Bobby's War

by Shirley Mann

  But all Gus Prince wanted to talk about was how he could date this beautiful woman.

  Chapter 9

  Bobby’s dreams in the lumpy bed were untroubled, but Gus Prince spent the night tossing and turning in his room, tantalisingly just along the creaky landing from Bobby on the first floor. He shifted onto his side, opened his eyes and checked his watch. It was moving painfully slowly. Gus moaned in frustration and turned onto his other side, facing the wall, but visions of Bobby’s beautiful face kept appearing in front of his eyelids. He clamped them shut, he did not need this distraction in his life. Gus had consigned the girl with auburn pigtails and a freckled face to a childhood memory but the stunning woman who had chatted so naturally across the table in the shabby dining room that evening had taken his adult breath away. At two o’clock in the morning, he knew his youthful crush had not diminished one bit; by three o’clock, he knew she was like no other girl he had ever met and by three forty-five, he realised he was completely and utterly smitten.

  He raced down to breakfast the next morning but there was no sign of Bobby. The proprietor complained bitterly about her demand for an early bowl of porridge.

  ‘I don’t know who she thought she was, Miss High and Mighty,’ he moaned as he spooned congealed oats into Gus’s bowl. ‘Girls should stay where they’re supposed to be and that certainly ain’t flying planes, taking men’s jobs.’

  He looked for support from the young man in front of him, expecting male solidarity, but none was forthcoming.

  Gus was looking wistfully at the chair where Bobby had sat the night before.

  *

  Meanwhile, Bobby was already in the air. She had been picked up by a Fairchild taxi aeroplane and was on her way to the south coast. With another day and a half left before she was due back on duty, she intended to spend the time going through her notes and getting some washing done.

  ‘Barrage balloons,’ the call came back from the cockpit. ‘Brace yourselves.’

  There was a universal groan from the three passengers in the back. They all hated barrage balloons; they appeared out of nowhere if an enemy aircraft was in the area and at 1,500 feet, their purpose was to force planes to fly higher by giving them huge obstacles they could fly into. Filled with helium, their rubber skins were silvery grey in colour and about sixty feet long and twenty-five feet wide, like the torso of an enormous elephant. Their steel cables were barely visible and many a time Bobby had been forced to bank suddenly to avoid one. All the pilots complained that while the balloons might cause damage to the enemy, they put Britain’s own pilots at huge risk as well.

  Bobby tightened her seat belt and clung onto the side of the aircraft just as the Fairchild took a dip to the left. She fell against the small window on her left and jarred her shoulder, taking a sharp intake of breath.

  ‘Sorry about that. The sun’s in my eyes and I only saw the cable at the last minute,’ the pilot called back. An older man in his late fifties, Bobby did not know him, but had spotted that he had one arm shorter than the other and suspected he had had polio as a child. She knew there were several men with disabilities who had ended up in the ATA after being rejected by the RAF. They were all good pilots and often with more experience than most of their fellow pilots, they grasped the opportunity to get behind the control panel of an aircraft.

  Bobby recovered her position and stared out at the clouds above them. These moments as a passenger were rare and, rubbing her sore shoulder, she allowed herself to daydream about the previous evening.

  She had been delighted to see Gus, noticing that the gawky boy had grown into a rather good-looking young man.

  Maybe I should relax a little more and have a bit more fun, she thought, thinking of Sally’s advice, but then, as usual, her mind went to the possible list of aircraft she would have to fly that week and her concentration became totally absorbed in her job.

  However, as Christmas came and went amid long lists of deliveries and bad weather, a letter arrived that suddenly brought her personal life into sharp focus.

  Dear Roberta,

  We were sorry you could not join us at Christmas as I had a proposal I wished to discuss with you. I have decided as you have reached the age of twenty-eight and are as yet, still unmarried, that it would be beneficial to the family for you to be settled. While your mother and I are aware of your love of flying and your role in the ATA, we feel it is about time that you thought about your future after the end of this terrible war, and that of the farm.

  For this reason, I have agreed with my friend, Group Captain Turner, that you should marry his only son, Edward. He is a little older than you, but a fine upstanding man who works in the War Office.

  We will arrange everything from here for your next leave.

  Your mother and aunt are well and we are managing to produce some crops with careful management.

  Your loving father.

  Bobby read and re-read the letter, in stunned silence. She was absolutely livid and stomped around the bedroom, stopping every few steps to re-read the peremptory words.

  ‘How dare he?’ she seethed at the window.

  ‘The nerve of the man,’ she shouted at the curtains.

  ‘If he thinks I’m giving in to his commands, he’s got another think coming,’ she finally announced to the whole room and sat down heavily on the bed. Bobby stared at the embossed notepaper and then tore it up into tiny shreds and threw it in the waste paper bin with a certain amount of satisfaction.

  But Bobby knew her father’s scheming could not be dismissed as easily as a bit of paper and she fell back onto the pillow to stare at the ceiling, looking for inspiration on how to deal with this incredible proposal.

  She cast her mind back to a day at the airfield when Group Commander Turner had introduced her to his son, a tall man in a pin-striped suit and black, shiny shoes, who looked completely out of place amid the flying suits and overalls. She seemed to recall he had stuttered when he was introduced to her, looking down at his feet. He must be at least forty, she thought.

  Bobby Hollis had no intention of being steered towards a marriage she had no interest in and was quite prepared to take on her father, her mother, Group Captain Turner and any other bumbling son he or her father pushed in her direction.

  She wrote to Harriet, thinking that maybe her worldly friend might, for once, be the one to help her. She was so incensed she forgot to mention she had met Gus until she had signed her name at the bottom. For a moment, she wondered whether to tear up the letter and start again, but she was due on duty and if she wanted to get this note off to the post room, the gossip about meeting Gus would have to wait.

  Dear Harriet,

  I hope you are well and that you’re behaving in the WAAF. How many men have you been out with this week? Do you still fancy that engineer – Gerry, was it? – or have you moved on to the next victim? How’s it all going? Did you notice it was Christmas? I certainly didn’t.

  Harriet, I know you won’t believe it of me but I’m in a complete dither. My father has sent me a letter telling me I must marry some old chap who’s the son of Group Captain Turner! I think I met him once, he seemed such a civvy and OLD! You have to help me. What am I going to do? Are you around the weekend after next? I’ve decided a trip home is well overdue. I’m going to have it out with my father and I may need moral support.

  Love Bobby

  P.S. Flying is wonderful, as always – who needs a man?

  *

  In a wood-panelled office in Whitehall, Edward Turner let out a loud expletive. His secretary on the other side of the wall looked up in surprise. Mr Turner was a complete gentleman and the bespectacled Miss Mavis Arbuckle had never heard him swear in all the years she had worked for him. She shook her head, wondering what had prompted this sudden outburst but glanced at the clock and hurriedly went back to the squiggles of shorthand notes that had to be transcribed for coding by four o’clock.

  Edward got up jerkily and went over to the window to stare bla
nkly at the light-coloured stone wall beyond. He had his father’s letter in his hand but quickly screwed it up with vehemence. He looked down at the crumpled piece of paper.

  ‘He has to be kidding,’ he said out loud. ‘I’m thirty-two years of age, I can make my own bloody decisions thank you very much, Father.’

  The suggestion in the letter that Edward might like to marry the daughter of his good friend, Andrew Hollis, had been short and to the point. His father said very little else apart from the fact that he believed it was about time Edward gave some consideration as to how he was going to carry on the family name.

  Edward’s childhood had been a typical upper-class round of Latin, healthy, muddy sports and a series of nannies who had been too busy coping with the daily needs of three boisterous boys in the large, Victorian home to have any spare time to offer cuddles or affection. His father had covered himself in glory with the RFC, the precursor to the RAF, in the Great War, but he disappeared every afternoon to his beloved airfield, oblivious to domestic affairs, leaving the young boys to their tutor. His mother was involved in ‘good works’, too concerned with raising money to help the poor of the parish to notice the three sons who gave her a headache. Edward was the eldest of the three brothers and had been the first to be turfed out to board at Eton once he was old enough. Edward immediately had to hide the crushing homesickness in stifled sobs under the bedclothes at night to avoid being bullied. He learned to button up all feelings with the top fastening of his Eton classic dress shirt and stiff collar but then his father, in a bid to toughen up this quiet, studious boy, agreed to sailing lessons on the Thames. From then on, Edward spent his holidays on the south coast, battling waves and winds and it was during these holidays that he discovered he had a true love of danger.

  When he was approached at Cambridge by a strange man from the government, Edward threw caution to that wind he loved so much and agreed to accept the chance to live a precarious life abroad feeding information back to his home country. Edward Turner discovered he only felt at ease with himself when he was facing danger, living out of a small bag and surrounded by genuine people who had no idea what a six o’clock cocktail looked like. But when war broke out, he was called back to serve in Whitehall, sitting unnaturally behind a large mahogany desk and attending endless, boring socially enhancing soirées. His quiet manner, added to his experience in Europe, gave him an invaluable advantage and he became embroiled in a life of strategy meetings and reports. It did not take long for him to be invited to act as an advisor to a dazzling array of high-ranking titles and influential people.

  Edward banged his fist on the table. He had avoided the clutches of many a young woman who had picked him out at Foreign Office functions; escaped the advances of debutantes put in front of him by his mother, and categorically refused to have anything to do with the nieces of friends of his family for years. He had no intention of being inveigled into a relationship now.

  Reaching into the bottom drawer of his mahogany desk, where he kept a small silver flask of brandy for emergencies, he took a swig. As the warming liquid slid down his throat, he cast his mind back to a gawky, auburn-haired girl he had spotted once at the airfield near his home before the war began. She was a child, for heaven’s sake.

  *

  The following week, Bobby sat on the packed train and closed her eyes. It had been a frantic time with endless deliveries all over the country and she had learned more about her own native land than she had ever thought possible, recognising places from the air by roads, rivers, railway lines and tall spires. She switched her mind to Norfolk and made herself remember all the positive things about going home. She envisaged the snowdrops that would soon be coming through on the top meadow, imagined being treated to one – or maybe two – of Mrs Hill’s scones, being brought up to date by Aunt Agnes about her parents and teasing Archie. But then her mind turned to her father. His letter had made her more furious than she had been in years and she was determined not to be intimidated by his cold, matter of fact manner or his assumption that she would comply with his instructions. For a brief moment, Bobby wondered whether she could appeal to her mother but knew that would be a waste of time; her mother would never have the courage to question her husband.

  Bobby opened her eyes to stop thinking about the confrontation to come and looked around at the service people on the train to take her mind off it. They were all clutching their travel warrants. As a civilian, she had had to pay for the one she was holding in her own hand but acknowledged there were other perks that more than made up for that one disadvantage. The recent decision to allow ATA pilots equal pay, for example, uniquely put women on a par with men. In celebration of her pay rise to £6 a week, Bobby had started to send her uniform to the drycleaners. She looked again at the service people around her, more pityingly this time. She was not part of the ‘saluting brigade’ as she called them, and therefore was not subject to the same number of rules and regulations that her fellow passengers had to suffer. That autonomy gave all the ATA pilots, especially the women, a status that was envied and when she arrived at Norwich, she strode confidently down the platform, aware that the hordes of uniforms parted to let her pass, staring at her with curiosity. She had almost reached the front of the building when a woman in spectacles with a fox fur around her shoulders patted her on the shoulder.

  ‘Excuse me my dear, could you tell me the way to the powder room?’

  Bobby looked flummoxed.

  ‘Oh, I am sorry, dear, I thought – with that uniform – that you worked for the railways. I do beg your pardon.’

  There was a guffaw of laughter from behind Bobby as she stared at the lady who tottered off to find another uniform to ask. Archie was standing waiting for her, next to the farm cart and one horse.

  ‘Hello high-flying Bobby Hollis, are you waiting to clean the station toilets or are you going to come home?’

  Bobby grinned at the tall figure of a man standing next to a small cart and stopped to pat the horse affectionately.

  ‘Hello Archie’ she giggled. ‘Oh take me home. It’s certainly never boring being in the ATA. Come on, let’s get going, I’m dying for one of Mrs Hill’s scones; she promised she’d save some rations to make some. Anyway, how are all those nephews and nieces of yours?’

  ‘Growing fast, but not as fast as you. I swear you are even taller.’

  Bobby launched herself into the cart and settled next to him. He was right, she almost reached his shoulders now.

  ‘What news of everyone? Sorry I couldn’t get home for Christmas.’

  ‘Life goes on,’ Archie replied. ‘Your father’s struggling with the ledgers without you.’

  ‘Good,’ said Bobby fiercely. Her father was not her favourite person at the moment.

  Archie looked sideways at her. He knew exactly what she was talking about but, as usual, his discretion was complete.

  ‘Not found a nice pilot to put the hounds off the scent?’

  ‘No, I’m going to have to beg the next man I see to marry me to save me and whisk me away from marauding group captains’ sons!’ She laughed as Archie nodded in understanding. Nothing was a secret from Archie.

  As they turned the corner, they passed old Walter, who was trundling along to his fields, a hessian sack tied round his middle as usual.

  ‘There’s a prime candidate, I could stop and ask Walter if you like? He could do with a nice wife,’ Archie suggested with a grin.

  Bobby looked at Walter, disappearing in the distance. She clasped her hands to her breast with dramatic longing and then turned back round and chuckled.

  ‘You always cheer me up, Archie,’ she said but the whole time she had been eyeing up the reins, dying to take hold of them, and eventually Archie gave in to the inevitable and handed them over to her. She immediately chivvied the horse on to a faster trot. ‘Oh well, you’re probably right. I’ll just have to sacrifice myself and become a wife to an old man and dedicate my life to fetching his slippers every night.’
>
  ‘Hah, fat chance,’ chuckled Archie.

  As soon as they pulled up outside the farmhouse, she gave him a peck on the cheek and swung herself off the cart.

  She slowed her pace as she passed the burial plot near the barn on her left. On every leave, she always took a moment to visit the tiny grave of her stillborn brother. She looked up at the farmhouse; her father could wait.

  Approaching the iron railings that enclosed the plot, protecting the souls within from goodness knows what, Bobby looked round for something to place on the graves of her grandparents and her unknown twin. She found some hellebores growing next to the barn and plucked off the pale white heads to make little posies. She knelt for a moment next to the tiny mound of soil and glanced at the white headstone just under the angel’s feet. ‘Here lies the body of Michael Hollis, who died before a life was granted to him. May God help him rest in peace.’ Her heart suddenly jumped and she felt a shadow cross her body. It made her shiver and yet gave her comfort as shadows always did. A brother would have saved her from this fate of a marriage she did not want. Bobby got to her feet, sent a quick prayer asking for help skywards and marched into the house.

  She strode straight into her father’s study.

  ‘Father, you cannot do this.’ She had not even stopped to take off her fur-lined boots.

  Andrew Hollis looked up from his desk where he had been going through his accounts. It had not been an edifying task. He glared back at his daughter, who was standing in front of him with her hands on her hips, legs apart. Her red hair seemed to be on fire.