A Song At Twilight

by Lilian Harry

  Tubby was in the same position as when she had left him, staring hopelessly at the floor. She put down the tray and poured two cups of tea. ‘Drink this. It’ll make you feel better.’

  He gave her that wry grin again. ‘If only it were that easy.’ But he took the cup and lifted it to his lips, and a little colour came back into his cheeks. Alison sat on the floor near his feet and sipped her own. She felt shaken and slightly sick. She looked up at him.

  ‘Tubby. Please, won’t you let me tell Andrew?’

  His mouth twisted a little. ‘Can’t really stop you, can I?’

  ‘Of course you can! I gave you my promise. I won’t break that, Tubby, but I’m asking you to release me. Please. For your own good. It frightens me, seeing you like this.’

  ‘I’m a bastard,’ he said. ‘I shouldn’t have come. Piling all this on you. Not fair, not fair at all.’

  ‘Don’t worry about that,’ she said. ‘I just want to help. Why don’t you want to rest? Surely it would be better. Andrew would understand, I know he would. Everyone would. It happens. It happens to the best of pilots.’

  ‘I’ve told you,’ he said dully. ‘If they once saw me like – like I was just now, they’d take me out of the air at once. I’d be flying a desk for the rest of the war. I’d be useless.’ He looked at her again and she saw the determination in his eyes. ‘If that happened, I wouldn’t want to go on.’

  A ripple of cold ran through her body. She put down her cup. ‘You mustn’t talk like that.’

  ‘There’s no point in talking at all,’ he said, ‘unless I tell you the truth.’

  There was a small silence. Then, feeling as if she were walking on eggs, she said carefully, ‘But I still don’t understand why. You don’t have to be ashamed.’

  For a moment or two, Tubby didn’t answer. Then he said, ‘Maybe I don’t. But it’s not just me, you see. It’s my family. My mother and father.’

  ‘Surely they’d understand. They’d want you safe.’

  He sighed. ‘Yes, I expect they would. But if I were to die, they’d rather it was as a hero than a coward.’

  ‘I don’t understand.’

  ‘When I said I wouldn’t want to go on,’ he said, ‘I meant that I wouldn’t want to go on living. Because however much they might try to understand, they really wouldn’t. They’d always be disappointed in me. Deep down, they’d always think I was a coward.’

  ‘But—’

  ‘I had an uncle,’ he went on, cutting across her protest. ‘My father’s younger brother. He died in the First World War.’ He took in a deep breath. ‘He was executed for cowardice.’

  ‘Oh, Tubby …’

  ‘He was only in the trenches for a few days. He couldn’t stand it. He tried to run away. His officer could have shot him there and then, but instead he went for court-martial. They did it there, the next day. He wrote to my grandparents from his cell and told them he was condemned to death. He was only fifteen.’

  ‘Fifteen? But why was he—’

  ‘A lot of boys lied about their age to join up,’ Tubby said. ‘Nobody bothered to check. They just wanted men – more and more of them. They didn’t much care if they were really boys.’

  Alison put her hands to her face and found that her cheeks were wet with tears. She shook her head blindly. ‘That’s dreadful. Dreadful.’

  ‘So you see,’ he said, ‘I can’t let them have another coward in the family.’

  ‘He wasn’t a coward. He was just a boy.’

  ‘But I’m not. And I’ve been flying for ten years.’ He finished his tea and looked at her. ‘Well, there it is, Alison. Are you going to tell?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ she whispered, and then caught herself up. ‘No, of course not. Not if you don’t want me to. But – oh, Tubby, I can’t bear to think of you up there, feeling like that.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he said gravely, and reached for her hand. Regarding it intently, he said, ‘If it ever gets too much for you, then you can tell Andrew. I don’t want you burdened by this. But, if you can keep my secret, well, I’d be grateful. You see, I always feel that as long as I can keep flying, I can do some good. Kill some Jerry who might otherwise go on to do something appalling to us. It’s possible, isn’t it?’

  ‘Yes, I suppose so,’ she said in a small voice. Then she gave him a small nod. ‘All right, Tubby. I’ll keep your secret for as long as I can. I won’t say a word until I have to.’

  Their eyes met again in understanding, and then he let go of her hand and began to get to his feet. ‘I’ll go now. And – for what it’s worth – it has helped, to talk to you. You’re a dear, Alison. Thanks.’

  He dropped a kiss on her bent head and she closed her eyes. Once again, the tears began to slip down her cheeks, and when she opened her eyes again he had gone.

  Slowly, she began again to pack, ready for the move to Harrowbeer.

  Andrew left his wife at the farmhouse where she was lodging that night, and drove back to the airfield. As requested, he had driven her all round the perimeter. The air was filled with the noise of aircraft taking off and landing, and they could see Spitfires, Hurricanes and Blenheims on the runway or standing in the bays, protected from blast by high grassy bunkers. Inside the bunkers, Andrew told her, were air raid shelters, and there were others scattered between the buildings. The whole area must be very different from what it had been only a year or two earlier.

  The officers’ mess was in a large house on the edge of the aerodrome, opposite the watchtower. By the time he arrived, most of his squadron were either stretched outside in the autumn sunshine or indoors, lounging in armchairs and chatting or reading newspapers. A few were playing cards in one corner. Tubby Marsh looked up as he came in and took his pipe from his mouth. The smoke curled lazily upwards.

  ‘Those new bods have turned up. They’re getting sorted out. I told them to come along here when they were ready. We’ve warned them that you’re an ogre.’

  ‘That’s good.’ Andrew glanced out of the window at the planes, standing ready by the runway. The squadron was on two days’ rest, but tomorrow they’d be back on operations and the new members would need some practice before being allowed to fly with the rest of them. ‘We’ll take ’em up, see what they’re made of. How did they strike you?’

  Tubby shrugged. ‘How do any new bods strike us? Think they’re here to save the world.’ He spoke with the weary resignation of one who had seen it all before – young pilots, often fresh from training, desperate to get into the sky and prove themselves as the finest flyers yet, here to save the squadron, to save their country, to save the entire world. He’d seen them leap into their aircraft on their first sortie; he’d seen them in the air, swooping and diving, heard their voices filled with exhilaration as they threw their planes around in the sky. And he’d seen them shot down, spiralling in flames towards the sea or the earth. Killed before they’d had a chance to live; unable to save themselves, let alone the world.

  Yet some did survive. Some became fine flyers. Some, like Andrew, even seemed invincible. Perhaps these two youngsters would be the same.

  He felt the familiar darkening of his private nightmare begin to creep upon his mind, and thrust it away, in his habitual fashion, with a joke. ‘I expect they’ll teach us all we need to know.’

  The door opened and in they came, two boys of twenty or so who looked as if they should still be at school, yet had probably had a good two years’ flying experience. All the same, Tubby heard someone give a muffled groan and someone else muttered the word ‘kindergarten’. The taller of the two newcomers, a fresh-faced lad with fair, curly hair, flushed scarlet and then set his jaw.

  Andrew stepped forward, holding out his hand. ‘Afternoon. You must be Hazelwood and Sinclair. I’m your Squadron Leader – Andrew Knight. You don’t need to take any notice of these characters. They were all green once – some still are.’ He waved his hand dismissively around the mess and the other pilots cheered sardonically. ‘OK, let’s see what you�
�re made of, shall we? On your feet, Tubby. You can take one, I’ll take the other.’

  Tony Sinclair and Ben gazed at him. ‘Take a plane up now, sir? Right away?’

  ‘Well, you’re not here to drive buses. At least we’ve got a chance to play around for a bit. We’re back on ops tomorrow, so there wouldn’t be much time then.’ Andrew was already making for the door. ‘Come on. No time like the present.’

  The two boys stared at each other, half excited, half nervous. Tubby grinned at them and put a hand in the small of each one’s back, propelling them towards the door. ‘Been to Dartmoor before, have you? Bit different from Lincolnshire. Just got to watch out for the sheep and ponies when you fly low, that’s all. And try not to crash into any of the tors. We’ve even got one of our own at the end of the runway, for practice.’

  They were outside now, striding towards the aircraft. Ben felt his heart thud in his chest. Flying was no longer new to him; he had already proved that he was competent and confident in the air. But he had never got over this sudden attack of nerves when he flew for the first time with the man who was to be his Squadron Leader – the man who would lead him in operations against the enemy, expecting nothing but the best from him. This man would hold the life of the squadron in his hands, and his own life might at times depend on the squadron’s actions. On Ben’s actions.

  He swallowed, feeling the familiar weight of responsibility as the two men were marching so purposefully and yet so casually towards their planes. Suddenly, his confidence seemed misplaced. What did he know about flying, even after two years? What did he know about anything at all?

  Tony Sinclair, walking beside him, muttered, ‘This is it, Benjamin. In an hour’s time we could be on our way back to Cranwell to start all over again.’

  ‘Thanks,’ Ben said wryly. ‘I love your sense of humour.’

  They parted to go to the two aircraft standing a little way from the watchtower. Ben found himself with Andrew and Tony walked off with Tubby. The mechanics waited, ready to carry out the last-minute chores of helping them strap themselves in, swing the propellers and whisk the chocks out from under the wheels. Ben’s heart was in his mouth.

  Andrew said nothing. He swung himself up into the cockpit and motioned to Ben to take the seat in front. Silently, they fitted their helmets and goggles over their faces and Ben looked at the controls. For a panic-stricken moment, they seemed to swim before his eyes, and then his vision settled and he realised with a great rush of relief that he recognised and understood them. There should be no problem.

  The propeller began to turn, seemed to hesitate and consider turning in the opposite direction, then settled into a blur. Still trembling a little, Ben began to taxi out on to the runway and set the nose into the wind.

  ‘Watch out for the rock,’ Andrew’s voice said laconically in his ear.

  ‘The rock?’ He searched the tarmac with his eyes, and then saw it – a craggy outcrop almost blocking the end of the runway. It looked enormous; a huge jagged lump like a hand pointing dirty fingernails at the sky. He opened up the throttle and the nose lifted just in time – so close that he almost expected to feel the rough granite scraping the belly of the plane. Lurching a little, they rose higher and then he felt the aircraft steady and let out his breath in a sigh of relief.

  ‘Just made it,’ Andrew observed. ‘Well done.’

  ‘Can’t it be shifted?’ Ben asked, relaxing slightly. ‘It’s right in the damned way.’

  ‘Shift it? It’d take half a ton of dynamite to move that. Why should it be shifted, anyway? It’s good practice. Keeps the chaps on their toes. Cheaper to use a drop or two of extra fuel than bring in the bulldozers. Keep going south, we’ll have a look at Plymouth.’

  The airfield was built close to the edge of the moor and soon they were over Plymouth. Ben looked down, sobered by the devastation he could see below. The whole of the city centre appeared to have been flattened. Where once he imagined there had been shops and streets and houses, there was now little but rubble. The church still stood, albeit with no roof, and there was a lone clock-tower not far away, but apart from that there was almost nothing.

  ‘My God,’ he said. ‘When was the blitz here? I can’t remember.’

  ‘There’ve been so many, we lose count,’ Andrew said grimly. ‘It was in April 1941. The usual hammering – several nights of heavy bombing. They say the fires were so intense that the windows melted, and the gold in one jeweller’s shop was running down the road like a stream. There were barely two bricks left standing on each other when it was over.’

  ‘They’re clearing it up, though,’ Ben said, looking down.

  ‘Yes, and I’ll tell you something else – a lot of the rubble was brought out to build our airfield.’ Andrew gave a short laugh. ‘They say it’s an ill wind that blows nobody any good!’

  They flew out over the Sound. Devonport Harbour was crowded with ships, brought in for repairs and revictualling. Ben, whose home was near the ports of Portsmouth and Southampton, gazed down with interest. All naval ports were alike, he thought, and yet each of them was different too. In Portsmouth, there was a huge natural basin, entered by a narrow neck of water between the twin bastions of Sallyport and Fort Blockhouse. Here, the harbour lay in the wide estuary of the River Tamar, with the green shores of Cornwall on the far bank, and the protective shelter came from a long breakwater stretching across the mouth.

  In another moment they were out over the Channel, looking down at a blue sea, flecked with white foam. A few ships were moving below, and he saw some aircraft on patrol, but everything seemed peaceful.

  ‘Why wasn’t the airfield built sooner?’ he asked, and Andrew’s voice crackled back through his earphones.

  ‘Because they didn’t think the Germans could reach this far – and until they took France and got all their airfields, they couldn’t. Dunkirk changed everything.’ His voice was sombre. ‘Turn inland. We’ll have a look at Dartmoor and you can show me what you can do.’

  Dartmoor was a wide expanse of moorland, spread with a rolling quilt of fading brown bracken and purple heather. Topping the hills were the rocky tors for which Dartmoor was famous, and bright rivers snaked their way through the valleys. A few villages huddled in deep combes, their grey church towers standing out like beacons, and surrounded by fields and woods before their slopes rose again to open moorland. And, almost in the centre of the wide expanse, stood a vast circle of grey, forbidding buildings, hemmed in by a high, blank wall.

  ‘Dartmoor Prison,’ Andrew said briefly, and Ben shivered, remembering the stories he had heard about this grim place, and the criminals who were kept there – and sometimes escaped. Indeed, the whole of Dartmoor, sunlit though it was today, had a dark, sinister aspect, alien to the boy who had grown up on the fringes of Hampshire’s New Forest. He thought of mires and bogs that could suck a man to his death, of swirling fogs and driving snow, of strange sounds and hauntings. It was a relief when Andrew told him to head back towards Yelverton.

  ‘Right, you can show off a bit now,’ his Squadron Leader told him. ‘A few rolls, whatever you like. Only not over the airfield itself. That’s strictly forbidden, and don’t you forget it.’

  Ben concentrated on remembering all he’d learned, during both practice flying and operations. The dogfights between him and other pilots – almost a form of wrestling in the sky, diving at each other, flying head-on and turning away at the very last moment, all the aerobatics designed to increase their skills when it came to real fighting. Choose a point on the horizon, then roll your plane around it. Make sure the plane’s nose is above your chosen point, get your speed up, keep the stick hard over and just touch the rudder, and over you go into the roll, gliding upside down and almost hanging out of the cockpit, held in only by the harness strapped to the seat … This was the moment when he used to have a brief flash of fear that he might forget what to do next, but he had done it so often now that he reacted as easily as if he were opening a door, applying the op
posite rudder now, thrusting the stick well forward and coming out of the roll and upright again.

  ‘Not bad,’ Andrew said, and Ben performed his second roll and then went on to some more of the manoeuvres he had felt so proud of, still nervous in case he wasn’t passing muster with his new Squadron Leader.

  After a little while, they turned back towards Harrowbeer. Ben saw Tony’s plane coming in to land just ahead of him, and they brought their craft in together, taxiing to a stop and climbing out with shaking legs.

  As they came close enough, Ben and Tony looked at each other and then at their mentors. To their relief, Andrew and Tubby were nodding and grinning.

  ‘You’ll do,’ Andrew said, and clapped Ben on the back. ‘Not a bad show at all. A few rough edges to iron out, but nothing a bit of beating and starvation won’t cure … Come back to the mess and have a drink. I’ll introduce you to the others.’

  As they walked back together, Ben glanced over his shoulder at the two planes, now the property of the mechanics once more. It’s going to be all right, he thought. It’s going to be all right at Harrowbeer.

  Chapter Four

  Alison quickly settled into her house above Milton Combe. It was a real picture-postcard village, she thought, with its cottages clustered deep in the narrow valley and the stream bubbling down the centre. There was a tiny church with a little bell in an open turret, a Wesleyan chapel, and two shops apart from the one Alison had seen near the inn on her first day, which was also a tea room. The tiny Post Office consisted of a cardboard box kept under a table, and when Alison went in on her first visit to buy stamps for letters home, she found that the entire stock was made up of one of each sort.

  ‘Us don’t need to write many letters, maid,’ the elderly woman who ran the shop told her. ‘Us all lives round here, see. And the airmen and sailors, they get theirs from their NAAFI.’

  ‘But there must be people who have gone away to serve in the war. Surely their families need to write to them?’