by Jenny Holmes
Jean had reached the bottom of the stairs when she ran into Mary who had failed in her mission to track down Teddy and Angela in the men’s quarters. ‘Come with me,’ she insisted.
‘Where to?’ Mary sensed another emergency – surely not another air raid warning? ‘What’s wrong, Jean? Where are we going?’
‘It’s Angela; I’ll explain later.’ Jean rushed out of the front door ahead of Mary. They ran along the terrace, down the steps then into the stable yard where several cars and Teddy’s motorbike were parked.
‘It’s pitch black – I can’t see a thing,’ Mary complained.
‘Quickly,’ Jean urged. As her eyes grew used to the dark, she made out that the door to the grooms’ quarters stood open. ‘We have to find Teddy.’
Angela … Teddy. Mary connected the two names and feared the worst as she followed Jean up the steps. ‘What did he do to Angela?’
‘He attacked her – tried to rape her.’ The second Jean stepped inside the room she sensed they were too late. The loft was empty. She picked up a garden fork lying near the door to use as a weapon if necessary. Then she checked to make sure – treading cautiously past the stove and an old mattress to the far end where broken furniture was stacked then returning again. ‘He’s got away,’ she reported back to Mary.
‘Are you sure?’
‘Yes, certain.’ Jean threw down the fork with a clatter then stepped outside. ‘We really do need to find Hilary.’
So she and Mary retraced their steps, across the yard, up the side steps and along the terrace.
‘Knock-knock.’ Up on the attic floor, Hilary tapped on Douglas’s door. ‘Are you awake, old chap? Do you fancy joining Cameron and me for a nightcap?’
‘No, I won’t; ta.’ Douglas was already in his pyjamas, ready for bed. He opened his door with an apologetic grin. ‘It’s been a long day.’
‘Right you are.’ Hilary was about to go back downstairs when Douglas spoke again.
‘By the way, Teddy was missing from roll-call. So was Angela. I thought you ought to know.’
Hilary nodded. Something had to be done about those two, but it would wait until tomorrow morning. On second thoughts, he might as well knock on Teddy’s door and tackle him straight away.
No sooner said … Floorboards creaking, Hilary strode along the dark corridor and rapped on Teddy’s door.
No answer.
Hilary paused to consider his next move then cautiously opened the door to a chaotic scene – clothes and magazines strewn everywhere, sheets pulled from the bed, a wall mirror smashed and a wooden chair lying broken on the floor. Someone had gone berserk in here. He swore and pulled the door to then strode back to Douglas’s room. ‘Get dressed!’ he yelled through the door. ‘Come downstairs double-quick. Join me and Cameron in the bar.’
‘More planes,’ Mary remarked. She and Jean paused on the terrace to observe two RAF bombers approach from the east, their engines stuttering as the planes lost height.
‘Those two will be lucky if they make it home.’ Jean watched with a worried frown. ‘They sound as if they’re low on petrol,’ Mary agreed.
But they had no time to waste so they hurried on into the house where they found Cameron and Hilary hovering at the foot of the stairs.
‘Has anyone seen Teddy?’ Jean asked.
‘I was about to ask you the same thing.’ Hilary had just brought Cameron up to speed and now they waited impatiently for Douglas to join them.
‘He attacked Angela,’ Jean told him hastily. ‘Don’t worry; Bobbie’s looking after her. Mary and I have searched the stable yard – he’s not there.’
‘How long ago?’ Hilary looked at his watch and saw that it was almost one o’clock.
‘Just now. Teddy’s motorbike is still there.’
‘Which means he’s on foot – he can’t have got far,’ Mary reasoned.
As Douglas hurried down the stairs, Jean pulled him to one side to describe the new emergency.
‘Teddy wrecked his room,’ Hilary informed the others. He envisaged Teddy losing control and lashing out at whoever stood in his way. ‘He sees that the game is up.’
‘So what now?’ Cameron wanted to know.
‘We’ll search the ruined east wing and the grounds.’ Hilary decided that he and Douglas would take the former while Cameron checked the front lawns. ‘Jean and Mary, you stay inside. Search the servants’ quarters, attics, cellars – anywhere you can think of. Stick together. If you corner Teddy, don’t take risks. Report back to me.’
The group was about to disperse, each person grimly determined to hunt Teddy down. Mary reminded Cameron about the dangers: ‘Don’t forget about the incendiaries – the bomb disposal boys might not have found them all.’
He kissed her briefly. ‘I’ll be careful,’ he promised as he went off.
Douglas said the same to Jean as he followed Hilary. Together the two men clambered over piles of rubble then disappeared into the deserted hospital wing.
Soon Mary and Jean were left alone. ‘Cellars first?’ Mary suggested.
Jean shook her head. ‘I wouldn’t choose to hide there if I were Teddy; far too easy for us to trap him.’
‘Likewise the attics.’ Mary put herself in Teddy’s position. ‘What would I do if I were him?’
‘I wouldn’t stick around; I would run.’ Jean decided that the chances of finding Teddy in the immediate vicinity were low.
Mary agreed. ‘Not on foot, though. I’d use my motorbike.’
Without saying another word the two women sprinted along the terrace and rounded the corner in time to see the fugitive creep cautiously from the boot room at the back of the house. He carried a haversack over one shoulder and looked in every direction as he inched towards the nearest parked car. Jean and Mary stayed in the shadows then, as soon as Teddy’s back was turned, they ran down the steps into the stable yard, aiming to cut off his exit.
Without noticing the girls, Teddy reached his bike. He seized hold of the handlebars and rocked it off its stand then sat astride it. He kicked hard to start the engine – once, twice, three times. The machine spluttered into life.
Mary and Jean reached the archway. They heard the roar of Teddy’s motorbike and saw him manoeuvre it between the cars. He turned it to face them then saw in his headlight beam that they meant to block his escape. He set off towards them.
With Mary beside her, Jean put up a warning hand. The bottom half of Teddy’s face was hidden by a scarf, his head was bare and he was wearing his leather gauntlets and pilot’s jacket with its collar turned up. He glared and rode straight at them.
Mary felt Teddy land a kick on her thigh and she staggered sideways against Hilary’s parked car. At the last second Jean jumped clear. Teddy was through the arch and roaring up the gravel path towards Burton Wood.
‘We can’t let him,’ Mary gasped. A quick glance at Hilary’s dashboard told her that he’d left his ignition key in the lock. ‘Quick; get in!’ she yelled at Jean, who was beside her in a flash. Before Teddy had reached the gate, Mary had started the engine and driven under the archway in hot pursuit.
Hearing them coming after him and seeing that the gate ahead was closed, Teddy decided there was nothing for it but to ride his bike straight through. Picking up speed, he lowered his head and hunched his shoulders to prepare for impact. With scarcely a judder the flimsy latch gave way and the gates swung open. Now there was nothing to prevent his escape.
Mary’s heart was in her mouth. ‘Hold tight,’ she said to Jean through gritted teeth. The gates swung on their hinges back towards the car but she didn’t slow down. There was a splintering noise as they bulldozed through.
‘Ouch!’ Jean grimaced at the damage done to bumper and front wings.
Then they were out on the lane and Teddy was ahead of them, careering along the back lane towards the churchyard, leaning into the first sharp bend, taking it at speed.
Jean grasped the door strap. She heard the squeal of the car’s tyres as Mar
y took the bend on two wheels. There was a distance of a hundred yards between them and Teddy. When he reached the junction with the main road he turned left towards Highcliff. ‘He’ll be faster than us on the open road,’ she predicted with a sinking heart.
Mary scarcely slowed for the junction. There was another squeal of tyres. The chase was still on – Teddy gained a little but not much as they sped through the village.
He glanced behind with nothing in his mind except getting away. He didn’t care where to or what he would do next; he was only aware that the glamorous, successful life that he’d worked towards over the last few years had blown up in his face – and all over a scrap of green fabric and bloody Angela. Bloody Angela and bloody Bobbie: brainless bitches the pair of them. Teddy increased his revs and built up more speed.
‘Faster!’ Jean held tight.
Mary grasped the steering wheel with both hands as she drove through deep shadows cast by trees out on to open road. Here the moon shone bright and she too picked up speed. She knew the stretch of road well: every farmhouse and barn, every stone wall and hedge.
Teddy gained again. He ignored the drone of a plane’s engines coming up from behind – no doubt another RAF boy flying low, decreasing its revs in preparation for landing.
Jean glanced up as Mary pressed the accelerator to the floor. She gasped then looked again. The shape was unmistakeable – a Ju 88!
‘What?’ Mary asked.
‘Junker – overhead; coming in low!’
For a split second Mary took her eyes off the road. She saw a black swastika against a white background on each wing tip. The plane was low enough for her to read the German airman’s Luftwaffe number stencilled on to the grey fuselage as he flew overhead at less than 100 hundred feet.
What was the pilot playing at? He was much too low to bomb them; had he even seen them? Jean could make no sense of what was happening until the bomber’s engine suddenly cut out and there was deathly silence.
‘He’s run out of fuel!’ Mary realized. A giant shadow passed over the car. In the moonlight Mary and Jean made out every nut and bolt of the lowered undercarriage.
The Junker glided over them.
‘He’s going to make an emergency landing,’ Jean cried. ‘Brake, Mary; brake!’
Teddy looked up and saw the enemy plane falling from the sky.
‘Brake!’ Jean cried again.
Mary slammed her foot on the pedal, just in time.
As the Junker kept on falling, Teddy upped his revs in the belief that he would pull safely away. I can beat the Jerry bastard, he thought. But then no – his Enfield didn’t have enough power and the aircraft overtook him. It dropped to the tarmac ahead of him. Its wings tore up the hedges; its tyres burned a black trail on to the tarmac. Oil poured from its damaged engines as it veered into the steeply sloping stubble field to the left.
Teddy braked hard. His bike hit the oil slick and skidded. He put his foot out in an attempt to stay upright but the bare metal of the stand scraped the tarmac and sent up sparks. Instantly flames engulfed both bike and rider. The fire roared. The unharmed German pilot and his gunner climbed out of their crumpled plane and raised their arms in surrender.
Mary brought Hilary’s car safely to a halt fifty yards short of a wall of greedy orange flames and black smoke – an inferno. She and Jean sat in silence, knowing there was nothing to be done. Teddy could not be saved.
‘I’ll write to you as soon as I’m settled.’ Cameron’s bag was packed. It was time for him to leave Rixley and move on to his next posting with Training Command. The imminent separation from Mary tore at his heart.
She stood with him on the terrace at the Grange. The sky was grey, the trees almost bare. ‘Make sure you do,’ she murmured.
‘And I’ll speak to you on the phone whenever I have a free evening.’
They held hands and gazed straight ahead at rooks gathered high in the branches of the sycamore trees.
‘I’ll let you know when I get notice of my first leave,’ he promised. ‘I’ll be over here like a shot.’
Mary nodded. Cameron would teach signalling and navigation to raw recruits. He would train them in dummy cockpits – these are your five dials, this is your joystick, your radio. Then he would send them up on their first solo flights. They would learn formation flying and go out on bombing exercises, drink too much beer and carry out their first missions with deadly hangovers – these boys of eighteen and nineteen. She grasped his hand and sighed.
‘Don’t be sad.’
‘But I am – I can’t help it.’
‘Even though I love you more than I can put into words?’
Mary risked turning her head towards him, trying not to cry. ‘That’s why.’
Cameron smiled and wiped away her tears. ‘Enjoy flying your Spits,’ he encouraged gently. ‘Spare me a thought when you’re up there in the pale blue yonder.’
‘Always,’ she promised. November mists would shroud the moors, winds would blow. She would fly wherever Douglas sent her. And she would think of the man she loved.
‘I have to go.’ Cameron held her and kissed her. ‘I love you, Mary Holland – I hope you know that.’
She kissed him back. ‘I do, Flight Lieutenant Ainslie. Truly, I do.’
Sitting in the ops room at Rixley, Douglas pulled his two RAF dog tags from his pocket and placed them on the desk – one red, one green, hexagonal in shape, each inscribed with his name and pilot number. He slid the green one towards Jean. ‘Take it – it’s yours,’ he told her.
‘Douglas, I can’t.’ Jean stood with her chit in her hand, her forage cap tucked under her arm. Destination, Firth of Forth and all points north. She shook her head. ‘These tags mean the world to you.’
He gazed up at her. ‘So do you, Jean – the absolute world. I want you to have it.’
So she picked up the disc and turned it between her fingers. Thornton, D W, 43792. ‘I’ll wear it around my neck. It’ll bring me luck.’ She looped the cord over her head then lowered the zip of her flying suit and tucked the tag out of sight.
‘You don’t need luck, Jean; not with your ability.’ Douglas stood up to walk her down the stairs out on to the runway. ‘You’ll have no problems with the weather until you reach Holy Island. Then you’ll run into thirty-mile-an-hour winds blowing in from Scandinavia, so be prepared.’
‘I will.’ Jean stopped at the end of the runway to watch Stan tow her P-51 Mustang into position.
‘You’ve checked your Notes?’ Douglas asked.
She tapped her top pocket and nodded. ‘You’re not to worry about me, you hear?’
He smiled and nodded unconvincingly.
‘I mean it; I’ll be back before you know it.’ She would drop off the Mustang and catch the overnight train home. ‘It’s Sunday tomorrow. Perhaps we could go for a spin to Northgate in the afternoon – just you and me.’
‘You’re on,’ Douglas said. Jean took half of his heart with her when she walked across the runway – so beautiful and brave.
Stan gave Jean a leg-up on to the wing and she turned to wave at Douglas. Then she blew him a kiss.
She wore his green tag around her neck and in January they would be married. With one final wave, Jean climbed into the cockpit of the Mustang, fastened her harness and set the controls ready for take-off.
‘Darling Lionel, My answer is yes.’ Angela started her letter by jumping in with both feet. Yes to the engagement. Yes to his kind, kind heart.
‘We will get married, you and I, if you can forgive me for all that has gone before – my foolishness and my doubts.’
She sat in her room, pen in hand and looking out of the window at planes taking off from the ferry pool. A Mustang rose effortlessly above the trees then a Lancaster followed by a lean, sleek Spit Mark V. Angela’s spirits rose with it. Lucky devils, she thought. And here I am, grounded by the doc, trying not to dwell on the Teddy Simpson fiasco. Easier said than done, of course.
‘Sleep,’ Bobbie h
ad told her straight after the event. ‘Tomorrow you’ll feel better. And the day after – gradually, one step at a time.’
The shock of Teddy’s death had ricocheted around the ferry pool – not in the air scrapping with the enemy but on his blessed motorbike; an unlucky accident that no one could have foretold.
To disappear in an instant and leave nothing behind – that took some getting used to. But life went on, Stan had reminded everyone. On the Friday he’d met up with Gillian in the Fox where Dotty Kirk had been chatting ten to the dozen with Gordon and Olive had amused herself by teasing young Bob Cross.
‘I’d have had Teddy’s flying jacket if he hadn’t been wearing it,’ she’d joked. ‘Don’t look so shocked – Teddy wouldn’t have needed it any more, would he?’ It didn’t pay to get too close to the people you worked with, she’d advised the lad. You got the rug pulled from under you if you did.
At the Grange, Angela had been forced to lie low to nurse her injuries. On the day following Teddy’s death, Hilary had approached her and Bobbie and asked what they wanted to do about Teddy’s savage assaults. ‘Nothing,’ they’d said in the same moment. What would be gained by pursuing a dead man? Hilary had been relieved; they must all look forward and not back.
Only one question had remained unanswered. ‘Was Teddy guilty as charged in the court martial documents?’ Angela had wanted to know. ‘Or did he really not receive the order to cease fire? Did he believe that he had Jerry in his sights when he fired his guns?’
Hilary had shrugged. ‘We’ll never know for certain – only that Teddy’s gunner was on the scene and was willing to give evidence against him.’
‘And one of our boys died,’ Bobbie had added. That was the saddest thing. And in Angela and Bobbie’s book, the fact that Teddy had never expressed any remorse over the fatal error counted hugely against him.
Pen still poised and gazing into the far distance, Angela felt sure that at some point she would describe to Lionel what had taken place in the room above the stables – without fuss; simply an account. Then in her mind Teddy Simpson would truly be laid to rest.