I fight back an abrupt surge of helplessness. But it isn’t his life he’ll be saving.
‘Leave it to me, Nell.’
I remember what Uncle said about me. I can do anything I set my mind to.
She frowns, clearly not confident in the possibility of Oakes ever changing. Women in uniform continue to file out around us. Nell plucks a cigarette from her breast pocket, lights it.
‘Tell you what, Cooper. There’s a film playing down in Leicester Square next week. About a female pilot. Make sure you’ve got a real passion for all this before you go begging Gregory Oakes to give up being a statue?’
‘Oh, Nell. Are you sure?’
‘Of course, love. My date’s been called away on a mission, so I’ve got a spare ticket. You up for it then?’
I nod, already imagining myself in the WAAF uniform, living on base with Nell, planes roaring into the sky around us. And one day, somehow, I will be needed to fly one. With Nell as my co-pilot, we will chase out the roving Nazi bombers.
Saying goodbye to Nell, I make my way back to the Underground, my mind racing. If I am going to leave the Tower, I must train the new Ravenmaster as best I can. And there’s no way it’s going to be Yeoman Stackhouse.
Uncle named me the new Ravenmaster, so it’s up to me to pass the title on.
And I have my work cut out for me.
2
Saturday, 6 June 1942
‘Rogan is the dominant male – see?’
Anna gestures to the bird standing in the sunlight. I have already helped her lay out the meat for the birds. Even wearing thick gloves and carrying around that tin bucket, her red hair all messed up in the wind, she is the prettiest girl I know. Well, there is Nell, but she is more beautiful than pretty. And she’s like twenty-five, besides.
I need to get Anna a present.
All I got her was marmalade and some toffee. Expensive enough, sure – I had to borrow ten shillings from Lightwood – but it wasn’t quite right. Bought it in a hurry, as we were sud-denly sent home. It’s a wonder she didn’t get cross with me.
I sneak another look at her. I know if I say it now, it will never happen. The time isn’t right; it will be gone, lost, for ever.
‘Timothy Squire, are you even paying attention?’
‘’Course.’
She is pointing at Rogan – I can tell that it is him even without the blue plastic ring around his foot. The others, though, I can only tell apart by their coloured bands: Portia (white), Corax (yellow – and terrifying), Lyra (red), Oliver (green), Stan (purple), Cronk (orange).
‘See? Look at his ear feathers.’
I shake my head clear. Ear feathers?
‘And see how he flares the feathers on his legs – like baggy trousers.’
Am I looking at the same bird? Ears? Trousers?
‘Right. Got it.’
‘And watch how Cronk begs when confronted by him?’
That much I can see. Come on, Cronk, stand up for yourself, mate. But Cronk shrinks, giving little cries, and Rogan, beak held high, shoulders spread, chases him off.
Anna also told me about trimming the birds’ wings – how there’s no need to cut the boys’ wings. ‘Only trim the females’ wings, because the males just follow them around.’ I thought she was teasing at first. But Anna knows everything about these birds.
What else do girls like? Well, Anna’s not a regular girl anyway – she’ll want a new raven or something impossible.
We walk slowly over to where Rogan and Stan are playing. Each step I take sends them a hop away. They don’t recognize me any more. Anna said ravens can recognize a face for years. I haven’t changed that much. I hold out a biscuit in a gloved hand (‘always wear gloves when feeding the ravens’). My own biscuits. An expensive bribe, but it seems to do the trick. Stan hops back towards me.
‘So will you be down at the docks for a while, then?’
‘Dunno,’ I say, pulling my hand away before Stan can take a bite of that, too. Can’t I just give Anna some flowers? All girls like flowers, even Anna. No chance of sneaking off at lunch to visit her canteen. We’re barely allowed out of Quarter’s sight. You’re not allowed out of it at all. ‘We’ll all be down there for a while.’
I hand over a square of chocolate to Anna. She puts down the bucket, tugs off her gloves.
‘Where did you get this?’ she asks, suspicious. Even more suspicious than the bloody bird was. What is that look? It’s as if she wants me to apologize for every mistake I ever made. We don’t have that kind of time.
‘Bloke I work with. Trade my cigarette ration for his chocolate cards, one for one.’
‘Your friend Lightwood? He’s a sapper, too, right? How many of you sappers are down there? Sounds like a big project.’
‘There’s only one like him. Clever little bugger. I’m good, but he’s absolute mustard on disposing bombs. Knows it all,’ I laugh. She wants to know more, of course – what we’re building, and why. Like I could tell her even if I knew.
A harsh kraa from one of the ravens – green, that’s Oliver. It’s a bit much, spending all this time with the birds, and all you get is angry croaking in return.
‘So you don’t mind,’ she says, with her habit of reading the thoughts right out of my head, ‘spending a little time with the ravens? When you have time, I mean. I don’t trust Stackhouse, and if you’ll be at the docks for a while...’
Spend more time with the birds? A person can only handle so much raven chat before they go barking mad. And in the morning, after a night at the pub with Lightwood, the noise’ll do my head in. I’ll have to teach the birds to croak a little softer...
‘Ah,’ I say, giving her my best smile, ‘I just thought of something.’
‘What?’ She raises an eyebrow, still suspicious. ‘A convenient reason why you can’t help with the ravens?’
‘Just the opposite, Magpie. I’d be happy to look after them for you.’
From his perch on the Green, Oliver growls and rumbles. But I’ve heard him make all sorts of calls, yips and yells, clicking noises and whistling sounds. Ravens are meant to be proper smart.
‘It’s a surprise. Might take a little time, but don’t worry. You’re going to love it.’
Saturday, 20 June 1942
‘You’re sure you’re allowed to go out like this?’ Flo is trying to sound calm but I can hear the nervousness just underneath.
‘Oh yes, I come down here all the time.’
‘With your friend?’ She nods darkly towards Nell.
In fact I’ve never been to Leicester Square, with Nell or on my own. And I did have to get special permission from Oakes.
But there is nothing dangerous in us going to the cinema. (Flo wanted to bring her dad along – but the thought of a talk with Mr Swift in front of Nell was too much. I have not been over to their house since the horrid dinner.) My head is pounding, but it will clear once the picture starts.
Either way, it feels good to have Flo here. When she was gone in Montreal, I would dream of us laughing during a film together. She was delighted when I offered for her to join Nell and me. Nell didn’t seem as thrilled. She figured Flo would never get a ticket, but somehow Flo’s dad got his hands on one for her. That only seemed to anger Nell more. But she’ll come around. Everyone always ends up liking Flo.
‘They could sure use a soda fountain here,’ she says.
Nell rolls her eyes, lights another cigarette without slowing her pace. We are practically racing to the cinema, Nell’s clicking heels leading the way. Flo for the most part seems to ignore her, speaking softly to me and edging away from the clouds of cigarette smoke like they can hurt her.
This is not the first time Flo has told me all about the wonders of Canada and soda fountains. I’ll have to ask her boring questions about ice hockey – her stories of milkshakes and beefburgers only make me more hungry.
I’m beginning to think I should not have brought her at all. But I just couldn’t forget, when I left her house, t
he look on her face. She looked so hurt. I should not have been so hard on them. I was carrying on like Oakes, one step away from asking them to do gas-mask drills. I used to dream about moving in with Flo and her family. When Mum was mean or cross with me, I would dream about Flo and I being sisters, and how Mr and Mrs Swift would let us do whatever we wanted.
Flo moves a little closer to me, braving Nell’s cigarette smoke. ‘Sorry you left so early – you missed pudding! But I understand.’
Her tone makes me want to scream. Sympathy! I know what she really means. Of course there was no bombing – you’re mad, Anna Cooper! There was a bombing – a retaliation bombing – but Canterbury was the target, not London. Another historic city. Hitler will destroy our past and then our future. Or has he already?
Flo knows nothing but thinks she knows everything.
Why am I so mad at her? It’s not her fault. And I did see the pudding on her kitchen counter. Butter and plum jam. Plum jam! Still, I had to leave.
Of course Flo didn’t bring a torch with her. When she was last here, streetlights and shop entrances were lit up. Now no sliver of light shows the way. I can feel her, groping through space. If only she could have seen me when I sneaked through the city at night to find Mabel – the Blitz was still on then, and wardens chased me through the streets. Even she couldn’t have run any faster.
‘Here.’ I pass her the torch but she shakes her head. And quickly bumps into a woman, muttering pardons. As stubborn as ever then.
Flo was always good at everything and in no time she gets the hang of it, letting her feet slide off the kerb so as not to fall.
‘Only for ever, that’s putting it mild,’ she hums, repeating the line from some song. She seems to have developed a number of annoying habits in Canada, including always snatching at her hair.
There are crowds as we reach the square. Women in skirts calling boldly to the passing men. Flo stares in fascination but I hurry her along, trying to equal Nell’s pace.
‘I know why you want to live in the Tower of London,’ Flo chatters on, a smile in her voice. ‘It is where Guinevere fled, and Mordred laid siege to the Tower – until Lancelot came and saved her, as she knew he would.’
I glance swiftly up, but Nell is thankfully too far ahead to hear in the commotion of people.
‘King Arthur is not real, Flo.’
‘So?’
‘Well, real things happened there. Real stories.’
‘I thought you liked King Arthur,’ she says, loudly, her tone hurt.
Clearing my throat, hoping Nell can’t hear us, I turn to Flo. ‘Do you know who Rudolf Hess is? The second-in-command of the Nazis. He was stood right in front of me, talking to me. And the night that Leslie... God, you don’t know anything, do you? No one cares about King Arthur or ice-hockey games, OK?’
She flinches as if stung.
‘He’s not coming back.’ Her voice reaches me as I stalk away. Nell has stopped, too, watching us. As I reach her, I turn back to Flo, staring hard. ‘What?’
‘You think if you stay at the Tower, he’ll come back. He won’t. He can’t.’
‘You think I want him to? A German, to come stop by and visit me? Maybe we’ll have breakfast with the Warders, some schnitzel.’
‘He’s your father—’
‘I don’t know this person. I don’t know a single thing about him.’
People are looking at us, watching, listening. I offer Flo a half smile, go forward and link her arm.
‘Can we just enjoy the film?’ I ask.
She mutters something that might be agreement. It is an uneasy silence as we walk on, but I can think of nothing to say. I did talk to Rudolf Hess. The newspapers say he is mad, that he deserted Hitler. He even handed me a piece of paper – a poem. I almost kept it to show Flo. To prove to her that I was brave.
‘School was much easier in Montreal.’ Flo laughs, squeezing my arm. Nothing keeps her down for long. ‘I was worried it was all going to be ghastly and all in French, but Mr Beaudet spoke English almost as well as an Englishman. It’s much harder with Mrs Jordan.’
We turn the corner and there are flashbulbs everywhere. Two women are in the heart of it, one serious as a school teacher, the other regal as any queen. Both blonde, but the grand lady’s hair gleams like platinum.
‘Cooper.’ Nell’s voice is barely a breath. Her eyes are wide and bright – I have never seen her like this. ‘That’s her.’
‘Who?’
‘Anna Neagle. The film star.’
I’ve never heard of Anna Neagle, but instantly I know which of the two is the film star; and she is certainly stunning. My name is Anna, is the first inane thing to pop into my thoughts. We stand in the cool night, staring at Nell staring at Anna Neagle.
Flo squeezes my arm again. ‘That summer we went blackberrying. Oh, do you remember blackberry tarts?’
‘Blackberry tarts,’ I repeat, turning away from Nell’s rapt face. The thought of blackberry tarts is almost enough to make my mouth water.
Flo gives me a sidelong look. ‘Anna, don’t you think you should come back to school? I mean, you don’t have to right now, if you don’t want to – but next year...’
‘It’s not because I don’t want to, Flo.’ I sigh, certain she won’t understand. Leap before you’re pushed. ‘I just... can’t.’
‘Well,’ she tries again, ‘at least pass your school certificate so you can go on to sixth form.’
‘I’m not going back to school, Flo,’ I say, my voice as steady as I can make it. ‘I need to do something... useful.’
‘You mean for the war?’
‘It’s our duty to help out, Flo.’
‘Anna, we’re fourteen. Our duty is to finish school.’
‘And then what?’
Astonishingly, she looks angry. ‘I don’t know why you have to be this way.’
‘What way?’
‘You’re so mad – so serious all the time. I know the war is wicked—’
‘How do you know that?’
‘I’m sorry I left, Anna. I’m sorry my parents wanted to protect me. I’m sorry that most of the city left like we were told to. I’m sorry you had to stay.’
*
The film is about a female pilot named Amy Johnson, played by Anna Neagle, who is stunning throughout. Smoking a cigarette in the cockpit, waiting for her aircraft to be refuelled, she is heroic and beautiful. She reminds me of Nell, in a way, but somehow even more glamorous. But as we leave the cinema I am not thinking about Nell or Anna Neagle.
Was any of that real? Did Amy Johnson actually fly from London to Cape Town, South Africa? Imagine being the first woman to fly solo to Australia – Australia. Twenty days and eleven thousand miles away. All thoughts of blackberry tarts have been swept away.
‘Cooper.’ Nell lights another cigarette, blows the smoke straight up into the sky. ‘What do you think? Romantic enough for you?’
I can only nod.
‘But... she died.’ Flo stands at my side, visibly shaken.
Nell smiles vaguely. ‘A dangerous life, being a pilot.’
Amy Johnson died in a flying accident – trapped in the clouds, no way out and no petrol left, she parachuted out but drowned in the Thames. She was helping the war effort, ferrying aircraft back and forth.
As we squeeze through the Leicester Square crowds I can still hear Amy Johnson’s voice, when she’s warned the weather is too dangerous to fly. I’ll crack through and fly over the top.
Alone.
Wednesday, 15 July 1942
Uncle was buried in the Bow cemetery on a wet freezing day, but I put a cross here at the Tower, too. Next to those marked MacDonald, Cora, Edgar, and Merlin, is a small wooden cross that reads Henry Reed, Ravenmaster. The Raven Graveyard, he called it, when we decided to honour the ravens that had died in the Blitz; to make sure they wouldn’t be forgotten. Nothing fancy like all the stone monuments and ancient gravestones around here, but Uncle thought it was perfect. Less than a week later, h
e was gone.
The exact spot was our secret – no one else comes here – and I won’t tell anyone, not even Timothy Squire. It is a quiet place to think of Uncle and the ravens and that terrible year. I often come here after we’ve filed out of Chapel, my ears still full of the droning organ.
Today there is nothing in my ears, only the wind across the stone. I sit down beside the markers, quiet as a statue.
The new roost will be safe. The Blitz is over. They will live here, and thrive, and protect the legend of the Tower.
I think of the two markers without names – Uncle and I agreed they should remain blank – Mabel and Grip. Maybe out there somewhere, flying free. It’s been a hundred years or more since a wild raven has been seen in London, Uncle said. Well, maybe one day they’ll come back.
And maybe I will, too.
‘I did what I could, Uncle,’ I whisper into the quiet. The wind across the stone is the only answer.
Tuesday, 13 October 1942
‘I hardly think this is the sort of protection expected of me as your guardian, Anna.’ Yeoman Oakes shakes his head.
I try to keep my voice calm. ‘Nell says they may take me at sixteen – it’s only one year’s difference.’
‘Well then, in another year I will be happy to help you.’
‘In another year the war will be over!’
He laughs, low and humourless. ‘God willing.’
‘Yeoman Oakes, I want to help out. And not in the canteen. Uncle said – you said – I could do anything I set my mind to, remember? Well, this is what I want to do. I want to join the WAAF with Nell. Maybe I can’t be a pilot myself, but I can help other pilots. Some ravens aren’t meant to stay in the Tower – remember, you said that?’
Oakes sighs. ‘Anna, your birth certificate is a serious matter. I can’t just lie, simply because you want to join up with Nell Singer.’
‘But my whole life is a lie! My father is a German, and everyone lies about that. Mum told me that Father drowned when I was five, and yet he’s still alive. Mum even changed our name. And then she killed herself, and everyone lied about that! So why can’t I have a new life? Even if the age is wrong, it will be more real. My mother was Margaret Cooper, a journalist. My father was John Cooper, a sailor. And in October, I turn sixteen years old. Why not? Why can’t that be true?’
What the Raven Brings Page 4