by Andrew Greig
I was sweating so much the canopy was steaming up. Muttering curses and prayers as I nursed and cajoled that Hurri home. There was the airfield. I got on the R/T and told them to have the crash truck ready in case. Then I took a deep breath and slowly took her down, uttered another prayer – Please God, let me off with this – as I took the plane down below baling-out height.
I was committed now. And the damn thing kept trying to flip on its side and the controls were so sluggish it was like flying through treacle as we came in with a lot of right rudder, yawing over the trees where I’d carved my name a lifetime back, hit the new concrete runway, bounced into the air, hit again, slewed sideways but stayed on the undercarriage and bumped to a halt by the control tower.
Thank fuck for that. As Dusty would say. I switched off and sat there a few moments. A morning of misjudgements I’d been lucky to get off with. Must be sharper next time. I could feel a headache coming on.
I unbuckled my harness, opened the hood and got out. As always, the whiff of grass, fresh air, high-octane and glycol, was like smelling salts to me.
I scrambled down from the wing as grim Evans came running up. I looked at the tailplane, there wasn’t much left of it, or the rudder. In fact it was like lace, mostly holes. Evans looked at the tailplane, then at me, shook his head and spat at the ground.
‘And now I suppose you expect me to repair that,’ he said.
It was the longest sentence he’d ever addressed to me. I felt immensely pleased.
I walked down the street in that safe old town with a suitcase in either hand. Hers was heavy in my right hand, I’d repacked it myself with her clothes she’d brought for the weekend and the new ones she’d bought. At least I’d managed to do that dry-eyed, distant and efficient. Now some kind person offered to help me but I said, ‘No. Thank you,’ and hurried on with my face turned away. Anyone being kind made me tearful. Especially kind for no good reason, for someone you don’t know.
I came to Maddy’s street and passed the stop where I’d got off the bus so often. I remembered the bus I’d met her on. How she had no money for her fare and I paid it to get up the nose of that bossy conductress, and then we started laughing and joking. Then we’d got off the bus and went for coffee and cake at Lyons and talked for ages while the rain came and went. I was taken with her irreverence, her laughter. They crossed the distance that shyness and my solitary, dreamy childhood had put round me.
By the shops, a child went running to greet an old lady, probably her grandmother. She tripped and fell, bang, just like that, quite hard on the pavement, and lay there howling, clutching her skinned knee. What struck me was how everyone around, including myself, at the moment it happened leaned towards her. We winced. We felt the hurt. A woman bent to pick her up, another two stood by clucking sympathetically till her granny caught up and embraced and soothed her.
That goes some way to making up for the War.
I went on my way, thinking, What are we? We drop bombs on people we don’t know, can’t even see. And we’re sometimes kind to people we don’t know, we wince when we see pain, especially in children. And I know it’s the same on the other side. These same people that dropped the bomb on Maddy would in the street of their own town comfort a child with a bleeding knee, soothe and joke until she began to laugh. My opposite number, my ghostly Fräulein, she certainly would.
So what is this happening for? I dunno, as Len would say. I dunno. But it’s clear that the only way to end it now is to fight back. It was pure survival at first, but the invasion panic seems to have receded a little. They say it’s not going to happen this year. Maybe we’re going to make it through.
Often when I’m unhappy I yearn for that cave behind the waterfall, the solitary place where no one can get me, except perhaps the dream gypsy-boy, Fando’s spirit. But now I walked slowly up Maddy’s street, yearning only for yesterday when she was still alive.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
Mid-September
I lay on the warm grass, watching Tad play patience. His dark hair had been uncut for weeks and was now flopping over his eyes like one of the university boys in the old days back in late June when we were young and regardless. His hands moved calmly and efficiently, without a hint of the shake I’d noticed in others, including myself. He got stuck, he cheated, he carried on.
He looked up and noticed my expression.
‘Hey, I’m only cheating with myself, you know,’ he said.
‘I’m not disapproving,’ I protested. ‘I’m just baffled what makes it worth playing if you don’t stick to the rules.’
‘Who said it was worth it?’ he said. He grinned up at me. ‘At least I don’t spend my evenings tearing beer mats into smallest pieces, or writing in a diary things I already know.’
‘That’s not fair,’ I protested. ‘That’s completely different.’
‘Yes?’ he said. ‘How is that?’
I was stuck for an answer. Then a new Hurri came dropping down over the perimeter fence and I knew it was the replacement for the one I’d got shot up. So that was me back on readiness once it had been armed. One, maybe two sorties before the end of the day.
I got up to go and check it over. I looked down at Tad grinning to himself.
‘Maybe once in a while I tell myself something I didn’t already know,’ I said. ‘Can your cards do that?’
I hurried off before he could reply. The plane was shiny-new, still didn’t have its numbers painted on. I was hoping the young woman pilot was delivering it, but instead a short, bow-legged bloke jumped down.
‘This for you, pal?’ he asked.
‘Certainly is,’ I said. ‘Is she A1’?
‘On the bloody button,’ he replied. ‘You need an oxygen bottle and the guns synchronized then she’s ready for the off.’
I stroked the wing then clambered up and checked the cockpit hood runners. Still a bit stiff. I’d put some graphite on it. I’d a good feeling about this plane.
There was a thump on the fuselage. I looked round and there was Evans kicking the rear wheel. He looked up at me.
‘Do us a favour and don’t mess this one up, son,’ he said.
*
We went up again round six o’clock. My section, Tad on the next, plus the new Czech squadron. They didn’t speak English that well but they were very good at killing. Like Tad, that’s all they wanted to do. I’d talked to one the night before. ‘My country is finished,’ he said, and made a cancelling gesture with his hands. ‘Now I fight here.’
They were very dangerous. They seemed truly regardless. They were true fighter pilots. I admired them and wanted to keep well away.
Luckily they were flying Spits and were always sent to take on the 109s higher up. We were the workhorses, there to disrupt bombers. That suited me fine. I wanted to survive. I was beginning to think it was possible.
I’d thought a lot about that in the hills, and now I was back it seemed we’d entered a different phase of the fight. The numbers were still stacked against us but somehow we’d turned a corner. We were putting up bigger numbers of our own. We’d dropped the fancy formations. We were fighting further inland, which gave us more time to get up in numbers, removed the prospect of baling out into the drink, and cut down the combat time of the 109s to a few minutes. The big question was how the cities would take the bombing.
I was thinking this over in the back of my mind as we climbed. The front of my mind was frightened as always and busy dealing with a suspect oil-pressure gauge. Bloody new aircraft. As we rose up towards the enemy – and there was no problem finding them, there were miles of them spread all the way back to Dover and beyond – I felt just right, on form. An intangible thing, but I was rested, ready, and fairly convinced I could survive this.
We wheeled and came down at them more or less out of the sun. They scattered like startled silvery fish. I got off a couple of squirts to little effect then found myself alongside a very surprised Heinkel. As the rear-gunner wheeled for me, I turned in and
let him have it the length of the fuselage, then sheered off.
Lord it was slow. I felt like a cheetah attacking some big lumbering animal. As he wheeled I came in again, got really close, closer than I’d meant to and pressed the button in sheer fright. My kite juddered from the recoil of eight machine guns. Bits fell off the Heinkel, then the port engine blew and it slid out of the sky. I followed it down, against orders but my oil gauge had gone again and anyway I wanted this one for a definite. It spiralled, I dived in a leisurely corkscrew. I saw one man jump out then the other, and I was glad to see it for they were out of the fight. The plane went on to hit the ground and blow up. Both parachutes opened, I came out of the dive and passed close to them. I could see their heads swivelling back towards me, worried I was going to shoot. It was known both sides had done that. So much for chivalry. But I wanted none of it and flew on by with a wave they probably never saw as they floated on down towards the Home Counties.
It was probably the best and most spot-on combat I’d had, and I was humming ‘Red Sails in the Sunset’ to myself as I flew on, keeping an eye on that erratic gauge. Then a fighter began to fill my mirror. It had come from nowhere and was right on me. I was about to throw the stick into the corner when it stood on one wing and went past showing my squadron’s insignia and Tad waving.
I gave him the fingers and flew on like nothing had bothered me.
We landed, Tad doing his slow victory roll far too close to the ground and me behaving myself. I jumped out. Evans was there, ran his eye over my plane and grunted.
‘See you stayed out of trouble,’ he said. ‘Don’t suppose you hit anything.’
‘A Heinkel,’ I said. ‘A definite. Saw the pilot bail out.’
I joined up with Tad and we walked together towards the dispersal hut. He’d picked up one, and a probable. Then he’d been jumped by five 109s.
‘So I just high-tail out of there,’ he concluded.
I knew he was such a good pilot he could extricate himself from almost anything. Only sheer bad luck would do for him. I told him about mine and he whistled.
‘Reckon that makes you ace, my friend. The DFM is good as in the post.’
‘You mean I’ll get it next year?’ I retorted. ‘And how come you haven’t got a gong yet from the Polish Air Force?’
His hand automatically went up to the Poland insignia sewn high on the arm of his uniform.
‘But you see,’ he said, ‘we have much higher standards, you know.’
I put out a foot to trip him but he skipped away, and we were coming over the grass towards Bill Raymond, standing there with his clipboard, and we were briefly happy and high-hearted like in the early days. There was Uncle George, waiting to give Tad a bollocking for his victory roll. Only he looked awkward, embarrassed, chewing away on his pipe.
Then I saw Stella standing outside the Control Tower, in uniform and not smiling, standing straight and alone. She was looking at Tad, not me. There’s only one reason for looking at someone with that dread. That compassion.
He saw her. He slowed. I think he knew before she stepped towards us, her hands coming up, her face stiff with not crying.
‘Tad,’ I said, ‘I’m so sorry.’
He stared back at me. I couldn’t say any more, my voice wouldn’t work.
‘Was she having a good time?’ he asked abruptly.
‘She was …’ I cleared my throat, Len took me by the arm. ‘Dancing,’ I said. ‘She was dancing and having a good time. Then the bomb …’
He looked straight past me and water began to run from his eyes. I’ve no practice for what to do when men cry, and it was the oddest crying.
‘That’s good,’ he said. ‘When you must go, that is the way. Santa Maria …’
He turned his head away and quickly thumbed each eye.
‘I’d better report back, and get lecture from Uncle George,’ he said. ‘Thanks for telling me personal, Stella.’
Then he turned and walked towards the man with the clipboard and the CO. Len and I looked at each other.
‘You’re all right?’ he said.
‘I’m fine,’ I said. ‘Not a scratch.’
‘That’s good.’
‘But it was horrible.’
‘It must have been.’
It was having other people around, and the uniforms. We couldn’t even begin.
‘I’d better be off,’ I said. ‘I only got permission to deliver my message. Can’t make tonight – I’m sitting in for someone who’s sick. Tomorrow night?’
‘Sure,’ he said. ‘Stella …’
‘I know,’ I said. ‘It’s rotten. You be careful.’
He nodded, for a moment looked direct into my eyes. For a moment we met.
‘See you later,’ he said, then turned away and walked over to the clipboard man. I retrieved my bike, cycled out the gates and went on up the lane in the cool evening.
That’s how it was in those days. All arrangements were provisional. Maddy’s death underlined that, and it left a hole in my side that never quite went away. Our partings often had a slight delay, a hesitation, then a sudden cutting-off, for there was no knowing which one could be final, and we can’t bear that for long.
I turned left at the top of the lane, my calves aching, anticipating the long downhill that was coming next. How can we dare love anyone, I thought, when they’re just going to die? And I thought of my father, the wall falling on him, his closed-off face in the hospital bed, and I thought at times our losses are like splits in the heart through which it may grow yet bigger, and there’s nothing else to do but love, nothing to be regretted but not loving.
Then I coasted to work with the cool rush of air over my face, the evening filled with dozy bugs, and the bracelets clicking as my hands shook on the handlebars.
We didn’t make love when we met up the next night. Not at first. We didn’t go out for a drink. Nor did we take a walk, though the evening light was pretty enough.
With remarkable speed we got into each other’s arms. Not that there was any of that. He held me or I held him. We were held. There were some tears. Mostly there was a silent ache and we lay on the bed sharing it.
The evening breeze grew colder. It blew in the window and furled back the curtains then let them drop then blew them out again. I lay for a long time watching them. Gradually I felt able to tell him about it – the weekend, the party, the dance and the bomb. I thought about telling him about John G. and my absurd flirtation, the kiss in the garden that never happened. I wanted to tell him so as to explain how I’d come to see things differently, how along with Maddy’s death that had been part of why I felt different now. Then I realized that even I didn’t have to be that stupid, and instead grazed lightly on his neck for a while.
Then he told me about his time in the Cairngorms, about how he struggled against the mist and feeling lost even though it turned out he wasn’t. About two men he’d shared a night in a bothy with, who had somehow made him feel better, part of something. Above all – and this was the bit that stayed with me – how big and bright the night sky was in the mountains, what it was like to sleep in a warm bag on the heather looking up at the stars. Then we talked for a while about doing that together after the War, and though I like my creature comforts I said I would.
Then we lay for a while, stroking, and I noticed he was beginning to look as if he was being tortured, the way he used to before he kissed me (am I so scary?). I lay there and waited for it. He cleared his throat a couple of times. The curtains blew out and drifted back. I could feel his heart beating hard under my shoulder.
‘I should have mentioned this earlier, Stella,’ he said. ‘Because it’s been true for a while.’
His face endured a few more toenails being pulled out. My heart started hammering as well. There was no way back from this.
‘It’s just that I love you,’ he said. ‘Though there’s no “just” about it.’
I’d been told this before, by Evelyn, even by Roger, but it had never ma
de me snivelly before.
‘I know,’ I said eventually. ‘I know that and I’m so glad.’
‘You do believe me? I know what I’m saying. I’m in my right mind, never been righter.’
‘I believe you,’ I said.
No one told me it would be so painful letting go. Letting go of my solitariness. Letting him find me in my secret place.
‘I love you like crazy,’ I said. ‘And seriously. If you know what I mean.’
‘I get the idea,’ he said, and stroked my face. He touched my lips. His eyes were huge as he looked at me. He put his hand to his chest where his heart was, stared at me then slowly moved his hand onto my heart and left it there. I could feel mine beating under his fingers. He said nothing and it was the most eloquent thing he ever said.
*
We’d always been quite good at it, and we quickly became much better that night, and a very satisfactory time was had. Especially once I’d tactfully shown him some things, and then there was no stopping us. My heart was in it and my body at last became like one of those burning laurel branches when a leaf twists free and rises out of the bonfire, flaming and crackling as it spirals up into the dark and ceases for ever to be what it was.
‘I’m flying,’ she’d cried in my ear. ‘I’m falling. Catch me!’
I could hear her voice long after I’d finally dressed and left. It echoed inside as I cycled back to base on the adjutant’s bike, my body all soft and loose. The moon was up and the road wasn’t too hard to see without lights except where it went under trees.
I’d reached saturation point. Maddy, Tad, the big thing we’d finally said to each other – I couldn’t think about them any more tonight. Instead I just felt myself alive and sweating slightly in my uniform and my calves aching on the long uphill stretch.