s mouth was dry as bone, her limbs soft as jelly. It was all going to happen, and she could do nothing to stop it. She wore the smallest size flying helmet, the fragrant scent of the leather wafting into her nostrils. She adjusted the goggles to sit securely on her nose. A young man in overalls was preparing to spin the propeller, and Jacques was holding out his hand to her.

  She felt his fingers curl around her own, and his dark eyes looked steadily into hers. She gave a brief nod, and let him help her clamber into the impossibly tiny seat. Jacques seated himself behind her. He shouted something to the mechanic, the propeller spun as the engine jerked into life, and Angel thought all hell had been let loose.

  Everything rattled and shook, and she grasped the sides of her seat for dear life. Struts vibrated, spurts of oil were flung into her face, she could hear the air whistling through the flapping canvas, her heart thudded faster than the engine noises, and if there had been time to assess her exact feelings at that moment, she would have admitted to a feeling of pure terror…

  ‘Hold tight!’ Jacques yelled at her above the roar of the engine. ‘This is the worst bit –’

  All of it was the worst bit, Angel thought hysterically. How could anyone be obsessed with flying, when it was so unbelievably frightening? All the romantic notions she had harboured, along with everyone else, disappeared in a flash.

  The ground was rushing alongside and beneath them as the plane gathered momentum on the rough grass of the airfield. Then there was suddenly nothing below, only a great tipping void, echoing the way her stomach was plummeting downwards…

  She gritted her teeth as the plane lurched and dipped, the span of the wings hiding the ground one minute so that they were adrift in a great ocean of blue … and the next, revealing the ground still terribly close, although the tiny buildings of Brighton Belle were becoming toytown miniatures below.

  And then there was a feeling of sudden calm as Jacques reached the correct height for cruising, and levelled the plane. As he did so, Angel’s stomach stopped somersaulting and stayed more or less in its proper place. Jacques yelled at her to breathe deeply, and wasn’t the air like heady wine, and clearer than anything she had ever breathed before?

  She smiled weakly, trying to make her breathing less erratic. And gradually, she had to agree with him. Despite the undisputed smell of oil from the engine, there was a purity in the atmosphere that she had never sensed before. Compared with the appalling smells of the hospital, this was truly like heaven.

  Angel shouted back to tell him so, and her voice was carried away on the wind screaming through the struts, mingling with it like a strangely heavenly chorus.

  She heard his rich warm laugh drifting towards her, and with it, all fear seemed to float away. Here they were, the two of them, in a private world of their own, untouched by the war.

  ‘I never imagined it would be like this!’

  They both had to shout against the engine noise, but even that seemed to have a secure rhythm about it now, taking them home … taking them home…

  In place of the fear, Angel began to feel a wild elation. Below them, there was nothing but the fields of France, a patchwork of green, interspersed with clusters of mellowed buildings and scattered farmhouses, and the snaking blue of the rivers. Above them was the infinite blue of the universe, the sun dazzling, the faint pale arc of the moon just visible when she was forced to tear her eyes away from such brilliance.

  ‘It’s all so beautiful,’ she said raggedly. ‘It’s the world in a way I never thought to see it –’

  ‘This is only a fraction of it, Angel,’ Jacques shouted back. ‘One day airmen will conquer the rest of it. They’ll even get to the moon, you’ll see!’

  She was the one to laugh at such absurdity now. It didn’t matter. It was a day for making impossible statements. Up here, away from all the reality, you felt you could say anything…

  ‘Jacques, I do love you!’ she shouted, feeling the wind snatch away the words, elated to know the pleasure of saying such things aloud, yet in total privacy.

  ‘And I love you, my dearest Madame de Ville,’ he shouted back. She saw him point downwards to their left.

  She looked, and there was the shining blue water of the English Channel, a million diamond points sparkling on its surface, the steady progress of ships ploughing across it no more than toy boats on a pond below.

  How could she ever have been afraid of this, Angel wondered? It was the experience of a lifetime … and she had no idea that Jacques was thanking God or fate or whatever guardian angel watched over them, that they had come thus far in perfect safety, with a fair breeze blowing them from France to the distant coast of England.

  When Angel saw the first hint of land, it gave her an odd, choking feeling. They were almost home, yet she loved France with almost as much fervour as her native England. It would be no hardship for her to settle there after the war – if that was what Jacques intended. It was something there had been little time to discuss or even consider yet. All they had wanted was to belong, and to be together.

  The little fields of England were greener than she remembered, or perhaps it was just the perspective of them from this height. They soared over the great monuments of Stonehenge as they circled towards Salisbury Plain and the airbase where Jacques was to report. He turned off the engine and guided the plane down on its own momentum.

  The early evening sunlight was becoming lower in the sky now, and the only sound was that of the wind in the spars and rigging. Angel felt she knew exactly how it must feel to be a bird, to drift on the breeze, to coast gently down to earth, soporific and relaxed…

  A sudden lurching and bumping jolted her, and she realised they had landed. Jacques turned to her, removing his goggles, and she laughed out loud at his comical black face, knowing hers would be the same once the goggles were removed. There was a question in his eyes.

  ‘Well, chérie?’ he said softly. ‘Did it live up to your expectations?’

  ‘It did far more than that! It was something I shall never forget.’

  ‘That’s what I hoped.’ He jumped down, and lifted her down after him. ‘I’ll report in, then we’ll get cleaned up a little, and find the hotel near Calne where we stayed before, when you drove up with Margot.’

  ‘That sounds fine,’ she said, trying to be casual, though in truth her nerves were beginning to jump again. Delicious, tingling nerves, but nerves all the same. They had had so little time together since their marriage, just brief afternoons and occasional night passes since then.

  And now they had three whole blissful days before Jacques flew back to France, and Angel took the train to the convalescent home in Essex. Three days that were to be their true honeymoon…

  She was shown the way to the women’s quarters where she could wash her face with special soap made to clean away grime and oil, and didn’t do much for delicate skins, Angel thought ruefully. But in little more than half an hour she and Jacques were together again, and to her relief he had cadged them a lift in an air force truck fetching supplies.

  ‘I was afraid we’d have to walk,’ she whispered, embarrassed to talk too loudly with the fresh-faced Air Force personnel in the truck, and feeling very much out of place in her civilia
n clothes as well as being the only woman.

  Unconsciously her hand went up to tuck a stray wisp of hair in place. War devoured the femininity of women, but for three days and nights, she was going to be all the woman Jacques desired. Her spirit soared. She was Jacques de Ville’s woman…

  Before leaving France, she had taken the wedding ring from its customary chain around her neck, and now wore it proudly on her finger. It felt cold and unfamiliar and infinitely dear against her skin. Tonight there would be no need to remove it.

  The staff at the hotel welcomed them as old friends, remembering them from the last time they had stayed there. Angel felt a blush rise in her cheeks. They had been lovers then. They were lovers still, but there was an undefinable sweetness in knowing that now they truly belonged. They were honeymooners, but to the staff they were merely the dashing Captain de Ville and his lovely wife, paying them a second visit.

  ‘The fare we have to offer is more frugal than before,’ the hostess apologised. ‘The war, you know – but then, I don’t have to tell you that, do I?’

  They murmured politely, and told her that she didn’t. Whatever she prepared, they would enjoy immensely, and a glass or two of wine before the meal would help their appetites enormously…

  They smiled into each other’s eyes, because the food didn’t matter, and the wine only served to heighten their desire for each other.

  They had been given the same room as before, a fact that charmed them both. They closed the bedroom door behind them and shut out the rest of the world. Jacques held out his arms to her and she went into them, as close as though his heart beat within her breast.

  He reached up his hands and pulled the pins from her hair. It had grown long again, and she normally wore it in a neat bun at the hospital, but now it cascaded in silky, shimmering waves over her shoulders. Jacques held a handful of it in his fingers and pressed it to his lips. Her heart tightened at the love in his eyes.