Spitfire Girls Read online

  Where had she got this audacity?

  Cobb switched his gaze from the stuffed fox to his dazzling daughter and nearly spoke aloud. His ancestors had been clergymen and naturalists, always taking time to do a bit of missionary work for the Church of England but never stepping out of the prescribed middle-class mould – certainly not the women! Had his wife been of exceptional stock? He racked his brain. So much they had shared, so intimately, and now she was dead and he hardly knew anything about her forebears.

  Brabazon was shouting. All this talk was well and good, he scoffed, but for every woman there were a hundred good men, Hitler was manufacturing aircraft at a hundred times the capability of any other country, and here in England Winston Churchill was coming up against a brick wall.

  Why does Winston get all the attention? Cobb crossed his legs and folded his arms across his tightening chest. I’ve been browbeating the House but only Churchill leaves an impression. Why …

  Brabazon was still shouting: Winston was trying to generate enthusiasm for war mobilization, and side issues about women’s rights were a damned nuisance.

  Now there was Lady Londonderry raising her voice.

  God, thought Cobb, how war brings out the amazon …

  Her Ladyship was astonished, she confessed. And if the reason for convening could be regarded as a side issue, well, then she would simply have to step down.

  Voices overlapped and Sir Henry cast a glum look at his daughter. For once she was keeping quiet.

  Cobb sat forward in his seat. What an absurdity! Here were some of the most powerful people in the country, debating whether ten girls should be allowed to hop in and out of aeroplanes in between love affairs ending as marriage, pregnancy and ultimate uselessness. What a waste of national funds. Fancy Lady L becoming militant! Would he were a reporter – her home county might never recover from the disturbance.

  Beaverbrook had restored order, and Cobb chuckled. The committee wrestled with the proposal that the female air force should not be wasted, particularly if a full-scale war meant the ferrying of thousands of combat-ready aircraft from factory to base. Combat-ready! Some would never leave the ground, and parents would grieve twice as hard for lost daughters as for sons. Women as test pilots? His constituency barely tolerated female show-jumping and it surely deplored his daughter’s single-sex cohabitation.

  Now Valerie was speaking.

  Had he missed anything?

  Valerie talked of having as many flying credentials as an RAF squadron leader. He knew little of his dead wife, and less of his living child. The committee seemed bewildered. To emphasise her point, Valerie reeled off the names of other remarkable characters in her circle who had similar credits in their airborne records. All she asked of the committee, she explained winningly, was that her squadron not be left behind …

  What an astonishing thought! Here is my girl, of all the spinsters in Norfolk, being recorded for all time in committee records as having a squadron to her name. Cobb sank down in his chair and was glad of the pillar.

  Valerie looked up for him but he was obscured from her view. Where was that fox? He searched the room and focused on its glass eye. It brought him comfort. Had pride confused him? He wanted to hug the girl but felt better behind the pillar.

  Next there was some talk of Amy Johnson, and Cobb half-listened. Valerie was keen to have her in a first ferry squadron. There was noise. Sir Henry moved to a seat away from his pillar. Suddenly he would see and be seen. He murmured an objection, as if he were still in the House.

  Some eyes looked up.

  Balfour met his gaze.

  Pride had made Sir Henry Cobb want to go down to the floor, and now he was enraged. This girl had come from his loins and others dared discuss her like a publicity poster. Perhaps he should not have come at all.

  Suddenly Lady Londonderry stopped the din and sat up like a schoolmistress. She let her eye catch Cobb’s for a moment and he smiled.

  Her Ladyship asserted that a decision must now be made, and she recommended that ten girls from diverse backgrounds, each with no less than two hundred and fifty flying hours, be sent to Hatfield to be tested for uniformed service in an Air Transport Auxiliary – Johnson to be tested along with everyone else.

  For once, Valerie Cobb was speechless.

  Simultaneously her father, shaking with desire to hold her, was for once puffed up with pride.

  D’Erlanger continued:

  Perhaps Valerie’s father might be able to speak in the Commons about equal wartime pay for men and women …

  All was well, and the two women in the room had no more to say.

  Outside, Sir Henry Cobb MP showed a rare fatherly smile. A hug came as well. Valerie had got nearly everything she had wished for, and he could pursue equal pay in the Commons whilst she went out and lured her ten aces in.

  In the taxi she was silent, and Sir Henry waved to the Three Big Bs, now standing outside the majestic building. He liked Beaverbrook – but why was Valerie grieving?

  She turned her face away and was relieved when they finally drove off, never noticing the fiendishly handsome presence of d’Erlanger lingering by the gutter. Images of her with Kranz made his body throb all over and his brain go numb.

  Could Haydon be pressured to intern these Austrians?

  D’Erlanger would make enquiries.

  26

  Summer was lingering, and in Shirley Bryce’s house preparations for a midday lunch party were under way. In the background the wireless played Sophie Tucker. Humming to the music, Mrs Bryce bore a close resemblance to the lady on the radio, and her large but handsome figure moved swiftly about the kitchen, the white apron bulging over her opulent bosom.

  ‘Another party filled with couples, and you the odd character,’ she said, half to herself.

  ‘Talking about me, Mum?’ Shirley shouted from the small drawing room.

  ‘I’m singing along with Sophie.’

  Shirley came through to the kitchen and her underweight frame contrasted starkly with her mother’s cheerful aproned figure.

  Looking at her critically, Mrs Bryce said:

  ‘There is something about … your disinterest in men.’

  ‘There’s no point in losing oneself to someone who will soon be gone?’

  ‘You ’ll soon be gone if you don’t start eating normally.’

  ‘Mum, I’m talking about war – men should be ignored for the immediate future.’

  ‘What does Valerie feed you in that caravan?’ Mrs Bryce looked with puzzlement at the girl. How sad that she had never known her father. Had he not died, would destiny still have fixated her on the person of Valerie Cobb?

  ‘I feed Valerie. We eat well, but I never stop working.’

  ‘I never stop working, either. When I had your father, sex kept me thin.’

  ‘What are you saying, Mum?’

  Mrs Bryce was perspiring. She wiped her face with a corner of her apron.

  ‘Please don’t do that when Valerie is here.’

  ‘My sweat is as good as hers, my girl.’

  Mother and daughter faced each other, as they had done countless times before.

  The doorbell rang.

  Shirley did an about-face but her mother grabbed her by the arm, its bony wrist looking fragile enough to crack.

  ‘Remember,’ said the older woman darkly. ‘Hitler would have a field day with you and your woman friend.’

  ‘She’s a friend, Mum, and just that,’ Shirley muttered. ‘She loves men, and I don’t.’

  At the door, Valerie Cobb and Friedrich Kranz made a glamorous couple, his cashmere coat and extravagant shoes making Mrs Bryce gasp as she emerged from the hot kitchen. Valerie’s skin seemed to glow from under a grey suit, and as Shirley kissed her lightly, her mother wiped her fingers on her apron and shook Friedrich’s outstretched hand.

  Shirley’s emotions were confused, and she let her mother gush while her own stomach churned. Why did he make her shake? Her uneasiness in his presence,
of late, had given her the urge to go to Haydon – if it could only mean Kranz’s disappearance …

  The bell rang again and the rest arrived. Nora Flint had brought her daredevil pilot friend Gordon Selfridge. Marion was with Alec, and Amy was accompanied by Jim and Hamilton on either side.

  ‘You three look like clothes on a hanger!’ Shirley quipped at the sight of the trio.

  ‘What sort of hangar?’ punned Hamilton, kissing Shirley. Her mother was overwhelmed, as always, by the abundance of males.

  ‘Friedrich and Valerie are lovers,’ Shirley lied, whispering in her mother’s ear.

  ‘That’s sinful, too,’ she whispered back, and her daughter gave her a playful slap. ‘So why couldn’t you have found him first?’

  At table, Valerie took in her surroundings more closely. She could never understand what attraction Selfridge held for Nora, whom she saw as a prospective Commanding Officer. Was it his money? And Amy? She seemed to fade into a shadow when Jim was present. What could her future be when she was torn between two men and hounded by a clamouring press? One day she would let it all cave in on her and go down … Shirley’s mother was the sanest person here.

  ‘Friedrich is a refugee,’ remarked Marion. ‘He has lots to tell and he’s training to fly the new machines.’

  Shirley reacted sharply:

  ‘Of course we all know that my house is marked as a haven for German spies,’ she snapped, glaring at Valerie.

  ‘Austrian,’ Kranz said sweetly.

  ‘An Austrian must be like a Scot,’ mused Alec, wanting to defuse Shirley’s aggression. ‘May I lighten the atmosphere by commiserating with an outcast?’

  ‘What atmosphere?’ Shirley asked sarcastically.

  Her mother glared at her and there was an embarrassed silence.

  ‘If anything has a bad atmosphere it’s Smithfield,’ Nora commented lightly. ‘It’s a ghost town, and I’ll not be going back.’

  Mrs Bryce brought in a meal of dumplings in soup, potato pancakes and chicken stew.

  ‘This is like home for me,’ Kranz observed.

  ‘Do you live in a little place like this?’ asked Selfridge good-naturedly, provoking another scowl from Bryce junior.

  ‘Gott, no! My home is a mansion. But a few peasant delicacies creep in every so often – kreplach, latkes …’

  ‘My impression is that German Jews don’t stoop to Yiddish,’ joked Mrs Bryce, smiling at Friedrich.

  ‘We stoop.’ He smiled back.

  ‘You lot always seem to make good wherever you turn up in the world,’ Marion said.

  ‘Beauty’, Kranz continued, ‘has gone out of the lives of Germans because a disease of the mind is becoming a compulsory state of being. Joseph Goebbels is perpetrating it – news of Jews taking over the world and robbing good Christian folk like yourselves of your homes, your children’s sweat and blood, and your code of moral honour. Even here in England you’ve had your blood libel massacres.’

  ‘Implying?’ glowered Selfridge.

  ‘It’s the reason why we may have a war, Gordon.’ Valerie’s resonant tones broke in. ‘You may not comprehend it over ice cream in Manhattan, but the rest of the world is sinking fast into the Dark Ages.’

  ‘Can we please talk about something else?’ urged Shirley.

  ‘I have something to tell everyone.’ Valerie pulled a letter from her purse. ‘From the Air Council, a message to us all:

  ‘“We do not want a flying section in the WAAF – I still have to be convinced that the Civil Air Guard as a class, will be competent to ferry RAF aircraft … If any women CAGs are competent to ferry Moths, they should be employed on this, but as civilians … Otherwise they should undertake some alternative form of useful work.”’ Valerie folded the paper and lit a cigarette.

  All present watched her as if she were performing a rare conjuring act.

  ‘Undertake useful work,’ she echoed to herself.

  ‘We should all train to be undertakers,’ groaned Shirley.

  ‘There was no doubt in my mind at that last meeting,’ Valerie said, her bitterness brimming over. ‘I’d been so sure, as had my father, for God’s sake. No one dreamed the committee would change its mind.’

  ‘Britain is backward,’ Kranz asserted. ‘Does Chamberlain really think Hitler is just going to tip his hat to that valuable outpost across the Channel?’

  ‘Keep your criticisms to your own country.’ Jim had spoken for the first time, after wolfing his meal. ‘Is there no official drink in this household?’

  ‘My husband kept wine.’ Mrs Bryce seemed frightened of Mollison.

  ‘Then kindly get some,’ he snarled.

  Amy looked at Valerie as if help could be secured from a female quarter. Hamilton had kept his mouth shut throughout the meal, and he knew if he spoke now Mollison would destroy the peace of this good lady’s table. He watched as Mrs Bryce, not greatly different from the Jews depicted on the footage coming in from Germany, moved under Jim’s verbal boot and headed submissively for her cellar.

  ‘Do you have to disrupt a dry house?’ Amy whispered to Jim.

  ‘That is not the issue here – I have tolerated a foreign cuisine in my own country this afternoon, and now I demand the very least – native alcohol.’

  Overhearing him, in the cellar, Mrs Bryce turned ashen.

  ‘My mother’s people have been cooking like this for two thousand years, by necessity,’ said Shirley.

  ‘Here goes – another history lesson,’ moaned Jim.

  Mrs Bryce emerged from the cellar breathless, holding a dusty bottle of Kiddush wine.

  ‘This is all we keep,’ she said weakly.

  ‘Hand it over!’ burbled Jim, an alcoholic smile breaking through his troubled features. He examined the bottle like a fascinated child and removed the seal, covered in Hebrew script.

  Mrs Bryce thrust a large glass under his hand.

  Mollison drank, then spat. ‘What is this?’ he asked, grimacing at the unfamiliar taste of Kiddush wine.

  ‘What you might call sacramental wine,’ Shirley said in a monotone which masked her fury.

  ‘Rat’s piss,’ sputtered Jim, slamming the glass down and rising from his chair. ‘I suggest we retire to the friendly local for a real pint,’ he announced.

  Amy rose, and pushed Jim away from the table. At times like this she had an astonishing power over him, and her small figure seemed suddenly like a bulldozer as he moved sideways from the little dining room, now cloudy with Valerie’s cigarette smoke. Mrs Bryce sat in Jim’s vacated place and heaved a sigh of great relief. When Amy returned, Valerie stubbed out her cigarette and held up the offending letter.

  ‘I intend fighting this Air Council decision, chums,’ she asserted.

  ‘Anything I can do – please,’ Amy pleaded, lowering herself as if exhausted into her chair.

  ‘Oddly enough,’ Valerie continued, ‘My father was overjoyed when the Committee said yes, and now he’ll fight with us.’

  Conversation burgeoned from all corners, but Shirley’s mother seemed in another world. She retired to her kitchen and began to think about her life and her adopted country’s future. Piling the plates and bowls alongside her basin, made immaculate for the impending Sabbath, she wondered how her daughter could embrace the values and customs of her partner so quickly; abandoning tradition, to eat sausage in a hut. People like Jim terrified one – could he not become a thug, like the Polish gentlemen who got drunk on Passover and threw bricks into her grandparents’ home, and on Monday morning were back at their offices administering municipal law?

  Her heart leapt at the sound of her guests, and before filling the basin she wiped her hands, reached forward and increased the volume on the wireless, which had been playing softly during the restless lunch. She noticed the music had stopped. From the other room Valerie’s voice stood out from all the rest.

  ‘Wouldn’t you men be insulted if you were relegated to ferrying Moths and forced to be classified as civilians?’ she asked.


  ‘Surely you told the committee about all the qualified squadron leaders floating around in skirts?’ queried Hamilton.

  ‘They’ve had it stuffed down their throats,’ Valerie replied, lighting up yet again. ‘Navigator’s licences, A and B licences, and two thousand hours in the air – all fallen on deaf ears.’

  ‘Balfour wants a separate corps of women pilots,’ Alec remarked.

  ‘Balfour wants Angelique, full stop,’ said Valerie, grinning, and puffing.

  ‘Really?!’ Marion and Shirley exulted in unison.

  Voices overlapped and a great deal of laughter stopped abruptly because Mrs Bryce stood ashen-faced at the kitchen door. Over their silence the grave BBC voice continued …

  Germany had invaded Poland.

  ‘Trust Adolf to ruin everything,’ mumbled Shirley.

  ‘It’s a kind of good news,’ Amy said. ‘Of course, we’ll now be at war, and the Air Ministry will see how desperately they’ll need every pilot who is still breathing.’

  ‘Foreigners again – always the source of England’s troubles,’ Marion muttered, looking sidelong at Kranz.

  ‘To foreigners!’ toasted Alec, holding up the bottle of kosher wine.

  In the background was the restless voice on the wireless, a faceless man trying to keep his aplomb as paper harbingers of death were passed in front of him in a radio studio built for the light entertainment of peacetime.

  The ethnic luncheon at Mrs Bryce’s was over. The guests dispersed, and outside, in Valerie’s car, Freidrich grasped her arm.

  ‘There will be a declaration of war, and sooner than anyone would expect, Valerie. It means I have to disappear. Perhaps tomorrow.’

  Her thoughts were of odd things at that moment – of her dead mother and of the squires on the Hunt who had tried to rape her. Who was this man?

  ‘What do you want from me, Friedrich?’

  ‘Can you get me an aircraft? I need to get out.’ He was distraught, and felt sexless.

  ‘Has Tim Haydon frightened you into this? Has he threatened you with deportation again?’ She wanted him now, but he could only tremble like a child.