Spitfire Girls Page 12

  ‘Do you remember that camerawoman we met at the fly-in?’ asked Marion.

  Angelique was still thinking about Spain.

  ‘Do you remember, Ange? She filmed the pictures we just saw at Pollock’s – the newsreel that goes with Stella’s dancing show.’

  ‘Yes, I remember her very well,’ said Angelique. ‘How do you know it is her footage?’

  ‘Because it ain’t her leg-age,’ quipped Alec.

  ‘Haven’t you heard?’ asked Marion. ‘She’s here, and her film’s been smuggled into one of the cinema chains. Apparently she can fly, though it was a big secret.’

  ‘Why have I missed this?’ Angelique asked irritably.

  ‘Marion has a private line to Beaverbrook, via my competition,’ joked Alec.

  ‘Your competition?’ Sheila and Angelique shouted in unison.

  ‘Valerie Cobb,’ he replied.

  ‘What a disgusting thought.’ Marion grimaced. ‘Indeed, I’m told Raine Fischtal may be staying in the country because she knows about some secret German suicide weapon they’re developing over there. Anke Reitsch is to be a test pilot – she and Raine are best chums.’

  All had gone quiet, and as the four aeroplane pilots reached the corner and turned off Gower Street Marion was determined to press on, having been more captivated by Raine on celluloid than in the flesh. Content was immaterial.

  ‘What did the newsreel show?’ asked Angelique.

  ‘They showed old Jews being beaten to death, good books being burned, and educated men delirious because Wagner would not be interrupted at the opera house by the events outside,’ Alec related.

  A taxi rattled by, and as they walked along the pavement of Goodge Street the girls linked arms. His words had made them want warmth.

  ‘That woman gets around – what was her name? Fish Stall?’ Angelique recalled the odd encounter when Raine had extolled the glories of Francisco Franco. ‘Do you think she ever took any footage of the Civil War?’

  ‘She might have,’ Alec said, as he ushered them into his jeep. Looking at Angelique, he smiled. ‘You’ll never be able to get to her now – I hear she’s getting a top position with the Reich when she gets back.’

  Conversation ceased, and as the unsteady vehicle passed buildings that were soon to die, the oddly dressed foursome thought about Spain and the newsreel and Valerie Cobb, wanting more than ever to take on the sky.

  19

  At Maylands Airfield and Flying Club in Essex, a dark mood had enveloped Alec Harborne. He had begun to dwell on Raine’s footage and on the dawn bulletins from the wireless indicating more troubles in Austria. A Jewish youth had been blamed for the murder of a Nazi Party official and had been made a scapegoat. Now there was news of book-burnings and riots.

  Alec’s group had always come here for fun but now the young flying pupils were disappearing and their female instructors looking envious. Word had got around that Valerie Cobb was searching the country for ten top women pilots. Scores of RAF boys marched away from their final lessons with sparkling qualifications while their instructors – some still in their twenties, some tall, some tiny – stood in their skirts and saw the lads drift down the course runway and achieve what their sex had ordained.

  In the common room Alec and his group had assembled for his usual joke prior to flying sessions. His mood had spread a cloud over them today and even the second great passion of his life, Marion Wickham, was causing him irritation.

  ‘Everyone knows when I’m taxiing because of my hair – orange curls keep blowing and I can’t control them,’ she complained.

  ‘Oh, for God’s sake, Wick, the same thing happens to me, and I’ve got black hair,’ snapped Angelique. ‘One of these days I’ll have to start dyeing it – my nerves are turning it grey.’

  ‘Shut up, shut up,’ growled Alec. ‘Soon there won’t be any hair dye, or any meat, or any celluloid to make films.’

  A strangely grim atmosphere descended as Alec continued – it was not the subject-matter so much as the incongruity of this exuberant Glaswegian transmitting gloom that rocked the others.

  ‘Films will always get made,’ muttered Stella. ‘What about that one by Fischtal?’

  ‘It was only confiscated this week – along with Fish Stall herself,’ Alec replied.

  ‘The last time I went to Austria I was stopped from landing and I nearly crashed into a village,’ Marion continued. ‘All my friends over there wanted to leave the ground and do nothing else, and now they’re Nazis and they want to do everything else but leave the ground.’

  Angelique smiled. ‘Those friendships are over for good. Maybe we’ll get lucky and meet some of them across a gunner’s target.’

  ‘What a frightful thing to say, you old witch!’ exclaimed Stella.

  A commotion stopped their chatter and the group moved en masse to the entrance of the common room. Sunlight blinded them for a moment but they could perceive a crowd of reporters and photographers gathering around what looked like a Fokker.

  Alec walked on ahead of the others and plunged into the excitement.

  Marion stayed behind and talked to herself:

  ‘It’s that bloody Edith Allam again,’ she murmured.

  Aircraft flying in and out of the field had to take avoiding action to circumvent the huge crowd that had gathered to see the remarkable American girl who had been touted in the news stories as having flown the Atlantic and nearly crashed into the Irish Sea at gunpoint with her priceless cargo of the classified Nazi footage.

  Reporters shouted and Edith fizzed with nervous energy.

  ‘What has happened to Miss Fischtal?’ demanded a male voice.

  ‘Is it true the American government is after you?’

  ‘Have you decided to remain in England because of a love affair?’

  ‘Yes, she’s decided to remain in England because of me!’ Alec Harborne asserted.

  ‘I’ve never seen this man before in my life.’ Edith had spoken for the very first time, her blue eyes boring into Alec.

  ‘Miss Allam, have you a husband at home?’

  Edith stared at the woman reporter, and Alec walked alongside.

  ‘You must want to get out of here,’ he said gently.

  ‘I can’t,’ she whispered. ‘The Daily Record is paying for my trip back, in exchange for a good story.’

  ‘This woman used to be a man, but he ate too much raw coconut,’ Alec shouted. He turned to the American. ‘Is that a good enough story?’ The raincoated, felt-hatted assembly fell silent and Alec, perspiring, took Edith’s arm, forcing her to run with him to a Spartan at the far end of the field. The reporters ran after them, and the woman slipped and fell. There was a commotion, and Edith looked back anxiously.

  ‘I can’t get into this one,’ she protested. ‘They have a designated aircraft, just for me,’ she pointed to a large Oxford. ‘My mission is to cross the world twice and bring my plane back filled with American and Australian pilots ready to fly in the ferry pools if war breaks out.’

  ‘Male or female?’

  ‘Female – it’s a publicity stunt of some kind. From icecream sodas on a Saturday night to the prospect of talcum-powder eggs over here – those girls won’t last a day.’ Edith paused and poked Alec with her gloved hand. ‘What do you do on a Saturday night?’

  ‘He pours talcum-powder eggs all over me.’ Marion was next to the Spartan, humming to herself. Angelique and Stella had left the common room with the others but were observing the proceedings from a distance.

  ‘This is my future in-house paramour,’ growled Alec.

  Marion’s rage made her flush, and as the two women looked at each other Alec became lost in a sea of reporters shouting once more at the little American who had been bred on ice-cream sodas and real eggs.

  ‘Write to me if you don’t come back, angel,’ Alec urged Edith, meanwhile holding Marion’s wrist tightly.

  ‘I have to come back. My own world won’t want me any more.’

  ‘What do you
mean by that, Miss Allam?’ Reporters did sometimes listen, and on this occasion it was the muddied woman.

  ‘Take me to the Oxford,’ Edith said, her eyes hollowing like those of Joan of Arc after the rape and before the burning.

  They walked, and Alec stopped, looking back at his fiancée. He reached for Marion. His grip was painful and she pulled away.

  ‘I’m not your bloody joystick,’ she snapped.

  They had reached the gleaming Oxford.

  ‘When will you be back, Miss Allam?’ asked a voice.

  ‘You should know – you’re from the Daily Record,’ Edith replied, and with that she lifted herself into the aeroplane, Alec hoisting her bag into the empty seat. Behind her tiny figure were the two extra fuel tanks. Cameras snapped and flashes popped.

  ‘Now I’ve got spots in front of my eyes,’ moaned Edith.

  She sat back and made adjustments, her heart racing at the prospect of a solitary Atlantic crossing. Amid the screaming of the gathered press a lone man approached, and as he neared the open hatch Edith’s palpitations increased: as airfield supervisor, Sean Vine was not required to carry out a final inspection on the departing aviatrix but she had caught his eye on this brief trip. He circled the aircraft and when his walk was complete he looked up at Edith impassively. Now he was alongside the hatch and the restless reporters still shouted. He said something and she could not hear. Suddenly Alec lurched forward and pushed them back.

  A scuffle ensued, and he grinned.

  ‘Are you Miss Allam’s beau?’ a voice shrilled, grasping the Scotsman’s sleeve.

  ‘He’s mine,’ stated Marion. ‘We are all qualified pilots, waiting for Valerie Cobb to find us a place in the ferry pools when the war comes. Alec and I hope to follow in Jim and Amy’s footsteps. Print that.’

  Alec wanted to add his bit, but his voice was drowned out by the sudden roar of the Oxford. He could see Edith smiling broadly at Sean Vine as she revved, and when she gave Alec a quick wink he felt angrier, knowing she found his passion trivial enough to be left behind. Marion was the love of his life, after aeroplanes, but Edith could easily overtake the excitement of these machines.

  As the Oxford roared to its takeoff he noticed Vine walking backwards as if drunk, then turning away, skipping briskly back to his office.

  ‘Do I suspect you’re going to miss her?’ asked Angelique.

  ‘He’s only just met the girl,’ observed Stella.

  ‘She has a secret, a damned juicy one, I reckon,’ said Alec, calm again. ‘She’ll be back because of it.’

  ‘I can’t wait,’ said Marion. ‘Come along, joystick.’

  Angelique and Stella commandeered Puss Moths and watched Alec and Marion enter the Spartan. As if swallowed up by the airstream of Edith’s departure, the reporters had disappeared.

  In the cockpit Marion felt atrocious.

  ‘I have a horrible feeling about the months coming on,’ she said, starting up the engine. ‘Everybody here is going to be doing something absolutely different from anything they’ve ever done before.’

  ‘Good,’ enthused Alec, strapping himself in.

  ‘Good for the boys, but not for us. Alec, there are hundreds of these girls, and they should be regular RAF.’

  ‘Of course they should, and especially you. First you have to marry me. I’ll be an RAF widower.’

  Marion taxied and her long, delicate fingers held the joystick gently, as if reflecting the relaxation she always found when about to raise herself up from the earth’s gravity. Alec placed his fingertips on her hand and she grimaced. He withdrew and went for his cigarettes. Responding to her lone touch the throttle surged and they were airborne.

  It was a calm flight. This was a quiet machine, and they could talk.

  ‘I can’t face a war without our being married first, Marion.’

  ‘I wish these engines didn’t purr so softly – then I wouldn’t have to hear you.’

  ‘Listen, lass, if we are both in a civil air division, we can still be together at night.’ Alec drew on the cigarette, and the aircraft lurched as if coughing.

  ‘God, that really is a disgusting habit.’ Marion shuddered.

  Alec was silent.

  ‘And I’m damned if a three-day assignment for a civil air unit is going to be ruined by my having to troop back to cook for Hubby.’

  ‘Marriage will buffer me against war,’ he responded quietly. ‘War will buffer me against marriage.’

  The aircraft hit a patch of thick cloud and Marion tensed in her seat. When they emerged, blue sky hit them brilliantly and the lady pilot took her fiancé to a higher altitude. Another aeroplane passed to the left and they could make out the distinctive markings of Edith’s Oxford.

  ‘Shall I trail her out to sea?’ Alec murmured.

  ‘Who?’

  ‘No-one.’

  Alec peered out, and the Oxford sped away, its magnificent horsepower seeming to spirit his rage out over the sea.

  ‘Listen – if I am taken into an Air Arm it will mean overnights all across the map,’ Marion continued, as if they had never stopped thinking during the clouds and Edith. ‘Anyway, how can you sit here considering the implications of marriage and war when you are incapable of self-discipline in any area of your life?’

  ‘You’ve been spending too much time around unnatural freaks – like the circus twins,’ Alec remarked pointedly.

  ‘Valerie and Shirley are vastly superior to any man I’ve yet to meet,’ she said, concentrating as cloud rippled alongside. ‘Seriously, Alec. Marriage in this climate could be catastrophic – two fliers competing for top job. It would put us both through a wringer.’

  ‘Unlike the marriage of Valerie Cobb and Shirley Bryce?’

  ‘You know bloody well Valerie has her Austrian for passion and Shirley has her mother for comfort.’

  ‘Have mothers and men ever stopped two women from fancying each other?’ Alec stared meaningfully at Marion, and she turned her face away.

  ‘We were talking about marriage, I believe,’ she said.

  ‘My belief is that it works, like the Bryce and Cobb show.’

  ‘Like Jim and Amy – look what’s happened to them, and there isn’t even a war on yet.’

  Alec turned to the small window and for the rest of the ride he kept silent as the image of the Mollisons made him feel uneasy and unsexed.

  Marion could think only of Valerie, Edith and the German film-maker whose combined images had begun to excite her much more than the prospect of an engagement ring. She brought her aircraft in for a perfect landing as rain pattered on the dirt runway, Sean Vine observing from nearby. He smiled, as if relieved to see Alec close to home. As the couple walked the slippery road to the common room in silence Marion stooped to pick up a tiny canister. It was marked ‘Kodak’, and as she pocketed it she laughed at the thought of some distraught press photographer who tonight would be without his pictures.

  20

  In their home, Jim and Amy Johnson-Mollison were dressing for a small party they were to be hosting. She was a quiet, if not depressive creature, but the prospect of war had made her feel cheerful.

  ‘This could be my big chance to shine,’ she said, buttoning her blouse.

  ‘Haven’t you shone enough?’

  ‘If there’s a war, which more than likely there will be, Valerie will find me something worthwhile to do.’ She looked up at Jim, who stood near her with a quizzical expression on his face. Amy knew an anecdote was coming.

  ‘Our genius drew a blower on the blackboard today, and asked the men what they thought it was. Alec Harborne volunteered. He said he thought it looked to him like the cross-section of the inside of a lady pilot.’

  Amy remained quiet.

  ‘Please don’t humiliate me on this night, of all nights,’ she said, her colour gone.

  ‘Are those my instructions, Captain?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘They mean nothing.’

  The doorbell rang.

  Jim
was angry. ‘Go and answer that.’

  Amy went to the door, and the guests poured in. No sooner had Valerie Cobb and her father crossed the threshold than she was bubbling, bringing the circulation back to Amy’s veins.

  ‘War is looming, darling,’ Valerie hummed. ‘Daddy is hoarse from yelling in the Commons. Did I tell you Tim Haydon has been paying us regular calls?’

  By now Jim had entered the drawing room, scowling.

  ‘Tim seems fascinated by you two,’ said Amy.

  ‘He’s fascinated by deviation – new word,’ Jim growled. ‘Not even in the dictionary.’

  ‘I see you are in regular form, Mollison,’ retorted Sir Henry. ‘Valerie is abnormal, you say?’

  ‘Oh, let’s not go sour,’ begged Amy.

  ‘He’s not sour, he’s pickled,’ laughed Valerie, good-naturedly squeezing Jim’s arm. ‘May an unnatural woman touch you?’

  The doorbell rang again and Amy was gratified to see Gerard d’Erlanger and Hamilton Slade, a fine pilot too old for the RAF but still a vibrant figure, his strong frame topped by a warmly handsome face and thick blond curls, now greying at the temples. He had a sadness about him that matched Amy’s melancholy. She walked towards him and the others stood aside.

  ‘God, Ham, I was thinking tonight, while Jim was ranting on about something, that my world is coming to an end.’

  ‘I’m surprised you can think about anything when he rants.’

  ‘You’d be amazed at the ground I cover inside my head when he starts,’ she whispered, knowing the guests were close by. A hand reached over and offered her a drink. It was Valerie, and she was grinning.

  ‘Don’t let me interrupt you two,’ she said.

  ‘That’s all right, Val,’ Amy smiled back. ‘I was just saying to Ham that my world is over.’

  ‘That’s what the American girl was saying this morning – you know, Edith Allam?’

  ‘Oh, God, that one,’ groaned Jim, now leaning against Amy’s small frame.