Spitfire Girl (8 page)

‘Hello, Stanmore. Echo; Echo. I’ll give you the bearing in a moment.’

‘O.K., Rye. Distance?’

‘About 125 miles. Large echo, two or more aircraft.’

At Stanmore Central Control the Waafs standing around the huge plotting table and connected to the Radar stations by direct telephone would move symbols on to the table representing the information we passed to them.

‘Stanmore. Hostile. Bearing 112.’

‘O.K., Rye. Definite? No other stations reported yet.’

‘Certain. Large formation... splitting up! Bearing 108. Moving fast. Distance 118 miles.’

‘I.F.F.?’

‘No. Definitely hostile. Bearing 100. Ninety-eight miles.’

‘O.K. Confirmed. Hastings have picked it up. Keep passing bearings.’

‘O.K.’

‘We’re sending fighters. Watch for them.’

‘O.K. Bearing 100. Ninety miles.’ By this time new echoes would appear on our screen; echoes with certain characteristics that identified them as Royal Air Force aircraft. Tensely we would watch as the two echoes merged.

‘Stanmore. Echoes merged. Bearing 097. Distance 60 miles.’

‘O.K. Thank you.’

‘Stanmore. Scattering. Bearing 110, 095. Distance 65.’ We watched and wondered as the battle was fought.

‘Stanmore. Screens clear.’

‘Roger. Stand by.’

The next day we would receive a laconic intelligence report similar to the following:

‘Twenty-six hostile aircraft headed for London. Successful interception by fighter aircraft. Four enemy aircraft shot down. One probably shot down over the English Channel. Three damaged. Bombs jettisoned over wide area. Slight casualties. One of our aircraft missing.’

‘Jackie.’

‘Yes?’

‘Queen Bee wants you.’

Oh dear, I thought, more sex! ‘What for?’

‘Don’t know. She wants you right away.’

I cleaned my buttons, brushed my hair the regulation one inch above the collar and reported to her office.

‘Yes, Ma’am?’

‘Morning, Jackie. Sit down.’

I sat.

‘You are to report to Hatfield.’

‘Yes, Ma’am... What!’

‘Air Transport Auxiliary, Hatfield Aerodrome.’ Please, God. Please. Can it be? I sat motionless. ‘For a flying test.’ The office spun, my hands trembled.

‘Does it mean I’ll fly?’ I asked stupidly.

‘Of course.’

‘And leave the Waafs?’

‘Yes.’ At last it registered. The months of misery vanished. I wanted to leave the office and shout and run and jump.

‘Happy?’

‘I can’t believe it.’

‘You’ve got to pass the test first.’

‘God couldn’t be that cruel.’

‘What?’

‘Fail me.’

‘Well,’ she answered dubiously, ‘don’t build too many castles. How long is it since you’ve flown?’

‘About nine months.’

‘Hum, that’s a long time... I think we could spare you for a forty-eight-hour pass before you report to Hatfield, if you want to do some studying.’

I smiled gratefully. ‘No thank you, Ma’am. I have my books here with me.’

‘Well then, good luck. Come and see me before you go.’

I saluted, walked smartly out of her office and hopped, skipped and jumped past the astonished Orderly Room clerks.

The Air Transport Auxiliary, brainchild of Gerald d’Erlanger, was formed in September 1939. In those early days its duties were not strictly defined but it was felt that use could be made of pilots who were either beyond military age or unfit for operational flying for general communications work.

Civil pilots were circularized and from the many replies thirty pilots, all male, were selected and formed the nucleus of a civil organization that by the war’s end employed 650 pilots and had ferried over 300,000 aircraft from factories and maintenance units to Royal Air Force and Fleet Air Arm squadrons.

As the first few months of the war progressed and the factories produced a steadily increasing flow of aircraft it was a propitious moment for attacking the prejudice against women pilots. Service pilots were too busy on vital operational flying to be spared for ferrying. There were a hundred women pilots in Britain wasting their priceless experience in domestic chores. Some wrote, others interviewed. The influential, and there were many, pulled strings but to all their advances they received a polite ‘No’. It was not in the national interest to trust vital aircraft to the whims and fancies of feminine pulchritude.

A spokesman was needed; perhaps I should say a spokeswoman. She appeared in the person of Miss Pauline Gower. Her name was internationally renowned, her influence in flying circles formidable. It would have taken a courageous person to resist the cogency and urgency of her arguments.

Within a few weeks her victory was complete and she was charged with the responsibility of recruiting a small number of women pilots to form the first all-women A.T.A. ferry pool at Hatfield.

A few days later I reported to Hatfield Aerodrome. The suspense of the last few days had reduced me to numb anticipation of failure. I knew that had I taken the flying test immediately after my days at Witney I would have passed. But now. Even the saffron yellow Tiger Moth training aircraft busily taking off and landing and following each other around the aerodrome circuit like a brood of chicks had lost their familiar look and taxied by like strangers. I had forgotten the vast spread of aerodromes and was awed by the verdant turf, as smooth and resting to the eye as a billiards table, reaching to the horizon. Only the windsock waved to me in welcome.

Luck, cunning, industry and circumstance had contrived this crossroad. I knew succinctly what it meant to me. Success and fulfilment. Failure and uselessness. As usual when I wanted something I prayed.

With lips fingering a mental rosary, uniform neatly pressed, buttons gleaming and hair a compromise between officialdom and chic I penetrated the security guards and R.A.F. police guarding the main gates. One of the latter escorted me to the tiny offices of the Air Transport Auxiliary perched insignificantly behind de Havilland’s hangars and workshops. Overhead the occasional business-like rumble of experimental fighter aircraft dominated the twittering of the Tiger Moths.

As we walked, the smell, the passing show, and the cacophony of aviation sent crystal shivers along my nerves and calmed them as though with cocaine.

‘Come in.’ The R.A.F. policeman left me with an encouraging smile that contrasted strangely with his scarlet brassard and white blancoed belt. I entered the office as vulnerable as a snowflake. A smile and I might win. A frown and I would melt into oblivion.

She smiled: ‘Miss Sorour?’

‘Yes, Ma’am,’ I answered envying and admiring the trim picture smiling so confidently. The A.T.A. at that time possessed only a few dozen pilots, eight of whom were women. Here was one. One of the eight. To me she was one of the most distinguished women living. She wore navy-coloured tunic and slacks. Her shoulders bore two rich gold stripes. On her left breast she wore wings embroidered in gold thread with the letters ATA in the centre. I confess without shame that here was the height of my ambition. Patiently for years I had courted flying. Its glamour, its adventure, but above all for its elusive mysticism and solitude. Before me I could see a union that I must achieve. To have flying and to wear it modestly on my breast. The infatuation that I possessed for flying in those earlier days was nurtured greatly by vanity. Today, without wings and other florid insignia, I catch the bus from the aerodrome, vanish into the incognito of my fellow passengers and relive the contentment that the last flight has brought. Modesty, the modesty of one who loves not too wisely and knows that one is not entirely loved in return has overcome that earlier vanity and conceit.

Deftly she weighed me up. Hours, types, qualifications, and the last significant question: ‘When did you last fly?’ My answer brought pursed lips and a ‘Hum’ that shattered my newly acquired confidence.

We climbed into a Tiger Moth parked at the edge of the apron. I was clumsy and awkward. She slipped neatly into the front seat and sat patiently waiting as I fumbled frenziedly for the elusive straps and gadgetry. Her voice trilled absurdly through the speaking tube:

‘Carry on and do three circuits and landings. Keep a good look-out. There is an R.A.F. elementary training school here as well as de Havillands.’

The first take-off, circuit of the aerodrome and landing was shocking. I taxied back to the take-off point grimly aware that none of the landings I had seen today at this
ab initio
training school was quite as putrid as my recent effort. I tried again; there was a decided improvement. I took off on the final circuit knowing that the score was even. A bad one and I was finished. Carefully I climbed the Tiger Moth to 1,000 feet and throttled smoothly back to cruising power. I watched the altimeter like a lynx and nursed the slippery Turn and Bank indicator that was eager to point waywardly to perdition. Turning again on to the cross-wind leg I knew I had a chance. Slowly I closed the throttle and trimmed for the glide. 60 m.p.h. 61, 59, 62. No! It must be 60. That’s it. Nicely. 60. 60; stay there! I had judged it perfectly. The aerodrome was set correctly beneath the nose. Easy, easy. Over the fence, level out. Slipstream sighing its swan-song. Back on the control column. Not too much! Back, back. This is it. I waited for a tortured second; the result now beyond my control. If I had judged it correctly we would sink gently and without a bounce on to the grass skimming beneath the wheels. Please, please, I begged, let it be a good landing.

It was, and I was in the Air Transport Auxiliary.

I returned triumphantly to Rye, my face wreathed in a
fixed grin, to await further orders. Already I could imagine the gentle burden of gold stripes on my shoulders and wings on my breast. In the mirror my reflection was transformed from drab Waaf blue into a neat figure clad in trim navy blue, silk stockings and flattering forage cap. I made friends of enemies, gave things away and spent my last few pounds in the bank in anticipation of the fabulous salary I was to earn in the A.T.A. The airmen saluted my success in beer; the Waafs in chatter.

A few days after my return we were paraded for formal inspection by a senior Waaf staff officer. Motionless but for our skirts flapping gently in the wind we stood in a thin blue line. In deference to the occasion our hair was severely correct, our buttons brilliant. The more timid wore official issue underwear though how these could be inspected defied the imagination.

I glanced out of the corner of my eyes and saw that the inspecting party were still at the beginning of the file. My shoes were covered with a thin film of dust. Hurriedly I stood on one leg and rubbed the shoes against my calves. With mob psychology those surrounding me stood like cranes and repeated my example. There was a suppressed giggle and I felt an insane desire to laugh. A dirty look from our Commanding Officer brought self-control and immobility.

The inspecting party walked along the line in spasmodic progress, stopping here and there to ask pompous questions and receive inaudible replies. To my dismay they ground to a halt in front of me. I stared vacantly into the past hoping my vacuous expression would deter questions. My officer smiled proudly. ‘This is A.C.W.2 Sorour, Ma’am. She is leaving us shortly to be a ferry pilot.’

I preened.

‘Humph,’ coldly. ‘Who said so?’

‘Er... the A.T.A.,’ answered the officer, in confusion.

‘What’s that?’

‘The Air Transport Auxiliary,’ I chirped impertinently and was immediately frozen to silence by imperial hauteur.

‘I’m not letting my girls go. We are too short of operators. And the raids are getting worse. I will see that she stays here.’

They moved on. The C.O. anxiously looked back at me. Her sympathy broke down military discipline and I could feel, as though it were another face, the tears slowly brim over and trickle down my cheeks. They tickled in their shameful progress and I wanted to brush them away, but I kept my arms to my sides and stood stiffly to attention. Two minutes passed. Three, as I tasted utter defeat. I knew that I could faint. I wanted to faint; merciful oblivion. Faintly I heard Helen’s ‘The bitch!’ and Joan’s ‘The bloody old cow!’ and grunts of sympathy from the others. I did not want their sympathy. I hated them. I hated God with a hate heaving heavily within me like a sullen sea ready to break into white- capped anger. Please dismiss us, I begged silently. Let me go... Let me go!

‘Parade dismissed.’

I ran. Ran from the parade ground, out of the gates. Ran until my heart was too busy pumping blood to think of breaking.

T
he weeks passed wearily. Mechanically I continued my
work and tried to retrace my footsteps. But my feet would not, could not fit the footprints of old. The camp was colourless; my comrades dull. Even the echoes failed to stimulate.

The weeks became months. There seemed little I could do but carry on. I was so insignificant that rebellion would be futile. New operators arrived, making our duties less arduous. Our work became routine. On Tuesday nights I wrote to my mother. Dispirited letters that saddened her but loosened the tight grip of hate holding my heart. It was three months before I could pray with humility; even then, there remained a small dark corner of reserve against Him that I should be treated so.

‘Going to the dance tonight, Jackie?’ asked Helen one morning as we sat drinking tea in the Naafi canteen.

‘What dance?’

‘Brooklands have invited us.’ This was an Army depot five miles along the coast.

‘No, I don’t think so.’ It was Tuesday. ‘I must write some letters.’

‘Come on, Jackie,’ she protested. ‘It’ll do you good. The Army are sending transport.’

‘Who else is going?’ I parried.

‘All of us not on duty. Officers as well. Transport is coming at eight o’clock.’

‘All right,’ I begrudged. Anything was better than an empty, silent barrack room.

The camouflaged lorries arrived in convoy promptly at eight o’clock, their raucous horns shattering the calm and bringing derisive whistles from the airmen. Clumsily we climbed aboard assisted by a profusion of willing hands and drove out of camp, horns blaring triumphantly. I felt like a prize cow going to market as I sat near the tail-board and watched the landscape passing by as though we were in a tunnel. Early, restless searchlights, weak in the twilight, flexed their fingers of light in preparation for the dark offensive hours to come. Near the coast anti-aircraft guns, like pencils of steel, swung, rose and fell, and then became still, their muzzles pointing steeply to the sky, reminding us of those on watch. Over all the landscape, gradually vanishing with the day, an ominous calm held.