Enduring Passions (21 page)

Lord Rossiter laid a hand gently on her head. ‘Give me the details then, but I can’t do anything about the actual interview –
that
he’ll have to pass on his own merit.’

Fay said, ‘Of course.’

The remaining days were hectic as she visited relatives and friends. Her large travelling trunk that opened into drawers on one side and a hanging space on the other, was carefully loaded on to a Union Castle lorry under the supervision of Wilson.

Her mother was conspicuous by her absence most of the time, though she had begrudgingly accepted another heartfelt apology from a tearful Fay.

On the last night, as they sat in the drawing-room Fay finally plucked up courage to ask, ‘Will you come to Southampton to see me off?’

Her mother paused, on the point of bringing a glass of sherry to her lips, and said quietly, ‘Is your husband going to be there?’

Fay nodded.

‘In that case I think it would be better if we said goodbye here.’

And that was that. On the morning of her departure Simpson, with further cases aboard, brought the Rolls around to the front door. They all stood in the hall.

Her father handed her several letters and a packet.

‘That last one is for Aunt Blanche in Singapore. She knows she’s not seeing you until you’re on the way back. There’s no rush – it’s just a few photographs and a couple of mementoes that belonged to my brother. She left them here when she was last visiting us.’

Fay knew that Uncle Robert had died in the Great War and his widow, Aunt Blanche, had married again, only to become a widow for a second time when her planter husband had died of malaria. There had been no children from either union.

She reached up and kissed his cheek, tasting a trace of shaving soap.

He whispered, ‘I’ve had a word. His application will be highlighted.’

She gave him a hug and whispered back, ‘Thank you.’

Fay faced her mother. Lady Rossiter spoke first.

‘Have a good journey and my fondest regards to all those on the list I gave you.’

She leant forward to be kissed on the cheek, but there was no great warmth.

Lord Rossiter watched as his wife and daughter went through the motions of saying farewell, and felt a great sadness. He had a feeling that this family feud between the two women in his life was set to last for a very long time – if not for ever.

Fay reached the terminal at two o’clock. In the great crush of people and the confusion she looked around. There was no sign of him. Her luggage was delivered to the receiving officer whose men took it away.

‘Well Miss Fay, if that’s all I can do for you?’ Simpson was obviously eager to get away.

‘Yes, that’s fine, thank you.’

She held out her hand, he hastily removed his driving glove and shook it, as he also touched the peak of his cap with his other hand.

‘All the best, miss.’

When he’d gone, she checked her tickets again and watched as the throng milling around the white picket fence that marked the start of the embarkation point, began to dwindle, the crowd spreading down the quayside to stand, looking up at the great white wall that was the side of the ship – the
RMMV
Warwick Castle
. People were already lining the rails of several levels of decking, and the odd streamer floated down. Near her a woman in a fox-fur tried to call up to someone, as a ceremonial
military
band started playing light music. Just as Fay began to worry that he had been held up, or something worse, she saw a figure running at full
tilt from the train station entrance. It was
him
.

Shouting ‘Tom,’ she ran towards him. When he reached her he lifted her up in the air and whirled her around and around, her legs bent, before lightly setting her back on the ground, still keeping his arms around her.

‘Oh Tom, I thought something had happened to you.’

He shook his head as he tried to get his breath back. ‘Derailment somewhere held us up – so sorry.’

She put her hands behind his head, brought his face down and kissed him, long and passionately, uncaring whether or not it was seemly. When she let him go, she murmured, ‘You made it – that’s all that matters.’

With their arms wrapped around each other they walked slowly to the embarkation desk, stopping short of it.

‘Oh God, I’m going to miss you.’

He felt his throat constricting.

Tears started to stream down her face.

‘Tom, I’m not going. I can’t leave you.’

He drew her tightly into him, held on, one hand gently stroking her hair.

It took some time before he could manage it.

‘Darling, you
must
. It will soon pass, then we can be back together. I’ll never let you get away from me again. That’s a promise.’

He felt her nod, then whisper, ‘Have you got a handkerchief?’

He found his and gave it to her. She gave a large blow.

‘Sorry. Oh, Tom, I’m so miserable.’

He tried again.

‘Fay, if I get accepted by the RAF, I’ll be very busy over the next few months – I wouldn’t be able to get away. It’s perfect, we get both our careers going, then we’ll never be parted for longer than a couple of weeks. What do you say?’

‘Right.’

She seemed to find an inner strength. She straightened up as voices carried from the ship.

‘All ashore who are going ashore.’

One of the officers on duty at the desk called across to them, ‘The gate is closing. Final call for all passengers travelling on the
RMMV
Warwick
Castle
to Cape Town.’

They looked long and searchingly at each other, then he cupped her face in his hands and gave her a gentle, loving kiss.

‘Goodbye, darling. I’ll write to you every week.’

Fay nodded. ‘You’ve got all the addresses – keep them safe and I’ll do the same, I promise.’

Hoarsely, he managed, ‘I love you.’

She smiled weakly. ‘But I love you more.’

The officer called out again. ‘Gate now closing.’

She turned and ran.

From a few yards he watched as they processed her ticket. Another officer took her by the arm and rushed her to the canvas enclosed gang plank. She turned, pulling her arm free and blew a kiss, which he returned, then she was gently ushered out of sight.

He stayed on the quayside, pushing through the crowds, looking up at the rows of faces and waving arms. The streamers now formed a mass of paper lines joining the ship to the shore. The band, in red jackets with white blancoed belts and white pith helmets was going through a
selection
of sea shanties, ending with ‘Rule Britannia’.

The gangway was swung aside. Tugs started hooting in the Solent. The
Warwick
’s deep siren on its funnel blew long and hard. Hawsers were released, splashing into the water. Imperceptibly at first, and then, agonizingly slowly the white hull started to pull away, the gap of water inching wider.

Straining, he could see no sign of Fay – it was impossible.

The band paused and it was at that point that, incredibly he heard, ‘Tom, Tom, over here.’

He had no idea where to look, except the voice seemed lower down – then he saw her at a porthole.

He waved furiously and yelled back, ‘Fay, I love you.’

It was the last she heard of his voice, as the band struck up, ‘Now is the Hour’.

They kept waving as the liner pulled steadily away, until Fay became just a tiny dot. He kept his eyes relentlessly on her, knowing that is he looked away he might never be able to identify her again amongst all the others.

In deeper water the
Warwick’
s propellers began to stir the Solent into a white leaping foam. Her siren blasted out, the tugs stood off and she began to move forward under her own power. In no time at all, the
Warwick Castle’
s hull was foreshortening as she turned for the open sea. Tom had lost Fay by then, and as the dark cloud of diesel exhaust from the ship’s funnel wafted over the quay, it started emptying of people,
until only he was left, and a couple of dock workers. He watched as the ship slowly receded, became first a dark blob, then lost in its own haze.

He still stayed as the paper streamers blew aimlessly about his feet. He couldn’t have moved even if he had wanted to: he seemed to have gone into shock.

It was some time before he realized that the
Warwick Castle
was nowhere in sight, and that the tears that had streamed silently down his face had dried in the freshening wind.

For both of them, the following months changed their lives for ever. At about the time Fay nervously walked on stage in Cape Town, to polite applause, and then seated herself at the piano, followed by the warm reception for Sir Trevor Keynes, Tom, with bated breath, was holding a letter marked ‘Air Ministry’. When he opened it, he read that, in reply to his communication and application form he was required to attend a selection board for the next E&RFTS course. This selection process could, if he was successful, lead to entry into the General Duties Branch of the Royal Air Force.

By the time she was at sea again on the
RMS
Chitral
, heading for Australia, he was waiting nervously in his only suit, freshly pressed by Mrs Chick, at Adastral House in the Kingsway. The first question was fired at him before he’d hardly sat down. It came from the central panel member of three serious looking men in Savile Row suits, ‘Why do you want to join the Royal Air Force?’ Until the last question, he had no time to think anything through. In the sudden silence, after fifteen minutes of intensive questioning the chairman’s fountain pen scratched as he signed something, then blotted it and handed a blue slip to Tom.

‘Take this to the commissionaire, he will tell you what to do.’

He thanked them, then managed, to his mortification, to trip over his chair as he got up to leave. He closed the door behind him and let out a gasp. It did not appear to comfort the young men sitting in a line of chairs to his right, each waiting his turn.

In the lobby, the commissionaire took his slip and then referred to another book.

‘Can you go straight to the medical board now, sir?’

Tom looked at him blankly. ‘Medical? I didn’t know I was going to
have a medical?’

The commissionaire grinned and tapped the blue chitty.

‘You’ve passed, sir, that’s why.’

Five days later a letter arrived telling him he had been assigned to No. 7 Elementary and Reserve Flying Training School at Desford, Leicestershire, for
ab initio
training, and to attend not later than noon on the day assigned.

From the stern of the ship, Fay watched as the great red ball of the sun slipped through gathering purple clouds into the warm tropical ocean.

Under that sun Tom would still be having his day. She wondered what he was doing right then. Was he flying?

Fay leaned on the wooden handrail. He must have heard by now whether he had been accepted? The last letter she had received in South Africa had told her he was going for an interview. She pushed some hair, that had been ruffled by a warm sea breeze, out of her eye, and wondered if her father had indeed helped to expedite matters. She had, so far, only received two letters from her parents, both in her father’s beautiful Victorian script, telling her about happenings at home. Jeremy it seems had applied to the army and was waiting to go to Sandhurst. A lot of her other male friends were also applying for the forces. Some were even talking of going to Cranwell – the Royal Air Force College. It troubled her to think that one of them could end up being Tom’s superior officer.

In Melbourne, where they would dock in a few day’s time, they were scheduled to stay for nearly two months. She would surely find several letters waiting for her, sent via the Air Mail service run by the Imperial Airways flying boats.

The little, warm breeze played around her exposed shoulders; she drew the stole that matched her evening dress a little higher. She was about to attend a pre-dinner cocktail party at the invitation of the captain and his officers. Fay walked across the deck to the double doors that led into the first class saloon. These were guarded by two ratings who saluted her and opened the doors. Inside was an elegant scene of ladies in the latest evening dresses, some even with the occasional white fur wrap around their shouldes despite the heat. There was a dazzling array of jewels around necks and pinned to breasts. Most of the men were in black dinner jackets, but several had on creamy white tropical ones; none of these were a match for the tropical uniforms, though, worn by some of
the dashing young officers, their brass buttons gleaming in the overhead light.

But Fay could only think of her husband. Would Tom be wearing the blue of the Royal Air Force by the time she got back?

Tom passed out of the
ab initio
without a serious hitch and was accepted into the RAF as an acting sergeant pilot, and posted to RAF Cardington in Bedfordshire for basic training.

As Fay reached Brisbane, enjoying the lovely warm weather, he was issued with his course serge uniform, and in the pouring rain, taught to march, arms swinging up to the level of the waist, an NCO shouting at him and all the other new arrivals every waking moment. There followed two weeks of square bashing, arms drill, lectures and a visit to the doctors for inoculations.

Then came the news of where they were going for their intermediate and advanced flight training – Little Rissington in the Cotswolds, so close to Cirencester and Cheltenham.

He was now flying the North American Harvard, and the pressure was suddenly enormous. The heavy monoplane with retracting undercarriage had a fearsome reputation for being very unforgiving. Towards the end of the month he had soloed and was doing aerobatics. The news from the outside world had an awful inevitability about it. Germany and the USSR signed a non-aggression pact and later Hitler guaranteed the neutrality of Belgium, Luxembourg and Denmark. But for Tom, working at night on his books, and all day, everyday, walking out to the line of aircraft, flying from dawn to dusk, there was no time to pay much attention to anything – except to write to Fay.

He finished the latest letter just before lights out. In the dark he turned on his side, found her photograph, and kissed her goodnight as he had done every night since they had parted.

Fay got back to her hotel bedroom after the performance, showered, and put on her robe. After attending to her hair she sat at her dressing-table and started to pen her latest letter to him. Tomorrow they were off to Auckland, the furthest point of the tour. Three weeks there, and they would start the return journey. After that, despite stops for recording and radio dates in Australia, and a short stay in Singapore, every day would bring her nearer to him.

When she’d finished the letter and had sealed it down, Fay took up the
photograph she had propped up against the mirror and gazed longingly at Tom.

In bed, after kissing him she put the photograph under her pillow.

On 1 September flying went on as usual despite the momentous news at reveille that German troops had crossed into Poland at 04.45 hours, and by 09.00 England and France had issued an ultimatum for their
withdrawal
.

Walking out to the aircraft his instructor said, ‘All civil flying has been banned, and when we get back the aircraft are to be dispersed around the perimeter.’

But Tom was lost in his own thoughts. How would all this affect Fay? Was she safer where she was?

Two days later, they were all gathered around a wireless in an ante room as the Prime Minister, in a defeated voice, ended his announcement with the words, ‘and consequently, this country is at war with Germany.’