Spitfire Girls

by Carol Gould

  The loss of Amy had dealt Hamilton a double blow: he had been the recipient of scathing jokes about the mystery man she had been alleged to have carried in the doomed Oxford, and his private grief was a constant, throbbing despair compounded by the cruel insinuations. Was it possible she had taken a passenger? It irked Hamilton that Valerie Cobb had not insisted on more accurate information from the highest authorities. Did she know something to which the rest of ATA must never be privy?

  Hamilton wondered why his injection was taking so long. He opened his eyes and looked at the men on either side: there was dear old Sam Hardwick, obviously drugged to the earlobes and seriously injured.

  Hamilton’s bony face creased into a smile as he thought of poor Noel pining for his best mate, and then chided himself for concocting lewd accusations that were as groundless as those heaped against Amy. Was it human nature, he reflected, that made people want to damage those who had never damaged others?

  There was Hitler, massacring millions, the vast majority of whom had done only good works their entire lives. There was his very own Amy, having brought distinction to her sex, her profession and to her country, now vilified because she might not have died an innocent. Hamilton had known affection and loyalty from the women of ATA after the tragedy, with not one of the Spitfire girls – as he so loved to call them – creating fictions about Amy’s last moments. In this year he had yearned to be sent to Hatfield, where on brief stopovers he could laugh at the permutations Hana Bukova imposed upon the English language, and commiserate with Delia and the other lady pilots on the technical shortcomings of one hundred types of flying machine.

  With the men he could not be so mirthful, and it seemed odd to him that in the wake of his loss he could find solace only amongst females in the same profession. Delia’s dismissal of the rumours about Amy, and the other girls’ condemnation of a wartime press obsessed with an aviatrix’s sexual habits, gave Hamilton Slade the will to continue to live.

  ‘Sobibor?’

  Hamilton turned to the other bed alongside to find a staring Ludo.

  ‘Slade, Hamilton, ATA White Waltham.’

  ‘Oswiecem?’

  ‘Oh, God, bring my injection!’ Hamilton turned away.

  ‘You have suffered?’

  ‘Great Scot – you do speak English,’ Slade exclaimed.

  In the bed on the other side, Sam stirred and issued a small groan.

  ‘Look, what is your name, old fellow?’ Slade asked.

  ‘Name? Ludo – just Ludo, please.’

  Hamilton could see Dame Dazzle approaching with a small tray on which were arrayed tubes and needles.

  ‘You think I’ve been on the Eastern Front?’

  Ludo waved a hand at him weakly and turned away, his face pale and miserable.

  ‘Time for a little discomfort!’ announced Matron, flashing the dazzling smile that had given her the twenty-year-old nickname.

  ‘I say, Ludo,’ Hamilton said, sitting up and leaning towards the Romanian’s bed, ‘do you know Hana Bukova?’

  Ludo looked round and the colour seemed to return to his face at once.

  ‘Hana – Vera – yes!’ he gushed, moving to leap from the bed.

  Matron set the tray on the bedside table and pushed the hulking soldier back under the covers.

  Hamilton laughed.

  ‘Tell me about Hana and Vera while I have my injection,’ said Slade, his voice gentle but demanding.

  ‘Vera and her Jews – Sobibor.’

  ‘Hold still,’ Matron muttered, preparing Hamilton’s thigh.

  ‘Who the devil is Sobibor?’ he asked, wincing as she inserted the needle.

  ‘Vera was taken – and her Jews – they would have gone to Sobibor. I want Hana to know this.’

  There was a silence as Hamilton fought off an urge to scream at the pain of the endless serum tearing into the delicate vein that lived under a pathetically thin layer of his sensitive flesh.

  ‘Just relax,’ Dame Dazzle murmured, still holding the agonizing object in place. Hamilton’s colour had faded in rhythm with the course taken by the invading liquid.

  ‘Please relay this man’s information to Hana Bukova,’ Slade gasped, his entire body shuddering as he resisted the onset of unconsciousness, brought on not by the serum but by the excruciating ordeal.

  ‘Vera would never have gotten to England,’ Ludo continued, staring straight ahead. ‘People are being tortured and they give up. They drop beans.’

  ‘Spill the beans is the expression, I believe,’ said a male voice. Sam Hardwick had been listening.

  ‘Torture comes in many manifestations,’ Hamilton croaked, his torso going limp as Dame Dazzle at last removed her needle. He turned to face his neighbour. ‘What are you in for, Hardwick?’

  ‘I’ve had an arm off, my friend,’ Sam replied lifelessly.

  ‘You’ll still be able to fly,’ Hamilton said, brightening.

  Matron was watching him intently.

  ‘I doubt it,’ said Sam, his face a grid of age and guilt.

  ‘How has your wife taken it?’ Slade enquired.

  ‘She knows nothing – it’s better for her, poor love.’

  ‘Mr Hardwick lost his arm in a rather unusual way,’ Matron commented, sorting through her paraphernalia and rising from the edge of the bed.

  ‘How did you do it, then, Sam?’ Slade asked.

  ‘Our idiot Yank, as Noel likes to call him, tripped me up in front of a prop. Unfortunately the prop happened to be rotating on full power at the time.’

  ‘Have we such idiots in ATA?’ demanded Hamilton, irritated by the disparaging reference.

  ‘Bill Howes,’ Sam said quietly. He had acquired an edge of sarcasm under Noel’s influence, and all in ATA had lamented the demise of his former personality.

  ‘That poor sod!’ Hamilton spluttered. ‘He’s had enough unhappiness in his career to last a lifetime – are you certain it was Howes who tripped you up?’

  ‘According to Noel, it was Howes,’ Sam said meekly, his former self temporarily returning. ‘I was knocked unconscious at once.’

  ‘At least Slater isn’t blaming some poor female on this occasion.’

  ‘Oh, no – according to him it was Howes.’ Sam’s head sank back and his eyelids drooped.

  ‘I’m truly sorry about the arm, old boy,’ said Hamilton, Dame Dazzle standing over him.

  ‘Try not to overtax yourself,’ she said, patting Slade’s hand.

  He smiled. ‘Please get this Romanian chap’s information to ATA, will you?’ he asked, gripping her hand tightly. He thought her eyes showed pity.

  ‘I shall do my best for you lot,’ she said. ‘God knows where we’d be without ATA – probably in one of these camps Ludo keeps rabbiting on about.’ She gathered up her instruments and moved away, Hamilton’s hand falling limply by his aching side as he watched her stride along the busy corridor. Looking to his left, he could see Ludo fading into a deep sleep.

  ‘Ludo’s AWOL,’ Sam whispered. ‘He was Army but I gather he learned to fly and made a miraculous escape to Switzerland. Can you believe he risked life and limb to meet some girl over here?’

  ‘Some girl’, Hamilton snapped, ‘is our very own Hana Bukova.’

  ‘She’s not one of Noel’s favourites,’ Sam remarked.

  ‘What woman is?’ Hamilton said, closing his eyes once more.

  ‘He has one he rather likes.’

  Hardwick and Slade faced each other, their heads resting wearily on creaseless pillows.

  ‘Who on earth might that be?’

  ‘She’s a tomboy,’ hissed Sam.

  ‘One might say that could be expected,’ Slade remarked, winking.

  ‘I beg your pardon?’

  ‘It would stand to reason your mate likes those sort of women, if he likes any.’

  ‘I’m afraid I don’t follow, Slade.’

  ‘Let me explain tomorrow. I’m shattered now.’ Hamilton could see Sam’s troubled face slowly turning away and
a wave of compassion swept through his emaciated breast.

  ‘My sons are all on one ship,’ said Sam, talking to no-one.

  ‘That can’t be an ideal situation for your wife.’

  ‘One American family has five sons in the Pacific,’ Sam reflected weakly. ‘I read about it in a newspaper. The ship is called the ‘Juneau’. The Sullivan family. Three of the boys have the same exact names as my lads …’

  Sam’s voice was droning, and Hamilton could no longer listen. A strange stillness had begun to overtake his mind, images of Amy now more vivid than at any time in the past year. Noises from the hospital corridor became loud and intrusive as Hamilton begged slumber to rest his painful limbs. His last vision, as he drifted into dreams, was of Angelique Florian, determined to rescue her brothers from the jaws of Europe, and Amy pleading with her to abandon the mission. He had spent his life around courageous women and wondered if Angelique would ever be seen again. Amy had been horrified that a pregnant girl could contemplate a near-suicidal flight, but deep down he knew Amy would have done the same …

  His fading mind saw Amy’s frail figure draped across his once-strong arms as he placed her on his small bed and fell on his knees to worship an angel he had loved so completely. Pain was throbbing through his lifeless arms, but he could still feel her warmth. Hamilton smiled at the memory of their last coming together, when his manhood had not yet withered and climax after climax erupted all night long and all next day to remind them how they both still raged with life.

  Nothing in him stirred now, and as Sam the cockney snored, and Ludo the Romanian babbled quietly about Sobibor, Hamilton Slade sank into a deep and welcome rest.

  68

  ‘You can’t be seen with him – it’s outrageous!’ screamed Lili, her expensive bomber jacket covering the regulation ATA-issue flying suit.

  ‘Noel stops me from feeling frustrated,’ Kay asserted. She had put the finishing touches on her evening attire, the cracked mirror of Hamble ladies’ lavatory reflecting an image of fierce sexuality.

  ‘There’s something queer about the whole thing – why don’t you wear makeup when you date the pommy creep?’ demanded Lili.

  ‘By now you should know how much I hate lipstick and war paint,’ Kay replied, standing back from the small glass. ‘Everything you lot say about him is exaggerated. People seem to forget he is the organization’s top flight engineer and he knows every damned aeroplane from tit to ass.’

  ‘Well, all I can say, Kay, is that it’s a shame he has to know you from tit to ass. I wish you’d never gone out that first night in Brisbane. I asked my uncle what creepy Slater was doing sniffing around Australia in the middle of this war and to this day he hasn’t been able to come up with an explanation. He’s probably a double agent. It’s a great pity you’re wasting yourself and that you give licence to him to know you intimately. He diminishes you.’

  ‘Why?’ shrieked Kay. ‘Is it my fault that except for what you and I did together you insist on staying pure, you old bag? I’ve even got his mind off boys. This is the real thing, and it’s normal.’

  ‘What we did together, as you choose to call it, was special,’ Lili said, her voice cracking and her heavy flying boots feeling like lead weights on the harsh lavatory floor. She sat down on the small wooden ledge jutting out from the tiled wall that had once been a men’s urinal. Their last night in Australia – so many centuries ago, it seemed – had been a prelude to frequent and relentless lovemaking in their uppermost room at The Stone House, Hatfield. Always demanded by Kay, the exquisite couplings had left Lili feeling removed from herself, Kay’s strong, broad-shouldered figure bringing her to a frenzy as she possessed the delicate blonde like a hungry cheetah. Her beauty could not be measured against the faces of her age; Kay’s features were a photographer’s dream, her Grecian profile offset by pert dimples and rich, unruly hair. Lili had set out for England in search of a husband but in the year that had now passed she often chuckled at the totality of her passion. Never once had any suitor attracted Lili’s attention; she thought only of Kay and suffered in silence on nights when ferrying jobs left them apart at different ends of the British Isles. She knew Kay did not suffer: pining was alien to a personality obsessed with its own advancement. Lili had promised her financial backing for the films in which she yearned to star, and had been bemused when Kay had accepted the offer as if it were part of a business agreement – not as the generous outpouring of love that Lili had intended.

  ‘He could destroy your career,’ Lili said, still sitting on the ledge. ‘Everybody who meets him is antagonized. Just think if you get into a great theatre company – no-one will want to know you after a while.’

  ‘On the contrary – being with him, I’m learning proper pommy English, and I intend taking him with me everywhere, buying him a house and a motorcar, and tying him to a chair until he writes the charter for his new airline corporation.’

  Lili scowled in silence as Kay’s elegant fragrance wafted through the dank air and seemed to warm the atmosphere like a tropical sunbath.

  ‘I suppose I should find a bloke to marry, and have a baby,’ Lili mumbled.

  Kay whirled around.

  ‘Lil, are you crazy?’ she shrieked. ‘Your career is going to be hot stuff – after the war you’ll be producing all my films.’ Kay paused and looked back into the mirror. ‘If you get pregnant, you’re fucked!’

  Kay had made Lili laugh. Suddenly Delia Seifert entered the lavatory, her skin white and blotchy. Before Lili could offer her a seat, she ran to the lone cubicle and vomited.

  ‘If she’s in the club I’ll eat my dress,’ Kay muttered. Emerging from the cubicle, Delia went to the basin and washed her face.

  ‘Are you ill from our flight?’ asked Lili.

  ‘I’ve just had some disturbing news,’ Delia said, leaning over the basin and grimacing.

  ‘It’s the Immaculate Conception – you’re pregnant,’ Kay warbled, gathering up her evening bag and fur wrap.

  ‘If I may say so,’ Delia said, recovering her composure, ‘you do look the height of tartiness – and no, I am not expecting.’

  ‘What has happened?’ asked Lili, her arm encircling Delia’s narrow waist.

  ‘I’ve been put forward for Class 5 conversion to four-engined planes,’ Delia replied, taking a deep breath.

  ‘Is that why you puked?’ Kay asked, her hand on the exit door.

  ‘No – it’s Anthony. Did you girls know his surname was Seifert?’

  Lili looked puzzled. ‘You related?’ she wondered.

  ‘Yes, that’s pretty much it, as they say,’ Delia replied.

  ‘I still don’t see why that would make you throw up,’ Kay persisted.

  ‘Perhaps I should go,’ Delia muttered. As she pushed past the two beautiful Australian girls Delia knew her own future would hinge less on being one of the women on armed four-engined bombers than on the information her brother Anthony had imparted over a cold Hamble pudding.

  69

  ‘Wake up, you dozy bastard!’

  Hamilton Slade rolled over painfully, the remnants of a flying dream – was it a Halifax? – circulating in his head as he tried to focus on the figure beside his hospital bed.

  ‘I’ve brought you cigars, chocolate from Selfridge and Co, and a dirty comic,’ the figure continued.

  Hamilton left his dream behind and the uniform of an ATA officer emerged, silhouetted against a bright morning sun.

  ‘Are we in pilots’ heaven together, sir?’ Slade asked earnestly, trying to identify the silhouette.

  ‘Fucking hell, man, pilots don’t go to heaven.’

  ‘Alec Harborne!’ Hamilton exclaimed, sitting up and smiling. He could see Alec’s grin, which was fading now, as more of Hamilton’s deteriorating physique emerged from the white sheets.

  ‘What’s wrong with you, lad?’ asked the Scot, sitting on the bedside chair.

  ‘Dame Dazzle knows,’ Hamilton responded, his hand outstretched.

  �
��We’ve all met her at one time or another,’ Alec said, gripping Hamilton’s bony fingers. ‘Have you got a good doctor?’

  ‘I suppose all doctors are good,’ Hamilton replied, looking to each side. ‘Have you seen who I’ve been given for company?’ He gestured towards a sleeping Sam and a babbling Ludo.

  Smiling at the skeleton that had once been an ace, Alec felt an urge to grasp Hamilton’s hand for a long time, as if his own life force might be transmitted to the human shadow on the bed. Marion had told him she thought Hamilton had been destroying himself with grief over Amy. Looking at the pilot who had brought honour upon the RAF and now upon ATA, Alec knew this was more than grief.

  ‘Marion sends her love,’ he said, uncharacteristically subdued. ‘She’s due to have the baby this autumn and I’m off to move Wellingtons. Delia Seifert has offered her a room in the family house and I moved Marion into the place yesterday. Old man Seifert has given up the bottle – some people say it’s because his daughter has given him so much pride. If you ask me, he’s pleased to have a son in a girl’s body. Incidentally, Ham, I ‘d have come to see you sooner but I’ve been stuck in Hurricanes for a week.’

  Hamilton’s colour had begun to return at the news and at the names – pilot gossip made his heart come alive.

  ‘By the way, there was a rumour our Delia’s to be put on four-engined bombers,’ Hamilton said, feeling a clamminess creeping over his trembling hands.

  ‘She’s already airborne.’ Alec’s voice travelled the length of the ward but Hamilton’s head was facing the other way and he chose not to hear.