Spitfire Girls (50 page)

‘All of us,' droned d'Erlanger, ‘were so dazed at
Christmas 1940 as to have entirely forgotten the holiday. So much happened to us that there was barely time to breathe. Then, when we lost Amy, the whole nation mourned with Air Transport Auxiliary at all the stories that came out of that miserable day. Now she is one of the war dead and we wish her well in pilots' heaven, which I think we will all agree is probably much too noisy and smoky for Amy's liking. Like all of us, she wanted a death in harness, and for all we know she may still be up there somewhere – back in harness once more.'

Valerie Cobb fidgeted in her front pew seat, tormented by the information to which she had been privy concerning the last moments of Amy's life. Now, as a senior Commanding Officer, Valerie had the highest degree of responsibility within the RAF–ATA structure and would live with those secrets to her grave. Her own reinstatement had come as a shock when, on the day she had encountered poor pregnant Angelique wandering the streets of Whitehall, Valerie had been told her exceptional qualities of leadership and her resourcefulness were simply too badly missed by ATA for her to be kept in isolation any longer. Now as she listened to Gerard, her thoughts returned to her father's last comment before she had been freed:

‘You are not exonerated. You are just needed.'

She was deeply gratified to be back amongst her pilots, and wondered if all fliers were born wanting only to be with other fliers. Her ears perked to the resonant voice bouncing off the walls of the church and she studied the handsome face of the man in uniform.

‘Martin Toland's loss was a tragedy that has, at the very least, made ferrying a safer job to perform,' continued
Gerard d'Erlanger. ‘We are aware now that those wretched Beauforts all had the same fault, and we sacrificed one life and the disappearance of another pilot, to discover this awful technical imperfection. Should Oscar Toland ever be found, we hope he will forgive the makers of that flying machine. Pilots are always ready to forgive – basically, we are all softies at heart. Two brothers who had given their lives on earth to the service of God are no longer with us – one we know is gone for ever from the cheerful card games at White Waltham.'

Sitting in the quiet chapel and paying tribute to the selfless few who had defied the isolationist wave to help Britain, Nora Flint recalled Oscar's last words as he headed for his Beaufort. He had reminded her of Angelique's condition and said Martin was best left strapped in airborne, or the whole of women's ATA would cease being operational. Nora had taken his remark with a straight face and made a brief retort about the hundreds of Spitfires requiring transport from Vickers Supermarine.

Oscar thought he was in for a long war …

Now, Nora was wiping salty moisture from her weather-beaten nose, and wishing she had not taken a prominent seat in the room. She had never told Angelique about Oscar's quip because no-one had ever seen the actress pilot again after she had stepped into a taxi at Whitehall before the eyes of a newly reinstated Valerie Cobb.

That had been one hundred years ago, Nora told herself.

She had risen to the top of ATA and become an idol to the boss she now called Sam and who in turn was required to call her Ma'am. He was sitting next to her, deprived of Noel. Nora could not recall any time in the past year when
the two had been apart, and she surmised Slater had manufactured some excuse for his absence today. He hated gatherings because gatherings meant people, and like Hitler he hated religion because religion meant caring. She could feel her nostrils moistening again and bowed her head. Inside her skull an organ was playing the same hymn she had heard at the memorial service for Amy Johnson held in St Martin-in-the-Fields, when Valerie had given a moving sermon amid the darkest winter ATA had ever known.

Then it had snowed and runways had frozen. All flying had stopped. And when it had begun again, death followed …

Nora looked up and her eyes met those of Alec and Marion.

D'Erlanger stood erect and his voice seemed to melt the frigid air circulating amongst the pilots:

‘We all remember our other American, little Jo Howes.'

There was a cough in the corner of the assemblage; Bill Howes had not wanted to attend today but Hana Bukova had talked him into attending the anniversary meeting, if only to share in the group's remembrance of his only child. Hana had been alone in England for over a year now, and she was glad to be Bill's comfort after the calamity. Here amongst her new friends she watched him closely and placed her palm on the top of his hand as Gerard's words resonated around the four walls:

‘In the months since her loss we have had more freak accidents, but in no way could they diminish the magnitude of her passing. Like Martin in the Beaufort, Jo's sacrifice enabled us to correct the heinous carelessness that had
allowed carbon monoxide fumes to envelop her tiny cabin. She never had a chance to complete her course at Upavon, but the others have gone on to enormous achievements. One can't help thinking of our tiny, beautiful Yankee lass taken from us at the beginning of her life – smiling down at us now as we fly perfect aircraft she will never touch …'

Valerie had allowed her mind to wander yet again. She was utterly exhausted; only yesterday, the sixteenth consecutive Saturday on which she had worked, she had ferried a Percival Q.6 from Broxbourne for delivery to the Royal Navy at Lee-on-Solent. With its slightly aging electrically-operated variable-pitch propellers, she had had a disturbing time on her approach to Worthy Down, where all pilots had to land to obtain clearance to enter the defended southern coastal area. Jiggling levers, she could not get the rpm right and when she managed to press on to Lee she was gratified to be relieved of the creature on arrival at the foreshortened runway. After the cold of the flight and the disturbing fear the faulty machinery had caused, she was enraged to discover that the Percival was not meant for Naval communications work at all but for a senior officer's personal use: Duncan Worsley had been a motor racing champion and had it not been for his enormous personal charm Valerie felt she could have murdered the man on the spot.

At that moment, Mosquitos were coming out of the factories in droves and her women were desperately needed for delivery of every kind of operational aircraft. Beaverbrook was becoming irritable with a debilitating asthma and some said he would soon resign his post as Minister of Aircraft Production. He had started it all, and
she had not forgotten. Valerie was furiously proud of her girls, whose numbers had quadrupled in a year and whose nationalities now spanned five continents.

Though pride had never been a Cobb family vice, she could think of no other emotion to match her regard for these talented women. Looking across the nave Valerie allowed a minuscule smile to crease her mouth at the sight of the gorgeous Kay Pelham and her equally ravishing friend Lili Villiers. Australians seemed to possess a permanent suntan – their skin retained a vitality that glowed even in the dullest London street corner. Valerie was glad Edith Allam had been able to fulfil poor Beaverbrook's wishes, even if he was now too ill to appreciate the Antipodean beauties Edith had imported for ATA. None of the ferry pilots could believe the saga of the American's intercontinental journey, nor could they comprehend the paradise she had described upon landing in England. Edith had never seen anything so breathtaking as the magical sunsoaked heaven Kay and Lili called home. She had arrived in Australia exhausted, short of funds and embarrassed to the point of deep shame. She had been astonished when upon her long-overdue arrival an assortment of enthusiastic Australians and New Zealanders had flocked to her side to do what Kay Pelham had called ‘ATA auditions'.

Kay and Lili were striking beyond all criteria of physical grace, and their talent as pilots was equally superb. They were playfully rude about her delayed arrival, and Edith could only marvel at the girls' electrifying rapport.

Lili's industrialist father had produced piles of cash in exchange for a promise from Edith that she would
endeavour to break the record for the number of Spitfires ferried around Britain, and that she would look after his little daughter. Lili had been nonplussed that her tragic dream of the hulking blond accomplice had come true. Unfortunately her dream of Amy had also become reality, news Edith had solemnly relayed on her arrival in Australia. Walking along the perfect beach and breathing in the pure air that seemed so charged with health, Edith had familiarized herself with box jellyfish and sea wasps in the baking January of the Great Barrier Reef, its unspoilt islands of mangrove swamps and rainforests staggering to behold. She had vowed to return some day, and if Kay and Lili were a microcosm of the stunning bodies running along the edges of Daydream Island, Edith knew she would have to pray hard for this war to come to a speedy end.

Now a year had passed and this was cold Mayfair in the depths of global conflict. Her ears registering the pleasant, unwarlike music swelling from the organ loft, Valerie marvelled at the possibility of her having recruited the cream of the entire crop of the world's women pilots for 1942 ATA. It had been a great pity, Valerie had thought privately, that lovely Hartmut had been snatched from Edith Allam's embrace by the British authorities upon her arrival, and that he had been deposited in an internment camp – when the blond Adonis could have been of such great use to ATA.

D'Erlanger had stormed at Valerie not to intervene on behalf of the dashing German after her Kranz débâcle, and Valerie had stormed back about the blond blue-eyed Adonis being a Jew …

*

Philadelphia's most famous daughter, the girl who had flown around the world in defiance of her nation's refusal to enter the European war, and who had triumphantly delivered the finest of the colonies' pilots on England's doorstep, now sat pale and rigid in a rear seat against the faded back wall. Edith's eyes seemed to have lost their incandescence in the short time she had spent back in Britain, but watching her Valerie could see the almost crazed determination that would make the girl such a vital element of the ATA working structure. Now that the United States had entered the war in the wake of Pearl Harbour, Edith seemed fired with delight in the present worldwide conflagration.

Music had come and gone inside Valerie's head as she too recalled a flash of Amy's memorial service, so hastily organized amid a winter of despair. Now, she noticed Edith's expression changing as the American watched with interest the arrival of a civilian couple who were taking their places at the end of a draughty row. Gerard's voice was entrancing but now he was stopping to make way for the newly returned Gordon Selfridge.

‘And so it came to pass', Selfridge was relating, ‘that every Saturday afternoon all through that first year of ATA, a special bunch of young guys was brought to the airfield and handed cleaning cloths. These fellows shined every available surface to such excess that they were soon put on to Ansons to help our pilots in winding the undercarriage. I went away for half a year and when in February 1941 I came back to this land, your Air Defence Corps was taken over by the RAF and cadet training had begun.'

Edith Allam half-listened to Selfridge, her attention drawn to the incongruous pair who had moved into the
row facing, and who seemed so uncomfortable in the company of flying people. It was only then that it dawned on her there were no ordinary civilians present. It might be, she theorized, that the sea of uniforms intimidated this shabby couple, whose grim hostility to their surroundings could be felt yards away. She had seen the man before, but a long time ago, before she circled the earth.

‘ATC recruits were given wonderful uniforms,' Selfridge continued, ‘and in their capacity as pilots' assistants they started flying in school Hudsons and Albemarles. Our most outstanding product was selected because of his exceptional energy and was meticulously trained for assisting in the first communications flights to the Continent. None of us will ever forget how he came back with Amy Johnson from France, full of the stories about Hurricane pilots recognizing her in the bar of the Hotel Lion d'Or and showering her with champagne. Her young escort went on to be so damned good we lost him to the RAF and then as we all remember so darkly, a few days after receiving his commission, on his very first flight, we lost Cal March to the great Commodore in the sky …

Gordon's voice trailed off and Shirley Bryce, exhausted and distracted by the fact that she had not seen her mother in over a year, remained dry-eyed while others around her wept quietly. She felt unmoved by the whole ceremony, which she saw as a huge production number.

Why bother to celebrate two years of anything?

Why wallow in death?

Shirley's emotions bordered on shame as she spent the major portion of Gordon's homage to Cal March letting her mind wander to that magical moment thirteen months
ago when she had reported to Hatfield just after dawn and been greeted by the sight of Valerie Cobb engrossed in paperwork. Magic had been extinguished when the two embarked upon their first conversation since the CO's exile. Valerie wanted to talk only of Friedrich, and even requested Shirley's companionship on her first visit to the internment camp, the location of which she was determined to extract from the authorities.

Could one believe it?

After registering Valerie's request, Shirley had slunk into a dark corner. Was there no end to the woman's idiocy? How could she continue to pursue destruction incarnate?

‘Friedrich is a walking disaster area,' Shirley had hissed at a July dinner party, and Valerie just laughed. Held to defy the devastation that had been heaped upon Southampton, the party had been at Hamble, where Shirley observed the intriguing repartee on the lips of Valerie and d'Erlanger. Some of the girls boasted over a lemonade that they had survived the bombings despite having watched the
son-et-lumière
show from the roof of Hamble aerodrome, and Stella told them to shut up before Val and Gerry, as she called them, threw her out of ATA.