Spitfire Girls Read online

  CAROL GOULD

  Contents

  Cover

  Title

  Copyright

  Dedication

  About the Author

  Also by Carol Gould

  Acknowledgements

  Epigraph

  Part I: Before the Storm

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Part II: Battling for Freedom

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  Chapter 51

  Chapter 52

  Chapter 53

  Chapter 54

  Chapter 55

  Chapter 56

  Chapter 57

  Chapter 58

  Chapter 59

  Chapter 60

  Part III : Service of the Heart

  Chapter 61

  Chapter 62

  Chapter 63

  Chapter 64

  Chapter 65

  Chapter 66

  Chapter 67

  Chapter 68

  Chapter 69

  Chapter 70

  Chapter 71

  Chapter 72

  Chapter 73

  Chapter 74

  Chapter 75

  Chapter 76

  Chapter 77

  Chapter 78

  Chapter 79

  Chapter 80

  Chapter 81

  This eBook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorised distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author’s and publisher’s rights and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly.

  Version 1.0

  Epub ISBN 9781407070940

  www.randomhouse.co.uk

  Published by Arrow Books 2009

  1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2

  Copyright © Carol Gould, 1998

  Carol Gould has asserted her right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as the author of this work.

  This book is a work of fiction. Names and characters are the product of the author’s imagination and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

  First published in Great Britain in 1998 by Black Ace Books

  The Random House Group Limited 20 Vauxhall Bridge Road, London, SW1V 2SA

  www.rbooks.co.uk

  Addresses for companies within The Random House Group Limited can be found at: www.randomhouse.co.uk/offices.htm

  The Random House Group Limited Reg. No. 954009

  A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

  ISBN 9780099534679

  The Random House Group Limited supports The Forest Stewardship Council (FSC), the leading international forest certification organisation. All our titles that are printed on Greenpeace approved FSC certified paper carry the FSC logo. Our paper procurement policy can be found at www.rbooks.co.uk/environment

  Typeset by Palimpsest Book Production Limited, Grangemouth, Stirlingshire Printed and bound in Great Britain by CPI Cox & Wyman, Reading RG1 8EX

  To Bill Leith and Stroma Hamilton-Campbell

  Carol Gould was born in 1953 in Philadelphia, USA and came to the UK in 1976. She worked for many years as Drama Executive at Anglia Television, and has also worked with her own theatre company and as an independent film producer. She is the author of three plays: ‘Barking to the Angel’, ‘A Chamber Group’ and ‘A Room at Camp Pickett’. She is also a panellist on BBC ‘Any Questions?’ and is a regular contributor on Sky News Television London. In 2008 she produced a film about African-American GI babies and she is currently writing a new novel about her late mother’s wartime experiences as an army recruiter at a segregated base in Virginia.

  Also by Carol Gould

  Non-fiction

  Don’t Tread on Me: Anti-Americanism Abroad

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  This novel is based on fact. Some of the characters are or were historically very real persons. Churchill and Beaverbrook, for example, would be difficult enough to disguise, let alone create. Other characters, and particularly the principal heroines of my story, are freely invented. Where a character is not recognizable by name, the reader can take it that no reference is intended or should be inferred to any real person, dead or living.

  In the course of my research for this book I have found the following non-fiction works particularly helpful. The Forgotten Pilots by Lettice Curtis, A Story of the Air Transport Auxiliary 1939–45, second edition, 1982; Golden Wings by Alison King, the Story of Some of the Women Ferry Pilots of the Air Transport Auxiliary, C. Arthur Pearson Ltd, 1956; I Couldn’t Care Less by Anthony Phelps, the Harborough Publishing Company Ltd, with the Drysdale Press, Leicester.

  Finally, my special thanks are due to Vanessa Neuling of Random House, Hunter Steele of Black Ace Books, Nicola King Blackwood, Bill Leith, Stroma Hamilton-Campbell, Issy Benjamin, Ruth Winter, Annie Price, Neil Robinson, Collection Curator, Marylebone Cricket Club, Duncan Boyd, the late John Rosenberg – and the 180 real Spitfire Girls.

  C.G., London, December 1997

  … Unfortunately I lived at a time

  when girls were still girls …

  Amelia Earhart

  Part I

  Before the Storm

  1

  In 1933 an ex-convict with one testicle was catapulted to the leadership of the German people. He had been catapulted by his senile predecessors and at once set about transforming the lives of his nation’s populace by providing uniforms and a new symbol. The senile predecessors wondered why their protégé, Adolf Schicklgruber, ranted and raved.

  Adolf became more widely known as Hitler and, as the Uniforms began their Master Plan to annihilate Jewish businesses, Friedrich Kranz became impotent. To the men at his flying club the fact that he was a great Austrian industrialist meant nothing when all had gathered under the shower taps. In recent days a ritual had developed. One by one they would file out, disgusted. On this particular day he knew his disfigurement, shared also b
y ancestors like their Saviour, had become a special feature. Soon he would be banned from these premises and more appropriate showering facilities would be arranged for his race by the Uniforms.

  Rich, educated Jew: he could fly aeroplanes and he could make aeroplanes, but the man with one testicle had cut off his capabilities. In 1937, after four years of growing terror, he would travel away from his blonde wife and brown children, trusting the Uniforms to leave them unscathed.

  Friedrich Kranz, too frightened to know his own sex any more, boarded one of his last remaining aircraft, hoping that England, of all places, would bring back his virility.

  *

  ‘No-one wishes to confront a maniac. We put these people away from time to time. In Germany they become heads of state.’

  Interruptions, all in condemnation, blurred the man’s words.

  ‘Has any one still living ever seen the likes of his assortment of scum running a country?’ Sir Henry Cobb was also ranting and raving.

  In the Commons he had become known as Valerie Cobb’s father, due to the activities of his unmarried daughter. She had set up an air joyride service and now lived in a hut with another woman on a circus caravan site in his Norfolk constituency. Polite folk felt ill at ease with his talk, and most people preferred listening to Neville Chamberlain and to Hitler’s admirer Joe Kennedy.

  ‘In the space of one generation, we have lost a proportion of our male population fighting a race obsessed with Wagner.’

  Gallery visitors half-listened and half-glanced at their newspapers, surreptitiously peering at the photograph of the disaster that had struck in America the afternoon before. Members of Parliament argued over Hindenburg’s successor, and the press got excited about the doomed airship named after everyman’s senile Wagnerian.

  ‘Does the Right Honourable Gentleman seriously consider the German people a threat?’

  As laughter rang through the halls, Cobb felt the same tightening in his chest as during weekly rows with Valerie. He gave up.

  ‘Pinning your hopes on a war – because your little girl wants to fly in it?’ Tim Haydon, Member for Suffolk North, made a ritual of grabbing Cobb after debate. He was a bachelor fascinated by others’ manifestations of solitude. That Valerie shared her solitude with another woman meant she was alone. It had become somewhat of an obsession.

  ‘If a war gets your beady eyes off my daughter, then yes: why not?’

  ‘The big news is that the man from Vienna is trying to buy a space in your constituency.’

  ‘Vienna would be a blessing in my patch. Those idiots in the parish haven’t seen anything foreign since a nun visited.’

  ‘You know, I have wondered at times about your allegiances.’

  ‘Leave that to Hitler. In fact, Tim, I expect you feel warmed by his methods. You knew of a Viennese presence in my milieu before I did.’

  ‘Funny, because he was seen coming out of a hut in Hunstanton.’

  ‘Who? Hitler?’

  Haydon did not laugh.

  Cobb reflected fleetingly to himself that an absence of a sense of humour must be congenital.

  ‘Everyone knows there is only one hut in your village – in fact, one hut in Norfolk.’

  Cobb, facing yet another widowers’ dinner, got into a taxi in silence, leaving Haydon to fantasize on two women in a hut.

  Edith Allam had come to Lakehurst, New Jersey to watch another momentous event amongst crowds of men. She had positioned her camera apparatus and was ignoring thecurious looks from the career reporters and press photographers. Sadly, the only other girl butting in on the proceedings was a tiny German. They chatted, Edith in the natural tongue of her immigrant parents, or so she thought.

  ‘What is this inflection of yours?’ asked Raine Fischtal, distinguished film-maker for the Reich.

  Edith had never experienced inhibitions about her German. Everyone on Ritner Street spoke Yiddish – except, of course, for the Irish. Still, to Raine it was not real German.

  ‘Hitler wants perfect diction to go with the uniforms.’ Raine wanted to make the girl feel uncomfortable.

  ‘For perfect diction you have to go to Philadelphia Normal School.’

  ‘Normal? Obviously you are not a Wagnerian.’

  ‘On the contrary – I am. Can I see your camera?’

  Raine handed over the apparatus with more revulsion than reluctance. In front of her stood a striking brunette with intelligent blue eyes set far apart.

  ‘Wagner would have enjoyed being here today,’ said Edith. ‘Imagine his glee at the sight of a giant Tristan in the sky over the New World.’

  ‘Please be careful with my equipment. Yours is rudimentary. Made for non-mechanical minds.’

  ‘Wrong again. I’m a mechanic – the only girl in South Philly with a pilot’s licence.’

  For some reason Raine was filled with even more disgust and snatched her movie camera from Edith’s gloved hand. Why did American women wear gloves at all the wrong times? she muttered to herself. Out of the corner of her eye she sensed a deep hurt had set in, but felt nothing for the native whose ghetto tongue was gutter German. Her blue eyes offended her – how dare she? It was a freak of nature.

  Edith stayed put, thinking of the simplicity of her parents’ lives. A brain like Raine’s left her excited and frightened. How easily it could enslave someone!

  A commotion made both women move. One of the reporters, a radio man, was sweating and Edith laughed.

  ‘I hate these things. Didn’t sleep at all last night. What about you?’

  ‘Other things scare me,’ replied Raine.

  ‘Like what?’

  ‘If you look over there, a lady with a movie camera is filming, and she’s even taking shots of us – samples of merchandise to show to her master – like fabric to a tailor. They call it cut-and-paste. That frightens me, much more than a news story.’

  Eddie Cuomo tipped his hat at Edith and she watched him wipe his brow and talk into the microphone. The event was approaching – the landing of the giant airship ‘Hindenburg’ – and Raine straightened with the prospect.

  A few moments later, men ran for their lives and in the stupidity that is often confused with patriotism, Raine Fischtal let the flames engulf her before fleeing with her Master’s film. Edith ran and snapped, ran and snapped, watching the German lettering disappear along the side of the giant Tristan, and in the distance she could hear the frightened man screaming, ‘Oh, humanity, humanity …’ a display of emotion which would lose him his job in a land which still loved its Teutonic roots …

  Later, people would say that the Hindenburg disaster at Lakehurst, New Jersey marked the end of innocence for millions of Eddie Cuomo’s listeners. Edith Allam’s picture made the cover of Life. She didn’t even get her hands burnt.

  With the money from the picture she would try to get airborne and find out if Raine and her film had survived the holocaust.

  2

  In 1937 birds were beginning to get used to their natural flying patterns being disrupted by air currents created by buzzing monsters.

  Valerie Cobb had transcended that world created by men, and looked down from her single-engine Spartan at the beaters. They loved their lives. She loved hers. Her aeroplane was much cleaner, she suspected, than the bodies of the Lords of the Manor. At least the wildlife could feel safe up here, she thought, as her machine surged through their domain.

  It was the end of the busy season and she was returning to Hunstanton from a taxi job. Autumn was well under way, visibility atrocious and as she cleared thick cloud her craft received a jolt. Struggling to regain control, and emerging into calm skies, she was alarmed to register another small craft closing in. She banked steeply only to find the other plane coming alongside. It was a moment she had endured before: yet another foolhardy male pilot ‘getting a good look’. Eye to eye, he leered and she took avoiding action: he misjudged, the joke went wrong and he clipped Valerie’s wing.

  She would have to come down. Furious, and in a
frantic search for a landing patch, she skimmed houses and found herself in a small field. As her aeroplane juddered to a halt the damage seemed to tap against her bones like an invisible set of fingers. The Spartan cried out to her.

  ‘Damn them.’ Her mind regurgitated the image of the leering pilot. ‘God, how I hope he crashes and wets himself.’

  Emerging from the cockpit she inspected the damage.

  ‘He’ll sit down to tea, smelling of pee …’

  Expletives rolled out, hitting the fuselage and echoing back. When the echoes stopped she knew they were being absorbed. A warm coat stood next to her, then two.

  ‘Your pilot bending the rules?’

  Valerie looked in disbelief at the pair. ‘Tweedledum and Tweedledee also came to tea. Can I help you two?’

  ‘We’ll need to see the pilot’s licence, madam.’

  ‘I am the pilot.’

  They circled the aircraft as if a pilot more to their liking would emerge to assure them both they were once again warm in a secure world.

  ‘There is a landing fee of three pence, which we require. Otherwise the aeroplane is impounded and your licence confiscated.’

  ‘Do you need me to find you a man to pay the money?’ Valerie was flashing the smile her father referred to as ‘the heavens opening’.

  Present company remained unimpressed. ‘What is your business?’

  ‘Taxiing, transport, joyrides and aircraft maintenance.’

  Now fear had set in. They wanted her out of their midst. The unknown, like the dark, always frightens.

  ‘I was terrorized into landing here by an irresponsible idiot. Send me someone to help do the wing.’

  Tweedledum was becoming aggressive. ‘We can suspend your licence.’

  ‘Whatever for? What is this place, anyway?’

  ‘If you don’t know, you shouldn’t be flying.’

  ‘Can I guess? Number one, it’s in my father’s constituency. Number two––’

  Tweedledee, the one who had remained silent throughout, interrupted: