The Way Ahead (12 page)

Don’t be long coming home, Freddy.

The Gaffer enjoyed his stand-up face to face confrontation with Henry Williams in the pub that evening. Henry tried to stick to his guns about the heavy bombing of Germany, saying Churchill had a lot to answer for. Churchill, actually, had his reservations about the efficacy of the raids, but allowed the chiefs of the Allied Air Forces to have their way.

The Gaffer flayed Henry with a barrage of words and got him so steamed up that he invited the Gaffer to step outside, where he swung punches. The Gaffer took a few, then responded in kind.

‘Hold that, Henry. That’s from me. And hold this one. That’s for me daughter Cassie. And here’s one on behalf of me son-in-law Freddy.’

Henry gave up, and well before any copper arrived.

Freddy at this stage of his commitment to the war was with a group of the late General Wingate’s Chindit guerrillas of the 14th Army behind the Japanese lines in Burma. They were fighting for survival in the steamy heat of the terrain, while repeatedly hitting Japanese lines of communication during the mighty battle for Kohima. The lurking presence of the enemy made every sortie a threat to life and limb. Dysentery, malaria and other kinds of malignant diseases also took their toll, and while Freddy had earned the three stripes of a sergeant, it was the high incidence of death that placed them on his sleeve well before he might have expected. As lean as a whippet, he was teak-brown and teak-hard, his cheerful nature submerged beneath the grim necessity to kill or be killed. Survival was the keynote.

Not that any of the Chindits fell easily by the wayside. They were hard and lethal fighters, many resistant to diseases by now, and they had learned from the Japs how to apply cunning and trickery to the art of disposing brutally of the enemy. They were also bitter men, for they’d been away from
home
for over two years, and felt they belonged to the Forgotten Army. But it did not make them less dangerous, as the Japanese were finding out. Their epitaph was already in the making, an epitaph addressed to their descendants.

‘For your tomorrow we gave our today.’

In Britain, the country from which the 14th Army was so remote, men and machines were on the move. At night huge motorized convoys of regiments, battalions and squadrons, together with guns, tanks and other armour, were heading for the South of England, and from every direction north, east and west.

The armada was beginning to gather, and Churchill’s promise to one day get at the throat of the Nazi beast was taking shape. His teeth had become formidable fangs the moment the Americans and their massive weight of armour entered the war as his allies.

EMMA’S SISTER ANNABELLE
was still in Wiltshire with her children, Philip who was eight now and six-year-old Linda. Cut off from her parents and her Adams relatives, she was nevertheless determined not to put the children at risk by returning to her home off Denmark Hill. Air raids looked to have stopped, yes, but she simply didn’t trust that gang of Berlin rotters. What had happened to the commonsense of the German people in placing their trust in such a clique of odious men was a mystery to her. Hitler had hardly been able to wait to lead them into another terrible war.

Her husband Nick, a fighter pilot, had almost become a fatal casualty of the conflict when he had to crash-land his plane. His injuries kept him hospitalized overseas for three months, and it was another three before he was able to return to duty. But that, he told her when he was finally home on leave, had probably saved him from becoming one of the RAF’s many dead in the battle for Malta, where the skies were another form of hell. His squadron, what was left of it, had been posted home
for
rest and recharging, and the move had coincided with his convalescent leave.

His squadron was eventually sent to Italy when the Allies invaded Mussolini’s Fascist state. Today, however, she was going to see him again, because he and other fighter pilots were once more back in England, this time training to handle new and faster planes. In his letters, Nick hadn’t said what planes they were. Well, he wasn’t allowed to tell her everything. But in his last letter he’d said he’d be with her for three days, after which he and the other pilots would depart overseas for what to Annabelle was the umpteenth time. She hoped it wouldn’t be Burma, a world away, and a nightmare world at that. By all accounts the war against the Japanese in Burma was of a kind that belonged to one’s worst dreams. Annabelle could have killed Hitler herself for starting a war that had encouraged Japan to join in.

It was just two in the afternoon, and she was shopping in the high street of the Wiltshire village, Philip and Linda being at school. Nick was due to arrive about three, and had told her he was getting a lift in Bloggsy’s car from his present station in Somerset.

‘Bloggsy?’ said Annabelle, who by pre-arrangement with Nick was receiving a call from him in the village phone booth at the time.

‘Roger Blewitt-Broughton actually,’ said Nick, ‘so we call him Bloggsy, of course. First-class pilot, but mad as a dog.’

Annabelle was now experiencing a sense of happy anticipation. She was a demonstrative woman, and more temperamental than Emma. Twenty-seven now, she had her highs and lows, and she had
had
her disagreements with Nick, but she was equipped, by virtue of family traditions, to work at her marriage, because sustaining the bond was far more worthwhile than breaking it. Sometimes dissatisfaction reared its unwelcome head on account of Nick’s prolonged absences from her life and the lives of their children. Such moods were partly due to worry that his time as a fighter pilot would come to an end from enemy action, for she was well aware that losses among his kind were heavy. However, all dissatisfaction melted away immediately leave brought him back to her, and there was always the knowledge that the RAF would ground him for executive duties when he had completed his maximum tours of active service.

An open sports car was racing along the winding country roads not far from the village. Five RAF flying men, including the driver, were crammed into the car, nominally a two-seater. The owner-driver, Pilot Officer Blewitt-Broughton, was taking bends in hair-raising style.

‘Keep this pram on the bloody road, Bloggsy!’ yelled one passenger.

‘Don’t wet your pants, Kipper,’ shouted Bloggsy.

‘I already have, you lunatic.’

They came out of a bend on the wrong side of the road, the car skewing and squealing as Bloggsy wrenched at the wheel. A police constable, riding a bicycle, stopped, dismounted, moved to the middle of the road and held up an authoritative hand. The car came to a giddy, scarifying halt on tyres almost bald.

‘Afternoon, officer,’ said Bloggsy, ‘what can we do for you?’

‘You in charge of this vehicle, sir?’

‘Right first time,’ said Bloggsy, sporting a flowing moustache, ‘it’s my own baby.’

‘Well, it’s overloaded, sir, and by the evidence of my own eyes, being driven in a manner dangerous to behold, which is an offence. It ’ud be safer for your passengers to catch the afternoon bus that’ll be coming along shortly.’

‘Have a heart, officer,’ said Bloggsy, ‘most of us have got another ten miles to chew up.’

‘Well, I don’t wish to spoil the day for you gentlemen, but I have to caution you to drive with due care and attention, as is required by the law. Understood, sir?’

‘Hearing you loud and clear, officer,’ said Bloggsy.

It was a little later when Annabelle, emerging from the grocer’s old-fashioned but spicy-smelling establishment, saw the sports car entering the village at racing speed. She stared in horror as it rushed towards a woman crossing the street. Brakes went on, wheels spun, tyres shrieked, and the car, skidding, slewed past the paralysed woman at an ungovernable rate. It struck the kerb sideways on and turned over with a sickening crash. Men in RAF uniforms hurtled from it. The engine died, but the upper wheels were still spinning, the car on its side, the driver a crumpled heap, half in, half out, the passengers limply sprawled over the pavement.

For a moment, Annabelle and other shoppers
were
paralysed themselves. Annabelle, appalled by the fact that the casualties were RAF officers, that Nick might be among them, came to and rushed across the street. She saw the driver, doubled up and unconscious. The other men were all on the pavement, inert, their caps off and blood oozing from one man’s cracked forehead.

Annabelle’s horrified eyes searched frantically for Nick, since she was sure the car was the one he’d spoken about, even if it had appeared well before three o’clock. The grocer himself was on the scene, but only for a few seconds, when he then ran back to his shop to phone for ambulances.

‘Oh, Lordy, Lordy, what can we do?’ gasped a woman.

‘They’re hospital jobs, that they are,’ said an elderly man, ‘and I don’t think we should try to move ’em. There’s broken bones, that’s certain sure. Can anyone bring blankets to keep ’em warm? That’s the most we can do for the poor chaps till ambulances come.’

Two shoppers hurried off to get blankets. Annabelle was suffering for the casualties, but shaking with relief at realizing Nick wasn’t among them. She also felt grief and helplessness that so little could be done for the injured until ambulances arrived with a medical team. People stood around, numbed and shocked, staring at limp bodies that eventually began to stir and twitch. At least the officers were alive, thought Annabelle, but how tragic and yes, how foolish, if a car crash had crippled these men of the skies.

The blankets arrived, and willing hands helped to cover the casualties.

The afternoon bus pulled up at the stop outside the Post Office opposite the crash. Three people alighted, one of them an RAF officer. Annabelle, turning, drew a loud noisy breath and made another wild run. Pilot Officer Nick Harrison, her husband, saw her coming. He dropped his valise and Annabelle rushed into his arms.

‘Nick!’

‘Annabelle—’ Nick checked as the overturned car came to his eyes. ‘Oh, my God,’ he breathed.

‘Nick, it crashed,’ gasped Annabelle. ‘They’re all badly hurt, they were thrown out – is it the car you spoke about?’

‘Christ, yes, it is, but I got out and caught the bus about a mile from here.’ Nick raced across to the car, and the knot of people made way for him. He went down on one knee beside groaning men. ‘Oh, Christ,’ he said. There had been just that mile to go when the police constable stopped the car. Just a mile that was all, for himself. But Bloggsy, a wild and reckless character, really had been driving like a madman. So even a mere mile offered too many risks to a man whose wife and children were expecting him. Further, the police constable’s advice touched an instinct. So Nick left the car and waited for the bus, Bloggsy derisive of his caution.

He felt distraught as he regarded the faces of the blanket-covered men, his fellow pilots. He used his handkerchief to wipe away blood that was oozing from Johnny Gardner’s forehead, Bloggsy,
unconscious
, was breathing stertorously, the others issuing small painful groans. One man, Ian Kipling, opened his eyes and regarded his immediate world in a vague and puzzled way.

‘What happened?’ he asked faintly.

‘Crash landing, Kipper,’ said Nick. ‘Bloggsy did it in, the careless bugger.’

Bloggsy was beginning to groan.

Annabelle was there, down on one knee beside Nick, her hand pressing his arm in a gesture of compassion.

‘Perhaps it’s only broken bones, darling,’ she whispered. It was spoken fervently, but it was, of course, a wish and a prayer, and they both knew it.

More time went by before two ambulances arrived, a doctor aboard. A police car turned up soon after.

When Philip and Linda came out of the village school, their mum and dad were waiting for them. Seeing their father, they yelled in glee and ran to him. Nick put aside feelings of lingering shock to give his kids the kind of welcome they wanted, boisterous and affectionate. Philip had the lively, beguiling nature of Nick’s father, once a con man who’d come unstuck and served a prison sentence. Linda was a bundle of cuddlesome fun who liked attention, especially from her father. She had the large brown eyes of her maternal grandmother, Lizzy Somers. She clung possessively to her dad’s hand as they all walked through the village to the small cottage being rented for the duration. The
battered
car had been towed away, and the four casualties were in hospital. Philip and Linda were ignorant of the crash.

As always, when their dad arrived on leave, they received presents from him, and so did their mum. They clamoured for Nick’s attention, which made Annabelle wonder what happened to the affections of children who rarely saw their absent fathers. Would such men eventually become total strangers to their sons and daughters, and even close to being forgotten by their wives? It was common knowledge that in this village alone, the wives of three absent servicemen were having affairs with American soldiers.

While Nick enjoyed a romping reunion with Philip and Linda, Annabelle wondered if her interests were being looked after by God or Nick’s lucky rabbit’s foot. Well, something had made him leave that car and catch the bus.

Not until after supper and Linda and Philip were in bed that evening did she and Nick enjoy their own kind of reunion, much as Polly and Boots had a short while before. Hugs and warm kisses prevailed, and Nick said it was wizard to be in close touch with her person again.

‘My person?’ said Annabelle.

‘That’s you, yourself,’ said Nick, aiming for her lips and kissing them.

‘Bull’s-eye,’ said Annabelle when she came up for air.

‘Smack on operational target, I’d say,’ said Nick, and let go to look at her. She was definitely her
mother
’s daughter with her rich chestnut hair and her fulsome figure. Emma was slimmer. ‘My kind of target,’ said Nick.

‘Stop making me sound like a dartboard,’ said Annabelle, but she gave him another hug. He had once had a vigorously muscular look, but his time with the RAF had fined him down, giving him lean lines. He still liked soccer and during off-duty days he played for RAF elevens in friendly matches against Army or Navy teams. That is, they were billed as friendlies, he said, but it was often necessary to stretcher off victims of mayhem. ‘Nick, I think you’d like to ring the hospital, wouldn’t you?’