A Different World (7 page)

‘No, I don’t think so, taking pictures is only a hobby. Look, all
you’ve got to do is look through the viewfinder and when it looks OK, press this knob.’

She did that, though she doubted her hand was steady enough, and then he set the camera up to take them both together and by then he had used up all the film. ‘They will be something to look at during the long, boring days and nights,’ he said.

‘You expect to be bored?’

‘I don’t know, but you can’t be on the go the whole time, can you? Not even the air force would expect that. Then I will sit and look at my snaps and think of you.’

‘And I of you.’

They found a quiet spot and sat down on Tony’s jacket. She opened her bag and took out a packet of tomato sandwiches and a bottle of lemonade made with crystals. Real lemons were a thing of the past.

‘It’s so peaceful here,’ she said, offering him a sandwich. ‘You would never believe there was a war on, that people are being killed and injured every day. And for what? One man’s thirst for power.’

‘Let’s not talk about it. Let’s talk about what we’ll do after the war.’

‘What do you want to do?’

‘I expect I’ll join Dad in the family business. I’ve no doubt there will be plenty of work for us to do. And I’ll build us a house.’

‘Like your father’s?’

‘Something like that. It will have all the latest mod cons and be big enough for a family.’

‘A family?’

‘Yes. Don’t you want a family?’

‘Of course I do.’

‘How many?’

She laughed. ‘How many do you want?’

‘Four would be nice, two boys and two girls. But it’s up to you, of course.’

‘It’s up to both of us, surely?’ She giggled. ‘I can’t do it on my own.’

He laughed and grabbed her shoulders pulling her down beside him to kiss her. When his hand strayed along her leg and up her thigh under her skirt, she knocked it away. ‘No, Tony.’

‘Sorry.’ He looked aggrieved. ‘I wasn’t … I mean …’

‘I know, but we mustn’t get carried away.’

‘Why not? We are engaged, after all, and who knows what the future holds.’

‘I don’t want to get pregnant. Not before …’

‘You won’t, I promise.’

‘All the same, I’d rather wait.’

‘If you say so.’ He sat up and opened the bottle of lemonade to take a swig.

‘Now you are angry with me.’

‘No, of course not, just disappointed that you don’t trust me.’

‘I do, oh Tony, I do, but I’m nervous. And that’s something that should only happen on your wedding night, isn’t it?’

‘Oh, my poor innocent.’ He was smiling now; the little spat was over. ‘Kiss me again. I’ll be good, I promise.’

She kissed him. ‘I do love you, Tony, really I do, and sometimes I wonder what it will be like to, you know, be married and all that, but …’

‘But you aren’t ready to experiment.’

‘I suppose that’s it. It feels wrong.’

‘Point taken. Now, let’s go back. Jenny told me she is making us a special tea, seeing as we didn’t have an engagement party.’

They walked back to the village and were met on the way by Tommy and Beattie. Unlike Tommy, who sometimes longed for
his Edgware home, the little girl was content in Cottlesham, spoilt by all the grown-ups around her. ‘Auntie Jenny sent us to find you,’ she said, taking Louise’s hand. ‘Tea is nearly ready and she has made a special cake. Is it your birthday?’

‘No, but it’s in honour of Uncle Tony. He is a qualified pilot now.’

‘You mean he’s going to shoot down Germans?’ Tommy said, holding out his arms in imitation of an aeroplane, running in circles and making a noise like a gun firing.

‘I don’t know about that, you bloodthirsty little monster,’ Tony said.

Later that evening, they were listening to the news on the wireless in the bar parlour of the pub when they heard about the air raid on London that afternoon. Hundreds of German Heinkel, Dornier and Junkers bombers escorted by double the number of Messerschmitts had come out of a cloudless blue sky and subjected the capital to an all-out assault. The previous raids on places like Croydon, Wimbledon and Enfield became insignificant in comparison. The bombers concentrated on the docks and the Woolwich arsenal and oil storage tanks, causing huge fires that could be seen for miles. And close by the docks were the overcrowded homes of the poor, where the damage and loss of life were worst. But the bombing was not so accurate that the rest of London did not suffer. Other places were an inferno too.

The BBC newsreaders had a dry way of delivering the news that somehow seemed to diminish the horror of it, but not even the most determined ostrich could be blind to the terror of what had happened. Louise’s first thought was for her parents. She tried ringing them but the telephones were out of action. She spent a sleepless night worrying about them. And the next morning the
news was even worse. The afternoon raid had been followed almost immediately by an even greater one in the evening, the bombers guided to their target by the fires.

‘I’ll have to go and see they are all right,’ she said, after again trying and failing to reach her parents by telephone.

‘I’ll come with you,’ Tony said. ‘Then I must go and see my folks.’

London was recovering from the most terrifying night most of its inhabitants had ever experienced. The fires in the east could easily be seen from the west. Even in streets where the buildings still stood, there were heaps of broken glass and everything was covered in grey dust. Louise found her mother stoically trying to clean the house. Her face was chalk white and her eyes red-rimmed. Strangely she was not so much afraid as angry.

‘Louise! Where have you sprung from? And Tony too. How nice to see you.’

‘And you,’ he said.

‘I couldn’t get you on the phone, so we came to see how you are,’ Louise explained.

‘The lines are out of action, but we’re all right, not like some poor souls, but if I could get hold of that Herr Hitler, I’d personally wring his neck.’

This was so unlike her normally timid mother, Louise laughed. ‘That’s the spirit.’

Faith put down her dustpan and brush. ‘I’ll make some tea.’ She took three cups from hooks on the dresser. ‘I’ll have to wash these before we can drink from them. There was a bomb dropped in the next street and it set everything shaking and wobbling and some of the ceiling came down and covered everything in dust.’ She filled the kettle as she spoke. ‘We’re lucky we’ve still got gas.
So many have lost everything. According to your father it won’t be the last of it and there’ll be more to come.’

‘I’m afraid he is right,’ Tony said. ‘Have you thought any more about evacuating?’

‘Henry won’t do that.’

‘Where is he?’ Louise asked, washing up cups and saucers.

‘Gone to see what he can do to help. He was out in the thick of it last night, came home for his breakfast and went out again.’

‘He left you alone all night?’

‘I went into the church. There were lots of others there.’ She smiled suddenly. ‘We had sing-songs, and not always hymns, either. I didn’t tell your father that, though.’

They all laughed. Louise was amazed at the resilience of her mother. It was as if the raids had imbued her with a stoical courage she had never shown before. They sat drinking tea, making use of a tin of evaporated milk because the milkman hadn’t turned up, and discussing the raids, the casualties and the damage, and then moved on to talk about what was happening in Cottlesham and Tony’s posting to an operational squadron.

‘Do you think you’ll be flying against that lot?’ Faith nodded her head skywards. ‘The RAF boys did their best to knock them out of the sky, but there didn’t seem to be enough of them.’

‘Well, there aren’t, are there?’ he said. ‘They’ve taken a pasting themselves.’

‘I shall pray for you,’ Faith said. ‘Not that I don’t pray for everyone in danger in this war, but you shall be mentioned especially.’

‘Thank you,’ he said.

Henry returned just as they were leaving to catch their trains. His black frock was thick with dust; there was even a layer of it in the brim of his hat. He had a scratch on his face
and looked exhausted. ‘How are you, Father?’ she asked.

‘I am, as ever, in good heart myself, but I despair of the world.’ He took off his hat and punched it to knock off the dust. ‘Such wickedness and corruption, such godlessness, is it any wonder we have to be punished, the good along with the evil?’

Louise opened her mouth to comment, but changed her mind when she saw Tony shaking his head at her. ‘We have to leave to catch trains,’ she said instead. ‘Tony is going to see his parents and I am going back to Cottlesham. The new term starts tomorrow.’

‘Yes, go before they come back, for assuredly they will.’ He had evidently abandoned his crusade to persuade her to come home.

‘I wish you and Mum would leave London for somewhere safer.’

‘Our duty lies here, Louise. I told you that before. Now go, both of you, before it’s too late.’

Tony saw Louise safely onto her train and watched as it drew out of the station before going to find one to Witham. The siren wailed as he waited for it and everyone scuttled into the Underground to take shelter. It was the early hours before he left London and by that time there were more fires, more damage, more loss of life. Soon he would be part of the fight, and though he hated the idea of deliberately killing another human being, he could not honestly say he was a pacifist. If he found himself face to face with an enemy who was attacking those he loved, he would not hesitate to hit back and kill and so he would do his bit to shorten the war in whatever role he was given. The sooner it was over, the better. He wanted to show Louise what a loving relationship really meant.

She was such a compassionate soul, worrying about that stiff-necked father of hers, caring for her class of children and befriending strange men in railway carriages. Ought he to have tried to squash that? She was so naive, the man might easily take advantage of her. He smiled suddenly. If she could say no to him, whom she loved – and he did not doubt that – she would be
impervious to anyone else. And if he were the one to have to leave a wife behind in an occupied country, he might be glad of a pretty girl to cheer him up. There could be no love without trust.

His parents were well and unharmed and made a great fuss of him before he left them the next day for Coltishall, just a few miles north-east of Norwich. The base had been built early in 1939 as a bomber station but switched to fighters in 1940 because the many bomber stations in the region were being targeted by the Luftwaffe and fighters were needed to protect them. The station seemed to be a transient base for several squadrons on the move from one place to another: there were Canadians and South Africans as well as 242 and a squadron from Yorkshire. There was a rumour going round that 242 was going to be moved to Duxford in Cambridgeshire, and Tony supposed he would be going with them.

He was lounging in a comfortable chair in the mess two evenings later, looking through his prints of Louise, when he felt a shadow over him. He looked up to see Wing Commander Blatchford and sprang to his feet, scattering the pictures.

‘Like taking photographs, do you?’ Blatchford queried, bending down to help pick them up and return them.

‘Yes, sir. I’d rather shoot pictures than shoot guns.’

The Wingco smiled. ‘At ease, Flying Officer. Shall we sit down?’ He took the next chair and Tony returned to his seat, wondering what was coming next – a dressing down for some misdemeanour, he supposed, though he had only been on the base two days, not really long enough to get into trouble, but that last landing had been a bit bumpy, he had to admit.

‘Tell me about yourself,’ Blatchford went on. ‘What’s your background? Professional photographer, are you?’

‘No, sir, an enthusiastic amateur. I am a surveyor in civilian life.’

‘May I see?’ Tony handed over the handful of small prints,
which the other man spread out on the table, shifting Tony’s glass of beer to do so. ‘Your girlfriend?’

‘My fiancée. Louise.’ He pointed to another. ‘That’s Cottlesham village taken from the church spire. I believe it’s one of the tallest spires in Norfolk. There’s an amazing amount of detail considering how far up I was.’ He pointed to another. ‘That’s an inscription on an old gravestone in the churchyard. It’s a funny thing, but when I first looked at it the words were indecipherable, worn away by the years, and I couldn’t read any of it, but suddenly the sun came out and slanted across it and every word was clearly visible. I took the picture and then the sun went behind a cloud and I couldn’t read it any more. It was completely blank again.’

‘Interesting,’ the Wingco murmured, examining the images carefully. He put them down and looked across at Tony. ‘Have you seen any action yet, Flying Officer?’

‘I was in the air yesterday and saw a couple of ME 109s in the distance, but they were chased away before I got near enough to join in.’

‘But you would rather use a camera than a gun, isn’t that what you said?’

‘Yes, but—’

‘Never mind trying to explain.’ He laughed. ‘Would you like a job where your only weapon is a camera?’

‘What sort of job, sir?’

‘I’ve been asked to recruit suitable men to take pictures on reconnaissance flights. Are you interested?’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘Come and see me tomorrow morning, eight o’clock.’ He stood up and strode away, leaving Tony wondering why he had been singled out. It surely wasn’t the pictures of Louise. He picked up the photographs and studied one of a smiling Louise. Behind her,
pale dog roses bloomed in the hedge, throwing a dappled shade over her dress but leaving her smiling face in full sunshine. He tucked it with the others into his breast pocket.

It was purely coincidence that the wing commander had seen Tony studying his handiwork on the same day as he had been asked if any of his command were handy with a camera. His comment about preferring cameras to guns clinched it, the Wingco told Tony the next morning. ‘It isn’t an easy option.’ he explained. ‘So I want you to think about it carefully. You will be flying a specially adapted Spitfire. Because speed and distance are paramount, it will have no guns, only extra fuel tanks and the latest camera technology. You will be flying over enemy territory completely unarmed and alone. Your only defence if you are spotted will be your speed and manoeuvrability. How’s your navigation?’

‘Not bad, sir.’

‘Want to give it a try?’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘Right. I’ll get in touch with the Photographic Reconnaissance Unit and if they want you, they’ll send for you.’

‘Thank you, sir.’

‘The work is highly classified, so no talking about it, understand?’

‘Yes, sir.’

Three days later he was on his way to Heston, just west of London. Before the war, the airfield had been a private one used by civilian flyers, but had been taken over by the Photographic Reconnaissance Unit. It was commanded by Wing Commander Geoffrey Tuttle to whom Tony reported.

‘Glad to have you,’ the Wingco said, after the formalities of introduction were over and they were both seated. ‘The Luftwaffe seem to know what we’re doing here and we’ve taken a battering in the last few weeks, but we’ve been given some extra aircraft
and need pilots to fly them. I see you have only just completed your pilot training.’ He turned over the page of a document as he spoke. ‘Came out top of your class for almost everything.’

Tony smiled. ‘Not so good at take-off and landing, sir.’

‘No, but that will come with practice and it’s not so important for the work we do here. The be-all and end-all of the PRU is to take good pictures and get them back to the Photographic Interpretation Unit for analysis. That’s housed at Wembley.’ He smiled suddenly. ‘All three services seem to think they have first call on our time and it’s my task to prioritise. You may be taking pictures of shipping one day for the navy, aircraft on the ground for the air force the next, troop deployment for the army the next, factories or the damage our bombs have caused for Bomber Command, and it all needs precision. Pictures that can’t be interpreted are a waste of fuel, time and often lives. You understand?’

‘Perfectly, sir.’

‘Your kite will not be armed. The guns and armour plating have been taken out to lighten the aircraft and give it some extra speed. You are not in the air to fight and must avoid it at all costs. The cameras and their film must not fall into enemy hands, not to mention aircraft and pilots.’

‘I understand, sir.’

‘Do you want to change your mind?’

‘No, sir.’

‘Good. I’ll take you out to have a look at the aircraft. If you want to take one up and get the feel of it, then do so. Then have the rest of the day to settle in and explore. Tomorrow, you will be assigned your task.’ He stood up and Tony stood too. ‘Go and get into flying kit. I’ll meet you by the hangar in half an hour.’

Tony followed him out and a sergeant conducted him to his quarters where he unpacked and changed, then hurried out to the
hangar, where a Spitfire was taxied out onto the runway for his benefit. It looked a little different from an ordinary Spitfire; there was a new bulge under each wing. The port one contained extra fuel tanks and the starboard one three large cameras, which took the same view at different angles. The whole aircraft had been polished to a mirror finish to get an extra knot or two of speed out of it. After a few instructions from Sergeant Drayton, who was in charge of the ground crew, he adjusted his oxygen mask and took to the air.

He was not sure how he felt. There was elation, apprehension and quivering nerves, especially as the Wingco watched him take off, but once in the air, he felt the power of the aeroplane. He took it up to twenty-five thousand feet and nearly four hundred miles an hour. It was a clear day and below him the airfield was spread out like a map. Although he should have been able to see London, it was invisible beneath a pall of smoke. Beneath that, the citizens were trying to get on with their lives, going to work, eating, sleeping when they could.

He operated the cameras from a box in front of him where the gunsight would have been, had he had guns. Turning to return to base he noticed a formation of bombers and fighters below him and realised they were enemy aircraft. His heart started to pound and his gut seized up. Could they see him? What should he do?

The Wingco’s words echoed in his brain:
You are not in the air to fight and must avoid it at all costs
. He did not have important film on board, but he did have a valuable aircraft. He climbed even higher and circled, waiting. In spite of his extra clothes and warm flying gear he was frozen with cold and could hardly feel his fingers and toes. He saw some Hurricanes on the tail of the enemy aircraft and three of the enemy fighters went down in flames. The bombers droned on. Once again alone in the sky, Tony brought the Spitfire down and taxied to a stop.

‘How was it, sir?’ Sergeant Drayton asked as he climbed out of the cockpit.

‘Bloody cold, but the aeroplane is out of this world. It flies like a bird. I couldn’t believe the speed of it.’

‘The boffins are making it faster all the time. I should go and get warm, sir. We’ll take over here.’

Tony took his advice. He had a hot bath and went to the mess for dinner and afterwards he wrote to Louise. She would be disappointed that he was no longer at Coltishall and the weekend they had planned would have to be postponed. He couldn’t tell her in a letter what he was doing, but hinted that it was something different and very much to his liking because he would not be killing anyone. She might assume from that he was working with the ground crew or in an office. Well, that didn’t matter. The bulk of the letter was a reiteration of his continuing love for her and he found himself carried away by that. ‘I will love you to the end of time and beyond,’ he wrote. ‘I can’t wait to hold you in my arms again and kiss you until you cry for mercy.’

‘Soppy,’ he told himself as he read it through, but it was how he felt and it was the sort of thing he wanted to hear from her. The censors might have a good laugh at his expense, but what the hell! He folded it into an envelope and propped it beside the framed photo of Louise on his bedside cabinet ready to take to the post. He was fast asleep when his roommate came in and tumbled into bed.

The next day he was flying over the Channel ports, where the Germans had been assembling a fleet of barges, presumably in preparation for an invasion. Only by taking photographs on a regular basis could it be seen how the number had grown all the time the Battle of Britain was being waged in the skies, but the pictures he had taken on the last few days had shown the number shrinking. Today there were hardly any. Had Hitler given up his
idea of invasion and sent the barges back where they came from? He turned for home.

As soon as he landed, the ground crew removed the film from the cameras and took them to the processing unit on the base for a preliminary examination before sending them to the Photographic Interpretation Unit at Wembley where there was technical equipment for more detailed analysis. Tony, anxious to see if what he had surmised was borne out by the pictures, went over and watched them being developed.

‘Thank God, it looks as though they’ve gone,’ he was told. ‘I’ll get these over to PIU. Good work, Flying Officer Walsh. Better get some rest.’

Tony went to his room to strip off his flying gear and stretch out on his bed. It had been nerve-racking, wondering if he might come up against enemy aircraft or be caught by the anti-aircraft guns protecting the ports, but the speed and height of the Spitfire made him feel comparatively safe, even when he had dived low to make sure he was over the target. It gave him a feeling of euphoria, of being invincible. He picked up Louise’s photo from his bedside locker. It was that image that had started it all off. ‘I’m back safe and sound,’ he murmured. ‘I’ll write to you after I’ve had some shut-eye. I love you.’ He kissed it and put it back on his locker and in no time at all was fast asleep.

Jan, high in the sky above London, looked down and felt a great lurching in his stomach that had nothing to do with the eggs and bacon he had consumed a couple of hours earlier. It was because the burning city reminded him of Warsaw and Rulka and their parting. It was something he relived in his mind over and over again, everything they had said, every touch, every poignant look, every tear bravely withheld. Could he have done more, said more,
reassured her more, left her with more optimism? Should he have disobeyed his orders and stayed with her? Was she alive even?

The stories reaching the Polish fighters from goodness knows what sources were so horrendous he was almost inclined to hope she was dead and not having to suffer. Any show of resistance was being put down with mass public shootings. ‘Rulka, my love,’ he murmured to himself. ‘Don’t do anything rash. Stay safe.’

He saw a lone Messerschmitt below him to his starboard and banked away to go after it. The pilot didn’t see him until he had fired his cannon and then it was too late; the
shkopy
was spiralling downwards in flames. ‘That one is for Rulka,’ he said, looking about him for more. His blood was up and he was in a white-hot fury. But the sky was empty and he turned back to the airfield. Tomorrow would be another day and he did not doubt the bombers would come again just as they had to Warsaw. The only difference was that Hitler had to cross the English Channel to invade the British Isles and while there was an air force he would not risk it.