Beauty Chorus, The (48 page)

‘Thank you,’ she said, and raced out towards the airfield.

Evie stood in the shadows of the hangar, smoking nervously.
What the hell is Olivia doing down here? I was right. What a fool …
Leo’s words came back to
her.
‘Trust him. Trust your heart.’
Evie ran her thumbnail against her lip
. Nothing makes any sense these days
. A black cat crossed in front of her, trotting inside
carrying a limp mouse in its jaws.

‘Someone got lucky,’ she murmured. As she watched the driving rain illuminated against the weak lights of an approaching black car, she thought of Amy Johnson, how she had been
caught out on a day just like this a year ago. It made her think of the poem the girls all loved so much:
Dicing with death under leaden skies …

‘What do you think, Miss?’ An engineer appeared at her elbow.

Evie shook her head. ‘The cloud’s on the deck. I’m going to lie doggo a bit longer. It’s not a Priority 1.’ She ground out her cigarette, and hunkered down to wait
out the rain.

A black car stopped at Tangmere Cottage and the driver jumped out to open the passenger door. As Evie watched, a dark figure ran from the cottage and dived into the car, holding his hat to his
head, crouched down against the wind. The car sped along towards the hangar, tyres hissing through the puddles as a black Lysander Mk III circled the airfield and straightened up to land. It taxied
to a halt a little way from the hangar, and a couple of engineers ran out to meet it, the mist and fumes swirling around them.

‘Fill up the long-range tanks,’ a voice said. Evie pricked up her ears – it was Beau. She poked her head out to wave at him, but it was raining so heavily now she pulled back.
Her eyes widened as she saw him run to the dark car and signal them to drive towards the hangar. She didn’t want to tell Beau about her father while there were other people around, so she
quickly crouched down in the shadows behind a pile of parachutes. She heard the car pull in, and Beau ordered the engineers out. Evie’s heart was racing – he was talking to someone in
German.

She could hardly hear above the noise of the rain on the curved tin roof, but gradually she began to pick up the conversation.

‘Yes sir, the plane is ready,’ he said. ‘No one knows what is going on here … They are expecting you, but we must get you out of here before anyone sees you.’
Peeking through the parachutes, Evie couldn’t see the other man’s face. Beau looked exhausted, his hair plastered against his skull from the rain, dark circles under his eyes. All she
could see of the other man was that beneath his dark overcoat he was in the unmistakable grey uniform of a German officer. Beau pulled the coat closed.

‘For God’s sake, keep covered up. Don’t put your cap on until we’re away. Someone might see you, and you know how gossip spreads.’ Something warm and slimy fell
against her hand and Evie jumped. The cat had dropped his half-chewed mouse on her. Shaking, she flicked it away.

‘Yes, sir,’ she heard Beau saying. ‘The weather is bad but that should work in our favour. Once we are over the top, our route to France will be clear, it’s a full moon,
and the forecast is good on the other side so we can come in at treetop height as arranged.

Our first turning point will be Caen, and we will follow the River Orne down to the Argentan region. I assure you, I have successfully helped many people …’ Their voices faded away
as they walked to the Lysander.

Evie was trembling as she crept out, shaking the stiffness from her limbs.
What is he up to?
For a split second, as she thought of her conversation with Olivia, doubts filled her mind.
Think
, she told herself.
There’s no way on earth he’d be smuggling out Jerries from an RAF base. Daddy said I can trust him. Whatever he’s up to, he’s on our
side.
She checked her watch. If she was going to get her Spit out of here while it was still light, she had to get moving. As the men checked over their papers, she ran to the mess to pick up
her charts.
Olivia is another matter
, she thought, as she stuffed them into her flight bag.
When, if, he calls me, I’ll find out what’s going on with her. Right now, I’m
going to deliver my Spit and get on the first train to London, without him.

As she raced out of the offices, from the shadows someone grabbed her arm. She came face to face with Olivia, soaked to the skin and deathly pale.

‘What on earth …?’ Evie snatched her arm away angrily. ‘How did you get in?’

‘I told them I’m Alex’s fiancée. What do you think?’ She flashed her opal ring. ‘More to the point, what are you doing here?’ Olivia challenged
her.

‘Excuse me? I work here.’ Evie started to walk away, but couldn’t resist finding out the truth. She strode back to where Olivia stood, sheltering from the rain.
‘You’re making a fool of yourself. The engagement is off, Olivia. Beau told me he’d broken with you once and for all.’

A smile twitched on her lips. ‘Beau now is it? He doesn’t get you to call him sir when you’re in bed?’

‘That is none of your business!’ Evie clenched her fist. ‘Olivia, you need to move on. Nothing happened between me and Beau while you were still engaged, that’s all you
need to know.’

‘Oh, how decent of you. That’s supposed to make me feel better is it?’ As a group of pilots in Mae Wests crowded through the door the girls stepped to one side.
‘It’s not over,’ she hissed.

Evie heard the Lysander’s engine start up out on the runway. ‘Well if you’re looking for Beau, you’ve just missed him.’

Olivia shrugged. ‘I just came to say thank you. I had the most marvellous dinner with Alex last night, or perhaps he told you? We’ve been seeing a lot of one another.’

‘I’m not his keeper. I imagine he felt sorry for you.’

‘Sorry for me?’ she laughed. ‘Alex loves me. He’ll always love me – that’s what he told me last night.’ She twisted the ring on her finger.
‘He’ll tire of you, and I will be waiting.’

‘You lying bitch,’ Evie said as the wind and rain lashed her face. ‘Beau loves me.’

‘If he loves you so much then why am I still wearing his ring?’

‘Probably because you won’t give it back.’

‘We are meant to be together.’ Her eyes flickered. ‘You are nothing, he’s just sowing his wild oats.’

Evie looked at her incredulously. ‘Grow up, Olivia. You can’t force Beau to marry you out of some sense of responsibility …’

‘He will marry me. I was made for him. Alex would never, ever pollute the family blood.’

‘Is this what you’ve been told since you were children? That you were destined for some hideous farce of an arranged marriage to keep the money, the title, the land in the
family?’ She paused. ‘Pollute? You disgust me. You really believe in all this Nazi bile?’

‘So does Alex,’ Olivia said calmly.

‘I don’t believe that for a moment.’ Evie shook her head. She was shivering, drenched to the skin. ‘My father … he … if he says I can trust Beau, I believe
him – about this, and about you.’ She glanced over to where the Lysander was taxiing towards the runway. ‘Now get out of my way, you horrible, evil girl. I have a job to
do.’ When Olivia wouldn’t move, Evie shoved her out of the way and tossed her parachute onto her back.

‘Look at you!’ Olivia sneered, running after Evie. ‘What kind of a fool are you? As if Alex would choose someone like you over me. You do a man’s job, you dress like a
man—’

Evie wheeled around outside the hangar and slapped her hard on the cheek. Olivia’s eyes flew open in shock. ‘I may do my job as well as a man, but I am all the woman Beau will ever
need.’ There was a polite ripple of applause from the engineers in the hangar. ‘Beau is mine, and I am his, and nothing you can do will change that.’

As Evie walked towards her Spitfire, the Lysander straightened up to take off.

‘It’s not over!’ Olivia yelled. ‘He’ll tell you!’

‘I don’t need Beau to tell me he loves me and not you. I know it.’ She walked back towards Olivia. Close to, Evie could see her slap had left a livid welt on her cheek.
‘I feel it.’ The wind snatched her words away. ‘Anyway it’s too late!’ Evie was losing her temper now. ‘Look, there he goes, off to France—’ She
regretted it the moment she opened her mouth.

‘France?’ Olivia said in a low voice. ‘One call, that’s all it takes. Daddy can get a radio message to Uncle Hans.’ The look in her eyes chilled Evie. ‘He
loathes Alex, you know. They’ll send out every spare plane in the Luftwaffe – Alex wouldn’t stand a chance.’

Evie’s heart was racing. ‘Is that it? You love Beau so much you can’t stand to see him with anyone else? If you really loved him, you’d never want to hurt him.’

Olivia sneered. ‘I love my family. The very thought that some little half-Jewish whore could be the next Countess? No. One way or another I will be the Countess von Loewe
…’

Evie was shaking with anger. ‘You evil, evil girl. You’d rather Beau was dead?’ She could see Olivia was thinking quickly.

‘… because if he is killed, the title will go to my father when Hans dies.’ Olivia ran towards her car.

‘Stop her!’ Evie yelled to the ground crew. They were too slow, and Olivia sped out of the airfield.

One of the engineers ran over. ‘Everything alright, Miss?’

‘No, no it’s not.’ She looked up at the sky, saw the Lysander heading into the distance. ‘Call the police. That girl … She’s called Olivia Shuster. She has
to be stopped. Her family are Nazi sympathisers, and she’s trying to sabotage that mission.’ Evie shielded her eyes, straining to see the Lysander. She leapt into her Spitfire, and
roared up the runway as the engineer ran into the hangar and reached for the telephone.

‘She must be mad!’ he said to his friend as he dialled. ‘No one’s taking off anywhere now.’

As the Merlin engines throbbed and the Spitfire soared into the sky, Evie’s face was grim.
It’s my fault. If I hadn’t opened my big mouth … I have to warn him
somehow. Olivia is mad enough to betray him. Beau’s flying straight into a trap.

55

Evie tracked Beau through the broken cloud as he banked the plane, heading across the Channel
. If I can just catch up,
she thought,
I can signal him to turn back.
She checked her gauges.
There’s plenty of fuel for me to get to Debden still, and from there I can go straight to the hospital.
She saw Beau rising through the cloud, and as she
followed him, she climbed steadily, through to a clear sky, the first stars and the full moon rising. She could see Beau clearly up ahead, skimming along, the Lysander’s exhausts flaring.

She took the photograph of Jack out of her pocket and tucked it on the control panel.
‘A straight-up guy …’
Red’s words echoed in her ears. ‘Not like
Beau,’ she said aloud.
‘Trust him’
, she remembered her father’s words again.
All this time I’ve been waiting to hear from you, and you’ve been seeing
Olivia.
She thought of the German officer she had seen in the hangar.
And what’s that all about?

Just as Evie began to catch up with him, Beau started to descend into the cloud. She decreased her speed to match the slower Lysander’s. Nervously, Evie looked at her gauges.
This is
taking too long
, she thought, but she followed him, and she began to fly by instruments. She checked her speed and guessed she had overshot him. She pulled up again into the darkening sky, and
checked around. Sure enough, he was suddenly above her, and behind. He must have spotted her. She craned her neck around as he brought the plane down to her height. She could see him in the
cockpit, his passenger in silhouette behind, studying papers by torchlight.

Evie suddenly realised how stupid she had been. She’d been following Beau and lost all track of where she was. If she lost him, she was in big trouble. She checked her compass and watch,
and quickly calculated her bearings.
Right, Evie
, she thought.
Straighten up and think.
As she jotted down the co-ordinates on her chart, she bit her lip.
I am going to be in a
hell of a lot of trouble if this ever gets out. The number of times they’ve told us that ATA pilots aren’t allowed to fly to the Continent. Though there were those rumours about Amy
…

‘What the bloody hell is that Spit doing?’ Beau said. He gazed out of the high, glazed cockpit of the Lysander at the plane below. ‘I’m going to see
what’s going on. Perhaps the mission has been aborted.’

Beau dived down, brought the Lysander level with the Spitfire, wingtips almost touching. He scowled when he looked across and saw Evie’s face in the other cockpit. She was waving
frantically, pointing back to the English coast.

‘I knew it. She’s mad,’ he muttered. ‘She’s going to get us all killed.’ He signalled frantically for her to turn back. Evie shook her head and pointed for
him to head back. The light was fading now. ‘What on earth does she think she’s doing?’

‘Now where’s he gone?’ Evie said, as he shot ahead. The cloud was beginning to break up beneath them, patches of sea showing between. She spotted the exhaust
flare and followed his path. Something streaked past her cockpit, silver bursts tracing through the sky. ‘Oh God,’ she said as she manoeuvred the plane to avoid them. Someone was firing
at her. She looked around frantically, until she saw to her horror the unmistakable outline of a Messerschmidt. She was close enough to see the hideous gaping jaw painted on the front of the plane,
and the crosses on its tail marking the number of hits the pilot had made. She counted ten before she dived down.
She did it, Olivia betrayed him.
Evie’s stomach lurched as the plane
plummeted downwards.

The Messerschmidt was on her tail now, and she knew she had to get away. She pushed the engine to the limit, skimming down low, hoping she was still over water as she barrelled through the
cloud. ‘Come on, come on,’ she prayed quietly under her breath. Every sense was alert, her reactions immediate and precise. ‘Guardian angel … if you’re up there, give
me a hand,’ she said. She thought of one of the girls who had pitched up in the drink in a Barracuda. The aircraft had sunk immediately, but by some miracle she had got the hood back, and
she’d managed to flag down a ship.
But if I go down here, there will be no one to help me.
The Messerschmidt was gaining ground. Bullets shot past her, missing the Spitfire by a
hair’s breadth. Evie spotted the coastline of France ahead, and she banked up, just as she saw Beau’s plane returning. She veered out of the way. Beau and the Messerschmidt were on a
direct path, head to head. Beau held the plane steady until the last moment, but as he flew by the Messerschmidt opened fire.