Spitfire Girl (10 page)

I nodded ineloquently. Gosh! Scotland was a long way away.

‘Go and see the Adjutant. She will soon put you right about pay and things. By the way,’ she added parenthetically, ‘our uniform allowance hasn’t yet been confirmed. Can you afford to buy one? You’ll get the cash back later.’

‘Yes... Pauline,’ I answered, thankful for my foresight in requesting funds from South Africa.

‘Good. Get one as soon as possible... Good luck. Pop in any time.’

I went to the crew-room to find the colleague who was to give me a brief refresher flight on the Tiger Moth. There were four or five women lounging on chairs and tables. One was laughing uproariously as I entered. I looked at her dumbfounded as I recognized the face that had inspired me during my brief flying career and had flitted on the world’s headlines for a decade. Idiotically I rushed to her and gushed: ‘Miss Johnson, may I have your autograph?’ She stared at me, astonished. There was a painful silence. Oh God, I wished the floor would open up and devour me. How could I have behaved so inanely. Suddenly she grinned: ‘My dear child. I’ll swap it for yours.’

Extreme youth, ignorance of what is and what is not
done in England and lack of sophisticated veneer did little to endear me to those members of the A.T.A. who still regarded it in its early days as an exclusive flying club. Though I was not entirely plebeian, my habit of considering myself firmly attached to the bottom of the social scale or class or whatever euphemism is used to describe the ugly, slippery ladder that plagues social intercourse in Britain, irritated some of the pilots beyond measure and invariably brought an expression to their faces, whenever I entered the crew-room, that suggested mice had taken temporary residence beneath their noses.

Because of this the first professional flight of my career was spectacularly successful, though perhaps an unfortunate one.

The four Tiger Moth aircraft were to be collected from a factory aerodrome near Cowley and delivered to Lossiemouth, Scotland. In those pioneering days maps were scarce, frequently we navigated with the assistance of pages torn from school albums and geographical magazines, and it was decided that the one available complete set of maps should be given to the most experienced pilot who would lead the formation, the remainder following in Indian file fashion. The leader selected was, to my dismay, also the leader of the snob group and a skilled exponent of the glassy stare. Consequently I was far too intimidated to ask questions and took off from Cowley totally ignorant of the route and where we were to land for refuelling.

With eyes glued to the formation, already callously heading for the North, I made a horrifying take-off and clawed anxiously for height like a duckling paddling furiously after its mother. With engine at full blast I caught them up and shot past the leader as I tried, too late, to reduce speed. She glanced at me disdainfully as I sailed by. ‘Sorry’ I mimed apologetically and eventually settled down at the tail of the formation, content to be out of sight of the others. Obediently I followed them through the thick industrial haze over the Midlands, landed when they landed and faithfully mirrored their every manœuvre. It was a day of low cloud, racing scud and heavy showers that irresistibly forced us lower as we flew steadily northwards. By the time we had crossed where I imagined the Scottish border to be I, being lower than the other three aircraft in order to avoid their slipstream, was blithely skimming over heather and gorse, confident that the leader’s prowess would get us through. Gradually, as visibility decreased in the driving rain, the leader vanished, then number two, until finally I intently followed the dim silhouette of number three who, I hoped, was following number two, etcetera. For an uncomfortable moment I lost her too, but an unexpected lifting of the clouds, like the curtain of a theatre, revealed the three aircraft landing at an airfield. Hastily I landed after them and, stiff with cold and blissfully anticipating a hot mug of tea, taxied to the parking ramp.

I had just cleared the landing area when to my astonishment the three Tiger Moths loomed out of the mist and took off again as though pursued by satyrs. Must be the wrong aerodrome I decided with a chuckle, pleased that the leader had made such a gaffe. Swinging round violently and with safety straps undone I scrambled after them.

Resuming my position at the tail of the formation I glanced up at the needle-type petrol gauge perched on the upper wing. The little red-painted float nestled comfortably at the bottom of the glass stem. I opened up and signalled frantically that I was dangerously low on petrol. The leader gave me a startled look and veered away violently as though my aircraft showed symptoms of a contagious disease. Determinedly I stuck to her as she twisted and turned trying to be rid of me. At last, when it occurred to me that this was taking social distinction too far, she slackened speed, dropped her nose and pointed peremptorily to an airfield that had appeared out of the mist and which I correctly assumed to be Lossiemouth. Ignoring protocol and dispensing with the conventional circuit of the field, I landed down wind, wondering why a pilot of her experience should cut things so fine. I switched off and preparing an apology for having landed first walked over to the leader as she climbed out of her machine.

‘Sorry, I was nearly out of petrol...’

‘And who the bloody hell are you?’ asked a wrathful, heavily moustached visage emerging from the helmet.

I pulled off my helmet.

‘Good God. It’s a woman!’

Over steaming mugs of tea the mystery was solved. My A.T.A. colleagues had remained at the previous refuelling halt and I had inadvertently joined an R.A.F. formation. It was entirely fortuitous that they also were bound for Lossiemouth.

The next day I returned by train to Hatfield. My erstwhile colleagues, stranded by bad weather, returned a week later.

After a month of more orthodox delivery flights the day arrived when I had arranged to collect my uniform from Moss Brothers, purveyors of uniforms on credit to impecunious officers. In the svelte luxury of their show-rooms I tried it on. It was magnificent.

‘I’ll keep it on,’ I remarked, admiring myself in the mirror. Navy blue, severely cut, black buttons, a crisp gold stripe on each epaulette, rich gold-embroidered wings on the left breast and an absurd little forage cap that seemed to transform my face. Quite suddenly I realized that I was not bad looking. The nice little thing from Pretoria looked as cute as a button. Twinkling with this remarkable discovery I walked along the Strand through the lunch-time bustle of office workers and servicemen. For the first time in my life heads turned as I walked along the street. The greatest compliment of all came when women also turned. It was a wonderful day.

Despite my unwavering good spirits and cheerfulness I
must have been an irritating companion in those days for though I had spent over two years in England I had not yet learned that any hint of non-conformity in dress, speech or thought created an uncomfortable atmosphere and was the monopoly of bad types. That was another discovery; that England was populated by good and bad types. By an extraordinary coincidence the good types invariably spoke with a lozenge in their mouths; the bad types with a dialect. I was ‘not-bad’ for my accent was South African, and consequently could not be analysed with that remarkable perspicacity with which the English place a person swiftly and surely by his accent—and react accordingly. Time and time again I watched the reaction of my colleagues when being introduced to newcomers. If the accent was right, i.e. slightly inarticulate and affected, there was a meeting of minds and a graceful acceptance of the newcomer. If however it was natural and given individuality by a dialect, then a certain amount of coolness and brevity was discernible. If the dialect was, God forbid, Cockney, patronage and condescension reared like a cobra’s head.

The first few months in A.T.A., months of groping for values and opinions that would bolster the newly acquired confidence I got from my job, seem a child-like memory as I sit here, fifteen years later, trying to select personal milestones from the dominating theme of war.

Outwardly there were no longer any problems. It was evident even to the most ill-informed, that the war would not be over by Christmas. I knew what I would be doing tomorrow, next month, next year. Also, my flying had reached a stage where accidents would be caused not by inexperience but by carelessness. And I was much too frightened to be careless.

Inwardly I was peculiarly ill-equipped for a period when abstractions like Democracy, Truth and Right, had become daily fare. God it seemed, according to the newspapers, was unequivocally on the side of the Allies. I wondered about this as I travelled through London at night. A London of darkness shattered by the flash of death, the scream of agony, the sobbing of despair and a reckoning at dawn in the debris of fallen masonry. This was a very different God from the one my grandmother used to talk about with a soft look in her eyes.

Two texts dominated my theosophical reflections: ‘An eye for an eye’ and ‘Thou shalt turn the other cheek’. The Church and the Allied leaders trumpeted with enviable single-mindedness the first text. Those favouring the second languished in Brixton gaol.

Casualties in the A.T.A. were infrequent but not
sufficiently infrequent to let us forget that one could take off never to land again. In an age when casualty rolls number millions it is perhaps petty to remember those of the A.T.A. who died. Merely a few score. But they were my comrades.

Most of them died victims of the weather, particularly in winter when the British sky is as trustworthy as a rabid dog. Though there were definite minima of actual and anticipated cloud base and visibility in which we were expected to fly, the urgency and the dogma of individual responsibility resulted in a press-on spirit particularly when priority deliveries were scheduled. Radio communication, the most powerful weapon in flying’s unceasing battle against weather, was denied us for security reasons. Once in the air we were on our own:
ex-communique
.

On the 4th January, 1941, H.M.S.
Hazlemere
patrolled the Thames Estuary off Herne Bay. The Captain, Lieutenant-Commander Fletcher, R.N., muffled in a duffle coat, stood on the bridge as his ship ploughed through the heavy seas. It was a dull patrol. Only sea-gulls, mewing plaintively, shared the dismal rain-lashed scene.

That same afternoon I took off from South Wales with a twin-engined Oxford aircraft bound for Kidlington. Simultaneously Amy Johnson took off from Blackpool, also bound for Kidlington.

The weather that harassed H.M.S.
Hazlemere
lay like a blanket over the Southern Counties. Drizzle and low cloud were forecast for most of the route to Kidlington but with a promise of improvement. Reluctantly I headed into the curtain of rain and, a few hundred feet above the ground, searched hopefully for the promised improvement. It was non-existent. I should have turned back but valleys beckoned invitingly like tunnels. I shot into one and peered ahead for the circle of success, but the trap had sprung. The other end of the narrow valley was blocked with a wall of cloud. I rammed open the throttles, pulled the control column back and climbed steeply. With unnerving suddenness the ground vanished as the clouds swirled around the Oxford in a cold embrace and forced me to climb on instruments. Inexpertly, I had not flown on instruments for months, I tried to keep the angle of climb constant. Suddenly at 4,000 feet the clouds splintered into bright wintry sunshine; beneath me the clouds stretched to all horizons like a soft woollen blanket. Desperately lonely and frightened, I searched for a gap. There was none. Whilst I stayed above I was safe. Like a spotlight the sun cast a shadow of the Oxford on the top of the clouds and circled it with a halo of rainbow hue. I had the odd thought that I was the shadow and the shadow was me. Curiously I watched it to see what it was going to do next; silly thing, it was going round in circles. I looked back at the radio equipment. A closed book. Mockingly it kept its secrets of aerodromes open to the skies.

The petrol gauge drooped inexorably. I had to go down. I glanced at the maps and headed south-west away from the hills and balloon barrages lurking in the cloud. Reluctantly I throttled back, put the nose down. The clouds embraced me like water around a stone. I descended slowly. Two thousand feet. Fifteen hundred. One thousand. Six hundred. It’s no good, prompted experience, get back. Ignoring the urgent warning I eased lower with the altimeter ticking off the altitude like a devilish clock. If I were lucky I would be over the hill-less sea. If not, I had not long to live. Suddenly the clouds broke, revealing, just beneath, the grey, sullen waters of the Bristol Channel. I pulled off my helmet and wiped the sweat from my face and hands before, sandwiched in the narrow gap between sea and cloud, turning towards the Somerset coast faintly visible to the east.

I looked at the petrol gauge. Twenty minutes left to find an aerodrome. Absently I worked out the little problem. Twenty times sixty. Two sixes are twelve. Add two noughts. That’s it, one thousand two hundred seconds before I wrecked the aeroplane and paid the penalty for not turning back. But, unfairly, all the luck in the sky was with me that day. Soon after crossing the coast an aerodrome blossomed out of the ground like a flower from a desert. Pulling the Oxford round in a tight circuit I landed on the glistening rain-soaked runway. Switching off I waved cockily to the duty pilot sheltering in the Control Tower.

Next day on returning to Hatfield I learned that Amy Johnson was dead.

She had been caught in the same way; had been forced to climb above the clouds. More experienced and with a greater understanding of the risk, she had realized it was foolhardy to attempt a descent through cloud and had taken the only decision left to her. To bale out by parachute. It was the right decision but a tragic one, for in her desperate search for a gap in the clouds she had drifted over the Thames Estuary.