by Iain Maloney
FIRST
TIME
SOLO
Iain Maloney
FIRST
TIME
SOLO
Iain Maloney
First published June 2014
Freight Books
49-53 Virginia Street
Glasgow, G1 1TS
www.freightbooks.co.uk
Copyright © Iain Maloney 2014
The moral right of Iain Maloney to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by his in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or any information storage or retrieval system, without either prior permission in writing from the publisher or by licence, permitting restricted copying. In the United Kingdom such licences are issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency, 90 Tottenham Court Road, London W1P 0LP.
All the characters in this book are fictitious and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
A CIP catalogue reference for this book is available from the British Library.
ISBN 978-1-908754-61-5
eISBN 978-1-908754-62-2
Typeset by Freight in Plantin
Printed and bound by Bell and Bain, Glasgow
For Minori
‘Jazz washes away the dust of everyday life.’
Art Blakey
‘I believe in violence. I mean, if you don’t believe in violence, you don’t go to war.’
Jimmy Maley,
Communist, International Brigade volunteer for Spanish Civil War, POW
‘The British Army is not fighting for the old world. If honourable Members opposite think we are going through this in order to keep their Malayan Swamps, they are making a mistake.’
Aneurin Bevan, MP
Contents
London. April 1943
Babbacombe, Devon. April – July 1943
No. 29 EFTS Cliffe Pypard, Wiltshire. July – August 1943
Inverayne, Aberdeenshire. August – September 1943
Heaton Park, Manchester. September – October 1943
RMS Queen Elizabeth, Atlantic Ocean. October 1943
Gratitude
Acknowledgements
Quotations
London. April 1943
I first met Joe on the way to London. The train was quiet and thankfully I’d been left alone. From Inverayne to Aberdeen, then Edinburgh, changing trains twice, I spoke to no-one. We were pulling out of Edinburgh when Joe burst in, an explosion of swearing I hoped would keep going into the next carriage. Wielding a suitcase that had seen better days and a suit that matched, he made his way towards me, as if something about me was drawing him on. He was short, about my age, but solid as a horse. He’d have made a good rugby player or a boxer, maybe. About 5’3’, his hat perched back on his crown, oversize ears, teeth like broken piano keys. His suitcase landed on the luggage rack next to my trumpet case and he crashed down, sweating and out of breath. I watched him over the top of my paper. I’d a copy of the Melody Maker with me but had read the same passage three or four times. I pretended to be engrossed. No eye contact, no invitation to start talking. Joe needed no invitation. ‘Christ,’ he said. ‘Very nearly missed it.’
I nodded, acknowledging it appeared that yes, he had nearly missed it, and returned to my paper. ‘Aye. I was in some boozer having a last pint and it was further from the station than I thought. I tell you, running with a stomach full of heavy is no a good idea.’
He belched, as if his point needed emphasis. I almost reached for my gas mask. I lit a cigarette to cover the smell. ‘Good man,’ he said, leaning over and taking one. In my ear, I could hear Lizzie, my sister, saying, ‘Tell him where to get off.’ I offered him a match.
‘So where you going?’ he asked. ‘London, is it? All the way?’
I nodded. ‘Yes, London.’
‘Me too. You’re no in uniform so I’m guessing you’re on your way tae get one. Just turned eighteen then?’
‘No, nineteen. Well, at the end of the month.’
Two weeks after my eighteenth birthday I’d signed up. The day of my last exam. Five minutes after ‘pens down’, a couple of slapped backs, shaken hands and I was through the gates and down the hill, no stopping me on my way to the recruitment office. No Army or Navy for me, though my best mate, Willie Rennie, wanted me to join with him. ‘Come on, we’ll fight them together, show them what the boys of Inverayne can dae.’
No chance. It was the RAF all the way.
A pilot.
Sharp blue uniform.
Spitfires.
The few.
It’s always the pilots that turn a girl’s head, and for that you had to volunteer.
My older brother, Dod, had signed up in 1939. He made it as far as France. Dunkirk. Never came back. No room for the dead. No coffin for Dod. French soil for him. Never did find out when or where, just the fact of it. The Chapman boy with a telegram. Your son. My brother. I couldn’t join the Army, not after Dod. Couldn’t let them conscript me. A hole in the sand. Mortars. Dead and buried. I chose the endless sky. Home at the end of the day. A job done. A pint and your grub. Your own bed. Being a younger brother, I had Dod’s hindsight. It had to be the RAF.
‘Fit wy are ye… I mean, why are you going to London? You’re not in uniform either,’ I asked. Get my brain in the right gear, keep an eye on my language. What Dod had warned me about. His ‘Teuchter’ country ways, his ‘funny’ accent, his inexperience and innocence all marked him out. Knowing how to birth a calf doesn’t carry much weight in the city. Speak the King’s English and all will be well.
‘Fit wy? You’re a Teuchter then. Where abouts?’
‘Aberdeen,’ I said. Inverayne was a fair distance from Aberdeen.
‘Aberdeen, aye? I’ve been up there the once. No a bad wee town. And what’s the place there, the ballroom down the beach?’
‘The Beach Ballroom?’
‘You being funny?’
‘No, that’s the name.’
‘Nice joint. Played a gig there in… ’39 I think it was. Aye, just before the war started. You been?’
‘No, never. But it’s famous. Are you a singer or something?’
‘A singer? Me? No fucking chance. Only place you’ll catch me singing is at Parkhead… Celtic Fitba Club. Tell me you’ve heard of them.’
‘Aye, yes, kind of. I don’t really follow the fit… football.’
‘You don’t even support Aberdeen?’
‘No, not really.’
‘They’re your local team, boy. You’ve gottae support the local team.’
I bit my lip. ‘I guess, if I supported anyone I’d support Aberdeen.’
‘Fine, so you’re a sheep-shagger. Glad we got that straight. I’m a drummer.’
‘A drummer? Is that the nickname for a Celtic supporter?’
He laughed hard. ‘A drummer,’ he said, miming. ‘At the Beach Ballroom.’
‘Oh, right.’
‘That’s it? You’re only speaking tae the best jazz drummer in Scotland and all you can say is ‘oh right’. I suppose if I’d said the accordion I’d have got a better reaction.’
Jazz. The magic word. London was where jazz lived. Dod said there were a lot of dances, a lot of shows put on for the boys. If I could find some others then maybe, just maybe, I could play.
‘You all right?’ he said.
‘Aye, fine. Yes. Is that what you’re going to London for? For a gig?’
‘Aye, Albert Hall tomorrow night.’
The Royal Albert Hall? To be playing there you really had to be something. ‘So how come you’re not in u
niform?’
‘I’m plain clothes,’ he said. ‘You know. Very hush hush. Hide in open sight. Let’s just say I do my bit, and the rest of the time I drum.’ I nodded, better not pry. Careless talk and all that. ‘So which are you for?’ he said.
‘Which?’
‘Army, Navy or RAF?’
‘RAF,’ I said, puffing up. ‘I’m going to be a pilot.’
‘Oh aye,’ he said. ‘After the fanny, is it?’ He laughed. ‘Nothing tae be ashamed of. I had the same thought myself back in the day. The birds do love a blue uniform. Then I realised wings wouldnae give me anything I didnae already have. See me? No trouble pulling. Don’t suppose you’ve had more than a sheep or two.’
‘Sod off.’
‘Ah, he does have some balls after all. I thought you were as wet as the cod they catch in Aberdeen but maybe no. Joe Robertson,’ he said, holding out his hand. Despite his stature, his hand was massive. He looked like he could hold his own against Joe Louis.
‘Jack Devine,’ I said. ‘I’m a trumpeter,’ I blurted out. We shook. It was the first time I’d met an actual professional jazz musician.
‘Any good?’ he said.
‘I… uh… well…’
‘Are you shite or are you being modest?’
‘Modest.’
‘You dinnae like tae blow your own trumpet?’ He stood up. ‘Well, Jack the Trumpeter, if you decide that you are any good, we might have a jam sometime. But if you’ll excuse me, I’m gonnae see if there’s anyone prettier tae talk tae on this train. Hope you get tae be a pilot. Maybe see you around.’ He took his suitcase down and moved through to the next carriage. I watched him go, Lizzie commenting in my head: ‘That’s a right one, right there. Not so much a screw loose as not one properly tightened.’
He must’ve found someone, as I didn’t see him again on the train. We arrived in London early the next morning, my body aching from sleeping upright, my head banging against the window. London, Jack. As far from home as the moon, and just as foreign. Noise, bustle of people. Everything was different. The buildings, the sounds, the voices. Bomb gaps, rubble. No railings, empty signposts. I stood open-mouthed, as I’d warned myself not to. I’d never been further south than Edinburgh, and that was only the once for a series of medical tests and a maths exam to make sure I was physically and mentally fit to become a pilot. What an exam. I hadn’t finished it. No-one had. Designed that way. A hundred questions of increasing difficulty. Apparently most people failed and that was that. No RAF for them. The Army or the Navy were the only doors open to those who couldn’t manage differential equations. That day I envied Willie.
The Army was a piece of piss. I followed the directions I’d been given to the underground station, showed my pass and traipsed down the stairs deep into the Earth. All very Jules Verne. The Underground. The idea of being on a train under the ground, under the river. I imagined them making it, digging the tunnels, boring through the rocks, the layers, strata, the history of the world stacked. Cambrian, was it? Something else. Silurian. I knew it a year ago. Some of my fellow travellers could also be going to the Air Crew Recruitment Centre. I spotted a pair consulting well-fingered instructions. Maybe I should say hello, I thought, and we could all be lost together.
The ACRC turned out to be Lord’s Cricket Ground. We walked through the doors, hundreds of us converging, straightening our backs, squaring our shoulders. A speeded up version of evolution. Men now. All of us men, together. There, to fight. Each born eighteen or nineteen years ago, during the Roaring Twenties, between the wars, when the First World War didn’t need a number. My year of waiting was finally over. The RAF were winning. There had been a backlog and I was at the end of the queue. Just wait, was the order. You’ll get your chance.
I waited though 1942, a year of disasters, Singapore, Burma, the Philippines. Every evening Da, Lizzie and I sat with the atlas, the wireless and a pencil following the latest developments as they came in. Ma refused to listen. 1942, a year of victories, Midway, El Alamein, Stalingrad. 1942, year of disasters, year of victories, working on the farm, doing more or less what I would’ve done if there hadn’t been a war. While my conscripted classmates left, Willie Rennie and the rest gone, the girls from my year in the WAAF, the ATA, I stayed. I wasn’t alone: Murdoch who was more or less blind and James who had a club foot, were still in Inverayne. Everyone knew I wasn’t dodging my duty, but while they lived and died with the post, with each sighting of the Chapman boy, here was Jack, safe and sound, coming home every night. It was a slow year. But now London. 1943. My trumpet case swinging, Satchmo’s Basin Street Blues marking my steps. I was going to fly. I was going to play. I looked around. The suits, the hats, Brylcreem and baggage. Some smoking, some not. Some calmly confident, others looking around for instruction. Some in groups, others solitary. My new friends. Taxiing onto the runway. Goggles on, chocks away.
I found myself beside Terry as we lined up on the cricket field in our civvy suits and overcoats, battered suitcases alongside battered shoes. Split alphabetically into groups – flights, they were called – he and I, Davis and Devine, were together. Terry was tall, with black Brylcreemed hair and a pencil moustache. He looked confident and seemed much older than me, though I was three months older than him. He acted like he was waiting for a bus. I could imagine him leaning against some lamppost on a dark, foggy night tapping a cigarette against his case like Bogart or Grant. That kind of style. A chancer, Lizzie would call him. He spun a coin round his fingers, like a magician, saw me watching. ‘It improves dexterity,’ he said. ‘Good for the cards.’
A gambler. Dod had warned me about this in his letters home. In the forces you have a lot of time to yourself and cards made the time pass. There was always someone who took it too seriously, who couldn’t play just for fun. Lizzie warned me as well: ‘Don’t play, Jackie, you’re too easily conned.’ Thanks, sis.
‘So this pilot is being interviewed by the Times,’ said Terry, out of nowhere. ‘“Have you ever been shot down?” asks the interviewer. “Yes, once a Focke shot me down over the Channel. I managed to bail out and got picked up by a fishing trawler.” “This was a Focke-Wulf one-ninety?” he asks. “Oh no,” he answers. “This fucker was a Messerschmitt.”’
A man with a clipboard appeared. We grabbed at the only thing we knew for sure about the military: We saluted him.
‘You don’t salute a Sergeant.’
He took the register.
‘Davis, Terrence?’
‘Sir.’
‘Devine, Jack?’
‘Sir.’
It went on down the line. We practiced drilling, attention, at ease, facing left, right, marched around the field. All our concentration turned on our feet, we forgot what they were for, how to control them. Marching in time meant some had to lengthen their natural stride, others had to shorten it. I was lucky. I had rhythm. Others didn’t seem to know the difference between left and right. Slowly the orders got through to us, like a caller at a ceilidh, and our limbs responded. An hour and our feet ached. Order: Inside and form a line at the Medical Officer’s room. ‘Well, Jack, I hope you’ve got nothing to hide,’ Terry said.
‘Why?’
‘They’re about to check our bits and pieces. Make sure we’re clean enough to fly aeroplanes.’
‘Clean?’
‘Free from infection, Jack. Down there.’ He pointed.
‘But I’ve already been checked. After I signed up.’
‘Me too,’ he said. ‘But they’re going to check again. You may have been up to no good in the meantime.’
On the farm? Were the others regularly up to no good? I got up to as much no good as I could, which was none at all. The line snaked into the room, a large open space the Medical Officer had set up in. He sat on a chair and the men filed past, dropped their trousers, were examined, redressed and left by a second door. Ahead of us we could hear the comments, laughs and shrieks.
‘Call the mess, tell them we’ve found their missing mushroom.’
‘Bloody hell, the length of it, he should be excused shorts.’
‘Look at the bend in that! He could do it round corners.’
None of us were long out of school and it was the same changing room humour: Big or small, circumcised or not, no-one got away without judgement being passed. As Terry and I reached the doorway, a round of applause. Curious, we leaned in to see the cause. Even from the back, I recognised the man standing in front of the MO: Joe, hands on his hips, receiving his testimonial. It took me a moment to put everything together. What was Joe doing there? He’d told me he was on his way to play the Royal Albert Hall, that he was ‘doing his bit’ for the war effort, but he was an Aircraftman Second Class, just like me. There to train to be a pilot, just like me.
It was my turn. Considering the possibilities, I felt I got off lightly with ‘it looks like food’s not all that’s been rationed.’ The next room resembled a large auditorium, a stage at the front and chairs ranked like at a theatre. We were going to be addressed. Joe’s group were already seated and we filled the rows behind them. I was two rows back from him, one seat over. I steeled myself, leant across and tapped him on the shoulder. ‘Aren’t you going to be late for the Albert Hall?’ I said.
‘Oh, it’s you. Jack the Trumpeter.’
‘And it’s you,’ I replied. ‘Drummer and spy.’
‘What’s this?’ said the lad next to Joe.
‘I met this one on the train down,’ Joe said, laughing. ‘Spun him a line about being a spy. Swallowed it straight down, so he did. A right Teuchter he is, came in on a turnip truck.’
They laughed, looked back at me, laughed more. I looked to see if Terry was laughing too, but his attention was elsewhere. Officers filed in. A barked order and we were on our feet saluting. By rank, they gave us introductory speeches, varying only in accent and length. The gist was ‘do as you’re told, keep out of trouble and pass your exams.’ Not very rousing. When Dod joined up it was all ‘over by Christmas, stick one to Jerry,’ upbeat Henry the Fifth crap, but the war had been going for the best part of four years. We didn’t need the propaganda: we’d lived the reality. We didn’t need priming: we were ready to go. There wasn’t a man in the room who hadn’t lost someone. Many of us were younger brothers and had been waiting for this day. What we wanted to know was what we’d be doing and when.