Spitfire Girls (55 page)

‘He could destroy your career,' Lili said, still sitting on the ledge. ‘Everybody who meets him is antagonized. Just think if you get into a great theatre company – no-one will want to know you after a while.'

‘On the contrary – being with him, I'm learning proper pommy English, and I intend taking him with me everywhere, buying him a house and a motorcar, and tying him to a chair until he writes the charter for his new airline corporation.'

Lili scowled in silence as Kay's elegant fragrance wafted through the dank air and seemed to warm the atmosphere like a tropical sunbath.

‘I suppose I should find a bloke to marry, and have a baby,' Lili mumbled.

Kay whirled around.

‘Lil, are you crazy?' she shrieked. ‘Your career is going to be hot stuff – after the war you'll be producing all my films.' Kay paused and looked back into the mirror. ‘If you get pregnant, you're fucked!'

Kay had made Lili laugh. Suddenly Delia Seifert entered the lavatory, her skin white and blotchy. Before Lili could offer her a seat, she ran to the lone cubicle and vomited.

‘If she's in the club I'll eat my dress,' Kay muttered. Emerging from the cubicle, Delia went to the basin and washed her face.

‘Are you ill from our flight?' asked Lili.

‘I've just had some disturbing news,' Delia said, leaning over the basin and grimacing.

‘It's the Immaculate Conception – you're pregnant,' Kay warbled, gathering up her evening bag and fur wrap.

‘If I may say so,' Delia said, recovering her composure, ‘you do look the height of tartiness – and no, I am not expecting.'

‘What has happened?' asked Lili, her arm encircling Delia's narrow waist.

‘I've been put forward for Class 5 conversion to four-engined planes,' Delia replied, taking a deep breath.

‘Is that why you puked?' Kay asked, her hand on the exit door.

‘No – it's Anthony. Did you girls know his surname was Seifert?'

Lili looked puzzled. ‘You related?' she wondered.

‘Yes, that's pretty much it, as they say,' Delia replied.

‘I still don't see why that would make you throw up,' Kay persisted.

‘Perhaps I should go,' Delia muttered. As she pushed past the two beautiful Australian girls Delia knew her own future would hinge less on being one of the women on armed four-engined bombers than on the information her brother Anthony had imparted over a cold Hamble pudding.

‘Wake up, you dozy bastard!'

Hamilton Slade rolled over painfully, the remnants of a flying dream – was it a Halifax? – circulating in his head as he tried to focus on the figure beside his hospital bed.

‘I've brought you cigars, chocolate from Selfridge and Co, and a dirty comic,' the figure continued.

Hamilton left his dream behind and the uniform of an ATA officer emerged, silhouetted against a bright morning sun.

‘Are we in pilots' heaven together, sir?' Slade asked earnestly, trying to identify the silhouette.

‘Fucking hell, man, pilots don't go to heaven.'

‘Alec Harborne!' Hamilton exclaimed, sitting up and smiling. He could see Alec's grin, which was fading now, as more of Hamilton's deteriorating physique emerged from the white sheets.

‘What's wrong with you, lad?' asked the Scot, sitting on the bedside chair.

‘Dame Dazzle knows,' Hamilton responded, his hand outstretched.

‘We've all met her at one time or another,' Alec said, gripping Hamilton's bony fingers. ‘Have you got a good doctor?'

‘I suppose all doctors are good,' Hamilton replied, looking to each side. ‘Have you seen who I've been given for company?' He gestured towards a sleeping Sam and a babbling Ludo.

Smiling at the skeleton that had once been an ace, Alec felt an urge to grasp Hamilton's hand for a long time, as if his own life force might be transmitted to the human shadow on the bed. Marion had told him she thought Hamilton had been destroying himself with grief over Amy. Looking at the pilot who had brought honour upon the RAF and now upon ATA, Alec knew this was more than grief.

‘Marion sends her love,' he said, uncharacteristically subdued. ‘She's due to have the baby this autumn and I'm off to move Wellingtons. Delia Seifert has offered her a room in the family house and I moved Marion into the place yesterday. Old man Seifert has given up the bottle – some people say it's because his daughter has given him so much pride. If you ask me, he's pleased to have a son in a girl's body. Incidentally, Ham, I ‘d have come to see you sooner but I've been stuck in Hurricanes for a week.'

Hamilton's colour had begun to return at the news and at the names – pilot gossip made his heart come alive.

‘By the way, there was a rumour our Delia's to be put on four-engined bombers,' Hamilton said, feeling a clamminess creeping over his trembling hands.

‘She's already airborne.' Alec's voice travelled the length of the ward but Hamilton's head was facing the other way and he chose not to hear.

Dame Dazzle stood in a corner of the ward, and at this sad moment was motioning for Alec to come to her. He stroked the side of Hamilton's face and moved from the bedside, walking gingerly on the hard floor. Now he stood alongside the Matron. ‘Get our Hamilton back in the air,' he said.

‘Hamilton is past caring – about living,' she said. ‘We all know why, of course. Grief is recuperation's most fiendish enemy, but if you can help us get him to the Canadian Hospital, he might just have a chance.'

‘That could happen tomorrow if he could only cheer up,' said Alec.

‘Mr Harborne,' she murmured, ‘Hamilton is gravely ill. Nonetheless he could possibly be saved by this new cure.' She paused, the dazzle in her eyes dimming. ‘Has he any next of kin?'

‘He has no family we know of,' Alec said, subdued. ‘I will arrange for him to be taken to Taplow – I'm Commanding Officer Air Ambulances and if I have to I'll fly him there myself.'

‘That would be wonderful,' she said. ‘You and I can make it our personal mission. I've often thought Mrs Mollison is looking down from above and willing him to live.' She smiled at Alec, and he thought he could discern an unprofessional moistness in her eyes. ‘What has happened to Jim Mollison?'

‘Who knows? Who cares?' Alec retorted, straightening up. ‘I'm off now, and I'll get you an Anson straight away if I have to stop the whole bloody war for ten minutes. God bless.'

Turning her back on Alec, Matron appeared to vanish as she slipped along the corridor, leaving Alec alone amongst hastily stacked crutches and wheelchairs.

How he yearned to go back and drag Hamilton Slade from the white bed. Standing in the middle of the passageway, Dame Dazzle's words reverberating in his head, he remembered his wife and his child and the life that
would be there to live after this war. For the sake of Hamilton and Amy, Alec knew he would have to throw himself into ATA as never before, and he stormed out of the hospital thinking only of Wellington bombers and of the German tyrant still striving to conquer the world, and of the most important ferry trip he would ever undertake.

Making history, and performing exceptional deeds, had been the job of circus acts, Delia told herself as the press tormented Commanding Officer Flint on this bright afternoon. April snow gone, and mammoth ferrying tasks now dominating the whole of ATA, Nora had wanted as little attention as possible given to her top girl's latest assignment in a four-engined bomber. Having been recommended for the Class 5 conversion course by Commanding Officer Sean Vine, Delia had been etched into aviation annals, the magic of this recommendation being the fact that it had come from a man.

Delia, however, was unconcerned and felt a keen sense of irritation that her full-time job was becoming a source of publicity. Amongst the near one hundred girls who now flew for Valerie Cobb's organization, there was a common feeling that this was a form of employment, not a showcase for women's rights.

‘Oh, let's get on with it, for God's sake,' shouted Delia as a photographer insisted on her posing next to the giant Wellington bomber before she took it on an urgent delivery flight to Number One Pool, White Waltham. Already on this day she had ferried two Spitfires and a Hornet Moth sandwiched between a Mustang and a Mosquito, and now, as the exhausting day drew to a close, her big moment had come: she was to take Wellington X9707 from Castle Bromwich to White Waltham.

‘History is made at Castle Brom-witch,' sang the photog-
rapher, his assistant fussing with film and dropping a plate on the muddy tarmac.

Delia laughed. ‘Are you American?' she asked, still smiling.

‘Burt Malone,' replied the photographer. ‘This is Stan Bialik.'

‘What would make you want to spend your teatime at Castle Bromwich?' she asked, preparing to enter the massive aircraft.

‘We were offered on-the-spot jobs in war-torn England, so here we are,' Burt replied.

Stan fretted.

‘Asshole,' Burt whispered, tearing the plates from Stan's unsteady hands.

‘Don't you think your colleague ought to be doing something else for a living?' Delia asked, her tired spirits lifting.

‘He ain't used to gals dressed up like guys,' Burt replied.

‘Can he not speak for himself?' she demanded, staring at Stan.

There was a pause.

‘I believe they call this the European Theatre of War,' drawled Stan.

‘Well done – it talks,' Delia exclaimed, climbing into the cockpit.

‘Idiot – this isn't Europe, and it sure as hell ain't no theatre,' Burt growled, collecting up his equipment.

‘Do you think what we heard is the truth?' Stan asked, his thin figure a pinprick next to the majestic Wellington.

‘Why wouldn't it be? I gather anybody named Buxton in Norfolk doesn't tell lies. They say three families own the county – and they're all Catholics, too!'

‘I'll be damned,' Stan said, his face brightening.

‘That's not exactly how I 'd put it,' Burt mused.

‘Does being Catholic make them more truthful?'

‘Ask the Pope,' Burt replied. ‘You think up the dumbest questions, Bialik,' he added, watching Delia in the cockpit. ‘I wish I had my telephoto lens – wish those goddammed shitasses hadn't confiscated it for the war effort when we arrived. Some Limey squaddie will break it his first time out.'

With a great roar Delia had the engines alive and the huge bomber taxied away from the Americans. Looking down at the men she waved: their manner had disarmed her. As she manoeuvred her enormous aeroplane along the runway she was surprised that nerves had not entered into the task: Sally Met had bombarded her with weather information, and some of the other girls had shown a rare apprehension when hearing of her assignment. She had not even bothered to tell Marion Harborne that she was tackling Wellingtons: Marion had become edgy in her pregnancy, and Delia had dreaded the thought of upsetting Alec's beloved.

Her Wellington had a wing span of eighty-six feet and was virtually double the measurements of a Blenheim, yet much less responsive on the controls. Delia had been told this was another case of reading one's notes and getting on with it, and having done some homework amid her parents' nonstop chatter the night before, she felt comfortable in the flying machine that had a geodetic basket-weave infrastructure. This bomber had been designed with the shape of the airship R 100 in mind, and was so flexible the pilot could feel the fuselage flexing when he or she
pulled on the controls. Now, as Delia took her very own Wellington into the air, the gusty weather Sally Met had predicted took hold, and she could see the wingtips moving up and down. Too much strain, she knew, would break the elevator trim.

Delia prayed for no mishaps, and as she roared along the magnitude of the occasion began to creep into her psyche. It was just a job, she kept telling herself as her tiny figure commandeered the powerful monster through the heavens, but it was thrilling.

Before departing for London and her long-suffering mother, Shirley Bryce had told Delia that the first girl on four-engined things might be landed with any one of a number of types of Wellingtons: some tended to swing to the left on take-off, she had warned Delia, and some to the right. Some told the pilot the undercarriage was up when red lights flashed, while others had red lights to say the monster was airborne. Delia had marvelled at Shirley's instant expertise – she had a photographic memory and in recent months, had been seconded to the RAF enough times to make Nora and Valerie apoplectic with frustration, but all the girls were aware that awe was at the heart of their exasperation.

For Shirley was indeed the pride of ATA.

Every lady pilot had been amused when Shirley emphasized the importance of brute strength when explaining manual lowering of the undercarriage. It was perhaps for this reason, the girls theorized, that the RAF had been reluctant to allow ATA women on to the largest bomber in the force. As she roared on towards White Waltham, Delia
recalled the ground engineer's comments about the port engine: if its hydraulic pumps failed, one might have to land with the wheels retracted, there being no time to perform the umpteen strokes of the hand pump required to lower the undercarriage manually. Delia was pleased this aircraft had searchlights and radar for communication with ships. Now, as the minutes ticked by and she felt at one with the raging quartet of engines, she yearned to operate the Wellington that had aerials for detecting submarines, or the version that could explode mines from the air.

Cruising steadily, Delia was acutely aware of the need to concentrate, but her mind had begun to review the extraordinary events of the past fortnight. After twenty-nine years she had met her half-brother for the first time. Anthony had kept her father's name, but the astonishing facts about her mother's liaison with Lord Truman had so confused Delia as to make her ill for a week. When her mind had assembled the story, she realized Anthony had a claim to one of the ten largest estates in England. Anthony had told her that their mother had nursed Truman upon his return from the First War and, though already married to Seifert, had tasted passion for the first time and from this had come a son.