Some Lucky Day (3 page)

Kitty’s contained the usual washbag and make-up as well as her uniform skirt and clean underwear, but she also made sure she’d packed her cream silk evening dress, for there was nearly always a party to go to. This dress wasn’t as eye-catching as the ‘Gone with the Wind dress’ the American Dorothy Furey always packed, but it served its purpose and Kitty always felt very feminine when she wore it.

Kitty and Charlotte were now qualified to fly Classes one, two and three aircraft which included the trainers and communication planes as well as the Moths, Spitfires and the Hawker Hurricanes. No woman had yet been allowed to fly the massive four-engine bombers, but there were growing rumours that it would happen very soon, and there was keen competition between them all to be the first.

The shutters on the Ops room window were flung back and the women crowded round to collect their order chits for the day. Kitty glanced down at her chit and hurried over to join Charlotte, who was already heading for the nearby Anson taxi.

‘I’ve got to pick up a Spit from the factory airfield outside Castle Bromwich and ferry it to Peterborough before I pick up a Typhoon to take south to Wayfaring Down. That’s only a few miles from Cliffe, so if I can cadge a lift with someone I might even be able to see Freddy.’

‘Lucky you,’ Charlotte replied gloomily. ‘I’ve got to take a trainer to White Waltham, then a Moth over to Croydon for repairs before I can get my hands on a Hurricane which has to be delivered to Salisbury.’ She gave a deep sigh. ‘I won’t get back to base tonight, that’s for sure.’

‘Never mind,’ Kitty soothed. ‘We’ll catch up soon enough. Take care, Charlotte.’

‘And you, Kitty. Give my love to Freddy if you see him, and tell him I miss him.’

As they would be going in different air taxis, they hugged swiftly and went their separate ways. Kitty clambered into the broad belly of the Fairchild that would take her up to Castle Bromwich, and as soon as every seat was filled, they were taxiing down the runway and lifting into the clear skies. The forecast was good with no mention of the heavy cloud cover that had frequently kept them grounded over the past two years and was the enemy of all pilots, so the atmosphere was jolly despite the early hour.

The Spitfire factory’s output was three hundred and twenty machines a month, and because both the factory and its airfield were priority targets for the Luftwaffe, the planes were ferried away as soon as they left the production line. Kitty handed in her chit to the CO, and within minutes she was checking the Spitfire over before she climbed into the close-fitting cockpit and strapped herself in.

On the ground the Spitfire was nose heavy and would tip forward if the pilot braked harshly, but it was perfectly balanced in flight and Kitty loved it. From the cockpit she could see only the big, black, semicircular panel with the same six instruments as on any operational plane, a dome of sky around it, and a rear-view mirror. It was unarmed and without a radio to keep her in contact with anyone, but she felt comfortable and snug in what she regarded as the most perfect of machines, and she was eager to take off.

As the beautifully proportioned aircraft raced along the runway and lifted into the air at great speed, Kitty experienced the familiar surge of joy. There was nothing to compare with how it felt to fly a Spitfire. First there was the massive power of the Rolls-Royce Merlin engine that kicked her in the back when she released the brakes. Then came the lift generated by a wing with a slower stalling speed at its tips than closer to the fuselage. This meant that just before it fell out of the sky in a vertically banked turn, or on a misjudged final approach, a Spitfire would give a shudder as a uniquely generous final warning which saved many lives.

Kitty barely had to touch the joystick that pivoted from a fulcrum on the floor to adjust the height and begin the turn towards Peterborough, and she was reminded once again of the old cliché that you didn’t fly a Spitfire at all, you wore it.

As the powerful engines throbbed and the sun glinted on the aluminium wings, Kitty felt at her happiest. To be flying on a clear May morning above the patchwork quilt of English fields was utter bliss, and she revelled in the solitude as she followed rivers and railway lines and concentrated on the gauges and the weather. The newspapers might be full of praise for the brave women of the ATA, but Kitty shared the same selfish delight as all the other women pilots and didn’t think of herself as heroic at all – just extremely lucky to be doing what she loved best, even though the death toll in the ranks was rising every month.

As she kept an eye on her instruments and checked beneath her for the landmarks that would lead her to Peterborough, her thoughts turned to her brother. Freddy was five years older, and in her and Charlotte’s opinion he was the handsomest, most dashing Spitfire pilot the RAF had ever had.

Kitty had adored him for as long as she could remember, and as soon as she had learned to walk, she’d trotted around behind him and tried to join in his boyish games. He’d never really been cross or impatient with her, and as she learned to ride and play polo and conquered her fear of the powerful motorbikes he and his friends rode about on, he even started to admire her in a grudging, brotherly sort of way.

Kitty’s passion for speed had begun when her father’s wealthy Argentinian employer had insisted upon every child on the stud learning to drive, so that if there was an emergency someone could go for help, no matter how young. Kitty had been six years old when she’d first taken the wheel, propped on cushions and sitting on the very edge of the seat so she could reach the pedals. It had also been Señor Fernandez who’d encouraged Freddy and his own son to learn to fly the Gypsy Moth which he’d bought so he could travel the vast distances quickly and conduct his business far from the stud. The moment Kitty had seen him take off in that little Moth she’d known this was something she’d been born to do.

Señor Fernandez and her parents were not at all keen on the idea, but Kitty was determined to show them that girls of fourteen were just as capable of flying as boys of nineteen, and used a mild form of blackmail to convince the boys she wouldn’t tell their fathers what she’d seen them doing with those girls in the hay barn if they taught her how to fly the Moth.

Kitty smiled as she checked her altitude and followed the long, straight railway line beneath her. It had taken almost two years of subterfuge, but in the long school holiday of 1937, and much to her father’s surprised delight, sixteen-year-old Kitty was awarded her pilot’s licence. Not wanting to be left grounded, Charlotte had wheedled flying lessons out of her indulgent and very rich father, who was inordinately proud of his tomboy daughter, and she got her licence a few months later.

Kitty had no such financial back-up and realised that any flying she wanted to do in England could not be paid for from the allowance her parents were able to provide. Having cajoled Charlotte’s father to put in a good word to the headmistress so they got permission to leave school after lessons and on Sundays, she managed to persuade the owners of the small airfield nearby to let her give evening classes in navigation to novice pilots in exchange for three hours of flying every Sunday.

Kitty gave a deep sigh of pleasure as the Merlin engines rumbled reassuringly and the sun continued to shine from a clear sky. Those weekends had lightened up their lives and they’d hurried away from school on their bicycles, log books firmly tucked in the baskets, and not returned until the sun was sinking over the Channel. When Charlotte finally qualified, her doting father bought her a de Havilland Dragonfly and the girls shared this wonderful machine, rapidly building up their air miles in their log books.

It was during those halcyon days before the war that they learned to fly purely on their instruments, which was something the new recruits of the ATA were not taught. No one really knew the reason, but they assumed it was to deter the more daring pilots against flying in thick cloud or going above it. But Kitty and Charlotte were immensely grateful for their lessons from a retired pilot at Shoreham, for they had saved their bacon more than once when they’d been caught by a sudden bank of cloud and had to fly blind.

Her landing at Peterborough was smooth and uneventful, and she climbed stiffly out of the Spitfire, overnight bag in hand, parachute and harness slung over her shoulder. She was chilled to the bone despite the thick leather jacket and boots, and desperate for a hot cup of tea and something to eat, so she quickly made her way to the office with her chit and log book, made her report, and then found the canteen.

Having eaten a large plate of what purported to be boiled mutton, onions and potato, she washed it all down with an enormous mug of tea and lit a cigarette. There was a fair amount of chatter going on in the canteen and she spent a short time catching up on the gossip with a couple of girls she knew from the ATA headquarters at White Waltham before she gathered up her belongings and headed back out to the runway.

It was still early afternoon, and now the days were longer, there would be plenty of time to ferry the Typhoon south to Wayfaring Down. As long as she didn’t have to take another aircraft somewhere else, she might indeed get the chance to cadge a lift to Cliffe to see Freddy. This detour would probably mean having to catch the night train all the way to Hampshire and the Hamble Pool if she was to get back in time for duty the following day, but she could sleep on the train and any inconvenience would be worth it if she spent some time with him – if he wasn’t on ops, of course, which unfortunately was quite likely.

The Typhoon or ‘Tiffy’, as it was affectionately called, was a small, single prop interceptor with a 2,000 horsepower Rolls-Royce Vulture engine and a top speed of 400 miles per hour at maximum boost, making it one of the RAF’s fastest piston-powered aircraft, capable of catching the Luftwaffe’s Focke-Wulf 190. But the gull-shaped wings caused a drag which hampered its speed when in a dive or sharp turn, and most pilots had found it quite tricky to fly.

Kitty climbed into the single cockpit, buckled herself into the seat and closed the canopy. Within minutes she was roaring down the runway and soaring into the clear blue sky. There was no sign of the drizzle and low cloud that were forecast further south, and she hoped it would clear by the time she got closer to Wayfaring Down.

Flying the Typhoon was very nearly as exciting as being in a Spitfire, and with the sun shining and their shadow falling on the fields and villages beneath, it was a very pleasant way to spend an afternoon.

Kitty had been flying for about twenty minutes when there was suddenly an enormous surge of power and the airspeed indicator shot up to 400 mph. Her stomach clenched and fear made her heart thud, for she knew she couldn’t lower her landing gear at this rate and that she’d arrive at Wayfaring Down in less than five minutes, with absolutely no hope of surviving a landing.

She tried to throttle back and cut the boost setting, but they were stuck at maximum and wouldn’t budge.

The sweat was stinging her eyes behind her goggles and her breathing was shallow as she forced herself to keep calm, turning the Tiffy into a wide climbing circle in an attempt to lose speed. It didn’t work, for when she began to descend again the speed shot back up to 400 mph.

She could now see Wayfaring Down and the distant coastline with its sprawl of towns and villages, and knew she couldn’t bale out and risk killing not only herself but the people living down below. She hurtled over the airfield at full power and within minutes was approaching the smaller and more remote Cliffe, desperately looking for somewhere she might be able to land without causing too much damage.

Cliffe’s crash wagon was already racing across the grass as she put the plane into another long turn over the airport buildings, opened the canopy and cut the engine and fuel supply. She was rapidly losing height but still travelling at almost maximum speed in an aircraft designed to land at 100 mph, so she unbuckled her seat belt and put the plane into a series of floundering rises and falls in a last-ditch attempt to slow it down as she made her final approach.

The runway was a blur beneath her as she shot low across the airfield buildings and headed straight for a church spire. Pulling with all her strength on the joystick, she managed to miss it by inches, and then she was going full tilt across fields of stampeding, terrified cows.

She wrestled to keep the plane on an even keel, but the nose was too low and the propeller caught the soft mud and sent her spinning towards two huge oak trees. Her survival instinct kicked in and she scrambled frantically out of the cockpit, fell awkwardly for several feet, and landed with a bone-jarring thud into the mud.

Disorientated, and almost paralysed with fear, she lay there winded and numb with shock as she watched a section of the wing being ripped off by the low branch of one of the oak trees.

But the Typhoon was still travelling at speed and it bounced over a ditch and into a small copse of trees, scattering branches and leaves like confetti and trampling everything in its path until it came to rest with an almighty crash against the trunk of another great oak.

Kitty dragged off her helmet and goggles and waited to see if the Typhoon would burst into flames despite her having shut off the fuel line. But it sat there like a wounded metal beast, the engine ticking as it cooled. Her legs were trembling so badly she could barely stand, and her fingers were clumsy as she unfastened the parachute harness and let it drop to the ground. Taking long, deep breaths to regain some vestige of calm, she staggered across the muddy field past the bewildered and skittish cows towards what remained of her Typhoon.

It had lost both wings, the propeller and its tail, the canopy was shattered, and the fuselage had been battered to the point where she doubted it could ever be fixed again. Leaning into the cockpit, she retrieved her overnight bag then went to sit on a distant log to smoke a well-earned cigarette before she began the long walk back across the fields to Cliffe airfield.

It’s a good thing I don’t mind cows
, she thought wryly as they slowly came to inspect her with bovine curiosity.
But I do wish they wouldn’t try and lick me
. ‘Go away,’ she said firmly as she dodged the long black tongue and unpleasantly wet nose.