Spitfire Girls Read online

  ‘I’d rather die than face internment, Val.’

  Was he about to cry as well? Valerie turned away, frightened by her own desire and by his impotence. Was this the Jew in him? It disgusted her.

  ‘Why do you people always jump to conclusions?’ she snapped. ‘War hasn’t even been declared. Tea and scones are still being served at Claridge’s.’

  ‘And I’m not yet good enough to join a Gentleman’s Club,’ Kranz countered, more composed. ‘One has been jumping to conclusions for generations. That’s how we have survived.’ His trembling had ceased and his manhood was returning. Family duty urged him to return to Hell but Austria seemed another planet as Valerie’s irresistible figure, provocative even through tweeds, stirred his loins. She knew, and could feel them coming together at some future moment. Near future? She throbbed inside and as Friedrich’s hand came to rest on her own she gripped the cold machinery and the car’s ignition exploded into power. At once she felt shame and ecstasy, with the eyes of her friends boring into her as they stood on the pavement in the still-bright afternoon light of the first of September 1939, but more potent than her shame was her urgency to envelop this man in her own country. And never let him get away.

  They drove off.

  Shirley and Amy, having seen and heard all, stood by the side of the road.

  ‘That Austrian will be my chum’s downfall,’ Shirley said quietly, kicking the pebbles gently under her heavy-duty shoes.

  Amy looked on and kept silent for a moment. ‘I know what Valerie is going through, Shirley,’ she remarked flatly, before walking off, leaving the ground engineer alone in miserable descending fog.

  Shirley watched Amy Johnson, celebrated aviatrix, wander hesitantly down the street, heading for the local which would spew out its malingering patron for her to take home. Somehow, she thought, Jim and Amy had managed to stay together. Had sex endured, she wondered? They had a terrible, relentless energy about them which suggested as much – did she put up with even more in bed than at the feet of his drinking chair?

  Why does Mum think I am a lesbian?

  Hamilton Slade said they were ancient witches who came from Lesbos and inhabited this dim little island by flying in on their own aeroplanes. She had cheered herself up, and as Amy disappeared into the fog Shirley felt an urge to attend to her loved one.

  Back in the house, Mrs Bryce initiated her ritual: after every party, she became infuriatingly inquisitive about all the guests. This time, however, Shirley was un -cooperative.

  ‘Is Hamilton Amy’s lover?’ asked her mother.

  ‘Does it matter, Mum?’ she raged, now storming about the kitchen.

  ‘I wouldn’t blame her. Jim is destroying her, and she must have been pathetic even before he came along,’ Mrs Bryce observed, ignoring her daughter’s rage. ‘Will Gordon take Nora to America?’

  ‘Mum, I am fiendishly worried about Valerie – the others don’t matter.’

  ‘You can’t ever get her off your mind, can you?’

  ‘She might go off with that Jew.’

  Mrs Bryce had stopped her work and stood to her full height.

  ‘May I remind you of your own heritage?’ she murmured, her matronly figure dwarfing the girl. ‘It might be worthwhile finding a man for yourself who will take your thoughts away from Valerie Cobb. I’m going to bed.’

  Shirley did not give or take a goodnight kiss, and she stood in the empty kitchen in the dark, staring intently at the freshly polished carving knives her mother had kept so proudly since her wedding day. She did not want a wedding day, nor did she want knives or tablecloths or the excruciating birthing of a lust-engendered babe. Through years of distorted thoughts in a fatherless existence, Shirley had come to think of marriage as a form of rape, and if that was her future she might consider walking down the road into the fog, with one of those wedding knives in her pocket.

  Would her absence mean anything to Valerie Cobb?

  Upstairs, her troubled mother could not sleep.

  27

  Hatfield in Hertfordshire had a main airfield which was being converted for use as a ferry training pool. War would happen now, and men were everywhere. The older ones were to be tested for Air Transport Auxiliary and the younger ones eagerly awaited cadet training.

  In the cockpit of a Tiger Moth trainer, Nora Flint reviewed procedure with a jovial American too old for the Air Force but still a crack pilot. Bill Howes had been one of the first to sail over through U-Boat Alley to do what he could while the American Congress dithered in isolationist folly. Grey-haired but sturdily built, he brought an endless fund of mirth into Nora’s otherwise routine job of familiarization: each plane had its own characteristics and the new ATA pilots had to be quick learners.

  ‘Ever meet an Idaho potato?’ he bubbled, as Nora held her manual open.

  Nora looked up. ‘What?’ she asked, nonplussed.

  Manically he continued:

  ‘Ever hear the story of the lady whose favourite cat turned into a handsome prince?’

  She shut the manual and glared at the American, his neatly combed silver mane glistening in the sun. ‘No,’ she said coldly, ‘but I have a feeling you’re about to tell me.’

  ‘The Prince stood over her bed and said, “Now aren’t you sorry you had me altered?”’

  ‘Altered? What on earth does that mean?’

  ‘Shit – goddam, miss, you missed the whole joke.’ Now Bill looked depressed, and it was Nora’s turn to laugh:

  ‘You’re not really interested in winning this war, are you, Bill?’

  ‘To tell you the truth,’ he said, suddenly sober, ‘I haven’t yet gotten over the shock of passing through the U-Boats alive.’

  ‘You’re not married?’ she asked, not particularly moved by his story.

  ‘I was. She died – a haemorrhage nine days after giving birth to my daughter,’ he explained, his voice quiet. ‘People said I deserved it for not marrying a Polish girl. Goddam Polish Catholics are so superstitious, you know?’

  ‘Catholicism isn’t so popular here,’ she said, lost.

  ‘That girl was brilliant – half Italian, half Negro. Thank God our baby is blonde – the family accepts her, just about.’ He reached over and took the manual from Nora’s lap. ‘Lets go on.’

  ‘What happened to her Negro blood?’ Nora asked, now fascinated by the colourful mental scenario.

  ‘It got diluted.’ He buried himself in the book.

  ‘Bill, while you are in England, who is taking care of your daughter?’

  ‘Oh, she’s here!’ he said brightly. ‘I’ve got her tucked away in my lodgings. She’s all I’ve got in the whole wide world.’

  Nora was amazed. ‘How old is she?’

  ‘Old enough to enrol for ATA, if they ever let girls fly,’ he said, grinning. ‘Jo’s her name. Her mother was called J’phine because when she was born the local witchdoctor couldn’t spell Josephine so he abbreviated it. Now her living daughter is a regular Josephine, spelled right.’

  ‘New ATA pilots have to be quick learners, or so we are told,’ Nora said, starting up the engine. ‘No more talking, Bill. But when she’s ready I want to meet your girl. Just remember that in this country she will always be a second-class citizen, a half-caste mongrel.’

  Bill looked back at her as if she had spoken in another language, but his voice was drowned by the fully revved aeroplane, which taxied along the field’s edge as a young blonde child watched from a battered jalopy.

  In the common room at Hatfield, Valerie Cobb was surrounded by a huddle of angry women.

  ‘I’ve heard nothing so far,’ she asserted. ‘As far as I am concerned, we will all sit out the war, and you should be jolly pleased to have jobs as instructors. Some of you are weather officers – a damned sight better than hole-punching.’

  Stella and Angelique had been joined in the huddle by an oddly dressed teenager, and all eyes turned. Those lady pilots present were in flying suits, and her brightly spotted summer dress made them
blink.

  ‘Did you fall off the banana boat?’ teased Angelique.

  The girl blushed. ‘My Dad is a pilot out there. He’s just taken off.’

  Valerie walked over to her and put an arm around her shoulders. ‘You’re a long way from home.’

  ‘I want to train and I want to start today.’ Her strong American twang seemed to bounce of the walls.

  ‘Train as what?’ asked Marion Wickham sharply.

  ‘She wants to be one of us.’ Valerie had read her and was intrigued.

  ‘My father is Bill Howes. He was decorated in the last war and now he’s too old for medals or for making love,’ she said, her eyes a blank.

  ‘What an extraordinary thing for a child to say,’ Amy exclaimed. ‘Are you alone with him?’

  ‘I’ve never been alone in my life,’ she replied, and at that moved to the door and wandered off on to the field.

  Noel Slater had arrived. ‘Who is the waif?’ he asked, scowling.

  ‘She seems to have materialized out of Bill Howes,’ Angelique replied.

  ‘I thought he was a bachelor,’ Noel said, placing his goggles on the table, disrupting a pile of neatly stacked playing cards.

  Valerie experienced an instant desire for the child to be kept away from Slater. Could she persuade the naive American to sequester the brightly clad daughter? Her thoughts were jolted by shouting.

  It was Noel again.

  ‘Your Jerry boyfriend is on the premises,’ he hissed.

  Valerie’s heart began its involuntary pounding. She excused herself as the girls bickered amongst themselves. Crossing to a secluded spot on the airfield, she found Friedrich.

  ‘You shouldn’t have let yourself be seen here today,’ she murmured.

  ‘I need to organize this aeroplane – can you do it? Can you fly with me?’ He was immaculate and magnificently dressed: Valerie imagined submerging beneath the power of his loins – how many times might they make love till ripe old age would part them?

  ‘It is impossible for me to accompany you – you know that,’ she said.

  ‘Make believe I’m one of your father’s hunting partners – Tim Haydon, or one of the others from the acceptable breed.’

  She frowned at him. Did he see all of life as a pogrom?

  ‘I have too many problems to surmount on the ground, Friedrich,’ she said.

  His hand was limp as she took it, the dampness and cold shocking her own palm. ‘You know how many times they have done an about-face on me,’ she continued. ‘My girls are going out of their heads. They need to be in the air.’

  ‘You will do nothing?’ Kranz looked poor and shabby now.

  ‘Please don’t leave – I’m taking a cottage, Friedrich. I’ll look after you.’

  Kranz walked off – leaving Valerie alone, as a thin mist descended on Hatfield. Noises from ceaseless activity gradually seeped back through her deadened ears, and she turned away, heading back to the common room and her angry women. For a moment, outside, she stopped and listened. In the common room the radio voice droned on:

  Britain was at war.

  Part II

  Battling for Freedom

  28

  At the Air Ministry, Beaverbrook was fuming. As he fumed, Valerie smoked and d’Erlanger looked on, wondering when he could stop burning inside. Outside, the factories were beginning to churn out aeroplanes and their chimneys spewed clouds of industrial waste, while from many other European chimneys belched clouds of human ash.

  ‘I’ll turn to the coalfaces – to anything, for men to ferry these aircraft from the factories to the battlefield bases,’ thundered Beaverbrook.

  ‘British Airways has a few elderly ghosts creaking round the runways,’ said d’Erlanger. ‘We can let you have them, if they’re still standing. Remember Valerie still has all these good women waiting for an opening.’

  ‘Then get them mobilized!’ shouted Beaverbrook.

  ‘My women have been put on hold too many times,’ retorted Valerie. ‘I cannot keep their hopes rising and falling like this for ever.’

  ‘All that was before the war!’

  ‘Why should that matter?’ she asked. ‘It is outrageous enough that before war was declared, the committee changed its mind, but this time I am not about to go back to my girls empty-handed.’

  ‘You won’t,’ stressed Beaverbrook. ‘I promise you.’

  D’Erlanger smiled, and as the other man rose, Valerie continued to smoke, determined to finish this cigarette before leaving the room. It was unspeakable that at this moment of her greatest triumph her body churned uncontrollably as she allowed thoughts of Friedrich Kranz to intrude. When she had ventured into this chamber her mind had been in neutral, a facility she had acquired at puberty when being pursued by huntsmen.

  She rose at last, keeping her mouth shut, thinking she might bring a curse over her girls once more if she uttered another word. Beaverbrook’s arm was outstretched, and as his palm and hers touched, she looked at d’Erlanger and recalled her last handshake, which had brought so little. They left Beaverbrook’s office and Valerie remained silent. If only intimations of Friedrich would leave her flesh! It was a sensation embedded more deeply as each day passed. Meanwhile d’Erlanger, so close, seemed far away.

  What did he want?

  Outside, as dusk descended in a sudden rainstorm, Valerie and d’Erlanger stood drenched, oblivious to the weather as people rushed past.

  ‘I suggest we celebrate,’ he said, gripping her arm so hard that it hurt and she awoke.

  ‘I have an errand to run, Gerard.’

  Letting go of her arm, he looked down at the wet pavement, smiling to himself.

  ‘Are you mobilizing the girls?’ he asked.

  ‘No. Something else. An errand.’

  This time when d’Erlanger had grabbed Valerie’s arm she was awake when it hurt.

  ‘Friedrich Kranz wants something?’ he asked accusingly, his eyes wild. People turned as they walked past. Gentlemen did not usually behave this way in front of government buildings. Gerard d’Erlanger did.

  ‘Gerard, you are breaking my arm for the war effort – that’s treason.’ Her taunt struck home and he let go abruptly, causing her to lose her balance. Gracefully she righted herself.

  ‘Kranz is an unwelcome visitor in this country,’ he growled. ‘We are not interested in his business acumen, nor in his manufacturing wizardry. Aside from that he is an arrogant sod who is out of his depth in this country and who would never be allowed into my London club. You’ve allowed him intimacy. That disgusts me.’

  ‘By intimacy, what do you mean?’ Valerie’s hair was soaked and she could smell the dank odour of wet wool rising from her sodden jacket.

  ‘You have welcomed him into your own private club – your body.’

  ‘How interesting – women aren’t allowed into men’s private clubs, yet we welcome men into ours, you say?’ she said, smiling.

  ‘It enrages me that you could be prejudicing the monumental task ahead because of some Austrian.’

  Valerie’s height brought her face to face with d’Erlanger and he moved to wipe the rain from her mouth with his lips. She backed away and ran to her car. Inside, the smell of wet wool seemed worse and she wanted to strip off. What would happen if she drove naked through Whitehall? She rolled down the window.

  Gerard bent down to speak:

  ‘The Ministry is earmarking you for Head of ATA and they know your every move, Valerie,’ he said.

  Valerie sighed with weary relief as the car left Whitehall. Beaverbrook had brought her the best news of her flying life and she would mobilize her girls. Ten aces would be brought to an appointed place where they would master fifteen different types of aircraft. Driving down the Mall she noticed sandbags being hauled on to the pavements. Women in overcoats, carrying shopping and pushing prams, hovered alongside the hauliers.

  What separated her girls from these females?

  Lighting a cigarette, she accelerated and raced towards ho
me. Her visceral churning had begun again. She would mobilize Friedrich Kranz.

  29

  Like Biggin Hill, Hatfield Airbase had acquired a wartime atmosphere without much alteration to its buildings. Evening patrols changed over from the daytime lads who headed for their pint, and on this evening Friedrich Kranz slithered amongst the aircraft parked in a far corner. Looking splendid in a city suit, he avoided guard posts but was unlucky near a cluster of old Moths requisitioned from a nearby club. He was amazed to discern a mere boy approaching him through the mist and as he fumbled for his papers Cal March’s uniform confronted him.

  ‘I am on an urgent diplomatic visit on behalf of the Polish ambassador,’ Kranz explained smoothly, sounding more Polish than a Pole.

  Cal was charmed by the tall, distinguished foreigner and marvelled at the elegance of the script on the diplomatic papers. He let Kranz move on, excitedly contemplating how he would tell the others at his lodgings about this encounter.

  Entering the main building, now no longer decorated with the flying-club banner but adorned with RAF colours, Kranz saw danger approaching yet again. Stopped once more, he knew he would have to impress these older uniforms.

  The uniforms examined his documents and were unmoved.

  Should he try the Polish ambassador line again?

  ‘My mission is confidential but I can tell you it is on behalf of the Polish Ambassador.’

  ‘Who’s he, then?’ asked a uniform.

  Kranz mumbled and it worked. He had succeeded, and was being directed towards the new CO’s office.

  ‘May I use the men’s room first?’ he asked.

  They nodded. The two who had challenged him had succumbed to the persona.

  Once in the latrine, nerves returned and Kranz fumbled furiously with a set of keys.

  A figure loomed. Bill Howes. ‘You a new recruit, Bud?’ he asked officiously.

  ‘Not exactly,’ Kranz stuttered.

  ‘Where do you hail from?’

  ‘Poland.’

  ‘I’ve got a Polish sister-in-law back home.’ Howes’ voice was a bellow and Kranz felt seasick when he slapped him on the shoulder.