Daughters of Cornwall

by Fern Britton

  She let go of my knee and reached for her cigarettes. ‘And if he’s shot down? Killed? Taken prisoner? What then?’

  ‘Mum, he’ll be fine. It’s Edward. He’ll be all right.’

  She inhaled deeply and blew a plume of smoke towards the ceiling. ‘It’s a deadly game, darling. We shoot them down, they shoot us down.’

  ‘That’s what I want to do. As soon as I am seventeen I am going to join up and shoot down the enemy planes.’

  ‘Do you think you can protect Edward?’

  ‘And his friends, yes.’

  ‘Well, we’ll see. You won’t be seventeen for a while yet.’

  ‘Ten months. That’s all. Then I can join the Auxiliary Territorial Service.’

  ‘The ATS?’ She rubbed her head with the hand holding her cigarette. The smoke wreathed around her hair. ‘Why on earth do women feel the need to be killers?’

  ‘I don’t want to kill anyone. I just want to shoot their planes down. They’ll parachute out and be taken prisoner.’

  ‘Ha.’ She sucked harder on her cigarette and coughed as she stood up. ‘Cup of tea before bed?’

  I watched her stub out the cigarette. ‘Mum, I’m serious.’

  She headed to the kitchen. ‘Let’s cross that bridge when we get to it.’

  By the time Edward was due to return later in 1941, rationing was in full swing. Food, fuel and fabrics were now all at a premium.

  It was impossible for Mum to get any shipments of silk for the shop as the sea lanes were vulnerable to attack from the bombs, torpedoes, mines, or all three. But business was still good. Mum was a resourceful woman. She got out her old sewing machine and offered remodelling of outdated garments. She was extremely good at it. Taking in, letting out, adding extra panels to maternity dresses. She made customers’ clothing coupons go much further than they had expected.

  ‘I shall not be beaten,’ she would say. ‘Women could run the world, given half a chance.’

  Mum hadn’t used the old Austin since Edward had gone, but now she had David and me washing and polishing it and topping it up with the last of the petrol in the gallon tin she had been saving.

  David was ten now and as tall as Mum, but not quite as tall as me. ‘I can drive us to the station to collect Edward if you like,’ he suggested nonchalantly. ‘I know how to.’

  ‘That’s as may be, but you are too young and I shall drive.’

  ‘But you haven’t driven for ages. You will have forgotten.’

  ‘No, I have not forgotten and you are not driving.’

  I listened to this with amusement. The truth was that he probably could drive better than Mum – who couldn’t? When the old car was mothballed in the boat sheds at the top of the town, David and I had breathed a sigh of relief. Not just for our own safety, for the safety of the whole of Cornwall.

  ‘Actually, there is something you can do, David.’ Mum smiled beguilingly, ‘You can check the oil and make sure the bloody thing still starts.’

  With Mum driving too fast down the winding lanes to Bodmin station, I distracted myself from thoughts of certain death by looking at Cardinham Woods across the valley. The leaves in the soft autumn sunshine were gleaming amber and scarlet. If I was to die today, at least it would be surrounded by the beauty of it all.

  David was the first to shout, ‘Look out, Mum.’

  I switched my gaze to the view coming at us through the windscreen. We were entering a dark tunnel of trees where the leaves lay thick and damp on the road which was dropping away before us and bending sharply to the left.

  ‘Don’t shout like that, David,’ Mum said, turning her head to the back seat to look at him. ‘You must never distract the driver—’

  We hit the hedge on the opposite side of the road, which lifted the back wheels off the ground, then slewed over the wet leaves onto the other side of the road where we finally came to a stop.

  ‘Don’t you ever do that again,’ Mum shouted at David. ‘Never distract the driver! Look what you have made me do!’

  ‘Are you both OK?’ I asked, rubbing my knees which had hit the metal under the windscreen and were throbbing. ‘David?’

  He had slid off the back seat and was stuck in the space between it and my front seat. ‘Yeah. Fine.’

  ‘Mum? How about you?’

  ‘I need a cigarette.’

  She fumbled for them and the matches.

  ‘Mum, get out of the car first,’ David said quickly. ‘There may be petrol spilt in here.’

  ‘Oh, for goodness’ sake.’ But she did get out and sat down on the roots of a tree that were growing thickly through a stone wall.

  I got out and joined her. ‘Mum. Are you sure you’re OK? You look a bit pale and your hands are shaky.’

  She lifted her head and stared up into the tree branches. ‘Sorry. I didn’t mean to scare you.’

  A few minutes later a car approached us and slowed down.

  ‘Everybody OK?’ said the male driver.

  ‘Yes, thank you.’ Mum smiled lightly. ‘Just a small skid on the leaves.’

  ‘Treacherous in this weather. Can I give you a hand to push you back onto the road?’

  ‘That would be kind. David, help the gentleman please.’

  The Austin had a bit of a dent on its front bumper and one of the headlights was broken but not much else.

  As we drove away, waving our thanks to our rescuer, David checked his watch. ‘Train due in ten minutes, Mum.’

  ‘We would have had time to wait with a cup of tea if you hadn’t made me skid.’ She sniffed.

  When Edward stepped off the train, all three of us screamed his name. David jumped up and down waving and Mum fluttered her handkerchief, packed especially for the purpose.

  My eyes drank in his familiar features. His eyes were so blue in his tanned face, his uniform lent him a dashing air and he had grown a moustache. This was the longest we had ever been parted and I suddenly felt how much I had missed him.

  ‘What’s that under your nose?’ asked David, pointing at the new moustache. ‘Newsprint?’

  Edward cuffed him, ‘Jealous. Hi Mum.’

  ‘Darling.’ Mum took him in her open arms. ‘You look so handsome.’

  Over Mum’s shoulder he smiled at me. ‘Hey Toots. Did you miss me?’

  Mum handed Edward the car keys. ‘You drive, darling, if you’re not too tired?’

  David and I shared a wide-eyed glance.

  ‘OK.’ Edward tipped the front seat up and threw his new kitbag onto the back seat. ‘Room enough for you two?’ he asked.

  ‘What about your suitcase?’ David asked.

  ‘You can have that on your lap, Shortie,’ Edward laughed. He helped Mum into her seat and, once we were all settled, he set off at breakneck speed, throttle on the floor and jamming the brakes on hard on every corner.

  Edward laughed. ‘I’ve been away too long. These lanes are so narrow compared to Canadian roads.’

  ‘I suppose you drive on the right in Canada, do you?’ Mum tried to sound calm. ‘Only we are still on the left here, darling.’

  ‘I know.’ With one hand on the wheel and the other draped across Mum’s seat, he leant the car to the left. ‘Light me a cigarette, would you?’

  ‘Are you allowed to smoke now?’ asked David, leaning over Edward’s shoulder.

  ‘Sure. It keeps my brain clear. A pilot must stay focused.’

  ‘Mind that cyclist,’ shrieked Mum as he veered to the right again.

  ‘Never distract the driver,’ David and I chorused, and fell about laughing.

  At last we were back in Trevay.

  ‘Welcome home, darling.’ Mum pulled Edward through the back door. ‘Cup of tea?’

  ‘Do you have any coffee?’ he asked, dropping his kitbag and suitcase on the floor.

  ‘We haven’t seen coffee for a long time.’ Mum filled the kettle and lit the gas. ‘Not that I mind. I prefer tea.’

  ‘In Canada you can still get everything,’ Edward told her, walk
ing into our back room and sitting in an armchair. ‘Hey, Shortie, pass me my bag, would you?’

  ‘Stop calling me Shortie,’ grumbled David, doing as he was asked.

  Mum brought the tea tray in and sat at the table. ‘Hannah, I forgot the biscuits. The tin is on the side.’

  ‘In Canada they call biscuits cookies,’ Edward said, rummaging in his bag. ‘I have presents for you.’

  ‘Cookies?’ asked David hopefully.

  ‘No. But I do have an …’ He pulled his hand from his bag, ‘An orange!’

  ‘Oh,’ said David, disappointed.

  ‘An orange! I haven’t seen one of those for … well, I can’t remember,’ Mum said.

  ‘I have four of them. One each. Got to have them for our eyesight.’ Edward handed us our oranges. ‘And I have for you, Mum, something special.’

  Her eyes were suddenly lit with a joy I hadn’t seen since Edward went away. ‘Oh?’

  ‘Now close your eyes and put out your hands.’

  She obliged, laughing.

  Edward put a slim paper bag in her hands. ‘You can look now.’

  Mum looked at the bag with anticipation. ‘What have you done, you silly boy?’

  ‘Open it.’

  She lifted the edge of the bag and peeked in, wanting to keep the mystery alive just a little bit longer. ‘Oh.’ Her mouth dropped open in awe as she pulled out the packet. ‘Stockings! I can’t believe it.’ She put one hand to her mouth, suppressing tears. ‘Stockings!’

  ‘They’re silk,’ smiled Edward. ‘Do you like them?’

  She clutched the packet to her bosom. ‘I love them.’

  I was curious. ‘Did you go to a ladies’ shop to ask for them, Edward?’

  ‘How embarrassing,’ sniggered David, for whom ladies’ underwear was still wildly amusing.

  ‘Yes, I did. Nothing embarrassing about it. I am used to the ladies in Mum’s shop, aren’t I?’ He turned to Mum who was still hugging her present. ‘How’s business?’

  We sat and swapped news and drank our tea and ate sausage and mash with onion gravy (Edward’s favourite) until it felt as though we were as one again.

  Edward began to tell us stories of his training.

  ‘So, there I was with my friend, Clarky, flying our two-seater trainer plane, just a little single-engine kite, when we heard a terrible noise coming from the front. Clarky looked underneath and pulled at a few things and the noise stopped. “I don’t what I’ve done but it’s fixed it,” he said, and I said, “You certainly have, the propeller has fallen off.”’

  David was lying on the floor, his hands under his chin, rapt. ‘What did you do?’

  ‘The old training kicked in. We had been taught how to glide our aircraft to a safe landing because in battle we may well have to do that if we’ve been damaged.’

  ‘But where did you land?’ I asked.

  ‘In a field. As soon as we got out a farmer and his son came running to us. They had the propeller. When it fell they knew what must have happened and picked it up then watched where we landed.’

  ‘Did you fix it?’

  ‘Sure. We were up and out of there before anyone knew anything.’

  ‘Wow,’ breathed David. ‘You are so brave.’

  ‘All in a day’s work,’ Edward laughed.

  ‘David,’ said Mum. ‘Time for bed. Off you go.’

  ‘Oh.’ His shoulders slumped and his mouth turned down. ‘Can’t I stay up a bit longer?’

  ‘No.’

  Edward caught his hand as he walked past him to the stairs. ‘How about I come up to say goodnight when you’re ready?’

  David perked up immediately. ‘Yes please. Can you tell me more stories?’

  ‘Bed!’ Mum said sternly.

  When David had finally been tucked up, Edward came down and Mum offered him a beer while I made our nightly tea and she turned on the wireless for the news.

  ‘The Imperial Japanese Navy Air Service have launched a surprise attack on Pearl Harbor, Honolulu, Hawaii. The White House is expected to announce its formal entry into the war tomorrow.

  ‘At home, the City of Plymouth, in Devon, has been bombed heavily. The Devonport Naval Dockyard has taken the worst of the attack but there are many civilian casualties in the city. There are warnings across Devon and Cornwall that there could be more raids in the days to come.’

  Edward leant forward, elbows on knees, and listened intently to the report and the advice given on how to stay safe.

  Mum waited, smoking quietly, for the bulletin to finish, and for Edward to give her the news she was dreading.

  ‘I’m being posted to Scampton, Lincolnshire. Bomber Command need all the air power they can get,’ he told us.

  ‘When?’ asked Mum.

  ‘I’m waiting for orders. Couple of days perhaps.’

  ‘Two days!’ I couldn’t believe it. ‘But you’ve only just got home and we haven’t seen you for so long.’

  ‘It’s my job, Toots.’

  ‘And you’ll be on bombing raids over Germany,’ Mum said. It was not a question.

  ‘Yes. Anywhere we can help.’ He reached for one of his Canadian cigarettes. ‘Want one?’ he asked Mum.

  ‘Thank you.’ He put two between his lips and lit them both, then passed one to her.

  ‘They could shoot you down?’ I said.

  ‘They could, but I won’t let them.’

  I felt tears prick the back of my throat. ‘I don’t want you to go.’

  ‘Hannah. Time for bed,’ said Mum.

  ‘But Mum, you need him here.’ Even to myself I sounded like a whining child.

  ‘Bed,’ she said.

  I did as I was told, but not before I had flung myself around Edward’s neck. ‘I hate this war.’

  ‘Toots, listen to me. We are going to beat them. I promise.’ Moving my fringe from my forehead he kissed me. ‘And I am going to tell Grandfather that when I see him tomorrow. Want to come with me?’

  ‘Can I, Mum?’

  She rolled her cigarette between her thumb and middle finger, thinking.

  ‘No. You have school. You can see Grandfather any time, but Edward must see him before he goes.’

  ‘Because he might get shot down?’ I was angry. ‘Or maybe Grandfather might die? That’s what you mean, isn’t it?’

  Mum pulled on her cigarette deeply, then took her time expelling the plume of smoke. ‘No, darling. It’s because you have to go to school.’

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Hannah, Trevay

  1941

  Edward was doing very well at RAF Scampton. He was now a sergeant pilot and his squadron was waiting to take delivery of a fleet of the new Lancaster bombers. He said they would win the war.

  We had Grandfather living with us now. The arthritis in his knees – all that praying on cold church floors, Mum said – had got very bad. Cook and Dora were still in Callyzion, though, looking after each other, which was nice. Mum and I made Edward and David’s old room comfortable for Grandfather. He spent a lot of time in bed nowadays, but could still manage the stairs when he wanted to.

  David was nearly eleven years old now and had made one of the top rooms his bedroom. The walls were covered with maps and clippings of our advances and losses. I told him Mr Churchill would want him at the War Office soon, and he shied a comic at my head for my trouble.

  The remaining upstairs room was Mum’s workroom. She had a large cutting-cum-sewing table and three dressmakers’ dummies of varying sizes. When the shop was shut she often went up there to work, though I still took tea up for Mum and me to carry on our tradition of listening to the nightly BBC news hour together.

  Over the last few weeks we had begun to notice that Grandfather was getting very forgetful and a little bit confused. The other night he thought David was Daddy and we had to explain that Daddy was still in Penang. I’m not sure he understood even then.

  Daddy’s letters had become fewer. Maybe one every couple of months. As I explained to Mum, it wasn�
��t his fault. The ships had more important things to do than carry a letter all the way to Trevay. But we always wrote a weekly letter to him. We hadn’t heard from him for almost three months.

  ‘Here is the news from the BBC.

  ‘Singapore has fallen. It is thought that more than fifty thousand Australian and Indian troops and government officials throughout the Malay Peninsula have been captured. Mr Churchill has called it the worst capitulation in British military history, but has said that it is “one of those moments when the British race and nation can show their quality and their genius.”’

  Mum tried every avenue to find out whether Daddy was safe and where he was, but we had no news.

  But then the war got even closer to home.

  Truro was bombed. They bombed the hospital.

  A second bomb exploded in mid-air and travelled almost a quarter of a mile, damaging one hundred houses. Fourteen people were killed.

  The next day, just after lunch, Bodmin was bombed by two enemy aircraft; the German pilots turned back to see their devastating damage and strafe the ordinary people trying to help the injured.

  Later that day, there was a similar raid on The Lizard. Rosevear Farm and four houses were hit. One farmhand was injured and his cattle were killed. Luckily an RAF Spitfire was in pursuit and shot the bomber down, watching as he crashed into the sea.

  Mum said when we heard the news, ‘It’s all so terrible. A mother’s son, maybe a husband and a father.’ I knew she was thinking about Daddy and Edward, but all I could think about was standing behind a great big ack-ack gun and shooting the enemy down before they could wreak more damage on us.

  We had an RAF station about six miles away at St Eval. It was closer to Callyzion than us but it soon came in for a pasting. The work being done at St Eval was pretty hush-hush, but rumour had it that it flew reconnaissance missions to photograph what the enemy were up to and that they also hunted for submarines.

  The worst attack on the airfield was in July. The runway was the target. Without that, our boys couldn’t get in the air. After the raid, the planes turned for home, passing over Callyzion and emptying their bomb bays onto anything that looked like a sitting duck. Cook and Dora would have known nothing about it. Killed outright, in their beds. I knew what I had to do.