Spitfire Girls

by Carol Gould

  Had she been reinstated as Commanding Officer and as Head of ATA?

  Because the two women had not had time for a chat Amy knew she would have to wait until after the New Year to hear the lowdown on her friend’s odd, sudden reappearance. Amy had known for some time of Barbara Newman’s absurd plan to threaten some highly-placed associates of her father’s with a scandal in order to secure Valerie’s release, but this had come too suddenly for that. Amy had not seen Barbara since delivering her to Upavon and, in fact, she had not seen anyone in ATA for weeks.

  She had been in the air, it seemed, for ever.

  Exhaustion was now her conqueror and for once she wondered if her tenacity had metamorphosed into folly. Her brain was not enjoying this exercise and the cold of uncaring clouds pierced through to aching wrists and throbbing knuckles.

  She suspected she would have to ‘smell her way’ to Kidlington. Amy had laughed when the engineer in charge at Prestwick had strapped her into the Oxford at teatime that January afternoon and had been so cheerful despite the perishing cold of his assigned location. It had been nice to stop in Blackpool and see her sister, but now as she headed for Kidlington she wondered about Hamilton. He did look so ill, and Amy decided that as from today they would spend more time together. She did not think her family would object to Hamilton, despite his quiet schol-arliness lately overshadowed by an unhealthy pallor. Valerie Cobb had promised Amy an extravagant dinner in London at L’écu de France to celebrate her own astonishing return, and to toast the approval by the Ministry of twenty more top women for inclusion in ATA. Amy would bring Hamilton along to that dinner – and sod the press, she told herself. As from today …

  All the girls had had such phenomenal experiences since the inception of ATA. Amy loathed the organization at first, but after having got to know characters like Angelique Florian and Sally Met she had come to love the eccentricity that seemed a trademark of a ferry pilot.

  If one could not fight, one could ferry …

  It reminded her of her own marriage. Jim often raged at her to stop worrying so much about the lives of the other ATA women; when, for example, she had given money to Marion and Alec, and helped Stella pack a special gift box for the Jewish men in the British internment camp.

  ‘If one could not fight, one could ferry …’

  She pondered the saying as the two engines of her Oxford told her they were oblivious to the thin icy air they cut through. If one had been prohibited from fighting, she told herself, one would have to let off steam in some other manner. Or else one could curl up and die. ATA had been a kind of death for her, but now she was beginning to revel in the kindness and companionship of its membership. Where else in the world could one get a job with an organization whose leading players were actresses, ballerinas, meat market clerks and ground engineers, who were also the nation’s foremost flying instructors for the RAF and majestic pilots in their own right?

  If men had prohibited women from fighting, they could ferry …

  Was it not like her marriage?

  She was confusing herself and wished the cloud would thin.

  January, 1941 …

  Amy repeated today’s date to herself and tried to recall what she had been doing five years ago. She was sure she had been airborne, but not in such conditions as these. It was a day cruelly cold with icy snow showers and a gnashing wind. She flew above the clouds and let her mind wander back five years.

  January, 1936 …

  Was it Australia?

  God, I was hot, she remembered, and Jim was impossible. Why did women want to be known by their husbands’ names? Who had started the tradition? The prophets? Islam? The Greeks? She was glad she had changed her name back by deed poll, and joked to herself that she would want her obituary to say nothing about Jim.

  What was happening?

  Amy could feel the Oxford juddering and she fretted at the possibility that an emergency might befall her at the tail-end of an intolerable fortnight. On this hellish Sunday morning she had told Squire’s Gate airfield at Blackpool that she would be flying over the top, and was delighted to have been allowed air-to-ground communication, usually forbidden to ATA ferry pilots. Now, she thought she was nearing Kidlington but had chosen to remain above cloud.

  Was it possible?

  Cold air screamed by and she had no idea of her location. Her fuel gauge had dropped to near nil and she knew she would have to come down.

  At seventy-five feet she could see a convoy of naval vessels but the Oxford had died long ago. All Amy could do was read the lettering on the side of the vessels as an unbearably agonizing cold gripped her legs like frozen tongs, and she smiled as the prospect of a dinner at L’écu de France loomed hot in her hopeful mind’s eye …

  Part III

  Service of the Heart

  61

  Every night before bed Edith had hugged the tiny doll before placing it on its own little pillow. On this morning in January 1941 she had been excessively loving, because the evening before had been its last bedtime in Philadelphia. One of these days, she would be able to return it to its rightful owner in Germany, but for the time being Heinkel – as she called the doll – would have to content itself with being the American aviatrix’s mascot on a round-the-world tour.

  Edith had given Raine her word about delivering the doll to Frau Fischtal, but that day of promises now seemed a hundred years ago. Having spent a delightful Christmas and New Year at home, Edith was beginning to lose interest in the task to which she had been assigned by Beaverbrook. Since the mysterious disappearance of Valerie Cobb she had felt inclined to give up flying and sit out the war in Fairmount Park, with Hartmut by her side. Occasional twinges that reminded her of that night with Errol had given her more than one uncomfortable night’s sleep, but now she could only speculate about his progress in the world.

  Hartmut, by contrast, was here.

  At breakfast her father sat glumly scratching away at a pile of papers with a newly sharpened pencil. It amazed Edith how little the European war affected her parents, whose daily routine had gone virtually undisturbed even when the Battle of Britain had put all perceptive minds on alert. Selecting marmalade from an array of freshly made preserves, Edith broke a roll in half and smiled across the table at their permanent house guest. Hartmut had agreed to stay within these four walls until Edith was airborne again, but that agreement had now stretched to months and the German was on edge. Kitty Allam had been enchanted from the first day he had arrived on Florence Avenue, and had convinced her husband, after a momentous verbal battle, to stay silent about the presence of an alien in their household.

  ‘He’s Jewish. I’ve seen!’ she had cackled, but that only provoked Julius Allam further.

  Chewing on the soft roll, Edith giggled to herself at the thought of her mother being Hartmut’s geisha in the bathroom.

  ‘What’s funny?’ Her father had looked up from his documents.

  ‘Nothing, Daddy,’ she replied, smiling at Hartmut.

  He looked at her and then back at his newspaper. ‘There is something here I think that you should read,’ Hartmut said, his face unusually tense and his breakfast uneaten.

  ‘Bad news?’ Kitty asked, leaving the kitchen sink to move behind the German. ‘We need this first thing in the morning?’

  ‘I’ve always said they should print the lousy things to come out at lunchtime,’ Julius muttered, returning to his sharpened pencil. ‘By noontime nobody cares what’s happening.’

  ‘Look.’ Hartmut pushed the newspaper towards Edith. She could hardly believe her eyes:

  FIRST JOB BACK AT WORK

  ENDS IN DISASTER FOR VALERIE COBB

  Feelings of urgency, of a need to return as quickly as possible to England, overcame Edith, and she felt as if she had awakened from a pleasant dream to find the real world an inescapable nightmare – as she read on …

  ‘The celebrated aviatrix Amy Johnson sent out on an ATA mission by Valerie Cobb on Val’s first day back, and now
Amy has gone missing,’ she muttered, scouring the newsprint at breakneck speed.

  With increasing disbelief Edith read that Amy had gone off in appalling weather conditions to deliver an Oxford to Kidlington aerodrome from Prestwick, and that White Waltham had reported to Valerie that a similar aircraft had been seen crashing into the Thames Estuary – with Amy’s papers having been recovered from the water. According to the Admiralty, the Naval trawler ‘HMS Haslemere’ had tried to rescue her and what was thought to have been her male passenger, but in attempting to do so the ship’s commanding officer, Lieutenant Commander Derek Wells Fletcher, died of extreme exhaustion and exposure.

  A polar explorer, he had made an heroic trip to the Arctic at the age of twenty-seven, his death following soon after when he was only thirty-four.

  Edith looked up. Her father had shown no interest and she wanted to strike him. She read on:

  According to reports filed by newspaperman Nick Elton, who happened to have been on board one of the naval vessels, Amy’s Oxford had fluttered out of the sky and landed on a wave. He thought he had seen a parachute …

  ‘Do you have to go today?’ asked her mother.

  ‘Damn right I have to go,’ Edith said, stuffing the paper under her arm. She rose from her chair and stood in the middle of the room, still reading the appalling account of the ordeal suffered by a fellow flier. She could just imagine the common room at Hatfield when Valerie – she was back! – would have emerged from the office to tell the other girls of Amy’s disappearance. Amy had become so deeply loved amongst ATA ranks, and the letters Edith had so gratefully received from England implied ATA and its folk had saved Amy’s sanity.

  Now she was one of the missing.

  Edith could see the empty space on the blackboard, the names of other pilots being moved up as quickly as possible to avoid a breakdown of morale. A whole nation would be praying for the sad-faced lady to be found …

  Julius was saying something to his daughter:

  ‘Mommy thinks you should stay with us for good. Forget this Beaverbrook craziness.’

  ‘There are things happening now that need people like Edith,’ Hartmut objected. ‘What American city is being bombed eighty days in a row?’

  ‘Are you wishing it on us, Hartmut?’ Kitty asked.

  ‘Yes, in many ways I am – if it meant jarring this country into some sort of action.’

  Julius left the table and put an arm around Edith’s shoulders. ‘And the rumours about the death camps?’ he asked. ‘There are pictures of these things?’

  ‘Of course,’ said Hartmut.

  ‘Pictures or not,’ observed Kitty, ‘we just think our daughter is irrelevant to airplanes, and to the airspace of a strange land.’

  ‘I want to breathe all kinds of air, Mommy.’

  ‘Your mother meant airs, like stuffy Britishers – like anti-Semites in kilts.’ Julius gave her a patronizing hug.

  ‘One of the most dreadful things you could possibly dream of has happened back in England,’ said Edith flatly, her eyes glazed.

  ‘Tell us,’ Kitty said.

  ‘Read it,’ she snapped, her vision recovering instantly as she thrust the newspaper at her mother. ‘Remember Amy?’

  Her parents huddled over the small print, and Edith felt a wave of excitement and dread as Hartmut’s massive frame left the table and moved to her side. Even now – amid her anxiety about Amy’s fate – an urgency inspired by his Teutonic muscularity enveloped her body, and she wished her father would return and hug her again. In the early morning she could feel crazed with love for the German, and yet by nightfall in her quiet city she would bite her nails with the unease of Errol’s absence. Through all these months no-one had divulged his whereabouts, and she had pestered Molly and her new husband Learco for news of the handsome Negro’s last destination.

  When Kelvin Bray had told her of Errol’s brief incarceration she found the whole episode so distressing that she laughed, not wanting her friends to see a pilot cry. In private she had defied the belief that one must never weep for so small a thing as a coloured man, and Hartmut cheered her with the story of the première of Arabella in Dresden, when his beautiful mother had entertained Hitler’s entourage in a box owned by her Jewish banker husband. In those days, before the Third Reich, being rich and Jewish had been fashionable, and many a Nazi had wooed an unsuspecting, grovelling financier. Then Mr and Mrs Weiss disappeared. Hartmut had lost track of his parents, but because he had been born blond and blue-eyed, Germany had not yet caught up with him.

  ‘You’ll need to get ready.’

  Edith felt the soft skin of her mother’s arm against her own and her heart fell over itself as Amy’s catastrophe multiplied a thousandfold her urge to depart. Now, Edith could not wait to take the controls of the Oxford that had been impounded for so long by the unpleasant government authorities who were infinitely more hostile than any German she had ever known. With the money Beaverbrook had provided she would prove that there were women other than Jacqui Cochrane capable of crossing oceans from their native American shores and ending up in that dim little island on which firestorms now raged.

  Burt Malone had never forgiven Edith for losing Raine’s canister of film, but she had an otherworldly feeling that somehow they would all meet again in cataclysmic circumstances, not on this continent or perhaps even in this life …

  It was time to go.

  62

  ‘It is hard to believe twelve whole months have passed since our operation began. This has been a year of grief for millions and the tragedy does not lessen. I fear we are in for a long siege. However, our achievements have been called “staggering” in this letter I have just received from the Board of BOAC, under whose banner ATA continues to operate. Some of you may have heard that there have been some small battles going on between the Corporation and the Ministry of Aircraft Production – we are so popular that our superiors are fighting for the privilege of saying they own ATA. We rise above it, of course – literally.’

  Cold air, like a petty thief oblivious to war and ideologies, crept through the tiny cracks of the small church in South Audley Street, Mayfair. In recent weeks it had begun to be used as a place of worship for a meagre band of Americans, whose ranks were swelling in direct proportion to the number of Congressmen shocked into an awakening from hibernation. This was the second anniversary of the opening of the men’s ferry pool and Commodore Gerard d’Erlanger had assembled all personnel for a gathering in this location, so special to his American flock. ATA people from various corners of Britain had cried with joy at the sight of rain. Weather had allowed some of them time to get to London, and now the familiar voice of the Commander-in-Chief of Air Transport Auxiliary warmed them in this darkest of winters.

  ‘All of us,’ droned d’Erlanger, ‘were so dazed at Christmas 1940 as to have entirely forgotten the holiday. So much happened to us that there was barely time to breathe. Then, when we lost Amy, the whole nation mourned with Air Transport Auxiliary at all the stories that came out of that miserable day. Now she is one of the war dead and we wish her well in pilots’ heaven, which I think we will all agree is probably much too noisy and smoky for Amy’s liking. Like all of us, she wanted a death in harness, and for all we know she may still be up there somewhere – back in harness once more.’

  Valerie Cobb fidgeted in her front pew seat, tormented by the information to which she had been privy concerning the last moments of Amy’s life. Now, as a senior Commanding Officer, Valerie had the highest degree of responsibility within the RAF–ATA structure and would live with those secrets to her grave. Her own reinstatement had come as a shock when, on the day she had encountered poor pregnant Angelique wandering the streets of Whitehall, Valerie had been told her exceptional qualities of leadership and her resourcefulness were simply too badly missed by ATA for her to be kept in isolation any longer. Now as she listened to Gerard, her thoughts returned to her father’s last comment before she had been freed:

  ‘Yo
u are not exonerated. You are just needed.’

  She was deeply gratified to be back amongst her pilots, and wondered if all fliers were born wanting only to be with other fliers. Her ears perked to the resonant voice bouncing off the walls of the church and she studied the handsome face of the man in uniform.

  ‘Martin Toland’s loss was a tragedy that has, at the very least, made ferrying a safer job to perform,’ continued Gerard d’Erlanger. ‘We are aware now that those wretched Beauforts all had the same fault, and we sacrificed one life and the disappearance of another pilot, to discover this awful technical imperfection. Should Oscar Toland ever be found, we hope he will forgive the makers of that flying machine. Pilots are always ready to forgive – basically, we are all softies at heart. Two brothers who had given their lives on earth to the service of God are no longer with us – one we know is gone for ever from the cheerful card games at White Waltham.’

  Sitting in the quiet chapel and paying tribute to the selfless few who had defied the isolationist wave to help Britain, Nora Flint recalled Oscar’s last words as he headed for his Beaufort. He had reminded her of Angelique’s condition and said Martin was best left strapped in airborne, or the whole of women’s ATA would cease being operational. Nora had taken his remark with a straight face and made a brief retort about the hundreds of Spitfires requiring transport from Vickers Supermarine.

  Oscar thought he was in for a long war …

  Now, Nora was wiping salty moisture from her weather-beaten nose, and wishing she had not taken a prominent seat in the room. She had never told Angelique about Oscar’s quip because no-one had ever seen the actress pilot again after she had stepped into a taxi at Whitehall before the eyes of a newly reinstated Valerie Cobb.