Brave Faces

by Mary Arden

  As I cycled along the deserted road towards Lee-on-Solent I thought how beautiful and quiet it was, apart from the sound of birds. When I got about halfway I looked at the church clock and was relieved to see that I still had plenty of time to get there.

  Just as I reached the avenue that led to HMS Daedalus, a small aircraft flew directly over my head. It was flying very low and the downdraft was so violent that it made the leaves fall from the trees. I glanced up as the aircraft turned away above one of the houses and disappeared from view; then suddenly there is was again. It was almost as if the road had become the runway and it was now heading straight towards me.

  Wobbling all over the road and shaking with fear, I yelled angrily at the pilot, ‘I’ll report you to your Commanding Officer!’

  I then saw two aircraft following each other across the sea. I could see that one of them was a British plane, but the other one was unfamiliar to me. Both aircraft were flying very fast and low, as if they were chasing one another. Low flying was forbidden in a built-up area and I thought you silly boys, you will get into real trouble.

  Both aircraft then swung towards the hill near my billet on the seafront and disappeared from view. I sighed with relief and was just regaining my composure, when I heard a loud engine roar getting closer and closer and when I looked up I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. On the wings of the plane flying in my direction were black crosses. It was a German Messerschmitt. I braked sharply.

  I then heard the sound of gunfire followed by a different sound, the roar of another plane. It was one of ours.

  My goodness, a dogfight is going on right above my head, I now realised, as more gunfire sent me into a cold sweat. Suddenly a hail of bullets hit the road not very far from where I was, and that’s when instinct took over. I dropped my bicycle in the middle of the road and quickly ran for cover. I saw a high garden wall and decided that the sooner I got behind it the better. It was a life-saving decision. I only just made it over the wall, as more bullets hit the road right at the spot where I had been standing only seconds before.

  I pressed my body as close as possible to the base of the garden wall, hoping that any stray bullets would hit the wall on the roadside and not on my side of the wall. I lay there shaking for at least five minutes before I dared to move again. Just as I was about to stand up the sound of more gunfire getting closer and closer stopped me in my tracks. I was ridged with fear.

  ‘Please God… I am too young to die!’ I screamed at the sky, hoping God was listening. Up until now I had only been scared for the people I knew and cared about being killed, but now the thought that I might die too suddenly occurred to me.

  The reality came as quite a shock. My parents would have been devastated if I had died. I was still only eighteen, the war having started when I was just fifteen, when passing my school exams had been my priority. Remembering the summer of ‘39 that I’d spent without a care in the world, I now thought how utterly and unbelievably different my life was now to how it was back then.

  I stayed curled up at the base of the wall until I felt safe enough to stand up again. I was a bit wobbly, so put my hand on the wall to steady myself. It was a good four and a-half feet tall: how the hell had I managed to jump over that?

  When I went to pick up my bicycle, I noticed that the front wheel was now twisted at a funny angle, which would make it impossible for me to ride, so I’d have to push it the rest of the way. I then looked at my watch and realised with horror that I’d be very late for work.

  Just as I got back to the base, I heard the All Clear siren. So that’s why I hadn’t seen anybody in Gosport, I now realised. Everyone must have taken cover in the air raid shelters. Somehow I had missed the siren going off while I was in the loo.

  I propped my damaged bike against the Sick Bay wall, grabbed my belongings and gas mask and made my way towards the Sick Bay side-door, which all ranks other than the officers used. Suddenly the door burst open and three Sick Bay attendants (SBAs) ran out. They were presumably coming up for a breath of air from the cellar, which was used as an air raid shelter. One of the SBAs looked at me aghast, as I staggered towards them. The reason became clear as I looked down and saw that my legs were covered in cuts, still dripping with blood, and my skirt was covered with dirt.

  ‘There was a dogfight and I had to run for cover,’ I was able to say, before my legs gave way beneath me and I fainted.

  When I regained consciousness, I was in the sickbay, and Commander Timpston’s angry face glared down at me.

  ‘Where the hell have you been?’

  ‘I’m sorry I’m late Sir, I left myself plenty of time to get here, but I got caught up in a dogfight. I had no idea there was an air raid on, as I didn’t hear the warning signal.’

  Commander Timpston barked, ‘For God’s sake girl, what’s all this nonsense about a dogfight? There haven’t been any dogfights that I know about this morning. And where were you this morning? When the siren went off we couldn’t find you anywhere, you had me worried sick. Look at the state you’re in. Did you fall off your bicycle?’

  ‘No Sir, I didn’t fall off,’ I replied indignantly, ‘I was being shot at, so I had to jump off, and then take shelter behind a wall, as quickly as possible.’

  ‘I don’t believe you. You obviously didn’t come back to the base last night, and just decided to waltz in at your leisure this morning. You have taken advantage of my trust in you, which I am not happy about. Come to my office at one-thirty,’ he ordered ‘and then I want a full explanation as to why you are almost two hours late. Meanwhile, you’d better get those legs attended to.’

  After he left, one of the SBAs gave me a tetanus jab, which gave me time to think about why Daddy-T had been so angry with me. I realised that he wouldn’t have heard the planes fly overhead if he had been in the air raid shelter, so maybe that’s why my story had sounded far-fetched to him and he had thought I was lying.

  While the SBA tended to my cuts and grazes, I asked him if he knew anybody at the air base who might be able to mend my bicycle, ‘The front wheel’s all askew; it must have happened when I leapt off the bike, and I can’t ride it again until it’s mended.’

  ‘I have a pal in the transport section,’ he replied, ‘if anyone can fix it, he will. I’ll let you know later, leave it to me.’

  After I’d told Lydia what had happened and that I felt sick, she offered to do my work for me, but I didn’t wanted to make a fuss, so told her I could manage.

  Later that morning, the SBA came to our office and told me that I should go to the transport division at lunchtime to see Chief Marsden, as he was willing to mend my bicycle. So I did exactly that. The chief asked light heartedly whether I’d been doing some target practice firing bullets at it. I looked at the mudguard and realised it must have been hit by one of the bullets from the plane. ‘I’ll hammer the sharp edge flat,’ he offered, ‘but if I were you. I would replace it later.’

  At one-thirty sharp, I knocked at Commander’s Timpston’s office door. He called me in, but didn’t invite me to sit down, as he usually did so I guessed I was still in trouble.

  ‘I must say Mary, I am disappointed that you abused my trust and lied to me about why you were late this morning.’ He then brusquely ordered me to sit down pointing to a chair. ‘So I now want you to tell me exactly what happened, why you weren’t sleeping here last night as you should have been, and why you were so late, because I’m obliged to make out a report when anyone I’m responsible for gets hurt in any way, so it’s important that you tell me the truth. Is that understood?’

  As I fought back tears, I told him what had happened to me, ‘In order to have an extra night at home with my family last night, I took the milk train very early this morning. I have done this before and always had plenty of time to get here before nine. But this time there must have been an air raid on when I arrived in Gosport, but I never heard any siren so I was totally unaware that there was any danger. I did think it was a bit odd that there wa
s nobody about; but I didn’t think anything more of it other than that it was a bit unusual. When I got to the halfway mark, where the church is, I looked at the clock and it said half-past eight, so I knew I still had plenty of time so didn’t have to ride too fast.’

  ‘Then why the hell were you so late, girl?’ he snapped.

  ‘Suddenly I heard two planes overheard having a dogfight and bullets were raining down all over the place, so I leapt off my bike and somehow managed to jump over a garden wall. I landed on the other side and that’s how I cut my legs.’

  ‘And your hands, how did you hurt them?’ he asked.

  ‘I must have injured them at the same time, Sir, but I don’t remember. I was just so frightened.’

  ‘All right Mary. Go back to work and I’ll talk to you later.’

  I tried to keep myself busy all afternoon, and not think about what had happened that morning but it was hard not to. I knew that I was lucky to still be alive.

  At the end of the day, Commander Timpston asked me to come back to his office, and to my relief he apologised for being so brusque with me that morning.

  ‘Since I spoke to you, I have discovered that a German plane was shot down in the sea between Lee-on-Solent and Portsmouth this morning. The pilot was rescued by lifeboat and is now, I assume, a POW. Apparently, several other people in Portsmouth witnessed the dogfight in which you were unfortunate enough to be involved in. I am sorry for not believing you but it seemed farfetched at the time. In future if you are planning to stay an extra night with your parents, please let either Lydia or myself know, that way we won’t wonder where the hell you are!’

  I was relieved that my story had been verified, but was a little hurt that the Commander had not believed me right away.

  That night, Lydia suggested that I went to bed early and gave me a couple of aspirins to help me sleep, but the terrifying experience of having bullets fired so close to me kept me awake and I relived the moment again and again, before finally drifting off to sleep.

  When I arrived at the eye unit, the following morning, the senior male nurse at the sick bay exclaimed, ‘My God Mary! I went to see the place where you said that you were caught up in the dogfight on my way home last night and there was debris all over the road. It was a right old mess I can tell you. That wall is riddled with bullet holes, so you were one damn lucky girl, not to get hit.’

  Having done my best to try and forget the incident, it all came rushing back and I thought I might faint again, but Lydia was standing nearby and seeing that I was a bit wobbly, made me sit down until I had recovered. She then offered to do my tests for me until I felt better, but I assured her that doing the tests would take my mind off it all, which they did thank goodness.

  The following week, I asked Commander Timpston whether I could invite my friend Elsie over to the air base next time she had leave, so that she could see where I worked. He asked me who she was so I told him what a good friend she had been to me. He said that he had no objection, so that night, I wrote to Elsie to let her know that I was looking forward to seeing her and that I would meet her off the ferry. She wrote back giving me the date and estimated time of arrival.

  The day before Elsie was due to arrive, Commander Timpston called me into his office, and I was worried that he might have changed his mind, but instead he said, ‘First Officer Smitherson has just spoken to me on the phone, and I’m afraid she has asked me to convey some very sad news to you. Your friend, Elsie, was killed during an air raid two nights ago, while she was visiting her family in London.’

  I sat in total shock for a moment and then shut my eyes and whispered quietly, ‘I thought I was bad luck to boys, not girls as well. It looks like I am bad luck to everyone I get fond of.’

  ‘What do you mean by that Mary?’ the Commander asked.

  So I told him about Andrew, Henry and Charles all being killed, and how hard it had hit me.

  ‘This war is not your fault, it’s the Nazis’, so you must never think that you are in any way responsible for the death of your friends. We have all lost friends in this damn war, Mary, so all we can do is put on a brave face, and try to win it.’

  Although Daddy-T’s kind words were a big help, I felt very sad and cried myself to sleep that night. When I went back to work the next day, I decided that all I could do was ‘carry on as usual’, so although I was grieving for yet another friend, I managed to get all the tests done without a problem.

  The following week I received a long brown envelope in the post, which contained my new chequebook and a two-page bank statement. I glanced through it quickly, noticing with surprise that the last six items were marked in red ink and wondered why that was, so wrote back to the bank to ask them if they had run out of black ink, or whether there was some other reason.

  Two days later, I received a letter from the Head Bank Clerk telling me that, no they had not run out of black ink; the reason they had used red ink was because my current account was overdrawn. He suggested that to stop it happening again, he could automatically transfer money from my deposit account into my current account, as soon as I went below ten pounds. He had enclosed a form for me to sign and send back, which would authorise them to do this, so I filled it in and posted it later that same day.

  The next time I went home on leave, my father told me that my letter had caused so much amusement at the bank, that they’d telephoned him to share the ‘red ink’ joke with him. I was very embarrassed.

  My father sat me down and made me add up all the expenses that I had recorded in my chequebook stubs and then gave me another lesson in bookkeeping. He suggested that I limit my spending each month from now on to avoid going overdrawn again.

  When I got back to HMS Daedalus on the Monday morning, one of the Wren Writers came rushing into our office and yelled to Lydia and me, ‘Good news girls. All Other Rank Wrens are now to be issued with new navy blue sailor-style hats, so at last those hideous schoolgirl pudding-basin hats are no longer!’ We all cheered.

  That evening, Lydia and I took the hatbands from our old hats and happily sewed them onto our new ones; we then admired ourselves in the mirror. I couldn’t wait to show my mother, as she would think this new hat was rather stylish, especially when tipped slightly to one side.

  The next day, Daddy-T called me to his office, ‘I hope you don’t mind, Mary, but I urgently need you to go to HMS Heron at Yeovilton in Somerset. Anne Briscoe who is in charge there, is overworked and really is in need of another Wren to help her out; she is well overdue some leave, so once you are settled, you will be expected to take over her duties. Do you think you will be able to manage that?’

  ‘If you think I can, Sir, then I’m sure I can,’ I replied. ‘I don’t mind where I go, but I’ve no idea where Yeovilton is.’

  ‘I’ll show you on the map later,’ Daddy-T said and then told me that he’d arranged for me to take a week’s leave, so that I could take my belongings home to Woking and re-pack whatever I thought I might need for the winter, as he thought it was unlikely that I’d have any additional leave for at least the next four months.

  ‘You’ve done well here, Mary, and I’m proud of you,’ he said.

  ‘Thank for all the time you’ve spent teaching me about psychology and for lending me some of your books. I’ll miss you Sir,’ I said. ‘You’re my first ‘Boss’ if you know what I mean?’

  ‘And I won’t be the last, Mary,’ Commander Timpston now said seriously. ‘I’m afraid the war will go on for several years yet, but remember, when you get posted somewhere else after Yeovilton, it’ll be me that’s sending you, and I’ll be in touch personally before you go. I never send any of my Wrens anywhere unless they’re quite happy about it.’

  ‘Thank you again Sir, for being so kind to me,’ I said sincerely, ‘after the war I hope you and your wife will come and meet my parents, I know they’d like to meet you one day.’

  ‘I’ll look forward to that!’ Daddy-T said with a big grin.

  When I told Ly
dia that I would be leaving soon she said, ‘Lucky you! I will have to stay here and train another girl who will most probably be even more stupid than you!’

  ‘Thank you so much my dear, dear friend!’ I laughed.

  As the train pulled into Woking station, I was glad to see my father waiting on the platform for me rather than by his car. I had two cases, an overnight case and my bicycle to get out of the guard’s van, and I definitely needed his help. We piled my luggage into his car, and as he drove off, I rode my bicycle all the way home in hot pursuit.

  When I arrived home, my mother told me that she was a bit upset because she had only just realised that when I went to Yeovilton the following week, it would mean that I would be away for Christmas for the first time in my life.

  ‘You’ll be homesick,’ she fussed, ‘and won’t know anyone.’

  My father pointed out how lucky we had all been that I had been allowed to come backwards and forwards at weekends, as often as I had over the last few months.

  The next day, after my mother had helped me work out what I needed to take with me, my father organised for my luggage to be sent to Yeovil, via Carter Paterson, in advance along with my bicycle. This, he told me, would mean that I wouldn’t have to lug more than one suitcase and an overnight bag on the train journey.

  The day before I was due to leave, I went and said goodbye to all my friends, and then I called in at Aunt Nora’s to get news of the Derwent boys, and to let her know where they could all contact me.

  On the morning of my departure, Mrs Green, our new cook, armed me with a large packet of sandwiches, two apples and bar of chocolate to sustain me on the journey. I also received a present from Agnes who’d saved up two weeks’ rations working at the ‘Munitions’ to buy me some sweets to suck on the train.

  Although I wasn’t quite sure what I was letting myself in for, I felt quite excited as I waved goodbye to my family.

  I had to change trains at Southampton, and I was glad to see an old porter with a barrow who I got to help me take my case to the correct platform for the connecting train to Salisbury, where I would then have to change trains again, to go on to Yeovil. I was glad that my father had sent most of my luggage in advance, so that I didn’t have to lug my bicycle from platform to platform.