Some Lucky Day (11 page)

And then, as she cautiously touched her face and traced the bandage that seemed to cover her head and part of her face, she was filled with a new kind of crippling horror. ‘Was I burned?’ she breathed.

‘No,’ he replied quickly. ‘You must have been thrown clear before the kite went up in flames.’

She felt weak with relief and managed a wan smile.

Freddy shot her an affectionate grin. ‘The old visog has been bashed about a bit, but you didn’t break your nose or cheekbones. The bruising and swelling have mostly gone down, so you don’t look quite as frightful as you did when you were first brought in,’ he said in that over-cheerful, gung-ho manner of all RAF fighter pilots which set her teeth on edge.

‘Don’t worry, old thing,’ he continued. ‘You’ll soon be as ugly as always, never fear.’

‘Thanks,’ she muttered. ‘I knew I could rely on you for sympathy.’

His answering grin was a little forced. ‘It’s what big brothers are for,’ he replied. ‘You were lucky, actually,’ he went on. ‘The crash crew found you several feet away, tangled up in barbed wire and anti-aircraft stakes. It took them quite a long time to get you free of that, but they had you in the local cottage hospital within an hour of the crash.’

Kitty regarded him evenly and knew he was uneasy with this conversation, and clearly not telling her everything. ‘So why aren’t I still there?’

Before Freddy could answer, the curtain parted and a tall, grey-haired man wearing a long white coat over his khaki uniform stepped into the circle of light surrounding the bed. He nodded to Freddy, refused the chair and perched on the very end of Kitty’s bed, his kindly face creasing into a gentle smile.

‘I’m Surgeon General Thorne. It’s good to have you back with us, Pilot Officer Pargeter.’

Kitty felt instantly at ease with him, for he was about the same age as her father and had the same trustworthy smile and deep voice. ‘Please, call me Kitty. I don’t feel much like a Pilot Officer right this minute – more like a broken bag of bones.’

‘That’s hardly surprising,’ he said in his mellow tones. ‘You have indeed broken most of them.’

‘But why am I here and not in the cottage hospital near Kidlington?’

‘The cottage hospital didn’t have the right facilities to treat you, Kitty,’ he replied. ‘So they put you in an air ambulance and brought you here to us.’ He gave her a reassuring smile. ‘We have the most up-to-date facilities, and our surgeons and nursing staff are the best in England, so you’ve been in safe hands ever since you arrived.’

Kitty was still trying desperately to remember anything that happened after the crash, but simply couldn’t. ‘How long have I been here?’

‘You’ve been with us for two weeks,’ he replied. ‘I know this will come as a bit of a shock, but you’ve been heavily sedated, so of course you won’t remember any of it.’

Kitty stared at him in disbelief. ‘Two weeks?’

The army surgeon nodded. ‘You had to have a series of operations, Kitty,’ he said solemnly, ‘and I thought it would be best to keep you heavily sedated for a while so that your body had time to begin to heal.’

He glanced across at Freddy, and Kitty thought she saw a silent message pass between them. She knew then that something was terribly wrong, and she shivered with dread.

‘I began to lessen the dose of morphine to wake you up again,’ the surgeon continued. ‘You see, I need to discuss with you the procedures I’ve had to perform, and I had to be sure you were able to understand fully what I’m about to tell you.’

Kitty’s heart began to thud painfully against her ribs, and the worm of fear curled more tightly in the pit of her stomach as she looked to her brother. ‘Freddy? Freddy, what’s happened to me?’

He immediately moved closer to the bed and laid a gentle hand over her fingers, but there were tears in his eyes and he couldn’t seem to talk – which only served to stoke the rising terror.

‘Kitty, I want you to remember that you’re a very brave, tough girl, who can fly Spitfires and survive crashes in Typhoons and Oxfords,’ said the army surgeon.

‘Just tell me,’ demanded Kitty, now on the very edge of hysteria.

‘Kitty, you were brought in with just about every bone broken. The ribs and collarbone will heal on their own beneath those tight bandages. The fractures in your arms and right leg are expected to heal perfectly within the usual six weeks, and the scarring on your skull, cheek and ear should fade to nothing by the time you are ready to be released from here. I have had to do some repairs to your spleen, and some of the tendons in your hips, but they too are mending well.’

Kitty regarded him, wide-eyed and hardly daring to breathe as he paused in the long litany of her injuries. She didn’t want to hear any more – but knew there was to be no escape. ‘There’s something else, isn’t there?’ she whispered. ‘Something you’re afraid to tell me.’

‘Kitty, my dear, the damage to your left leg was extremely severe,’ he continued softly, his kind grey eyes filled with sympathy. ‘The two bones in your lower leg were badly crushed, and your foot . . . Well, it was found some way away from where you landed.’

She stared at him as the full horror of his words trickled coldly into her brain. ‘My foot?’ she whispered. ‘It’s gone?’

He slowly nodded. ‘I would have attempted to attach it back on, but the damage to it and the limb was too severe for such pioneering surgery.’ He edged nearer to her on the bed and gently took her fingers in his warm hand. ‘Kitty, I’m sorry, but infection set in and I was forced to amputate your left leg to just under the knee.’

She couldn’t move as she stared back at him, his awful words ringing in her head like a death knell. The tears were hot as they rolled down her face, but she was frozen inside as the full horror of her situation sank in. ‘No,’ she breathed. ‘No, no, no.’

‘Oh, Kitty,’ said Freddy as he tried to brush away her tears. ‘I’m so sorry this has happened to you, but you’re strong, you’ll get better and . . .’

‘But I’ll be a cripple,’ she sobbed. ‘A useless, bloody cripple.’

‘I won’t allow you to be useless, Kitty,’ said the doctor firmly. ‘I know it’s the most appalling thing for you to take in right at this moment, but you will learn to accept what has happened to you, and with the fortitude and strength of character I know you possess, you will come through this.’

‘To do what?’ she rasped through the tears and the pain. ‘I’m a pilot, and a polo player. I’m barely twenty-one and enjoy riding motorcycles and going swimming and dancing.’ She collapsed back against the pillow as the agonising truth tore through her. ‘You should have let me die instead of leaving me like this,’ she sobbed.

‘Don’t talk like that, Sis,’ Freddy implored. ‘I know it must feel like the end of the world now, but you’re strong and stubborn, and you’ll find a way to battle through this.’ He leaned closer. ‘You’ve always had a fighting spirit, Kitty, and now is the time to use it.’

Kitty had no strength to fight anything, for her spirit had withered and died in the full horror of her situation. She couldn’t bear to see the stark distress in Freddy’s face, or to face the cold, cruel future that stretched endlessly before her, so she closed her eyes and turned deep within herself in search of solace and release from this awful reality.

And then, as if in answer to her prayer, she felt the cool slide of a needle in her arm and the welcome clouds of oblivion claimed her once more.

IT WAS A
beautiful early July morning and Peggy had decided that she and Daisy should have a stroll along the promenade. Now she was making her slow way back up the hill to Beach View as Daisy wriggled about in her pram to watch the mewling seagulls hovering and gliding against the blue sky.

Despite the lovely day and the welcome heat of the sun, Peggy was mourning the loss of those glorious days before the war when she’d taken her other children down to the beach. She’d always packed sandwiches in her large bag, and enough money to buy a bottle of pop or an ice cream for everyone, and they had stayed there nearly all day, digging in the dark wet sand, hunting for treasures in the rock pools, or splashing about in the water. And then, sandy and sun-kissed, they’d trudged for home with their buckets, spades and towels, for a hot bath and a filling tea.

It was all so very different now, even though the sun had sparkled so prettily on the water, for the beach was mined and closed off with great coils of barbed wire. There were ugly shipping traps that marched in a grim concrete line across the bay, manned gun emplacements dotted along the promenade, and even the salty air was permeated by the stink of the oil that rolled in with every wave and lay in clumps on the pebbles. They were a black and terrible reminder of the ships and aircraft that had been lost, and the ever-growing number of men who would never come home again.

Peggy determinedly plodded up the hill. There was no ice cream to be had, and few bottles of pop, and Daisy had yet to know what it felt like to have sand between her toes, or to dip her feet in the shallows. But life went on, and no good came from being miserable and moaning about things – she just had to get on and do her best like everyone else.

She pushed her rather scratched sunglasses back up her nose and then steered the old coach-built pram along the twitten to the back gate, and past the Anderson shelter where they’d had to spend the previous night. She was sweating after that trudge home, and in need of a nice cup of tea.

Cordelia was in the back garden, sitting in the shade of a large umbrella that Peggy suspected Ron had also liberated from the Imperial Hotel, for she seemed to remember seeing some just like it on the hotel terrace the summer before. It was quite a surprise that he hadn’t filched one of the wrought-iron tables and a couple of chairs while he was at it, she thought with a wry smile. The old deckchairs were definitely past their best, and a three-legged stool served as a garden table.

‘Hello, dear,’ said Cordelia as she set aside her knitting. ‘Did you have a nice walk?’

Peggy lifted a gurgling Daisy out of the pram, adjusted her cotton bonnet and sat her on the blanket in the playpen, which had been brought outside now the weather was fine. ‘The sea looked very inviting,’ she said as she shifted the umbrella so it also shaded the baby. ‘But on the whole it was a bit depressing having to look at the barbed wire and all the damage to the seafront hotels.’

She sat down in the other rickety deckchair and untied the laces on her scruffy sandshoes. They had seen better days too, for the canvas was shredding and the rubber soles were worn thin.

‘There’s damage everywhere one looks,’ said Cordelia, nodding towards the tarpaulin that still covered the roof of the house opposite. ‘But we can’t let that spoil such a beautiful day. This heat is so very kind to my old bones, and I haven’t had a twinge of arthritis for weeks.’

They both looked up as several squadrons of bombers and fighter planes came roaring overhead to shatter the peaceful morning. Daisy clapped her hands and laughed as she watched them, for it was now a familiar sight and the noise didn’t frighten her one bit.

‘It looks as if our boys are on their way to give Germany another hammering,’ said Cordelia once they’d disappeared over the Channel. ‘It amazes me that Hitler hasn’t surrendered after all these weeks of day and night bombing raids.’

‘Poor Martin must be exhausted,’ sighed Peggy as she reached for the teapot which sat on the little stool between them. ‘The responsibility for all those men, the constant ops and the endless list of missing or dead has to be wearing him down.’

‘I suspect that when you’re in the thick of it, you don’t notice,’ said Cordelia. She smiled at Peggy. ‘Your son-in-law is tougher than you think,’ she said firmly. ‘He’s a born leader and his men adore him. He’ll be all right, you’ll see.’

Peggy hoped with all her heart that he would be, for she loved him very much and her daughter’s happiness was at stake. She drank some of the horrid stewed tea and grimaced. ‘I think I’ll make a fresh pot and then do some spam sandwiches for lunch.’

She suddenly realised it was very quiet, and that was as unusual as all the girls having the same day off work. ‘Where is everyone?’

‘Rita’s gone to pick up Ruby on that infernal machine of hers. I think they’re meeting up with that nice little Lucy Kingston and going for a picnic in Havelock Park.’

‘Oh, that’s lovely,’ said Peggy contentedly. ‘I’m so glad Ruby has settled in so well and made such good friends. She’s earned some happiness and youthful fun after all she’s been through.’

Cordelia chuckled. ‘It seems Ethel is settling in very well too. She’s working in the same factory as Ruby and has already made lots of friends with the other girls from the East End, so she’s feeling quite at home now.’

‘Yes, I know,’ said Peggy. ‘I bumped into her the other day as she was coming out of the station and almost didn’t recognise her. She’s filled out a bit and looks so much younger and happier now she’s lost that London pallor, and she’s thrilled with the bungalow.’

Cordelia frowned. ‘What was she doing at the station? Surely she’s not going back and forth to London?’

Peggy shook her head. ‘It seems she and Stan have hit it off. She told me she’s doing a bit of cleaning and cooking for him, as a man on his own couldn’t be expected to feed himself properly, and Stan needed building up.’

‘Goodness me,’ gasped Cordelia. ‘Stan’s not exactly fading away, and he’s always seemed very capable of looking after himself.’

Peggy shrugged. ‘Perhaps he just likes having a woman about the place again to fuss over him,’ she murmured. ‘He’s been a widower for a long time.’

Cordelia eyed her over the half-moon spectacles and clucked like a fussy hen. ‘For goodness’ sake, Peggy,’ she said on a sigh, ‘you must stop this matchmaking. She’s almost half his age.’

Peggy smiled. ‘That she might be, but I suspect she wants to fuss over Stan because of how good he was to her Ruby. From what Ruby has told me, her mother was a lonely woman trapped in an unhappy and violent marriage just as she had been, so I’m glad Ethel’s found some companionship in Stan.’

‘It was all very different in my day,’ said Cordelia with a sniff. ‘Married women had a bit of decorum and wouldn’t dream of carrying on like that.’