The Spitfire Girls

by Jenny Holmes

  Reluctantly Jean stood up and smoothed the creases out of her skirt, a navy blue, slim-fitting one that she teamed with a crisp white blouse. She felt distinctly prim and proper next to diminutive Bobbie in her soft cashmere sweater and high-waisted black trousers and Angela who sat by the fire in an embroidered satin blouse with a plunging neckline and a gathered crimson skirt that gave her a gypsy air.

  While Bobbie darted to the bar to fetch Jean an unasked-for glass of whisky, Angela drew her fellow pilot down into an empty armchair. ‘We demand the lowdown on yesterday,’ she informed her with one of her glittering smiles. ‘But we were meant to wait for Bobbie and it seems she’s been held up.’

  Diverted on her way to the bar, Bobbie was deep in conversation with Cameron, Hilary and their as yet unnamed companion. The three men had stood up in gentlemanly fashion and Angela and Jean could see that introductions were being made.

  ‘Heigh-ho.’ Angela sighed as she saw the new airman lean in towards Bobbie, smiling and laughing, giving her his full attention. ‘Like a wasp around a honey pot, eh? Or should that be a bee? Anyway, fire away, Jean; tell me how you managed to land that old Spit in yesterday’s downpour. I’m all ears.’

  ‘Edward Simpson; Teddy to my friends.’ The newest arrival at Burton Grange immediately took to the tiny, vivacious girl in sweater and slacks. He’d deliberately mirrored her opening salvo of ‘Roberta Fraser; Bobbie to my friends’; breathily delivered and with a charming grin.

  ‘Hello, Teddy, very good to meet you. I’m a member of the Anything to Anywhere brigade, aiming for my five hundred hours. You’re RAF, I see.’

  ‘Yes; Flight Lieutenant, at your service.’ Teddy quickly overcame his first impression that Bobbie wasn’t old enough or tall enough to fly anything bigger than a kite.

  ‘Uh-oh, I’ve seen that look before!’ she said with a light laugh. ‘“The hand that rocks the cradle wrecks the crate”, eh?’

  He silently cursed himself for blushing. This was not going as well as he’d hoped. ‘Not at all. I’m sure … that is to say …’ He looked towards his fellow officers for reassurance.

  ‘Take no notice; she’s kidding,’ Hilary said in his clipped, narrow voice. He produced his words from far back in his throat and his hooded eyes suggested suspicion.

  ‘It’s not that you’re a woman,’ Teddy stammered, digging himself in deeper. ‘I’m sure women are perfectly capable … I mean, it’s just that …’

  Hilary put a warning hand on Teddy’s arm. ‘Bobbie joined the National Women’s Air Reserve straight out of finishing school, like her friend Angela over there.’ He nodded in the direction of Angela and Jean who seemed deep in earnest conversation by the fire. ‘The ATA practically snapped their hands off when they applied to join early this year.’

  Teddy cleared his throat. He didn’t like women teasing him but he had to remember his manners. ‘Of course. No offence intended.’

  ‘None taken.’ Bobbie’s eyes sparkled as she cheekily stole a cigarette from the packet laid out on the men’s table, next to an unopened pack of cards. ‘If you really wanted to insult us, try this for size, from an article I read recently in Aeroplane magazine – here it is verbatim.’ She cleared her throat then declaimed the words slowly. ‘“The menace is the woman who thinks she ought to be flying in a high-speed bomber when she really has not the intelligence to scrub the floor of a hospital properly.”’ Bobbie challenged Teddy with a direct, unblinking stare. ‘Honestly; without a word of a lie.’

  ‘Shocking.’ Cameron intervened as he tipped his glasses to sit more firmly above the prominent bridge of his nose. Taller than both Hilary and Teddy, he wore his fair hair in a similar style to the newcomer’s: with a side parting, slicked back with Brylcreem. Even when dressed in civvies, as he was now, he looked immaculate – always closely shaven and well groomed, down to the tiniest detail. Seeing Teddy Simpson’s flushed cheeks, Cameron realized that Bobbie was pushing her luck and wished she would return promptly to her fireside chair.

  ‘Of course, Bobbie and Angela set out to prove the opposite,’ Hilary pointed out urbanely. ‘And Jean, too, for that matter.’

  ‘At which point …’ With a last bright smile followed by an alluring puff on her cigarette and a swish of her wide, silky trousers, Bobbie moved on. ‘Scotch on the rocks,’ she told the bartender in her best Joan Crawford drawl. ‘And make it a double, baby.’

  ‘So, Jean, where did you learn to fly?’ Angela and Jean had moved on from events of the previous day by the time Bobbie arrived with Jean’s drink. ‘Who was your instructor? When did you first realize that flying was for you?’

  ‘Steady on,’ Bobbie protested as she curled up in her chair. ‘Give the poor girl a chance.’ Angela’s questions had obviously flustered Jean, whose cheeks had coloured up and whose forehead bore a slight frown.

  ‘It’s all right, I don’t mind,’ Jean said. Flying was one subject she was happy to expand on. ‘I first started on this road three years ago, with a scholarship.’

  ‘For the Women’s Air Reserve? Good for you.’ So far, so normal, Angela thought. Many of her friends had attended the school, having grown bored with ballet dancing, horse riding and swanning around the London clubs. Getting there on a scholarship meant that Jean must be exceptionally bright, however.

  Jean went on in a low, calm voice. ‘But my first time in the air was earlier than that – on my twelfth birthday, in fact. My uncle gave me half a crown for a ride in a Fox Moth.’

  ‘You don’t say.’ For Angela this altered the picture a little. ‘Where was that?’

  ‘At a flying circus near where I lived.’ Jean picked up the new inflexion in her interrogator’s voice. Angela had evidently been expecting to hear of a rich papa with his own private plane. When Jean spoke again it was with more reserve. ‘It was such a thrill to be airborne for the first time. I’ll never forget it.’

  ‘Quite.’ Bobbie had missed the nuances of this exchange and bounded on through the conversation. ‘I couldn’t get enough of it after my first go. I pestered and pestered for Father to let me take the controls of his Gypsy Moth until finally he gave way. Likewise, when the war started – I had a big battle to convince him that flying for the ATA was the best way to keep me out of the way of bombs and so on. No front-line action for me, I’m afraid.’

  ‘From what I gather, Bobbie is a daddy’s girl,’ Angela explained. ‘An only child, you see. What was it exactly that brought you to Rixley, Jean?’

  Jean thought before she answered. She tried not to be nettled by her companions’ superior manner; after all, they’d started life at the top of the pile so could have no notion of what it meant to scrimp and save to work from the bottom up. Perhaps it was time they learned. ‘To Rixley?’ she repeated. ‘Actually, the trigger for it was First Officer Thornton.’

  ‘Was it, by Jove?’ The unlikely connection between the older ex-RAF man and elegant, cool-as-ice Jean puzzled Bobbie. After all, Douglas was by no means the inspiring type; quite the opposite. His desk-bound job at Rixley was vital but hardly exciting, allocating pilots their planes and destinations for the day, taking into account weather conditions and so forth. Besides, he was older than many at the base – pushing forty, by Bobbie’s reckoning. He was rather thickset and hampered by a serious leg injury sustained when he ditched his Wellington bomber into the sea during the evacuation of Dunkirk. Douglas had been left with a pronounced limp and a fixed resentment of the fact that he could no longer fly anything more challenging than lumbering Avro Ansons, the airborne taxis used by the ATA.

  ‘Yes. I’d finished my shift in the Highcliff Gaumont,’ Jean continued in her clear, determined voice. Let Angela and Bobbie draw their own conclusions. ‘Selling ice creams, and so on. It was late but I decided to call in at the Harbour Inn on my way home—’

  ‘You mean the Harbour Inn in Highcliff?’ Angela cut in. Things were getting distinctly interesting so she leaned forward in her chair.

  ‘The very one. Highcliff is m
y home town. My dad worked on the fishing trawlers all his life, until his boat was caught in a storm and went down with all hands except for him. He lost three fingers on his right hand to frostbite. Anyway, on this particular night I wasn’t keen to go straight home after work. It was a Monday so I knew the pub would be quiet. In fact, the only other person in there was a man in Air Transport Auxiliary uniform who turned out to be none other than …’

  ‘Douglas.’ Bobbie got the picture – a drab, empty bar with uncomfortable wooden settles, pictures of fishing vessels on the walls, maybe a few grimy horse brasses over the mantelpiece, Douglas looking morose as usual.

  Jean nodded. ‘We got talking. He told me what he did and where he was based and then I mentioned that I’d thought of joining the ATA but hadn’t got any further than that. One thing led to another. First Officer Thornton promised to put in a good word for me if I applied – I honestly believe that’s what got me past the interviewing panel.’

  ‘And lo, here we all are!’ This was definitely something that Angela would have a natter with Bobbie about later: how the war threw you together with all different types. Actually, Angela was warming to Jean, having thought her too cool and distant until now. ‘And you’re the star of the show, bringing that Spit in the way you did. I admire your nerve.’

  ‘But you and Douglas – tell us more!’ Whisky had brought out the gossip in Bobbie. With one eye still on Teddy Simpson and with curiosity bubbling up inside her, she risked another personal question.

  But the ice maiden in Jean resurfaced. She stood up and smoothed down her skirt once more. ‘There’s nothing more to tell,’ she insisted, picking up her copy of Great Expectations, which Bobbie had plonked down on the arm of her chair. ‘That’s it; The End.’

  Exactly a week after Lilian had been unceremoniously dismissed from the service, a new driver arrived at Rixley to take her place.

  ‘What’s her name and what’s she like?’ Stan asked Mary as they took an evening walk together through Burton Wood. There was a chill in the air and they’d both remarked on how rapidly the days were shortening. The leaves on the oak trees had curled at the edges and were yellowing, while fallen acorns and beech nuts carpeted the damp ground.

  Mary enjoyed the crunch underfoot and the smell of decay. ‘Olive Pearson is her name. I’ve only just met her so how should I know what she’s like?’

  ‘Blimey, Mary.’ Stan laughed at her tendency to take things too literally. ‘I’m only asking for your first impression.’

  ‘Tallish, plumpish, wears glasses …’

  Stan threw up his hands in protest. ‘I can see that for myself. I thought you’d had tea with her in the canteen.’

  ‘I did – with your pal Gordon Mason and young Harry Wood. Gordon did most of the talking, as per usual. Why don’t you ask him what Olive is like?’

  ‘I will when I get a chance.’ Stan sauntered ahead with his hands in his pockets, whistling a tune he’d heard on the wireless and couldn’t get out of his head.

  Mary stopped to pick up a handful of acorns and turn them over on her palm. Gordon was Stan’s fellow mechanic, just back from home leave and full of stories about the family fruit and veg stall and his father’s complaints about not being able to get hold of citrus fruits and pineapples. ‘I told him, he should be so lucky,’ Gordon had announced to anyone in the canteen who would listen. ‘Where does Dad think he is – back in Jamaica? Pineapples, I ask you!’

  After a few more paces, Stan stopped and turned. ‘What’s up? What’s eating you now?’ he asked Mary.

  She threw down the acorns. ‘Nothing.’

  ‘Something is; I can tell.’ Something was always eating Mary if only she would admit it. ‘Come on; you can tell your Uncle Stanley.’

  Mary laughed in spite of herself. Stan was a mere two years older than her: twenty-one to her nineteen. ‘The fact is some people don’t know how lucky they are.’

  ‘Like who, for example?’

  ‘Name any officer billeted at the Grange for a start.’ The Angelas and the Bobbies, Hilarys and Camerons. She knew she didn’t need to spell it out.

  ‘Ah yes; soft mattresses, hot water on tap, toasting their tootsies by a big log fire. Whereas we have to make do with bunk beds in a freezing Nissen hut and ice-cold water in a communal wash house, eh?’

  ‘Yes, but it’s more than that.’ In the shadows of the wood and in Stan’s easy company, Mary’s tongue was slowly loosened. ‘It’s not fair – they get all the chances.’

  ‘True.’ He looked long and hard at Mary’s expression. She seemed sad and wary behind those big grey eyes. ‘But thank your lucky stars you don’t have to put up with them, day in, day out.’

  ‘Yes, I only have to drive them from one ferry pool to another,’ she agreed. ‘But that’s bad enough.’

  ‘Still; think of poor Jean.’ Thinking of Jean was something that Stan did often – her soft hair and long, slim fingers, the determined set of her jaw, the watchful look in her eyes. ‘She has to put up with Angela and Co. looking down their noses at her at close quarters, worse luck.’

  ‘She does?’ Mary was surprised. ‘They do?’

  ‘Yes, Jean’s not like them. Haven’t you noticed?’

  ‘I can’t say I have.’

  ‘No, you wouldn’t.’ Being shy and keeping yourself to yourself was one thing, but not noticing what was going on under your nose was another. That was one aspect of Mary’s personality that annoyed Stan. ‘Wake up, girl.’

  ‘All right then, I suppose you’re right.’

  ‘You bet I am.’ He walked ahead again, between thick silver-grey trunks and low overhanging boughs.

  Mary softened her manner. ‘I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to upset you. Anyway, I didn’t know you cared so much about Jean.’

  ‘I don’t,’ he shot back at her before abruptly changing the subject. ‘By the way, did you listen to the news on the wireless today? They say Hitler’s planning to evacuate civilians from Berlin, thanks to the hiding we’ve given them lately.’

  ‘Poor devils.’ Mary recalled watching the newsreels of the London Blitz soon after the war had started: the bombed-out houses and burning buildings, children playing in the rubble. Now the boot seemed to be on the other foot.

  ‘It’s them or us,’ Stan said matter-of-factly. ‘Mussolini’s on his way out too so we must be doing something right. I should think so too, since we’ve got over half the men and women of this country involved in the war effort.’

  ‘Stan.’ Mary stepped in front of him and began to walk slowly backwards until she bumped into a solid tree trunk. ‘Can you please stop talking and listen for a moment?’

  For a split second he thought that Mary was going to fling her arms around his neck and kiss him, here in the woods, in the gathering dusk.

  ‘I went on the Moonrocket ride at Highcliff funfair,’ she blurted out, colour flooding her pale cheeks.

  He drew his chin towards his neck and took his hands from his pockets. ‘Come again?’

  ‘The Moonrocket,’ she repeated. ‘It sounds daft, doesn’t it?’

  ‘And …?’ he prompted. He should have known better; Mary wasn’t the type to invite a quick kiss and a cuddle.

  ‘For a moment I closed my eyes and blocked out all the noise. It felt as if I was really flying; up in the clouds in a Spit, looking down on everything.’ Tears welled up and she fell silent.

  ‘I see,’ he said slowly.

  ‘I wasn’t, though. I was just on a silly fairground ride.’

  ‘But you could if you wanted to. I mean, do it for real.’

  Mary shook her head.

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Flying Spitfires isn’t for me.’

  ‘Why not?’ Stan said again, feeling bold enough to link arms with her and walk on. ‘If you really want to, why not corner Squadron Leader Stevens and ask him for an application form?’

  ‘No, I couldn’t.’

  ‘Yes, you could. You just have to open your mouth and say th
e words: “I’d like to put my name down for a conversion course and train as a pilot, please.” Nice and clear, looking him straight in the eye.’

  ‘And he wouldn’t laugh at me?’

  ‘Why should he? There’s a new ATA campaign on the go. They need recruits and they need them fast.’

  ‘I know – they’re putting Angela Browne on the posters.’

  ‘That means they will say yes to you, Mary. You and girls like you, who know how to read a map and follow orders to the letter.’

  She drank in his words thirstily. ‘Oh,’ she said softly and with a dawning realization that what Stan said might be true.

  ‘Yes; “Oh”!’ They approached the far edge of the wood and glimpsed the landscaped grounds of Burton Grange. At the same time they noticed the faint drone of aeroplane engines high above. ‘Do it, Mary, if you really want to.’

  ‘I do,’ she murmured. To fly a new Spitfire from factory to ferry pool; the easy-on-the-eye little aircraft with its elegant, elliptical wings and smooth lines, its azure camouflage. Mary saw in her mind’s eye the Spit Mark IX’s effortless rise from the ground, the elegant dip of the starboard wing as it banked and disappeared into the clouds.

  The sound of approaching engines grew louder as Mary and Stan walked clear of the wood. They spotted six planes in the east, silhouetted against a darkening sky.

  ‘Boche!’ Stan yelped. He dragged her to the ground, face down. ‘Messerschmitts and Heinkels!’

  At that moment the German gunners unleashed ribbons of machine-gun bullets – ack-ack-ack! The deadly ammunition tore into the smooth lawns of the stately home and shattered windows. Ack-ack! It ricocheted off stone walls and set fire to a line of cars parked outside the main entrance to the house, their petrol tanks exploding in a sheet of yellow flames.

  ‘Keep your head down!’ Stan yelled as Mary dared to look up.

  She pressed her face into the earth. There was the heavy thud of a bomb landing forty feet away, followed by an enormous, ear-splitting explosion. The ground opened up. There was a shower of earth and rubble. A second thud and another deafening explosion. Trees splintered and crashed down. There were flames everywhere. Mary closed her eyes and held her breath until it was over. Don’t breathe. Don’t look up. Pray to God to come out of this in one piece.