Bluebirds (23 page)

‘No. I'd learned before that. On the Tiger Moth I was telling you about, only you weren't listening. It was a present for my seventeenth birthday.'

‘I said you were spoiled rotten.'

He smiled. ‘It's come in quite useful, though. I joined the Auxiliary lot as soon as I came down. It was fairly obvious that there was going to be a war, sooner or later.'

She remembered Kit's unashamed enthusiasm on the night of their dance. ‘Did you hope there would be?'

‘A war? Good heavens, no. I was having far too good a time enjoying myself.'

‘Going to deb dances?'

‘Among other things.'

‘The perpetual playboy?'

‘As a matter of fact, I was about to go into the Foreign Office when Herr Hitler rudely interrupted the proceedings.'

‘Pretty typical – the Foreign Office.'

‘I'm not quite sure what you mean by that, but I doubt if it's complimentary. What have you done to your fingers?'

She took her hand off the table quickly and hid it on her lap. Three fingers were adorned with sticking plaster. Both hands, as she was well aware, were red and chapped from her labours in the scullery. And her hair seemed to smell permanently of cabbage and onions, even after she had washed it.

‘I've cut them. I'm always cutting myself with the kitchen knives.'

‘You shouldn't be doing that work.'

‘So you've said before and I wish you'd shut up about it. It's so boring.'

‘Very well, I'll say no more on the subject. Now, take a
good
look at the menu and tell me what you'd like next.'

He smiled with irony as he said this. This time, though, she made no mistake. She chose Meringue Mont Blanc – a gloriously sticky, sickly-sweet concoction of meringue and cream and chestnut purée, all piled up in a lovely little mountain, and which went a long way to obliterating the lingering taste of raw meat. She had scraped her plate clean and was starting happily on the petits fours that the waiter had brought, when Johnnie rose to his feet. He grasped her wrist.

‘You can finish those later. Take them all with you. Cinderella didn't go to the ball without dancing at least once before she had to leave.'

She protested through a mouthful of sugared grape as he manoeuvred her firmly onto the floor.

‘I don't want to dance.'

‘For heaven's sake, Anne, you know perfectly well that you do. You've been tapping your feet under the table all evening.'

He took her in his arms and after a few steps, when she had swallowed her mouthful, she relaxed. She was not at all surprised to discover that he was a very good dancer, considering the amount of practice he must have had. He
was quite as good as little Stan of the Sergeants' Mess, only without Stan's showy Palais
glissandos.
All the champagne she had drunk was making her feel light-hearted as well as light-headed and she began to enjoy herself, loving the floaty feeling of moving smoothly across a dance floor to gorgeous, dreamy music.

She was Ginger Rogers dancing with Fred Astaire, except that Ginger Rogers never wore lisle stockings and lace-up shoes. Now, if she had a proper uniform like the Wren who had gone by with the naval officer – smart navy and glamorous black silk stockings . . . Over Johnnie's broad shoulder she caught sight of the damp squib still mooning from her table, and felt rather sorry for her. London was probably littered with similar squibs who had been mad enough to fall for him.

‘You dance very well, Anne.'

‘They taught us at school. One of the few useful things I learned there.'

‘Heathfield? Roedean? St Mary's?'

‘You really are an appalling snob. What if I said the local Council school?'

‘I doubt if they have ballroom dancing classes.'

‘I suppose
you
went to Madame Vacani's?'

‘From an early age.'

They danced on and heads turned to watch them. Things would have been perfect if she had been dancing with someone else – someone like the dark stranger Pearl had seen in her tea cup . . . not that she believed that rubbish for a moment. She was quite sorry when Johnnie stopped by their table.

‘Pumpkin time,' he said.

The bitter cold outside sobered her up instantly and brought her sharply down to earth. It was snowing again – big soft flakes that tickled her face – and there was an icy wind blowing from the river. Her teeth chattered as they waited for the car and all she could think of now was the long journey ahead in the dark and snow and the awful possibility of being back late. As they drove out of London
she sat bolt upright in the passenger seat until, gradually, tiredness took over. Her eyes drooped and she leaned her head against the car window and fell fast asleep.

When she awoke they were still travelling through the night and it seemed to her that it was snowing harder than ever. The wipers were sweeping back and forth across the screen and what little she could see of the road ahead was all white. She rubbed her stiff neck and checked on the petits fours, now rather squashed, in her raincoat pocket.

‘Where are we?'

‘Still about ten miles or so to go,' he answered shortly. ‘Sorry, but I've had to go slowly. The roads are pretty bad.'

She tried to see her watch. ‘What time is it?'

‘About twenty to.'

‘God, I'm going to be late!'

‘Don't worry, I'll get you in all right somehow.'

‘It's all very well for you,' she told him furiously, ‘but it's
me
that'll be doing jankers. Can't you go any faster?'

‘Not if you want to get there at all.'

As he spoke the Lagonda skated unnervingly on a patch of ice. Anne sat in grim silence. She was feeling slightly sick, either from the Steak Tartare, or the champagne, or from sheer panic – probably all three. If she were put on yet another charge she would be in serious trouble. She'd been on four in the last three weeks – for cutting across the hallowed, forbidden parade ground, for not wearing her beret out in the town (the snoopy service police were everywhere), for not folding her bedclothes exactly right and for answering Sergeant Beaty back. On the last time ASO Newman had been absolutely livid with her.
You're wasting everyone's time with your silly behaviour, Cunningham, and that's inexcusable when we're all supposed to be doing our very best to help our country win this war. You should be ashamed of yourself.

It was well past midnight by the time they turned down
the road to the main gates and by then she was fuming with rage. Johnnie seemed maddeningly unconcerned.

‘I'll get you in with me. I'll promise them a couple of bottles of whisky and that'll fix it.'

‘Supposing it doesn't? I'll get into worse trouble than I am already for being out with a bloody officer! You can drop me further round the side of the 'drome. There's a place there where I can get in under the wire.'

‘Are you sure you can?'

‘I've done it before,' she said coldly. ‘Several times. In and out, as a matter of fact.' She heard him chuckle in the darkness. ‘There's nothing to laugh about. If I get caught I'll be doing jankers for weeks. And it'll all be
your
fault.'

‘I'm sorry, Anne,' he said. ‘Truly sorry. It was the damned snow . . . I swear it won't happen again.'

‘It certainly won't as I shan't be coming out with you
ever
again.'

He drove past the main gates and round the perimeter of the 'drome, following the high fence, and stopped the Lagonda where she told him. It was still snowing heavily and she peered through the side window, just able to make out the disused hut a short way inside the fence that marked the point where she and Pearl had managed to loosen the bottom edge of the wire. They had made use of it on a number of jaunts into town, so far without getting caught. The WAAF huts lay further beyond.

Johnnie got out of the car with her but she turned and hissed at him.

‘Just
go
! If anyone sees the car they might come over.'

‘They won't see it with the lights off and I'm not leaving until you're safely under that wire.'

She stumbled and fell in the ditch but shook him off angrily when he tried to help her up. It took her a while to find the loose section, digging along with her bare hands in a deep drift of snow until she could feel it, and because it was so deeply embedded she was obliged to accept his help in freeing it. He held it for her while she slithered
underneath on her stomach and then replaced it after her and kicked the snow back.

‘Good luck, Anne . . .'

She heard him call that softly but ignored it and made quickly for the cover of the disused hut a few yards away. His car started up again and turned round, slipping and sliding, before going back the way they had come. When the sound had died away she waited by the side of the hut wall, listening. The wind was making a faint moaning sound, eerie and bloodchilling, and the sky above her glittered icily. She was so cold now that she thought that she would freeze to death where she was standing if she didn't move soon. But, just as she was about to make a dash across the open ground in the direction of the WAAF huts, she heard the trudge of footsteps in the distance and retreated hurriedly round behind the back. Her teeth were chattering so loudly that she was afraid whoever was patrolling the wire would surely hear them, and if they shone their torch down the side of the hut they would be bound to see her tracks in the snow. She clenched her teeth tightly and waited. The footsteps were passing the hut now and stopped suddenly. A torch beam was wandering about, probing the darkness. Anne held her breath, shut her eyes and prayed. Then the boots tramped on again, crunching away over the snow, and she let her breath out in a low whistling sigh of relief.

She waited a few more minutes until she was quite sure that the coast was clear and then moved as fast as she dared across the snowy waste. With luck her tracks would be covered completely by morning. She tiptoed past Corporal White's little room at the end of the hut. It was pitch black inside, the coke stoves cold and dead, the room quiet. She groped her way down the row of beds on her side, counting them carefully until she reached her own. Someone had made up her bedclothes and there was a lump beneath the blankets.

Pearl stirred. ‘That you, love? Christ, I was worried about you. Shoved your bolster down so's they might
not notice you weren't back . . . bloody lucky it worked. Where the hell've you been?'

Anne told her in whispers as she undressed. There was a sleepy chortle and then a deep sigh.

‘Oh, you jammy sod, you!'

‘Any questions so far?'

Nobody spoke. The RAF instructor looked at the group of girls gathered round the mock-up plotting table.

‘Come on, now. One of you must have
something
to ask. The men always do. Don't tell me you lot know it all first go.'

The girl standing next to Virginia raised her hand timidly. She had frizzy, permed hair and a worried expression.

‘I don't think I quite understand . . . the numbers going across and down . . . I don't quite see . . .'

She stared down at the black and white map before her which showed south eastern England, the Channel, northern France and Belgium. It was divided into equal squares. Fighter Command Group boundaries were shown by dotted lines, the Sector boundaries by unbroken ones, and the fighter stations marked by red discs.

‘What don't you see?'

‘How the numbers work.' She lifted a puzzled face.

‘It's perfectly simple. The numbers will give you the exact plot position on the map, just like I showed you. You will be given a four-figure grid reference through your headphones and you mark your plot accordingly, calculating it from these numbers – remember what I said? For example, if you were given 1-5-0-5 you would go
across
one and a half squares and
up
half a square.' The instructor's stick travelled across the map. ‘Is that clear?'

The girl's face was red and she looked as though she might burst into tears. ‘Not really.'

He sighed. ‘Then I suppose we'd better go through it all again, from the beginning.'

Virginia watched and listened, concentrating hard. She
had understood how to plot using the grid numbers easily enough, but that was only a part of it. The metal arrows for marking the plot position and direction were different colours – red, blue or yellow – and a colour-coded clock on the wall was divided into five-minute triangular segments painted in each of those three colours, in rotation. The instructor had explained the point of it. You had to be sure to use an arrow of whichever colour the clock's hand was passing through. It was so that the age of the plot would be clear to the Operations Room Controller on the dais above. And to go with the arrows there were wooden blocks. You slotted plaques onto the blocks to show the height and strength of the aircraft, and whether they were hostile or friendly.

Going patiently over old ground, the instructor made up another block and pushed it over the map's surface to rest beside an arrow somewhere north of Eastbourne.

‘There you are. Thirty plus hostile aircraft at fifteen thousand feet, in that position and moving in that direction. All clear?'

They nodded. He looked sceptical.

‘Well, we'd better see if it really is. We'll take it in turns.' He pointed to Virginia. ‘You first. Now, imagine you've just been given this information . . .'

She listened to him carefully. Then she glanced at the coloured clock and picked up a red arrow. Following the grid numbers she had been given she placed the arrow on the map exactly over Tunbridge Wells, positioning it with the magnetic-tipped rod. Then she made up her block – H for hostile, 40+ for the number of aircraft, and 20 for the number of thousand feet – and pushed that over to stand beside her arrow.