I'll Be Seeing You (13 page)

‘Perhaps your mother came back here and wrote in it. Would you like to take a look?'

Perhaps my father had too? I turned the pages, searching for Ma's name but without any real expectation of finding it. The visitors hailed from all over the United States; some had added comments.

Sure is great to see Halfpenny Green again. Seems like it was the best time of my life. Something I'll never forget
. That one was from Idaho.

Glad I came back for one last look
. North Dakota.

Gave me goosebumps to see the old place
–
and looking a lot better than I do. Thanks to all you good folks who've kept Halfpenny Green that way
. Texas.

So many ghosts. So many memories
. Maryland.

I went on turning pages, reading snatches here and there. And then, when I had almost reached the end of the entries, I saw her writing. Her signature, still strong:
Daisy Byrne
and the date, 15th October 1991, sandwiched in between Nebraska and Illinois. She must have come back soon after she had been diagnosed and had known that she was dying.

I said, ‘She did come – last October. Her signature's here.'

‘I'm sorry we didn't meet her.' He was looking at me sympathetically. ‘A lot of them don't like to talk about it – I've found that out. I expect some memories can be too painful.'

I wondered if she had looked for
his
signature, and whether she had found it.

I said, ‘I have an old photo too. Taken here of a B-17 crew. It belonged to my mother. If it's not a nuisance, I'd like to see if any of the Americans at the reunion recognize them.'

‘We'll pass it around,' he said. ‘See what happens.'

He drove me back to the farmhouse. The sun was setting, turning the skies to pale pink and bathing the land in warm, golden light. William saw me to my car. ‘My aunt has an old album that belonged to my grandmother – all wartime photos taken on the farm. I'll ask her to bring it to the reunion.'

With his permission, I spent the next day on the airfield, sketching and painting with my book, my pencils, my paintbox and a bottle of water, as well as some sandwiches provided by my kind B & B hostess. The old huts and hangers, the deserted control tower, the overgrown runways all made wonderful subjects.

On the day after, on an impulse, I drove over to the American war cemetery at Madingley outside Cambridge and looked at the rows and rows of white crosses, with here and there a Star of David, and I walked along the long wall that bore the names of thousands more Americans with no known grave. There were several other visitors, one of them a man alone who was standing, hands in pockets, staring out over the graves. I guessed that he was an American – something about his build and his clothes and his hair, though it's not so easy to tell these days. He turned and walked towards me, passing with a nod and a smile – a man probably in his seventies and almost certainly ex-service. I smiled back and we started a casual conversation about the peacefulness of the cemetery, the lovely view over the Cambridgeshire countryside, how well it was kept, how beautiful the roses and the water-lily pools, and how impressive the chapel. How sad it all was.

He nodded towards the graves. ‘I knew some of those guys. We were over here together – only I got to go home and they didn't. Still, this is a good place for them if it had to be that way.'

I said, ‘Where were you stationed?'

‘Rattlesden. 447th Bomb Group. I came over in mid '44.'

‘As a pilot?'

‘No, I was a bombardier.' He smiled. ‘I only got to fly the plane when we dropped the bombs.'

I clutched at a straw. ‘I don't suppose you ever came across any of the crews stationed at Halfpenny Green?'

‘No, can't say I did. Only the guys at our own base. We stayed around there, or Cambridge. Mostly we went to London if we could.' He looked at me uncertainly. ‘Any connection here?'

‘Not exactly. My mother was in the WAAF and stationed at Halfpenny Green.'

‘You don't say? I came across a few of your WAAFs – they were pretty special. And your RAF – well, we thought a lot of those guys. We had our losses, but, oh boy, so did they.'

We chatted a bit more before he left to rejoin his wife, who was shopping in Cambridge. I stayed, sitting on a bench in the sunshine for a while, in company with the thousands of young Americans who had never gone back home.

At the weekend, I returned to the farmhouse, as invited, just before midday. The weather was kind – a warm, sunny day with a bit of a breeze, blue skies and a few puffy white clouds to provide a perfect backdrop to the scene. The veterans were due to arrive with their wives by coach at half past and everything was ready, including a Scots piper in full Highland rig. They were right on time. I stood with William and Jessica and the two children, beside the perimeter track, and watched the tops of the coaches moving along between the fields of wheat. My heart was thudding away. It was quite possible that my father was one of them – that he might recognize himself in the photo when it was passed round. What then? What would I say? What story could I tell? I hadn't quite covered that.

The coaches came round the corner-and drew to a halt. I could see faces at the windows – men and women, well past middle age – many of them wearing baseball caps. Some were smiling and waving, others simply staring out. The doors opened and the piper stepped forward with his bagpipes and, as the first of the Americans appeared, he began to play.

They came down the steps rather hesitantly and, after they had been greeted by William and Jessica, the piper led them in a long, straggling line towards the house. I had hung back, standing apart from the scene, and I searched the faces of the men as they passed by me. Not one looked anything like the pilot in the photo, but I did notice that one or two of them had tears in their eyes.

Thanks to the weather, the pre-lunch drinks were served outside on the lawn. A well-dressed woman came up to me, smiling.

‘I'm Madeleine Lucas, William's aunt, and you must be Daisy's daughter,' she said. ‘William told me you'd be here and I can see the likeness.'

‘You remember her?'

‘Certainly I do. I was seven when she came to live with us. Peter, my brother, was five. We called her Daisy right from the first and we adored her. She was one of the family. She'd play games with us and read bedtime stories, whenever she was off duty. I always remember how well she did the voices – she made the characters come alive for us. We were all very sorry when she went.'

‘When did she leave exactly?'

‘It would have been quite soon after my eighth birthday in early February 1944 – I remember that she made the cake for it. She was an awfully good cook – but of course you'd know that perfectly well – she used to help Mother quite a lot. Then she got ill – with very bad flu, I think – and was taken off to the base hospital. After that, they sent her home to convalesce. She never came back to Halfpenny Green, so I suppose they must have eventually posted her somewhere else.'

‘Actually, she got married.'

‘Did she? I'm not surprised. I've brought the old photo album, by the way. It's got a picture of your mother in it. I'll show you after lunch.'

There was no time for prevarication. ‘Do you happen to remember if any of the Americans was . . . special to her?'

‘One she was in love with, you mean? I'm not sure if we'd have noticed, at that age. But there must have been lots of them after her. I do remember them always coming into the kitchen whenever she was there.'

I brought out my photo. ‘I found this after she'd died . . . do you recognize any of them?'

She looked at it carefully, but shook her head. ‘I'm sorry, I can't say I do. My parents used to invite the crews to the house, but it was usually in the evenings when we'd have been in bed. They were coming and going the whole time so they didn't make a very lasting impression, and, of course, so many of them were killed.' She gave me back the photo. ‘Are you hoping that one of these will be here today?'

‘It's rather a vain hope.'

She shaded her eyes and looked around the not-so-young gathering. ‘I'm afraid he wouldn't look quite the same.'

The barn had been hung with Stars and Stripes and Union Jacks, the long trestle tables decorated with flowers and more flags, caterers hired to serve the lunch. I found myself sitting next to a former weather officer. He'd been at the mission briefings, he told me, warning the crews what to expect weather-wise, and, mostly, it had been bad news. They'd sometimes had to fly in conditions that would have grounded the birds. The weather in Europe had been much worse in those days, he thought – colder, wetter, foggier. And if it was OK in England, it was clamped-in over Germany – or the other way around. There was no easy pattern, the weather changed constantly, so that forecasting wasn't much better than guesswork half the time. They might as well have used a crystal ball.

Towards the end of the lunch there were speeches – first one of thanks from the President of the Bomb Group Association, then a warm reply from William. There were toasts – to the Queen, to America and one, soberly, to absent friends. And then William was on his feet again, holding up my photo, ready to be passed round the tables. If anyone recognized themselves, or any of the crew, would they let him know. I watched it being handed from one man to the next and heads being shaken. The weather man was talking about the food on the base now and how he'd hated the Brussels sprouts and the dried eggs and the boiled mutton. And then his wife, sitting beyond him, leaned across and started to tell me about rationing in the US during the war and what
they'd
had to do without. They were a nice couple, but I hardly listened. The next man to look at the photo was taking his time over it and I held my breath until he, too, shook his head and passed it on.

The caterers were clearing away plates and some of the visitors were starting to get up from the table, blocking my view of the photo's progress. Eventually, it came down our side. The weather officer's wife, still talking, handed it on to her husband. He glanced at it briefly. He could never remember individual crews, he said. All he could remember was seeing rows and rows of faces at the briefings, and the faces changed all the time.

William was announcing that the coach would leave for a tour of the airfield in fifteen minutes and people were drifting away, out of the barn. I drifted with them.

And then I heard my name being called and William came up with a small man wearing a baseball cap and a zip-fronted nylon jacket over plaid trousers.

‘This is Joe Deerfield from Arizona, Juliet. He was a ground crew chief at Halfpenny Green from 1943 onwards.'

I looked at him without much hope. ‘Oh?'

The American held up the snapshot and tapped it with his forefinger. ‘Yeah, one of our armourers was a camera freak and used to take pictures of the crews. Early '44 this'd've been. You can see the snow on the ground.'

‘You recognize them?'

‘Sure. I remember these guys – they were a great crew. One of the best I ever came across, specially the captain. Some of the pilots could be bastards and chew you out for things that weren't your fault. You know – make out you hadn't fixed somethin' good when
they'd
screwed up, or got the jitters. Some of 'em swore things weren't workin' just so's they had an excuse for turnin' back. Not too many of those, but it happened. Don't blame them now for it – they were just kids with a rotten job to do and some of them were real scared – but I sure as hell blamed them then.' The finger tapped again. ‘Not this guy, though. Never him. No, sir. I remember he got his plane back when it was all shot to hell and the co-pilot hurt bad. He was killed later on, though. Matter of fact, I think it was just after this picture was taken – if I remember right. Tough, but it happened all the time.'

I said, ‘He wasn't killed. He survived. He was on the run in France for months and then repatriated.'

‘Hey, is that so? Well, I'm sure glad to hear it. He was a great guy.'

I said, ‘Do you also remember his name?'

‘Hell, no . . . sorry. I'm good at faces, but names're somethin' else. And there were so many.' He tapped some more, frowning. ‘Maybe it'll come to me, if I think real hard about it.'

I looked over his shoulder at the photo. He was tapping the wrong man. ‘But
this
one's the pilot, isn't he? The one in the middle?'

He shook his head. ‘Nope, that's the co-pilot. He'd only been with them two or three missions – took over from the one got hurt bad.
This
one here's the captain – the one I was talking about. This guy on the right.'

I'd been wrong all the time. It wasn't the one in the middle, cap tilted back, with the open, friendly and honest face. The regular-looking guy. It was the man standing at the end, a little apart, with hands balled into fists on hips, his sheepskin collar turned up round his ears, his cap brim pulled down at an angle so that I could only see part of his face – just the eyes, the nose and the corners of the mouth lifted in a sort of half-smile.

‘Do you remember anything else about him? Where he came from, for instance?'

‘Yeah, I do remember that. He and me used to joke about the English weather – us both coming from warmer climes, as you might say. Hell, we'd forgotten what the sun looked like. He was from California.'

‘Do you know where in California?'

‘Can't remember that. But it was California all right. I can see him now – standin' there just like in this photo – makin' some crack about the goddam Limey weather. Hey, I'll be darned, his name's just come back to me. They used to call him Ham.'

‘Ham? Was that short for something?'