Spitfire Girl (9 page)

Arriving at the Army depot we pushed our way through musty blackout curtains and blinked in a brilliantly lit drill hall. Long wooden tables, covered with coarse, spotless tablecloths lined one side of the hall and bore, with evident unease, their burden of beer and lemonade. Spindly, austere chairs lined the other wall. At the far end a motley crew unpacked musical instruments, arranged their unwieldy music stands and rendered extempore snatches of popular melodies. Khaki mixed readily with blue, an officer made a brief, self-conscious speech of welcome and the dance was on.

I danced, refused beer, drank too many lemonades and finally subsided on a chair in the corner, concealed almost entirely by the heavy folds of the blackout curtain. The lights were dimmed and groups merged in animated conversation. I felt gauche and un-pretty.

‘What on earth are you doing there?’ I looked up and, despite myself, looked again at the khaki blur topped by undisciplined blond hair. The face, clear and untroubled, looked down enquiringly. ‘Dance?’ he asked. We danced. Once, twice. A waltz, inevitably, and a tango. He was handsome, I noticed lugubriously. He’ll leave me shortly, I thought. My back ached in the effort to keep my cheek from his shoulder.

‘Another?’

‘Thank you.’ It was another waltz. Suddenly there was tension in his arms. I lifted my head and heard the thin whistle that, in a brief second, became a maniacal shriek piercing our ears with menace and our hearts with fear. The dreamy waltz continued defiantly though couples had frozen. Mercifully the scream ended in a reverberating crump. The dance hall quivered slightly from the blast and resettled undisturbed. The music continued absurdly.

‘That was close,’ he murmured, as the dance ended. In the silence left by the band the enemy bomber cruised insolently overhead. A nuisance raider, dropping his bombs singly and haphazardly. I pictured the pilot encased by night; his face reflecting the dim glow of his instruments. His engines deliberately unsynchronized to confuse the anti-aircraft sound detectors. ‘That won’t confuse Radar,’ I commented smugly.

‘What?’

‘Sorry, I was thinking aloud.’

‘Drink?’

‘Yes please.’

‘Beer?’

‘No thank you; lemon squash.’ He left me to get the drinks and my thoughts returned to the German overhead. Still circling. Tense, anxious, nerves vulnerable, supremely aware of his body. Looking down at the carpet of unbroken blackness. Wondering why the anti-aircraft guns were not firing at him; perhaps Royal Air Force night fighters shared the sky. Precariously balanced in the air, as though on the tip of a pencil. Wishing he could drop his bombs in one stick and dive steeply for home, away from the oppressive, impersonal night.

‘My name’s Reg.’ I took the squash. I looked over at Helen surrounded by attentive khaki. She caught my eye, winked hugely and nodded approvingly. ‘You dance beautifully,’ he continued. He did not, but it did not matter. I went to the converted Ladies’ Room, returned and still spoke hardly a word; but still he stayed, easily changing the conversation when my gaucheries brought still-birth to a score of openings.

The crash of cymbals heralded the National Anthem and the end of the dance. We stood stiffly to attention, avoiding each other’s eyes. Suddenly, again, heads cocked in an attitude of listening. The menacing whistle screamed again, closer, as we waited for someone to make the first move. The Anthem was a feeble tinkling compared with the banshee howl of the bomb. I watched the band conductor’s arm as he quickened his beat, faster, faster. It was a race between the shortened version of the Anthem and annihilation.

‘...our King.’ We dived to the floor. I grovelled and smelled the polished parquet flooring. Reg covered me with an arm. An eternity passed before the scream of the bomb ended in an absurd little thud. We got up sheepishly. Reg took his arm away, grinned. ‘It was a dud.’ I felt sorry for the German crew still circling obdurately overhead. Watching, waiting for the blue flash, the red aftermath. The justification of their night of fear... and nothing but mocking darkness.

The lorries returned to Rye heavily laden with merged khaki and blue. I wondered what colour resulted from this combination. Reg’s thighs pressed close to mine as we sat on hard benches in the friendly darkness. A left-hand bend threw me against him, a right-hand away from him. I began to like left-hand bends. Trailing behind, I saw the dim horizontal slits of the masked headlights of the others. Snatches of ribald songs reached us faintly.

Reg’s fingers searched for mine. Hurriedly I sat on my hands. He riposted cleverly and put his arm around my shoulder. I wriggled his arm away and released one hand. He held it. I was glad of the darkness; the conspiratorial cloak that concealed my unsophistication. The drive appeared much shorter. We bounded through the camp gates and jerked to a halt. I knew that something had to happen. Nothing would be too many anti-climaxes for one night.

The German plane had gone. Uneasy armistice reigned in the sky. The stars twinkled imperviously as we stood together, apart from the good-nights of the others. He drew me to him, gently at first, but firmly when I stiffened against him. I wanted him to kiss me.

Unkissed, I wrenched myself from his arms.

‘What’s the matter?’ he asked.

‘Nothing. I – we’ve only just met...’ I muttered, angry with myself. He looked over at the others, intent in each other’s arms. Please understand, I begged silently. Please don’t sulk. Please ask to see me again.

‘Goodnight,’ and he had gone. The lorries drove out of the gates. I watched and listened until their engines faded into the horizon leaving an accusing, offended silence.

An arm reached around my waist. ‘Well?’ its owner asked. It was Helen. ‘You’re a dark horse,’ she continued. ‘The beau of the ball and you monopolized him all night.’

‘What did you think of him?’

‘Um-um,’ she answered. ‘When?’ she added confidently.

‘When what?’

‘When are you seeing him again?’

‘I’m not.’

There was a pointed silence before she spoke again: ‘Jackie, you’re a clot!’

I lay awake a long time after my comrades had fallen asleep before wryly concluding that she was right.

July the Fifteenth, 1940, dawned unobtrusively as I went
to bed, bleary-eyed and haggard from a night on watch, unaware that this was to be one of the most momentous days of my life. I awoke grudgingly as a hand violently shook my shoulder. It was Helen. ‘Wake up, wake up, Jackie. The Queen Bee wants you.’

‘What for? I’ve been on watch all night... what’s the time?’

‘Eleven o’clock. She wants you immediately,’ replied Helen, ruthlessly pulling the warm blankets from my bed. Drearily I got up, searching my conscience for a clue to this peremptory summons, decided my buttons were clean enough and reported to the C.O.’s office. Her face beamed as I entered and saluted. ‘Jackie,’ she cried getting up from her desk, ‘I’ve got wonderful news. Your orders have come through. You are to report to A.T.A.’ I shook my head unbelievingly. Oh no, not again, I thought warily. The C.O. laughed at the disbelief written on my face. ‘It’s true, Jackie. Look,’ she said, showing me the orders. ‘A.C.W.2 Sorour, D.T., seconded for flying duties with the Air Transport Auxiliary w.e.f. 29.7.40. To report to Hatfield Ferry Pool, A.T.A., 30.7.40. Discharge to be carried out in accordance with special instructions, etc., etc.’ The words danced before my eyes. The Queen Bee put her arms around me, her eyes glistening despite the neat blue rings on her sleeves. I walked back to my empty billet, sat on the rumpled bed and sobbed. Shortly afterwards Helen came in. Her face wreathed in consternation when she saw me weeping copiously. ‘What’s the matter, Jackie?’ she asked anxiously. ‘Bad news?’

I shook my head, unable to speak and suddenly burst out laughing. Helen looked at me in astonishment. ‘I’m leaving,’ I cried. ‘I’m going to the A.T.A.’

She grabbed me around the waist and danced with me the length of the billet until we collapsed on to a bed. ‘That’s wonderful,’ she cried. ‘This calls for a celebration.’

I cabled my mother, not forgetting in the bliss of the moment, a hint for further funds. I had to buy civilian clothes. Impulsively I phoned Reg and invited him to the party we were throwing in Rye the following evening.

The party was a roaring success though, as the others staggered out of the pub into the blackout, its inspiration was forgotten by all except Reg. We waited, to the tune of an expurgated version of
Eskimo Nell
and
Bless ’em All
, for the bus back to camp.

‘Perhaps’, suggested Reg, ‘we should have a private celebration.’ Flattered and happy I agreed to meet him the following day.

It was my day off and I spent the morning fussing with my hair, pressing my uniform into some semblance of elegance and viewing myself, with considerable dubiety, in the mirror. He was waiting patiently by the camp gates, the sun glinting sharply from the badges and insignia on his uniform. We met shyly, both inordinately interested in our feet or the distant hills.

‘Rye?’ he suggested as the single-decker bus approached the request stop outside the gates. I nodded. The bus was empty and we sat, by mutual consent, in the back. He got out a pipe. I liked that. I scratched at the blackout material that was firmly pasted to the window and tried to lift a corner to relieve the gloom. I felt embarrassed as he paid the fare; it was a small proprietary gesture and I was not yet ready to accept it. I could feel my body. What was worse, I was conscious of his. He cleared his mouth as though to speak but then put his pipe back in his mouth. I became absorbed in the anachronistic advertisements. The bus stopped arbitrarily, waited hopefully for a passenger, gave up and, with a pompous ping of the starting bell, moved on.

‘I have two weeks’ leave next week. I want you to come home and meet my mother,’ he announced baldly and put the pipe back.

I reared like a startled horse. ‘I don’t know where I shall be... whether I can get a pass.’

‘We can write,’ he answered, the possessive echoing ominously through the empty bus. Had I admitted, implied so much during our last meeting? Surely not. I wished I had the authority to rebuke this impertinence but I knew any protest would have manifested itself as an absurd little squeak.

We went to the pictures. It was a Noël Coward film, packed with controlled middle-class sentiment that brought an uncontrolled flood of tears. I went hurriedly to the Ladies’ Room to repair the ravages as the lights went up. I looked at myself in the mirror; even the bloom of youth had been mastered by the tears. I looked like an old hag. I left the back way and caught the bus back to camp.

An hour later I was called uneasily to the phone.

‘What happened to you?’

‘I... er got lost in the crowd,’ I lied weakly, carefully working out the penance.

‘I’m still in Rye. Is there a bus?’

‘From where?’ I answered.

‘From the camp here,’ he replied firmly.

‘Yes, at seven-thirty...’

‘I’ll meet you at the bus station at eight-fifteen,’ he ordered, replacing the receiver before I could reply.

I had a brilliant idea. I took Helen. I peeped at his face as we met him in the Square. He was livid but riposted cleverly with a heavy show of gallantry towards Helen. Over fish and chips he ignored me. His master stroke was in contriving to sit next to Helen in the bus on the way back to camp.

I was putty in his hands when he arranged the next ren­dezvous.

I arrived at Hatfield with the diffidence and misgivings
of one entering the portals of a new boarding school. The A.T.A. building, still insignificant, was in an elegant uproar. Women sat with awe-inspiring confidence on the edge of tables or slouched past in the narrow corridor, parachutes slung over their shoulders. I apologized profusely, like a slave strewing flowers for her patriarchal mistress, and asked for the Commandant’s office. A disdainful finger pointed to an office at the end of the corridor. I knocked timidly. Waited and knocked again, wondering whether I should enter. I opened the door and looked in like a mouse, ready to flee at a harsh word.

‘Come in. Come in,’ smiled the slim, attractively uniformed figure sitting at the desk.

‘Commander Gower?’ I ventured, intimidated by the three gold stripes glistening on her shoulder epaulette.

‘Yes.’

‘I’m Miss Sorour. I er...’

She got up from the desk and, after a moment of searching for it, shook my hand. ‘I’ve been expecting you.’ Here was praise indeed. Miss Pauline Gower, pioneer holder of many international records, and now Commandant of the Women’s Section of the A.T.A., was expecting me!

‘Sit down, Miss...’

‘Sorour.’

‘We can’t call you that. Sounds much too tragic. What other names...’

‘Jackie,’ I whispered.

‘Please?’

‘Jackie,’ I shouted. She blinked and grinned.

‘You mustn’t be shy. We are all newcomers here. How old are you?’

‘Twenty,’ I murmured apologetically.

‘That makes you the youngest,’ she commented, idly glancing through my papers. ‘You are from South Africa?’ she added curiously. ‘What are you doing in Britain at this time?’

‘Doing my bit,’ I mumbled.

Noticing my inarticulate embarrassment she gracefully changed the subject. ‘You can get a billet in Hatfield. The Adjutant has a list. You are awfully young,’ she added musingly. ‘We must arrange that you get back here after each day’s flying. I don’t want you wandering around strange hotels.’

I sat absorbed as she chatted casually about my new life, accepting me as though I were a veteran of epoch-making flights instead of a very, very green fledgling. ‘You can take care of yourself?’ she asked suddenly.

‘Oh yes, Ma’am,’ I lied.

‘Pauline, not Ma’am,’ she said. ‘I’ll arrange for one of the pilots to check you out today. I’d like to do it myself, but,’ she pointed to the mass of papers strewn untidily over her desk. ‘You will start ferrying tomorrow. There are four Tiger Moths to go to Scotland. We fly only light aircraft at the moment, but,’ she added with a glint of battle in her eyes, ‘we’ll be flying the heavier stuff soon if I have any say in the matter.’