Spitfire Girls

by Carol Gould

  All three women vowed they would be flying ‘Lizzies’ before the year was out. On that long journey, Angelique remembered her exhaustion as they flew up the Dumfries Valley in good weather, using this as a short cut to Prestwick. The trio knew this route was perilous and would eventually cost the lives of some ATA pilots, and should only be attempted in fine conditions.

  ‘How do you say West F-r-e-u-g-h-?’

  Oscar Toland had awakened from a painful slumber and Angelique was thrilled to see the colour returning to his cheeks.

  ‘You must have been reading my mind,’ she exclaimed.

  ‘Why’s that?’

  ‘I was just thinking about all those trips up to Prestwick, and the Dumfries route. You know – the short cut around West Freugh.’

  Oscar smiled, the bandages covering most of his face and his extremities. Hatfield General Hospital had been host to the Toland brothers for two days and their horrific injuries had been a new experience for the young doctors and nurses accustomed to the occasional push-bike casualty. Now that the airfield was fast becoming a centre for multilevel operations, hospital staff knew they would have to gear themselves for wartime horrors.

  It was afternoon, and Angelique was grateful for the arrival of a humid summer storm front. She had become fascinated by this American clergyman, whose brother Martin was a withdrawn, timid shadow of Oscar’s vibrant personality. Both boys had been reared in a well-to-do, fiercely evangelical background, in which affluence was tempered by their father’s obsessive zeal for New Testament rantings and moral speechmaking. Over the dinner table Ezra Toland had lectured his boys about the evils of temptation, and while Martin had gone out into the world and resisted the burning that had arrived with the first hairs of puberty, his brother Oscar had gone out into the world and taken on every temptation.

  Much to the indignation of old man Toland, his boys had developed two unspeakable fascinations: one for flying, and the other for European history. Though they had missed out on the Spanish Civil War they were drooling at the possibility of helping fight Hitler from a base in England. ‘Europe is the home of Satan,’ their father had cried as they had argued bitterly for paternal permission to board a steamer bound for Canada and the United Kingdom. They had been ordained Baptist ministers less than four years, and neither had reached thirty. Even their mother, who never spoke except in church, opened her mouth to protest and for a brief moment both lads were moved, but when Ezra went for his Bible to proclaim them almighty sinners they decided they would make a pact: one weak, and one strong, they would travel together to help Europe, birthplace of the Shakespeare, da Vinci and Euripides that they loved in secret, and home of the remarkable Valerie Cobb, who was breaking the barriers of traditional womanhood.

  Jesus, they both agreed, would have liked that.

  Indeed, their congregations commended the boys to the Lord for safekeeping and in spring 1940 Oscar and Martin braved the growing threat of U-Boat approaches and boarded a ship sailing to England with magnanimous volunteers from the land of isolationist politics.

  Arriving at Liverpool while Whitehall was digesting breakfasts of German advances, the Americans and Canadians expected late nights and jolly pub crawls as they disembarked. Grim faces confronting them on the dock shocked the new immigrants to their souls. Nowhere would they find rich foods or fun, and the Toland brothers made their way with solemnity to Norwich, where they had been promised a place to stay at one of its plethora of churches. Soon these American preachers had become immersed in English traditions and ritual, and in time, though Baptists, were enjoying services at the Cathedral. Their days, however, were taken up with flying, and when their turn had come to test for ATA they put their first calling on the back burner and asked the Lord’s forgiveness for leaving Him unattended for the sake of something called war.

  ‘My brothers are stuck out there somewhere, and as soon as they get us off Tigers I’m flying over to find them.’ Angelique spoke softly to Oscar, not wanting to disturb the dozing Martin in the next bed.

  ‘Where are they?’

  ‘Spain, I think.’

  ‘You aren’t sure?’ Oscar peered into her eyes, straining to catch their true colour.

  ‘Their last letter came from Zumaya.’ She caught his glance and blushed. ‘Zumaya is a cell in Northern Spain for anti-Franco forces.’

  ‘You mustn’t go out there! It’s insane, honey!’ He was straining, and his colour faded.

  ‘It was only jest,’ Angelique said, moving closer to his ashen face.

  ‘You Italian?’

  ‘No, I’m British.’

  ‘Let me rephrase that – are you of Italian extraction?’

  ‘My family could be called deposed Armenian royalty.’ She smirked at him. ‘Do people ever call you Oz?’

  ‘All the time. Father Oz, in fact.’

  ‘Then I shall call you Ozzie.’ She took his hand, and for a few seconds he gripped it and then let go, wincing.

  ‘Are you in great pain?’

  ‘Not as bad as Martin’s.’ He smiled and let one of his fingers touch the back of her hand, which still lay on the bed. ‘What was that you were saying about getting off Tigers?’

  ‘ATA will not allow women to ferry anything but Tiger Moths, as you know, Ozzie. We are starved for pilots and every last man is being siphoned off to the RAF. There must be two hundred girls in this country qualified to fly anything operational, but the answer is No.’

  Angelique felt a tap on her shoulder and she turned around to find Matron sporting an uncharacteristically worried expression.

  ‘Could I see you privately, miss?’ she asked, her frightened eyes now devoid of the sparkle that had given her the nickname ‘Dame Dazzle’ amongst the male patients.

  Oscar waved weakly, and the aviatrix felt a terrible urge to kiss his forehead, but Matron had already reached the end of the corridor. Angelique hurried on, following her into an area ordinarily off-limits for visitors. Seated around a wireless were doctors, nursing sisters and a handful of cleaners.

  ‘France has fallen,’ Dame Dazzle whispered in Angelique’s ear.

  ‘I must go,’ she murmured, hugging Matron, on whose cheek she thought she could see a tear.

  Rushing back down the corridor she walked up to Oscar’s bed.

  ‘You had better recover soon, mate,’ she said. ‘Adolf will be parachuting in to London this coming weekend.’

  ‘Is that so?’ Martin was awake, and he had heard.

  ‘I’m sorry, Martin. You should go back to sleep.’

  Other male patients were sitting up, anxious to know why the staff had disappeared, and straining for the lady pilot’s words.

  ‘France has fallen, chaps,’ she said, her gaze taking in a sea of faces born in the last century and which had already witnessed one obscene world conflict. Somehow she knew this obscenity would be worse. ‘It will mean a battle for Britain.’

  Oscar leaned towards her and took her hand. She felt tears welling up but she fought them, wanting to prove she was worthy of the stripe she bore so proudly on the blue ATA uniform.

  ‘Whatever you do, Angelique, please promise me you will not fly into the war zone to rescue your brothers.’

  She withdrew her hand. ‘I can’t promise you things like that, First Officer Toland.’

  He sat back, exhausted. Now she noticed a tear pushing its way to the corner of his swollen eye.

  ‘If you go, promise me you will come back in time for Christmas Mass. Norwich Cathedral. I’ll be useless for flying. They’ll probably ship me back.’

  ‘Rubbish – ATA keeps all sorts of characters in work.’ She could fight the tears no longer, and as they poured down her cheeks she could barely discern through the mist Matron and the nursing sisters bustling in to attend to the men who had also worn uniforms in past wars and who had not been allowed to weep. She left the hospital and was gratified to see a clear sky, for it might mean one last ferry job before nightfall. Wiping her face with the pale blue hand
kerchief that accompanied ATA uniform issue, she walked at a feverish pace to the airfield and as she approached the main building a feeling of overwhelming excitement enveloped her youthful spirit.

  ‘We’ve been taken off Moths,’ shrieked Stella Teague, jumping up and down like a tiny puppy and running to Angelique. They hugged, nearly falling over in the rough gravel that was drying in the warm teatime sun. Stella stared at her colleague. ‘Why are your eyes swollen?’

  ‘Old age, Stella,’ she replied, her arm flung around the little ballerina’s shoulders. ‘After all, you’re eighteen, and I’m twenty-three.’

  ‘It’s so exciting, Ange – Nora has just got the news. What a pity Valerie has had to miss it all.’

  ‘Where is she?’ Angelique felt her chest constricting.

  ‘Didn’t you hear?’ Stella halted, her shoulders drooping.

  ‘Stella, has something happened to Val?’ Tears were on their way again.

  ‘She was called away to London. When she left her face was white as a sheet. By the way, how are those two Yanks?’

  ‘They could be better.’ Angelique craved more information about her Commanding Officer. ‘Do you think Val has been put on to a secret assignment, now that we’re off Moths? Perhaps she will be flying into the war zone.’

  Stella fell silent as they reached the lounge to discover a great commotion. In one room had assembled many of the nation’s most outstanding fliers, now on the verge of an achievement no woman had ever attained before.

  ‘Magisters are waiting to be ferried from Phillips & Powis at Woodley to Burtonwood,’ Nora read from a large sheet of paper, hardly able to contain her excitement. ‘Those of you who have done the Central Flying School Course will be on Oxfords and Masters, and you will be expected to taxi groups in Ansons. Our more junior pilots should be reminded you will not be full members of Air Transport Auxiliary until you have passed the official acceptance test at Whitchurch. Tomorrow Amy will take any newcomers still to pass the test down to Bristol. You can all bundle into the Airspeed Courier that appeared at this field some days ago. Everyone will be fitted up with a proper uniform.’

  ‘Where does Valerie Cobb figure in all this?’ asked Delia Seifert.

  ‘For the moment she is not available to ATA,’ Nora said noncommittally, moving to the notice board and posting her paper.

  There was a strange silence, as though the excitement of their new status had been dashed by the sight of an accident in which a loved one had been struck down. Angelique and Stella moved to the notice board, and the others wandered off to the common room with a nonchalance that suggested their work plan had not changed.

  44

  Alone in what had been Valerie’s office, Nora walked hesitantly to her desk. Slowly she lifted a document from its otherwise uncluttered surface. She moved to the light by the cracked old windowpane and read the page for the third time that day. Looking up, her gaze fixed upon two girls examining the parked Airspeed Courier, their eagerness to fly the no-longer-forbidden craft expressed by their animated gestures. Feeling the need for male company amid the torrent of news with which she had been inundated in one short afternoon, Nora wished Hamilton and Sean had not left for the day. Although they would arrive back at some odd hour when darkness had fallen over the airfield, their inebriation might somehow cheer her up, but by that hour Nora would have had to return home to her lacklustre mother and father. Her parents had been bewildered by her occupation and she had never been able to share calamities with them. Now that an earthshaking bit of good news had fallen into her lap, she wondered if their reaction would be equally phlegmatic.

  ‘Commanding Officer Flint, may I speak?’

  Nora whirled around to find Delia Seifert standing in the middle of Valerie’s office.

  ‘Dear God – how did you know?’

  ‘Everyone knows.’

  ‘How on earth – ?’ Nora stared wildly at Delia.

  ‘It’s in the latest editions, for all the nation to see,’ Delia explained, a rare glow illumining her face. ‘Beaverbrook seems to want the whole world to know about it – principally Adolf. Did you hear he reads the London papers?’

  Nora folded her document and placed it inside the breast pocket of her trimly-fitting uniform.

  ‘Beaverbrook! Beaverbrook! Oh, God – if anything, Delia, it will set the war effort back – does that man really think Hitler will feel threatened by a press release announcing that a girl is being made CO of a ferry legion?’

  ‘You will become famous overnight, my friend.’

  Bowing her head, Nora did a tour of the office and tapped her fingers on the desk. ‘What is the use of confidentiality, I ask you? I went to such trouble keeping these documents hidden, and after all that? The newspapers tell my family and our girls before I am given clearance to do so.’

  Neither woman spoke, but outside a gaggle of pilots had gathered, snippets of their chatter wafting into the office, with words like ‘bombers’, ‘dogfights’ and ‘rear gunners’ standing out amid the banter.

  ‘What’s to become of Valerie, Nora?’ asked Delia.

  Nora faced her as if standing to attention. ‘Why do you ask?’

  ‘I’m speaking on behalf of the other girls. Things are escalating faster than anyone had expected. Out of the blue Val disappears, and no-one in the Ministry cares to tell us what has happened.’

  ‘Why are you so worried, Delia?’

  ‘Her talent is magical, and without her, we stagnate.’

  ‘Pilots never stagnate!’ Nora stopped for a moment and hovered over Valerie’s desk. ‘She has been sent on a secret mission, and that is all I am prepared to tell you, which is already far too much.’

  ‘It doesn’t matter, Nora, because I know it is a giant fib.’

  Nora moved to the door, forcing Delia to walk across the room as the newly appointed Commanding Officer switched off the lights.

  ‘Delia, there may come a time, – very soon, in fact – when you are a CO and there will be twenty ferry pilots of both sexes under your charge.’

  ‘What nonsense!’ Delia hooted, standing in the corridor. ‘Imagine the Air Ministry appointing the impoverished daughter of a drunkard a CO – Cal March will reach that rank, but not Delia Seifert.’

  They had emerged from the administration building into a brilliant afternoon sun, and to her delight Nora saw Hamilton Slade on the Hatfield runway, talking animatedly to Amy alongside the Airspeed Courier. By the end of the week most of these girls would be entitled to fly a whole range of aircraft they had been denied until today, but Nora knew Valerie would not be there to enjoy the sight.

  ‘Have the newspapers told the general public where I am to be posted?’ Nora asked Delia.

  ‘Good Lord, yes – Hamble,’ she replied. ‘To be precise, you will be heading a women’s pool with immediate effect. We all know the purpose of the exercise is to clear Spitfires from the Vickers Supermarine factory at Southampton.’

  It was nearing twilight and though everyone knew the Battle for Britain would take up every waking moment from this day to a possible eternity, a searing urge to celebrate spurred Hatfield’s ferry contingent to converge on the Stone House Hotel. Six of the girls were staying there, and proprietress Mrs Bennell developed a sentimental attachment to her unusual clientele. On this quiet, sunny afternoon Mrs Bennell had read in the newspaper that one of the other pilot girls was to be made a Commanding Officer. She had an ominous feeling that changes would ensue with the Southampton appointment of Nora Flint, ex-Smithfield office girl, and that the lodgers she had come to love as daughters might disappear as rapidly as Battle of Britain air warriors.

  ‘When are you going to find me that Ouija Board, Mrs B?’ asked Stella Teague, bounding on to the small covered porch at the entrance to the Stone House.

  ‘You may not be here when I find one,’ she replied, her face expressionless as the shape of the boarding house she had run for twenty-six years.

  Stella hovered on the porch, her mirth e
vaporating as she met the landlady’s gaze. ‘Why would I not be here, Mrs Bennell?’

  ‘Your Nora Flint is being made Commanding Officer of a base in Southampton, one that is filled with regular RAF men.’

  ‘Lucky Nora!’ Stella exclaimed. ‘You must have read it in one of the papers.’

  Mrs Bennell stood rigid, watching the others approaching. Folding her arms across her chest, she could feel an almost primeval urge to strike out at the nearest human being, keeping her back to Stella.

  ‘It means you girls will be leaving me,’ she said.

  ‘Nonsense,’ Stella pouted, thinking only of the RAF men and of the luck Nora took with her wherever she travelled. ‘We all stay at Hatfield – it’s Valerie’s HQ.’

  ‘People are saying Valerie has been arrested,’ Mrs Bennell said, turning around to face Stella.

  ‘Arrested? Whatever for?’

  ‘It has got about that she was harbouring a German spy. Think of how it will damage her poor father’s career. Frankly, I do not trust any lady pilots who take their own lodgings.’

  ‘You have said this before, Mrs B,’ Stella said, grinning.

  ‘Fliers should all live together, eat together and cry together under one roof. You are very special people, Stella, especially if you are women.’

  Noise and shouting had overwhelmed their words as the other girls, accompanied by Hamilton and Sean, had gathered in the porch.

  ‘Will you be letting us in, Mrs Bennell?’ Angelique asked, squeezing her landlady’s arm affectionately.

  There was a pause as the older woman surveyed the crowd assembled in her immaculate porch, their faces flushed and expectant. Her words came sluggishly as she fought back emotion.