Beneath Us the Stars

by David Wiltshire

  She stayed overnight in a transit hotel. Next day she began her search.

  The first wooden camp was on the outskirts. After having her papers inspected at the gate, she was shown to the medical block. Mary spoke in fluent German to the doctors, who then took her to see a whole ward of decrepit, broken men, some clearly mentally disturbed, who just lay or stood around smoking.

  The doctor explained: ‘These are the ones who fit your profile. Some have a few words of English, but they do not speak it like a person from America, in my judgement. Others don’t speak at all – are mute.’

  Mary realized that an accent would be useless as a guide under these conditions. She walked among them, conscious of their staring eyes, some lustful, even in her condition, some hopeful – most just blank. There was an all pervading smell of disinfectant, urine, and necrosis.

  Outside she began to cry, not knowing whether it was the daunting scale of the task she had set herself, or the sight of so much broken humanity.

  For the next month the story was the same – visit after visit; pitiful souls with no past, no future.

  With a sinking heart Mary, for the first time, faltered. Her condition was not helping – her ankles had begun to swell and an army doctor had said she had high blood pressure and needed bed-rest.

  She gave herself seven more days and cheered herself up with the resolve to come back after she had given birth.

  At the end of the week she was packing her brown case when the bedside telephone rang. When she answered, a man speaking in German, explained that he was a doctor at a local civilian hospital, and had heard from a colleague at a Red Cross camp which she had just visited.

  Mary, phone cradled between shoulder and ear, carried on with her folding and packing.

  ‘You know why, I assume?’

  The voice in her ear said: ‘Yes, of course Frau Doktor. We have two men here, with absolutely no identity. Both mute, with serious head injuries. One was found with the corpses of dead German soldiers who had been killed by aircraft cannon-fire. They were disguised as American soldiers. I don’t know if that is significant.’

  Mary looked at her watch. She had an hour before the jeep was due to take her to the American airbase twenty kilometres away.

  ‘Very well. I’ll come immediately. Thank you.’

  She took the address, finished packing and delivered her case to the hotel clerk. ‘Tell the driver to wait – I shall be very quick,’ she instructed.

  ‘Of course, Frau Doktor.’

  She’d found long ago that the use of her academic title worked wonderfully in the strictly organized German society.

  In the event the hospital was in walking distance. Despite her condition she made her way through the cobbled streets lined with linden trees. The town had missed the worse ravages of war. At the top of a small hill she rested for a moment on a low wall before the municipal hospital.

  The doctor, who turned out to be a round little man with pebble-like glasses, met her and led the way down the corridor.

  ‘This was the one found dressed as an American.’

  He pushed his way through double doors.

  A man was sitting in a chair by the window, dressed in striped pyjamas. As they walked towards him he turned and looked at her.

  Mary’s spirits slumped. Despite all the disappointments of the last few weeks, she always felt the same crushing despair. The man was not Bill.

  She thanked the doctor and started to leave.

  ‘Mary?’

  The voice was a croak, so low that she thought she had imagined it.

  Still walking, she turned her head. By a locker in the corner was another man in similar striped pyjamas. Emaciated, gaunt, eyes sunken beneath a bandaged forehead, he was a bag of bones.

  Mary faced Bill.

  A very tiny tear formed in the corner of one of her eyes as the doctor stood beside her.

  ‘Oh, this is the other one. He was found in a bombed-out children’s hospital.’

  Mary swayed, almost collapsed, but the baby gave her a terrific kick.

  She swallowed. ‘Your admission records are at fault here, Doctor.’

  The light flashed off the pebble-glasses as the flustered man consulted his notes.

  ‘How do you know? It was hell at the end, we were overwhelmed. He does not speak, either.’

  Mary advanced to Bill, held her hand out, frightened to hug the bag of bones in case she hurt him.

  ‘He just did.’

  Their fingers met.

  THE PRESENT

  Mary stirred first.

  ‘Bill, it’s time. Tell me now.’

  So he did, ending with: ‘So that’s it. A year, the doc says – maybe more, probably less.’

  Mary held out her arms. He leant over and they held on to each other. She stroked his hair, kissing the top of his head as she had when she had comforted the children: Clark, Vivien and Mary.

  Softly she whispered: ‘Remember that first week, after we found each other again?’

  His voice was muffled.

  ‘I know darling but—’

  She shushed him. ‘No buts. We swore then that we would never be parted again – ever.’

  Mary released him and eased him up so that his face was opposite hers. She searched him with an intense, almost fevered eye.

  ‘It’s time.’

  Frightened at the enormity of what she was proposing he tried to argue.

  ‘Mary you could….’

  She was adamant.

  ‘I meant it then and I mean it now.’

  Bill swallowed. He knew that voice of old, the young and determined ‘bluestocking’.

  ‘When?’

  Mary smiled. ‘Tomorrow.’

  Back in Cambridge he went along to the American Cemetery at Madingley, stood looking down at a couple of the simple white crosses among the rows and rows. He took longer finding names among the hundreds on the Wall of Remembrance – those who had no known resting-place. That evening they treated themselves to a superb dinner at a favourite watering-hole. Champagne flowed.

  They clinked their glasses in a toast.

  Mary proposed: ‘To us.’

  ‘To us,’ he responded. ‘And the last mission.’

  They didn’t sleep at all that night – but sat up talking, writing letters to the children, and just sitting before the fire looking through photograph albums – many of the photographs were in black and white. They consigned hundreds to the flames.

  In the morning the fire was cold, dead. As he looked around for the last time, Bill’s gaze fell on the grey ashes. It was over.

  They used the MG to go to the flying club, Bill roaring in and skidding to a halt on the gravel. Mary berated him.

  ‘Stop showing off, you old fool.’

  He got the wheelchair from the back and set it up. Mary, hanging on to the windscreen and the door, settled into it. She called to him as he went back round to the driver’s side.

  ‘Don’t forget the CD player.’

  Bill grumbled. ‘What did your last slave die of?’

  He wheeled her into a hangar. Light aircraft were parked inside, some, their engines exposed, were being worked on by mechanics. They made their way to a door in the side wall marked ‘Office’. When they entered a man was at a chart marked ‘Aircraft Availability’, writing with a felt-tipped pen in the squares alongside the registration numbers.

  He turned, saw the elderly couple, the woman in a wheelchair.

  ‘Ah – is it Mr Anderson?’

  Bill held out his hand. ‘Sure is.’

  They shook. Bill indicated Mary.

  ‘And this is my wife.’

  ‘How do you do. Now, I gather you want an hour’s pleasure trip – is that right?’

  Mary nodded. ‘Yes – see some old haunts – where we met – seems like centuries ago.’

  ‘Right. Well if you’re ready…?’

  Bill grinned. ‘All set and raring to go.’

  The man selected some keys
from an open wall-cupboard.

  ‘Right.’

  Outside they reached a sleek low-wing aircraft with a single piston engine.

  Bill gave a whistle.

  ‘Jeez, she looks fast.’

  The man nodded proudly. ‘Can do two hundred-plus knots.’

  Bill ran a hand appreciatively on the wing. ‘I used to fly with Pan Am, and before that in the war.’

  Surprised, the pilot, opening the door, said: ‘Did you, now? What were you on?’

  Bill brought the wheelchair to the rear door. ‘Ended up on 747s.’

  The pilot’s enthusiasm was obvious. ‘And during the war?’

  ‘Mustangs.’

  ‘Really? That’s terrific.’ He slapped the fuselage. ‘Not so exciting as a Mustang, I’m afraid, but she’s lively enough.’

  Bill nodded. ‘Expensive to run, I bet. Fully insured, of course?’

  ‘Oh yes. Costs an arm and a leg.’

  Light-heartedly Bill chuckled.

  ‘Worth more to you wrecked, I guess.’

  The man laughed. ‘Yes – but the trick is making sure you walk away in one piece.’

  Mary glanced at Bill as he said: ‘You bet.’

  They helped her into the rear, Bill saying: ‘I’d like to be in the co-seat, if that’s OK with you?’

  ‘Sure. Can you get in yourself while I put Mrs Anderson’s wheelchair in the office?’

  ‘No problem.’

  As he trotted off with the chair, Bill made his way around to the other door. He looked in at her, and nodded just the once.

  ‘OK?’

  She finished buckling her seat belt.

  ‘OK.’

  Bill ran his eye over the instrument panel as the pilot went through the take-off procedures and check list, then taxied to the strip.

  When eventually he released the brakes the little aircraft positively shot down the runway and was in the air and climbing in no time.

  Bill watched intently as the pilot raised the undercarriage and trimmed up the aircraft. When he was done he checked the route with Bill. ‘Cambridge area, the coast and back via your old airfield?’

  When Bill agreed, the pilot informed the tower. Within minutes they were over Cambridge. Bill and Mary looked down at the colleges, with Kings College chapel clearly standing out by the Cam as the river slowly passed by. Eventually the city receded from view.

  Bill nodded to the right. ‘Over there. Can you pass by that church, please?’

  ‘No problem.’

  They banked gently away. They both saw the winding lane that ran from it and its scattering of old houses, until she pointed. ‘There.’

  Sixty years had passed, and although some trees and green spaces still remained, the village had largely been engulfed by a huge housing development.

  But they still recognized the cottage – their cottage, now on the edge of a park.

  They watched it intently until it was nearly lost from view.

  Mary waved a final goodbye with just her fingers and turned back. Their eyes met. She lowered her lids, and mimed a soft kiss at him in memory of their first time together.

  The pilot banked again. ‘We’re on our way to the coast now – right?’

  Bill agreed. They would have liked to have kept silent, lost in their memories, but the pilot was chatty.

  ‘You been back before?’

  Bill had to rouse himself from his thoughts. ‘Actually I stayed over here after the war – based at Heathrow.’

  He said nothing of the long years of devoted nursing by Mary, until he was fully back to normal. The doctors said it was a miracle. The bullet, instead of penetrating his skull, had travelled in an arc under his scalp, and exited at the back without ever damaging the brain directly. The force of the bullet, and the air pressure wave before it had, however, bruised the brain severely, leaving him with complete loss of memory. To that very day, nine months might never have existed as far as he was concerned. The pilot adjusted the throttle.

  ‘Really? I would have thought there was more for you at home?’

  Bill glanced back at Mary, grinned.

  ‘Oh no, I had a lot going for me over here, what with being over-paid and over-sexed as well.’

  He heard her cough.

  The pilot chuckled. ‘So, being here it’s been easy for you to attend all the reunions, I suppose. Do you still go?’

  Wistfully Bill shook his head.

  ‘They finished a couple of years back. Not too many of us left – we’re a dying breed.’

  They lapsed at last into silence as Bill gazed down at the towns and villages of Suffolk and Essex that he knew so well from the skies of 1944: Sudbury, Braintree, Ipswich, Orfordness.

  Just after they crossed the coast the pilot turned back, left the North Sea behind. ‘Seen that many a time, eh?’ he said to Bill.

  Bill said sadly: ‘Lost a few buddies down there.’

  Using a wartime map he’d kept, Bill gave a course to the area of his old base. Suddenly the pilot pointed out of his side window and brought the plane around as he said: ‘Over there. Doesn’t look as if much of it is left. I’ll go down.’

  Bill took a deep breath.

  ‘Say, no chance I could take her over it – just one last time?’

  The pilot hesitated. The delightful old boy was certainly someone to be admired but, hell he must be eighty-odd years old.

  He flicked a quick look at him. The man’s eyes were big and pleading.

  ‘Well, given your experience – why not. You have control.’

  Bill’s face split into a huge grin as he placed his gnarled hands on the yoke.

  ‘God bless you – I have control.’

  ‘You have,’ responded the pilot.

  Bill flew her straight and level, getting the feel, then….

  ‘I’m going a little lower for a look-see – OK?’

  The pilot grinned nervously.

  ‘Sure.’

  As they reapproached, Bill suddenly said: ‘Here we go,’ and pushed the stick forward, diving down and passing so low over the weed-covered airstrip and rusty control tower, that he had to pull up steeply to avoid a water-tower.

  ‘Wowee.’

  Shaken, the pilot reached forward.

  ‘I’m taking control.’

  Bill sang out. ‘You have control.’

  He grinned across the cabin.

  ‘Sorry, don’t know what came over me – just had to give the old base one last beat-up for old times’ sake.’

  The pilot looked pale, said nothing.

  They landed back at the airfield, taxiing in and coming to a halt after the pilot had brought her round on the pan to face the field again. He cut the engine and silence descended. Almost immediately Mary groaned.

  ‘I’m afraid my back is giving me terrible pain – could I get out quickly, please? I really feel awful.’

  On cue, Bill unbuckled his seat belt, began to move – and winced.

  ‘Hell, I’ve gone stiff – my new hip. Would you mind getting the wheelchair for my wife? She needs her medication urgently.’

  The pilot cracked his door open, glad to get out.

  ‘No problem.’

  He jumped down, and walked away, deeming it necessary to break the training of a lifetime to get the old people off quickly – he’d complete post-flight checks in a moment. He left the keys in the ignition.

  Bill found Mary’s eyes. ‘Well that’s made it a damn sight easier.’

  The pilot had just got the chair and was easing it out of the office door when he heard an aero engine start up. He didn’t connect it with the aircraft he’d just piloted, but when he heard it taxiing almost immediately, he knew it had to be his, there had been no time for pre-flight procedures with a cold engine.

  Leaving the chair he ran for the hangar door, in time to see his plane wallowing away across the grass making straight for the runway. He ran after it, actually reached the tailplane and held it for a moment, shouting into the roaring slipstrea
m: ‘Stop, stop, you old bastard.’

  His foot caught in a rabbit-hole, and he went face down into the mud. He could only watch as the plane reached the runway, turned into the wind and took off in textbook fashion.

  From the back seat Mary said: ‘I want to come forward, sit with you.’

  He half-turned. ‘Of course. I’m putting down in my old place. There’s just enough runway left – I think.’

  She rolled her eyes in disbelief.

  When at last it finally came up on the horizon Bill said: ‘Hang on gal – here we go.’

  He bled off the speed, and lowered the undercarriage. Selecting the correct flaps as he had observed, Bill coaxed the machine down to just over the boundary fence, then killed the flying speed, dropping with a final thump right on the end of the old runway.

  Mary yelled out in pain as he rammed hard on the brakes, the plane banging and juddering rhythmically over the uneven concrete sections. The smell of burnt rubber invaded the cabin.

  They came to a halt with barely twenty feet of weed-covered runway to spare.

  Bill sagged in the seat.

  ‘Jeez, I’m getting too old for this.’

  He brought the plane back to the other end, and turned again into the wind before turning off the engine. Mary had unbuckled by the time he opened her door and lowered the step. She clung to him as he eased her down.

  Mary said: ‘Hang on, I need to rest for a second.’

  He set her down in the long grass and they lay side by side listening to the skylarks in the soft breeze.

  Mary stared up into the heavens, her hair splayed out on the grass. Bill looked across at her, at this woman who had become part of him, and he part of her all those years ago: a lifetime.

  He loved her even more now.

  She suddenly sighed. ‘It’s just like the Inkspots said.’

  Puzzled, Bill asked: ‘What are you talking about?’

  She smiled at him, put her hand over his, loved him lying there with a long stalk of grass sticking out of the corner of his mouth, looking so boyish – just as he had when she had first set eyes on him and knew he was the one for her.

  ‘The long grass – it’s whispering to us.’

  Bill lay in silence, chewing his stalk.