Risking It All

by Lucy Oliver

  He checked the plug of his earphones. This wasn’t a time to lose contact and Lynne’s calm voice had helped settle his nerves. In the mist, there was a flash—sunlight on metal, an enemy aircraft, slinking away into the clouds like a stray tomcat flashing an arrogant tail. The bandits were behind them! Following them, training their guns, in the daily game of cat and mouse. How good were your chances of survival? Well, how much did you want to live?

  “Bombers above,” another pilot said through the radio.

  Billy peered, but the thick clouds of blinding fog swirled again and he swore. Circling, he spotted a dark curved belly. It was a bomber and in his sights. Finger on the guns, he shot his machine upwards, but the enemy plane turned like a giant panther, dwarfing the tiny Spitfire. No way was he letting it drop its load—not when she was below. Billy fired and a sharp burst of bullets tore into the malevolent shadow.

  There was a loud bang and he jumped. Had he been hit? No, it was the bomber. Thick black smoke poured from its wing, and he fired again, desperate to avenge his brother. The radio crackled with an order from his squadron leader to return, but he wasn’t going to, not yet. Had the bomber crashed?

  It was below him trying to hide, flames glowing through the clouds in an eerie yellow light, the sharp scent of burning filling the air. One more blast should finish it. He glanced at his fuel level. He was taking a risk, but he wasn’t letting it go now. The bastard still had a cargo of bombs to drop.

  There it was in his sights again. He levelled his plane, but a stream of bullets sprayed past him, tracers glowing in the dark sky. Billy threw the Spitfire hard right, wincing as his muscles burned. A 109 fighter was behind, hidden in the mist. The cat had become a mouse.

  Looking down, sweating, he pushed the throttle. His only chance was to outrun it. They could shoot from below. Wait, the bandit had twisted away and vanished into the clouds. He exhaled. It must have run low on fuel.

  “Return to base now,” Lynne said through his radio.

  There was an edge to her voice. Was she worried? The needle on his fuel gauge dropped into red; it was time to follow orders. Peering through the screen, he tried to add up the planes in front, but the fog was too thick. He’d have to wait until they landed to see who had survived.

  A long strip of green and yellow appeared ahead and reducing speed, he circled, wound down his landing gear and bumped across the grass. Ground crew jogged towards his plane and a fire engine raced past, bells ringing, followed by an ambulance. Not for him, not this time.

  ****

  “Billy!”

  He continued his stride across the parade ground. What else did they want? He wasn’t going back up—it was six o’clock in the evening and he’d been awake since dawn. Five planes were lost, three pilots confirmed dead, one rescued from the channel, the last in hospital with burns. Three deaths were not abnormal, but maybe they had been lucky today.

  “Billy!”

  The voice was familiar.

  A blond-haired man waved and ran to catch up. Arthur! His training buddy, fellow sufferer of sleepless nights, exam stress and airsickness. He hadn’t seen him since his transfer to Special Ops and wasn’t happy to see him now, not at this airstrip.

  “Great to see you,” Arthur said. “You from Biggin Hill?”

  “Yes, transferred for two weeks.” He shook Arthur’s hand and they strode towards the base, Arthur lighting a cigarette.

  “If you’ve finished for the day, why don’t you come to the dance tonight?”

  Billy shook his head.

  “Oh, you must, lots of pretty girls,” Arthur said.

  Would Lynne be there? He glanced at the closed curtains of his hut; inside his roommate must have already bunked down. Billy didn’t fancy spending the next few hours listening to a stranger snore, not when Lynne danced the night away in the arms of another pilot. No, he would end the day with a beer in his hand.

  ****

  Billy had been drinking.

  Lynne stood in the mess hall, squinting through the wisps of white cigarette smoke. Slumped in a chair, his dark hair stuck upwards as though he’d dragged a hand through it, his blue uniform partly unbuttoned, showing a flash of white vest.

  The floor trembled from a foot-tapping jive and she jerked to avoid two dancers who leapt with wild abandon. The room, with its closed windows covered in black-outs, reeked of sweat, cigarettes and bluebell perfume.

  “I think your friend’s had a few,” Barbara said.

  “It’s hard for them,” Lynne said. “Going up several times a day, watching their comrades plummet down, smoke pouring from their planes. I hear them over my radio. I can’t imagine what it must be like up in the clouds playing hide and seek with the enemy, wondering if you’ll be next.”

  Barbara’s brow creased. “You’re not falling for him are you?”

  Lynne laughed. “No, never a pilot and never him.”

  She wasn’t that girl anymore—the fool who hung around for an invite to the flicks. Glancing at him again, she saw his hand fumble for his bottle of beer. Raising it to his lips, he drank, staring into the room with an expression of adult pain in the face of the boy she remembered. She looked away.

  “He’s coming over,” Barbara said.

  Lynne stood still until she caught a familiar musky scent.

  “Dance?” Billy said.

  She’d been waiting three years for this offer, three years to throw back in his face. How arrogant of him to assume he could drift back into her life. She opened her mouth to refuse, but under the yellow lights, his skin was pale and his cheeks shadowed. He’d flown many sorties today, battled in dogfights and watched men die. Tomorrow, it could be him. It was no time for petty grudges.

  “Thank you,” she said.

  He took her hand and her heart jolted at his touch. Billy led her to an empty spot and she let go of him, swaying to the music. Maybe this wouldn’t be so hard, unless he touched her again; he was probably too drunk to notice her nerves.

  The jive finished and a waltz started—far too personal. She stepped back, but Billy grabbed her hand and lifted it shoulder high, sliding his other arm around her shoulder, holding her tight. Despite the beer, she saw his eyes were focused. Lynne placed her palm flat against his shoulder blade, but he winced and she lessened the pressure. He must have pulled his muscles today. But Billy pulled her close, closer than even a waltz demanded.

  Chapter Two

  His body flowed with the music, movement quick and agile. His hand tightened on hers and their sweat mingled, heat rising from her skin and the floorboards vibrating to a beat she didn’t need to follow. Billy led her in short, tight steps, his hand squeezing her shoulder as they whirled, her skirt flaring out, the material soft against her bare legs. She breathed in cigarette smoke. Was it his? There was so much about him she didn’t know.

  The song ended and he pulled her into his arms, chest breathing rapidly against hers. Lynne panted, the prickly wool of his officer’s uniform pressed against her face. She must step back—these were changing times, but she shouldn’t be in the embrace of a man who was not her husband.

  “Come outside with me,” he said.

  Did he think she was some tart he could pick up for the evening? She pushed him away and stalked to the edge of the dance floor. A hand touched her arm.

  “I just want to talk to you,” Billy said. “And it’s too loud in here.”

  The band began a tango. Where he touched her skin, it tingled. He only wanted to speak to her, likely about her family, and it would look odd if she refused.

  “All right,” she said, taking her service jacket from a peg by the door. The night was warm, but she wanted a barrier between them.

  Billy held open the door and she stepped into the June evening. From the shrubbery beside the door came gasping as a couple took advantage of the dusk.

  “Let’s find somewhere quiet,” he said, linking his arm through hers.

  Lynne jumped. He was so close her hip bumped against
his thigh and he took a deep breath. Of course, he’d been drinking. Her shoulders slumped; the fresh air must have made his head whirl, that’s why he was so close. She hoped he wouldn’t be sick. But his feet trod firm and straight and his fingers danced across her arm, stroking the skin in circles.

  No, not that. He was a pilot and she did not date pilots. Twelve weeks was the average life expectancy of those who flew Spitfires. She remembered hearing her mother’s sobs during the night. This war was heartbreaking enough without loving a man who wouldn’t survive. And he did not want her anyway, not really.

  “Are you warm enough?” Billy asked.

  “Yes,” she said.

  Crickets chirped and poppies scented the air. No lights showed and from the mess hut drifted the tune of “The Lambeth Walk,” sounding louder than it should, as if everything were magnified, from the grip of his arm to the long grass brushing against her legs.

  “Sit here,” Billy said.

  Lynne sat and he lowered himself beside her. Should she tell him she did not date?

  “I need to apologise,” he said.

  She jerked her head up.

  “I didn’t treat you well at your brother’s birthday party.”

  “It was such a long time ago.” He must have noticed her tears that night; she lowered her head as her cheeks burned.

  “Yes,” he said. “I doubt you recall the evening, but I have never forgotten.”

  “Why are you telling me this now?”

  “I didn’t want you to remember me with anger.”

  She closed her eyes. This was his epitaph; Billy doubted he would survive the war. Reaching for his hand, she held it tight. “You won’t die,” she said, but she closed her eyes.

  “Charles was shot down at Biggin Hill four months ago.” He spoke in hard, unemotional sentences, then bowed his head so only his dark hair was visible.

  She drew a sharp breath; his brother had been younger than her. This damn war. When would it end?

  “Were you there?” she said, putting her hand on his shoulder.

  He nodded, staring straight ahead. She’d seen too many crashes to fool herself over what must have happened. Billy had taken the broken body from the plane, or worse, watched in despair as the fuel tanks exploded, trapping Charles in a ball of burning flames.

  “I’m so sorry,” she said, hating herself for sounding pitiful. But what else could she say? There were no words.

  “He was due to get married in September. They gave me twenty-four hours leave to tell his fiancée. She cried for hours. I held her hand, made her tea, but there was nothing I could do to comfort her.”

  It reminded Lynne of her mother, but she’d been married with a child. This other young girl had been left with nothing except heartbreak.

  “I won’t date until the war is over,” Billy said. “I can’t do that to someone, my job is too dangerous.”

  Lynne’s muscles tensed; he was telling her for a reason. “It’s the right thing to do,” she said.

  Her father lay in a French field, killed in the Great War. Would Billy end up buried like so many men in a foreign grave far from home? He was young, but his shoulders slumped and head drooped. How could she help him? No words could give back what he’d lost. He didn’t want a relationship and neither did she, but they could comfort each other.

  “Stay with me, Billy,” she said. “Just for tonight.”

  “What?”

  She’d shocked him, made herself sound easy. Should she explain she’d only slept with one man before? The relationship had soured because of Billy, trapped in her head like an unwanted spirit. If they made love, he would no longer be the mysterious unknown, a desire kept hidden.

  Grasses rustled in the breeze and a trickle of sweat formed between her breasts. Faint music travelled from the mess hut. On the hill however, it was as if they were the only people in the world. Had she made a terrible mistake?

  “Are you sure?” he said.

  She nodded.

  Twisting on his knees to face her, he slid his hand under her jaw, then pressed his mouth against hers, hot against her lips. Stubble brushed her cheek. His hand crept around the back of her head and with a tug, he removed her hat, pushing his hand into her hair, pulling out the pins so it fell loose down her back. He gathered it up in his hands and held it against his face.

  “Lynne,” he whispered.

  Her breathing quickened, driven by his tone, the love in his voice. Then he kissed her again, tracing his lips down her jawbone and neck. She closed her eyes as his mouth brushed against her skin like the fragile touch of a poppy flower, and shivered, breathing in his scent. It was hard to believe he was here beside her, wanting her. Then an aircraft hangar door slammed in the field below them and her throat tightened—tomorrow he would be back in his plane, bullets shooting through the clouds towards him.

  Lynne looked up at him, and he smiled down, the small lines creasing in the corners of his blue eyes, which were the colour of a midday summer sky. Her gaze stared into his, her breathing quickening and a hot sensation aching between her legs as her feelings, kept back for so long, flooded her mind, leaving her desperate to feel his body against hers.

  His jacket hung from his shoulders, half-unbuttoned over a white vest. As she slid her hands under the fabric, his upper arms lay smooth and warm beneath her palms and she paused to savour the sensation of his skin against hers. Unfastening the coat, she pushed it back, but the sleeves caught and he laughed as he stripped it off, the sound reminding her of happier, carefree days when she had gazed surreptitiously at him from the corner of her eye. Under the moonlight, his singlet glowed in sharp contrast to his suntanned arms, burnt from long hours in sun-filled airfields. He unfastened her RAF jacket, dropping it to the ground; underneath she wore a regulation shirt, hard against her skin, and she leant forward towards him, desperate for him to remove it, to feel his touch against her flesh.

  His hands were warm as he undid the small buttons of her top and slipped it off her shoulders, unzipping her skirt and pushing it down. In her pale bra and pants, she looked down at the shadows playing over her body, deeper under her breasts, lighter on her stomach. Billy lifted her hair, sliding the soft strands through his fingers so they brushed her naked back. Lynne shivered and, winding her fingers into the cotton of his vest, she drew it up and over his head.

  Muscles hardened from flying crossed his chest, soft hair led down his stomach and she traced it. A firm mouth caught her lips again and she raised her jaw to kiss him, a hot sensation between her legs, dampness. Drawing her hands down his chest again, his skin smooth and warmth, she touched the top of his trousers and he shuddered before reaching over to undo the catch on her bra. He moved behind her, palms sliding across her back and arms. He cupped her breasts, stroking the nipples with his fingers until she groaned.

  This was nothing like what she’d done before. Her nerves tingled across her body, breath short as her chest tightened; he was at once familiar and a stranger to her. That Billy, whom she had known for so long, could be lying with her, stroking her; his eyes darkened and staring into hers with the expression of love she had always longed to see,

  He touched her toes, stroking each one, before hooking his hands beneath her knees and drawing them up into a triangle, placing her feet flat on the ground. Gently, he pushed her legs apart, touching her inner thighs and brushing the cotton of her knickers.

  Lynne shivered, but he held her firm. Hooking a finger under the cotton, he stroked her and with a moan, she wriggled. The fingers withdrew, leaving her squirming, desperate for their return, but instead he traced them, wet, down her legs before leaning down to kiss her thighs.

  He sat up, a hand to his mouth.

  Lynne remembered and laughed. “Gravy browning. I had a hole in my stockings.”

  “You taste like a delicious roast dinner.”

  Giggling, she put her hands on his zip. Through the material, she could feel him—hard—and he groaned as she undid his trousers. B
illy pulled them off and lay against her, wearing his underpants, pressing against her most sensitive parts. She drew her hands down his back and over his buttocks, gripping him tight as his firm muscles tensed. She stroked her hands down to his bottom, fixing the feel of his skin in her mind. Looking into the darkening sky behind his shoulder, she closed her eyes. Tomorrow he would be back up there again, involved in the endless dogfights, causing streams of white smoke and flashes of flames that she watched in horror from her window. Never would she get used to it; not when she heard the pilots’ voices in her headphones, pleading for help, or that terrible long scream. She clutched him tight, her nails digging into his flesh, and as he drew a sharp breath, she instantly released her grip.

  Desperately, she pressed her mouth against his, exploring and tasting him, as he slid a finger into her knickers, drawing them down a few inches, before pressing against her hot flesh. Putting two fingers together, he eased them deep inside her and continued to kiss her lips. She groaned at the burning heat spreading over her thighs as his thumb circled her intimate centre, pressing firmly until she gasped.

  He drew back and she raised herself on her elbows. Where was he? Then he returned, undressed completely, his erection pressing against her. She parted her legs and drew him on top, lifting her calves over his back to his waist, wrapping her arms around his shoulders, kissing the soft skin of his neck.

  He whispered and although she couldn’t quite hear him, it sounded like, “I love you.” But before she could reply, he lifted his hips and pushed into her with one long, firm stroke. She gasped as he filled her completely, his mouth pressed to hers, tongue caressing her mouth. Tightening her legs, she drew him closer, meeting each stroke of his body as he stretched her. Waves of pleasure jolted from between her legs, sharp darts that pierced her hips and travelled up her body until she was soaked in sweat. He shuddered against her and, she moaned, as her body pulsed in rhythm with his.