by Murray Pura
I love you. My love to Ramsay and Tim as well.
Ben
July 11, 1940
Dearest Ben,
Thanks so much for your letter. Way down in West Sussex, are you? Do you know I’ve never been? But I’ve heard it’s lovely.
I was going to say I’m glad things are fairly quiet for you but I’ve just had Ramsay rush in and tell me your squadron had a bit of a row yesterday. One Hurricane down and two German bombers down whilst you were protecting a convoy. It isn’t you because Ramsay said they mentioned your name as squadron leader. I’m glad you came out all right, obviously, but I’m sorry for the chap who was lost—or did he bale out in time?
We are praying constantly. I expect you know that Kipp is at Pickering Green? That’s only a few miles northeast of you. Peter and James are due to be assigned in a few weeks. Jane has joined the WAAF and is already a corporal, which doesn’t surprise me at all.
Please write as often as you can. Your letters mean so much to me.
Much love,
Your Vic
July 17, 1940
A quick note. Jerry’s really going after our shipping, and we’re very busy here. We bagged two Me 109s yesterday, but they shot down three of our Hurricanes. The trouble is, Jerry’s got the experience. He’s been fighting in Poland and France, and most of our lads have never seen combat before. Of course the longer I can keep our boys alive the sooner they have the experience they need to beat the odds.
Pray for us. I hate seeing the bombers get through and any of our ships sunk or damaged.
Love,
Ben
PS—How are Ramsay and Tim getting on?
July 21, 1940
Dearest Ben,
We’re all doing fine here, so please don’t worry about us. All the trouble’s over the Channel, isn’t it? Thank goodness young Owen isn’t in the thick of it yet. He hasn’t finished his training with the Royal Navy. When it’s done he wants to be assigned to a battleship. But there you are protecting the convoys day after day, so that will make his mother glad.
Caroline tells me Kipp is doing pretty much the same thing you are—he’s a squadron leader with a lot of young boys to look after. But he’s getting along well enough. He has one bomber and one fighter to his credit. Isn’t that the same as you?
I saw Sean the other day. Still in training. Tall and dark like our Ramsay and Caroline’s Matthew. He seemed to me to be completely at ease with himself. So I’ve added him to my prayers every morning and evening. Catherine appears to be taking it rather well, and of course Albrecht wanted him to enlist, so he is quite proud of what his son has accomplished.
I hope all the fighting stays over the Channel. Is that what you call an unrealistic prayer?
All our love,
Vic, Ramsay, and Tim
July 31, 1940
Hyde Park, London
“You look smashing in your uniform, Jane, absolutely smashing.”
“Why thank you, James. Any further comments, Peter?”
“There are no words. No words in English.”
“Hmm. That’s very good, very clever.”
Jane took her WAAF cap off her head and ran a slender hand over her gleaming black hair. “They’re training me to do all sorts of things with radar. It’s quite interesting.” She put the cap back on. “But that’s not why I wanted to meet you two here. I want to talk about us. The pair of you are getting posted August third, aren’t you?”
Peter and James were in their blue uniforms just as she was. Both of them nodded.
“So you have to write me no matter where I’m assigned. That’s the first thing. Once a week. No less. And if we can arrange our leaves so that we meet in London, that’s what we’ll do. Even if we have to pair off, so that I take one leave with James and another with Peter. After all, we’ve paired off before.”
“Right,” replied Peter.
“I like pairing off,” said James.
Peter glanced at him. “That’s because you never liked to share, even when we were in the nursery.”
“For good reason. You never had enough.”
Jane waved her hand. “None of the ‘faint heart, fair lady’ chatter. I’m serious tonight. Here’s something else. Defend the country, defeat the Nazis, but I don’t want either of you to become an ace. Do you understand? No aces. The one who becomes an ace is the one I won’t marry. Aces take too many risks. Try too many stunts and heroics. They have a higher likelihood of getting themselves killed. So the one who fights well but steers away from being foolhardy is the one who will win the day with me.”
Peter made a sour face. “We’re twenty-three, and all of this with you is still like a teenager’s game.”
“Right.” James flicked a piece of lint off her uniformed shoulder. “Why can’t we be aces? And why can’t you marry one of us before we’re posted instead of after?”
“I don’t like the idea of running away from the Nazis,” Peter said.
“Neither do I,” James added.
“No one told you to run away from the Nazis.”
“ ’Course you did,” Peter said.
“How can we protect you and defend our country if you won’t let us go after Jerry tooth and nail?” James asked.
“No one wins a war by being overly cautious.”
“Or overly careful.”
Jane’s dark eyes flickered with light. “No one wins my hand by being overly dead either.”
She linked her arms through theirs. “I don’t want to argue anymore. It’s a lovely summer evening. Let’s stroll like proper twenty-three-year-olds instead of squabbling teenagers.”
“Righto.”
“Right.”
“So long as you two remember I’m the one who’s twenty-three. You’re boys of twenty-two until December.”
“She’s pulling rank on us,” Peter said as they began their walk as a threesome, arms linked.
“She’s always pulling something,” James replied.
Two hours later
Hyde Park, London
James sat alone with Jane on a park bench, his arm around her shoulders, as they looked at the lights of London filling up the night.
“I know I tease you and we play our games, but I really do care for both of you, James.”
“Of course we know that.”
“I suppose it is childish. Still like the way we acted when were seventeen and eighteen.”
“I expect we’ll be doing it in our fifties. It’ll keep us young. What’s troubling you about all this?”
She faced him. “I can’t keep you out of the skies. I can’t keep you from fighting German pilots who have been flying missions since they invaded Poland in nineteen thirty-nine. Some since they bombed Spain years before that. But you’re the stronger of the two, James. You’ve got to look out for Peter.”
“What? Where did that come from?”
“I recognized it years ago. I would have married you once we were twenty-one but I knew Peter could never handle it. He honestly couldn’t. For all the joking and teasing about the best man winning and all that, it would have killed him to watch you marry me.”
“Jane, I don’t know what to say. I’m sure Peter is stronger than you think he is. He’d be happy for us. He’d be happy for me.”
“One part of him would. Another part would break into pieces. I see it, I do, James. I’m so afraid it will be like that once you’re posted to your air base. He’ll act the role of the cocky young pilot on the ground. He’ll fly well when the skies are clear. But once the Germans attack he’ll come apart. He won’t know whether to dive or climb or bank left. You’ve got to be right there with him and protect him.”
“Jane, Jane.” He ran his hand along the side of her face, curling a strand of her night-black hair around his finger. “Do you realize how impossible it is to do what you’re asking of me? First of all, they won’t assign us to the same squadron. It isn’t done. Not with brothers. The second thing is, even if we were in the
same fight at the same time by some miracle, to stay glued to him when planes are twisting and turning all over the sky, I’d need seven hands and seven eyes. And the ability to pilot seven planes at the same time wouldn’t hurt either.”
“I fear for him.”
“Perhaps you fear too much. He’s strong. He’s very strong.”
“Not when it comes to me and you.”
“Jane, he is.”
“I love you. I love you with all I have inside me. I want you to marry me. I don’t love Peter that way. I love him, but it’s different from the way I feel about you. With Peter it’s the deepest of friendships. With you it’s…different.”
She saw the surprise in his eyes and continued. “Oh, James, I’ve wanted to say I love you as a woman loves her man for so long, and I was afraid and unsure and I didn’t want Peter to be hurt.” She pulled him toward her and gripped him as tightly as she could. “What do you feel for me, James? Is it all a contest with your brother or do I really matter to you? Is it games and sport and childhood antics or do you love Jane Fordyce quite a bit?”
He laughed. “The way you go on. But to answer your question, yes, I love Jane Fordyce quite a bit, and this evening is brilliant—the most astonishing turnaround in my life. One moment I’m still vying with my brother for your affections and the next I’m the king of England. It really is remarkable. I must take up prayer as a habit. I beseeched the Almighty on bended knee before Peter and I came out to meet you, but I never expected a waterfall from the heavens.”
She ran her fingers back and forth over his lips. “But now I’m worried about Peter again. You mustn’t tell him what’s happened between us tonight.”
“Of course I won’t.”
“He’s a very sensitive man. You both are. I’m certain he will be able to tell something has developed between us if he sees us together.”
“He won’t see us together. We’ll be off to our respective airfields in a couple of days and we certainly won’t get leave at the same time—indeed, if we get any leave at all—so he’ll not see us together then either.”
Jane held his face in both her hands and kissed him. “Still, I worry. I worry about you two flying your airplanes and I worry that you and I will break his heart.”
“I say, he really is stronger than you think. Listen. Once we’ve gone through a few weeks of combat, and you see that he’s held up under the strain, wouldn’t that be the time to tell Peter what’s up and ask him to be my best man?”
She kissed James again. “I don’t know. I want us to be married this year. But I don’t know.”
“If he’s strong enough to survive the Luftwaffe, don’t you think he’s strong enough to handle our engagement?”
She kissed him a third time. “I’ll have to think it over. I have time for that, don’t I?”
“I should say so. Though I hope to see you again in August. Late August, I would expect.”
“In late August I’ll have an answer for you.” He took her hands in his. “You wear both our rings.”
“Yes. And I will keep wearing both your rings until the day you give me a diamond. And maybe beyond that.”
He put her hands to his lips. “That doesn’t bother me, Jane. So long as you love me and want to be my bride, you can wear a million rings from Peter on your fingers.”
“Not a million. Just one. And from you, just two. The jade and the diamond. It doesn’t have to be a large diamond. In fact, I’d really rather it wasn’t. Just a nice diamond.”
“Lady Jane, I won’t disappoint. I promise you, I shall never do anything other than what blesses you.”
August 9, 1940
The vicarage, St. Andrew’s Cross
“Well, then read it out, Em, don’t keep us on pins and needles.”
“Hush.” Emma was reading a letter at the breakfast table, her lips moving as she scanned the page. “In a moment.”
“It would be quicker to get in the car and drive down to his air base, Dad,” said Billy as he bit into a slice of buttered toast.
“It would indeed. Shall we pop on down to West Sussex after breakfast?”
“I’d love that.”
“Oh, be quiet you two.” Emma’s eyebrows came together. “I’d have Peter’s letter done by now if you’d just stop nattering.”
Jeremy smiled at his son and poured himself some fresh tea.
“There, I’m done. Is everyone in the Sweet household happy now?” Emma handed the letter to her husband. “I don’t know if all he’s telling us is the truth because I don’t know how much he’s permitted to say. But he seems to like the airfield at KC, as he calls King’s Cross. He doesn’t mind the food, he misses Jane, and he thinks it’s an act of God that his squadron leader is his uncle, Ben Whitecross, VC.”
“KC. VC. All the crosses.” Jeremy breathed on his glasses, wiped them with a white cloth from his pocket, placed them back over his eyes, and began to read the letter his wife had handed him. “Have you ever been to West Sussex?”
“I haven’t. Neither has Victoria. Perhaps the two of us ladies should plan an outing.”
“They wouldn’t let you on the base.”
“Of course they would.”
“Not in wartime.” Jeremy continued to read the letter as he spoke with Emma.
“Then we’d meet Ben and Peter in the village.”
He smiled at something he read. “It’s lovely, you know. I’ve been to the Arun Valley. Marvelous.”
“We ought to go.” Billy spoke up. “Why don’t we all dash down for a visit?”
“They frown on that sort of thing,” replied Jeremy. “Especially if the enemy is flying about. Your brother says here the Germans have been doing more bombing runs inland, not just on the Channel convoys. It wouldn’t really do to take your mother and you into harm’s way.”
“The people in the village have to deal with it, don’t they?’
“Well, I looked into it, and actually quite a few of them aren’t there anymore. They’ve been relocated for the duration of the conflict. The RAF has taken over their houses.”
“But some of the village folk must still be around. The RAF can’t be green grocers and butchers or hand out beer and chips at the pub.”
“No, I expect not.”
“It would give me a taste of what the real thing is like.”
“You don’t need a taste of what the real thing is like.” His mother stirred her tea, and the spoon chimed against the sides of the cup. “You have another year to go before we agreed you can enlist. The war might well be over by then.”
“Over?”
“Yes. I expect the bombing attacks to dwindle out and Hitler to sit content on his side of the water while we sit content on ours. What does he want with us, really? He has France and Holland and Poland and heaven knows what else. Franco has Spain and Mussolini, Italy. Isn’t that enough? What does he want with our dreary weather?”
“It’s not bad today, Mum.”
“My point is there’s no reason to come after us. He can’t march his troops or drive his tanks over the Channel.”
“He has the planes, Mother. That’s why Peter and James are fighting him in Hurricanes.”
She shook her head. “Not for long. We really aren’t worth the trouble, are we? In another month things will have quieted down.”
“Very good.” Jeremy passed the letter to Billy. “He sounds like himself. He’s been up three or four times, tangled with a few of the Luftwaffe’s finest, and come out of his scraps in one piece. I thank God.”
“So do I.”
A person used the knocker on their front door.
“Who is that?” asked Emma. “No one from the church was supposed to drop by, were they?”
Jeremy wiped his mouth with a napkin and got up from the table. “Not this early.”
Emma waited and sipped her tea while Billy read his brother’s letter.
“Jane. What a nice surprise.”
“Cheers, Uncle Jeremy. I got a few hours of
f from the Eleven Group Operations Center at Uxbridge so I thought I’d come and see all of you. Have you had any letters from Peter and James?”
“We have. We were just reading Peter’s. There was a note from James on Tuesday.”
Hearing the voices, Emma smiled and stood up, quickly setting another place at the table. “Here’s a welcome visitor.”
Billy looked up from the letter and grinned. “Jane. Good-oh.”
“She’s spoken for.”
“Why can’t I speak for her too then? I’m twenty.”
“She has enough on her hands trying to sort things out between your brothers. It won’t help matters to add you to the mix.” She bent over and pinched him on the cheek. “Handsome as you are.”
“Cut it out, Mum.”
Jane walked into the room in her WAAF uniform with Jeremy behind her. “Hullo, Aunt Em. Cheers, Billy. How are you?” She gave her aunt a kiss and mussed Billy’s hair. “Ginger just like Peter. Do you grow a foot every day now?”
His face colored the instant she touched him. “Hullo, Jane.”
“Sit here.” Emma pulled out a chair. “Tell us the news about RAF Hillingdon. Tea?”
“Please.” Jane took her cap off. “Well, I’ve got a flat in Uxbridge now with two other girls so I don’t have the long trip to make from Camden Lock every day. They’ve got me on the plotting table in the operations bunker at Uxbridge, so we handle information from the Observer Corps and the Chain Home Radio Direction Finding—the radar, they call it. I have these little blocks with tags to push about with my pool cue, as I call it. I’m wearing my headset, and they’re telling me height, direction, numbers, and squadrons for the enemy planes. I set the blocks up with the proper tags and push them in the direction of their targets. All the bigwigs are staring down at the table from their seats up above. It gives them the big picture at a glance, you see, and all the information they need.”
“Is the BBC telling us everything?” asked Billy. “What are the Germans really bombing?”
“Aren’t you the inquisitive one? I can’t tell you much more than the BBC, Billy. I’ve signed the Official Secrets Act, and I’ve sworn I won’t keep a diary. You wouldn’t want me to be taken out and shot, would you?”