Spitfire Girls Page 2

  ‘Weston Longville, madam.’

  ‘Close enough.’ Valerie laughed.

  She thrust a coin into one of the coats and they slunk off. In the distance she could hear Tweedledum muttering something about madam this and madam that. She knew they would find her a mechanic because fear had turned to libido and she had scored two further conquests.

  Shirley Bryce watched with amusement as Valerie brought their battered craft in for a perfect landing. A crack ground engineer, she had A, B, C and D licences and was qualified to undertake both airframe and engine overhauls of aircraft. She had read her partner’s poetry during this morning’s wait and looked at the figure emerging from the cockpit with even more of the uncomfortable affection she had tried so hard to bury.

  ‘Take three pence out of that job, plus the cost of patching,’ said Valerie. ‘I got clipped again and found two potential lovers. Lucky for me I landed in a proper airfield.’

  ‘Someone from Vienna came to see you today.’

  ‘What did you think?’

  ‘Of the man from Vienna?’

  ‘My landing in an airfield. And the wingtip? Was he nice?’

  Shirley climbed atop the wing and Valerie grinned.

  ‘He was looking for lessons,’ said Shirley.

  ‘What sort?’

  ‘Up-in-the-air kind. God, was he nervous.’

  By now the ground engineer had found her way underneath the wing. She thought of her ancestors as she lay prostrate. Her voice was muffled.

  ‘Val, what does Blood Libel mean to you?’

  The pilot was bored. ‘Nothing. Are you sure he was Viennese?’

  ‘He told me a story about Norwich in the eleven-hundreds, and something called Blood Libel.’

  Valerie had loosened her flying suit and was watching the circus performers readying their equipment for that afternoon’s show. She wondered if they were part of a foreign invasion force.

  ‘He came to see you because of the troubles he’s been having at home. For some reason he wants a higher-class licence, and he thinks you can help. Now he’s here, and his family is out of reach. They were supposed to come over and now they can’t get out – at least in the manner he’d arranged.’

  ‘Why?’ At times Valerie avoided confronting the disturbed histories of older cultures.

  Shirley sat upright. ‘Hitler will take Austria and go to work on the Jews. Apparently their businesses are threatened and even the most charming of Viennese are more ardent Nazis than the Germans.’

  ‘They’re proud of their native son,’ said Valerie.

  ‘Listen, this man needs help. When he got here, our geniuses confiscated his own private plane. If he can familiarize himself with an old heap like this, he can get his family out of the old country. You could enlighten him.’

  ‘What did he say about libel?’ asked Valerie.

  Shirley was sitting with legs folded and her partner towered over her slight figure.

  ‘His name was Franz, or something, and he explained the remarkable history of Norwich as the first setting for a Blood Libel,’ explained Shirley.

  ‘Should Dad know about this?’

  ‘It was eight hundred years ago.’

  ‘His mission, idiot.’

  Shirley stood. ‘I think you should meet him.’

  Valerie was thinking of the men who had already filled her day. ‘I came close to losing everything myself today – all because of some maniac. How different could I possibly look in the cockpit? Somehow they always know I’m not one of them, and they single me out for the torture treatment.’

  ‘It must be animal instinct, Val.’

  ‘This is incident number thirty-six this year. I seem to attract lunatics.’

  ‘You have your own style of flying.’

  ‘Maybe we should quit. I’m tired. Try and get Franz back, would you?’

  ‘Kranz. Friedrich Kranz.’

  Shirley put her hand on Valerie’s shoulder. In her other hand was one of the many precision tools of Britain’s sole woman ground engineer. As her partner went off to think, she resumed her bodywork. Kranz would come back. Things would be different.

  3

  Excellence in sport had been encouraged in school, but for English girls destined for the London Season delusions of a muscular career had to be dashed shortly after puberty. Barbara Newman, a Rothschild cousin, had befriended Sally Remington when they were in the hockey team and had taken her under her wing. Sally’s parents had lost everything in the Great Depression, so Sally was poor and Barbara was rich, but both girls shared a fiendish devotion to the development of their physical skills, far beyond puberty and in defiance of the Season.

  After many battles with her parents Barbara managed to continue in her pursuits, which led her to become Britain’s greatest woman ice-hockey player. Sally had taken a part-time job in the local flying club, serving drinks to other girls lucky enough to afford the lessons. With the money earned she pursued a cheaper sport and soon became a top club tennis player and began travelling the world competing against the greats of her day. Occasionally she would encounter Barbara in an American town or a Canadian outpost, and on days away from competition they would loiter at flying clubs and take the odd lesson. Both girls had become world celebrities and wherever they went fans fussed and doted. They shared a private chuckle when, time after time, flying lessons were given free of charge because of their notoriety. Aeroplanes had begun to fascinate the pair, the hours they accumulated beginning to add up towards a real qualification.

  By 1938 Sally Remington had hurtled to the top of world tennis. Barbara’s career came to an abrupt halt with the threat of war, her family having involved themselves heavily in the financing of refugee airlifts from European capitals still free from Nazi control. Their daughter, whose ice-hockey trophies covered the shelves of one entire room in their spacious London mansion, devoted herself to flying full-time, amazing her club with daring aerobatic displays and loop-the-loops that defied the dynamics of traditional aircraft design. All breath would be held as the famous ice-hockey champion would wind through the air at a screaming speed and feign loss of control, only to level out and start the ascent all over again.

  Bill Tilden was the greatest tennis player of his generation and considered Sally his female equivalent. Indeed, he had tried to talk her out of returning to England and had very nearly persuaded her to continue as his mixed doubles partner on the American circuit. Flying, however, had reached into her soul and on a glorious California morning she had kissed the legendary ace goodbye, promising him she would be back the day peace had been restored. Sally, her racquets and a framed photograph of her tall, glamorous figure tucked amongst Big Bill, Ted Tinling and René Lacoste were loaded on to a steamer bound for Southampton. It was a perilous journey, with rumours of German submarines heading for international waters, but luck travelled with the beautiful tennis player and she was reunited with her adoring parents.

  When she had recovered from culture shock and settled back into the routine of self-denial that had become the norm in damp, sunless London, she headed for Maylands, where she knew Barbara would be misbehaving at 2,000 feet or less. Recently the world’s press had latched on to the Rothschild heiress’s antics, and on tour Sally had read more about the British aerobatic ace than about Amy Johnson or Edith Allam.

  On this warm afternoon Sally itched to be on a tennis court but her mind switched over to aeroplanes when Barbara’s short, stocky figure emerged from the cockpit of a Puss Moth, her broad grin a welcome sight.

  ‘You’re back!’ Barbara exclaimed as an admirer aimed a huge camera towards the pair and the shutter snapped.

  ‘Who’s a legend, then?’ Sally said, her height overshadowing the other girl.

  ‘Oh, Sally, don’t be ridiculous. You are the legend, not I. Imagine being photographed with Big Bill and one of the Three Musketeers – that picture has been in every paper in Britain.’

  ‘That’s only because Ted Tinling is in it, an
d he’s English.’

  ‘They should invite him back to design some gorgeous clothes for the flying girls.’ Barbara and Sally had entered the flying club common room, where strange faces greeted the pair.

  ‘Haven’t you heard, Sally?’ Barbara asked, throwing her goggles on to the card table. ‘Valerie Cobb is being asked to recruit some girls to fly in a Civil Air Guard. Apparently Hitler means business. Daddy says Jews are being singled out and thrown out of top jobs in Germany – lawyers, doctors, scientists, industrialists, the lot. You know Stella Teague, that ballerina who mucks about in Moths? She’s been flying over to Romania and rescuing these people. Some chap called Goebbels collects their life’s savings in a barrel and then he lets them get on an aeroplane with the shirt on their back.’

  ‘What about Valerie Cobb?’

  ‘She has two thousand hours, and the Air Ministry wants her to find a handful of girls with hundreds of hours who are sound of wind and limb, to stand by for some sort of civil air patrol.’

  ‘I’ve got three hundred hours, Barbs,’ Sally mumbled, sinking into a chair.

  ‘You never know – this Nazi Party may destroy us all.’

  ‘Those Europeans need a good game like tennis to divert them,’ said Shirley. ‘If a sport took hold and everybody had to wear white pants they’d forget the swastikas and just start producing masses of little Tildens and Helen Willses. What do you think, eh?’

  ‘Be serious,’ Barbara said, pulling a cigarette pack from her flying suit pocket and lighting up mannishly. ‘I don’t know about you, but I want to be there when Valerie needs women. Something tells me our knowledge will lead to bigger things. Look at the Poles – they’ve got girls in their Air Force. Daddy says someone like that Shirley Bryce might end up being Chief Ground Engineer to the RAF.’

  ‘She’s a bloody genius.’

  ‘It’s in the genes,’ Barbara said, puffing furiously.

  Sally waved at the smoke. ‘Genius?’

  ‘That’s why Hitler wants the brilliant folk out.’

  ‘Here we go again – the Jews are smarter than any other race!’

  ‘We may not be smarter, but we’ve learned to use our attributes to the best advantage. Someday the Jews will have their own country, and when they start tilling the soil the rest of the world will find some reason to attack them. Anyway, Shirley is undoubtedly the best and the brightest – there is no-one in the RAF who can match her abilities.’

  ‘How do we get Valerie to remember us to the Air Ministry?’

  ‘We don’t, Sal.’ Barbara stubbed out her cigarette, ignoring the cluster of male fliers who had joined them at the table and were feigning a card game. ‘You and I have to keep plugging on and accumulating hours until she starts recruiting.’

  Sally leaned across the table to whisper in her ear:

  ‘What is it about you? Those chaps are dying to have an audience with the ice hockey champion.’

  ‘Nonsense,’ Barbara hissed. ‘They’re drooling over you.’

  Both girls rose, and as they passed the men an assortment of eyes lingered on Sally’s exquisite figure, her athletic, almost masculine arms and legs tempered by a supremely feminine bosom, and her bottom tightly clad in a Tinling creation that bordered on the risqué.

  ‘Keep moving, Sally Remington,’ Barbara muttered, swinging her goggles. ‘You ought to be ashamed of yourself, dressing like that over here. This is not Hollywood.’

  Moving in to the main entrance area, the girls stopped in their tracks.

  ‘My God, it’s the lady herself, in the flesh.’

  Valerie Cobb stood in the fading sunlight and lit a cigarette, her gracefully shaped hands an elegant complement to a figure clad in perfect summer tailoring.

  ‘Now or never,’ Barbara said, squeezing her companion’s arm. ‘Hello, Val,’ she said casually.

  Turning around in a flash, Valerie’s gaze took in the small figure and she smiled. ‘Barbara Newman – proficient in all types of biplane, with two hundred and eighty-seven hours since first licence granted.’

  ‘You remember me, Val?’ asked Barbara.

  ‘Good Lord – who could forget you? In any case, I have just been examining club records,’ she explained, her glance moving to Sally Remington. ‘The Ministry has given me permission to do so. Am I correct in thinking that lady is Sally Remington?’

  ‘Yes!’ Barbara exclaimed. ‘Tennis champion.’

  Valerie turned to Sally:

  ‘Proficient in things like Spartans, if I am not mistaken?’

  ‘We met when you and Shirley came to Wimbledon last year,’ Sally squeaked in awe.

  ‘Yes – our first day off since we joined forces in 1931.’

  ‘Will you be able to use us, Val?’ Barbara demanded.

  ‘At the present time, I have a list of six girls who have five hundred hours or more. You haven’t enough experience. For God’s sake, please try to accumulate some more. Try for R/T, navigators’ and instrument licences. In the meantime, until I can recruit, you could be helping the Army Co-op – they need anti-aircraft practice, and those hours count.’

  ‘How do we keep in touch with you?’ Barbara was eager, her face animated.

  ‘No need. I shall be checking every girl’s records week by week, from now onwards, and as your papers become more impressive, so you stand a better chance of war work.’

  ‘Do you and Shirley still share that hut?’ Sally asked.

  ‘It will soon be empty. My father thinks civilized man is on the brink.’

  ‘So does mine,’ said Barbara. ‘Do you still write poetry?’

  ‘Not any more,’ Valerie responded, smiling at the two athletes. ‘Perhaps when the Nazis come over, none of us will have anything to do, and such pastimes will win a girl bread coupons.’

  Nodding to the pair with the same abruptness as her manner of speech, she shook hands briefly and then was gone.

  ‘That woman is a menace.’

  Barbara and Sally turned around to discover Noel Slater, the flight engineer who virtually lived at Maylands and who had most recently fought a lone battle to prevent club funds being ploughed into the building of a ladies’ lavatory.

  ‘Would you prefer Hitler?’ snapped Barbara.

  ‘She means to put the likes of you up against the man himself,’ he said, leering at Sally’s tanned legs.

  ‘Better us than you, mate.’ Barbara was relentless.

  ‘So, Sally Remington is back!’ he exclaimed, grinning.

  ‘That’s right, Noel,’ she crooned, towering over the diminutive flight engineer.

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Talented fliers like myself are needed by that menacing woman.’

  ‘What about Wimbledon, my dear?’ His voice had taken on a whining tone, and he was standing too close to Sally for comfort.

  ‘Because of my absence, Noel, the entire tennis season will be brought to a halt for the duration of the inevitable war.’

  For once he had stopped chattering and seemed bemused.

  Barbara grabbed Sally by the arm and ushered her away.

  In the new lavatory the two girls laughed nervously. But when they had stopped, the reality of Valerie’s words began to permeate their good humour.

  ‘They’ve a thousand hours, most of those girls,’ Barbara lamented, sitting on a polished ledge. ‘Marion Wickham has about nine hundred, and she’s the least qualified of Val’s inner circle. They are all qualified instructors, and the boys are already training with them, seven days a week without a space free.’

  Outside, the noise of a motor was carried on the warm afternoon air, Valerie reversing rapidly out of the forecourt and blowing dust in through the lavatory window. Barbara Newman and Sally Remington wanted to be part of her contingent more than anything in the world, more than marriage and babies and more than peace in their time. Though their parents could not understand this passion and wished for a cure to come down – if not from Heaven, then at the Hunt Ball – the pair, like hundreds of women of al
l ages who in 1938 were the cream of the nation’s aeroplane pilots, craved a war above all else. If they had to train men to fight in the air they would do so, and if they had to ferry Moths they would do that as well, but most of all they wanted wings on their shoulders and the licence that went beyond their A, B, C, and Ds and which only men could bestow – the right to fly war machines and perhaps come back alive for Olympic Gold and a Wimbledon Championship in the peace they had helped to win.

  4

  Shirley Bryce was in dirty overalls.

  Infatuated with aviation, the well-dressed Austrian named Kranz sat in the hut listening rapt to her readings of Valerie’s poetry. In between verses she would describe their enterprise to him, embellishing it with wild tales of narrow escapes.

  ‘I see my next fortune being made from sleek war machines. Don’t you?’ said Friedrich Kranz.

  Shirley looked up from the poetry book:

  ‘Who knows? You fell out of the air and into our hut, so how would I know how you’ll get rich?’

  Friedrich laughed. ‘At home I manufactured these things. It’s interesting how acceptable they were until the new regime came along. They were regarded as the best machines in the world, and I designed them myself. Suddenly I am under the thumb of a maniac and must turn a life’s work over to him.’

  ‘I have Jewish blood too.’

  Friedrich laughed. ‘Here, thank God, it doesn’t matter. At least, not yet.’

  ‘You’re wrong. It does matter.’

  ‘If Hitler comes here, you’ll wear two stars, including one for cohabiting with another woman. She’ll wear a star for cohabiting with a Jewess.’

  ‘Val and I don’t cohabit,’ snapped Shirley. ‘We’re just chums.’

  ‘Dear lady, I’ve offended.’

  ‘Well, I am very fond of her,’ admitted Shirley, picking up Valerie’s poetry notebook.

  ‘That’s strictly private!’ Valerie had arrived. She grabbed the book, nearly striking her mate.

  Freidrich rose. ‘Kranz, Friedrich.’

  ‘Yes, I know. You look very much like a Franz who wants to fly.’ She was stunningly dressed, and he was thunder -struck. In a split second of rudeness Britain’s top woman pilot had made yet another conquest.