Under a Wartime Sky

by Liz Trenow

  Leaving for England more than a decade ago, little knowing that he would never see the house again, nor hear those sounds, smell those smells, he’d given it scarcely a backward glance. Besides his school uniform and regulation sports kit, the only personal possessions he’d brought with him were a teddy bear and a framed photograph of his mother and father on their honeymoon, riding an elephant.

  He took up a tin car and sniffed it. The tang of metal and lead paint brought tears to his eyes. Mourning for his truncated childhood and grieving for the mother he only vaguely remembered, Vic curled up on the bed and finally fell asleep.

  Christmas brought another visit to his father in Tunbridge Wells. Aunt Vera seemed to be suffering from some kind of wasting disease, an unspecified illness about which he dared not ask but which seemed to keep her confined to her room most of the time. After the spaciousness of the Manor, the narrow terraced house felt even more stifling than on his previous visit, especially since the weather, which had been snowy and bitter the week before, had turned suddenly wet and unseasonably mild.

  There was no roast this year, only a cut of tinned ham for his father, and Smedley’s tinned new potatoes and mixed vegetables – soggy and metallic-tasting, even after Vic warmed them up with butter and sprinkled them with grated cheese. In the dead of night, after everyone else had retired, he went downstairs and made toast. His father had become ever slower in his movements and greyer around the eyes, and he felt assailed with guilt for failing to visit more frequently.

  But he couldn’t wait to get away.

  By the spring of 1938, news from the continent was certainly lending an added urgency to work at the Bawdsey research station. In March the German army marched into Austria and the ‘Führer’ began his triumphal journey to Vienna, where he declared that the country – his birthplace – would become ‘the newest bastion of the German Reich’. The prospect of war had suddenly become terrifyingly real.

  ‘By God, Holland and Belgium will be next,’ Johnnie sighed over the newspaper.

  ‘Belgium? I thought everyone said he’d expand eastwards?’ Vic said.

  ‘Poland’ll be in his sights too, I’m sure. They’re very vulnerable. But Holland and Belgium have sea ports.’

  ‘Just over there.’

  ‘Too right. Just over there.’ Johnnie lifted his gaze, looking out of the window at the North Sea. ‘Thank Christ I’m too old to fight again.’

  ‘Again?’

  ‘I turned eighteen in early 1918. Got conscripted the very next day and shipped out to Flanders after training.’

  ‘You fought in Flanders?’ Vic was impressed. ‘You kept that quiet, John-boy. What was it like?’

  ‘Hell on earth, my friend. Mud, lice, bodies, shells, permanent terror. At least it was only four months. Then I got a bullet in the shoulder and they shipped me home to get mended. The war ended before they could send me back again.’

  ‘Small mercies. I’m glad you made it.’

  ‘After that all I wanted to do was retire to the country, get married and have children, but I still needed to earn a living. Hence electrical engineering and the job with Marconi, which has led me to this little slice of heaven.’ He paused, turning his attention back to the newspaper again. ‘Thank heavens my boy’s too young to get conscripted this time round.’

  ‘D’you think there’ll be conscription again?’

  ‘It’s a dead cert, I’m afraid. As if they didn’t kill off enough of us last time. But don’t you worry, Mac, ours will be a protected occupation.’

  ‘Somehow that doesn’t feel like much consolation,’ Vic said, quietly.

  ‘Our contribution is to build the best possible defences.’ Johnnie folded the newspaper and slapped it onto the table. ‘So c’mon, we’d better get that big brain of yours back to work. Frank’s been boasting about their so-called foolproof system, and we don’t want his team winning, do we?’

  Frank and his team had chosen an airfield on the south coast for their trial, but Vic suggested that to save time their team could use somewhere much closer to home: the flying boat experimental station he’d visited on Empire Day.

  Dr Rowe was dismissive. ‘Those old flying boats have seen their day. Lumbering great beasts,’ he mumbled. ‘Won’t be any use in any coming war; they’ve got no range. And who needs an aircraft that can only take off or land on water, in perfect weather?’

  ‘But we don’t need height or range, not for these first tests,’ Johnnie persisted.

  ‘And we won’t incur any travel costs,’ Vic added. They got their permission.

  Arriving at the flying boat station, they were greeted by a tall, good-looking man. Vic recognised him immediately.

  ‘Captain Burrows at your service, gentlemen,’ he said, shaking hands with a vice-like grip. ‘The boss says you’ve a piece of kit you’d like testing. How can we help?’

  Just being in the pilot’s presence made Vic feel like a schoolboy once more: in his first term at boarding school, watching the sixth-formers with their long limbs and fine physiques, their careless confidence with the teachers, their effortless grace and skill on the tennis courts or the cricket pitch. He was completely overawed.

  Johnnie at least had the advantage of age and experience, as well as nearly matching the man in height. But Vic, almost a foot shorter than both of them, dark-haired to their blond, brown-skinned to their fair, felt even more than usual as though he’d landed on an alien planet.

  They repaired to a scruffy office at the back of one of the hangars, and Johnnie explained that because of the secret nature of their work it would not be possible to divulge precisely the purpose of their experiment. ‘But we’ll need to attach aerial lines – what we call dipoles – from front to aft, probably somewhere on the upper wing to the tail. We don’t anticipate they will make any difference whatsoever to the handling or fuel consumption of the plane. All we require is a few passes timed to our own equipment at the Manor. We can choose the day to your convenience. And we’ll take your advice on the type of plane you think will be suitable first time around. After that, perhaps we can try a few others.’

  The captain listened with an impressive level of attention, asking intelligent questions about the aircraft they might like to use – explaining that he’d been chosen to work with them because he had the widest experience of all types on the station. Within half an hour they found themselves being led out onto a jetty.

  From a distance the plane looked like a toy, but as they approached it was clear this was no flimsy biplane like the Swordfish Vic had visited on Empire Day. It had the hull of a destroyer – much of which was submerged below the water line – and two sets of wings spanning what looked like the length of a tennis court. To the underside of the upper set were attached two mighty Rolls Royce engines with propeller blades several yards long.

  ‘Phew,’ Johnnie whistled. ‘This is a serious piece of kit, Captain Burrows.’ Vic smiled to himself. Their recent airfield visits were often eased by his friend’s canny ability to say the right thing, and it hadn’t taken long to learn that the usual way to a pilot’s heart was to flatter him with admiration for his aeroplane.

  The wind was blustery and chill out here on the jetty, the sea choppy. ‘I can’t take you up today. It’s too rough,’ the captain said. ‘But we can go on board if you like?’

  The cabin was more cramped than it appeared from the outside, and even Vic had to watch his head. It required a crew of five, the captain explained: pilot and navigator plus three reconnaissance officers, who would operate cameras and if necessary man the guns mounted on the fuselage. ‘For self-defence only, of course. Too slow and hard to manoeuvre to be a fighter.’ Vic shuddered, sensing how vulnerable the crew might feel, protected only by this thin metal fuselage with large tanks of petrol so close by. He found it claustrophobic, and couldn’t wait to get out.

  By the end of their visit the plan was agreed – ready for approval by what the captain called his ‘big white chief’, and Dr Rowe
. Calculations would be finalised as soon as final permissions were given, installation of the dipole wires and instrumentation would follow, and the test flights would be scheduled as soon as the forecasters predicted a spell of more settled weather.

  One of the team would need to be on board to direct the path of the flight and take measurements en route, ensuring that the systems on board were in working order. Vic immediately nominated Johnnie, and the rest of the team agreed.

  Everything was set for their biggest challenge so far.

  11

  Kath tried her best to request shifts so that she did not coincide with Nancy, but it was not always possible, and the other waitresses noticed soon enough.

  ‘Had a tiff, you two?’ one asked. ‘We thought you was friends, but you seem to be ignoring each other.’ Twice, the girls suggested going out after work, and Kath found herself making excuses. By the third time it was starting to become obvious.

  ‘What’s up?’ they asked. ‘Did we say something wrong?’

  A few days later she overheard someone referring to her as ‘Little Miss Stuck Up’. The situation was becoming intolerable. Although reluctant to raise it again with Mark, she needed to know. ‘What’s happening about that stuff Nancy told me?’ she asked him. ‘Did you say anything to Ray?’

  He looked cagey, uncomfortable. ‘Yes, I told him. He thinks it’s best to let sleeping dogs lie.’

  ‘But what if she goes around spreading her lies to other people, Mark? You said yourself it could be damaging to your prospects.’

  ‘Obviously if that happens, he’ll act. But for the moment he’s in favour of letting it go.’ His voice was calm, but his demeanour anything but.

  She shrugged. ‘Everyone’s noticed that I’m avoiding her at the restaurant, and it’s making my life a misery. The atmosphere is pretty poisonous.’

  ‘I’m sorry, Kath. But it’s his life. I can’t tell him what to do.’

  ‘It’s your life as well, Mark. She was spreading lies about you, too.’

  ‘I agree with Ray. Confronting her would only cause more gossip. It’ll blow over.’

  But it didn’t ‘blow over’. One evening after work Nancy ran after her, calling her name. Dusk had already fallen; the pathway along the Seafront Gardens was only partly lit by street lamps, a chill wind whistled in the trees and the sea pounded menacingly onto the beach below. Kath quickened her pace without turning her head, then felt a touch on her arm.

  ‘Kath, please. We have to talk.’

  ‘I have nothing to say to you.’ She walked faster and more resolutely this time. Just before they reached the part where the path narrowed, Nancy ran ahead, blocking her way. Stone walls bordering the flowerbeds on either side now hemmed her in.

  ‘Let me by, please.’

  ‘I thought we were friends, Kath. I only told you what I’d seen because I was concerned for your own reputation. And now you seem to be punishing me for it.’ Nancy’s usually perfect hair was straggling in the wind and her make-up was smeared.

  ‘You expect me to be friends with someone who’s been spreading a pack of lies?’

  ‘Lies? You think I made it up?’ She looked genuinely shocked.

  ‘You only did it to get back at Captain Burrows because he wasn’t returning your letters.’

  ‘Yes, I’ll admit that I was upset at first. But it soon became damned obvious why, after I saw him with your brother.’

  Kath barged past and did not look back. The next day she handed in her notice at the Alexandra Cafe. The manager was certainly surprised, but he did not question her, and wrote her a glowing ‘To Whom It May Concern’ reference there and then.

  ‘It’s one of the other waitresses. I can’t work with her any more,’ she explained to Ma.

  ‘Surely you can talk to her, Kath? These things can usually be sorted out with a sensible conversation.’

  ‘No amount of talking will sort out this one. She’s such a bitch.’

  ‘Language, Kathleen!’

  ‘I don’t care. It’s the truth.’

  Each time she ventured into the town centre she dreaded seeing Nancy, or one of her gang of close friends. She kept away from the Alexandra Cafe, and after a few weeks she began to relax. The whole unpleasant episode receded in her memory, and neither she nor Mark ever mentioned it until long afterwards.

  They’d celebrated New Year’s Eve in the White Lion. Captain Burrows, returned from spending Christmas with his own family, brought along some of his pilot mates, who became rather riotous and very nearly drank the place dry. Although she watched like a hawk, she could detect no sign of anything unusual between him and Mark, and after several glasses of port and lemonade she didn’t care anyway.

  Billy Bishop was there, and they had a cuddle and few kisses behind the toilets. ‘For old times’ sake,’ he whispered in her ear. ‘Tha’s what Auld Lang Syne means, don’t it?’ But she knew neither he nor she really had their heart in it. He would be off again before long with scarcely a backward glance.

  It was time to find a new job, but they were few and far between. She scoured the local newspapers and post office noticeboards without success, and did a few evenings of babysitting for the posh family at the end of their road. Joan was always either ‘too tired’ after work, or busy with her boyfriend at weekends. ‘I’d come to the cinema with you, honest, but I’ve promised Sam,’ she’d say.

  Kath’s savings were dwindling fast. ‘No job, no money, no boyfriend, no qualifications, nothing to do. I’m so bored,’ she groaned, trying to stir herself to go out for the shopping Ma had asked for. ‘Something’s got to turn up soon.’

  It did. Ma announced that one of the kitchen assistants at the Bawdsey Research Station had got herself pregnant – ‘stupid girl’, she muttered – and left the job. ‘Come with me tomorrow, Kath. You can meet the chef and get a feel for the place.’

  She hesitated at first. What if the guards recognised her, or if her name was on a list of potential spy suspects? It would all come out in the open then, and what if Ma got the sack because of it? And who wanted to spend their days as a kitchen assistant, anyway?

  ‘What’s the problem, kid?’ Pa asked. ‘Sounds like the job would be perfect.’

  ‘Peeling potatoes and washing up?’ she retorted, but he just shook his head.

  ‘Beggars can’t be choosers, my girl.’

  So when Ma pressed her again, she relented. She’d always wanted to see inside the Manor anyway, and surely it was worth the risk of being recognised? As it turned out, the guards gave Ma a cheery smile and they were waved through the barrier with scarcely a second glance.

  She would never forget that first morning. It wasn’t raining, but it was blowing a gale and starting to snow. Shivering in the ferry boat despite several jumpers and her warmest coat, she couldn’t imagine how anyone would ever want to endure this ordeal just to get to work each day. The make-up she’d so carefully applied was starting to run, her hair was flattened under Mark’s woolly football hat and her hands were frozen inside two pairs of gloves.

  ‘I must look a fright,’ she said as they jumped down onto the beach, trying not to get their feet wet. She nearly managed it until a sneaky wave caught her, soaking her shoes and socks. Fortunately Ma always took a spare pair, just in case. ‘There’s a warm cloakroom where we can change into our overalls, and our stuff will dry on the radiators by the time we come home,’ she said. ‘You’ll soon get used to the routine.’

  As they trudged up the driveway, a veil of snow parted to reveal the Manor. It was even more impressive than she’d imagined, with the red towers standing out sharply against the white expanse of the cricket lawn below. The filigree carved stonework of the terraces and balconies were picked out in snow and shadow; the turrets of the towers, usually copper green, were capped in white. A glimmer of sun peeped through the cloud, illuminating the scene like an illustration from a fairy-tale book. Only the damp seeping through her boots reminded Kath that this was not some kind of dream.r />
  She’d been hoping they would enter through the grand front porch, and was disappointed when Ma led her towards a gate concealed in the wall beyond. A narrow passageway led to a further door, through which they entered the largest kitchen Kath had ever seen.

  Here, a great pine table occupied the centre of the room, piled with serving dishes. An enormous black range took up most of one wall, with shelving to either side hung with gleaming copper saucepans. Through a door to the left Kath could see a scullery with several square sinks in a row, separated by draining boards, with wooden plate racks hanging above them.

  ‘That’s where we do the washing up,’ her mother said as they passed. ‘And this is the prep room.’ On the counter sat a mountain of potatoes, carrots and turnips waiting to be peeled.

  ‘Do you do this every day?’ she asked the other kitchen maid as they set about their task.

  ‘Most days.’

  Mary was a large girl of few words, none of them cheerful. They peeled in silence for half an hour, and the mountain seemed to have shrunk barely at all. If the Manor looked like a fairy-tale castle, Kath thought, this was the story of a poor princess who is captured and forced to do never-ending household tasks until she relents and agrees to marry the horrible prince.

  Ma popped her head round the door. She was wearing a proper chef’s hat; tall, white and starched. ‘How are you getting on?’

  ‘Bored out of my brain,’ Kath said.

  ‘Consider yourself lucky you’re not in the scullery doing the washing up.’

  ‘I expect that’ll be later,’ Kath muttered miserably.

  At last lunchtime rolled around, and she was called to help deliver the food to the dining room. When they reached it, she was so busy gazing in astonishment that she very nearly dropped the heavy pot of mashed potato. This was no ordinary dining room; chandeliers still hung from the ceiling, and all along one wall were full-length gilt mirrors. A beautiful wooden parquet floor gleamed beneath their feet. To the other two sides were long windows leading out onto the gardens and the sea beyond.