by Anne Douglas
Dredging up strength she didn’t know she had, she pulled herself free from Rusty’s embrace and took only his hands.
‘If you want to, you can,’ she said softly. ‘I know it will be hard . . .’
‘Jess, you don’t know anything,’ he said wearily. ‘It’s not possible, just to stop like that. Especially not the way things are.’ He pulled his hands from hers. ‘What do I do? Join one of these associations? These gatherings where they try to help you? And then I say, excuse me, I’m just off to bomb Berlin, or something, and I’m too scared to get on the plane? Be reasonable, Jess, I can’t do anything like that while we’re at war.’
She stood up. ‘Are you saying you won’t even try?’
He rose to stand beside her. ‘No, I’m not saying that. I know I’m at risk, I know I could be in deep trouble. But if I say I’ll try, it doesn’t mean I’ll succeed.’
‘No, but just to hear you say that, Rusty, just to hear you say you will try, whatever it costs – that means so much to me.’ Her voice trembled, her eyes stung with tears. ‘So much – you’ve no idea . . .’
He held her close without speaking, and after a long moment, she drew away and, dabbing away her tears, managed a smile.
‘So, shall we get ready and go to Ma’s? The butcher’s let her have a joint this week. She’s going to do Yorkshire puddings.’
Sunday dinner with Addie? Roast beef and Yorkshire puddings? Just like old times. Roll away the war, then. Roll away the problems.
‘Let’s go,’ Rusty said lightly. ‘Shame I have to wear my uniform, but it’s the rule.’
‘I like you in your uniform,’ Jess told him.
‘I like you anyway,’ he whispered, and for some time they clung together, while around the city the sun shone and war seemed far away.
Thirty-Nine
In early September, some days after Rusty had left for Kent, the Luftwaffe bombed London. The Battle of Britain was over. The ‘Blitz’ had begun.
‘Of course, it’s just what we knew Hitler would do,’ John Syme remarked to Jess after one of her regular meetings with his board in Glasgow. ‘He’s lost the Battle of Britain, so now he’s trying air raids. Won’t make any difference, we’ll never give in.’
‘But the poor Londoners,’ Jess murmured. ‘They’re bearing the brunt of it.’
‘For now, yes, it’s London’s turn. Tomorrow – who knows?’
‘They’ll be targeting other cities?’
‘Sure to. They’ll move on to Liverpool, or Birmingham, places like that.’ John shook his head. ‘Or maybe here.’
‘Edinburgh?’ Jess’s gaze sharpened. ‘You really think that?’
‘No. Not really. We haven’t enough industry to make it worth their while. No, if it’s anywhere in Scotland, it’ll be Glasgow. The shipyards. The docks.’
‘I suppose we shouldn’t expect the south to take it all,’ Jess said in a low voice. ‘I feel terrible, anyway, thinking of so many folk in danger. So many lives already lost.’
‘Pilots, civilians – that’s modern war, I’m afraid.’ John studied her thoughtfully. ‘How are things for you, then, Jess? Your husband’s away now? I won’t ask where.’
‘He’s away. I can tell you it’s in the south.’
‘Hard for you.’
‘Me and thousands of others.’
‘Still. When it’s you, it’s you. At least, you’ve your work. Plenty to do. Packed audiences every night, from your audience figures, and not too much need to worry these days about sales targets. Budget seems to be working out well, too. We’re pleased, Jess.’
‘I’m glad.’
‘And we liked your idea of the children’s Saturday morning programmes. Let me know how that progresses.’
‘I will. I’ve a couple of meetings lined up with the schools, now that the summer holidays are over.
‘Summer holidays?’ John laughed. ‘What are those?’
Travelling back to Edinburgh on a crowded train, Jess pondered on John’s casual mention of possible raids on Edinburgh. He’d soon substituted Glasgow, but who knew what was in Hitler’s mind? And it only took one rogue raider, as she well knew, to cause horror and tragedy.
Think of those seven lives lost in the tenement. Think of poor George, who would never be quite the same again. She herself, though she had never suffered as George had suffered, could still remember the crump-crump of those bombs falling on Leith. Could still wake in the night sometimes, hearing them again.
Imagine what it would be like to be in the kind of raids the Londoners were enduring! Night after night, to hear the sirens, go to the shelter, wonder if you’d survive, and if you did, would your house still be standing when the raid was over? Nightmare!
But as the train drew in to Waverley and passengers began to disgorge, Jess knew she had her own nightmares to face that were quite separate from those wrought by bombs. One was hearing that Rusty wasn’t coming back. That was the worst. Of course it was. Nothing would matter if that happened.
The other was that he had been found out. Found out, drinking. Somehow, in his new posting, the nightmare went, he had let his drinking affect his work, which was now the real thing, flying on real ops, having a real job, not training any more. So that anything he did wrong now would mean – oh, God, what would it mean? She didn’t know. That was where her nightmare always ended. Where her mind closed down.
And closed down now, as she crossed the busy station and saw ahead of her a tall, dark-haired airman, limping badly and supporting himself with a stick. A tall, dark-haired airman she recognized and called to, through all the people jostling in her way.
‘Ben! Ben! Wait!’
And Ben Daniel turned and stood resting on his stick until she reached him.
‘Jess! What a bit of luck seeing you! Where did you come from, then?’
‘Why, I might ask the same of you. But what’s happened to you? Oh, God, you’re injured?’
‘Nothing to worry about. Just damaged my leg a bit. Listen, you wouldn’t care to come for a cup of tea, would you? They’d nothing on the train and God knows when I’ll find a taxi to get home.’
‘Of course I’ll come with you!’ she cried, thinking if she was late back to her desk, what of it? The Princes would survive. ‘Here, let me take your bag.’
‘How embarrassing – a young lady carrying my bag! No, thanks, Jess, I can manage.’
But she took it anyway and carved a passage through the crowds to the station buffet.
‘I’m told the rock cakes are just the same as ever,’ she told Ben with a smile. ‘If no’ exactly pre-war.’
‘Hey, I wouldn’t care if they were pre-war. I’m starving.’
Forty
The bad news was that there were no rock cakes, the good news being that there were scones. Hard as rock, anyway, but still something to eat, and even came with a scrape of margarine.
‘No jam?’ asked Jess, who was getting the tea, while Ben, at a nearby table, took off his hat and gingerly stretched out his damaged leg.
‘No jam,’ the elderly assistant told her smartly. ‘There’s a war on, you ken.’
‘I’d noticed,’ Jess retorted, and carried away her tray.
‘Here we are,’ she told Ben, setting out their large thick cups of tea and the famous scones. ‘This will keep you going.’
‘You’re an angel, Jess. Though I feel a terrible fraud, letting you do all the fetching and carrying.’
‘Come on, you have a bad leg. How did you damage it, anyway?’ Sipping her tea, she looked across at him, preparing to smile – and caught her breath. Across his brow, originally hidden by his cap, was a wide, livid scar, while running down his cheek was another, still showing signs of stitches. On his hand, holding his cup, was a mass of smaller cuts and faded bruises.
‘Dear God, Ben, what happened?’ she whispered. ‘You have been injured, haven’t you? And Marguerite’s never said a word . . .’
‘She didn’t know until yesterday when I told her I
was coming up.’ Ben had lowered his dark, shadowed eyes from Jess’s look of concern. ‘I managed to get through on the phone to her at Drem, so now she’s trying to get a few days’ leave.’ He began to eat his scone. ‘It’s not as bad as it looks, Jess, no need to look so alarmed. As they say, I was just in the wrong place at the wrong time.’
‘What wrong place? Just tell me what happened.’
‘OK, I was in our hut at the airfield when a daylight bomber let us have it. Missed the hut, but the blast blew me across the ground – well, dragged me, I suppose you might say. Lacerated my leg, damaged my face and my hands where I’d tried to save myself, and knocked me out. When I came round I was in hospital, bandaged to the eyeballs, suffering concussion.’
‘Oh, Ben! And you never told Marguerite?’
‘No, I didn’t want to worry her. She’s got enough on her plate, servicing the planes at Drem. What the hell – I wasn’t seriously hurt. Why upset her? I didn’t tell Dad, either, until yesterday.’
Ben put forward his empty cup. ‘You couldn’t get me some more tea, could you, Jess? Look – I’ve got some money somewhere . . .’
‘Don’t be silly, Ben, I think I can afford a few coppers.’
When she brought more tea for them both, he drank his thirstily and lit a cigarette.
‘Thank God for a Woodbine, eh? But that’s enough about me. I’m OK. They’ve let me come up here to recover a bit, but I’ll be going back. No real damage done.’
‘No real damage?’ She bent her head. ‘I’m just thanking God you survived. Were other people involved? Were they all right.’
‘Most of ’em,’ he answered carefully. ‘Let’s talk about you, though. How come you were here at the station?’
‘I’d just come from a meeting with the owners in Glasgow. It’s a regular thing. I have to make my report on audience figures, budgets – things like that.’
Ben’s eyes glowed. ‘Jess, I’m impressed. But then you know that, don’t you? And Rusty – he must be proud of you. How is he, then? And where is he, come to that?’
‘He’s at an airfield in Kent. Doing reconnaissance, he said. That’s all I know.’
‘Passed out well from his course, I take it?’
‘Oh, yes, very well.’
‘So, no problems?’
‘No, no problems.’
Heaving a great sigh, Ben crushed out his cigarette and, reaching across the table, took Jess’s hand.
‘Jess, you remember what I said to you, don’t you? If you ever wanted a friendly shoulder and I was home, mine would be available? Well, I’m home, and I’ve still got a shoulder.’
‘I think I said I didn’t need any help.’ She looked down at her hand in his, and slowly drew it away. ‘But thanks, Ben. Thanks all the same.’
‘Would it make things easier if I told you I knew what was wrong?’
Her eyes met his, then fell.
‘I . . . guessed you did. I don’t know how.’
‘MacPherson, the guy I met – he told me.’
‘Oh, God. He did know, then? I was so afraid he might. I told Rusty, but he was so sure no one knew . . .’
‘Several of the lads on the course knew. You can’t be a solitary drinker in the RAF without somebody suspecting something. Why skive off to your billet all the time if you don’t have to?’ Ben groaned. ‘He was damned lucky his CO never got to hear of it.’
‘The lads on the course – they can’t have said?’
‘No, Josh MacPherson said they wouldn’t shop him. As long as he didn’t put anybody at risk. He was too nice, he said, they liked him. But now he’s on ops, Jess, things are going to have to be different. You know that, don’t you?’
‘Yes, and so does he. He’s promised to try to give up, he really has.’ Jess’s hands were shaking and she clasped them under the table, while her eyes beseeched Ben for the reassurance she knew he couldn’t give. ‘And I think he will. He knows the danger, no one better.’
‘I wish to God I’d been able to talk to him, Jess. I think that’s why Josh told me what he did, because he hoped I’d be able to help. But sometimes I think Rusty doesn’t trust me – I don’t know why.’
‘Of course he trusts you, Ben!’
He shrugged. ‘Well, he was my colleague, and I like to think he’s my friend. I don’t want him to be hurt, or to hurt you, so, for both your sakes, he has to sort himself out. Why in God’s name does he need to drink, anyway?’
‘Because he’s afraid of flying. It happened after he almost crashed on a training exercise. After that, he couldn’t face going up without the thought of the drink to come.’
Ben’s face was suddenly expressionless. ‘Aircrew, and he couldn’t take it? He should have given it up. He should have just told them straight out, he couldn’t do it. Some of us never got the chance.’
They left the buffet, walking slowly at Ben’s pace, and found the queue for the taxis – a great long crocodile of people stretching round the station.
‘My God, I’d better try for the tram,’ Ben muttered. ‘I daresay I could do it.’
‘You should take priority,’ Jess cried.
‘Because I’m a wounded soldier!’ He laughed. ‘Take a look – half the queue fits that description. I don’t like to ask, Jess, but if you could manage the bag, I think I’d be all right.’
‘Of course, I’ll take the bag and see you to the tram.’ Jess’s eyes filled with sudden tears. ‘Only too happy.’
‘Hey, hey, I’m all right,’ he said lightly. ‘This is just temporary.’
‘And I said I was thanking God for that.’
In spite of his protestations, she escorted him all the way to his father’s house, where she saw him in and his father cling to him with the same sort of quick tears as her own. And then Ben hugged her and kissed her cheek, asking her to come round soon with Addie, when Marguerite would be there.
‘And has it been a help?’ he whispered. ‘To talk?’
‘It has. It’s lightened the burden.’
‘The shoulder will always be there, Jess.’
‘I know, Ben. And thanks.’
But that night, as she’d expected, the nightmare of Rusty’s disgrace returned. Because Ben knew, and others knew. How long before someone knew down in Kent?
Forty-One
But no one ever knew, down in Kent. Perhaps, as time went by, someone would have discovered what was going on, but, for Rusty, time ran out. In March 1941, on a raid over Germany that was for bombing, not reconnaissance, his plane was shot down, and for Jess there came a nightmare that was real. The telegram.
Of course, all yellow envelopes arriving in wartime brought nightmare, or fear of it. So much so, that people sometimes couldn’t readily take in their content – which was what happened to Jess.
The telegram was delivered early, before she’d left for work, and she’d opened the door to the knock, expecting nothing more than ordinary post. But when she saw the telegraph boy and what he held in his hand, the world seemed to swing and she with it, so that she would have fallen had he not reached out to hold her steady.
‘Want to sit down?’ he asked kindly, used perhaps to her type of reaction, for he seemed to be looking for a chair.
‘No, no – I’ll just . . . see what it says . . .’
But when she’d torn the envelope open and read the words pasted on little slips of paper within, she couldn’t seem to take them in.
‘Regret to inform you . . .’
Oh, God, he was dead. Rusty was dead. Killed. Shot down. Here, it said so. ‘Regret to inform you . . .’
‘He’s dead!’ she cried. ‘My husband’s dead!’
And let the telegram fall from her hand, as she leaned against the open door.
‘Missus, he might no’ be deed,’ the boy said, reading the message, which he’d picked up from the ground. ‘It says here, he’s been reported missing. Did you no’ see that, then?’
No, she hadn’t seen it. She didn’t then know what she’d
seen. A message that wasn’t there, for though Rusty’s plane had come down over enemy territory, it was not yet known what had happened to its occupants. All that could be said in the telegram was that LAC Russell MacVail was missing and that further information would be given when available.
Missing, then. That meant there was still hope. A hope so frail, it seemed to bend and fall as she reached out to take it, but was still not to be denied.
‘Missing,’ she whispered to the boy, who was now turning to go. ‘Wait, I’ll get my bag . . .’
‘No, thanks, Missus, that’s all right.’ He touched his cap. ‘Just hope you get good news, eh?’
Hope, there was the word again.
‘You’re a good boy,’ she said softly. ‘I’ll always remember you.’
But already he was on his way, smiling in embarrassed fashion, as he swung himself on to his bike and pedalled fast away.
That morning, Jess did not go into work; she went to the phone box. The first call was to her mother at the camouflage factory, the second to Edie at the Princes cinema, the third to Marguerite at Drem, and the fourth to Sally, who was lucky enough to have a telephone in her flat.
Then she sat down in her living room, folded her hands and thought of nothing, as though she must be very, very careful and save herself from thinking the wrong things. Better not to think of anything, than have all the wrong thoughts come flooding in.
So it was, when Addie came hurrying round, she found her active, vibrant Jess just sitting on her sofa, staring into space. Jess reduced to a statue? Nothing could have brought home more clearly what that telegram had meant.
‘Jess, Jess, he might be all right!’ Addie cried. ‘They say he’s missing, he’s no’ dead. Folk go missing all the time, and they turn up.’
‘How many do you know?’ Jess asked.
‘Och, never mind! Everyone knows it’s true, what I say. But have you no’ even made yourself some tea, you poor girl? Hot sweet tea is what you need. You’re as white as a snowflake, you’re suffering from shock. Come on, we’ll get the kettle on, eh?’