Daisy's Wars (21 page)

Daisy nodded; she did see. She stood there half-listening, thinking back on the days when everything her family had to give went to Kay. All that time she’d thought she was the only one it
had ever happened to; it had never occurred to her that there were other people in the same boat.

‘The thing is, Daisy, you’re a level-headed girl, mature for your years, and I’d like to think you’d keep an eye on her, and if you think it’s all going wrong, that
you might let me know.’

‘Of course, of course,’ Daisy said brightly. ‘Don’t worry about it, Mar, I’ll watch out for her. But she’s tougher than you think. I’ve never seen a
female throw a right hook like Dotty!’

‘Oh, she’ll have learned that from Freddy,’ Mar laughed, then looked at Daisy, ‘but what … ?’

‘She floored an officer at West Drayton,’ Daisy chuckled, ‘an old school friend of Freddy’s. Apparently he’d suggested that she should provide him with the home
comforts WAAFs are expected to provide officers with.’

‘And Dotty let the blighter have it?’

‘Well,’ Daisy laughed, ‘depends what you mean by “it”, but she certainly let him have a right hook to the jaw!’

Mar was overcome with mirth and slapped Daisy’s shoulder so hard that she was put off-balance for a moment. ‘Had much the same effect on him as that slap had on me, in fact!’
Daisy giggled.

Mar threw her arms around Daisy and hugged her. ‘Oh, I wish there was some means of letting her know I’ve heard that,’ she laughed, ‘but I don’t suppose there is,
is there?’

‘
No!
’ Daisy chided her. ‘There
isn’t
, Mar!’

The two girls left in the Rolls, the usual hamper from home on the front seat beside the chauffeur, as the band of young men took off in the opposite direction for London in sports cars –
the upper-class RAF pilot’s only possible land-borne transport. Dotty was chattering away good-naturedly, as Dotty always did, while Daisy thought about her conversation with Mar. She
didn’t understand why people thought of her as mature and sensible. It was all an act, inside she had no idea what she was doing or thinking most of the time, yet she was always put in the
position of carer, as though that was her natural role. It wasn’t, though, that was the thing, it really wasn’t, so why did they think it was? Was it something she was doing that gave
them that impression?

Just then there was a rapid tooting of a car horn and one of the sports cars that had headed for London drew alongside the stately Rolls with a great screeching of brakes, forcing the car to
stop. Dotty rolled the window down and Frank Moran’s head appeared.

‘I was just wondering,’ he said, looking from one to the other, ‘if you girls would write to me?’

Daisy and Dotty exchanged glances.

‘You see, my next posting is to Orkney and Shetland, wherever that is. I gather it’s pretty remote.’

‘I’ll say!’ Dotty giggled.

‘And I thought if you felt like it you might take pity on a lonely Fly Boy far away from home and drop him the odd letter. He’d be very grateful.’

‘Of course, that would be wizzo!’

Daisy closed her eyes. Wizzo indeed, she thought, and when she opened them again Dotty was holding on to Frank’s hand for dear life, but he was looking at Daisy. She hadn’t said a
word in response and that was how she wanted to leave it. Let him correspond with Dotty, who was already totally besotted with him before she had even met him. Let Dotty reply, and she knew Dotty
would, and that would be an end to it.

‘It was good meeting you,’ he said, still looking at Daisy, ‘even if I did bore you to death.’

‘You didn’t bore me, Frank!’ Dotty squealed. ‘Whatever gave you that idea?’

Then Frank went back to his little car and the Rolls moved off. Dotty turned round and waved out of the back window. ‘He’s still there, waving,’ she said in a hushed, excited
voice. ‘I think I have a chance with him, who’d have thought it? Look, Daisy!’ and she continued to wave, but Daisy stared straight ahead.

12

The Rolls dropped them off at the station again and they found a lorry going back to Langar, stowed their gear in the back and climbed in beside the driver. On the way to the
base they chatted as much as the engine noise allowed, but Daisy’s mind wasn’t really on it, and she had to fight to keep the conversation going. She was thinking of him – the
Aussie – not thinking of him exactly, but he was there in her mind and she couldn’t get rid of the image. When they were within sight of the camp they saw an aircraft lying at a strange
angle in a field. The driver followed their gaze.

‘Happened last night,’ he said. ‘A Wimpy.’ Wellington bombers were nicknamed Wimpys because of their rotund shape, which had reminded some wit of Popeye the
Sailorman’s well-fed, hamburger-eating friend, J. Wellington Wimpy. ‘It was shot up pretty badly and couldn’t make it back.’

‘Are the crew safe?’ Dotty asked, looking at the charred remains of the aircraft as they passed.

The driver shook his head. ‘They were alive when she crashed, but then she exploded. Nobody could get near her for the flames, the boys all died. The firemen and medics were pretty upset,
they could hear them screaming but couldn’t do anything.’ He shrugged and glanced at them. ‘That’s how it is sometimes,’ he said. ‘You know how it is.’

The two young women, fresh from a leave spent in luxury, eating good food and sleeping in comfortable beds, didn’t know how it was, as it happened, and sat in subdued silence for the rest
of the journey, painfully aware that they soon would. They made their way to the WAAFery to sign in and were immediately set upon by the WAAF CO. The front entrance, she told them coldly, was
reserved for officers and senior NCOs; common or garden WAAFs must use the back door. She was prepared, she informed them grandly, to overlook their transgression this time, as they were new to the
base, but she could have put them on a charge, and would if she caught them using the front door again. They headed for the dining room, suddenly aware they had wandered back into the real
world.

‘After what we’ve just seen and what the driver told us, you have to wonder where her head is, don’t you?’ Dotty said testily. ‘What a bitch!’

‘Well, at least we know one thing,’ said Daisy with feeling. ‘Avoid WAAF officers here at all times.’

Then they went their separate ways, Dotty to the medical unit and Daisy to the tower, the Watch Room where she had met the Squadron Leader a few days earlier. It was just beginning to get dark,
so the room was gearing up for another night of operations and the atmosphere was anxious and taut.

‘Ah,’ the Squadron Leader smiled brightly at her, ‘you’re back! Good leave? Jolly-D, that’s the ticket, ticketty-boo.’

‘You left out “wizzo”,’ Daisy thought wryly.

‘Now this is Reg, he’ll explain procedure to you and act as your instructor.’

Daisy shook hands with Reg, an airman of about thirty, fair hair becoming sparse, grey eyes, nice, shy smile. Married with a couple of kids, she imagined, the kind of man born to be a husband
and father.

‘I’ll explain our shift patterns now, Daisy,’ Reg said quietly, indicating a seat to his right. ‘Best get the nasty stuff out of the way first, I always think.’

Daisy looked at his station and saw a snap of his wife and children, a boy and a girl.

‘My family,’ he said proudly.

‘Lovely,’ she replied, sitting down.

‘Yes, they are, rather,’ he smiled, then pulled himself back to business. ‘You’ll have a four-hour watch, a break, then an eight-hour watch, and if there are enough
operators to cover, you can have a day off between each twelve-hour day and the next. If not, every third day after an eight-hour day, week in, week out.’

‘Week in, week out,’ she grinned.

‘Apart from leave, of course,’ he laughed.

‘I bet you say that to all the girls.’

‘I do, actually, now you come to mention it!’ he chuckled, smoothing down what was left of his hair.

‘Incoming calls from aircraft have to be answered in the officially set-out manner. We have a local-range microphone and a long-range one. You give the strength of the signal back to the
plane, so that the aircrew know how good their contact is. – “Strength Two” is very faint, “Strength Nine” – a niner – is the loudest, and all
conversations have to be logged. On the wall there is a special loudspeaker tuned to Bomber Command’s ‘Darky’ frequency, that’s for aircraft in trouble who can’t make
it back to their own home base and have to find somewhere to land quickly. We don’t get many, but if we do it takes priority and has to be answered immediately. The first thing you say is
“This is Langar” – so that the crew know where they are.’

‘You make it all sound so routine,’ she said uncertainly.

‘Well, it’s not, Daisy,’ he replied seriously, ‘it’s never that. You’ll find that this job takes its toll on you. Don’t expect it to be easy.’

‘Cripes!’

‘Oh, I don’t mean to put the frighteners on you,’ he said pleasantly, ‘I just think it’s best to be prepared.’

She nodded. Looking out of the tower she could see the planes already queued up on the runway waiting for clearance to take off, an amazing, overwhelming sight. The great lumbering machines
patiently moved up the line as the one in front took to the sky.

‘This board,’ Reg explained, ‘lists each plane’s identification and its estimated times of takeoff and return. The names of the crews are there too.’ He
didn’t dwell on that and there was silence. ‘We preserve radio silence before takeoff,’ he said, watching the planes on the runway. ‘They’re bound for Germany tonight.
Have you been on an operational station before?’

Daisy shook her head.

He pointed to a lorry by the tarmac. ‘That’s delivering pigeons,’ he said. ‘If a plane ditches, a message of its last-known position can be sent by pigeon – if
there’s time and if any of the birds have survived.’ He paused. ‘And, of course, if any of the crew have.’

‘One of my friends works with the pigeons,’ she said, wondering if Celia was one of the dark little figures scurrying about down there. ‘She thinks it’s the most
important job in the RAF.’

‘Well, she’d have to, we all have to, don’t we?’ he replied quietly. He pointed to another lorry with a red cross on the side. ‘That’s the medical orderlies
on Drome Duty. They’re handing out boxes of tablets to the crews to keep them awake on the return journey.’

Was Dotty part of that side of the operation? Daisy wondered. Funny to think of all the different things the girls were doing, it made you feel part of it all.

‘They stay in position until takeoff is completed.’ He turned to look at her. ‘You never know,’ he said, ‘could be a situation where every second counts. They go
back to Station Sick Quarters, then back here again when the planes are expected, to count them all in and take the injured to the SSQ.’ He pointed out the WAAFs lining the runway.
‘Every spare WAAF stands on the airstrip to cheer the boys as they leave. Not that they can hear them over the engines, but the boys say it means a lot to them.’

The lumbering planes, heavy with bombs, taxied and then stopped for a second before revving up and gathering speed for takeoff.

‘And you’ll always see the odd one standing by herself,’ Reg smiled, pointing again. She’ll be watching her special boy take off. Sometimes they’ll have a scarf, a
hankie or some other keepsake in their hands, and he’ll have something of hers, a silk stocking, a letter, anything that might bring him safely back home.’ He shrugged.
‘It’s just a superstition, as old as the ages, though they all think they’ve invented it. If you’ve left something behind then you have to return to reclaim it,
right?’

‘And if your special girl has given you a keepsake, you have to live to bring it back to her,’ Daisy nodded, and to her shock the thought that popped into her mind then was of Dotty
carrying something of Frank’s as a talisman, and the next thought was that for some stupid, inexplicable reason she felt hurt by that. She was still trying to banish the thought from her mind
when Reg took a break. There was a tap on her shoulder and a hand appeared.

‘Edith Turner,’ a solemn voice announced. ‘Shake hands.’

‘Yes,’ Daisy said, leaping up to hug her, ‘I thought the face looked familiar! Have we met before?’

‘Didn’t I see you at a party in London once with two Yanks?’ Edith joked.

‘I only had one, a strange, frightened rabbit of a girl had his chum, as I recall!’ Daisy laughed. ‘So, how was your leave?’

‘Oh, I dunno, Daisy,’ Edith said, sitting in Reg’s seat. ‘It’s all so strange. You spend all your time on duty thinking of the wonderful things you’ll do when
you see your family, you know?’

Daisy nodded wordlessly.

‘Then when you get there, well, you’re bored, somehow. It’s lovely to see them, of course, but after you’ve said hello you’re counting the days till you can get
away again. I feel bad about it, but there we are. My father told me off for saying damn, and I felt like walking out. Of my own home, mark you, where I’ve grown up and all that. I almost
called him an erk!’

‘You?’ Daisy laughed. ‘I don’t believe it!’

‘Yes, I know,’ Edith grinned wryly. ‘But I did think it could stand me in good stead later, when he’s trying to browbeat me again into becoming a doctor! Anyway, this
job’s a piece of cake once you get used to it, so don’t worry about it. If you feel tired it’s OK to wrap yourself in a blanket and have a doze,’ she suggested. ‘There
won’t be anything much to do till the boys are on the return leg. This is your first night-duty, it takes a while to get used to it.’

Daisy knew she had a lot to learn and was glad Edith had got here before her. It was always better to learn from a real friend.

‘When the mission’s finished, the first aircraft over the coast on the return journey will call in,’ Edith explained. ‘As it nears home it will come into local frequency
and we’ll land it under instructions from the Control Officer. Priority is always given to planes with wounded on board, and the fire and ambulance crews will be waiting for them as they
land.’

‘Does that happen often?’ Daisy asked. ‘Injured coming in, I mean.’