Churchill’s Angels (31 page)

Daisy gasped. She knew that voice. It was, no, it could not possibly be … She pulled off the helmet but he spoke first.

‘I came early to see if your pupil was really my old friend from Dartford. So, Daisy, my dear, you did find something more exciting than lentils and tea leaves.’

‘Mr Fischer. It is you. Oh, I’m so happy that you’re safe. We were all so worried and no one would tell us anything, and poor Mrs Porter was really upset. I tried to get her to take in Belgian refugees but actually I think she’s keeping the house for you.’ She stopped, cringing with embarrassment at having, as she thought, let her tongue run away with her.

‘Say cheerio, Daisy, darling.’ Adair kissed her forehead gently and turned to his passenger. ‘Like you, sir, Daisy is a secret weapon.’

Daisy returned to her billet nursing three wonderful secrets. One, Mr Fischer – that is, Dr Fischer – was an eminent scientist, engaged in secret work for the Government; two, the base commander himself knew of her dreams of flying and was actively encouraging her; and three, Adair Maxwell loved her. Four. The number was four not three, for Daisy now knew that she loved Adair Maxwell as deeply as it was possible for a woman to love a man. The thought of one day being his wife almost took the breath from her body. She felt so light that she wondered why she did not float over the airbase.

The smell of roast chicken drifted to her from open doors and she remembered that she had had no lunch but she felt that she did not care if she ever ate again.

How long could one live on joy alone?

Next morning, as usual, she was ravenously hungry and laughed at her fancies as she ate an enormous breakfast. Her score in her last written test had been slightly lower than the ones that had preceded it and so she went to class with an even deeper ambition.

She wrote to Adair twice but had no reply. This lack of news did not worry her unduly as his days and nights were filled with dramas she could not begin to understand. No more little notes were handed to her by smiling clergymen. No need now for secrecy or fear. She had admitted her love for Adair and knew that he loved her. Life could never get better.

Daisy did, however, receive a letter from Flora.

You’ll never believe, Daisy, but we’ve been bombed again. High-explosive bombs hit Kent Road the other night. Families wiped out, of course. The Scala was hit too but no one was there, thank the lord. All in all fifteen houses just wiped off the face of the earth. You wouldn’t believe the noise. I’ll hear it in my head till my dying day and the world looked like it was on fire. Flames shooting up ever so high and your dad out in it. Came home looking like one of them zombie things from the pictures.

Frank’s popped in a few times. He’s quite happy with a cuppa and a Spam fritter, likes family company, I think. Nice fella. Gets on well with the lads. Letter from Phil, he’s OK, thank heaven, and we are glad you are so far away. Never thought I’d hear myself say that.

Love,

Mum

My mum and dad are fighting in a way too, decided Daisy. The unusually long letter had made her eyes sparkle with tears. Sometimes it felt as if they had to be living in a nightmare, the worst bad dream ever, but waking up each morning only showed, more cruelly than ever, that Britain, including dear old Dartford, was fighting a war.

She became aware of a plane flying overhead and looked up. She could hear the drone of large engines, a sound that could be either frightening or comforting, depending on the plane’s nationality, but there was no sight of any aircraft. Already it was far away, although the rumble carried on. All that flew lazily around and around in the blue sky was a large gull.

Now did Adair say that was an effect of the speed of sound or the speed of flight? She made a note to ask him next time they met and went back to her study.

Every one of her classmates seemed, these days, to be fully focused on working hard and passing the examinations. The dancing class was cancelled because fewer and fewer devotees turned up. Only permanent staff filled the cinema.

‘Wonder where we’ll be posted?’

‘If we pass,’ mumbled Joan, who worked hard and worried even harder.

‘We could be sent anywhere,’ said Maggie. ‘Northern Ireland or – horrible thought – Scotland.’

‘What’s so awful about Scotland?’ Daisy thought she would actually like to go to another country.

‘It’s not Merrie England,’ answered Maggie. ‘We’d be stuck in the wilderness for ever. Too far for a forty-eight-hour pass and where could we go for a twenty-four-hour one? The cinema and fish and chips in the nearest town.’

‘Sounds lovely, doesn’t it, Joan? I can smell the chips already.’ Daisy was determined to be cheery.

Soon, very soon, this long gruelling course would be over and she and her friends would be fully trained mechanics. ‘Just think, girl, as mechanics we’re set up for after the war. An airport, the nearest garage, won’t matter, we’re qualified,’ said Joan.

‘After the war, if there is an after the war, I intend to marry a man …’ Maggie stopped and thought, ‘… a man who makes me laugh.’

‘And who’s rich and handsome and kind; he’d have to be kind, wouldn’t he, Daisy?’

‘He’d have to be kind, yes.’

‘Like your pilot?’ Both Joan and Maggie knew that she had had some lessons and, while happy for her, were quite content to watch from the ground.

‘He’s kind, or he wouldn’t be teaching me to fly.’

Maggie asked a serious question. ‘Could you go up alone with the training you’ve had, Daisy?’

Daisy found herself blushing. She had no desire to boast, but Joan and Maggie were her friends and deserved the truth. ‘I have been up alone. Honestly, it’s no harder than driving a van; just have to get it into the air and back down again.’

Joan shuddered. ‘Couldn’t do it, couldn’t. I think pilots are absolutely amazing but these little feet will stay firmly on the ground.’

‘Now, Joan, what if I were to say that I know a lovely, slightly older pilot, and if he were to offer to give you a flying lesson …’

Joan and Maggie looked at each other and then at Daisy. ‘We are willing to be swept off our feet, physically as well as metaphorically speaking.’ Maggie spoke for both.

‘This is silly. Come on, time for bed. We’ll be useless in the morning and there’s a practical test; need to be alert.’

Daisy had slept badly – perhaps the hut was too warm – and she woke early. Her eyelids felt as if they had been glued together. Once she had managed to open them, she decided to shower, dress, and go for a brisk walk before breakfast.

No matter the hour, the camp was busy. Civilian and military personnel were walking around, some, like Daisy, barely awake, and others obviously coming off night duty and heading back to their billets.

‘Daisy.’

The voice surprised her. She knew it – calm, gentle, authoritative – but what a surprise to hear it here at Halton. She smiled brightly while having a quick look around to see if anyone on her course was present to see her chatting amiably with a wing commander. And how incredibly strange that she had actually, just the evening before, been about to tell her two friends about him. What could he be doing here?

‘Tomas, how lovely to see you. Did you fly down?’

‘No, Daisy, I drove. I came especially to see you.’ He held out his hand. ‘Walk with me, please.’

From having been too hot and uncomfortable she was now ice cold. Something had happened, something so appalling that only Tomas could talk to her about it. ‘Tomas, what is it? Is anything wrong?’

‘Please, my dear friend, I meant to be here before you rose.’

He took her arm and she was forced almost to run as she hurried along beside him. It was Adair. It had to be. His leg had not set properly – had she not said that he had not given it enough time? Yes, that was it. His broken leg had not set and was causing problems. Goodness, every pilot and flight mechanic knew how difficult it was to climb into some of those bombers with two good legs. How much more difficult with only one.

She looked ahead. The Methodist chapel. What on earth was Tomas doing? She started to laugh, a laugh that he recognised as hysterical.

‘Come, Daisy, we can talk here.’

She pulled away. ‘No Tomas. I’m not Methodist. I’m C of E.’ She had nothing against Methodists, and probably Tomas, being Czechoslovakian, did not quite understand, but he did have a firm grasp of her arm.

‘We can talk in private here, Daisy. Come, my dear.’

She could fight no longer and collapsed against him, every atom of energy used.

They were inside the small building and he led her into a tiny office that contained little besides two chairs and a small table, obviously used as a desk. For a moment or two there was absolute silence. Neither seemed willing to break it, but Tomas was the bearer of the news and knew what he had to say. He knew too that there was no way to make it easier or kinder.

‘Daisy, Adair was shot down over the Channel last night. There was no warning; the enemy appeared from out of a cloud. He was the leader, Daisy, in the front, and there was nothing anyone could do, no time for evasive action, although they say he stood his plane on its head. Who could stand a plane on its head, little Daisy, but our friend?’

‘They’ll pick him up.’ She jumped up. ‘Oh, Tomas, you mustn’t let the Germans pick him up.’

‘We picked him up.’

Hope surged and then sank without a trace as she saw the pain and sorrow on the Czech airman’s face.

‘No hope?’

He shook his head.

She stood up, holding herself together as best she could. ‘Oh God, he gave me his lucky scarf. I had his scarf. Oh, Tomas …’

‘Stop it, stop this nonsense. I thought better of you and so did Adair.’

She looked at him, tears trembling on the ends of her eyelashes. ‘I’m sorry. What happens now?’

‘The air force will contact his next of kin.’

‘Alf?’

He swallowed a laugh with a tear. ‘Wouldn’t that be wonderful? No, he has a cousin whose lawyers will arrange an interment. I’m sorry, Daisy, but even this noble cousin is not within what they term degrees of kinship to be given leave. Besides, the War Office doesn’t seem to be very sure where he is; somewhere in North Africa, I think. Adair will be buried in the crypt of the chapel in his cousin’s home.’

‘The Old Manor,’ she said, and burst into tears.

Tomas held her and she lay against him and cried until she could cry no more. Then, slightly embarrassed, she straightened up. ‘Oh, Tomas, what are we going to do?’

He stood up and pulled her up with him. Holding her by the arms he looked down into her eyes. ‘You and I, dear Daisy, are going to be glad that he was in our lives, and we are going to work as hard as we can to win this war. Every time I fly, I say, “This is for Czechoslovakia,” but now I will fly and fight for my country, and this lovely green place which has given me a life and a chance to fight back, and I will add: “This is for Adair, a very young Englishman, a
perfect gentle knight.
”
Is that not what your Chaucer says?’

Charlie would have known what he was talking about. ‘I don’t know, Tomas, but thank you for coming to tell me. Silly, but we hoped there would be ham for Christmas this year. I wanted to give Alf my share and he would share …’ She could not continue.

‘I must go back. You have a friend …?’

‘Breakfast time, Wing Commander, and then I have a class.’

They walked quietly together towards the area where they had first met. A staff car with a uniformed driver was there.

Tomas stopped. He stood looking towards the car. ‘We are friends, Daisy, yes?’

‘We are friends, Tomas, yes.’ She saluted and then watched him walk across to the car. She did not watch it drive away.

Her face in the mirror was not a pretty sight. Her eyes were so swollen she looked as if she could have been in a fight, and her skin was blotched. What could she do before she went to class? She groaned as she remembered that it was to be a practical class and her eyes certainly did not give the impression of being alert. Charlie would have known what to do. Her make-up bag had always seemed to contain whatever it was that anyone needed. Daisy heard a sob and realised that she had made the sound.

Don’t think, Daisy. You’ve cried all you’re going to, thanks to Tomas.
But try as she would, she could not forget the beautiful picture of Adair, running towards her across the grass, waving his lucky yellow scarf.

She ran the cold tap until it was ice cold and then splashed water over her face. She took some toilet paper from a stall and soaked that and held it against her eyes until she heard someone enter the toilet.

‘Hay fever? Poor thing. My gran swears by honey. Bit late for you this summer but next posting, make sure to use local honey and don’t let them sell you anything but.’

The voice stopped and Daisy threw her sodden paper in the wastebasket and hurried out.

‘Hay fever,’ she muttered when anyone looked at her oddly. ‘Thanks, it’s nothing,’ when they commiserated with her and by dinnertime she was almost ready to believe it herself.

She said nothing to Joan and Maggie. Words made the appalling nightmare real. If they thought she was not quite herself they said nothing. Everyone was allowed a few days a month to be difficult, and besides, they were all tense as the course drew to its end.

Daisy did not write home. She could not. Alf would tell them.

Adair’s station commander was rather surprised to be told that Alf Humble, a farmer from Dartford, was listed as Adair’s next of kin. The War Office had no record of Alf although one of the secretaries pointed out that the address of one next of kin and the address of the other were remarkably similar. The Old Manor for the first, and Old Manor Farm for the second.

‘Some mistake. Obviously this Humble fellow tenants the farm and since the house has been requisitioned he’s got the spare set of keys.’

Therefore it was only when a large car drove up to the farmhouse one sunny summer afternoon, and a uniformed officer asked that the crypt be opened that Alf and Nancy found out about Adair’s tragic death.