The Grafton Girls

by Annie Groves

  Diane squirmed uncomfortably in her seat. She was spending far too much time thinking about the major and what he might think about her. Far, far too much time.

  ‘OK, we’re just about finished here.’

  Here was an Edwardian house just outside Knutsford, set in a couple of acres of grounds. It had originally been requisitioned by the British Government, who were now offering it to the Americans. That it had once been a family home was still evident in the small beds and the cot they had found in the attic bedrooms.

  ‘What is it with you Brits that you shut your kids away in the attics?’ the major muttered under his breath in between calling out the measurements he was taking to Diane.

  ‘We don’t shut them away, and anyway, it’s only the rich who can afford staff and have proper nurseries,’ Diane told him shortly. There was a battered teddy bear on the floor underneath the cot. Automatically Diane bent down to retrieve it, unaware of the way the major was watching her, as she straightened its legs and smoothed the place where the fur had been rubbed away. Poor bear. He looked so neglected and unloved, so forlorn and forgotten somehow. She could well imagine what would happen to him once the military moved in here. Once he must have been some child’s much-loved toy.

  A rush of emotion seized her, a combination of her own childhood memories and the knowledge that she would never now hold in her own arms the children she had hoped to have with Kit. They had talked about them together, laughing and teasing one another. ‘A boy for you and a girl for me,’ Kit had whispered lovingly to her, that first time they had been intimate together, as she lay in his arms beneath the low ceiling of the small hotel where they had been able to get a room, selfconsciously registering as ‘Mr and Mrs Smith’, whilst Diane had toyed guiltily with the ‘wedding ring’ she had been wearing. ‘No, a boy for you and a girl for me,’ she had corrected Kit before he had taken her back in his arms.

  The bear emitted a soft growl under the pressure of her tight grip on him, making her jump.

  The major had his back to her. Diane looked at the bear. By rights she ought to leave the bear here…But those bright button eyes were looking so reproachfully at her. Half ashamed of her own sentimentality, she stuffed the bear inside her bag.

  ‘Ready?’ The major was holding open the door.

  Nodding, Diane turned to follow him.

  The next house, strictly speaking, was too far out of the way, since it was situated close to the market town of Nantwich, but the major told Diane that they might as well take a look at it since it was close to a small RAF airfield, which some of the smaller American planes could use in an emergency.

  They were on the outskirts of the town, just driving past a school playing field where children were playing in their summer holiday; when a light plane, its engine stuttering and whining as it plunged into a steep dive, dropped down to earth so fast that it was easy to see the American insignia on the fuselage, and easy to see too the two young men in its cockpit. Diane felt her stomach roil with foreknowledge and sickness. She had spent too much time around airfields and airmen not to know that the plane was out of control and that it would be impossible for the pilot to pull out of the dive, even if by some miracle the engine restarted.

  The major pulled the Jeep to an immediate halt, yelling to Diane ‘Keep down’ as the plane skimmed the top of some trees on the other side of the playing field.

  ‘Christ, he’s going to hit the field,’ Major Saunders swore. Diane could hear the children screaming and scattering in every direction whilst someone blew shrilly on a whistle.

  ‘He’s trying to clear the field,’ she whispered without taking her eyes off the small plane.

  ‘Down, get down,’ the major yelled at her as, by some miracle, the plane missed the playing field, only to lose speed and drop several feet, crashing through the trees, snapping off branches with a raw tearing sound that made Diane think of an agonised scream, before hitting the ground and skidding nose on into the trunk of one of the trees.

  For a few seconds an unearthly silence and stillness seemed to stop time. Then Diane started to run towards the plane, ignoring the major’s furious command to her to stop.

  She had known it would be useless, pointless, but she was a woman after all, and her instincts were those of any woman who had loved a fly boy. It could have been Kit in that plane…it could have been one of a hundred or more men she knew…men who had gone to war and not come back, men who had come back, but so changed that no one could reach them any more, men who had been boys until they had given themselves up to the sacrifice that was war.

  The plane had come to rest with its nose crushed up to nothing by its impact with an oak tree. Some of the branches lay on the ground like severed limbs, whilst from those branches that remained attached, leaves fluttered down onto the gunmetal object that was twisted around it and into it; tree and plane clasped together in a deathly embrace.

  The passenger side of the plane had been ripped open like a tin can, a huge branch leaning against it so that it was impossible to see inside the plane. The co-pilot had obviously tried to jump out -and failed.

  His body was pinned lifelessly to the ground by the torn branch that had speared through him. That he was already dead was obvious, but still Diane would have paused to close the sightless eyes staring up at the sky if it hadn’t been for the low moan she heard from the cockpit.

  Behind her she could hear the major making his way through the debris.

  ‘Get the hell out of here, and that’s an order, soldier,’ he told her angrily as he caught up with her. ‘This thing could go up at any minute.’

  Diane knew he was right. She could hear the steady drip of aviation fuel, its smell burning the back of her throat.

  ‘The pilot’s still alive,’ she told him.

  ‘Fine – let’s keep you that way as well, shall we? Now get out of here.’

  Diane shook her head as the major made to push past her to get to the cockpit. The pilot’s side of the plane lay at an angle, the door pressed against the ground so that the only way into the cabin was through the knot of metal and tree that had been the co-pilot’s side. Anyone could see that it was impossible for a man of his size even to think about trying to squeeze through that tangle of branches and metal to get to the pilot. A man of his size, yes, but a woman of her size might just do it.

  ‘Soldier, I order you to go back to the Jeep,’ the major told her.

  ‘There’s a pilot inside there who is still alive,’ Diane told him quietly. ‘You can’t go to him to see how badly he’s injured. I can. That’s another thing you Yanks need to learn about us British females, Major. We may not have the latest fashions or the latest lipstick but we are up to date on the correct procedure for dealing with something like this. That pilot in there is someone’s son, and maybe someone’s husband and father. So far as I’m concerned that’s enough to make me believe that I have a duty to go to him.’

  Without waiting to see how he was reacting to what she had said she started to scramble through the twisted wreckage, fighting her way past broken branches that scratched at her skin, and refusing to give in to the fear cramping her stomach as the smell of fuel grew stronger and the foliage closed in behind her. They would be sending help out from Nantwich; the school would have alerted the authorities to the crash in the unlikely event of no one in the town having noticed it.

  She closed her eyes as she crawled past the body of the dead airman. The low moans were louder now. She held her breath as she managed to squeeze through the narrow gap between one of the branches of the tree and the side of the plane. She could see the pilot as he lay hunched over the controls, his face turned towards her. Her heart twisted inside her chest, as even in the shadows cast by the tree she recognised that it was the young pilot who had confided in her about his homesickness at the C-in-C’s welcome party.

  ‘How is he?’ she heard the major demanding. Tears filled her eyes. The whole of the front of the plane was stoved in and somewhe
re trapped in that mess of twisted metal were the pilot’s legs. She could see and smell the blood that had soaked the bottom of his tunic, and she knew… She could hardly bear to acknowledge what she knew as she swallowed against her anguished grief.

  The pilot opened his eyes and looked at her.

  ‘Mom,’ he whispered painfully. ‘Mom, is that you? It’s so dark here that I can’t see so well.’

  ‘Yes, it’s me,’ Diane whispered back.

  ‘Gee, I’m glad you’re here. I don’t feel so good, you know…’

  ‘I know.’

  Diane reached for his hand. It felt icy cold. He was so young. The tears she couldn’t shed burned the back of her eyes and throat.

  ‘The pain is real bad, Mom.’

  ‘I know, sweetheart, but it will be gone soon,’ Diane told him gently.

  Somewhere in the distance she could hear anxious voices, and the sound of activity, but they didn’t matter. All that mattered right now was here, in this cramped place with the smell of blood and death all around her and a young man’s need for the comfort of his mother in his dying moments.

  ‘Stroke my forehead, will you, Mom? It feels so hot.’

  He still had his flying helmet on but Diane reached out anyway and stroked his face, putting her arm around him to support him.

  ‘Do you remember when I first started grade school?’

  She had to lean very close to him now to catch the slow painful words.

  ‘I felt real bad because I didn’t want to go. Well, I kinda feel like that now, you know…like I have to be someplace I don’t want to be. But I guess it will be OK when I get there.’

  His breathing had slowed to almost nothing. Diane turned to try to look down at him and make him more comfortable, supporting him with one arm as his head lolled against her shoulder.

  She could hear men working their way towards her, chopping branches, removing debris. She could even hear one of them cursing as he called out, ‘Ruddy well hurry up, will you, before the bloody thing goes up,’ but she didn’t move.

  The boy in her arms gave a small sighing breath. ‘It’s so dark, Mom…’

  ‘It’s all right, darling,’ Diane whispered against his ear. ‘Everything’s all right…just…just go to sleep now.’

  He took another breath and struggled in her arms, his eyes opening. ‘Mom…?’

  She could hear the fear in his voice, and she reached out to comfort him, pressing her lips to his cold forehead as the breath rattled in his throat and he was gone.

  ‘Diane?’

  She looked up to see the major crawling towards her. ‘He’s dead,’ she said emotionlessly.

  ‘And so will we be if we don’t get out of here, and fast,’ he told her grimly, reaching for her hand and half dragging her out of the cockpit.

  They only just made it in time.

  ‘Run,’ the major told her once he had dragged her free of the plane, and, ‘Get down,’ he yelled, pushing her to the ground in front of him as the plane exploded with a dull crump, only a couple of hundred yards away from them.

  Diane could feel the heat of the flames as she lay winded on the ground. A second explosion followed the first.

  ‘Spare fuel tank,’ the major muttered, as he got to his feet. Shakily Diane did the same, as the men who had taken cover from the explosion came towards them.

  They were escorted into the town and offered baths and clean clothes by the grateful townspeople – as though they had been the ones who had managed to avoid crashing into the school playing field, Diane recognised numbly, after the WVS had provided her with something to wear, and she was sitting in the church hall, drinking the cup of tea she had been given, whilst the major was talking to the local police. Her uniform, folded up in brown paper, was torn and stained with blood. She could still smell it all around her, still see that poor boy…She started to tremble so violently that her teeth chattered against the cup. Unsteadily she put it down.

  ‘Here’s your bag, love,’ a WVS helper told her. ‘One of the ARP lads picked it up for you. This fell out,’ she added, giving Diane a small smile as she held out the teddy bear to her.

  Tears filled Diane’s eyes. Somehow the sight of the bear brought home to her that on the other side of the ocean a mother would soon be mourning her child.

  The major had refused to let them be driven back to Burtonwood, stating that he was perfectly able to drive himself. They had left the town behind them and were travelling down a country lane bordered by fields, when he suddenly pulled up.

  ‘What is it? What’s wrong?’ Diane demanded uncertainly.

  ‘The next time I give you an order, soldier, you obey it. Is that understood?’ he told her harshly.

  Diane stared at him. ‘I had to do it. I had no choice,’ she told him fiercely.

  ‘You could have been killed,’ he yelled back at her. ‘You could…Oh hell,’ he swore suddenly, and then to Diane’s shock, he took hold of her, gripping her upper arms tightly as he bent his head and kissed her with angry passion.

  It was just shock that was holding her immobile in his embrace, just shock that was keeping her lips on his…just shock that was coursing through her, making her match angry passion with angry passion until she was holding on to him as tightly as he was holding on to her, returning his kiss angry pressure for angry pressure.

  TWENTY

  Myra could tell from the way Nick came swaggering towards her that he was in a good mood.

  ‘Hiya, baby cakes,’ he greeted her, pulling her to him and giving her a possessive kiss, and then grinning at her triumphantly as he released her, and cast a swift assessing look at her.

  ‘The other guys are sure gonna be envying me when they see you on my arm, sweet stuff.’

  Myra had never seen him so ebullient before, and her spirits lifted to match his.

  ‘Well, if you want to keep me there, then you’d better make sure they know I’m yours, hadn’t you?’ she smiled daringly.

  ‘What, you mean with something like this?’ he suggested nonchalantly, digging into his pocket and producing a small leather ring box.

  Excitedly Myra reached for it.

  ‘Oh, no,’ he teased her, stepping back and keeping it out of her reach. ‘We’re gonna do this the right way.’ Holding on to her left arm, with one hand he flicked open the box in his other hand.

  Myra stared in disbelief at the shiny glittering diamond ring he was holding. The diamond was bigger than anything she had dreamed of owning, bigger, she was sure, than anything she had seen in the windows of any of Liverpool’s jewellers.

  ‘Like it?’

  She couldn’t bear to take her gaze away from it, not even to whisper breathlessly, ‘Yes…’

  ‘Come here, then,’ he said, taking hold of her left hand.

  Myra stared down at her left hand as he slid the ring on to her wedding finger. It felt cold and heavy, and it was slightly lose, and now that she could see it close up she could see too that it wasn’t new and that the gold was slightly worn. Had he bought her something second-hand? She started to frown and then checked herself. It was still the largest stone she had ever seen, of the size only usually on the fingers of Hollywood stars.

  ‘It’s beautiful,’ she told Nick fervently.

  ‘A beautiful ring for a beautiful girl,’ he responded. ‘My girl…I hope you’re going to keep that promise you made to me about what you’d do if I gave you a ring.’

  Myra affected to look demure and slightly affronted.

  ‘Don’t give me that look,’ Nick warned her, his voice hardening. ‘A deal’s a deal where I come from, babe and—’

  ‘Oh, Nick, don’t go and spoil things by being cross with me. Not when we’ve just got engaged,’ Myra pouted. She reached for his hand and moved closer to him, leaning in to him and smiling with secret triumph when she felt his body’s response to her. ‘Of course I want to be with you…properly. And now that we’re engaged…and especially since we’re going to London…’ She gave a smal
l shiver as her excited triumph gripped her.

  ‘Oh, Nick, it’s going to be so wonderful.’

  ‘It sure is, babe. Let me tell you about the hotel I’ve booked for us.’

  Myra started to tense.

  ‘One of the guys told me about it, some place name of the Savoy.’

  ‘The Savoy? You’ve booked us into the Savoy?’ Myra exclaimed in shocked excitement. ‘Oh, Nick, that’s just about the best hotel in London. Oh, Nick…’ Her face started to fall. ‘But what will I wear? My clothes…’

  ‘Trust a dame to start worrying about her clothes, when all a guy is thinking about is getting her out of them,’ Nick answered.

  ‘But this ring…the Savoy…it must be costing such a lot,’ Myra ventured. She didn’t care how much he spent on her, but she was curious about his financial status, all the more so since she had discovered from Diane about his connection with the country’s black market. Everyone knew that the black marketeers were making huge amounts of money. Myra had no moral scruples about what Nick might be doing. Why should she have? In this world it was every man for himself, and every woman with any sense knew that and made sure that she was with the man who was going places. That had been her mistake with Jim, marrying a man who was too ‘good’ for his own benefit, and thus for hers as well.

  ‘Yeah, and since I’m a guy who likes value for his dollar you’d better make sure I get it, hon.’

  ‘But how—’

  ‘Hey…’ Nick threw up his hands. ‘No questions, OK? If you’re gonna be my girl then you’ve gotta learn not to ask questions. Let’s just say I’ve got several good deals going on.’ He winked at her and patted his pocket. ‘And I play a pretty good game of cards.’

  He looked at his watch. ‘Let’s go get that drink. There’s a guy I gotta see there in the bar. When he comes in, I’ll give you the nod and you take yourself off to the ladies’ room, OK?’

  Obediently Myra agreed.

  As they walked down the street towards the bar, Myra clung tightly to Nick’s arm, her ring proudly on display. Jim, and the fact that she was still married to him, were pushed out of the way to allow her to enjoy her triumph. When a girl had the right kind of looks and the right kind of determination, and she knew how to use those assets, there was nothing she couldn’t have, she exulted to herself. She could see herself now, stepping off the liner in New York, a GI bride arriving in her new home, the city that never sleeps.