by Jenny Holmes
Bobbie! Seeing that rescue was at hand, Angela was struck by another breaking wave. Blinded by salt water, she was pushed towards the headland then sucked back out, arms flailing and helpless against the force of the waves. Still half a mile from shore, she struck out towards the beach where Bobbie’s plane had landed. Swim! she told herself with angry determination. Swim for all you’re worth!
The tyres of Bobbie’s plane hit the beach and churned up the dark brown sand. With the brakes slammed on, she fought hard to keep a straight course. The last thing she wanted was for the Spit to veer into the water to her left and leave both her and Angela at the mercy of the incoming waves. She prayed for the strength to bring the plane to a halt. Meanwhile, two soldiers had emerged from the nearest bunker and were standing on top of one of the upturned boats watching her.
I did it! Bobbie was thrown forward as the Spit stopped within a few yards of their bunker. She was out of her seat and clambering from the cockpit, yelling at the men before they had decided on their course of action. ‘I’m Second Officer Bobbie Fraser, heading for Rixley ferry pool! One of your boys has shot down my fellow ATA pilot, damn it!’
The two bemused men – a corporal and a private – scratched their heads as they jumped down from the boat and strode to meet her.
‘She’s in the drink!’ Bobbie slid down from the wing of her plane and waved frantically in the direction of the sea. ‘We need a boat – a pair of oars. What are you waiting for?’
To their credit, once the ground defence men took in what was happening they were quick to react. A glance out to sea showed them the plane’s wreckage and a closer inspection revealed the dark head of a swimmer struggling with the currents. The head vanished beneath a giant wave then appeared again once the wave had broken on the rocks. ‘Hold on!’ The corporal cupped his hands to his mouth and yelled above the roaring water. ‘We’re coming to get you.’
The private helped Bobbie to manhandle the rowing boat. Together they heaved it the right way up and began to drag it towards the water while a third soldier ran out of the bunker with oars. Within seconds, Bobbie and two of the gunners had shoved the boat into shallow water. The third man handed them the oars and with a final push the boat was launched.
Bobbie sat in the stern, clinging on while the men rowed. The power of the waves terrified her. The boat rocked and dipped, allowing only occasional glimpses of Angela, who seemed almost to have stopped swimming and was struggling to stay afloat. ‘Hang on. We’re on our way!’ Bobbie shouted. ‘Try to grab hold of something. Angela, don’t give up!’
Angela heard Bobbie’s voice but couldn’t make out the words. The effort to swim was too much. Her limbs felt like lead weights in the vicious cold. She doubted that she could hold herself up until rescue arrived.
‘Angela, can you hear me?’ Though the soldiers rowed strongly, their progress was agonizingly slow. Bobbie heard the grating of the oars in the metal rowlocks, the slap of the waves against the sides of the boat. ‘Keep your head above water. Hang on!’
Angela could scarcely move her legs. She saw Bobbie in the boat then, almost within reach to her right, a piece of wreckage from her Spit. It was a section of wing bobbing on the surface. With one final effort she lunged towards it and managed to slither on to it and lay face down, her fingers gripping its edge.
Bobbie gasped with relief. ‘Almost there,’ she muttered to the soldiers who strained every muscle to pull the oars through the turbulent water.
Angela turned her head in the direction of the boat. The piece of flotsam barely bore her weight and she feared the waves would snatch her back at any instant. Still she clung on, her eyes fixed on Bobbie and the straining backs of the two oarsmen.
They were within arm’s reach, tossed this way and that. Bobbie leaned out as far as she dared. ‘Take hold of my hand!’ she yelled.
Angela groaned and raised her arm. She felt a hand around her wrist as she slid from the wreckage.
Bobbie hung on desperately. If she let go, Angela would drown. But Bobbie wasn’t strong enough to haul her out of the water single-handed, so the corporal edged towards the stern to help her. As he leaned over the port side, the boat tipped dangerously and sea water rushed in. The private threw his full weight to starboard, allowing Bobbie and her helper to heave Angela into the boat.
She collapsed backwards against the side, lips blue and eyelids fluttering. The soldier who had helped Bobbie to pull Angela to safety swiftly took off his jacket and placed it over her then took up his oar again. Bobbie held Angela’s hand as the men turned the boat and rowed for shore.
‘You’ve had enough excitement for one day.’ In the bar at Burton Grange that evening, Hilary was unusually solicitous as he led a groggy Angela to a chair by the fire. ‘There’s no need to go into lengthy explanations. Just sit down there and let me fetch you a brandy. Bobbie, you too. Put your feet up, both of you. I’ll be back in two ticks.’
Neither Bobbie nor Angela had the strength to argue. Almost twelve hours had passed since Bobbie had pulled Angela out of the sea, during which time Angela had been provided with a set of dry clothes by the ground defence team that had shot her down and Bobbie had telephoned Rixley to give Douglas a brief description of what had taken place. Arrangements had been made to bring the surviving Spit back to base and a doctor at the hospital in Highcliff had examined Angela and declared her none the worse for wear. Hilary himself had driven over to fetch Bobbie and Angela home.
‘I reckon we owe you an apology,’ the corporal from the offending team had said sheepishly as the girls got in the car in the hospital car park. He was a tall, gangly lad with a big nose and ears, accentuated by his short-back-and-sides haircut.
Angela had nodded from the depths of his oversized khaki jacket. Her face had regained some colour and though her body still shook with cold and shock, she was starting to feel something like her old self. ‘I’ll tell you what you really ought to feel sorry about,’ she said with a twinkle. ‘I lost my powder compact when my Spit went belly-up. It fell out of my pocket into the drink. It was a twenty-first birthday present from my fiancé.’
‘We’ll buy you a new one,’ the corporal had promised as Hilary had started the car. Relief had softened all hard feelings and the near-disaster had ended with handshakes all round.
There had been reports to write when Angela and Bobbie got back to the airfield and much sympathy from Douglas and Cameron amongst others. It hadn’t been until teatime that Angela had finally been able to take off her borrowed clothes and soak in a hot bath while Bobbie had given Jean a full report of the day’s events. And it was half past eight in the evening before everyone finally congregated in the bar at the Grange.
From her fireside chair Angela fretted about the loss of her Spitfire. ‘Lord knows, the RAF can ill afford it,’ she grumbled. Her almost-black hair was swept back from her face and she was without make-up. ‘If only we hadn’t run into that fog.’
‘Yes, then none of this would have happened.’ Exhaustion had set in and Bobbie’s response was subdued. ‘I blame the person who let us set off from the factory in the first place.’
Jean happened to be sitting nearby with Douglas and Cameron. ‘It was the usual story – the met people didn’t cotton on until it was too late,’ she informed Bobbie, looking to Douglas for corroboration.
‘That’s right,’ he confirmed in his low, comfortable voice. ‘The predicted weather front now wasn’t due to blow in until evening. Luckily no other flights on the schedule were affected.’
‘I got down to Kent and back without any problems.’ Jean’s day had been long but uneventful. She’d flown the Corsair into Rixley at four o’clock, when the base was already abuzz with Angela’s catastrophe and Bobbie’s audacious rescue. Pilots and ground crew alike could talk about little else – ‘friendly fire’, ‘a brand-new Spit up in smoke’, ‘a nearby rowing boat, thank goodness’. As Hilary returned with a brandy apiece for Bobbie and Angela, Jean smiled then took up the conver
sation with Douglas and Cameron where they’d left off. ‘It’s high time Thame taught us blind flying,’ she insisted. ‘Surely today shows us that if nothing else.’
‘It would certainly put an end to the dangers of low flying.’ Cameron sided with Jean. ‘If pilots were taught how to read instruments properly, they could fly as high as they liked to avoid fog. As it is, you always have to be within sight of familiar landmarks, et cetera.’
Douglas shook his head. ‘Realistically, it’s not going to happen,’ he pointed out.
‘Even if it meant Angela could have got herself out of trouble and delivered her very costly Spit in one piece?’ Exasperated by the short-sighted policy, Jean gave a loud sigh.
‘Talking of Thame, how’s Mary Holland getting on?’ Douglas asked Cameron. ‘Is she expected to pass her conversion course at her first attempt?’
Cameron knocked back the last of his pint. ‘Yes, from what I hear, she’s set fair. Now if you’ll excuse me …’ His face was flushed as he got up and left, hands in pockets to affect a nonchalance that he didn’t feel.
‘Was it something I said?’ The oddly discourteous behaviour wasn’t typical of Cameron, but Douglas let it pass. He had something on his mind that he wanted to investigate with Jean’s help. ‘Do you happen to know when Teddy brought his motorbike to Rixley?’ he asked without preliminaries.
She frowned and smoothed out the wrinkles in her skirt. ‘A few days ago, after his last home leave. Why not ask him yourself?’
‘He’s not due back from Greenock until late tomorrow. Can you be more exact about the date?’ Since his early unease about Teddy, Douglas had begun to look at inconsistencies in Teddy’s recent logs, tiptoeing around the vexed subject without confronting it directly. The discrepancies could possibly be down to slackness on Teddy’s part, or else it might be something more deliberate.
‘I’m sorry, Douglas, I don’t know.’ Unusually, after a few seconds of awkward silence, Jean’s curiosity got the better of her. She leaned forward in her armchair and spoke quietly. ‘Is it important?’
He passed a hand through his hair and returned her question with another. ‘Could it have been Friday the first?’
‘Yes; around then.’ If something about Teddy was troubling Douglas, Jean was willing to pursue it with him. ‘It was a surprise to everyone when he roared up the drive without helmet or goggles, scarf flying in the breeze. You know Teddy: he likes to make a grand entrance.’
‘That fits with my theory,’ Douglas said even more quietly, leaning forward until their heads and knees almost touched. ‘What about petrol coupons? Has Teddy ever talked to you about how he got his hands on a book of coupons at such short notice?’
Staring at Douglas’s worried face, Jean shook her head at his odd question. ‘He wouldn’t discuss such things with me.’ Then she experienced a leap of logic that made her gasp. ‘You’ve noticed petrol going missing from the tanker at the base? It started after Teddy showed up with his motorbike?’
‘Let’s just say there are discrepancies. And that’s not all, Jean.’ In for a penny … ‘I’ve found out that our absent friend’s record at the Initial Training Wing isn’t as exemplary as he likes to make out. In fact, he only just scraped through at his second attempt – his navigation skills weren’t up to scratch, apparently.’
Slowly Jean shook her head. What was there to say, without revealing her increasing dislike of her insensitive fellow pilot?
‘He came up the hard way, through the ranks. He eventually achieved sergeant, also at his second attempt. Not that I’m against that per se. It’s just that Teddy gives a different impression.’
‘I know what you mean.’ Jean looked up to see that Bobbie and Angela were casting curious glances in their direction. She quickly sat back in her seat.
‘I met some show-offs in my time in the RAF.’ Now that Douglas had started, there was no stopping him. ‘Flying sometimes attracts brash characters – young chaps who are mad about speed, dreaming about hurtling along at four hundred miles per hour. And what did Mr Churchill call us? “The means to victory”, I think it was.’
‘I can see that the idea of glory might attract them.’ The heroics, the square-cut uniform that attracted the girls, the romantic notion that they were volunteering to join an elite few.
‘But there’s a difference between showing off and, shall we say, playing fast and loose with the truth.’ Douglas too caught sight of Bobbie’s and Angela’s amused expressions. He cleared his throat then tapped the top of his thighs. ‘This is all in the strictest confidence, of course,’ he told Jean.
She assured him it would go no further then asked him if he would like another drink. He nodded and she went to the bar to place her order: ‘A pint of Tetley’s and a port and lemon, please.’
Angela and Bobbie watched her closely. Jean Dobson was a dark horse, they agreed. She and Douglas seemed to have grown very close. Never mind the age gap; any fool could see that there was a romance in the making. And very sweet it was too.
CHAPTER TEN
‘Right, Holland; you’re on your own.’ Flight Sergeant Rouse watched Mary climb into the Spitfire Mark V’s cockpit in readiness for her first solo flight. A cool drizzle had dampened her cheeks on their walk to the runway. ‘Remember everything you’ve been taught and keep your nerve.’
‘Yes, sir.’ She fastened her helmet and lowered her goggles. The moment that she’d been building up to had arrived and she felt strangely serene. This time there was no flicker of nerves as she lowered the canopy and signalled chocks away.
Once the runway was clear, Mary fired up the engine then taxied into position for take-off. Apart from the light rain, conditions were perfect: scarcely any wind, with only wispy cloud cover that gave a pearly sheen to the mid-morning light. The long, straight strip of concrete ended in a hedge bordering a country lane, with a copse of beech trees beyond. There were open fields to either side and behind her the control tower and a huddle of temporary buildings that housed the classrooms and training-school offices. Mary ran through a sequence of numbers in her head: rev counts, ground speed at the point of take-off, angle of lift. With a satisfied nod, she opened the throttle and was off. Bumping along the runway, the grass to left and right became a blur. The engine began to whine, the nose to tilt upwards. She had achieved take-off.
The Spit responded to her touch. Up it soared, high above the earth. The aircraft banked when Mary asked it to then climbed again. She held a steady course over Oxford at 300 miles per hour; toy houses below, spires in the city centre and factories on the outskirts, fields and green hills rolling on for ever in every direction. Inside her canopy, Mary delighted in the kick of the engine as she carried out some standard manoeuvres; another bank to port and then, with heart in mouth, a complete starboard roll which she came out of with a laugh of triumph before adjusting her altitude to complete more manoeuvres then reluctantly turning for home. She wanted the exhilaration, the love affair, to last longer. If only she could fly on over hills and valleys and never come down to earth.
But Mary’s thorough training held good. She checked her fuel gauge and then her wristwatch to see that she was within five minutes of her scheduled landing time. So she flew back over the city and the small villages strung along arterial roads until she reached the aerodrome. Pressure on the joystick put her into a smooth descent. Details of the villages grew clearer; she saw a tractor with a load of turnips enter a farmyard, a woman glanced up at her from a cottage doorway, a man rode a bicycle along a lane with his black-and-white dog running at his side. Judge it right to bring her down gently to ground level. Mary’s wheels skimmed the hedge and she made a perfect landing – there was only the slightest of bounces as she hit the centre of the runway and applied the brakes.
She had done it! Now, after it was over, she could allow her heart to race and her head to spin as she sat for a moment and savoured her achievement. She – ordinary, overlooked Mary Holland, of whom nothing much had ever been expected
– had made her first solo flight in a Spitfire no less. This shy, often resentful girl, who had plodded along at school until she’d left at fourteen to work as a carder in the local woollen mill, was now a fully fledged ATA pilot.
It was a miracle.
After a deep breath Mary raised the canopy and clambered out of the Spit. Rouse waited for her at the end of the runway, ready to shake her hand. Now I can do anything, she told herself as she walked on shaky legs to meet her instructor. For her the sky was quite literally the limit. Anything to Anywhere; just ask me and I’m your girl!
‘A weekend off at last; lucky you.’ Bobbie greeted Angela on the almost deserted platform at Rixley station. It was teatime on the third Friday of October. Bobbie was in uniform, returning to base after a hop over the Yorkshire–Lancashire border to deliver a Hurricane to a ferry pool south of Morecambe. Angela stood resplendent in a coat of kingfisher blue with a black fur collar and jaunty, narrow-brimmed blue hat. She carried a small suitcase and wore a surprisingly glum expression for someone setting off on home leave.
‘Not so lucky,’ she contradicted. ‘I’ve been ordered home to Heathfield for Father to give me a grilling – for what I don’t know.’
‘That sounds grim,’ Bobbie admitted.
‘Yes, indeed; I can think of nicer ways to spend my free time.’ Angela’s father had been adamant when she’d spoken to him over the phone; he’d demanded to see her immediately. Was it about the engagement to Lionel? Angela had asked. No, not the engagement. What was it then? She would find out when she arrived, had been the terse reply.
Behind them, the guard banged carriage doors and the stationmaster prepared to blow his whistle.
Angela quickly grasped Bobbie’s hands. ‘Wish me luck,’ she said hastily.
‘Yes, good luck; fingers crossed it won’t turn out too badly.’ Bobbie had confidence in Angela’s ability to charm her way out of any tight corner. ‘When will you be back?’ she called after her.