Bluebirds (57 page)

He drove an Alvis, a cut above and in considerably better condition than most of the pilots' cars.

‘A twenty-first birthday present from my parents,' he told her on the way. ‘Awfully decent of them. I manage to scrounge the odd bit of petrol now and then.'

‘A lot of the chaps pinch the aviation stuff.'

‘I know. I expect I'll end up doing that.' He clashed the gears as he changed down. ‘Sorry about that . . . it's funny, but I could fly before I could drive. Only just learned.'

‘I've come across several pilots like that. They know how to drive huge bombers all over the skies, but not cars on the ground. Is that your mascot?'

She nodded at the small toy rabbit dangling above the dashboard, dressed in a green waistcoat and wearing a spotted bow tie.

‘Yes. Meet Hannibal. My sister gave him to me. He comes on ops with us.'

‘How brave of him!'

‘Yes, isn't it – considering the pilot. I scraped through training. Always thought I'd be washed out. Hannibal likes a front seat. I hang him up in the cockpit so that he can see what's going on.'

She had a pretty good idea now of what sort of thing the rabbit would have seen ‘going on' – not so much from things she had been told at the official de-briefings as from listening to the crews talking at other times. Hannibal's little black button eyes would have widened in fright to see the flak coming up at him – shells exploding like fireworks in starry bursts of yellow and white and orange-red. He would have been dazzled and scared by searchlights slithering over the cockpit, groping for him like blind men's fingers. He would have peered down in awe at the fires blazing away in the city below and been horrified to catch sight of a Wimpey silhouetted blackly against those flames as it spiralled downwards. He would have craned to count the parachutes mushrooming forth – one, two, three . . . and then turned his head, appalled, to see another Wimpey trapped in the tips of those long, white fingers and ringed by murderous flak. He would
have watched it helplessly and in horror as the bomber blossomed suddenly into a bright fireball that blew apart and fell to earth like red rain. Away from the target area and the starry flak, he would have been shocked again to see a dark shadow appear below the wing, spurting yellow blobs and streams of silver tracer. The night sky would have see-sawed about him as the bomber corkscrewed frantically to get away from the enemy fighter. He would have shut his eyes and opened them later in relief to see the glimmer of white wave caps and the blessed sight of the English coasdine . . . the succession of flashing red beacons marking the homeward track . . . and, at last, the flarepath at Denton winking its welcome in the dark.

‘What are your crew like?' she asked.

‘The very best,' he said and there was a great pride in his voice. ‘I've never met such marvellous chaps. I was lucky to team up with them. You know, they put you in a big room at OTU and let you all sort of mill about and choose each other. Amazing how well it works, really. My navigator just walked up to me and said: “I'm looking for a skipper who can fly a Wimpey without making me throw up . . .” Then the others somehow joined us. We're a pretty mixed bag – Welsh, Scots, Lancashire, my family's from the West Country and our tail gunner's a real East End cockney, so we're from all over. As a matter of fact, I was a bit worried to begin with as I'm the only one who's been to public school. I was afraid they might think I was toffee-nosed, or something . . . the way I spoke. But it hasn't been like that at all. They rag me a bit, sometimes, but we all get along terribly well.'

Eton going to war on equal terms with the Council schools, Anne thought. The playing fields joining forces with the asphalt and the city streets. Perhaps some good will come out of it in the end. It wasn't just a question of different schools and backgrounds, though. They were such different types – from the crazy, tough extroverts like Digger to the shy, sensitive, thoughtful ones like Latimer. She wondered how he felt about dropping
bombs on civilians, as well as military targets, and whether it worried him. When she asked him he thought for a moment as he was driving along, and then said seriously:

‘I was in London during the Blitz once, when I was on leave. I walked around all over the place, looking at all the bomb damage . . . all the ruins of wonderful old buildings, and the homes smashed to rubble. Then, when I travelled on the Tube I saw all those poor people sheltering down there – sleeping on the platforms, on the stairs, everywhere . . . huddled together in those awful conditions, driven down there like animals. I think the homeless were actually
living
there. I had to step over them, there were so many and so close together, and I nearly trod on an old woman by mistake – she was all in black and looked like a pile of rags. When I apologized she smiled up at me – no teeth and her hair in curlers, a hideous old thing really – and she said:
“Good old RAF! Give it to 'em back for us. Let 'em 'ave a taste of their own medicine
.” And then everyone round her started calling out the same sort of thing to me . . . So, I promised them I would.'

She could picture the scene well – the shy young RAF pilot standing there, probably blushing like mad, and the bloody but unbowed Londoners, all urging him on.

‘Actually,' Latimer went on with a dry smile. ‘When I started on ops I found I was much too frightened to think about anything at all except pulling the plug and getting away as fast as possible. I don't think many of us have room for noble thoughts, one way or the other.'

‘I don't blame you. I'd be scared stiff,' she said, with feeling.

‘One thing I'll never quite get used to,' he continued, ‘is the contrast between being here in the English countryside during the day and then that same night finding myself in the middle of all that hell and horror over Germany . . . then you come back again and it's all so normal and peaceful – as though what had happened
over there was just some ghastly nightmare. It's very strange.'

‘It must be.' She remembered the dazed look on the sprog skipper's face; as though he were waking up from a bad dream.

Latimer said earnestly, ‘You can't imagine how much it means to us to see you there when we get back – you're always smiling, always just the same, always behaving as though everything were perfectly all right . . .'

They had dinner at a restaurant in King's Lynn. Taking a peek at the menu prices, she hoped that Latimer did not have to rely exclusively on his RAF pay. Kit had spoken once of his family – an ancient one with large estates somewhere down in Dorset. She tried to recall the brief encounter with his parents at the Fourth, but could only dredge up a vague impression of a tall, Edwardian-looking man and a rather pretty woman in something pale grey, with a large hat to match. There had been a small girl, too, hanging shyly back behind them – presumably the sister who had presented Hannibal and made his smart outfit. She wondered whether Latimer, like most other bomber crews, had already written them a ‘last letter' and left it ready and obvious in his drawer.

‘How are your parents?' Latimer asked politely, during the course of the meal.

She shrugged. ‘Fine, as far as I know. I haven't actually seen them since Christmas.'

She had gone home on leave then – but reluctantly. Even though time had passed, she found that her resentment towards them, and especially her mother, had not. She had brought up Michal's name many times, deliberately.
Michal was given a posthumous medal, you know . . . Michal had one of the highest scores in his squadron . . . Michal always said that . . . Michal and I
 . . . On Boxing Day people had come for drinks and her mother had carefully invited the army officer son of near neighbours who had happened to be on leave too – Harrow, Sandhurst, good regiment, the
right
background,
the right everything. She had taken a bitter satisfaction in ignoring him completely. And she had worn Michal's ring and pinned the Polish eagle brooch to her dress. In uniform, she always wore his ring hidden on a thin chain round her neck and the brooch pinned inside her tunic above the RAF wings she had taken from his best blue and sewn to the lining.
Wear it inside your tunic where no-one can see. Next to your heart
.

She looked up to see Latimer's eyes on her.

‘I heard that you were engaged and that your fiancé was killed in action,' he said awkwardly. ‘I'm awfully sorry.'

‘I can't seem to get over it,' she said, and tears were threatening yet again, suddenly and without warning. She managed to swallow them down.

‘What will you do after the war, Henry?'

He smiled quietly. ‘That's a long way ahead. I don't know really. Go up to Cambridge and read law, I suppose, like I was supposed to do – if they'll still have me. Then join my uncle's firm in London, perhaps. It's going to seem jolly dull, after all this.

‘Yes,' she said, ‘I suppose it will.'

Driving back, in the darkness of the car, he said suddenly:

‘The thing is I've had this feeling lately . . . well, it's more than a feeling really, it's like a certainty – that I'm for the chop. So, I don't think much about what's going to happen after the war.'

She said urgently: ‘You mustn't think like that. You'll get through it all right. You've got a wonderful crew, and that means everything.'

‘I know. But it's really a matter of luck, isn't it? I've come to that conclusion. So there's not much you can do about it. And statistically, an awful lot of us are dead men. I'm fairly sure that I'm going to be one of them – sooner or later. At first I used to believe that it would always be the other chap – the one you saw blown up, or falling out of the sky, or crashing in flames, and felt guiltily glad that it wasn't you . . . But lately I've known it would be
my
turn eventually. It's a bit frightening not knowing where, or when, or how, but I seem to have accepted it more or less now.'

She put a hand on his arm. ‘I've heard other aircrew talk like this, Henry, and it hasn't happened to them. They've all finished their tour.'
Not true. Not true. None of them had
.

When he stopped the car later he said hesitantly: ‘Would you mind terribly if I kissed you – just this once?'

‘Of course not.'
How can I possibly say
‘
No
'?

He was wryly apologetic afterwards.

‘Sorry – I'm not much good at it. To be honest, it's the first time I've ever kissed a girl. I hope it won't be the last.'

‘Ayers Rock,' Digger said. ‘Alice Springs. Heard of those?'

Anne shook her head. ‘Sorry.'

‘Stone the crows! What a sheila! Come on now, you can do better than that. What
have
you heard of?'

She thought hard for a moment. ‘The Great Barrier Reef.'

‘OK. That's better. What else?'

There was another Mess party in full swing; another thrash to help blot out the very thought of ops – all scrubbed that night because of bad weather. Digger had come in search of her and they were standing drinking and talking.

She closed her eyes. ‘Wait a mo . . . Botany Bay. Convicts.'

‘Sore point there. What about Ned Kelly?'

‘I think I've heard of him. He was a horse-thief, wasn't he? They hanged him.'

‘A dinkum Aussie!' Digger's piercing blue eyes crinkled at the corners as though he was still looking into the Australian sun. ‘What else?'

‘Aboriginals.'

‘Another sore point. Think of something different.'

‘Captain Cook.'

‘He was a bloody Pom!'

‘Didn't he discover you?'

‘That's no excuse. What else?'

There was a long pause while Anne racked her brains. The pilot watched her, eyes narrowed, cigarette drooping from the corner of his mouth.

‘The duck-billed platypus.'

Digger roared with laughter. ‘That's bonza! Good on you, Annie!'

She laughed too and caught Henry Latimer's eye across the room. He smiled and lifted his hand. She thought he looked quite cheerful. Four more ops done. So far, so good.

Some New Zealanders had started a sort of Maori war dance, all in a line, whooping and stamping their feet. They whooped and stamped faster and faster until they finally ended up in a tangled heap on the floor.

‘Drunken Kiwi savages,' Digger said good-humouredly, aiming a kick at the squirming mass. The music started up again with a catchy quickstep number. He stuck out a hand towards Anne. ‘Come on, you Pommy popsie. Let's dance.'

Winnie was sent to the RAF flight mechanic training school at Hednesford in Staffordshire. The train journey from Suffolk, crawling north-west in stages across England, took all day. She had to change three times and missed her connection once so that she had to wait more than two hours for the next train. The trains were all crowded, unheated and dirty. There were no empty seats and she had to stand in the corridor all the way. On the final leg of her journey, when she was sitting wearily on her kitbag, a soldier came to stand near her and tried to strike up a conversation.

‘Goin' on leave, then?'

She shook her head. He offered a cigarette, which
she refused, and leaned his shoulders back against the window, heavy army boots braced against the rocking and swaying of the train. He lit his cigarette.

‘Posted then?'

She gave in and told him. There was no harm in it, after all, and he looked friendly and nice. She wasn't sorry to have someone to talk to.

‘Could you tell me when we get to Brindley Heath, please? I can't always hear the station when they call it out.'

He nodded. ‘Stupid idea takin' all the names down, if you ask me. Jerry can read a map, same as anyone else. 'e won't need flippin' station signs to tell 'im where 'e 'is. Just makes it flippin' 'ard for us lot. 'alf the time you can't 'ear 'em sing out, the other 'alf you can't understand what the locals are sayin' anyway . . . What sort've WAAF are you, then? What d'you do?'