Churchill's Angels Part 9

Two pairs of wide eyes, one pair blue, one brown, were gazing at her, forcing her to tell the truth.

'... butcher's wrap ...' Daisy and Rose covered their ears but they still heard, '... carca.s.ses in it. It's lovely quality but needs a lot of soaking and, girls, I wouldn't make you new undies, unless you need them, just new curtains. Soon we'll be grateful for anything we can get. I'm sure you've grown again, Rose, and a new coat will cost at least twelve pounds and heaven knows how many coupons. I'll let down your winter coat and I'll try to find a nice piece of contrasting material for a new hem, collar and cuffs. Fake fur would be cla.s.sy, don't you think, or a nice bit of black velvet. Black's ever so smart with grey.'

'I'll be fine, Mum, and I have enough coupons saved for a new coat. Please alter that one for Daisy.'

'She's talking too much, too quickly, Rose,' said Daisy when they were finally able to get off to bed. 'Anything to avoid thinking about what's really bothering her. What are we going to do?'

'Not a problem for you, Daisy, if you go off with the WAAFs. I don't blame you, not for a second. If Vickers would release me, I'd be off like a shot. They need drivers in the army, did you hear? And I know I'm a good one, and I can fix the engine too.'

'Adair says it's hotting up; worse than Dunkirk, he says, and that was bad. The country'll want both of us, Rose. Me first, probably, since you're actually churning out munitions and being really useful. I can't leave Mum, not unless I get conscripted. She depends on me.'

'Too much, Daisy. She's always expected you to be there, doing the shop, delivering orders, fixing the blooming van. We're all going to leave her; it's the natural way of things, so join up while I'm still here.'

Daisy was quiet for a while. Was Rose right? Should she enlist and hope that Flora would cope without any of her brood? Adair and Sam thought she should. Flying. That surely was an impossible dream. Even if she joined the WAAF, women did not fly planes; they worked on them, keeping them and their male pilots in the air.

She lay down, covering herself with her quilt. 'Rose, can you imagine anything more wonderful than being able to fly?'

Rose smiled. 'No, I can't,' she said with a giggle, 'especially if the teacher's someone you fancy like mad.'

Daisy shot up in the bed. 'Rose Petrie, no I don't. Is that all you factory girls talk about all day, fellas? Me and Adair, it's different. He sees me as a mechanic what could help with his engine, and me, I see him as a toff as owns a plane.'

And as she lay down again she felt rather ashamed of herself. She knew perfectly well that her feelings for the 'toff' were changing and softening.

SIX.

There was no time to think of flying lessons in the next few weeks. The phoney war was well and truly over. Night after night, and even day after sunny day from late June onwards, the RAF battled it out against the German Luftwaffe in the skies above southern England. There were rumours that the enemy forces wanted to destroy as many British fighter planes as they could in as short a time as possible so as to make an armed invasion a definite plan of action.

The air-raid sirens sounded in deadly earnest almost every day or night, and Daisy had long since given up all dreams of being taught to fly. She felt as if she were the most incredibly selfish person in the whole world. Every day Adair, and men like him, challenged the enemy and risked their lives in a superhuman effort to keep Britain safe; all Daisy Petrie could think of was that he had not returned to give her a flying lesson. Surely she would forget the little she had learned. Was there nothing she could do?

She scoured the newspapers in an attempt to find a reasonably close flying school. People who were not in the air force had learned to fly, therefore there must be schools, or horrible thought were all flyers rich men who taught one another?

One evening she did find a small newspaper advertis.e.m.e.nt at the very bottom of a page. 'Flying lessons, experienced trainers, three guineas per hour.'

Daisy groaned. That was a fortune, more than a whole week's wage. Where would anyone find money like that? She could not possibly ask her father. Then another fabulous thought came: what if she were to work at the school in return for lessons? But when she looked closely at the advertis.e.m.e.nt she saw that it would take her most of a day merely to get to and from the location of the aerodrome.

'You'll just have to hope he comes back soon,' she told herself, and sat down with a thump on her bed.

She laughed, remembering how she, Rose and their brothers used to play as children. They could be anything, do anything. One day they were knights in shining armour jousting with the enemy, who always lost, and next day they were cowboys galloping across the plains, always on white horses. The bad guys stood no chance against the white-hatted cowboys.

Her bed became a plane. She sat there, going through all the motions she had seen Adair perform, hearing his melodic voice in her mind; what speed had he said? If she could not have a plane, she would do the next best thing.

Her trusty old bicycle became an Aeronca, which she named Adair, but naturally told no one. Up and down the roads she went, imagining herself gaining speed and lifting off. She played the same game with the van, keeping the windows wide open on even the windiest, rainiest day and all the time, from switch on to switch off, she practised flying a plane. Until Adair came back, that was the best she could do.

Every time planes were heard or seen in deadly combat in the sky above Dartford, Daisy prayed that, if he were up there and surely he must be, he would be safe.

It became known that Britain had a brilliant weapon at its disposal, a priceless a.s.set called radar. Radar constantly scanned the skies over the sea between Britain and mainland Europe for approaching planes. When planes were spotted a highly skilled ground control system sent details of the exact position of enemy aircraft to the RAF pilots.

Dartford came in for more than its share of air raids as the enemy planes pa.s.sed over its streets both on their way to London and on the survivors' way home.

On the morning after a particularly intense raid, Fred took over the shop while Daisy went to the post office to buy stamps.

'Have a gander round, Daisy, love, see wot's wot, afore your mum goes to her bingo. Don't want 'er seeing anything that'll worry 'er.'

To be out of doors felt wonderful. Daisy walked along Spital Street and onto the High Street. Her heart sang with joy when she saw that the fifteenth-century Holy Trinity Church was unscathed. Five hundred years, give or take a year or two, it had stood there. Daisy felt that she would be content to live in Dartford always. She loved its mixture of ancient and modern buildings, its unappealing built-up areas, and its wide green s.p.a.ces. But she knew that she would be compelled to leave when she was called up for war work, and she would go willingly. This summer she had learned so much, not only about planes, but about herself. Would she be afraid to join the war? She hoped not, but if she was, she would do her best to hide it. The raids of the next few weeks tried everyone's patience. 'I've had it,' moaned Daisy. 'I'm tired of being stuck in the shop or in that airless, windowless refuge room. Almost every time I've been out for the past three weeks I've ended up diving into a shelter.' She remembered her splendid feelings as she had contemplated leaving home to do something special and wished she could reignite them. How she wished it were all over or, even better, that it had never started. She continually asked herself, why do people fight with one another? She could not give herself an answer.

'Me an' all, Daisy,' complained Rose, who was relaxing at home, for once. 'Goodness knows, I like a lot of the folk I work with but I sometimes feel I'm spending more time in the factory than at home. I'm sure some feels the same way about me. All right to work with, but eating and sleeping with is getting just a bit much. Plus, if I don't straighten these long legs of mine, they'll set in a bent position. I'll soon be the same height as our Daisy.'

That nonsense made her parents laugh and earned her an affectionate swipe from her sister, who realised that Rose's working life was so much worse than her own. Sometimes Rose got home after hours spent in the factory shelter, with little time before she had to leave to start her next shift.

'Come on, girls,' coaxed Fred, who was also very tired and over-worked, 'it can't go on for ever. Our lads are downing those Messerschmitts like n.o.body's business.'

And we're losing Spitfires. Daisy thought it but said nothing.

'They was over yesterday and the day before, Daisy. Bet they don't come today. We could have a nice run on the Heath.' Rose turned to her mother. 'And be home before you miss us in time for tea.'

'"And is there honey still for tea?"' Daisy had absolutely no idea where the words had come from.

'Honey? I don't remember when I last saw honey. Do you remember, Fred?'

'Nancy must have given us some, I suppose,' said Fred doubtfully.

'Sorry, Mum, the words just popped out; some old poem, I think.'

Flora looked at her daughters. She knew how difficult it was for them to be cooped up. Since early childhood they had cycled for miles in the countryside, played exhausting games with their brothers or just run for the sheer exuberance of it. They wanted her to agree with Rose's suggestion but she could not. She felt her legs trembling and tried to still them so that her girls would not see how afraid she was.

'Happen Rose's right, Flora, love. Even Germans needs a rest, and it's Sunday. Besides, why would anyone want to drop a bomb on Dartford Heath? No munitions dumps or engineering works wot I know of. Mind you, there's one really big gun they might want to take out, if they know it's there, that is. Trust me, love, it's our factories they're after. Go on, girls. Have a nice run.'

Flora said nothing and the twins looked at each other, hope in their eyes.

'They're sensible girls, love. They'll dive in a trench or ditch first sign of a Jerry plane; won't you, girls?'

'Right, Dad.'

Flora could only try to smile as she watched them leave. 'I'll have the tea on, but no honey, Daisy Petrie.'

The twins could not hold back a swift glance at the blue summer sky. One or two puffy white clouds drifted along on the breath of a slight breeze.

'Perfect,' said Daisy, and then grimaced as the smell of burning reached them on that same breeze. It was not a welcome smell, like that of wood smoke from a family picnic fire. This smoke carried the stench of wanton destruction.

'Forget what Mum says about being hoydens, Daisy. Let's run,' suggested Rose, and side by side the girls began to lope easily along the High Street, then on to Lowfield Street and further, to Heath Lane. Rose had longer legs but Daisy was faster over shorter distances, and they arrived together, exhilarated but exhausted, on the Heath.

'I'd forgotten how good exercise is.'

'You should come into Vickers and take my physical jerks cla.s.s.'

Daisy smiled at her sister. 'No, thanks, but I am enjoying myself. It's ages since we had any fun together and I really miss Grace and Sally. Suppose that comes with growing up.' She pointed to a gra.s.sy hillock. 'Look, other people have had the same idea, a lovely walk in the fresh air. Oh, look, Rose. That little boy and his mum are trying to fly a kite.'

The girls wandered for a while, keeping the boy and his mother in sight, willing and able to give a.s.sistance if necessary.

'Oh, does little Rose want to play?' teased Daisy. 'I'm sure the mum will let you try flying it.'

Rose did not reply. She stood, every muscle in her body tensed as she listened to a low ominous sound. At that instant, out of the bluest of summer skies, shrieked a Messerschmitt.

Daisy saw the mother freeze. 'Dive, dive!' she screamed, but it was all over before the second word had left her lips.

They heard the hail of deadly bullets and the scream of the plane as it flew low across the Heath and then up into the blue summer sky, and then there was the deadliest of silences.

'Are we dead, Daisy?' whispered Rose.

'Nothing hurts, 'cept my legs where you're lying on them.'

Rose picked herself up from the rough gra.s.s and for a second, unable to function, looked at what lay horribly mangled just a few yards away. She began to scream, a high-pitched wail of unutterable anguish.

Daisy crawled across the rough gra.s.s and, at the sight of the two bodies, she bent over retching. Nothing she had learned in her first-aid course was of any use to either of these pitiful bodies. Above them, released by death from the child's hand, his kite swooped and spiralled in the air currents.

She forced her unwilling body to stand up. 'Rose, Rose,' she said calmly, squeezing her sister's upper arms tightly. 'You need to go and get help. We pa.s.sed a report centre and a first-aid post on the way. They'll know what to do. I'll stay with ... with ...'

Rose wiped her eyes. 'Oh G.o.d, Daisy ...'

'I know, but hurry, just go.'

Rose ran. To Daisy, it seemed that her athletic sister had never moved more quickly. Soon she had disappeared over the brow of a slope. Daisy took a deep breath and kneeled down in the gra.s.s beside the mother and child. Tears of which she was completely unaware ran down her cheeks and great sobs shook her entire body. Thoughts and questions chased one another around in her head. Was a young father somewhere down there in the town waiting for his family to come home? Perhaps he was on active service somewhere, unaware that the worst thing that could possibly happen had happened.

Pure innocence on one side, and on the other ...

'It was murder.'

Daisy was startled to realise that the loud condemning voice was her own. But it was murder. The pilot had to have seen the young child playing there with his home-made paper kite. He had seen them and deliberately strafed them. What kind of sub-human species could wantonly murder a small child?

She looked now at the disfigured bodies and this time her stomach remained calm. 'We'll get them,' she told the pathetic bodies. 'I promise you.'

She was still kneeling in prayer when the rescue services arrived.

Bernie delivered two letters on Monday morning. One, on a good-quality paper, was for Daisy and the other, in a thin buff-coloured envelope, was for her parents.

'Can't stop, Daisy, too many of these,' he held up a fistful of buff-coloured envelopes, 'but I heard about you and Rose. Well done, pet, you was marvellous.'

Daisy shook her head as the tears threatened to flow again. 'We did nothing, Bernie, absolutely nothing.'

She sniffed her envelope as she walked slowly, unwillingly, upstairs to the flat where her mother was up to her elbows in soapsuds. The letter had to be from Adair. It smelled of nothing. She stopped on the second stair from the top, her heart thudding. Was she being fanciful? Surely a letter could not smell of death? The newly learned smell of death was still with her from the day before. She wondered if she would ever be rid of it. It had accompanied her as she thought out her plan for the future. She had promised the kite flyer. 'I promise you,' she had said.

She felt numb. Otherwise she would be reacting to the buff envelope.

Flora saw her and smiled. She raised her arms from the water and dried them on a rough kitchen towel. She went white as she saw what was in Daisy's hand. 'Is it my Sam?'

Daisy held out the letter. 'I don't know, Mum. Do you want me to run and find Dad?'

Flora said nothing but held out her hand for the envelope. She closed her eyes as if in prayer, then calmly opened them and then the letter. She read it slowly, closed her eyes and, holding the sheet of paper to her heart, said quite calmly. 'Your dad's in the lockup.'

'Mum ...'

'Go, Daisy.'

Daisy ran and when she returned a few minutes later with her oil-covered father, Flora was still standing silently in the middle of the kitchen, tears streaming down her face. She held out her arms to Fred. 'It's our baby boy, Fred, our Ron. A sniper. It were quick, Fred, love. He felt nothing. This is from a major. That's a proper top one, isn't it? "Ron Petrie was one of the ablest young soldiers I have ever commanded and he will be greatly missed by everyone."'

Her control snapped and she fell wailing into her husband's arms.

It was several hours later before Daisy even remembered her letter. Her parents were finally in bed and she and Rose had cried themselves hoa.r.s.e. No one had eaten. The vicar, alerted by Bernie, the postman, had sat with them for some time and had eventually encouraged the twins to make their parents hot drinks, which he had laced heavily with brandy. He had not prayed with them.

'I'll pray, girls, and they'll pray when they're ready. Prayers are so much more than words, you know. Laborare est orare. Do you know what that means?' He did not wait for an answer but answered himself. 'To work is to pray, and you are both exceptionally good at hard work. I will come at any time. Don't hesitate to send for me.'

'Let's have some cocoa,' suggested Rose when they had seen Reverend Tiverton out into the night where a bright moon, a bomber's moon, shone in the starry sky.

Daisy nodded. She didn't really care whether she had cocoa or not. She put her hand into her pocket to find her sodden handkerchief and found the letter. She read it quickly and stuffed it back into her pocket. It was words, merely words. She could feel nothing.

Tomorrow she would look at it again.

Dear Daisy, Dartford's having a beastly time.

I see your street is undamaged no, I'm not spying from the c.o.c.kpit but we receive detailed reports.

The Daisy is terribly lonely but I rarely have more than a few hours free and all I do then is sleep. What a lot of time I've wasted. Had I swallowed my stupid male pride and asked for your help last year, I'd have had you flying solo by now.

Daisy, please try to get into the WAAF. There are tests you have to take but be brave and make sure they know that you have actually worked on an aircraft engine. They won't ask you because no one expects women to do such work. Feel free to use my name, if it's of any use.

Do let me know how things are going. I wish your people had a telephone. I'll ring Alf when I have any time and, if you're still in Dartford, I WILL TEACH YOU TO FLY. Now that I think of it, there's a Czech pilot here, Tomas Sapenak, who's a real ace. He's sharing the teaching hours with me. First time we're free I'll bring him home with me.

Take care, Daisy Petrie, Adair A Czech pilot? Her somewhat limited geography lessons had not, so far as she remembered, involved Czechoslova-kia. Where was it located? Not that it made the slightest difference, not today. Ron, not even twenty-one years old and he was dead. Her sweet, funny brother, who had gone into the army because he idolised his big brother, was gone. All his short life he had wanted to be just like Sam and now he was dead and Sam was missing. After all this time that had to mean that Sam, too, was dead. Why didn't the army just write and say so and put them all out of their misery?

She crumpled up Adair's letter. Join the WAAF, learn to fly? Dreams were not for shop girls. How could she leave her mother now?

Daisy looked at herself in the mirror of the little dressing table she shared with Rose, the dressing table Dad and the boys had made for their sixteenth birthdays. She saw an ordinary girl with a very pale face, swollen, red-rimmed eyes and soft brown hair that had just reached the length where it needed cutting to avoid the dreaded unfashionable curls growing.

Dreams are for rich girls, Daisy Petrie. She tossed the crumpled sheet of writing paper into the wastebasket and walked out of the room.

But before she had reached the head of the stairs she ran back, picked up the letter, smoothed out the wrinkles and, after folding it carefully, slipped it into her drawer.

The next black day was when Ron's effects arrived. 'Effects', that's what the army called his belongings, and how pitifully spa.r.s.e they were.

'They're sending his wages. I don't want his wages,' sobbed Flora, who, all her life, had had to budget in order to buy a new pair of shoes. 'I don't want their money. I want my son.'