The Grafton Girls (23 page)

The major pulled the Jeep to an immediate halt, yelling to Diane ‘Keep down’ as the plane skimmed the top of some trees on the other side of the playing field.

‘Christ, he’s going to hit the field,’ Major Saunders swore. Diane could hear the children screaming and scattering in every direction whilst someone blew shrilly on a whistle.

‘He’s trying to clear the field,’ she whispered without taking her eyes off the small plane.

‘Down, get down,’ the major yelled at her as, by some miracle, the plane missed the playing field, only to lose speed and drop several feet, crashing through the trees, snapping off branches with a raw tearing sound that made Diane think of an agonised scream, before hitting the ground and skidding nose on into the trunk of one of the trees.

For a few seconds an unearthly silence and stillness seemed to stop time. Then Diane started to
run towards the plane, ignoring the major’s furious command to her to stop.

She had known it would be useless, pointless, but she was a woman after all, and her instincts were those of any woman who had loved a fly boy. It could have been Kit in that plane…it could have been one of a hundred or more men she knew…men who had gone to war and not come back, men who had come back, but so changed that no one could reach them any more, men who had been boys until they had given themselves up to the sacrifice that was war.

The plane had come to rest with its nose crushed up to nothing by its impact with an oak tree. Some of the branches lay on the ground like severed limbs, whilst from those branches that remained attached, leaves fluttered down onto the gunmetal object that was twisted around it and into it; tree and plane clasped together in a deathly embrace.

The passenger side of the plane had been ripped open like a tin can, a huge branch leaning against it so that it was impossible to see inside the plane. The co-pilot had obviously tried to jump out -and failed.

His body was pinned lifelessly to the ground by the torn branch that had speared through him. That he was already dead was obvious, but still Diane would have paused to close the sightless eyes staring up at the sky if it hadn’t been for the low moan she heard from the cockpit.

Behind her she could hear the major making his way through the debris.

‘Get the hell out of here, and that’s an order, soldier,’ he told her angrily as he caught up with her. ‘This thing could go up at any minute.’

Diane knew he was right. She could hear the steady drip of aviation fuel, its smell burning the back of her throat.

‘The pilot’s still alive,’ she told him.

‘Fine – let’s keep you that way as well, shall we? Now get out of here.’

Diane shook her head as the major made to push past her to get to the cockpit. The pilot’s side of the plane lay at an angle, the door pressed against the ground so that the only way into the cabin was through the knot of metal and tree that had been the co-pilot’s side. Anyone could see that it was impossible for a man of his size even to think about trying to squeeze through that tangle of branches and metal to get to the pilot. A man of his size, yes, but a woman of her size might just do it.

‘Soldier, I order you to go back to the Jeep,’ the major told her.

‘There’s a pilot inside there who is still alive,’ Diane told him quietly. ‘You can’t go to him to see how badly he’s injured. I can. That’s another thing you Yanks need to learn about us British females, Major. We may not have the latest fashions or the latest lipstick but we are up to date on the correct procedure for dealing with something like this. That pilot in there is someone’s son, and maybe someone’s husband and father. So far as I’m concerned that’s enough to make me believe that I have a duty to go to him.’

Without waiting to see how he was reacting to what she had said she started to scramble through the twisted wreckage, fighting her way past broken branches that scratched at her skin, and refusing to give in to the fear cramping her stomach as the smell of fuel grew stronger and the foliage closed in behind her. They would be sending help out from Nantwich; the school would have alerted the authorities to the crash in the unlikely event of no one in the town having noticed it.

She closed her eyes as she crawled past the body of the dead airman. The low moans were louder now. She held her breath as she managed to squeeze through the narrow gap between one of the branches of the tree and the side of the plane. She could see the pilot as he lay hunched over the controls, his face turned towards her. Her heart twisted inside her chest, as even in the shadows cast by the tree she recognised that it was the young pilot who had confided in her about his homesickness at the C-in-C’s welcome party.

‘How is he?’ she heard the major demanding. Tears filled her eyes. The whole of the front of the plane was stoved in and somewhere trapped in that mess of twisted metal were the pilot’s legs. She could see and smell the blood that had soaked the bottom of his tunic, and she
knew…
She could hardly bear to acknowledge what she knew as she swallowed against her anguished grief.

The pilot opened his eyes and looked at her.

‘Mom,’ he whispered painfully. ‘Mom, is that you? It’s so dark here that I can’t see so well.’

‘Yes, it’s me,’ Diane whispered back.

‘Gee, I’m glad you’re here. I don’t feel so good, you know…’

‘I know.’

Diane reached for his hand. It felt icy cold. He was so young. The tears she couldn’t shed burned the back of her eyes and throat.

‘The pain is real bad, Mom.’

‘I know, sweetheart, but it will be gone soon,’ Diane told him gently.

Somewhere in the distance she could hear anxious voices, and the sound of activity, but they didn’t matter. All that mattered right now was here, in this cramped place with the smell of blood and death all around her and a young man’s need for the comfort of his mother in his dying moments.

‘Stroke my forehead, will you, Mom? It feels so hot.’

He still had his flying helmet on but Diane reached out anyway and stroked his face, putting her arm around him to support him.

‘Do you remember when I first started grade school?’

She had to lean very close to him now to catch the slow painful words.

‘I felt real bad because I didn’t want to go. Well, I kinda feel like that now, you know…like I have to be someplace I don’t want to be. But I guess it will be OK when I get there.’

His breathing had slowed to almost nothing. Diane turned to try to look down at him and
make him more comfortable, supporting him with one arm as his head lolled against her shoulder.

She could hear men working their way towards her, chopping branches, removing debris. She could even hear one of them cursing as he called out, ‘Ruddy well hurry up, will you, before the bloody thing goes up,’ but she didn’t move.

The boy in her arms gave a small sighing breath. ‘It’s so dark, Mom…’

‘It’s all right, darling,’ Diane whispered against his ear. ‘Everything’s all right…just…just go to sleep now.’

He took another breath and struggled in her arms, his eyes opening. ‘Mom…?’

She could hear the fear in his voice, and she reached out to comfort him, pressing her lips to his cold forehead as the breath rattled in his throat and he was gone.

‘Diane?’

She looked up to see the major crawling towards her. ‘He’s dead,’ she said emotionlessly.

‘And so will we be if we don’t get out of here, and fast,’ he told her grimly, reaching for her hand and half dragging her out of the cockpit.

They only just made it in time.

‘Run,’ the major told her once he had dragged her free of the plane, and, ‘Get down,’ he yelled, pushing her to the ground in front of him as the plane exploded with a dull crump, only a couple of hundred yards away from them.

Diane could feel the heat of the flames as she
lay winded on the ground. A second explosion followed the first.

‘Spare fuel tank,’ the major muttered, as he got to his feet. Shakily Diane did the same, as the men who had taken cover from the explosion came towards them.

They were escorted into the town and offered baths and clean clothes by the grateful townspeople – as though they had been the ones who had managed to avoid crashing into the school playing field, Diane recognised numbly, after the WVS had provided her with something to wear, and she was sitting in the church hall, drinking the cup of tea she had been given, whilst the major was talking to the local police. Her uniform, folded up in brown paper, was torn and stained with blood. She could still smell it all around her, still see that poor boy…She started to tremble so violently that her teeth chattered against the cup. Unsteadily she put it down.

‘Here’s your bag, love,’ a WVS helper told her. ‘One of the ARP lads picked it up for you. This fell out,’ she added, giving Diane a small smile as she held out the teddy bear to her.

Tears filled Diane’s eyes. Somehow the sight of the bear brought home to her that on the other side of the ocean a mother would soon be mourning her child.

The major had refused to let them be driven back to Burtonwood, stating that he was perfectly able to drive himself. They had left the town behind
them and were travelling down a country lane bordered by fields, when he suddenly pulled up.

‘What is it? What’s wrong?’ Diane demanded uncertainly.

‘The next time I give you an order, soldier, you obey it. Is that understood?’ he told her harshly.

Diane stared at him. ‘I had to do it. I had no choice,’ she told him fiercely.

‘You could have been killed,’ he yelled back at her. ‘You could…Oh hell,’ he swore suddenly, and then to Diane’s shock, he took hold of her, gripping her upper arms tightly as he bent his head and kissed her with angry passion.

It was just shock that was holding her immobile in his embrace, just shock that was keeping her lips on his…just shock that was coursing through her, making her match angry passion with angry passion until she was holding on to him as tightly as he was holding on to her, returning his kiss angry pressure for angry pressure.

Myra could tell from the way Nick came swaggering towards her that he was in a good mood.

‘Hiya, baby cakes,’ he greeted her, pulling her to him and giving her a possessive kiss, and then grinning at her triumphantly as he released her, and cast a swift assessing look at her.

‘The other guys are sure gonna be envying me when they see you on my arm, sweet stuff.’

Myra had never seen him so ebullient before, and her spirits lifted to match his.

‘Well, if you want to keep me there, then you’d better make sure they know I’m yours, hadn’t you?’ she smiled daringly.

‘What, you mean with something like this?’ he suggested nonchalantly, digging into his pocket and producing a small leather ring box.

Excitedly Myra reached for it.

‘Oh, no,’ he teased her, stepping back and keeping it out of her reach. ‘We’re gonna do this the right way.’ Holding on to her left arm, with one hand he flicked open the box in his other hand.

Myra stared in disbelief at the shiny glittering diamond ring he was holding. The diamond was bigger than anything she had dreamed of owning, bigger, she was sure, than anything she had seen in the windows of any of Liverpool’s jewellers.

‘Like it?’

She couldn’t bear to take her gaze away from it, not even to whisper breathlessly, ‘Yes…’

‘Come here, then,’ he said, taking hold of her left hand.

Myra stared down at her left hand as he slid the ring on to her wedding finger. It felt cold and heavy, and it was slightly lose, and now that she could see it close up she could see too that it wasn’t new and that the gold was slightly worn. Had he bought her something second-hand? She started to frown and then checked herself. It was still the largest stone she had ever seen, of the size only usually on the fingers of Hollywood stars.

‘It’s beautiful,’ she told Nick fervently.

‘A beautiful ring for a beautiful girl,’ he responded. ‘My girl…I hope you’re going to keep that promise you made to me about what you’d do if I gave you a ring.’

Myra affected to look demure and slightly affronted.

‘Don’t give me that look,’ Nick warned her, his voice hardening. ‘A deal’s a deal where I come from, babe and—’

‘Oh, Nick, don’t go and spoil things by being cross with me. Not when we’ve just got engaged,’ Myra pouted. She reached for his hand and moved
closer to him, leaning in to him and smiling with secret triumph when she felt his body’s response to her. ‘Of course I want to be with you…properly. And now that we’re engaged…and especially since we’re going to London…’ She gave a small shiver as her excited triumph gripped her.

‘Oh, Nick, it’s going to be so wonderful.’

‘It sure is, babe. Let me tell you about the hotel I’ve booked for us.’

Myra started to tense.

‘One of the guys told me about it, some place name of the Savoy.’

‘The Savoy? You’ve booked us into the Savoy?’ Myra exclaimed in shocked excitement. ‘Oh, Nick, that’s just about the best hotel in London. Oh, Nick…’ Her face started to fall. ‘But what will I wear? My clothes…’

‘Trust a dame to start worrying about her clothes, when all a guy is thinking about is getting her out of them,’ Nick answered.

‘But this ring…the Savoy…it must be costing such a lot,’ Myra ventured. She didn’t care how much he spent on her, but she was curious about his financial status, all the more so since she had discovered from Diane about his connection with the country’s black market. Everyone knew that the black marketeers were making huge amounts of money. Myra had no moral scruples about what Nick might be doing. Why should she have? In this world it was every man for himself, and every woman with any sense knew that and made sure that she was with the man who was
going places. That had been her mistake with Jim, marrying a man who was too ‘good’ for his own benefit, and thus for hers as well.

‘Yeah, and since I’m a guy who likes value for his dollar you’d better make sure I get it, hon.’

‘But how—’

‘Hey…’ Nick threw up his hands. ‘No questions, OK? If you’re gonna be my girl then you’ve gotta learn not to ask questions. Let’s just say I’ve got several good deals going on.’ He winked at her and patted his pocket. ‘And I play a pretty good game of cards.’

He looked at his watch. ‘Let’s go get that drink. There’s a guy I gotta see there in the bar. When he comes in, I’ll give you the nod and you take yourself off to the ladies’ room, OK?’

Obediently Myra agreed.

As they walked down the street towards the bar, Myra clung tightly to Nick’s arm, her ring proudly on display. Jim, and the fact that she was still married to him, were pushed out of the way to allow her to enjoy her triumph. When a girl had the right kind of looks and the right kind of determination, and she knew how to use those assets, there was nothing she couldn’t have, she exulted to herself. She could see herself now, stepping off the liner in New York, a GI bride arriving in her new home, the city that never sleeps.

‘So we’ve seen the vicar, and I’ve shown you both round the church hall. I’m so sorry that Jess couldn’t join us, Walter,’ Ruthie, who was on the
other side of Glen, apologised as the three of them left the church to walk back into the city. ‘It’s really kind of you to give up your free time to come to the church with us.’

‘That’s no problem, ma’am,’ Walter told her politely.

‘Don’t be modest, Walter,’ Ruthie teased him. ‘It was very generous of you, especially when you’d planned to go to London for the weekend.’

‘Your and Glen’s wedding is more important. And besides, I’ve got plenty of time to catch the train,’ Walter assured her. ‘It doesn’t leave until gone noon.’

It had been Glen’s suggestion that they walk Walter back down to Lime Street to catch his train, and then that he should take Ruthie to Lyons’ for something to eat, and Ruthie had been more than happy to agree. It was a real treat for her to eat out, even during these times of rationing and restricted menus. It made her feel so grown up and grand to be able to walk into the city on Glen’s arm, her engagement ring giving that act respectability and acceptability. She had noticed the number of women who glanced at her left hand as they walked past them, just to check, as it were.

Not, of course, that everyone approved of the Americans or the girls who ‘took up with them’; but Ruthie was too blissfully in love to let anything or anyone spoil her happiness.

‘How long do you think it will be before your commanding officer sends for me to interview me?’ she asked Glen as they all crossed the road together, easily dodging the lumbering trams.

‘I don’t know. I guess he thinks that making us wait will ensure that we’re serious about one another.’

‘But why should he think that we aren’t?’ Ruthie asked him anxiously.

The two men exchanged looks.

‘What is it? Why are you looking like that?’ she demanded.

‘It’s nothing, Ruthie, I promise. Only that we’ve heard that the army doesn’t want a lot of guys rushing off to get married and then regretting it. It won’t affect us.’

Myra knew the minute she came out of the ladies’ and saw Nick’s face that something was wrong. He was on his own, the two spivs who had been waiting for him when they arrived obviously having left. He was pacing the worn carpet in front of the empty bar and she paused in mid-step. Something about his pent-up rage reminded her of her own father. He too had clenched his fists like that when he was annoyed. But when someone crossed her dad, it had usually been her mother who had been the one to suffer. Myra swallowed against the sour bile of the memories.

Herself sitting alone in her narrow bed in the darkness, listening to her mother begging her father not to hurt her, followed by the sound of blows and then her mother’s low moans of pain – or, even worse, those times when there had been no sound at all after the slam of the front door closing behind her father as he stormed out. Then she
would tiptoe to the top of the stairs in the darkness and wait there, holding her breath, just in case he came back…listening desperately, wanting to hear the sound that would tell her that her mother was still alive. Only when she was sure her father wouldn’t come back had she gone slowly downstairs, avoiding the stair that creaked, feeling her way in the darkness until she was standing outside the kitchen door. When she pushed it open she knew what she would find. It was always the same: her mother, still curled up in the ball she had rolled herself into to protect herself, the smell of blood and fear filling the kitchen. Once there had been the smell of something else, something sickening and shocking, and that time she remembered she had nearly slipped in the darkness on the blood that had flowed from her mother. Her mother had sent her round for their neighbour that time and then told her to go to her room, but even buried beneath the thin bedclothes, Myra had still heard her mother’s low moans of anguish as she gave birth to the dead child that would have been Myra’s brother.

Angrily Myra pushed the memories away. Why was she thinking about that now? It had no place in her life, the life she was going to live with Nick, a life that meant fancy diamond rings and staying at the Savoy Hotel, and she was a fool for thinking that just for a moment there had been an expression in Nick’s eyes that made him look like her father. So he had a bit of a temper on him. So what? He had passion, and it was that passion
that made him want her so much. And she needed him to want her, if she was to make her dreams come true. Nick was hers. She could control him; she had already proved that, she reassured herself. And after this weekend, after she had let him have a taste of what he wanted – and only a taste, mind – he would be even more mad for her than he was now.

‘Come on,’ Nick demanded, jerking his head towards the exit.

‘What’s wrong?’ Myra asked. ‘Half an hour ago you were on top of the world.’

Nick removed a pack of Camel cigarettes from his pocket and lit one up for himself without offering her one. Myra’s mouth thinned but she didn’t say anything.

‘Half an hour ago I hadn’t been messed about by some wise guys who think they know how to play the game better than me. Well, if they think they’re going to double-cross me and get away with it, they’re gonna learn they’re making a big mistake. Come on, let’s get out of here.’

Throwing down the barely smoked cigarette, Nick ground it into the floor with his heel, an expression on his face that made Myra suspect he wished it was the face of whoever had double-crossed him.

All she cared about, though, right now was them getting on that train. London! It wasn’t New York but it would be a darn sight more exciting and glamorous than Liverpool, surely. She felt on top of the world. Everything was going her way and
working out just as she had planned. Nick was hers, and she had the ring to prove it. She looked down at it, happily oblivious to the fact that somewhere in the desert she had a husband who thought that the ring he had given her – a ring given in church and with solemn vows – meant that she was his. Nothing could go wrong now. Jim would come round and see things her way. She would get what she wanted from him; she always had. Nick’s bad mood was just a minor and brief inconvenience. By the time they reached Lime Street, he would have forgotten about whatever it was that had annoyed him. She certainly wasn’t going to let his bad mood spoil her happiness at the weekend and in the future. Everything she wanted was within her grasp now – all of it: America, New York, her longed-for glamorous life as the wife of an American. And not a poor American either, she acknowledged, taking another thrilled look at her ring. Let Diane try to tell her to watch out now, she thought triumphantly, too wrapped up in her own excitement to be aware of the bleakness of the empty bombed-out streets surrounding them as they made their way to Lime Street.

‘No, don’t let’s go that way,’ Ruthie objected, hanging back when Glen headed towards the shortcut to the station through an area of bombed-out streets.

‘Why not? It’s quicker,’ he pointed out.

Reluctantly Ruthie gave in, unwilling to explain even to Glen how much she disliked walking down
the now-empty streets with their solitary intact houses and the mass of rubble where other homes had once been. There was an air about the place that always upset her, and she couldn’t forget that people had died here, killed by the bombs that had ripped apart their homes.

The street was empty, and their footsteps echoed on the pavement. As they reached the place where another street cut across their route, a young woman coming along it, who had turned as she rounded the corner, to say something to the GI who was with her, would have collided with Walter if he hadn’t put his hand out to stop her. The young woman looked up. Ruthie, recognising her as Diane’s co-billetee, was about to greet her when, to her shock, the GI with her suddenly took hold of Walter and pushed him back against the wall, growling, ‘Get your hands off my girl.’

Shocked by the violence that had erupted out of nowhere, Ruthie looked at Myra, expecting to see the same horror mirrored in her eyes but instead Myra merely looked bored.

‘Glen…’ she began, worriedly.

But Glen was already moving closer to the other two men, attempting to get between them and Ruthie could hear him demanding tersely, ‘Let him go, Mancini.’

‘Let him go? Oh, I’ll let him go all right, but not until I’ve taught him a lesson he won’t forget in a hurry. No farm kid comes on to my dame.’ He swore at Walter, before thrusting his knee hard into his groin, causing Walter to grunt and double
over with pain. As Walter did so, Nick smashed his fist into Walter’s stomach and then hit him again on the jaw.

‘Accuse me of running a fixed crap game, would you, farm kid? Well, here’s what you get for interfering in things that ain’t none of your business.’

‘Oh, make him stop. Please make him stop,’ Ruthie begged Myra frantically, tears pouring down her face as she turned towards Walter, who was now crouching down on the pavement, holding his stomach whilst Glen stood protectively in front of him, squaring up to Nick, his own fists raised.

‘Want some of what your friend got, do you?’ Nick threatened Glen.