Bluebirds (66 page)

The day now began in pitch dark. She dressed hurriedly in clothes still damp from the day before and went out to wipe the rain or frost from the saddle of her bike before cycling the two miles to the camp for breakfast. She drank the hot tea and took the bacon sandwich with her, eating it as she biked out to dispersal. As dawn broke she was helping to take the covers off the picketed aircraft. After a hard night frost it was a slippery, dangerous job scrambling up onto the wings and the closed cockpits gave no good handholds. The canvas covers were stiff and unwieldy in already numb fingers and flapped violently like loose sails in the wind.

One morning, when she was doing a plug change, one of the plugs slipped from her cold fingers and fell down into the engine. She tried frantically to retrieve it but it had fallen into an inaccessible place and there seemed nothing for it but to confess to Chiefy. The twenty-four plugs all had to be accounted for on a change and a loose one could not be left somewhere in an engine where it might do damage. Winnie was close to tears. She had come so far
without making any serious mistakes and Chiefy, though he would never show it, seemed better disposed towards her than he had ever been. One small sparking plug would soon change all that. It would be back to cleaning oil filters, and fetching and carrying.

It was Ginger who came to her rescue with a bit of wire and a magnet which he produced, magician-like, from the pocket of his dungarees. After a bit of jiggling and fiddling around down in the engine the plug reappeared, as though by magic too, clamped firmly to the magnet.

‘Useful trick to know,' he told her. ‘And another one is to shove a bit of rag under where you're working then if you drop a plug or something it'll land on that.'

She wasn't sure how she'd have managed without Ginger. He helped her in all sorts of ways, showing her the quickest and best methods, the good short cuts and the bad ones. And warning her of the dangers.

‘Always watch out for the props, love. You can't see 'em when they're spinnin'. Walk into one and it'll cut you to little pieces. Ever 'ad a dekko at Shorty's right 'and?'

Winnie shook her head. Shorty was a very tall, gangly aircrafthand on general duties.

‘Not much of it left. Used to be a flight mech 'til the silly sod swung a prop one day and left is 'and stuck up in the air. Sliced all the fingers off neat as sausages.'

They went on brewing cocoa up on Ginger's tin-can brazier down in the dugout, out of the wind, and whenever he could he nicked food from the cookhouse for her. Once he brought some empty beer bottles and filled them with boiling water so that she could tuck them inside her battledress for warmth. Another time he presented her with a little copper brooch in the shape of a Spitfire that he'd made out of a penny. She pinned it to her dungarees.

‘It's lovely, Ginger. Thanks.'

‘Now there's a real beauty of a 'plane for you,' he told her. ‘Makes the poor old Hurry look like a workhorse.'

‘I still like the Hurricanes best. I don't know why, but I do. Better than any of them.'

They talked about a pilot who kept complaining of a mag drop where none existed.

‘Don't want to worry about that, sweetheart,' Ginger said, spearing another piece of stolen bread on his screwdriver. ‘Chiefy says he's yellow. Any excuse not to go up.'

And they talked of a new rigger.

‘Dim as a ruddy Toc H lamp,' was Ginger's scornful verdict. ‘They should've sent us another WAAF. We'd've been a sight better off.'

‘Tell that to Chiefy.'

‘I did.'

‘Whatever did he say?'

‘Can't repeat that. But that's just 'is way. Thinks a lot of you now, you know. Though you'd never guess it, and he'd make sure you never did. Remember that French-Canadian laddie caused all that trouble about you t'other day?'

Winnie nodded. She held her hands over the fire and rubbed them together. ‘He didn't want to fly my Hurry, did he? Not a bit.'

Ginger grinned. ‘I was in Chiefy's office when 'e come in and shouts there's a woman sittin' in 'is cockpit. “Yes,” says Chiefy, all innocent-like, “that's my flight mech and she's warming the engine up for you, sir.” So this bloke goes mad and starts to stamp about the place and yell that 'e's not flyin' any aircraft some bloody woman's been fiddlin' about with . . . Chiefy waits 'til 'e's finished, then 'e says, quiet as anythin' but very firm-like, that there's no other aircraft available. An' then 'e says that 'e'll be a lot safer in that particular one than any other 'cos you take more trouble than all the men put together.'

Winnie put her hands over her cheeks. ‘Did he really say that?'

‘True as I'm sittin' 'ere,' Ginger told her, spreading the toast with marg for her. ‘Mind you, pigs'd fly 'fore 'e ever
said anythin' of the kind to you. But I 'eard it with my own ears.'

That was another thing Ginger did for her: boosted her spirits, encouraged her, made her feel that she wasn't doing so badly after all.

The incident with the French-Canadian pilot had shaken her for a bit. He had been shockingly rude to her and she had watched him take off, in tears, and waited anxiously for over an hour until he returned and landed safely. He had strode past her on his way to the crew room without a glance or word.

Most of the pilots were pleasant enough, though. Some, she thought, treated you rather like a piece of equipment – as though you weren't really there at all. She didn't think they meant it, it was just that they had other things on their mind than being nice to the flight mech who looked after their aircraft.

One of a new intake of pilots was specially charming. Nothing wrong with his nerves, Winnie thought thankfully, as she went to help him. No nervous stumble as he sprang up into the cockpit. No shaky hands as she passed him the straps over his shoulders for fastening. No white, strained face. He smiled at her and thanked her nicely. The blue silk scarf that he wore round his neck exactly matched his eyes. She hopped down off the Hurricane's wing root and watched as he taxied out. No imaginary mag drops either. He took off quickly and smoothly. Nothing to worry about there.

When the pilot returned she was helping Ginger put back an obstinate engine cowling, sitting astride it to weigh it down for him. She lifted her head to watch the Hurricane make its approach and then fly low across the 'drome and flick into a showy roll. Ginger looked up from the cowling at the noise.

‘Playing silly buggers. They'll 'ave his goolies off for that.'

They both watched as the fighter climbed away, stall-turned and came down for another low run over
the 'drome. Halfway across it went into a second roll, but more clumsily this time. Something went wrong and the Hurricane seemed to hang motionless in the air for a moment before plunging straight into the ground. Winnie stared in horror as fire engines and the blood wagon tore across the grass towards the wreck.

‘Stupid sod,' Ginger said. ‘Dead before 'e's got a chance to get hisself killed.'

One wet, cold and miserable day an RAF sergeant stopped Winnie when she was biking back from dispersal.

‘There's someone asking for you at the guard'ouse, Jervis.'

‘For
me
?'

‘That's wot I said. Better get over there and see 'oo it is.'

She pedalled over and there, waiting for her and soaking wet from the rain, was Taffy.

‘Would you like to tell me what's wrong, my dear? Or shouldn't I ask?'

Felicity looked up. Her father was smiling at her gently from his chair on the other side of the fireplace.

‘Wrong?'

‘You've been sitting gazing into the fire for a very long time, as though you were somewhere else. And since you've been home it's been very obvious to me that something's troubling you. I can see that you're unhappy. That something
is
very wrong. Perhaps talking about it might help.'

‘I can't tell you, Father.'

‘Why not? Are you afraid it might shock me? I can assure you it won't. I'm quite unshockable. But I might be able to give you some advice, perhaps. It's a man, I imagine. The one who telephoned you yesterday. And today. Are you in love with him?'

She nodded.

‘Then you should be happy. Not unhappy. So long as he's in love with you, too, and I'm quite sure he is.'

‘He's married, Father.'

There was a pause. ‘Ah, I see . . . My poor child. What a misfortune for you. We can't help whom we fall in love with but such a situation can only bring you terrible heartache. Is he in the RAF?'

‘Yes.'

‘At your station?'

‘Yes. He says he's been in love with me for a long time, but he never showed it. I never knew . . . had no idea. I never dreamed of such a thing. He's older, you see. And married. I never thought of him that way . . . until recently.'

‘Quite rightly.'

‘His wife –' She swallowed. ‘His wife has been unfaithful to him for years. They've only stayed together for appearances.'

‘Those whom God hath joined together . . .'

‘I know, I
know
,' she said in anguish. ‘But it isn't a proper marriage any longer.'

‘It is still a marriage and they have both made solemn vows to each other. You must not be a party to anything that might encourage them to break those vows, Felicity. You must ask to be moved away – put yourself out of reach of temptation.' He leaned forward and put his hand on her arm. ‘Believe me, this can only bring you great unhappiness otherwise. You cannot build a good life on such an unsure foundation. And you must not try to take away another woman's husband, whatever the circumstances. You must see that.'

She did see it. She saw it very clearly and she knew that her father was right. But she could not forget that night in London. And all the time she thought of him.

There had been no hotel. She had stayed with him all night and had woken in his arms and knowing that she loved him in return. It had happened against all logic or reason or wisdom and she could not see how she could undo it. Ever.

Taffy had hitch-hiked all the way from Essex where he was stationed now and had walked the last five miles to the camp in the pouring rain. Water dripped off him onto the guardroom floor, forming puddles, but he did not seem to notice or care. He looked at her with his intense gaze.

‘I've got leave,' he told her. ‘I've found myself a room at the Lamb and Flag.'

‘How did you know I was here?'

‘I'm stationed not far from your home, Elmbury. We're just near the Suffolk border. So, one day I rode over there on my bike to see what it was like and where you lived. I asked about you in the pub and they told me your husband had died. They told me where the farm was too, so I went and knocked on the door and your mother said about you doing the training at Hednesford and being sent up here. I came as soon as I could.'

She wished he hadn't. ‘It's a long way to come,' she said, flustered. ‘You shouldn't have.'

‘I told you I wouldn't let you go . . . that I'd find you wherever you were.'

She went out with him to the Lamb and Flag, catching the evening bus down. She hadn't wanted to at all but seeing as he'd come all that way and got so wet, it was very hard to refuse. In the bus he put his arm round the back of her seat and in the pub he went on gazing at her.

‘You've changed a bit, Winnie. Seems like you've got a lot more sure of yourself. And you're lovelier than ever. You've got your wish, haven't you? You're a flight mech now, like you always wanted. How are you getting on?'

‘Not so bad,' she said. She told him about Chiefy and about Ginger and all the gang.

‘This Ginger,' he said. ‘What's he to you, then?'

‘He's a friend,' she answered stiffly, thinking that it was none of his business. ‘He's helped me a lot.'

Taffy drank his beer with his eyes still on her face. He was thinking of the small back bedroom he had upstairs in the pub, and wondering how it had been with that weak and failing husband of hers . . . thinking of how he would show her what it could be like, if she'd give him the chance.

‘Don't look at me like that, Taffy.'

‘Sorry.' He lowered his eyes. ‘Funny seeing you drinking beer. It was always orange juice.' He took hold of one of her hands, examining the ingrained grease, the grazes and half-healed cuts, the split nails, the reddened, chapped skin. He turned it over. ‘Seems a pity, really, you spoiling your hands like this.' He lifted it to his lips but she snatched it quickly away. Watch it, he said to himself. Don't frighten her and you'll get there in the end.

On her day off they went into Dundee on the bus. She hadn't wanted to, but, again, she didn't like to refuse. In an odd way it was a comfort to see someone from the old days at Colston – if only it didn't have to be Taffy. She tried to remember that he had been a help too, like Ginger, and had taught her a lot. She had reason to be grateful to him. It was raining again and so they spent a long time sitting in a café, eating fish and chips and drinking tea.

‘There's not much to do here, really,' Winnie said, feeling she ought to apologize for the bleakness of it all. The cold, the rain, the seedy little café with its smeary oilskin tablecloths pockmarked with cigarette burns. ‘Some evenings there's a dance, but that's all. Except for the pictures.'

‘I'll take you to the flicks,' he told her.

‘I expect you'll've seen the film.'

‘Doesn't matter. It'll be dry and warm.'

And dark, he added inwardly.

He made sure they were in the back row of the stalls. It was an Old Mother Riley film that he'd seen before
but he didn't care. He scarcely looked at the screen. His eyes were on Winnie's profile – on the curve of her cheek, the soft outline of her mouth. Very carefully he put his arm round her shoulders. He felt her stiffen and as he touched the back of her neck very lightly, she hunched her shoulders.