Authors: Meg Henderson
There was nothing but the truth in what she said, but she still left it a couple of days before posting it, aware of some deep feeling of not wanting to hurt him and puzzled by it. When she had
posted it, she felt bad in some indefinable way.
Still, that was that. It was over. She wouldn’t think of him again. Until another letter arrived that didn’t refer to the one, the very last one, Daisy had written to him. She
didn’t reply, and when yet another arrived she got Eileen to write on it ‘Transferred’ and posted it back to him.
‘Aren’t you going to open it?’ Eileen asked.
‘No.’
‘But why not?’
‘Because he’s the kind of guy you don’t want to let near you,’ Daisy said, looking at the envelope with distaste.
‘You mean he’s a Fly Boy?’ Eileen sniggered.
‘Exactly. I’m trying to keep you lot away from them, and here’s this guy I can’t shake off. I think I may have to kill him to get rid of him if this doesn’t
work.’
And so they posted Frank’s letter back to him, unopened, on the way out of the base.
In June it was Edith’s birthday, and though she’d been posted to Station X, she wanted to celebrate with her old friends and see her Australian, of course, at
Langar.
As many WAAFs as were off-duty made their way to a favourite pub. First of all they had a good gossip with Edith, who’d just had a letter from her cousin, who was working with barrage
balloons in Birmingham.
The Balloon Operators were a hardy lot, often billeted in isolated areas, hands raw from splicing metal cables, winching balloons up and down, releasing the cables that were attached to 120 lb
concrete blocks, and throwing around 40 lb sandbags. The idea of using balloons was to force the German planes to fly above them to avoid their wings being sliced off by the wires, and once they
were higher they were easier prey for British artillery and fighter planes. Unlike the girls on settled bases, Balloon Operators didn’t have prepared food provided, so each day’s meals
depended on whoever was on cook duty actually being able to cook.
The most frightening part of their duties, though, was standing sentry against intruders, two girls keeping vigil while the rest of the crew slept. Men on sentry duty had rifles for protection,
but some higher authority had decided that WAAFs should have whistles and truncheons. Edith’s cousin was based in Birmingham and the week before two men had attacked and assaulted the two
sentries. Luckily the noise had wakened the others, and, when they rushed to help, one of the men had attacked Edith’s cousin, choking her till she passed out. The police had arrived shortly
afterwards and arrested the men, but the girls had been badly shaken and felt very vulnerable.
‘They’ve asked for rifles,’ Edith said, ‘but so far nothing.’
‘But they’ve got to give them rifles!’ Daisy cried.
‘I know, seems like common sense, doesn’t it?’ Edith replied, shrugging.
Just then the conversation was interrupted by a great commotion involving Lady Groundhog’s nice skipper, the Canadian boy, Calli. He was drinking cider, under the impression that it was
non-alcoholic, an impression his caring co-pilot, Bruiser, had given him. Calli had seen Eileen laughing at him and had first challenged her then asked her to marry him before passing out. As his
crew tried to get him onto his feet with all the WAAFs cheering, Daisy found Bruiser looking up her skirt.
‘Avert your eyes, sunshine,’ she snarled. ‘What’s up there isn’t for the likes of you.’
Then the crew slow-marched out of the pub, carrying the unconscious Calli aloft and humming the Death March, and all the others joined in. Someone grabbed flowers from a vase and placed them on
his chest.
‘How can you let him get in that state when you know he doesn’t drink?’ Daisy asked Bruiser, who almost dropped his skipper in order to converse with her for the first
time.
‘He’ll be fine,’ he replied, giving her his soppiest grin.
‘He’s on Ops tomorrow, though, doesn’t that worry you, you idiot?’
Bruiser grinned as though she was addressing him with words of warm endearment. ‘But that’s when he’ll be fine,’ he said fondly, now looking down her blouse. ‘As
soon as he gets a whiff of oxygen it’ll clear his hangover. It’s the best cure there is.’
Daisy sighed deeply. ‘Avert your eyes again, or you’ll need more than oxygen as a cure.’
‘How can I help it?’ he asked. ‘I love you, you love me, you’re mine, and that gives me rights over where my eyes go.’
Daisy shook her head in exasperation and wandered off.
Daisy next saw Calli the following day, when he sat down at her table in the NAAFI and asked where he could find Eileen.
Daisy looked at him as though he were an insect. A nice boy she might have thought him, but a Fly Boy he still was.
‘You can forget it, she didn’t take your silly proposal seriously,’ she replied, looking away from him as an indication of dismissal.
‘Why not?’ he asked.
‘Why not what?’
‘Why didn’t she take my proposal seriously?’
Daisy gave him one of her severest looks, but he didn’t flinch. ‘Look, sunshine,’ she said, ‘Eileen’s an innocent, a good girl. A
really
good girl, if you
get my drift, and there’s a childhood sweetheart to consider, bastard that he is.’
‘Oh, he doesn’t matter now,’ Calli replied amiably. ‘And why is he a bastard?’
‘Because all childhood sweethearts are,’ Daisy snarled. ‘They get their hooks into some nice girl and hang around so that no one else can get near her – while he’s
bedding everyone else’s girl – then they marry her and destroy her.’
‘And this childhood … ex-childhood sweetheart of Eileen’s, he’s like that?’
‘They all are,’ Daisy said quietly. ‘I’ll bet you’re a childhood sweetheart yourself.’
‘No,’ Calli chuckled back at her.
‘What? A good-looking boy like you and you don’t have some poor little deluded female waiting for you back in Canada?’ Daisy sneered.
‘No,’ Calli replied again, looking directly into her eyes. ‘For me there’s just Eileen.’
Daisy looked at him for a moment, then she laughed. ‘Look, Fly Boy,’ she said firmly, ‘I’ll get her, but understand this – if you mess her about I’ll remove
your balls with a fork. Is that clear?’
Calli lifted a fork from the table and handed it to her. ‘If I mess her about, I’ll help you,’ he grinned.
So Daisy fetched Eileen for him, against her instincts, it had to be said, and within minutes he and Eileen had disappeared to change into civvy clothes and had departed from the base in a
borrowed sports car.
Daisy had been thoroughly dazed. It was so unlike Eileen, and after all Daisy’s warnings, too. They tended to listen to her, at first at any rate, so it was hard to take in that Eileen had
just upped and gone off with a Fly Boy like that. She felt she should protect Eileen; she had recognised her as someone like herself, that’s why they had become such good and close friends,
the closest friend Daisy had ever had.
She had been closer to Edith than Celia and Violet, and closer still to Dotty, but Eileen was a good degree closer than any of them had been. How long was it? Two short months, but life-changing
seeds had been sown, and not just in one life, but in many.
Daisy had her mind on other things, that was the point. It was just one of those times, so much to think about. Frank Moran was still writing to her and she was still ignoring him and having his
letters sent back unopened. Edith had written to say her cousin and the two sentries who had been attacked had recovered well, but when the two men had been brought before the court, the judge, on
hearing they were merchant seamen on Russian Convoy Duty, had admonished them and set them free without penalty. They were important, that was the message every WAAF took from that, far more
important than some females playing with balloons, anyway. The WAAFs had asked for rifles to protect themselves like male sentries, the
Daily Mirror
even took up their case, but nothing
happened. The girls were left with whistles and truncheons between them and rape and murder.
Then, Daisy had another letter, this time from Dotty, something that was happening less and less. Daisy dreaded opening Dotty’s letters in case they contained a hurt accusation over the
unwanted contact Frank still insisted on making with Daisy, but although this letter was painful, it wasn’t about the handsome Australian.
‘Daisy, darling, I have a favour to ask, and I’d like it passed to as many of the girls as possible. I know you’re terribly busy, but can you possibly spare the time
to help? I know you’re such a good person and I’m imposing on our friendship, but I’m hoping you’ll agree.
‘We have a Corporal here at Princess Mary’s RAF Hospital, a male nurse who’s come up with a brilliant idea. As you know, being burned is the greatest fear of all
aircrew, apart from dying, of course, because the pain is excruciating. Even if the patient lives, the disfigurement all too often makes normal life impossible. As burned hands heal they also
contract into claws, and so more painful surgery is needed to release the fingers.
‘The answer is a strong but pliable frame to support the healing tissue without letting it contract, but there’s been no such thing, until our Corporal had his brainwave
– WAAF cotton suspender belts! You know those two bones in the front panel? Well how many of us really need them? We just take them out and throw them away.
‘So I got to thinking and gave our Corporal a bundle I got from the girls down here, and he experimented, placing one bone at the wrist, and others inside each finger, fastened
loosely at the top and then tied to the bone at the wrist. The result was that the fingers couldn’t curl up as they healed, because they weren’t strong enough to push against the
suspender-belt bones. Then, as they became stronger and stayed straighter, pushing against them helped exercise the muscles too.
‘What I was thinking was that if we could get all the girls to help, we could get a box in every base to drop the bones into and then they could be sent here so that more frames
can be made to treat burned airmen. Do you think you all could be bothered? I keep thinking of Frank. Spit pilots are more at risk from burns than others because they sit behind the fuel tank, so
if they’re hit and go down the burning fuel comes into the cockpit, and sometimes there’s a problem with the hood. I don’t know if you know that.’
Yes, thought Daisy, I think I’ve heard that somewhere before …
That evening, another of the dreaded domestic nights, Daisy read out the letter – missing out the last part – and produced a box.
‘Right, everyone, if you’ve left your bones in, off with the suspender belts and out with the scissors!’ she ordered, and the girls removed the garments, giggling, and set to
work.
‘I’m sure I saw a little pile of them somewhere,’ said a voice.
‘Remember where and get them,’ Daisy said.
‘How does she know we don’t need them?’ demanded a well-built WAAF.
Daisy looked at her sternly. ‘Well, even if you
do
need them,’ she replied sweetly, ‘the lads need them more.’
‘Fair enough,’ replied the WAAF with a shrug.
In a short time the letter was read out in every hut on the base and other letters were sent to other bases, though no one realised at the time that the anonymous Corporal had made a
breakthrough in the treatment of burned hands, or that they were contributing to it, even if one or two waistlines would bulge slightly for the cause.
But Dotty had also told Daisy another story, one that did the heart less good. At her base, which was non-operational, word had come through that a badly damaged Lanc was
coming in to make an emergency landing. The place was full of Americans and B-17 Flying Fortresses – their version of the British Lancs – and when the word spread the American aircrews
rushed to the tarmac to have their first look at the real thing. Two of the Lanc’s four engines had gone, the turret and the tail – the areas that housed the mid-upper and tail gunners
– were no longer there, and the fuselage was riddled with bullets. As it came to a halt everyone was relieved that there was no fire, so the fire crew weren’t needed.
Then the pilot stepped out and said, ‘My navigator’s injured, both gunners are dead,’ and an American doctor and orderlies removed the navigator and rushed him to hospital in
the waiting ambulance. Other medical orderlies moved in to remove the bodies of the two gunners, coming out with the mid-upper gunner first, then making their way to the tail to recover the other
body. Tail End Charlie no longer existed in any recognisable form, though; he was simply splattered on the inner surfaces nearest the tail. The orderlies came out of the plane and sat on the ground
being sick. They had never seen such horror and were too shocked to act professionally. The pilot climbed into a Jeep to be driven away.
‘Is it
always
like this?’ an American voice had asked.
The pilot looked at him wearily. ‘It sometimes is,’ he’d said.
Dotty said the Americans had been as boisterous as everyone expected them to be up till then, giving out handfuls of candy to everyone, making a noise, sure that now they were in this little war
it would soon be cleared up, they’d have a little fun and get back home again in no time. But after the Lanc landed they changed, they seemed to understand for the first time what the boys
had been up against during the years of the war America had missed.
One August night at Langar, Eileen wasn’t on duty in the tower. A new lot of WAAFs had arrived, giving them more than they needed, so there were more rest days and leave.
One of the new lot, Pearl, was with Daisy in the tower. Pearl was a small, dark-haired, very pretty girl who had a way of turning her head at an angle when she looked at you, and Daisy had
immediately identified her as being a magnet for Fly Boys. It was raining lightly, but takeoff was just takeoff, nothing to mark this one as different from any other.
Lady Groundhog had been shot up shortly before, the mid-upper gunner and Tail End Charlie had been badly injured and the two replacement boys had barely had time to shake hands. When
they’d come back from the first incident Daisy and Eileen had been on duty and had watched the ambulances take the injured gunners off, then Calli, Bruiser and the others lay on the tarmac,
wrestling with each other and capering about like children in their relief that they’d made it home.