Sentimental Journey (21 page)

“Skip!”

He turned to Greer and held up a hand. “Stay there.”

He walked between the cars towards an empty cab two cars back. The driver looked at him, then hammered his horn as he wrenched the wheel right and the cab darted into a suddenly empty lane. The cabbie floored the gas pedal and whipped past Skip, who slammed a hard fist on the bonnet of the cab as it sped past him. “Damn bloody fool!”

Frustrated, he looked down. His uniform cap had fallen into the street. He stared at it a moment, then picked it up and walked over to the kerb. He stared down at the cap in his hands; it was spotted and muddy, like the RAF’s reputation. He felt such mixed emotions: anger, shame, confusion.

Greer took the cap from him and cleaned it on her coat, then stood on her toes and placed it on his head. “There.” She threaded her arm through his. “Let’s walk home, darling.”

“It’s raining. You’ll be soaked.”

“I don’t care.”

He looked up. A cabdriver on the opposite corner pointed and waved him over.

Skip looked behind him, thinking the cabbie was waving at someone else. He turned back. The cabbie was still pointing at him.

“Come, love! Quickly!” He grabbed Greer’s arm and pulled her with him out into the traffic-jammed street, then led their way through three lanes of cars. He quickly opened the taxi door, half expecting it to be a prank.

“You and the missus going to number twenty-seven again?” It was the driver he’d overpaid the day before.

“Yes. There first.” He turned to Greer. “Get in, love.”

Skip crawled inside after Greer and closed the door.

The cabbie was half-turned in the seat. He looked from him to his wife and back at him again. “From the sound of those sirens, I’d say we’re going to need you boys again.”

“He’s the best pilot in the force,” Greer said with plenty of pointed pride and a distinctively stubborn tone Skip knew all too well.

“My wife’s somewhat biased.”

“Don’t listen to him. He is the best.”

The cabbie didn’t comment, but turned, shifted into gear, and they moved down the street.

Greer leaned closer. “You are the best at everything you do, and I love you for it.”

He held her hand as they drove along the dark streets at a restricted speed of just under twenty miles per hour. He didn’t feel like the best at anything right then, even though his blood was pumping faster at the promise of air combat and his palms itched to hold the stick of his Spit.

The trouble was, at the same time he felt strangely ill, like he had the first time he’d ever flown aerobatics, that memorable moment when he was upside-down, scared shitless, and so bloody damned excited that he couldn’t wait to do it again. He was ready for war, God knew he was ready, but there was this sense of the unknown battling inside of him, along with the risk and wanting so badly to show the Germans that the British could be a fierce adversary.

This was the RAF’s chance to show the world they were the best, now that war was on their own shores. The buggers had taken
Guernsey
and blocked the Channel.
Poland
and
France
were gone. It was enough.

Greer rested a hand on his arm.

He smiled down at her. Sitting there next to him was his reason— multiple reasons—for risking his life. At dinner she had told him they were “expecting a child.” It had happened in early May on his last leave.

In the darkness in the back of the cab, he could only make out her silhouette, her features came only from his mind’s eye. But he could see the white skin of her leg and thigh reflected against the darker fabric of her red gown. He loved her in red.

He lifted his gaze; her belly was as flat as always. While they were dancing he had held her against him, pressed his hand on the low part of her back. He’d thought he might feel the life inside of her.

But there was no change. A miracle they had made together was going on inside of his wife, yet he couldn’t see it. He was on the outside looking in. He wanted to see his child growing in her. He needed to see the miracle on some elemental level that he couldn’t explain. He just did.

“Skip?”

“What, love?”

“Shouldn’t you go back to your field immediately? I can get home on my own, darling.”

“There’s time.” He slipped his hand into hers.

She rested her head on his shoulder.

The cabbie made a tight turn and ran over a kerb.

She crushed the hell out of his hand. She was frightened and trying not to show it.

“Sorry!” the cabbie called back over a shoulder, then jerked the gearshift into reverse and backed the tyres down a few feet until they slammed back onto the road. “Can’t see a buggering thing in the dark.”

Skip put an arm around her and held her tightly. He didn’t blame the man, driving through the dark streets, while the air-raid sirens were blaring and the devil coming from across the Channel was bent on only God knew what kind of terror.

He checked his watch and then wondered if he could make the next train. After a moment’s thought he leaned forward. “I say there, I need to get to the airfield at Wellingham, and the trains are likely to be a tangle. Are you up to giving it a go?”

“Wouldn’t let you get there any other way. You shoot down one of those ruddy Nazi buggers for me.”

“Be happy to.” Skip glanced down. Greer was trying to be brave, but she was worried. “I’ll be fine, love. We’ve been training for this. They aren’t going to get us. Not this time. We won’t let them. I’ll be home before you know it.”

She smiled up at him and nodded, but her look was distant, so he said nothing because he couldn’t change things.

Within a few minutes the cab came to a halt in front of No. 27. Skip slid out and opened the door for her, then helped her stand. He bent down, his head level with the window of the taxi. “I’ll be only a minute.”

He straightened then and took her cold hands into his. For the briefest of moments they stood on the pavement, facing each other in the long, rectangular shadows of the surrounding townhouses. The air was thick with the plaintive sounds of distant air-raid sirens and what was to come.

The rain had stopped. The taxi’s engine was running; there was a slight ticking and pinging noise, and warm exhaust brushed against Skip’s leather dress shoes and trousers; it made Greer’s hemline flutter against his legs, and a couple of leaves brushed by.

Even in the darkness he could see her features, tense and strained, her skin taut and pale over the fine bones of that face he loved. The siren pealed over and over, sounding faraway and yet so near, unreal but real. It felt as if the war were on the other side of an invisible glass wall, another dimension away from the two of them.

He could taste her breath between them. She’d been sipping on a crème de menthe before they’d left the
Savoy
. It was a strange thought, mundane in a moment that was anything but.

Then he saw that she was crying. “Greer . . . ”

Her hands tightly gripped the fabric of his coat. “I’m being a goose, I know.” Her voice was wet.

“You need to go inside, love, and promise me you will go immediately down into the wine cellar until those sirens signal it’s clear. Go into the room we set up. You’ll be safe there.”

“I will.”

He was leaving her, but this time there was an urgency that had not been there since war was declared. She was carrying their child. He knew women felt differently then, had heard that pregnant women were more emotional. “Would you rather have me take you to the shelter on the corner? It will be crowded, but you won’t be alone.”

She shook her head, but she was looking down at his shirt, not at him. “No. I want to stay in our home. It will seem as if you aren’t gone at all.”

He slid his hands into her hair and tilted her face up so he could look at her. “You’re certain?”

“I’ll feel closer to you if I stay here. I might not wonder, then, if it’s your plane I hear.”

He didn’t know what to say to her. She must have understood because she took a deep breath and raised her chin, then slid her hands down to his forearms to grip his hands in hers. “I will go directly inside, where I will put those eggs away and save them for when you come home. I promise to make you a cheddar-and-tomato omelet that will be so much better than any old cigar ever could be.”

The kiss they shared was everything neither one of them could say. When they broke apart, the only words that came from his mouth were, “I love you.”

“I know.” She smiled weakly, then pushed him away. “You go. I’m fine. Truly.” She swiped once at her eyes, looked up and ran her fingers over his mouth the way she always did. “Watch your tail, flyboy.”

He kissed her fingertips. “Always.”

She turned and ran up the steps, then disappeared inside the door.

“I’M SHOOTING HIGH”

One was on his tail. A Messerschmitt 109. Skip hauled back on the stick so hard he felt it in his belly. The Spit, bless her, climbed fast, and he could feel the G-force pressing his spine against the seat. His blood sped through his body like strong gin, burning at first, then making him high. Through the cockpit canopy he saw nothing ahead of him or over him but the clear blue sky.

He turned hard to the right—God, but this sweet little fighter could turn—and headed for cloud cover.

He burst through white cotton.

Within seconds the sun cracked through the cover in a gold-and-yellow glow from overhead. He banked again, saw that the aileron angled down, nice and sweet and smooth, just like she should; then he was diving, down . . . down . . . diving deeply as the needle hit 400 mph, fast and at a perfect angle for attack with the sun above and behind him.

Below and flying ahead he could see a group of bombers, Junkers, 88As with full bomb loads. They were in formation but bouncing in the air from antiaircraft guns that bellowed black bursts of flack into the sky from navy ships below. These Luftwaffe bombers would drop their bombs on his country, on ships, factories, and airfields.

His jaw was tight, his hand gripping the stick so hard that it shook. He could see that same 109 below him, could see the black crosses on the wings, and watched the pilot’s head turning this way and that, looking for him.

“Up here! In your blind spot and heading straight for your Nazi tail!”

He pressed his thumb down on the gun trigger. Tracers shot through the air between the two planes in streaks of smoking light. He could feel the bullets fire, could feel the static vibrations of rapid repeating shots.

The 109 pilot turned to escape.

Skip turned with him, even tighter, came in from starboard, and let loose another long burst of fire. The 109 began to waltz from side to side, trying to evade a fixed sight. Skip caught the same rhythm, still firing and coming at the other plane so fast he could see the rivets on the hull.

A second later the 109 pulled up.

He followed it, climbing right with him.
Don’t stall, don’t stall . . .
He was on the 109, firing, his thumb never leaving the button until he saw the tail stream with smoke.

“Got ’
im
!” Skip banked away, came back around, and saw the German pilot bail before the plane began to spiral in a smoky trail down towards the Channel, which was misty grey with smoke and haze from the battle in air and sea.