A Sister's Courage

by Molly Green

  ‘Can I talk without you jumping down my throat?’

  ‘Go on, then. It’s all the same to me.’ He pulled up a chair by the dying embers of the fire. ‘You’d better come and sit down. At least we’ll have some privacy in here.’

  Raine perched on the edge of one of the easy chairs, longing to sink her aching back into the upholstery, but not daring to relax until she’d had her say. He studied her.

  ‘So your Doug’s come back from the dead,’ he said when she didn’t say anything. ‘And I’m genuinely pleased about that, Raine, even if you don’t believe me. No pilot wants to see or hear about another pilot – whether they know them or not – going down.’

  ‘Whatever you think—’ Raine began.

  ‘It doesn’t matter a jot what I think,’ Alec interrupted. ‘It’s what you think … but you might have told me about him out of common decency.’

  ‘I told you about Doug when he was missing. I didn’t hide the fact that he was a dear friend and that I was devastated when they told me he was now presumed dead. And I remember you were so understanding.’

  ‘That was when I didn’t suspect any love affair,’ Alec said sharply.

  ‘There’s never been a love affair, nor even the hint of one with Doug.’ Raine’s tone was equally sharp.

  ‘Hmm. As if I can believe that.’

  ‘If you don’t, there’s no hope for us,’ Raine said. ‘Doug jumped to all sorts of conclusions – just like you’re doing now. He thought we could slide from a friendship to a romance in one easy step without asking me how I felt. I’ve told him I look upon him as a brother and couldn’t possibly contemplate marrying him for that reason alone.’

  ‘What did he say?’ Alec was suddenly sounding more alert.

  ‘I think he realised in the end the mistake he’d made,’ Raine said. ‘He’d simply taken everything for granted. And then when I turned him down he said it must be to do with his gammy leg. So I said, “No, that isn’t true. If Alec had two gammy legs or even lost them, I’d still love him just as much,” so it’s got nothing to do with—’

  Alec shot up and practically dragged her to her feet. He held on to her arms.

  ‘What did you say?’ he demanded, those green eyes boring into hers.

  ‘I said I wouldn’t care if you lost both legs.’ Raine turned her head away. She’d blurted out something she’d wanted to tell him only if he believed her and still loved her.

  ‘You didn’t say that,’ Alec said, pulling her so tightly against his chest she could feel the strong, steady beat of his heart. ‘What were your exact words?’

  ‘I’ve already told you.’

  He pulled her close again. ‘No, you haven’t. Not the exact ones. And I’m not letting you go until you tell me,’ he said. ‘Now, for the last time, what did you say – word by word?’

  She gave a theatrical sigh. ‘I said I’d still love you just as much even if you had no legs.’

  ‘Yes, that’s what I thought I’d heard,’ Alex said, a glimmer of a smile touching his mouth, ‘but I wanted to be absolutely sure. So perhaps to confirm after such a shaky start, you can say it again – slower this time – and put some feeling into it. Or do you need me to kiss you to remind you how being in love feels?’

  Without waiting for her answer, he kissed her.

  ‘I’ve missed you so much, Raine,’ he murmured against her lips. ‘It’s been far too long. All I keep thinking about is you and me in Windsor.’

  He kissed her closed eyelids, her neck, the tip of her ear. Then he cupped the back of her head in his hand and kissed her lips again, this time with such passion she had to hold on to him or she would have sunk to the floor.

  ‘All right, you’ve reminded me,’ Raine said, leaning back a little as his arms held her safely, thankful he’d never given up on her, though she’d never tell him that. Her lips parted as she tried to catch her breath.

  ‘I’m still waiting.’ Alec lightly pressed her.

  She hesitated. This was more difficult than she’d thought to say the words he wanted to hear. She’d never said them to anyone before. But Alec was her love. So what was the matter with her? Her father would be the first to tell her to hang on to such a good chap. Not let him slip through her fingers. She could see his smiling face now, giving her a wink of approval. She blinked back a tear. If only the two of them had met she was sure they would have got on well together.

  Wishing she could hug her father for the last time, she realised there was no need to play games or hold back anything more from Alec – this wonderful man who just happened to be her heart’s desire and who she’d follow to the ends of the earth. She pulled in a deep breath.

  ‘I … love … you.’ She looked at Alec, a mischievous sparkle in her eyes. ‘Was that slow enough, and said with enough feeling, to satisfy you?’

  ‘It will have to do for the time being,’ he said, chuckling, ‘but I insist you take a lifetime to keep practising – until you really get it right.’

  She’d do all the practising it needed and adore every moment, Raine thought, beaming up at him. But in the meantime there was a war on and she had a job to do. And nothing – not even her darling Alec – was going to stop her from completing it … however long it took before Mr Churchill sent his instructions for the church bells to peal out victoriously from every belfry in Great Britain.

  Acknowledgements

  If an author ever tells you what a lonely life they have writing in their garret, don’t believe them. Being a writer opens up the most wonderful world of other authors who truly root for you, and during the research you are privy to so much that the general public are not. As soon as I say I’m an author, doors are swung wide open for me to step through. Strangely enough, I’m never asked to show any evidence that I really am a published writer!

  Writing this latest novel, A Sister’s Courage, has been really special.

  I’m so grateful to all the female ferry pilots who wrote their memoirs of their time in the ATA (Air Transport Auxiliary). Their stories were a joy to read. I felt I was with them every moment of their flights, and it was nail-biting when they ran into serious technical difficulties and bad weather. I could almost smell their fear as they tried to work out how to get out of dangerous situations.

  But of course I still didn’t really understand how it actually felt to fly a fighter plane, and as practically everyone who’s ever flown a Spitfire waxes lyrical over the machine, it seems the Spit gave them their greatest experience. So what was its magic?

  Surfing the net one day when I was about halfway through a very rough first draft, I came across the Maidenhead Heritage Centre – described as a small museum but packed with the best collection of ATA memorabilia in the country. A gift to this author who was struggling in unknown territory. (Why can’t I keep to the rule: write what you know?) After an initial enquiry and making a definite date when I would show up so the right people would be there to help me, I arrived one morning by train. I was met by a team of volunteers, all enthusiastic mature men who were most interested that I was writing a novel where my heroine is an ATA pilot. They couldn’t have been more helpful.

  Peter Rogers, the computer whizz, showed me how to download various female ATA pilots who’d given audio interviews some decades ago of their experiences. The interviewer would often ask how they felt working in a man’s world and how they were received by the male pilots.

  ‘We were all there to do a job,’ they said with one voice, ‘and so we didn’t even think about it.’

  One of the ladies laughed. ‘Mind you, you’d sometimes get a comment about being a woman, but you learnt to ignore it. You just got on with it.’

  Then in the next breath these intrepid ladies would mention the ways in which they retained their femininity. ‘Beauty is your duty,’ was the government’s motto to the female pilots. It was considered to be a morale booster, not only that the women should keep up their appearance for the fighter boys, but also in demonstrating their ability t
o fly all kinds of aircraft without the benefit of instruments, they were showing an example to the ‘green’ male pilots, fresh from training.

  These remarkable women certainly gave me a rare insight into their world.

  I was encouraged to peer into cabinets and take photographs of mannequins in uniforms, see exactly what a chit looked like, and read pilots’ diaries. I was in heaven. Then I watched as a boy of about eleven climbed into what looked like half a Spitfire and with the help of an instructor took off!

  I’m not keen on flying but I felt I owed it to my readers (and my heroine!) to take a turn. It was only a simulator, for goodness’ sake, I told myself sternly. The instructor helped me fold into the cramped space of the cockpit. It smelt unfamiliar. Kind of metallic, and musty. He pointed out so many things I had to do when I started up before I was allowed to take off, that my mind went completely blank. But from outside the cockpit he guided me through all the various steps and eventually I was airborne. What a thrill! The lightest touch of the control stick and we moved gently in another direction or up through the clouds, then down again. And when the instructor said, ‘Good, you’re holding it nice and steady,’ I felt a huge sense of achievement. After twenty minutes or so, he said, ‘I want you to land over by that lighthouse.’ But no matter how hard I tried I simply could not get my Spit down. With a deep feeling of humiliation I had to allow the instructor to take over.

  But I absolutely adored my first flying lesson and can’t wait to go back and see if I can improve on a few very dodgy manoeuvres and have another go at landing.

  Richard Poad, an ex-pilot, is the founder of this gem of a museum. What he doesn’t know about the ATA is truly not worth knowing. He answered loads of questions which I noted, and when he said, ‘I’d be happy to read your novel before you send it to the publishers to make sure there aren’t any howlers,’ I practically threw myself at him in gratitude. What a generous offer.

  When I finally finished draft number 17 (or thereabouts) I sent it to him. Only days later he emailed that he’d completed it and found it ‘very entertaining’. A list of corrections followed that same evening, mostly ATA inaccuracies which he suggested how to rectify. I am eternally grateful to him, and without his congratulations that I’d done a thorough research job and hadn’t over-glamorised life in the ATA, I’m not sure I would have had the confidence to send this one to the publishers.

  I do hope you, the reader, will enjoy the story as much as I have enjoyed writing it, safe in the knowledge that almost all the flying incidents my heroine and her friends encounter actually happened in real life to those brave women pilots of the ATA.

  I mustn’t forget all the other people who helped bring this novel to fruition. There’s my dear wise agent, Heather Holden-Brown, of HHB, and the fabulously creative team at Avon HarperCollins, especially Katie Loughnane, my talented editor, who understands my characters – sometimes more than I do myself! My book is all the better for your shrewd observations and gentle suggestions, Katie.

  And where would I be without my fabulous writing pals? There are the Diamonds, all published authors: Terri Fleming, Sue Mackender and Joanne Walsh. We have such fun at our monthly all-day meetings, particularly when we brainstorm plots.

  The same applies to another small group, the Vestas, that I treasure being part of, although we only manage to meet a couple of times a year on weekly retreats in their second homes: Gail Aldwin, Suzanne Goldring and Carol McGrath – again, all published authors.

  Then there’s Alison Morton, thriller novelist with a strong alternate history ‘Roma Nova’ series behind her and more books in the wings; she’s a good friend and the best critique writing partner I could wish for. We read everything of each other’s with red pen firmly in hand, even though we write in completely different genres. It works like magic.

  My husband, Edward Stanton, always gets the last mention, but he reads my novels mainly to check for any anachronisms and historical errors. He particularly enjoyed reading A Sister’s Courage as he was in the RAF in the late fifties in wireless maintenance working on aeroplanes and is obsessed with all vintage aircraft. He found plenty of mistakes to satisfy his superiority in this field!

  Reading List

  I can recommend every single one of these books, all non-fiction, many of which are actual memoirs of the incredible ATA women:

  Lettice Curtis: Her Autobiography (2004)

  The Female Few: Spitfire Heroines by Jacky Hyams (2012)

  The Spitfire Girl: My Life in the Sky by Jackie Moggridge (1957)

  Contact Britain! by Nancy Miller Livingston Stratford (2010) (American pilot)

  Naomi the Aviatrix by Nick Thomas (2011) (American pilot)

  Spreading My Wings by Diana Barnato Walker (2003)

  The Hurricane Girls by Jo Wheeler (2018)

  Spitfire Women of World War II by Giles Whittell (2007)

  Read on for an exclusive extract from the next Molly Green novel …

  A Sister’s Song

  Coming June 2020

  Chapter One

  Downe, Near Bromley

  Easter 1943

  Suzanne stood at the open door of a side room leading into the main area of the village hall, ready to take her place by the other musicians. She couldn’t stop shivering. Although it was mild outside, the hall was always cold – but it wasn’t that. She had never before performed the solo in the finale of her favourite violin concerto in front of a real audience.

  There was her cue.

  You’ll be all right, she told herself sternly, holding her violin tight to her chest. Despite shaking legs she walked up the three steps to the wooden platform they called a stage. The eight other musicians turned their heads towards her as she nodded to them, then at the modest audience. She sat down, her fingers instinctively tracing the familiar curving outline of her instrument.

  Even though Suzanne couldn’t see that well in the gloom of the badly lit hall, she couldn’t mistake Maman. Swathed in her fur coat which she refused to discard until May, her mother sat in the front row on one of the hard chairs, no doubt on the cushion she always brought with her. But where was her sister Ronnie? She should be by Maman’s side. But this was no time to start asking questions. The conductor looked at her with raised eyebrows. Suzanne settled her violin under her chin, took up her bow, and nodded.

  As soon as she played the first notes she relaxed, now sure of herself. Barely aware of her surroundings, she closed her eyes, the music filling her brain, her heart, and flowing through to the tips of her elegant fingers as the bow caressed the strings of her beloved violin.

  Her whole being was immersed in Mendelssohn’s wonderful concerto when suddenly the high-pitched, blood-curdling wail of an air-raid siren, rising and falling over and over again, stopped her in mid-stroke. Her heart jumped with fright. She’d never heard one so close. Dear God. The Luftwaffe must be heading for Bromley. Or even Downe! Blood pounded through her temples. Her fingers fluttered. Would the hall be struck? Why weren’t people rushing out of the door?

  Everyone on the platform stopped. Suzanne hesitated and looked over to the audience. One tall man at the back immediately sprang up, caught her eye for a brief moment and nodded, then shoved his hat on and quickly left. He certainly wasn’t going to risk it by staying, and she couldn’t really blame him. Oh dear, there was Maman on her feet. Should she go to her? No one else moved. They sat quietly on the hard seats, faces upturned, as though eager to hear the rest of the piece. To her relief she saw her mother look round at the others and quickly sit down again. Suzanne glanced at the conductor who tapped on his stand and said:

  ‘Back to the beginning of the solo, please, ladies and gentlemen.’

  There was nothing for it but to carry on. She nodded, her hand shaking as she took up her bow, waiting a few moments for her introduction.

  A minute later a droning sound, and then a high-pitched whine – different from the siren – sounded overhead. BOOM! The sound of an explosion rattled her ear
drums as the very platform she sat on shook with the vibration. She was frozen to the chair. Then another explosion. Her heart thudded against her ribs waiting for the next one. This time the noise was deafening when one of the windows shattered. A few heads briefly turned, then looked towards the small orchestra again. Still no one got up to leave. The conductor gestured once again for her to continue.

  Somehow the bravery of her audience transferred itself to her and she played the last section, her fear replaced by her love of the joyous music. Although still trembling, she poured her heart and soul out to the audience, letting the music flow and comfort them. She played the final notes and sat, beads of perspiration gathering on her forehead, completely spent.

  There was a hush for what felt like minutes but must have only been seconds. And then the sound of applause echoed round the draughty hall.

  Her cheeks flushed with embarrassment at such an enthusiastic response, Suzanne faced the audience who were still applauding. She could see Maman clapping louder than anyone else but it was strange that Ronnie hadn’t appeared. Suzanne knew her younger sister didn’t much care for classical music, but she’d said only this morning she’d be coming with Maman.

  Dear God, please don’t let something have happened to Ronnie in the air raid.

  A feeling of unease crept over her but she pasted a smile on her face for Maman, and was rewarded by the little hat bobbing up and down as her mother waved and blew kisses in her daughter’s direction.

  Mr Rubenstein, the elderly conductor, bowed and gestured to Suzanne to stand and take a bow for her solo performance. Still shaken from the noise of the bombs, she briefly lowered her head and bent forward. Next, the other musicians stood, looking towards her, softly clapping and smiling.

  Before she could respond, the whine of another siren filled the hall, but this time it built to a high crescendo and stayed there for more than a minute. Suzanne breathed out slowly and smiled back at the musicians and then the audience. It was the welcome sound of the All Clear, now practically swallowed up by another enthusiastic burst of clapping from the concert-goers and shouts of ‘Hurrah!’