Once the remaining propeller had stopped turning, two men stepped down from the aircraft, one leaning against the other, whilst the figures of the firemen, bulky in their asbestos suits, ran forward to douse the engine.
Rose was unaware of the slight, raven-haired figure watching him from a balcony on the HQ building, skirt whipping in the wind, as he came in to land.
She brushed the loose strands of hair from her eyes, and the wind promptly blew them back. For about the twentieth time that afternoon, she wished she had tied up her hair as she usually did whilst on duty, or at least worn her cap.
As if it could read her mind, the wind snatched off the cap of Flight-Lieutenant Skinner, Excalibur’s adjutant, who was standing below watching the aircraft, and with a mumbled curse, he scrambled to retrieve it.
She often stood here, when she had a few minutes, so that she could watch the fighters come in or take off. Whenever she could, she wanted to see the men and their planes returning after their missions. And now she watched the two Hurricanes as they lined up for their approach, now that the Blenheim was safely out of the way.
Bartle, the engineering officer called up pleasantly to her as he walked past, and she waved a friendly greeting. He was a pleasant man, always had a smile on his face, nice to everyone.
It was important to see them all, to see the individuality of the squadron. Most of the time when they were in the air, they were just represented by little red and black coloured numbers on wooden markers on the great table below. But they were men of flesh and blood.
For the umpteenth time she wished that she had an administrative duties job in the Ops control room, instead of the duties of code and cipher officer.
Her girls pushed them around like the counters of a children’s game, but they represented real young men. Even now, most of Excalibur squadron was deployed on the table, called to intercept a convoy attack just when it had already broken up. There was no chance that Excalibur’s pilots would get there in time, so they were returning empty-handed.
Conversely, Slipper flight had managed a successful intercept, and she was please for Rose’s (and Granny’s) success.
Another of the enemy that would not threaten Britain again. Once more, Rose had faced the enemy, and quite probably had killed again. How many had died this time at the hands of the quiet boy with the shy eyes that she found so fascinating?
For some reason that she chose not to examine too closely, it troubled her that he had been involved in the fight. More than when she heard the other pilots in an air fight. She was pleased for his success and his strength, but felt a strange disquiet that he’d faced danger.
She watched the second Hurricane side-slip as it passed over the boundary fence on its way in to land, undercarriage and flaps extended. The young pilot had pushed back his hood, and the bright silk of his scarf fluttered gaily, a cream and scarlet speck of cheer against the drably painted Hurricane. The prefix letter on the side read ‘P.’
It was P-Peter, Harry’s aircraft. It settled gently on the runway, and despite the distance, she thought she saw the tension in his posture ease, as if the very act of landing had released him, and he was finally able to relax.
But then, perhaps she had imagined it.
Her gaze followed him as he taxied to his pen, the breeze forgotten. On the far side the Blenheim boys watched his progress indifferently as they awaited transport.
Harry was quite different from so many of the others. She respected Granny for his honesty and decency, and could see that he too liked the young man. Something indefinable about him set him apart from the others.
It had been two days since they had shared that quiet drink outside the Horse and Groom, and she smiled at the memories, his bashfulness and at his obvious pleasure in her company.
He was so very shy, yet painfully eager to talk, those dark eyes so wistful.
In the little while that they had spent together, something had happened to her. It was impossible to explain, for he was much the same as those other young men, but somehow she could feel herself being strangely drawn to him.
She could not explain to herself the strange attraction, for he was no charmer, no silver tongued devil.
Just a boy, really, and so young! He must be at least five years her junior! Dear Lord!
What on earth had created this attraction (and it was attraction she felt, she knew) for this young man who, until quite recently, had been just a schoolboy? What had come over her?
During random moments of the day, whatever she was doing, wherever she was, thoughts of him would come unbidden to her mind. She would wonder about him. Just a mysterious young man, so serious and self-critical, sweet and shy, brought to this place from some unknown corner of the land to fight.
Her girls had noticed the occasional distraction of their Flight Officer at odd moments of the day, her momentary smiles at nothing at all, and already some were talking of Rose as ‘her young man.’
She held tightly to the railing that ran around the balcony, idly picking at the flaking green paint.
The crew of the Blenheim were joined by some groundcrew, as they surveyed the damaged heavy fighter. Pilots of single-engine types of fighter did not envy them against the lighter, more manoeuvrable Luftwaffe fighters. The Blenheim was seriously unsuitable and hopelessly outmatched in daylight air combat.
Try as she might, she could not get Rose out of her mind. A wartime romance was not something she wanted, yet here she was.
She wanted to stay apart from the young men. It would not do to become involved with one of these boys, better to remain apart, remote. That way you could never be hurt if, or when…
But, there was that strangely compelling something about the gentle, thoughtful man she had met in the inn courtyard. Some quality that made him so very different from the brash, loud young men with whom he belonged.
It was easier to be the distant, cool senior WAAF officer, feared by her girls, and respected by both the aircrews and groundcrews.
He had almost fallen over his own feet in his eagerness to get her that drink, and she had seen his face whenever he gazed at her momentarily. She had seen that gaze before, but the men in whose eyes she had seen it were usually bolder and confident. They usually had dead, cold eyes, or hot dangerous ones.
Harry’s were neither. Instead, they had seemed softer, his gaze calmer. Less penetrating, less intrusive. He was just a boy, like all the others, yet not like the others at all.
Yes, there was something indefinably different about him.
Not a boy, though, but a man, she reminded herself sternly, he had already come face to face with death in the air. He had come to terms with his own mortality, risking death himself, and being responsible for the death of others.
And it was apparent from what she had just heard over the R/T, that he had just fought, killed and survived again.
But although he had done such things that made him a man, she knew that inside, the man and the boy were one and the same inside, and that this man/boy must face the daily trials and terrors of aerial combat, and also the awful yet necessary responsibility of fighting and killing.
She was so aware that she was older than he, goodness, so much older! But she felt like enclosing him in her arms and holding him tight against her. Dear God, It was ridiculous to have these silly, secret thoughts! This longing to take him into her arms should stay only as that, to run her fingers idly through his hair, a silly, secret daydream.
She pulled her hand away and cursed quietly. Her girls would have been amazed that she knew such naughty words. Though they’d not be shocked, they were a pretty worldly bunch and knew far worse ones, she thought affectionately.
A flake of paint had lodged under a fingernail and now dug deeply into the nailbed beneath. She pulled it out and sucked her finger, grimacing inwardly at the mixed metallic taste of the railings and of her blood.
She thought of his strong hands. When she had shaken his hand the dry firmness of his gra
sp, and the warmth in his eyes, had awakened feelings she did not think she had.
The passing contact had made her heart beat faster, like a silly schoolgirl’s, and she had felt mildly irritated and surprised that she would feel like this when she prided herself on her usual calm reserve and self-control.
The hands that had once flipped through history texts or logarithm books now directed his fighter plane. She felt he was like a modern knight on his trusty warhorse, eight .303’s his lance, fighting an honourable fight.
And now she wanted those hands on her.
She smiled for a moment at herself, and at her foolish thoughts. If the girls only knew their feared officer was such a romantic fool! It would not do for them to know she could feel like this.
She thought of how Dolly Atkins had stood waiting on the tarmac for Denis after that fight with the German fighters over the channel, and she had thought to herself, I’ll never allow myself to become like that. Never allow myself to die a little bit at a time every time that special, treasured one is late.
Except now it seemed that it was not so easy to behave and think so.
Dear God, what was happening, had happened to her?
She could remember the look on Janet’s face when she had made her way out that night.
Disappointment and surprise.
Janet was a good girl and a reliable one, but she was too kind, and her kindness extended to the pilots in more ways than it reasonably ought. She was far too fond of the boys. And from what she had overheard, Janet was excessively fond of more than one of them.
I must have a serious chat with her, she made a mental note. The poor girl would get a reputation if she wasn’t careful (if she hadn’t already).
Yet here I am, swooning over this young boy I’ve just met – what madness!
Harry had cut his engine and now jumped down from his Hurricane. She saw Granny Smith walk over and throw an arm around the young pilot, laughing.
Dear Granny, like an older brother, so protective, but he had spoken warmly of Harry when she’d asked about him during the enforced training all the new pilots had undertaken. Harry had been so absorbed in his flying he’d not really considered anything else, so he’d not really seen her when their paths had crossed a few times.
He really was shy.
Harry was grinning, and talking animatedly with his ground crew. The smiles on their faces were wide enough to see from here.
She had almost laughed out loud at his shocked expression when his glass had fallen and shattered on the worn flagstones outside the inn.
Looking for a brief moment as he did in the moonlight like a startled schoolboy caught stealing biscuits from the tuck shop, eyes wide and mouth open.
She laughed at the memory. He had been so disconcerted by her appearance that he had not noticed her own startled reaction when the glass had broken.
She had almost dropped her own drink at that moment, but the darkness had hidden her own momentary fright, and it had also allowed her to quickly regain her usual composure. Poor Harry, however, had been completely at sixes and sevens, totally off-balance.
How was it that a man could fly and fight with such boldness, wore the ribbon of the Air Force Cross on his chest, yet, when she stood talking with him, why did he become so shy and uncertain?
Which was the real Harry? Most of them were so full of life, raucous and high-spirited; both in the air and on the ground, although there was so much pressure on them to appear unaffected and urbane by the terrible experiences that they had to face each and every day.
She decided at that moment, as she watched his groundcrew pick him up, to get to know him, to find out what he really was like. There, it was decided, and bugger the bloody war. What mattered was now, not the future.
Somehow, he was special. And she’d bag him first.
Molly smiled at her foolishness, still watching Granny and Rose, at their horseplay and relief.
Just as she had watched his progress across to the bar that night, the quiet smiles in response to the banter, and seen how he had spoken so earnestly with Jack.
Jack had said afterwards to her that, “that Mr Rose was a proper gent, and anyway, ‘is Gran-da’ was in the Andrew, so he must be a good ‘un.”
The Andrew. That strange name that the lowerdeck matelots used when they talked of the Royal Navy. Jack would always be a sailor, to his very last breath, even when he was so far from the sea.
Skinner had pulled up in his car, cap firmly pushed down on his head, to take Harry and Granny for a debriefing of their combat with the ‘spy,’ and to file a report. They threw their caps gaily into the car, and clambered in, still laughing.
She had better get back down into the operations room, before the controller sent out a search party. Anyway, the girls seemed more efficient when they felt her frosty gimlet eye on them.
She wished that she could speak with Rose again, for they had not met again since that night outside the inn.
As they drove past, Rose looked up at the HQ building and noticed her. He gave her the thumbs up, and smiled hesitantly. His face was drawn and pale beneath the smoke stains, but his eyes were bright.
Her mind knew it must be because he had just been in combat, but her heart preferred to think it was because he was looking at her. She smiled warmly back, half raising her hand in greeting.
Harry turned his head so that he could continue to gaze at the girl.
The sight of the slim, raven-haired girl on the balcony above was a wonderful sight. Molly’s shirt sleeves were rolled up above slender forearms, and her tie loosened, showing her smooth neck. The wind flicked lightly at her skirt to show her smooth knees and calves tantalisingly. His eyes lingered with pleasure.
The wind was in her hair, and had blown it awry, but even being windswept, she was truly lovely, and the beguiling smile on her face made her lovelier still. He found that he was staring, and dragged his eyes away from her, embarrassed that she must have caught his gaze on her body.
She could not have smiled that lovely smile for him alone, surely? He looked surreptitiously at Skinner and Smith. Perhaps she had been smiling at one of them?
What could such a special girl (and a senior WAAF to boot!) like that see in such a junior pilot officer like him?
His companions, however, did not seem to have noticed. Skinner was telling Granny about the alert that had called away the rest of the squadron.
He felt like singing with happiness, the recent combat with the Heinkel forgotten in favour of that beautiful vision of the girl.
She found herself still smiling back warmly. He really was very nice.
I will get to know him better.
Damn it, I will!
But nothing serious, of course. They could offer each other an escape from the harshness of their lives, and she really wanted to know him better.
After all, he could not be more than twenty, if that, whereas she was twenty-five last birthday. She felt old when she looked at him. He should have someone younger, more his own age. Like Janet.
She shook her head, smiled to herself.
No. Not like Janet.
Granny turned his head and saw her smile, and he smiled himself.
Hm. Harry was a saucy little devil. He’s been keeping that close to his chest. Must be true what they say about still waters running deep. When Rose looked at him, he winked. Harry smiled uncertainly back, shifted in his seat, and then looked away, but a red flush crawled up above his bright scarf.
Smith pretended not to notice.
Little devil. Good luck to him. Molly really was a lovely girl, and he was such a sincere, decent lad, they were right for each other.
The Blenheim gunner sat on the grass, trying to smoke a cigarette and watching his pilot talking to the ground crew who had rolled up. He had a fresh bandage neatly tied around his left hand, but already it was soiled, a bright red smear of blood where the bullet from the Bf109’s machine guns had grazed him. The ambulance crew were seeing to
the navigator. Poor old Duffin had got one in the leg, and it looked like it had shattered the bone.
The wound had made him retch, and now the acid in his emptied stomach churned.
When they had been in the air, he had lost all hope.
He had become convinced that they were going to surely die, that they had no chance. The two 109’s had been playing with them, but the pilot, Mike, with judicious use of cloud, and some sharp moves, had managed to escape, and the enemy had been robbed of their prey. Mike had saved them from certain death.
He was trembling in shock, as he thought of the fight, of the minutes of terror as the enemy fighters had attacked again and again. Those few minutes had seemed like hours.
I’ll never get into one of those things again, he thought. He pulled out his wallet and opened it so that he could look at the photo he had taken of his wife and child, in Clacton. His hand was shaking so much that he had to put it down onto the grass, so that he could see them clearly.
I’ll fucking go to jail first.
A tear trickled unnoticed from his eye.
The pilot turned from surveying his once lovely aeroplane, to look at his dazed gunner.
Poor old Briggsy. He’d been a great gunner, but now he’d come to the end of the line. The bandit had not been able to badly hurt him, although his turret had been wrecked, but the experience that he’d just been through had finished him as a member of aircrew. He had lost his nerve completely, but he would make sure that no-one outside of the crew knew of the gunner’s breakdown. He’d get him remustered without comebacks.
Yet who could blame Briggsy? He had escaped death only by a miracle. He did not want to tempt fate a second time, it would be crazy to.
When they got back to base later, he would do his best to get Briggsy transferred to ground duties. He would make sure that his friend kept his mind, and that his godson kept his father.
He looked enviously at the two Hurricanes parked nearby.
What I’d give for a chance to fly one of those gorgeous crates against the Hun. You had more of a fighting chance when flying against the 109’s in one of those.
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