A Different World Page 7

‘You don’t mind me writing to Flight Lieutenant Grabowski, do you?’ Louise asked Tony. Having finished his training, he had forty-eight hours’ leave before being posted to a squadron and his first port of call had been the Pheasant at Cottlesham. There was little privacy in the pub and they had decided to go for a walk. She was holding his arm in both hands and her head rested on his shoulder. The day was unusually warm for the time of year and she was wearing a cotton print dress with a nipped-in waist and puffed sleeves. He had taken off his jacket and was carrying it over his other shoulder. A camera hung from a strap about his neck.

  ‘No, of course not,’ he said. ‘I feel sorry for the blighters being so far from home and loved ones. But don’t you go falling for him.’

  ‘As if I would! Don’t you know how much I love you?’

  ‘So you say,’ he teased. ‘But I’ve heard tales of their exploits with the ladies. Since they turned out to be such heroes, there’s no holding them back.’

  The Polish flyers had distinguished themselves in the Battle of Britain, bringing down more enemy aircraft than any other squadron with fewer casualties, although those were far from light. Not until Churchill told the nation ‘Never in the field of human conflict has so much been owed by so many to so few’ did the people of Britain realise what a narrow squeak it had been and the extent of the contribution of the Polish airmen. They were feted everywhere and invited into people’s homes. In the public houses they hardly ever paid for their own drinks and the clippies refused to take their fares on the buses and received kisses for a thank you. Articles appeared about them in newspapers and magazines, all of which they lapped up. London society hostesses held lavish parties in their honour, where there seemed to be no shortage of food and drink. Girls almost threw themselves at them to the chagrin of the British airmen. In the air, fighting for their lives, they concentrated on what they were doing, but on the ground they had an endless capacity for enjoyment and causing mayhem.

  Louise, who had come to know Jan from his letters, understood what lay beneath the surface. ‘I don’t think Jan is like that,’ she said. ‘He is pining for his wife. All I’m doing is trying to cheer him up.’

  ‘Then you do that, sweetheart. How could I begrudge the man a letter or two when I have so much more?’

  ‘I knew you’d say that. Where are you going to be stationed?’

  ‘Coltishall, 2-4-2 Squadron. It’s commanded by Squadron Leader Douglas Bader. He lost both legs in a flying accident nine years ago. I’ve been told he doesn’t let that hamper him and he’s still flying. The good thing is that the station is near enough to take advantage of a twenty-four-hour pass when I get one.’

  ‘It’s near enough for me to come over and see you for a weekend too.’

  ‘That’s an idea, though I don’t know how long I’ll be there. I might not come up to scratch.’

  ‘What makes you say that?’

  ‘Oh, I don’t know. I’m nervous, I suppose, going on ops for the first time. Will I have the guts to do it?’

  ‘You’ll be all right, more than all right, I should say.’

  ‘How do you know that?’

  ‘Because I do.’

  They wandered down a grassy path just wide enough for a horse and cart or a very small car if you didn’t worry about its springs on the rutted surface. On either side were meadows dotted with bright yellow buttercups where cattle grazed. Tony took several pictures of Louise, positioning her with a wild rose hedge as a background.

  ‘I want one or two of you,’ she said. ‘Show me how to work the camera. It looks complicated. I’ve only ever had a Brownie Box.’

  ‘That was my first one, I had it for my tenth birthday and that started me off. It won’t help me much in the building trade, but I find the subject fascinating. When I go to the pictures I find myself thinking of camera angles and different shots, when I should be concentrating on the story.’

  ‘Would you like to do that sort of thing after the war, be a film cameraman, I mean?’ Louise asked

  ‘No, I don’t think so, taking pictures is only a hobby. Look, all you’ve got to do is look through the viewfinder and when it looks OK, press this knob.’

  She did that, though she doubted her hand was steady enough, and then he set the camera up to take them both together and by then he had used up all the film. ‘They will be something to look at during the long, boring days and nights,’ he said.

  ‘You expect to be bored?’

  ‘I don’t know, but you can’t be on the go the whole time, can you? Not even the air force would expect that. Then I will sit and look at my snaps and think of you.’

  ‘And I of you.’

  They found a quiet spot and sat down on Tony’s jacket. She opened her bag and took out a packet of tomato sandwiches and a bottle of lemonade made with crystals. Real lemons were a thing of the past.

  ‘It’s so peaceful here,’ she said, offering him a sandwich. ‘You would never believe there was a war on, that people are being killed and injured every day. And for what? One man’s thirst for power.’

  ‘Let’s not talk about it. Let’s talk about what we’ll do after the war.’

  ‘What do you want to do?’

  ‘I expect I’ll join Dad in the family business. I’ve no doubt there will be plenty of work for us to do. And I’ll build us a house.’

  ‘Like your father’s?’

  ‘Something like that. It will have all the latest mod cons and be big enough for a family.’

  ‘A family?’

  ‘Yes. Don’t you want a family?’

  ‘Of course I do.’

  ‘How many?’

  She laughed. ‘How many do you want?’

  ‘Four would be nice, two boys and two girls. But it’s up to you, of course.’

  ‘It’s up to both of us, surely?’ She giggled. ‘I can’t do it on my own.’

  He laughed and grabbed her shoulders pulling her down beside him to kiss her. When his hand strayed along her leg and up her thigh under her skirt, she knocked it away. ‘No, Tony.’

  ‘Sorry.’ He looked aggrieved. ‘I wasn’t … I mean …’

  ‘I know, but we mustn’t get carried away.’

  ‘Why not? We are engaged, after all, and who knows what the future holds.’

  ‘I don’t want to get pregnant. Not before …’

  ‘You won’t, I promise.’

  ‘All the same, I’d rather wait.’

  ‘If you say so.’ He sat up and opened the bottle of lemonade to take a swig.

  ‘Now you are angry with me.’

  ‘No, of course not, just disappointed that you don’t trust me.’

  ‘I do, oh Tony, I do, but I’m nervous. And that’s something that should only happen on your wedding night, isn’t it?’

  ‘Oh, my poor innocent.’ He was smiling now; the little spat was over. ‘Kiss me again. I’ll be good, I promise.’

  She kissed him. ‘I do love you, Tony, really I do, and sometimes I wonder what it will be like to, you know, be married and all that, but …’

  ‘But you aren’t ready to experiment.’

  ‘I suppose that’s it. It feels wrong.’

  ‘Point taken. Now, let’s go back. Jenny told me she is making us a special tea, seeing as we didn’t have an engagement party.’

  They walked back to the village and were met on the way by Tommy and Beattie. Unlike Tommy, who sometimes longed for his Edgware home, the little girl was content in Cottlesham, spoilt by all the grown-ups around her. ‘Auntie Jenny sent us to find you,’ she said, taking Louise’s hand. ‘Tea is nearly ready and she has made a special cake. Is it your birthday?’

  ‘No, but it’s in honour of Uncle Tony. He is a qualified pilot now.’

  ‘You mean he’s going to shoot down Germans?’ Tommy said, holding out his arms in imitation of an aeroplane, running in circles and making a noise like a gun firing.

  ‘I don’t know about that, you bloodthirsty little monster,’ Tony said.


  Later that evening, they were listening to the news on the wireless in the bar parlour of the pub when they heard about the air raid on London that afternoon. Hundreds of German Heinkel, Dornier and Junkers bombers escorted by double the number of Messerschmitts had come out of a cloudless blue sky and subjected the capital to an all-out assault. The previous raids on places like Croydon, Wimbledon and Enfield became insignificant in comparison. The bombers concentrated on the docks and the Woolwich arsenal and oil storage tanks, causing huge fires that could be seen for miles. And close by the docks were the overcrowded homes of the poor, where the damage and loss of life were worst. But the bombing was not so accurate that the rest of London did not suffer. Other places were an inferno too.

  The BBC newsreaders had a dry way of delivering the news that somehow seemed to diminish the horror of it, but not even the most determined ostrich could be blind to the terror of what had happened. Louise’s first thought was for her parents. She tried ringing them but the telephones were out of action. She spent a sleepless night worrying about them. And the next morning the news was even worse. The afternoon raid had been followed almost immediately by an even greater one in the evening, the bombers guided to their target by the fires.

  ‘I’ll have to go and see they are all right,’ she said, after again trying and failing to reach her parents by telephone.

  ‘I’ll come with you,’ Tony said. ‘Then I must go and see my folks.’

  London was recovering from the most terrifying night most of its inhabitants had ever experienced. The fires in the east could easily be seen from the west. Even in streets where the buildings still stood, there were heaps of broken glass and everything was covered in grey dust. Louise found her mother stoically trying to clean the house. Her face was chalk white and her eyes red-rimmed. Strangely she was not so much afraid as angry.

  ‘Louise! Where have you sprung from? And Tony too. How nice to see you.’

  ‘And you,’ he said.

  ‘I couldn’t get you on the phone, so we came to see how you are,’ Louise explained.

  ‘The lines are out of action, but we’re all right, not like some poor souls, but if I could get hold of that Herr Hitler, I’d personally wring his neck.’

  This was so unlike her normally timid mother, Louise laughed. ‘That’s the spirit.’

  Faith put down her dustpan and brush. ‘I’ll make some tea.’ She took three cups from hooks on the dresser. ‘I’ll have to wash these before we can drink from them. There was a bomb dropped in the next street and it set everything shaking and wobbling and some of the ceiling came down and covered everything in dust.’ She filled the kettle as she spoke. ‘We’re lucky we’ve still got gas. So many have lost everything. According to your father it won’t be the last of it and there’ll be more to come.’

  ‘I’m afraid he is right,’ Tony said. ‘Have you thought any more about evacuating?’

  ‘Henry won’t do that.’

  ‘Where is he?’ Louise asked, washing up cups and saucers.

  ‘Gone to see what he can do to help. He was out in the thick of it last night, came home for his breakfast and went out again.’

  ‘He left you alone all night?’

  ‘I went into the church. There were lots of others there.’ She smiled suddenly. ‘We had sing-songs, and not always hymns, either. I didn’t tell your father that, though.’

  They all laughed. Louise was amazed at the resilience of her mother. It was as if the raids had imbued her with a stoical courage she had never shown before. They sat drinking tea, making use of a tin of evaporated milk because the milkman hadn’t turned up, and discussing the raids, the casualties and the damage, and then moved on to talk about what was happening in Cottlesham and Tony’s posting to an operational squadron.

  ‘Do you think you’ll be flying against that lot?’ Faith nodded her head skywards. ‘The RAF boys did their best to knock them out of the sky, but there didn’t seem to be enough of them.’

  ‘Well, there aren’t, are there?’ he said. ‘They’ve taken a pasting themselves.’

  ‘I shall pray for you,’ Faith said. ‘Not that I don’t pray for everyone in danger in this war, but you shall be mentioned especially.’

  ‘Thank you,’ he said.

  Henry returned just as they were leaving to catch their trains. His black frock was thick with dust; there was even a layer of it in the brim of his hat. He had a scratch on his face and looked exhausted. ‘How are you, Father?’ she asked.

  ‘I am, as ever, in good heart myself, but I despair of the world.’ He took off his hat and punched it to knock off the dust. ‘Such wickedness and corruption, such godlessness, is it any wonder we have to be punished, the good along with the evil?’

  Louise opened her mouth to comment, but changed her mind when she saw Tony shaking his head at her. ‘We have to leave to catch trains,’ she said instead. ‘Tony is going to see his parents and I am going back to Cottlesham. The new term starts tomorrow.’

  ‘Yes, go before they come back, for assuredly they will.’ He had evidently abandoned his crusade to persuade her to come home.

  ‘I wish you and Mum would leave London for somewhere safer.’

  ‘Our duty lies here, Louise. I told you that before. Now go, both of you, before it’s too late.’

  Chapter Four

  Tony saw Louise safely onto her train and watched as it drew out of the station before going to find one to Witham. The siren wailed as he waited for it and everyone scuttled into the Underground to take shelter. It was the early hours before he left London and by that time there were more fires, more damage, more loss of life. Soon he would be part of the fight, and though he hated the idea of deliberately killing another human being, he could not honestly say he was a pacifist. If he found himself face to face with an enemy who was attacking those he loved, he would not hesitate to hit back and kill and so he would do his bit to shorten the war in whatever role he was given. The sooner it was over, the better. He wanted to show Louise what a loving relationship really meant.

  She was such a compassionate soul, worrying about that stiff-necked father of hers, caring for her class of children and befriending strange men in railway carriages. Ought he to have tried to squash that? She was so naive, the man might easily take advantage of her. He smiled suddenly. If she could say no to him, whom she loved – and he did not doubt that – she would be impervious to anyone else. And if he were the one to have to leave a wife behind in an occupied country, he might be glad of a pretty girl to cheer him up. There could be no love without trust.

  His parents were well and unharmed and made a great fuss of him before he left them the next day for Coltishall, just a few miles north-east of Norwich. The base had been built early in 1939 as a bomber station but switched to fighters in 1940 because the many bomber stations in the region were being targeted by the Luftwaffe and fighters were needed to protect them. The station seemed to be a transient base for several squadrons on the move from one place to another: there were Canadians and South Africans as well as 242 and a squadron from Yorkshire. There was a rumour going round that 242 was going to be moved to Duxford in Cambridgeshire, and Tony supposed he would be going with them.

  He was lounging in a comfortable chair in the mess two evenings later, looking through his prints of Louise, when he felt a shadow over him. He looked up to see Wing Commander Blatchford and sprang to his feet, scattering the pictures.

  ‘Like taking photographs, do you?’ Blatchford queried, bending down to help pick them up and return them.

  ‘Yes, sir. I’d rather shoot pictures than shoot guns.’

  The Wingco smiled. ‘At ease, Flying Officer. Shall we sit down?’ He took the next chair and Tony returned to his seat, wondering what was coming next – a dressing down for some misdemeanour, he supposed, though he had only been on the base two days, not really long enough to get into trouble, but that last landing had been a bit bumpy, he had to admit.

  ‘Tell me about yourself
,’ Blatchford went on. ‘What’s your background? Professional photographer, are you?’

  ‘No, sir, an enthusiastic amateur. I am a surveyor in civilian life.’

  ‘May I see?’ Tony handed over the handful of small prints, which the other man spread out on the table, shifting Tony’s glass of beer to do so. ‘Your girlfriend?’

  ‘My fiancée. Louise.’ He pointed to another. ‘That’s Cottlesham village taken from the church spire. I believe it’s one of the tallest spires in Norfolk. There’s an amazing amount of detail considering how far up I was.’ He pointed to another. ‘That’s an inscription on an old gravestone in the churchyard. It’s a funny thing, but when I first looked at it the words were indecipherable, worn away by the years, and I couldn’t read any of it, but suddenly the sun came out and slanted across it and every word was clearly visible. I took the picture and then the sun went behind a cloud and I couldn’t read it any more. It was completely blank again.’

  ‘Interesting,’ the Wingco murmured, examining the images carefully. He put them down and looked across at Tony. ‘Have you seen any action yet, Flying Officer?’

  ‘I was in the air yesterday and saw a couple of ME 109s in the distance, but they were chased away before I got near enough to join in.’

  ‘But you would rather use a camera than a gun, isn’t that what you said?’

  ‘Yes, but—’

  ‘Never mind trying to explain.’ He laughed. ‘Would you like a job where your only weapon is a camera?’

  ‘What sort of job, sir?’

  ‘I’ve been asked to recruit suitable men to take pictures on reconnaissance flights. Are you interested?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘Come and see me tomorrow morning, eight o’clock.’ He stood up and strode away, leaving Tony wondering why he had been singled out. It surely wasn’t the pictures of Louise. He picked up the photographs and studied one of a smiling Louise. Behind her, pale dog roses bloomed in the hedge, throwing a dappled shade over her dress but leaving her smiling face in full sunshine. He tucked it with the others into his breast pocket.