Churchill’s Angels (12 page)

‘No, yes,’ she began but he had taken her arm by the elbow. Sally would be impressed. They had seen Trevor Howard hold a woman’s arm like that in a film.

Two other men in air force uniforms were with Adair, ‘Toby and Simon,’ he introduced them, ‘but ignore them; they’re not fit for you to know, especially after they’ve been face down in a ditch.’

Toby and Simon laughed. ‘We didn’t believe there was an angel in Dartford who made sick planes better,’ one of them said. ‘But, wicked Adair, why did you fail to tell us that the angel had soft brown hair and lovely, lovely eyes?’

‘Because I didn’t want you two to know, and as for the angel bit, I told you I never lie. Upbringing.’

‘Me, I always lie,’ said either Simon or Toby, and the other immediately said, ‘Upbringing,’ and all three laughed.

Their vehicle was still in one piece although they had been very lucky as there was a large hole in the road almost beside it.

The airmen looked, without speaking, at the hole.

‘Right, boys,’ said Adair after a few moments of deep thought, ‘best to lift it.’

To Daisy’s amazement, they picked up the small truck or Jeep or whatever it was and carried it over the hole to an undamaged stretch of road.

Adair then lifted Daisy into the back of the vehicle and turned to the others. ‘I need to talk to Daisy, lads. One of you two drive, and I suggest that means the one who’s drunk the least.’

He then gave them directions to Daisy’s home and with something of a screech and a squeal of tyres, they set off.

‘How are you, Daisy?’

‘I was … we were all worried … Alf and Nancy, I mean.’

‘It’s been hell,’ he said, and then went quiet.

Daisy, so aware of him that she was scarcely able to breathe, plucked up courage to speak. ‘You were at Dunkirk. We read Mr Churchill’s speech in June. It was wonderful.’

He grabbed her hands and, aware that he did not know that he was hurting her, Daisy did not struggle.

‘Dunkirk was a nightmare, not just the hours but the scenes we saw, the knowledge of how little we were able to do, watching men drowning or being strafed as we tried to fight off the Luftwaffe. I don’t want to talk about it …’ He gulped. ‘But I want you to believe that in the past two months, if I had been able to get back to The Old Manor, I would have been there.’

She said nothing because she did not have the words but she continued to hold his hands. She was in the cockpit with him, looking down at the water tinged with blood, seeing heads bobbing up and down, hearing cries for help. Was Sam there? Was Phil?

‘Do you believe me, Daisy?’ he broke the silence.

She was startled, so far into his scenario had she gone. ‘Of course, and I’m pleased that you are safe.’

‘Watch out, you idiot.’ The voice came from the front.

‘Sorry, but damn it, I can’t see a bloody thing. Grandfather said that someone used to run in front of him with a lamp. Where’s the bugger when I need him?’

‘Language, language, lady present. I apologise for my … associates,’ said Adair, and Daisy laughed. Never before had she been called a lady. It sounded rather nice.

The laughter had lightened the atmosphere. ‘I have a forty-eight-hour pass, Daisy. I rang Alf to let him know that I was coming. We need to get her up tomorrow. Will you come?’

‘To see her fly?’

‘Well, yes, but to fly with me. There’s nothing like a first flight, Daisy. I can’t explain what it feels like to be up there looking down and looking up too. It can’t be explained, only experienced. Are you free, Daisy, for the afternoon at least?’

‘Yes,’ she said, ‘of course.’ She would worry about Saturday being the shop’s busiest day later.

Flora still spent a great deal of time looking out of the windows and listening for the postman, but she determined to try to be brave and not to allow her rising despair to blight the lives of the already suffering members of her family she had around her. Usually a whirlwind of activity, she sat quietly in her front room or in her kitchen and allowed the rooms to fill up with the remembered happy voices of a large family. Two adults and five children had lived and laughed and, yes, sometimes cried in this tired-looking flat. ‘I’ll make new curtains,’ she told the echoes with a sniff. ‘New curtains’ll brighten us all up and my Sam’ll notice, although I’ll have to hold ’em up under Phil’s nose. Daisy’ll help me; good with her fingers, our Daisy, comes of being small built, I suppose.’

She stood up, determined to pull herself together and stop moping. Women all over England were waiting and hoping, and here was Flora Petrie behaving as if she was the only one entitled to twiddle her fingers. First step was to give Daisy the afternoon off.

Flora sat down abruptly. ‘I’m going to lose her too, my baby. That pilot lad’ll fill ’er head with dreams an’ we won’t be able to hold her down. She’ll fly like his damn plane.’

‘Time for a cuppa, Mum?’ Daisy had come up from the shop.

With an incredible force of will, Flora stood up and smiled. ‘I was just thinking, pet, that we need new curtains in the front room – cheer it up a bit for the boys coming home.’

‘Great idea, Mum. I’ll give you a hand.’

‘Not this afternoon, you won’t. You’d best tidy yourself up if you’re going flying.’ She lifted a folded newspaper and held it out. ‘Look, there’s an ad in the
Chronicle
. Heddles on Lowfield Street’s got flannel slacks at five shillings the pair; lovely turn-ups on the legs, very smart. Perfect for flying. Be a bit windy up there, I should think.’

‘Oh, Mum, thank you.’ Daisy held out her arms and her mother moved quickly to hug her.

‘Dad and me’ll pay. Go on down and tell him you’re running over to Heddles and I’ll take him down a cuppa in two ticks.’ Before Daisy had a chance to reply, she carried on. ‘Grey or dark blue would be ever so smart and useful, and you could wear them with your pale blue blouse and my dark blue cardigan.’

‘But, Mum, that was your Christmas—’ began Daisy.

‘It’s a bit tight on me, love, and you’ll be a right smasher in it. When I finish these socks I’ll knit you a new one. I found some ever so pretty buttons in my button tin, never used.’

Daisy hugged her again. ‘Thanks, Mum,’ she whispered, and turned and hurried back to the shop. She could be forgiven for wondering if the airmen and her mother were right about her appearance. The lads hadn’t called her a smasher exactly but they had sort of said she was pretty, hadn’t they?

A few moments later, Flora heard the friendly ping of the doorbell. She stood for a moment with her arms tightly wrapped around as much of her body as she could reach before taking a deep breath and going into the kitchen. Life had to go on.

Daisy cycled out to Old Manor Farm. Her dad, as the van owner, was only allowed two hundred miles a week, and deliveries on two days could easily take care of that. Daisy used a rather elderly bike that had a large basket on the front for local deliveries these days, but she rode her own lighter one for the trip out to the farm.

As she cycled along leafy country lanes, hearing only the occasional sound of growing lambs plaintively reminding their mothers that lunch time had arrived, and smelling the clean, warm smell of ripening crops, she hoped fervently that the air would not be filled with the shrieking of the sirens. Hardly likely, she decided, that a Messerschmitt would come speeding towards her across buttercup-filled, rolling meadows. Her very flattering new flannels would be absolutely ruined if she were forced to dive into the ditch.

She scanned the blue sky above her, wondering if she might see Adair and his beautiful plane, but only an occasional inquisitive bee circled her head before zooming off in disappointment.

The plane was not in the stable yard but on the long driveway that led to the moth-balled manor house.

‘Runway,’ explained Adair as Daisy got off her bicycle and put it down on the grass under a brilliantly flowering rhododendron bush.

She had not expected him to compliment her on her new outfit but still felt a tiny awareness that he did not.

‘How did it go?’

He smiled. ‘How do you know it went?’

‘You look … pleased.’

‘Put this on and climb aboard.’ To her surprise and intense pleasure he handed her a real flying helmet. Daisy felt that she might choke with pleasure and excitement.

‘Is that cardigan all you’ve got? It’s cold up there.’

Daisy was crushed. All she had thought of was her appearance and now she had shown how stupid she was. She should have thought, should have known. How many pictures of pilots had she seen, and every one wrapped up warmly against penetrating cold?

He was shrugging off his jacket. ‘Here, put this on. I’m sorry, I should have brought you something. We cover ourselves from head to toe when we’re up: one-piece suit, no draughts.’

She looked at his elegant slacks, and the sweater, obviously fine cashmere, that he was wearing with it.

‘This isn’t serious flying, Daisy, and I have another jumper in the cockpit. We won’t be up long enough to freeze.’ He was laughing and she tried to join in, all the while hoping that he was right.

She began to pull herself up but was so surprised by what she saw that she almost fell into the cockpit and, for a moment, lay awkwardly on the wing unable to move.

‘Like it? Perfect name, considering everything. Shall I give you a push?’

She wanted to say yes, but to push her he would have to touch what she considered to be a very personal part of her anatomy and she knew she would die if he were to do that. ‘No, it was just such a surprise. Thank you.’

Adair stepped back as she hauled herself up and into the co-pilot seat. He had a blue and white handkerchief in his hand and he leaned over and very carefully dusted the little painting on the nose. ‘Simon painted the flower; good, isn’t it? He was at the Slade when war broke out. But I managed the name.
Daisy.
We
christened her properly, but you’ll have to wait for your bubbly till I get more leave.’

He seemed not to expect an answer and so Daisy stayed silent. He had named his plane Daisy, after her. Could life get any better?

It could, because just a few minutes later Alf was there at the nose. He rotated the propeller and skipped onto the grass. While telling Daisy what he was doing with every move, Adair pressed a button and the engine fired into life. The plane began to move straight as an arrow along the grass verge of the driveway and then, before it reached the gates and the road that ran past the estate, it appeared to lurch or hiccup, and Daisy’s stomach – in fact everything in the lower half of her body – seemed to move around and … they were in the air.

‘Dear old Alf’s run back towards the house, Daisy,’ shouted Adair through the speaking tube. ‘Give him a wave.’

Daisy looked out over the side. The farmhouse was a child’s toy below them. On the road in front of it stood a doll-like man waving a red handkerchief. Daisy waved back enthusiastically now that her organs seemed to have found their proper places again. She put out a hand in an attempt to touch a puffy cloud that floated beside them and drew it back in quickly. How cold it was.

‘There’s the Darent, Daisy, and over there, that really wide one is the Thames.’

‘I’m a bird, I’m a bird,’ she called, and the air stole the words out of her mouth as Adair laughed.

‘Me too,’ he shouted, and Daisy felt somehow warm and very happy. How could the sound of a voice warm her?

It was time to descend and the ground seemed to rush up to meet them instead of waiting patiently for them to land.

How could she thank him for the experience? How could she possibly explain the feeling, the exhilaration, to her family? Never, never would she forget that patchwork stretched out below them, or the feeling that only she and the birds knew what it was like to fly.

‘Do you think birds think about the beauty of the earth as they fly over it, Adair?’

‘Too busy worm-spotting, I should think,’ he answered practically, and she laughed a little shame-facedly.

‘You’re a natural, Daisy. Next leave, I’ll give you a lesson, but the war’s hotting up, and it will be worse than Dunkirk; who knows when I’ll be able to get away?’

‘I understand. But I’ve made up my mind about what I want to do, not just because of today, but my mum’s beginning to be more her old self, able to cope a bit more, though she can’t fool me that she’s not worrying about the boys.’

‘Lucky lads,’ he said, and his voice was sad.

‘I’ll worry about you, Adair Maxwell.’ Oh God, she hadn’t meant to say that, all serious. ‘And so will Alf and Nancy,’ she added quickly.

She shrugged herself out of his fine leather jacket, aware that she had really enjoyed the feel of it around her, the warmth from his body still in the fur lining. ‘I’d best go. Wait and see, there’ll be an air-raid warning before I get home and everything’ll be spoiled if I have to sit for hours in a ditch.’

‘Be safe, Daisy Petrie,’ he said as she mounted her bicycle.

‘Be safe, Adair Maxwell,’ she replied as she cycled off down the driveway, wanting desperately to turn round for one final look – at the
Daisy
, of course, she reminded herself – but determined not to.

Her parents and Rose were obviously thrilled to hear of her first flight and the uniqueness of the event certainly took Flora’s mind off her worries, at least for a time. Fred had to leave for ARP duty but Daisy assured him that she could tell him all about it when he got home and meanwhile she enjoyed answering all her mother’s questions.

‘Is it cold up in the air, love? Did you feel sick like when you were on that whirly thing at the funfair?’

Daisy, who had to keep pinching herself to make herself believe that it had actually happened, smiled and said, ‘Yes to question one, and no to question two. I can’t begin to imagine what it’s like in the winter but Adair let me wear his jacket, lovely soft leather and with real fur inside. Ever so cosy. Oh, and I had this leather helmet, bit like our gas masks but with bigger goggly eyepieces. Wind makes your eyes water and you can’t fly if you can’t see where you’re going. Guess what I saw from up there. The River Thames and the Darent, and even the salt marshes, and Alf’s farm and him waving a big red hankie at us. It was the prettiest picture I ever saw in my life. Adair flew over the church and if it was night we would have seen Mr Tiverton up there fire-watching on the tower. What a surprise if he’d seen Daisy Petrie flying over him. I’ll never forget today, not if I live to be a hundred years old.’