Spitfire Girls Page 24

  ‘Being harassed, Mrs Mollison?’

  ‘Sorry, Val,’ Amy smiled warmly at the trim, vigorous figure in ATA uniform.

  ‘You can be first to be tested, if you like,’ Valerie said, peering into the car.

  Amy was aware the interior reeked of alcohol. ‘I’m sober, in case you were wondering,’ she said forlornly.

  ‘I know.’ Valerie’s face was even and confident, like Hamilton’s.

  Amy looked away, confused.

  ‘If you park here, we can go on the monster over there, and kill two birds by avoiding the press.’ They could see the gleaming Moth in the morning mist and the ace who had circled the world in aviation feats could not help giggling at the absurdity of this humiliation.

  ‘Must I?’ she asked.

  ‘You know what the brass are like,’ said Valerie apologetically. She did not want to lose this valuable pilot, who at the age of thirty-seven would be a crucial addition to the unit that was growing every time Hitler invaded another territory.

  ‘Do you know, Val, the French are letting women into the air force over there?’

  ‘Let’s get moving.’ Valerie walked away, and Amy parked the car, leaving the windows open to relieve the air’s drunkenness.

  As Amy Johnson and Valerie Cobb entered the aircraft that either could have flown blindfolded, Shirley Bryce and Marion Harborne arrived at the field and watched the graceful takeoff.

  ‘Hydraulics, Trim, Tension, Mixture, Pitch, Petrol, Flaps, Gills, Gauges,’ Amy shouted to Valerie as they gained altitude.

  On the ground the two upcoming contestants mirrored her ordeal.

  ‘Hot-tempered MP fancies girls,’ Shirley murmured, watching Amy Johnson’s test as if she were a paying customer at an airshow. Marion laughed as the pressmen gathered around and took down Shirley’s words.

  ‘Would that be Lord Balfour, madam?’ one of them asked earnestly.

  ‘No,’ Shirley said, her gaze still fixed on Amy’s spiralling aerobatics.

  ‘Is it a code?’ another demanded.

  ‘It is indeed,’ Marion said solemnly.

  ‘What are you telling them?’ Shirley snapped, turning on Marion.

  ‘HTTMPFGG’ Marion continued, unperturbed. ‘Something to baffle Hitler, invented by the women of ATA.’

  ‘Careless talk costs lives,’ one lady reporter muttered.

  ‘So does careless journalism,’ Marion countered.

  ‘Do you have any comment, Miss Bryce, on your partner’s alleged liaison with the man in custody?’

  ‘What man in custody?’ Shirley’s nerves vibrated.

  ‘Pavel Wojtek. It’s all over the front pages, miss.’

  ‘Never heard of him. HTTMPFGG – much more important.’

  Shirley could not refrain from smiling as the newsmen slunk off, stymied. ‘They are quick, you know – obviously they’ve twigged that Balfour fancies Angelique. Next thing, they’ll be off to the House to stop the war meetings and unravel the code.’

  Marion was laughing so hard she cried, and when she reached inside her flying suit pocket for a handkerchief a film canister rolled out on to the ground. She bent to pick it up and remembered that day before war had been declared – the last day on which she had worn her flying gear as Marion Wickham.

  ‘What the devil is that?’ Shirley demanded.

  ‘I found it the day Edith left in such grand style,’ she replied, examining the small canister closely.

  ‘Silly fool. It could be crucial intelligence material, dropped by a pilot.’

  ‘Nonsense – Maylands was teeming with reporters that day, and the war hadn’t even started.’

  ‘You can still have intelligence without a war,’ Shirley observed.

  ‘What a provocative image,’ Marion muttered.

  ‘Pardon?’

  ‘Could you have war without intelligence?’

  ‘Wars are always made by men, and you know what I think about their lack of intelligence.’ Shirley reached for the film.

  ‘Oh, no, you don’t,’ Marion snapped, pulling away.

  Amy was coming in to land, and despite a heavy mist her approach was perfect and she hit the mark with absolute precision.

  ‘Imagine someone like that having to be tested,’ Shirley said, still eyeing the film.

  ‘Valerie wanted total democracy,’ said Marion, ‘and I think Amy was bending over backwards not to be given preferential treatment.’

  Marion stuffed the Kodak roll back into her pocket as Valerie and Amy jumped from the aircraft and approached. Both looked exhilarated.

  ‘All set for the day of judgement, ladies?’ the Commanding Officer asked brightly.

  Shirley resented Valerie’s patronizing tone, which she seemed to adopt whenever there was a third person present.

  ‘Amy will be in, you’ll be pleased to know, provided she passes the oral,’ Valerie continued, and Marion offered Amy a congratulatory handshake. ‘Shirley, you will go next.’ She stared icily at the ground engineer with whom she had once shared giggling, sleepless nights under the Hunstanton starlight.

  ‘Don’t you dare lose that film, Marion,’ snapped Shirley.

  ‘What film is this?’ Valerie asked.

  ‘Oh, nothing,’ Marion replied, glowering.

  ‘Keep Amy company until I come back for you,’ the CO ordered, and with that instruction the partners marched towards the waiting aircraft to embark on the crucial test, an examination that would turn a ground engineer into a pilot if she kept her nerve.

  ‘Do you mind if I relieve myself, Amy?’ Marion asked as soon as the aircraft engine came to life.

  ‘If you don’t think you’ll be disobeying the CO’s orders.’

  ‘She isn’t my CO yet.’

  ‘I’ll come with you.’

  Amy meant well, but Marion had an urgent mission to perform and she did not want company, not even the famous aviatrix.

  ‘Oh, Amy, do you really want to have to contend with all those reporters? Stay here where you’re safe.’

  Amy had turned pale and seemed to sicken.

  ‘I’d rather not be alone this morning,’ she said, her pleading look piercing Marion with an awful suddenness.

  ‘Is something wrong? It’s not Jim again, is it?’

  ‘Right at this very moment I am my own worst problem.’

  ‘Come with me, then.’ Marion had a terrible urge to take Amy’s hand, as if she were a small child on her first trip to school. They walked together and Amy’s colour returned to her aging face.

  ‘Haven’t you just got married?’

  ‘Yes, and someday I can tell my grandchildren I spent my honeymoon with Amy Johnson.’

  ‘Where is Alec?’ asked Amy.

  ‘He’s had to report,’ Marion replied. ‘The Ministry is going mad trying to clear Hurricanes from Brooklands and Langley, and he’s been lucky enough to be detailed little trips to France. They’re making them bring back unserviceable things.’

  Amy gasped, and had stopped walking.

  ‘I wasn’t supposed to know that,’ Marion continued, ‘but Cal March, that Cadet who’s latched on to Alec, spilled it all in the car after the wedding. Why couldn’t he be clearing Oxfords from here, in Hatfield, or Masters from Woodley?’

  ‘Because those jobs are going to be left to us, Marion. For most of the girls, that’s news from heaven.’

  They walked on for a bit in silence.

  ‘Have you heard about those two Americans who had an accident at Perth?’ Amy asked.

  ‘Two girls?’

  ‘No, ATA men – the two vicars from Virginia. Noel Slater harassed them on an approach and they had a bad one, but somehow they’ve ended up here.’

  ‘That sounds like Slater, too.’

  ‘The only reason why I am telling you is because Alec may be in just as much danger within our shores as he might be going to France.’

  ‘With all due respect, Amy,’ Marion said, ‘it’s the working-class boys who are getting the rotten work. I�
�ll wager Delia Seifert will get the plum jobs while that poor illiterate American girl Jo will probably be sent out on faulty equipment.’

  ‘We’re all at risk, Marion. A barrage balloon has no way of differentiating class when it decides to collide with a ferry pilot.’

  They had reached the main building, and a grim Marion rushed on ahead.

  ‘Will you forgive me? I’m expecting a message from Alec.’

  Marion evaporated around a corner, and Amy made her way timidly into the common room where Barbara Newman and Stella Teague were playing cards. They ignored her, which was just as well – she so wanted to be invisible.

  Marion watched from a distance as Amy settled into a chair where the card game was progressing, then marched into Sean Vine’s office without knocking.

  He looked up, surprised. ‘You should be airborne, Marion,’ he said, frowning. ‘Have you failed already?’

  ‘Sean, listen carefully. When that American woman was here Alec and I were on the airfield for her send-off, do you remember?’

  He nodded.

  ‘When all the reporters had gone I found this Kodak on the tarmac. I completely forgot all about it, what with getting married and all that, but here it is. You’ve got a darkroom, haven’t you?’

  ‘What’s in it for me?’

  ‘We’ll strike an agreement: if you can pull strings to get Alec off the Hurricanes and on to a job that keeps him on home soil, you can have the film, whatever’s on it.’

  ‘Do you have reason to believe it’s sensitive?’

  ‘That’s what Shirley said – intelligence.’

  ‘How does she know about it?’

  ‘The bloody thing dropped out of my pocket just now – and she saw it.’

  He reached out. ‘Let me have it.’

  ‘Do we have an agreement, my sweet?’

  ‘Let me see.’

  Marion dug into her pocket and removed the canister. Still holding it, she showed it to Vine. He opened a drawer and drew out a magnifying glass, peering with great interest at the printing on the side of the roll.

  ‘Okay, Mrs Harborne. Agreed.’

  ‘Why?’

  Sean dropped the magnifier and glared at her stonily.

  ‘What do you mean, why? I thought you wanted your beloved husband back.’

  ‘Just out of curiosity, what is it on the side of that film that has made you say yes so quickly?’ Now Marion was standing over Sean, straining to see the tiny print without the aid of a glass.

  ‘Nothing special, really,’ he said, dropping the canister into the pristine crystal ashtray.

  ‘Mind if I smoke, Sean?’ she quipped.

  ‘Yes, I do.’

  ‘Make sure the cleaners don’t pinch it,’ she said, picking up the film canister for one last look and then dropping it back with a loud ‘plink’ into the crystal.

  ‘I’ll see what I can do for Alec. I promise.’ He took her hand, and she was reminded of the brief coupling they had known, just over a year before, when she was still pure. Alec had done a transatlantic ferry job for huge money on behalf of a Canadian, and she had got it into her head that he might never return. Sean had been kind, his long, feminine fingers introducing her to sensations to which she had thought only loose women were privy, and when his fingers had made way for his robust appendage she had become terrified and had tried to push him from her taut body. Only then had she comprehended the unearthly strength that could charge a man’s loins when he was driven by a relentless boiling that sent his substance into her bloodstream and made her cry out as if held against her will inside a maelstrom. Marion had never understood Alec’s lack of shock and surprise when they had made love for the first time and he had discovered her impurity. Perhaps, she had thought at the time, he had grown accustomed to disappointment, from the first realisations of the limitations of class, to the poverty his parents had left him as their legacy.

  ‘Please let me know what is on the film, Sean,’ Marion said. ‘I had better get back, now – I’m childminding.’

  ‘Really?’ Sean looked alarmed.

  ‘Amy Johnson, silly.’

  ‘When do you test?’

  ‘Now.’

  Marion grinned at her former lover as he pocketed the film canister, which under his glass had revealed its German markings. He could not wait to get to the darkroom. When the aviatrix had been gone a few moments he grabbed the telephone, and there seemed nothing he could do to stop his hands from shaking.

  Shirley Bryce was furious with Valerie for having made her ATA flight test such misery. It was not so much the technical aspect that enraged her as Valerie’s businesslike manner, which seemed to negate everything that had happened during the past eight years. Shirley had no trouble taking the Tiger Moth trainer up and doing a few turns, medium and steep, when Valerie suddenly closed the throttle.

  ‘Your engine’s cut,’ she snapped. ‘Now make a forced landing.’

  Shirley felt panic rising, and searching frantically for smoke to check wind direction, thought she might land in the nearest field. Somehow she managed to make it back to Hatfield and to perform a near-perfect touchdown within feet of Amy and Marion.

  ‘Now you will wait until Marion has had her flight test, then there will be an oral interview.’ She turned away, taking Marion by the arm and leading her to the Moth.

  Amy stood alongside Shirley.

  ‘What a nightmare,’ Shirley groaned.

  ‘I thought Valerie was very polite, as test administrators go,’ said Amy.

  ‘Hot-tempered MP fancies girls – don’t forget, Marion,’ she murmured, looking up as the Moth soared.

  Marion’s test seemed to last a far shorter time than Shirley’s and the Tiger Moth slid in to Hatfield to deposit back its valuable cargo. Valerie and Marion approached, smiling.

  ‘Believe it or not, my nerves are jangling,’ Amy said.

  ‘Too bad, Mrs M,’ Valerie chirped, smiling at her celebrated candidate.

  The foursome walked briskly to the main building, and for the rest of that day three of the nation’s most supremely talented pilots were subjected to a gruelling examination that tested them twice as rigorously as any RAF cadet – because in the eyes of society they were just girls, and in the eyes of the Air Ministry they were an inferior species of pilot known as women.

  39

  Alec had promised Cal he would make a detour to the ugly terraced house in Shoreditch after leaving Hatfield. It had not troubled him to double back on a limited petrol supply – he could tell the boy ached to see his mother and that he had put aside fears of fatherly animosity. Journeying through the streets that had already felt the pain of enemy bombs, they came upon the March family home and Cal jumped from the car to bang vigorously on the front door. Time passed and he banged again, this time to be greeted by the appearance of his mother, hesitantly opening the peeling wood a fraction. Inside it was dark, and Cal pushed his way past Bridie. She peered out at Alec, who stared back from his seat in the car as if she were stealing his most precious personal property.

  There was an acrid smell in the usually tidy house, and Cal’s face screwed up into a wince that stopped Bridie from hugging him. They had not seen each other for months, but the putrid smells and the darkness and unhappiness that hit out at the boy from these walls made him shun affection.

  ‘Where’s Dad, then?’

  ‘Got some sort of driving job – down by the coast,’ she said.

  ‘Loads of money for you, Mum?’

  ‘He comes home on the odd occasion – I don’t see much of it.’

  ‘What’s that horrible pong?’

  ‘Neighbour’s cat, love – you do ask a lot of questions.’

  He moved to her, and let her hold him while he rummaged in a pocket for the pile of coins he had accumulated from his small wages.

  ‘Here’s enough for a few months.’

  She ogled the money, and for a moment Cal pictured her as a child receiving her first allowance.

&n
bsp; ‘You don’t look old at all, Mum,’ he said, smiling. ‘We could be brother and sister.’

  ‘Yes, well, when he isn’t here …’ she murmured, pulling up a chair and sitting.

  ‘You mean Dad?’

  ‘He does terrible things – you’re old enough to know now.’

  ‘Has he murdered somebody? Is that where the stink is coming from?’

  Bridle laughed an unearthly cackle, and for the first time Cal noticed his mother had developed a wildness in her eyes that emanated from beyond their wet twinkle, as if her brain were generating two tiny picture houses running high-speed reels of horror.

  ‘There was an air raid and the people across the road got it,’ she said. ‘The pong you’re smelling is the cat and her new kittens.’

  ‘You took in their cat to look after?’

  ‘Well, after all, Cal, that was all that was left of them, wasn’t it? After the raid I said I ’d go and see to those poor devils and I kept saying I wished our Cal was here, then I saw and that was it – the cat in her basket looking a stupid fool, the rest of everything flattened. All clear, all clear, they call it all clear for a few bodies, a few families and a few truckloads of corpses. Clear them all away ready for the next time.’

  ‘Mum – this war’s making you crazy.’

  ‘I’m not crazy – it’s you who are.’

  ‘What’s crazy about the RAF?’

  ‘Wanting to die before your time.’

  ‘We need to stop Hitler.’

  Bridie’s head was bowed and she kept silent. Mewing noises in a corner moved Cal to inspect the rescued animals, their colourful markings like a merry-go-round of painted horses on a summer’s day. They looked remarkably healthy, their fur already lustrous and their narrow eyes just beginning to open.

  ‘How can you afford to feed them?’ he asked.

  ‘Don’t even think of destroying those babies,’ she snapped, sitting up in the chair.

  ‘I never said I would, Mum.’ He stood motionless in the middle of the dreary kitchen.

  ‘About your father, Cal – he’s taken to all sorts of peculiar things.’ She motioned for him to sit. ‘Your friend is waiting and I want to tell you before you leave me.’

  Cal was close to her now, the fresh smell of his uniform and boots a disturbing contrast amid the aftermath of bombs.