Not2Nite

by Barbara Burke

  “What kind of plane are you delivering?” she asked instead of continuing the argument.

  “No idea. I hope it’s not a bomber. They need a lot of holding up in the air, and my arms are tired. I was dancing most of last night and hanging on to some of my partners takes a lot of strength.”

  “I wish I didn’t believe you.” Molly laughed. “I don’t know how you keep up the pace. It can’t be easy flying all over England ferrying planes from one RAF station to the next.”

  “Well, as your precious Mr. Churchill keeps reminding us, there’s a war on. One must make sacrifices, but I’m damned if I’m giving up dancing. Not when there are so many, many men in uniform wandering around London just waiting for me to find them.”

  Chapter Nine

  “I’m sorry, lad, but you’ll have to explain to your mother that I’m needed here.”

  Guy set his empty pint glass on the aged oak table and sighed. He’d earned that drink. It had been a gruelling few days. His Uncle John was not to be found at the address where he’d been residing for years. The neighbors on each side seemed to know nothing and weren’t particularly helpful. For one thing his uncle had kept to himself and hadn’t made any close friends locally. For another they were used to people disappearing. No one questioned it anymore. Enquiries at the post office had yielded nothing but the information that they weren’t about to hand out a forwarding address to anyone who walked in. It wasn’t until two days later that someone suggested he try the local tobacconist’s shop. It was there he finally struck gold and was given the name of a small town outside the city’s environs that his uncle had been known to visit.

  He searched fruitlessly for two days, asking in shops, churches, and land agents offices until finally, ready to give up, he’d seen his uncle walking down the street, completely oblivious to the trouble he’d caused his long-suffering nephew. Guy had promptly dragged him into the nearest pub and sat him down.

  He rose to replenish the contents of his own glass. “Do you want another?”

  “Well, since you’re buying I won’t say no.” John grinned and quickly emptied his tankard before handing it over.

  It was late afternoon and the pub, which had only just opened, wasn’t very busy. Guy was soon back at the table with two brimming pints of dark ale.

  “She’s not going to like it,” Guy said as he resumed his seat on the ancient leather bench. “And she’s not going to understand it, either. You may have lived here for a long time, but as far as she’s concerned, your ties are gone now. She expects you to come home. When I tell her you’ve sold the house you’ve lived in for over twenty years in order to buy a farm and install a lot of evacuees in it, she’s going to hit the roof.”

  “Well I can’t help that,” his uncle replied with some justice on his side. “I couldn’t stomach being in the old house any longer without Mavis, but England’s my home now, and her fight is my fight. I can’t abandon her. And when I saw those children with no place to go, I knew I’d found something I could do that would make a difference and make Mavis proud to boot.”

  Though Guy had been shocked to discover his uncle was running what was essentially an orphanage, he couldn’t argue. John seemed satisfied with his life and convinced that his decision had been the right one.

  “You’re really content out here in the middle of nowhere?”

  John laughed. “I’m really content knowing that I’m out of the regular bomber flight path.” He turned serious. “The factory is running itself, and I have more money then I need for my wants as well as a small lab in my country home that I can play in whenever I want.” He paused for a moment, taking a drink while searching for the right words. “I’ve found a cause, Guy, and if you’re lucky, you’ll find one yourself one day. Then you’ll understand.”

  He changed the subject abruptly. “Now tell me about this girl you’ve met.”

  “What? I never said anything about a girl.”

  “You don’t have to. I’m right, though, aren’t I? I can see it in your face. You’ve met someone.”

  Guy shrugged. “Maybe.”

  His uncle settled back, an expectant look on his face, and before he really knew he was doing it, Guy was telling him all about Molly.

  “I’m meeting her in about four hours,” he concluded and couldn’t help but smile.

  “Then what are you doing sitting in a pub with an old man miles from London instead of getting ready to see her?”

  “Damned if I know.” Guy drained his beer and jumped up. “I’ve got a train to catch!”

  John raised his glass. “That’s the spirit,” he said to the rapidly disappearing figure of his nephew.

  England didn’t need Mussolini to ensure that the trains ran on time, and Guy pulled into St Pancras station with plenty of time to spare. After checking in with the Embassy and freshening up, he spent more time than he thought was possible searching for a bouquet of flowers. Nothing too fancy, but something unique and beautiful, like the woman they were destined for.

  He was standing on the rooftop long before the sun was even close to touching the horizon. He settled down to wait with what patience he could muster and his thoughts turned to his conversation earlier with his uncle. John and Mavis hadn’t known each other long before they were married, and John was shipped off to the trenches almost immediately after the briefest of honeymoons. Yet when the war was over, they had built a life of value together, and John was a man with no regrets.

  Guy knew that if he’d allowed Molly to walk away, he would not be able to say the same of himself. Come what may, even a happy life with another woman—though he couldn’t imagine such a thing now—he would have regretted it for the rest of his life. Regretted the might have been. Regretted the what if that never would be. Even while searching high and low for his uncle, Molly had been in his thoughts like milk in tea—impossible to separate out once the two had become one.

  Now, after four of the longest days of his life, he was finally going to see her again.

  An hour later the sun had long since set and Guy was still alone on the roof, pacing impatiently, trying to keep his spirits up.

  Two hours later, he’d been through a range of emotions that ran from worry to anger to disappointment and back to worry and anger again. But he hadn’t left the rooftop.

  At midnight, shoulders slumped and flowers wilted, he gave up.

  Molly wasn’t coming.

  As he wearily climbed the stairs down to the ground level, he thought about stopping at Angela’s flat to see if her mother knew anything about where Molly might be. But before he could knock he remembered the time. She would have gone to bed long since and being stood up was no excuse to wake her.

  Even if the bottom had just fallen out of his world.

  This time he’d paid attention, and he knew where he was going. He slowly made his way back to the Embassy without mishap, despite the dark. At one point he thought he heard planes overhead, and he wondered if Molly was out there in the dark somewhere watching for them.

  Ignoring her promise to him.

  He didn’t sleep well that night, his mind in turmoil as he tossed and turned in the single, hard bed he’d been assigned. He’d known Molly was reluctant to start a new relationship after what she perceived as the failure of her last one, but he had been sure that she’d meant it when she said she’d meet him. So what had happened in the meantime to change her mind? Had he imagined the spark between them?

  No! It hadn’t been a spark. More like a conflagration. He suspected she was just plain scared. Well he wasn’t going to accept that. With that resolution he finally managed to fall asleep and caught a few hours of shut-eye before the morning sun woke him again.

  He quickly showered and dressed and was just exiting the room when he saw the sad bouquet of flowers sitting on the table. Somehow he’d held on to them all through the long night. He picked them up. Hours outside in the cold air hadn’t done them any good. Nor had leaving them without water for the remaind
er of the night. They hung limp and curled in their paper wrapping. He moved to toss them in the garbage can and then stopped. One red rose, nestled in the centre and somehow protected thereby, still retained its bloom. Not really knowing why, he gently extracted it, cut off its long stem and placed it in his lapel’s buttonhole. One thing at least had survived from the debacle that was last night. Perhaps it was a sign.

  He made his way toward the café where they had breakfasted the morning after their night on the roof. He needed something to eat before he started searching for her. And there was always the chance that it was one of her regular haunts. Perhaps she would turn up while he attempted to digest his bangers.

  The place looked exactly the same except for one crucial detail. Molly wasn’t there. That made the café a whole lot drabber and the sausages even more unpalatable. However, he was there for neither ambiance nor flavor. He simply needed sustenance and an answer to the question of whether he would find Molly there and he was afforded both.

  He could kick himself for how little he knew about her. Sure, he knew what her favorite color was and that she’d vacationed in Italy before the war. He knew that she had a sweet tooth and thought Vera Lynn was overrated. But somehow he had neglected to find out her last name. How stupid was that?

  His only hope was to find her at her digs. Thank the lord his mother had drilled into his head the importance of always escorting a lady safely home or he might not even know where she lived. He didn’t relish the idea of knocking on the door and asking if anyone knew which flat someone called Molly Something or other lived, but he’d do it. It was his only hope.

  As he made his way past the alley in which they had kissed, he felt the anger rise up again. How could she have just deserted him like that? Was she that afraid? Was she willing to stop living entirely just to avoid making a mistake? He wouldn’t have believed it possible of the girl he had spent the night with. Of the valiant woman he’d laughed with and joked with. And kissed.

  He turned the corner toward the small square on which her building stood and stopped cold. Across the tilled earth of the newly created vegetable garden stood a gaping hole. The stately Georgian house to which he had escorted Molly was gone, and nothing but a pile of rubble stood in its place.

  The punch to his gut was almost physical. She had warned him not to count on anything, and he had laughed, joked about being hit by a bus. He felt like he’d been hit by one now.

  He noticed for the first time the bustle around the masonry and brickwork that lay in heaps where the building had once stood. Blackened stone showed that it had been hit by an incendiary bomb and a fire had raged. There was a degree of irony in that. Molly had watched so carefully for just such an occurrence, and now it was her house that was gone. Already the local council was at work clearing away the rubble and making sure the area was safe. He assumed it was a job they faced every day. The toll of war being paid once again.

  Not knowing what else to do, he made his way toward them. Perhaps there was some way he could help. He was stopped by an old voice, improbably calling his name.

  “Mr. Corbett! Oi!”

  He looked across the partially ravaged garden to see the old man who had cast himself as Molly’s cavalier leaning on a wheelbarrow in the middle of the square, his face caked in mud and his eyes tired.

  “Mr. Stewart,” he said, remembering the old man’s name. “What happened?”

  “Got bombed, didn’t we? Bad business. Happened the night before last when everyone was asleep.” He shook his head woefully. “Nothing left.”

  “What happened to Molly?”

  The old man looked surprised, then sorry. “She’s gone, isn’t she,” he said, simply.

  Guy didn’t wait to hear any more. He didn’t think he could bear it. Turning on his heel, he left the square as quickly as his feet could carry him. He heard the old man calling out to him, but he refused to stop. He didn’t want to know what he might have to say. What he might tell him.

  Without consciously following a particular path, he found himself back at the building where they had spent their vigil. Not quite knowing why he climbed the stairs and halted outside little Angela’s door. Gathering himself together, he knocked and waited. There was no reply and he knocked again, louder. There was still no answer. Placing his ear against the door, he tried to discern if there was any noise, conversation or a radio, coming from inside the flat, but there was nothing. Only silence. He would get no answers here.

  Just like there were no answers, and no peace, on the rooftop. Just himself alone. Again.

  Two hours later, he found himself on a train heading back to Leicester. He remembered walking through the streets of London, through the crowds going about their daily lives as if nothing had happened. And realizing that for them nothing had. No bomb had been inscribed with their name and so life went on.

  But Guy hadn’t spent months and months getting used to the constant bombardment and the one night he’d actually spent in London had been blessedly calm.

  Well, except for the fireworks and explosions he experienced just by being with Molly.

  Now Molly was gone.

  Somehow through the shock and grief of that awful realization he’d instinctively headed for the only refuge he knew—family.

  He was fortunate enough to find a taxi at the station when he arrived—there were still some running despite the petrol rationing—and he gave the address of his uncle’s small estate in something of a fog.

  The place was bustling when he arrived. Women in nurses’ uniforms presided over a cricket game on the lawn for the older children and played one on one with toddlers and babies safely out of the way of hard balls and swinging bats. His uncle sat, like a military commander overseeing the battlefield, on a tall chair under a spreading oak tree. Unlike any military commander Guy had ever heard tell of, though, he had a contented smile on his face.

  It was a smile that quickly faded when he saw Guy get out of the cab. He jumped to his feet and started toward the lone figure walking toward him through the laughing children.

  “I’ve told you already…” he began before seeing the look on his nephew’s face. “What is it?” he asked, anxiously. “Come into the house where we can talk.”

  He took Guy by the elbow and led him inside, ushering him into a book lined room and sitting him down in a leather easy chair before heading to a decanter on the sideboard and pouring two glasses of rich, amber liquid.

  He thrust one into Guy’s hand and asked, “What’s happened, lad? Is it your mother?”

  Guy hadn’t thought, too wrapped up in his own misery to realize how his actions would be interpreted. His uncle’s words cleared his head like cold water.

  “No,” he assured him. “She’s fine.”

  He took a long drink and started to talk, telling John about what he had found when he had returned to London after his visit yesterday.

  “I understand what you meant yesterday,” he concluded. “I couldn’t figure out what was keeping you here. Why you wouldn’t come back to the States, to your family, to safety. It seemed crazy to risk getting killed for someone else’s war. But now I get it.” He looked steadily at his uncle, misery filling his eyes. “I’m involved now. This is my war.”

  His uncle looked back steadily at the resolve in his eyes. “So what are you going to do?”

  “That night on the roof Molly told me about the Battle of Britain and how a handful of airmen stopped Hitler’s forces and prevented a German invasion. She said the whole country was proud of them,”

  John nodded. “As Prime Minister Churchill said: ‘Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few.’ ”

  “Yes, even in the States we’re familiar with his oratory skills. He certainly has a way with words, but it was Molly’s words and her pride that affected me. So that’s what I’m going to do in her honor. I’m going to join the RAF.”

  John looked at him with the compassion that only a person who had lost
someone precious could achieve. He made no attempt to dissuade him.

  “Good luck, my boy,” was all he said.

  As Guy walked away, he realized it was the fourteenth of February. Valentine’s Day. A day for lovers.

  Chapter Ten

  RCAF Station

  Trenton, Ontario, Canada, June 1941

  It was a beautiful spring day. The sky was blue, the grass was green, and flowers bloomed. As he crossed the field after taking part in another training flight Guy was finally beginning to feel like someday in the distant future he might, just might possibly be warm enough.

  But he tried not to get his hopes up.

  It had been a gruelling four months.

  Joining the RAF had been a non-starter. Guy just didn’t feel comfortable with the history and tradition of a force that had already been through so much. When he discovered that Canada was the training centre for the members of all the air forces from across the British Commonwealth, he decided that was the place to head. It was closer and just felt more like home. After a quick trip back to New York, he’d made his way north and joined the Royal Canadian Air Force. And he wasn’t the only American there.

  They all had their reasons. Some didn’t hesitate to share. Others, like Guy, were more private.

  In the meantime he learned that any complaints he might have about winter in the north east USA was simply whining in the face of a Canadian winter. And if he heard it once he heard it a thousand times that he should just be glad he wasn’t with the flyboys in Saskatchewan where the winter was actually cold by Canadian standards.

  He doubted too many people spent the night standing on a rooftop falling in love there.

  However, his training was almost finished and now he was impatiently waiting for his graduating class to be given their orders. He was looking forward to seeing some action.

  “Corbett! Hey, Corbett!”

  Guy turned to see one of the younger recruits waving in the distance, trying to get his attention. He sighed. Who was he trying to kid? With an average age of just twenty, they were pretty much all younger than him. He sometimes felt like the grandfather of this particular flying family. He stopped to let the kid catch up.