Beneath Us the Stars (13 page)

Bill sat opposite her, swirling the brandy in his glass as he held it cupped in both hands.

‘Mary
Anderson
…’ he grinned and paused deliberately. Her heart leapt at the sound of her new name.

‘Mary Anderson – you are a beautiful woman. I have no idea why you have married me, but you have made me the proudest, happiest man on earth.’

They raised their glasses to each other. Mary thought for a while, then, biting her lip, said, ‘Bill….’

He looked from the fire back to her. When she didn’t immediately continue, he suddenly realized that she was finding it difficult. His voice quickened. ‘What?’

She took a quick sip of her brandy. ‘I didn’t want to spoil your day – I didn’t know how you’d take it but….’

Bill frowned. ‘What’s up? What’s wrong?’

‘Nothing’s wrong – but well – I’m expecting….’

Bill sat so unmoving that for a second she didn’t think he had understood her.

To be certain she added. ‘I’m due some time in July – maybe August.’

Bill suddenly stood up, put his drink down and came over and sat on the leather arm of her chair. Pulling her to
him he kissed the top of her head and whispered, ‘Darling – that’s wonderful. How long have you known?’

Mary blushed. ‘Soon after our stay at the flat I knew that something
might
have happened.’

‘Have you been to see the doctor?’

She nodded. ‘Two days ago – everything was fine.’ She chuckled. ‘He said he’d seen more unmarried young ladies in the family way in the last four years than in the previous forty.’

Bill kissed her head again.

‘Well, you’re
Mrs
Anderson, expecting our first, and that’s terrific.’

Mary blushed. ‘I never in a million years thought that I’d be with child on my
wedding
night of all nights. I couldn’t tell Mum and Dad – but I will soon.’

Bill hunched down in front of her and looked up. ‘Mary, we knew from the very beginning we were made for each other. Now you are an old married woman, and though I didn’t think it possible I love you even more.’

She ruffled his hair with her hand.

‘Husband – my husband.’

They were just going to bed when the rumour began to circulate through the servicemen crowded into the bar. Somebody said that the news had come across with a group of bomber boys from the Three-O-Six stationed at Thurleigh near Bedford.

Glenn Miller’s plane to Paris had gone missing some ten days previously – the news was only now leaking out. A hush came over the place. What with the Battle of the Bulge still raging, the new V2 rockets causing terror, and now
this, the year of 1944 was ending on a very gloomy note after the euphoria of the summer and autumn.

Victory in Europe suddenly seemed further away than ever.

They sat at breakfast, not speaking much. Bill had to return to the squadron. The honeymoon was over.

The weather was breaking, there was a lot for the Air Force to do. It was business as usual.

Bill looked out at the now sun-kissed snow, and the clear blue sky.

‘I want you to stay here, Mary, don’t come to the station.’

She started to protest but he would have none of it. ‘I’m getting a ride with some of the guys – and I don’t want you walking around in this, it’s icy underfoot.’

She lapsed into a miserable silence, picked at her food.

All too soon they were finished, and some boisterous yelling from the direction of the lobby indicated that the others were ready to go.

Bill took both of her hands in his. ‘Now we’re married you’re official –
Mrs
Anderson. You call the squadron office whenever you feel like it.’

She bit her lower lip to stop it from quivering. ‘When will I see you again, Bill?’

Sadly he shook his head. ‘That’s not something I can say with certainty.’

Mary continued to look glum, so he tried to cheer her up. ‘Don’t worry, everything is going to be all right. You take good care of yourself – and that little girl of mine.’

Mary looked at him in surprise. ‘Little girl?’

He grinned. ‘Yep – I always knew I’d have a little girl – called Vivien.’

She looked puzzled. ‘Vivien – why Vivien?’

He grinned. ‘After Vivien Leigh – Scarlett O’Hara, of course.’

The penny dropped.

‘Oh. Well, if it’s a boy we shall call it Clark.’

Bill did a mock Southern drawl. ‘Frankly my dear, that’s fine by me.’

She gave a little chuckle.

He got up. Their eyes met.

He leant forward. Their kiss was long and poignant. Swallowing hard he straightened. ‘I love you.’ His voice was tight.

With that he was gone. It happened so suddenly that for a while she thought he would come back into the room. When he didn’t the awful realization that she was on her own made tears well up.

She got up, threw her napkin on to the table, and fled, just making their room before she burst into uncontrollable sobs. Mary lay down on the rumpled unmade bed and pressed her face into her pillow as she cried her heart out.

They assembled in the operations hut and clustered around
a blackboard, sitting in chairs and on the ends of tables.

‘’Shun!’ came from the doorway.

They snapped to attention as the Squadron CO and Group Officers marched in. When they were at the
blackboard
with its covering curtain the CO gestured to them to sit down. They sat or lounged at the back, all attentive. The CO would normally hand over for the Group briefing, but today he turned and faced them all.

‘Gentlemen, as you well know the
Wehrmacht
has been giving our men a hell of a time in the Ardennes. Well, the weather is at last good in the area, so we are going to support the tactical boys in a monumental low-level effort to shalak the Krauts off the face of the earth. They’ve got a supply bottleneck at Houffalize.’ He paused, looked around. ‘Your briefing will now follow. Go get ’em.’

Unusually there was a ragged cheer as all the pent-up frustration of the last few weeks came out.

For five days they flew sortie after sortie, strafing roads behind the lines. When nothing else moved on the tarmac they sprayed the ditches where they knew the enemy were hiding under cover, waiting for dark when they could start to make their night-time moves.

Everywhere burnt-out tanks, vehicles and abandoned materiel littered the landscape. In the face of the awesome Allied air power the German advance faltered, and without fuel, finally broke. Hitler’s throw to divide the Western Front had failed, and at irreplaceable cost.

On day six Bill heard someone call excitedly over the R/T. ‘There’s a column down there, on the edge of the
forest – a whole lot of them.’

He swivelled around, searching down to the right. Sure enough there was a large field with vehicles, tanks, trucks, fuel-bowsers, hidden amongst the trees at the edge.

In the right position, Bill instinctively rolled over into a dive, calling on the others to follow.

As the nearest tank being refuelled by hand from drums on the back of a truck crept into range, he began firing off a long burst, watching his explosive hits ‘walk’ up to the truck which blew up in a massive ball of flame, engulfing the tank.

His fire carried on through into others as he bore down on them, only pulling back the stick and going into a
shallow
turning climb to the left just above the deck. He flashed through the billowing smoke as others began their attack. Soon the area was full of great columns of smoke.

Time and again he dropped a wing and went back for more. When they couldn’t see anything else to hit they reassembled at 4,000 feet. The CO’s voice broke the silence.

‘Good work boys. We’re going home.’

They stayed low, still searching for targets of
opportunity
. As they passed near the town of Bastogne they saw a lot of army activity, and rows and rows of canvas bags.

Suddenly it sank home what it was.

Like everybody else, Bill’s eyes followed the grim scene until it passed from view.

There, laid out in neat multiple rows had been hundreds of dead GIs.

There was no let-up. Apart from the tactical necessity of their work, there had been a wildly spreading rumour of a
massacre of American prisoners, which now fired a lust for vengeance.

Day after day nothing moved without the shadow of a Mustang travelling up the road at 400 miles an hour,
spraying
death and destruction.

But there was also a longing for the old days, for the ‘clean’ aerial battles with a valiant Luftwaffe. Contact with the enemy in the air was now almost non-existent, and even on the continuing bomber missions they had heard that the enemy was rarely seen – though a new
propellerless
fighter was to be feared.

So it came as a shock for Bill to see the thin shape of a fighter far below as they entered the operational sector at 10,000 feet.

It was too much of a temptation. With a quick word to the CO and without waiting for a reply, he rolled into a steep dive.

Bill concentrated on the black pencil-slim cross,
occasionally
glancing behind to make sure that the planes following him were friendly.

He caught up fast, and it was then that he realized that the 109 was throttling back, entering the circuit to land on an airfield he hadn’t seen: it wasn’t on their maps.

When he was 200 yards behind he fired his first burst, scoring hits all over it. He pressed the button again, and was still hitting him when he had to stamp on the rudder and throw the stick to the right to avoid ramming him.

He looked back and saw the 109 dive straight down into the deck and explode. He was at 1500 feet now. Ahead was the airfield, with two 109s already landed. Bill pushed the
stick forward, just as the flak opened up. Bright balls of fire came sailing up, seeming to move slowly until close, then whizzing by. He got right down on the deck. Little black clouds of flak with exploding yellow flashes inside them burst above him.

Instinctively he ducked, automatically taking evasive action, weaving and dipping, stamping one rudder then the other, skidding and side-slipping so that the fireballs never had a fixed line to zero in on.

The first 109 turned off the strip, trying desperately for shelter.

Bill triggered the button, saw his shells slamming into it, bits flying in all directions. The plane lost control, started to wander across the grass as his shells found the second plane. It blew up. Bill flashed overhead, banking away to avoid the trees at the airfield boundary.

At that moment there was a ‘crump’ and his plane
shuddered
. Bill smelt explosive, and there was a numbness in his leg. He knew he’d been hit, he eased the stick back. His plane responded only sluggishly. Gradually he gained height but there was no doubt in his mind that she was mortally wounded, and that he’d have to get out.

He managed to coax the plane to 6000 feet and some twenty miles back towards the Allied lines when the
oil-pressure
gauge suddenly shot into the red, and flames began to stream back over the port side. It could only be a matter of minutes before she blew up.

Hands shaking, Bill freed himself from his radio and oxygen lines, released the seat harness, pulled back the hood. Then he took a deep breath, rolled the Mustang, and
fell out, head first, into a whirling maelstrom of freezing air.

Mary was in the library when they called. There were three of them – two American Air Force officers, and the college chaplain.

At the sight of them, so alien to the surroundings, and their sombre faces, the blood drained from her cheeks. Her legs quivered, lost all strength. She grabbed at the back of a chair, held on for support as the room began to go round.

The older officer removed his cap, followed by the younger one.

‘Mrs Anderson?’

‘Yes.’ Her voice was weak.

The man moved nearer, as if to help support her.

‘Would you like to sit down?’

She wanted him to say whatever it was he had come to say – to blurt it out: her fear was taking all the strength from her body. She meekly slumped into the chair that the other officer held.

‘Is it Bill?’

She’d spoken in a whisper.

The adjutant nodded. ‘I’m afraid he failed to return from operations today.’

‘Is …’ she could hardly breathe ‘… he
dead
?’ she asked, but it was unreal. There was no way he could be
dead
– not Bill.

‘He’s been classed as MIA.’

Mary struggled with her woozy head, still feeling faint. The adjutant seemed to think he needed to explain. ‘That means missing in action – nothing more.’

The chaplain crouched down beside her, a crisp white handkerchief appeared from nowhere. ‘Take this, my dear.’

Mary took the cloth, held it over her mouth and nose, brought her head down as she nearly passed out. After a while the chaplain said: ‘Let’s take you home, my dear.’

She shook her head. ‘I want to be
there
, near the base, as soon as any news comes in. I want to know – I
must
know.’

The adjutant patted her shoulder. ‘Believe me, as soon as we know
anything
– we’ll send, or call. I promise. But it could be days – weeks even.’

The other man nodded.

‘I’ll come myself, Mary – that’s a promise.’

The chaplain said: ‘Where’s your coat, my dear? These gentlemen have very kindly said we can use their car to get you home.’

Reluctantly she allowed herself to be taken to the car. As they drove through the streets of Cambridge the words kept going round and round in her head.

Dear God, please, please, may he be all right
….

Dear God, please, please, may he be all right
….

There was a fuss with the landlady, who was worried about looking after her. The chaplain said the college would provide a small emolument for a week to cover her extra expenses. To Mary it was all inconsequential, like a living nightmare.

They made sure she was warm and lying on her bed, and then left. The landlady went off to make tea.

A hush descended.

A hush in which the seconds were counted off by the beats of her heart.

Seconds into minutes.

Minutes into hours.

If the news was bad she knew her heart would die.

Oh, she would live, because their baby –
his
baby – needed to be born, raised in love, told of his or her father.

Little Vivien, or little Clark.

But she would be dead
in
her heart.

There would be only the long, long wait until they were reunited once more. When the last enemy had been defeated.

He had floated down in the cold clear air, the earth between his swinging legs was snow covered, with great tracks of dark pine-woods. The sun was shining, the dazzling
whiteness
beneath his feet made it hard to judge height.

There was no sound other than the air passing through the rigging, until there was a shattering explosion behind him, booming and echoing from a long way off.

When he managed to turn round, pulling at his lines, he saw that there was a black column of smoke mushrooming up many miles away. It had to be his ship – this was confirmed when he saw squadron Mustangs circling and swooping over the area. Then he was in amongst trees and he suddenly smacked into a snowdrift. Mercifully the impact was softened by its depth.

There was no wind: the canopy settled over him like a gently collapsing tent.

Quickly he snapped the release buckle, pulled the webbing off, and crawled out to the edge of the silk,
uncovering
his head and taking his first ground view of the land
about him.

Gingerly he got up and tried putting his weight on his numb leg. To his surprise it took it, but his trouser leg was heavily bloodstained.

Quickly he bundled the ’chute into the hole his body had made, and pushed more snow over to cover it. He had no idea where he was: whether he was in German-held
territory
, or Allied, so it seemed to be a good idea to hide for a while.

He limped deeper into the trees. The woods were not like the tranquil oak and beech woods of England, but more like the northern forests of the States and Canada. Fir and birch predominated, and the sandy soil was covered with pine-needles and thin layers of snow.

He stumbled on, becoming acutely aware of the
numbness
in his leg turning to soreness, and finally a throbbing pain. He slumped down, back against a tree-trunk and looked at the blood caked on the fabric of his pants.

Bill could see that his fur-lined flak-boot had protected his leg below the knee, and the bucket seat had shielded his body, but the back of the leg was peppered with little pieces of shrapnel. As he raked with his finger a larger piece came free on one side of the knee – it had gone right through the fleshy underpart and come out on the side. He was still wearing his Mae West inflatable life jacket. Bill took it off and found the escape kit in the pocket. Inside was a first aid section. Wincing with pain he doused the area with the iodine. He felt weird, light-headed, and began to shiver, and knew that delayed shock was beginning to take over.