London Dawn (52 page)

“I ask again, do you have any trade for us?”

“We have nothing, Squadron Leader.”

“It’s raining cats and dogs. Permission to stand down.”

“Permission granted. Stand down, Squadron Leader. There’s nothing happening in any of the sectors.”

“Right, you all heard that,” Ben said over the R/T. “I’ll meet you lot in the Officers’ Mess.”

“The Germans aren’t coming, are they, sir?” asked Matt.

“It looks not. We have, I thank God, a change in the weather.”

The bombers did not come the next day. Or the day after. Or the day after that. During the daylight hours they never came again.

11

December 24, 1940

Ashton Park

My dearest Terry,

There you are on the
Mighty Hood
bobbing about, and here I am rooted to the spot. Well, not actually rooted, I do move around a bit. We have all gone up to Ashton Park for Christmas to be with Lady Grace and Mum and the children. I have squirreled myself away in the Nelson Room because it makes me feel closer to you. The rest of the household is asleep after a rather rambunctious evening—you remember how lively our Christmas Eves can be.

The air war that was filling our skies all summer and fall appears to be gone forever. The Blitz is still on—it was a very blitzy few days before Christmas—but all the dogfights and attacks on the airfields and the daylight raids on London are nothing but memories. Of course the night bombing is bad enough, but thank goodness we’ve weathered the storm the
Luftwaffe
sent our way for so many months.

I had hoped to see Jane here, but she is just finishing up her flight training and couldn’t get away. She expects to start ferrying aircraft in January. The last time we got together I
thought she was doing rather well, but she admits to having her midnight days, as she calls them. Poor thing, she has lost a great deal of weight, far too much really. Please pray for her.

Robbie is posted to Africa immediately after Christmas, and so is Skitt, who is now a corporal in Robbie’s regiment. Patricia will stay here at Ashton Park with Mum. Skitt’s little boy, Paul, is already here with Montgomery, so that’s taken care of. But tears all around as more of our lads head off to fight this awful war that was forced upon us.

Owen was supposed to join his father on
Rodney
, but once they realized his father was an officer on the ship they transferred him to HMS
Prince of Wales
—a ship that hasn’t even been finished up yet and that is sitting in the docks at Birkenhead. He’s still sulking but bearing up well and writes Charlotte that he is a Leading Seaman now, a nice little promotion for him.

As for Edward, his letters are few and far between to Charlotte, but she reports he is getting along though chafing at the bit for some action. He’s hoping the
Bismarck
and
Prinz Eugen
will try to break out to the Atlantic and that he’ll be the one to bar their passage. I suppose you and everyone else on the
Hood
feel the same way.

I should tell you Kipp’s other cast is due to come off in the new year and no one is looking forward to that, least of all Mum and Dad and Caroline. You know he has this thing about hunting down Wolfgang von Zeltner. He holds him responsible for the deaths of the twins. Of course he’ll have to get the strength in his arms up to snuff, and he’ll need to take a refresher on the new Spitfires, but you and I both know none of that will hold Kipp back for long. The whole thing is rather a cause for concern. When Sean was on leave earlier in the month he said Kipp reminded him of Captain Ahab after the great whale.

I’m getting sleepy, so I’ll put my pen down for now and get this in the post first thing after the holidays. All our
boys in the squadrons are fine, including Sean at Pickering Green and Ben, Ramsay, and Matt at King’s Cross. If I’ve got it right, Billy is posted to the new RAF base at Hunters Down, which is an odd coincidence because I’m sure Jane told me that her first task would be to help get a lot of Spits to the base in January and February. I gather it’s not quite operational yet. Well, it will do her good to see a familiar face.

I’m positively knackered. I love you with all my heart.

Your Libby

December 27, 1940

HMS
Hood,
the North Atlantic

Dear Lib,

I haven’t heard from you since Henry VIII was on the throne. That’s how it feels. Mail takes so long to reach us. And I hardly know what to write if I don’t have anything from you or Jane to write back to. The censors chop up every letter that mentions our whereabouts or what we’re doing, so what is there to say? Mind you, I don’t think they care if the Germans know we had a splendid Christmas dinner, so I can tell you about that. I expect it wasn’t as lavish as what you had in London or Ashton Park, but it certainly cheered up the crew. A little bit of action in forty-one would go a long way to putting some zest back in the lads.

Hope and pray all is well. Miss you terribly. I so wish I could take you in my arms again and disappear to that little beachside cottage you ferreted me away to years ago. Plenty of time once there’s peace and Hitler’s in the grave.

All my love,

Terry

January 2, 1941

Camden Lock, London

My Terry,

I expect you will have heard about the firebombing on the night of December 29. I’m so sorry I couldn’t get a letter off to you sooner than this, but we are as well as can be expected. You needn’t fret any longer. Jane was far from London and out of harm’s way, so please don’t lose any more sleep over her or me.

Oh, but it was horrid—it was diabolical. The city was a great Guy Fawkes bonfire from one end to the other. Heaven knows how many people were killed. And the tide of the Thames was at its lowest, so it was harder for the fire crews to pump water onto the blazes. Of course the Nazis would have planned for that.

St. Andrew’s Cross is gone. Completely gutted. It was a Sunday, and we had all gathered at the vicarage for a family meal and prayers and then a service at the church. The incendiaries began to fall, and we simply could not put them all out. Jeremy got badly burned in the attempt, and he’s laid up now. Dad told me sixteen or seventeen churches or more were burned to the ground. St. Paul’s Cathedral would have been one of them, but they managed to beat back the flames. You must have seen the photograph the Daily Mail reporter took of St. Paul’s dome surrounded by fire and smoke.

The entire neighborhood was devastated. What a shocking night. Like some sort of visit to hell, a visit no one wanted to make. The only thing we were able to do was keep the fire from spreading to the vicarage. But now there is no church for the vicarage to be part of. I am not sure what Jeremy and the Church of England will do about all this. It’s a proper mess.

I can relate one bright spot to you, and then I must get this in the mail. Eva is with the ARP, as you know, and
so is Charles. They helped fight a fire and evacuate an entire neighborhood the flames were threatening. Indeed the whole area went up like a torch for blocks and blocks. Some of the firefighters working alongside the ARP were killed. How Eva and Charles came through with only a few cuts and burns is beyond me. I can only use the word miracle—what other word would suit? They helped get about three hundred people out, and here’s the thing. Long after other ARP volunteers and fire crews had retired, the pair of them remained in the area, saving as many as they could at great danger to themselves. It’s quite marvelous really. Dad tells me they are going to get some sort of special medal for what they did. The other astonishing bit is Kipp went looking for Charles and Eva, he was frantic, and he helped them with the last row of houses. Then he hurried them out to safety along with the rest of the evacuees. Eva says Charles embraced Kipp, and there were tears on Charles’s face. Who would have thought it possible after all Charles’s antagonism and the dark mood he was in since Lord Tanner was shot and killed? But Caroline has been praying like a nun for all her children, Matt and Charles in particular. That such a grace should emerge from such a hell can only be the touch of God.

Must post this note so you know all is well.

My love and prayers,

Your Libby

February 4, 1941

HMS
Hood,
the North Atlantic

Dearest Libby,

I thanked God when I got your letter—literally dropped to my knees in my cabin. We had read all about the firestorm the German bombers unleashed, but none of us with London family knew how things stood with wives and children
and sweethearts. So on the one hand, I slept like a baby after I heard from you. On the other hand, I woke with a burning anger to put paid to Adolf Hitler and all his Nazi war machines. If we come to blows with
Bismarck
five minutes after I sign this note, it couldn’t be soon enough for me or any of us on board the ship.

I love you.

Terry

Friday, February 14, 1941

RAF Hunters Down, Hampshire

“Hullo. I think you’ve brought me my very own plane.”

Jane had been pulling off her leather flight helmet and gloves as she walked across the grass airstrip. She turned at the sound of the voice. “What’s that?”

“I say, you’ve finally brought my Spit to me and it looks marvelous. Bless you, Flight Sergeant.” Billy Sweet bowed. “It’s always an occasion when the Women’s Auxiliary Air Force drops in from the heavens.”

Jane laughed and then bit her lip. “Oh, Billy, you’re such a card. It’s so nice to see you. I had no idea you were at Hunters Down.” She hugged him briefly and patted him on the back. “You look so much like Peter with your ginger hair and sound so much like James when you talk. It’s bittersweet, isn’t it?”

“I’m sorry, Jane.”

“What do you have to be sorry about? It’s marvelous that you look like your brothers. It just gives me a bit of a sting, that’s all.”

He didn’t reply.

Awkwardly, feeling out of place with Billy at the airfield, she tried to be playful. “When did you lose your freckles?”

“Flight training. My first solo chased them right off my face.”

She laughed again.

He noticed the rings on her fingers. She followed his eyes.

“I’ll never take them off,” she said. “Not for anyone.”

“I didn’t know you’d been given a proper diamond.”

“It was from James. I’d agreed to marry him.”

“Did Peter know?”

“He was to be best man. But no, he never knew.”

Billy put his hands in his pockets and looked over his shoulder at the windsock. “How are you getting back then?”

“There will be a vehicle in the morning.”

“Look here. Why don’t you drop your gear in the room they’ve assigned you and let me take you out for a plate of fish and chips in the village? The pub food is very good.”

“I’m all in, actually. I was up at the crack of dawn.”

“You have to eat, Jane. Or at least the Jane I knew had to eat.”

“I’ll eat something after I wake up in the morning. Promise.”

“Come on, Jane. I haven’t seen you in months. Let me treat you. Isn’t that what the Sweet brothers are supposed to do?”

“Two of them were.”

“Well, now here’s the third. You don’t have to marry him but you jolly well can’t turn your back on him.”

“I can, you know.”

“Let me get you a nice cup of tea and a hot plate of fish and chips. While you eat I can tell you what a spectacular pilot Billy Sweet is and how he far outshines anyone living today.”

She put her hand to her mouth. “I shouldn’t be laughing. Why am I laughing?”

“That’s the Sweet way.”

“It is, isn’t it? Next you’ll be telling me you have some note from your brothers that you’re to take care of me if something happens to both of them.”

“I do have that note.”

“I’d like to see it.” She pinched him on the cheek. “No more Sweets in my life. You’re much too young, it’s far too soon for me, and in any case, I’d much prefer it if we remained second or third cousins, or whatever we are, and good friends. All right?”

“I’m almost twenty-one.”

“And I’m almost twenty-four. I’ll have fish and chips with you in the village if you agree to my terms. Otherwise it’s time for my nap.”

Billy made a face. “I really am supposed to take care of you.”

“Well, you can by feeding me. That’s all I need, that’s all I want. And I won’t take anything more than that from you. I mean it, Billy. You’re the
brother that stays the friend, charming as you are and dashing as you look. Four other WAAFs flew in with me. Chat them up. Think of me as your big sister.”

“But you’re not. And it’s Valentine’s Day.”

“As far as you and I are concerned, there’s no such thing as Valentine’s Day. Now, will you walk me into the village on those terms or do I find a pillow where I can lay my head?”

“I won’t walk you there,” he replied.

“You won’t?”