Spitfire Girls (2 page)

‘If a war gets your beady eyes off my daughter, then yes: why not?'

‘The big news is that the man from Vienna is trying to buy a space in your constituency.'

‘Vienna would be a blessing in my patch. Those idiots in the parish haven't seen anything foreign since a nun visited.'

‘You know, I have wondered at times about your allegiances.'

‘Leave that to Hitler. In fact, Tim, I expect you feel warmed by his methods. You knew of a Viennese presence in my milieu before I did.'

‘Funny, because he was seen coming out of a hut in Hunstanton.'

‘Who? Hitler?'

Haydon did not laugh.

Cobb reflected fleetingly to himself that an absence of a sense of humour must be congenital.

‘Everyone knows there is only one hut in your village – in fact, one hut in Norfolk.'

Cobb, facing yet another widowers' dinner, got into a taxi in silence, leaving Haydon to fantasize on two women in a hut.

Edith Allam had come to Lakehurst, New Jersey to watch another momentous event amongst crowds of men. She had positioned her camera apparatus and was ignoring the
curious looks from the career reporters and press photographers. Sadly, the only other girl butting in on the proceedings was a tiny German. They chatted, Edith in the natural tongue of her immigrant parents, or so she thought.

‘What is this inflection of yours?' asked Raine Fischtal, distinguished film-maker for the Reich.

Edith had never experienced inhibitions about her German. Everyone on Ritner Street spoke Yiddish – except, of course, for the Irish. Still, to Raine it was not real German.

‘Hitler wants perfect diction to go with the uniforms.' Raine wanted to make the girl feel uncomfortable.

‘For perfect diction you have to go to Philadelphia Normal School.'

‘Normal? Obviously you are not a Wagnerian.'

‘On the contrary – I am. Can I see your camera?'

Raine handed over the apparatus with more revulsion than reluctance. In front of her stood a striking brunette with intelligent blue eyes set far apart.

‘Wagner would have enjoyed being here today,' said Edith. ‘Imagine his glee at the sight of a giant Tristan in the sky over the New World.'

‘Please be careful with my equipment. Yours is rudimentary. Made for non-mechanical minds.'

‘Wrong again. I'm a mechanic – the only girl in South Philly with a pilot's licence.'

For some reason Raine was filled with even more disgust and snatched her movie camera from Edith's gloved hand. Why did American women wear gloves at all the wrong times? she muttered to herself. Out of the corner of her eye she sensed a deep hurt had set in, but felt nothing for
the native whose ghetto tongue was gutter German. Her blue eyes offended her – how dare she? It was a freak of nature.

Edith stayed put, thinking of the simplicity of her parents' lives. A brain like Raine's left her excited and frightened. How easily it could enslave someone!

A commotion made both women move. One of the reporters, a radio man, was sweating and Edith laughed.

‘I hate these things. Didn't sleep at all last night. What about you?'

‘Other things scare me,' replied Raine.

‘Like what?'

‘If you look over there, a lady with a movie camera is filming, and she's even taking shots of us – samples of merchandise to show to her master – like fabric to a tailor. They call it cut-and-paste. That frightens me, much more than a news story.'

Eddie Cuomo tipped his hat at Edith and she watched him wipe his brow and talk into the microphone. The event was approaching – the landing of the giant airship ‘Hindenburg' – and Raine straightened with the prospect.

A few moments later, men ran for their lives and in the stupidity that is often confused with patriotism, Raine Fischtal let the flames engulf her before fleeing with her Master's film. Edith ran and snapped, ran and snapped, watching the German lettering disappear along the side of the giant Tristan, and in the distance she could hear the frightened man screaming, ‘Oh, humanity, humanity …' a display of emotion which would lose him his job in a land which still loved its Teutonic roots …

Later, people would say that the Hindenburg disaster at
Lakehurst, New Jersey marked the end of innocence for millions of Eddie Cuomo's listeners. Edith Allam's picture made the cover of
Life
. She didn't even get her hands burnt.

With the money from the picture she would try to get airborne and find out if Raine and her film had survived the holocaust.

In 1937 birds were beginning to get used to their natural flying patterns being disrupted by air currents created by buzzing monsters.

Valerie Cobb had transcended that world created by men, and looked down from her single-engine Spartan at the beaters. They loved their lives. She loved hers. Her aeroplane was much cleaner, she suspected, than the bodies of the Lords of the Manor. At least the wildlife could feel safe up here, she thought, as her machine surged through their domain.

It was the end of the busy season and she was returning to Hunstanton from a taxi job. Autumn was well under way, visibility atrocious and as she cleared thick cloud her craft received a jolt. Struggling to regain control, and emerging into calm skies, she was alarmed to register another small craft closing in. She banked steeply only to find the other plane coming alongside. It was a moment she had endured before: yet another foolhardy male pilot ‘getting a good look'. Eye to eye, he leered and she took avoiding action: he misjudged, the joke went wrong and he clipped Valerie's wing.

She would have to come down. Furious, and in a frantic search for a landing patch, she skimmed houses and found herself in a small field. As her aeroplane juddered to a halt the damage seemed to tap against her bones like an invisible set of fingers. The Spartan cried out to her.

‘Damn them.' Her mind regurgitated the image of the leering pilot. ‘God, how I hope he crashes and wets himself.'

Emerging from the cockpit she inspected the damage.

‘He'll sit down to tea, smelling of pee …'

Expletives rolled out, hitting the fuselage and echoing back. When the echoes stopped she knew they were being absorbed. A warm coat stood next to her, then two.

‘Your pilot bending the rules?'

Valerie looked in disbelief at the pair. ‘Tweedledum and Tweedledee also came to tea. Can I help you two?'

‘We'll need to see the pilot's licence, madam.'

‘I
am
the pilot.'

They circled the aircraft as if a pilot more to their liking would emerge to assure them both they were once again warm in a secure world.

‘There is a landing fee of three pence, which we require. Otherwise the aeroplane is impounded and your licence confiscated.'

‘Do you need me to find you a man to pay the money?' Valerie was flashing the smile her father referred to as ‘the heavens opening'.

Present company remained unimpressed. ‘What is your business?'

‘Taxiing, transport, joyrides and aircraft maintenance.'

Now fear had set in. They wanted her out of their midst. The unknown, like the dark, always frightens.

‘I was terrorized into landing here by an irresponsible idiot. Send me someone to help do the wing.'

Tweedledum was becoming aggressive. ‘We can suspend your licence.'

‘Whatever for? What
is
this place, anyway?'

‘If you don't know, you shouldn't be flying.'

‘Can I guess? Number one, it's in my father's constituency. Number two––'

Tweedledee, the one who had remained silent throughout, interrupted:

‘Weston Longville, madam.'

‘Close enough.' Valerie laughed.

She thrust a coin into one of the coats and they slunk off. In the distance she could hear Tweedledum muttering something about madam this and madam that. She knew they would find her a mechanic because fear had turned to libido and she had scored two further conquests.

Shirley Bryce watched with amusement as Valerie brought their battered craft in for a perfect landing. A crack ground engineer, she had A, B, C and D licences and was qualified to undertake both airframe and engine overhauls of aircraft. She had read her partner's poetry during this morning's wait and looked at the figure emerging from the cockpit with even more of the uncomfortable affection she had tried so hard to bury.

‘Take three pence out of that job, plus the cost of patching,' said Valerie. ‘I got clipped again and found two potential lovers. Lucky for me I landed in a proper airfield.'

‘Someone from Vienna came to see you today.'

‘What did you think?'

‘Of the man from Vienna?'

‘My landing in an airfield. And the wingtip? Was he nice?'

Shirley climbed atop the wing and Valerie grinned.

‘He was looking for lessons,' said Shirley.

‘What sort?'

‘Up-in-the-air kind. God, was he nervous.'

By now the ground engineer had found her way underneath the wing. She thought of her ancestors as she lay prostrate. Her voice was muffled.

‘Val, what does Blood Libel mean to you?'

The pilot was bored. ‘Nothing. Are you sure he was Viennese?'

‘He told me a story about Norwich in the eleven-hundreds, and something called Blood Libel.'

Valerie had loosened her flying suit and was watching the circus performers readying their equipment for that afternoon's show. She wondered if they were part of a foreign invasion force.

‘He came to see you because of the troubles he's been having at home. For some reason he wants a higher-class licence, and he thinks you can help. Now he's here, and his family is out of reach. They were supposed to come over and now they can't get out – at least in the manner he'd arranged.'

‘Why?' At times Valerie avoided confronting the disturbed histories of older cultures.

Shirley sat upright. ‘Hitler will take Austria and go to work on the Jews. Apparently their businesses are threatened and even the most charming of Viennese are more ardent Nazis than the Germans.'

‘They're proud of their native son,' said Valerie.

‘Listen, this man needs help. When he got here, our geniuses confiscated his own private plane. If he can familiarize himself with an old heap like this, he can get his family out of the old country. You could enlighten him.'

‘What did he say about libel?' asked Valerie.

Shirley was sitting with legs folded and her partner towered over her slight figure.

‘His name was Franz, or something, and he explained the remarkable history of Norwich as the first setting for a Blood Libel,' explained Shirley.

‘Should Dad know about this?'

‘It was eight hundred years ago.'

‘His mission, idiot.'

Shirley stood. ‘I think you should meet him.'

Valerie was thinking of the men who had already filled her day. ‘I came close to losing everything myself today – all because of some maniac. How different could I possibly look in the cockpit? Somehow they always know I'm not one of them, and they single me out for the torture treatment.'

‘It must be animal instinct, Val.'

‘This is incident number thirty-six this year. I seem to attract lunatics.'

‘You have your own style of flying.'

‘Maybe we should quit. I'm tired. Try and get Franz back, would you?'

‘
K
ranz. Friedrich Kranz.'

Shirley put her hand on Valerie's shoulder. In her other hand was one of the many precision tools of Britain's sole woman ground engineer. As her partner went off to think, she resumed her bodywork. Kranz would come back. Things would be different.

Excellence in sport had been encouraged in school, but for English girls destined for the London Season delusions of a muscular career had to be dashed shortly after puberty. Barbara Newman, a Rothschild cousin, had befriended Sally Remington when they were in the hockey team and had taken her under her wing. Sally's parents had lost everything in the Great Depression, so Sally was poor and Barbara was rich, but both girls shared a fiendish devotion to the development of their physical skills, far beyond puberty and in defiance of the Season.

After many battles with her parents Barbara managed to continue in her pursuits, which led her to become Britain's greatest woman ice-hockey player. Sally had taken a part-time job in the local flying club, serving drinks to other girls lucky enough to afford the lessons. With the money earned she pursued a cheaper sport and soon became a top club tennis player and began travelling the world competing against the greats of her day. Occasionally she would encounter Barbara in an American town or a Canadian outpost, and on days away from competition they would loiter at flying clubs and take the odd lesson. Both girls had become world celebrities and wherever they went fans fussed and doted. They shared a private chuckle when, time after time, flying lessons were given free of charge because of their notoriety. Aeroplanes had begun to fascinate the pair, the hours they accumulated beginning to add up towards a real qualification.

By 1938 Sally Remington had hurtled to the top of world tennis. Barbara's career came to an abrupt halt with the threat of war, her family having involved themselves heavily in the financing of refugee airlifts from European capitals still free from Nazi control. Their daughter, whose ice-hockey trophies covered the shelves of one entire room in their spacious London mansion, devoted herself to flying full-time, amazing her club with daring aerobatic displays and loop-the-loops that defied the dynamics of traditional aircraft design. All breath would be held as the famous ice-hockey champion would wind through the air at a screaming speed and feign loss of control, only to level out and start the ascent all over again.

Bill Tilden was the greatest tennis player of his generation and considered Sally his female equivalent. Indeed, he had tried to talk her out of returning to England and had very nearly persuaded her to continue as his mixed doubles partner on the American circuit. Flying, however, had reached into her soul and on a glorious California morning she had kissed the legendary ace goodbye, promising him she would be back the day peace had been restored. Sally, her racquets and a framed photograph of her tall, glamorous figure tucked amongst Big Bill, Ted Tinling and René Lacoste were loaded on to a steamer bound for Southampton. It was a perilous journey, with rumours of German submarines heading for international waters, but luck travelled with the beautiful tennis player and she was reunited with her adoring parents.