Sentimental Journey (23 page)

If you think Mother snores, my dearest, you should be here. We sleep in snatches, an hour or two here and there, in the dispersal hut on an iron cot or in a folding chair waiting for the call to scramble. Some lads sleep so loudly that if you weren’t so tired yourself you’d think to smother them. One chap walked over and had a wickedly long conversation with the flight lieutenant. No one
realised
he was sleepwalking until he called lieutenant “Mum.”

I received my mother’s letter
—
hallo, Mother
—
and she claims that you are pale. She blames me for not marrying you before “that horrid little man Hitler became such a world nuisance.” Had I married you sooner, she reasoned, you would have had a child or two by now and been used to the rigors of motherhood. I have written to her. Perhaps she will share the letter with you, love. It should make you smile.

She also tells me that you lost your ration book on the way to the Red Cross station in Knightsbridge. Fortunately, she does not blame me for that. Enclosed is my ration book, which I had meant to leave behind. Use it, dearest. We do not want for much here.

I carry your picture in the pocket of my jumpsuit for luck. It is the one with you standing in the barge on the
Thames
. Remember? I bought you violets. I wish there were violets nearby so I could pick one and put it under my pillow and feel closer to you. Until then I have your photograph as close to my heart as I can.

I love you,

Skip

* * *

27 Berkeley Court
,
London

14 August, 1940

My darling husband,

I wish I could feel your arms about me. Your mother is good company, but every time I look at her I see your wonderful blue eyes in her face and I want to cry because I miss you so terribly. We rolled bandages this week at the Red Cross station. Oh, my darling, but that was so difficult, sitting there knowing those bandages could be used on you. I worry that you are not sleeping enough to fight well. Can they not relieve your squadron soon?

I came into the library one afternoon and found your mother sitting at your desk, holding our wedding photograph and crying. She is frightened, too, my darling. We held each other—we do that so often now—and pray for you, for everyone, for the country. She told me that when she traveled to town, there were wire towers situated on the outskirts of small towns and people had driven their automobiles into fields and parked them in lines so invasion planes could not land.

The
BBC
predicts the fighting will only get worse. In the last few days they have put up barrage balloons in the parks and squares all through town.

I must take this to the Post. I love your letters, my dearest darling man. They are my strength. I have enclosed a small gift for you. Put it under your pillow and think of me. I have taken to sleeping in your shirt.

You are in my dreams,

Your loving wife

* * *

Wellingham
Airfield, Essex

23 August, 1940

Dearest Wife,

Firstly I must thank you for the dried violets. I had not known that you pressed them in your journal. You may trust that they are quite happy in their new home beneath my pillow. Sleep in any item of my clothing, but make certain you write to me about it in great detail. The image of you in nothing but my shirt was certainly a welcome one.

We had heard from HQ that the target date for a German invasion was 15 August. But the day has come and gone. I suspect the
BBC
, as they did before the war, is trying its best to provide information to the people in the hope that they will save lives.

All the squadrons from Fighter Command have had much success of late. We are holding our own against wave after wave of attacks. New aeroplanes are coming every week, thanks to Lord Beaverbrook’s efforts. Remember the day when you gathered our aluminum cookware and took it to the salvage trucks for the war effort? The Spitfire I am flying could be made from our very own pots and pans.

Now, please read this carefully, my dearest one. You asked if it was not dangerous for us, so many missions per day, every single day. A fighter pilot would never fall asleep in the cockpit. You can be so fagged you feel as if you cannot bear to stand. Then the call comes and you’re out the door, fastening gear as you run for the plane. There is no time to think. No time to be tired. There is little time for anything but doing your job.

I cannot tell you when we’ll be relieved. But the moment we are, I shall come straight to you, love. You owe me a cheese omelet in lieu of my fine cigars. I love you, Greer.

Until then, yours forever,

Skip

* * *

27 Berkeley Court
,
London

8 September, 1940

My darling husband,

They bombed
London
yesterday. It seemed to go on forever. By evening the sky towards the east was nothing but a glow from the fires at the docks and warehouses there. You are not to worry because we went down to the room in the cellar. All was fine. The small wireless you settled down there works wonderfully, and the candles lit the place rather well. Rest assured that we did not come up until the sirens sounded the all clear. I think that now that both your mother and I have been through a bombing raid we are less frightened than before.

This morning Mrs. Lindsay came by to bring your mother an invitation to a luncheon for the war fund, and she said they were in a shelter near St Paul’s last evening and the incendiaries were raining down as if it were the end of the world.

Your mother is very put out by this whole incident. When we were in the cellar room, all bundled up, sipping tea and listening to the bombs whistle, then explode, she declared, quite indignantly, that she will never again see another Marlene Dietrich film.

I expect that you are smiling now. I do so love your mother, darling. I am thinking that perhaps she and I should go to the country when things let up a bit. What keeps me here is that I am so very afraid that I will not be able to see you when you get relieved. I know it would only be for a day or two, but I couldn’t bear it if you were given a forty-eight and I couldn’t see you.

Know that I love you with all my heart, my darling, and I miss you as always, but trust, too, that I know you are up there flying the skies and protecting us. While I worry about you, I know you are the very best at everything you do and that you will come back to me when this is all done.

I keep you in my heart.

Greer

“SEPTEMBER IN THE
RAIN
”

Wellingham Airfield, Essex

10 September, 1940

My lovely Greer,

Rumor is that we are to have relief sometime in the next week. I have heard this for a while, but was hesitant to tell you until the time was growing close and until I could make certain the rumor appeared to be not merely wishful gossip. Our flight commander has said leave is most likely to happen very soon, and since he is never one to spread idle rumors, I would say it is so.

While common sense tells me that certainly I would prefer to have you tucked safely away in Keighley, 1 know, too, that I would not be able to see you there with a mere forty-eight-hour leave. I want you to remember that I think you and my mother are very brave. I am proud of both of my ladies.

Mother’s comment about Dietrich was quite fun, and knowing Mother as I do, I suspect she will soon write the poor actress a pointed letter condemning her for having the audacity to be born in
Germany
.

I shall end this brief letter by reiterating that I adore you and miss you terribly. I shall see you soon, my dearest and sweetest wife.

All my love forever,

Skip

He leaned back in a hard wooden chair as he sealed the letter; then he set it on the small desk in the corner of the dispersal hut and penned the address on the front of the envelope. He stood and crossed the room, then placed the letter in the mailbox and tossed a penny for the Post in a can that sat next to it.

There was a blackboard above the table where they marked hits. It was the ace board for the squadron. He had seven hits.

He turned away from the board and braced one hand on the wall, then pulled a packet of Craven “A”s from his pocket, stuck the cigarette between his dry lips, and lit it. He stood there and watched the smoke curl.

The hut was filled with smoke, because there was little else for them to do between missions. Sit there in readiness, smoke, drink black tea and coffee. Eat some of the tomato and cheese sandwiches or local-made cakes that were stacked on the food table between a beat-up old icebox with a motor that chucked loudly and a wooden trash bin filled with crumpled cigarette packs, snuff tins, gum and chocolate wrappers. There was as much raw tension in the air as there was cigarette smoke.

A quiet game of whist passed the time for some flyers across the room, their Mae West life vests stacked in a corner and their chutes piled beneath each man’s spindled chair. Others were reading, slouched on sofas, in deep chairs, or on skeletal cots with the news or a book.

Skip couldn’t concentrate enough to read a book. He had no focus when he was outside the cockpit. So he wrote letters and paced the room like a caged cat. And like the others, he waited.

He hadn’t told Greer about his deepest fears. At first he told himself it was because she was carrying their child and he didn’t want to worry her. But perhaps he was too ashamed to tell her. She did think he was the “best pilot in the RAF”—the best pilot in the RAF who vomited his belly out whenever he landed.

This was much on his mind of late, and he remembered something similar happening to him when he was just a lad. He had wandered into a field where his father and some other chaps were trap-shooting at clay pigeons. A flock of rooks flew overhead, and one of the men swung his gun around and picked off a bird.

It hit the ground and a moment later the flock turned back, cawing and circling over the dead bird for the longest time. Skip remembered being very ill. He’d emptied his stomach of the pot-beef and cheese sandwich there in front of all, so the men stopped shooting and went back to the house. His father forced him along ahead of him, but did not speak of it. To this day Skip never knew what his father had thought.

Before the sun had gone down, Skip had walked back to the small meadow and sat there cross-legged in the grass, holding his tight belly and watching the flock as it still circled the dead bird. It had been hours. Finally, as if the funeral were done, the birds began to fly away, one, then two, then more. When the sun was completely down and the air was growing chilled, there was only one bird left, cawing in the half dark and circling over its lost mate.