Spitfire Girls (27 page)

Tibbs seemed to slither rather than walk from chamber to chamber, and when he returned from the drawing room Kranz nearly shouted with elation as the butler sidled up to his master carrying a pile of newspapers.

‘There's a piece today about that American aviatrix,' said Truman, ‘and a little item about Henry's girl.'

Kranz reached out, perhaps too eagerly, and Truman seemed startled.

‘Shall I read it to you?'

‘Could I look at the newspapers myself?' Kranz pleaded.

‘Yes, of course.' Truman handed them to his guest, eyeing him cautiously as Tibbs looked on impassively.

14 November 1939
, Kranz read silently, relishing the odour of newsprint and wishing the small photograph of Valerie would come alive in his hands.
Miss Valerie Cobb has been attending meetings in Whitehall yet again, leading to speculation about an important appointment for the top aviatrix.

‘They're thinking of letting these women fly, you know!' Truman said, all the while observing Kranz closely.

‘Yes, I do know,' he muttered, still staring at the picture. ‘Russian women have been flying for some years – now the Polish women are ferrying refugees into Romania.' He placed the newspapers on the table and rummaged for a handkerchief to wipe his moist brow.

‘Get Mr Wojtek a handkerchief,' Truman ordered, and Tibbs slithered away once more.

Truman turned to Kranz. ‘What do you think of this American woman, Edith Allam?'

Kranz was trapped. He would have to improvise.

‘America has large numbers of superb lady pilots – none so attractive as she,' he replied.

‘What? She's short, fat and plain.'

‘Perhaps I am thinking of Jacqui Cochrane.'

‘This girl has far outdone anyone, including Cochrane.'

‘Yes, I suppose she has.'

Tibbs had arrived with the handkerchief, a rough beige-coloured cloth with frayed edges.

‘What is that?' Truman snarled.

‘There were no fresh ones available from your store, sir, so I have brought a clean one from my own drawer.' He
handed it to Kranz with disdain. ‘There is no need to return it.'

Kranz took the handkerchief and smiled. ‘I must get on with my journey – thank you for helping me back to life,' he said. ‘Hopefully the police will find our attackers.'

Truman stood up, as if to deliver a speech, and Kranz felt a wave of relief, like a prisoner nearing release.

‘Do come and visit us one weekend – I'm not sure if the Poles enjoy huntin' and shootin', but we do do a bit of that. I shall see that some money goes to help your refugees.'

Kranz was amazed at the generosity of this man. He gathered his belongings, feeling for the wallet as he donned the coat, the butler's eyes boring into him as he made his way urgently to the door.

‘I never asked if you have a wife,' Truman remarked. standing at the entrance to his vast domain. A few yards away, Charles was taking in the proceedings.

‘In Warsaw – I have a wife and two children – one boy and one girl. My mother lives there as well.'

‘Perhaps we could use you in this war effort. Bring your know-how to England and help us make aeroplanes. You should meet Beaverbrook, you know.' Truman reached inside a jacket pocket, paused, then laughed. ‘I wanted to give you a calling card, but my wallet is somewhere out there in the wild.'

‘I know where you are,' Kranz said, shaking Truman's hand and feeling for the leather treasure with the other.

‘How the devil are you travelling?' Truman asked suddenly.

‘I am being met at the next town by a driver,' Kranz replied smoothly.

‘Let me take you there in my motor.'

‘Thank you, but no!' Kranz protested warmly. ‘I must walk – my doctor says it is necessary for my heart. I had rheumatic fever as a child and I must take long walks.'

‘You must have been a strong lad to have survived that. Both of my brothers died in 1918 – flu epidemic.'

‘I have to go,' said Kranz.

‘Do come again, won't you?' Truman smiled, a wave of sadness enveloping him, as his new friend departed.

Walking down the long pathway that would lead Kranz to what he welcomed as a sort of freedom, he sensed he was being followed. At the exit leading to the main road, he looked behind and saw Charles a few feet away, staring. Kranz was startled when the gardener broke into a broad smile and tipped his hat, his one remaining tooth like a gleaming fossil. Just as rapidly he turned away and marched off, still carrying his clippers.

God help me determine the parameters of eccentricity, thought Kranz, as he marched out of sight of Truman House.

Now he needed to reach a large town and blend into the surroundings, as he charted his next move. Surely the money in Truman's wallet would not buy an aircraft. How could he leave the British Isles? Walking towards a main junction, he was jolted from his reverie by the sight of a telephone kiosk. Thrusting his hands into the depths of his baggy trouser pockets, he found a coin and wracked his brain for Valerie's telephone number. Dared he ring her father's residence? If he appeared at the MP's door Sir Henry could not even know who he was, beard or no
beard! There might be the possibility of a repeat performance of his Truman encounter; if he spread the word in the county of Pavel Wojtek's presence, he could start a whole new life …

He had dialled and the phone rang perhaps twenty times as raindrops began to plop on the kiosk roof.

Friedrich Kranz continued his long walk and by evening he had reached the outskirts of Cambridge. Twenty-five years had passed since his days here, a time Englishmen never forgot as long as they lived, but for him a period in his life as dark as the one he now endured. Indeed, his stay in the University had been cut short when he had been reminded of his origins by a handful of cruel, educated and otherwise civilized men. It had been a time of complete despair for the Jew from Vienna, and though he had yearned to be included in the sacred music and in the rituals of one of Christ's monarchies he had been harassed in the subtlest ways until anti-Semitic Vienna had seemed a gateway back to twentieth-century enlightenment and he had sped home.

But now he needed England and its rituals.

Entering All Saints' Passage he fingered his beard and headed for the chapel he had so loved in his youth but whose congregation had spurned his affections. Perhaps as a tramp, rather than as the brilliant physics scholar of a quarter century before, he might be more welcome. As he walked into the damp interior, memories of that chapter in his life rushed back in tandem with the smells that had not changed in so many years. He sat down in one of the empty pews and listened to the music of the famous organ, drifting off to sleep while his stomach agonized over its
first good meal in two months. Too much food on an empty belly brought dreams of coins too big for the slots in telephone kiosks, and of Valerie Cobb being taken by another man.

Marion Wickham had become Mrs Alec Harborne unceremoniously, both pilots having been called to ATA flights immediately they left the tiny church in her home village of Gillingham. None of the other girls had been able to attend the simple wedding service, and young Cal March – who, during his apprenticeship, had come to idolize Alec – was the only member of the flying fraternity to occupy a pew. Marion's parents were frosty to their new son-in-law even after the long courtship: it was a marriage well beneath their standards and Alec had no land save his primitive cottage in the hills beyond Forfar, his parents having died penniless.

Outside the church, good wishes were given all around with polite detachment, and the newlyweds, with Cal tagging along, jumped into Marion's car, their destination Hatfield. As he started the engine, Alec noticed Sir Guy Wickham glowering at the daughter he had lost.

Sir Guy strode to Alec's open window and bent down.

‘Is it customary to take someone else's child on one's honeymoon?' he whispered.

‘Honeymoon!' Alec guffawed.

Good Gillingham heads turned.

‘We're going straight back to work – all three of us. Wee Cal here has just qualified as full Air Cadet, and he reports with me to White Waltham. My lady love, if you will pardon the expression, is spending her wedding night with a lady – Shirley Bryce. Satisfied?'

Marion leaned across Alec and blew her father a kiss through the open window. He straightened up, and as the car crunched over the ancient churchyard pebbles, the couple could see her parents standing motionless, not even waving.

‘Some lively event!' Alec exclaimed, accelerating along the open roads of Kent.

‘Alec, don't take offence,' she murmured, running her hand across his head and tousling his thick hair.

‘I wish I could see my mum,' Cal said, curling up in the corner of the seat.

‘We could drop you off in London, but then you'd have to forget the RAF,' Marion said, turning around to face him.

‘No!' the boy exclaimed. ‘But I do miss her.'

They travelled on in silence, the green and pleasant land of England cold and calm as Italy prepared to declare war on the Allies, Paris and Norway sensed imminent doom, and Hitler prepared to occupy the Channel Islands. All three passengers sat quietly as the car rolled along, each engrossed in thoughts of war.

As they began the long, punishing journey to Scotland via Hatfield, their route carefully mapped to allow the most out of their petrol supply, Alec reflected on his good fortune at being excluded from the regular armed services. Although, unbeknown to Marion, he had been earmarked for sudden and urgent ATA missions to help the RAF master Hurricane fighters, in an attempt to halt the German advance, he knew his chances of survival were good. His air combat days were over, and though at times he felt a deep nostalgia when he saw the pilots dashing off to a skir-
mish, he knew age had overtaken his reflexes and that his best technique now flourished in bed. Marion's parents had browbeaten her into retaining her virtue until her wedding night. Had it been known the pair had explored every imaginable permutation of copulation during the past year their only daughter's name would have been wiped from the parish register as if she had never been born.

Passing one beautiful village after another, Marion's thoughts drifted to their most recent intimate encounter, which had happened on a Tuesday afternoon when VIPs had taken over Hatfield …

Marion had arrived unexpectedly from Perth, having been afforded the rare luxury of a taxi Anson flight rather than the dreaded train ride. They had scurried to Alec's lodgings, and the house was empty. He remembered that on Tuesdays and Thursdays the landlady was now occupied with a wartime sewing club in the next village along. Hamilton and Sean, who shared the accommodation, had decided that instead of VIP-watching they would go to the pictures that afternoon.

Alec and Marion locked the door of his tiny bedroom. Every time they were alone like this, he in the handsome ATA uniform and she in a tightly-fitting suit, Marion always felt awkward and ashamed. Rain had begun to pelt against the window, and for some reason the cold of the room and the presence of war made her bold and she tore at Alec's collar, wanting his tie to come undone, her other hand forcing away his buttoned shirt and digging into his chest. Alec felt invigorated by her furious urgency. He threw her on to the small bed, and as her arms still begged for his
nakedness his loins became his master, raging at him to enter her devouring lusciousness
now
…

‘Men are animals,' Shirley Bryce had screamed at her one night not long ago, and now as her wet, throbbing skin clung to Alec's Marion smiled to herself. She was grasping Alec's thighs, his legs hanging over the end of the bed while her burning vagina felt the soothing touch of his tongue. She stopped, crying out and lifting herself above him as she came, her breasts silhouetted above his awakening groin. Her clitoris afire with delight, she fell back on to him, her hands sending charges like electric current through his testicles as he moaned again when her mouth enveloped his member. As the hot seed she craved exploded he cried like a child and then in a matter of moments it seemed they found themselves out of the bed and somewhere on the floor, her nipples pressing through his hands as they hardened against the heat of his palms, his revitalized penis demanding entry. Her buttocks raised, Alec raged into her and she roared as they anchored themselves against a corner wall. He thrust and thrust, urging the rivers of fire inside to break their banks and fill her until like a volcano she would erupt. Still he thrust, his penis seeming to swell so huge inside her she thought she would die. Never had she known anything like this, her blood and her mind and her flesh all fused in lust so fierce that when he came he could see her nails had gouged rills into the wallpaper but as the house was still empty they knew they were far from finished.

Now Marion lay on her back, with her eyes half shut, and when she lifted her knees, her raw wetness stared back at him angrily like an irritable bearded man. He wanted to
sleep – he would have to sleep – and he pulled himself to her gently, resting his head against her abdomen. She placed his hand on her vagina and allowed him twenty minutes of slumber before slapping him playfully: he awoke and she gripped his hand and made him stroke her until a wave of exquisite orgasm passed through the very depths of her being. She moved to the bed and sat on the edge. Alec stood, and as she tried to cling to his erection between her blushing breasts, he made his way down, the tip of his penis leaving a moist droplet on her navel. Now he felt he would be driven to distraction as never before in his life, his hunger rampant and his organs committing an ecstatic violence he had never yet allowed to ignite. As the house remained mercifully empty the sounds that reverberated could have been those of death but their source was a human furnace creating life, its insatiable interior knowing ever greater levels of ecstasy as afternoon turned to night.