Spitfire Girls (61 page)

‘If I'm not mistaken,' Valerie said without a smile, ‘war suspends all insurance claims.'

‘You
are
looking cheerful, my girl,' Worsley said, his large hand coming to rest on Valerie's arm.

‘I'm worried about this Anthony Seifert business,' she said. ‘Perhaps I should not have got involved.'

‘Rubbish!' Kay exclaimed. ‘It's great for publicity.'

‘Speaking of publicity, I think we should be on our way,' Valerie said, looking around the Ops Room with concern. ‘Where is everybody?'

Unusually quiet, the room seemed to have acquired a pall as it dawned on the trio that several uniformed ATA men and women were standing glumly about the chalk board. The Ops Officer had emerged and was studying a sheet of paper. One name had already been erased, and now two others were about to disappear.

Valerie wanted to leave the room and the building – perhaps, she groaned to herself, she could leave the planet – as a collection of pilots walked in circles, lit cigarettes, whispered and tried to hide the unbearable sorrow that had suddenly struck them at the end of their day.

‘Who is it?' Kay asked, moving to the board. ‘Who have we lost?'

There was no reply as personnel scurried away, as if the mere act of looking at the list of names might tempt the hand of fate.

‘Oh, dear God,' said Valerie. She had registered the “PP” alongside the empty name space.

‘Are they your girls?' Worsley asked, his hand holding her arm once more.

‘One of my best,' she moaned – knowing, now, that Alec Harborne had willed his beloved back into his kingdom.

‘Eddie Cuomo should be here for this!' exclaimed Edith. ‘Where the hell is our crowd anyway?'

At the internment mansion, Burt Malone and Stan Bialik fussed excitedly as their cameras flashed into the faces of Raine Fischtal, Zuki and the mystery man, Paul Florian. A local reporter from the
Anglian Press
interrogated Angelique's grey-haired brother in the greatest scoop of his journalistic career.

‘You would confirm, therefore,' droned the press man, ‘that the photograph you saw in the
Times
newspaper in a Spanish jail showed Miss Bukova, Miss Bryce and other members of ATA, and that this jolted your memory?'

‘That is correct,' Paul responded slowly. Never as long as he lived would Paul reveal that he had broken at the sight of Zack's torment and had revealed to the Fascists the Vera Bukova airlift operations financed by Friedrich Kranz.

‘Was your sister Angelique pictured in the
Times
?' the reporter asked.

‘She was there.'

All at once the room went silent. Raine and Zuki had taken a back seat to the proceedings and were listening as eagerly as the others present.

‘You mean she was in Spain?' the writer pressed.

‘I held her in my arms, and then she was taken away,' Paul murmured. ‘Someone hit me very hard after that, and my hearing came back, but my sister was gone.'

‘When were you released?' asked Malone.

‘I escaped when they left all the doors open one morning. Just like that – the guards left us unsupervised and we went.'

‘Who is we?' asked Edith.

‘Some girls – I don't remember their names,' Paul murmured, rubbing his scarred forehead.

‘This man needs rest,' Hana interjected, moving her gaze to the senior security guard.

‘I think he should be taken to the base,' said the guard. ‘The RAF can make some enquiries about his sister.'

Edith was shaking with distress. Her visit to the camp had lasted three hours, and now it was dusk and her entourage had still not arrived. What had become of Valerie and Duncan Worsley? Most of the ATA women were due in the village to attend tonight's poetry reading, and Edith wondered if Kay had arrived at Weston Longville.

‘Would Mr Florian be allowed to attend a little performance this evening?' asked Edith, smiling sweetly at the guard. ‘Technically he is a British citizen and should be a free man.'

‘What about us?' asked Raine, looking sorrowfully at Edith.

‘You and I can catch up on lots of stuff later, Raine,' Edith replied. ‘You and Zuki aren't free and that's life, baby. These press guys are here to show how humane the Allies can be – you should be getting good jobs with the British as from tomorrow but you won't be free until Hitler is demolished. Then you can deliver your little doll to your mother, and come home with me to Philly.' She winked at Raine and the German woman blushed deeply, fingering
the frayed photograph of Edith tucked neatly into her flying-suit pocket.

‘Raine took a picture of Benno Kranz,' Edith continued, tapping Hana on the shoulder.

‘You knew my friend?' shrieked Hana. ‘How? Where?'

‘The Kranz family used my portrait studio in Berlin,' Raine responded, still casting a sideways glance at the American girl she had grown so much to love in her solitary confinement.

‘What has happened to Kranz?' asked Paul, his voice agitated.

‘He manufactures aeroplanes for the British,' piped Josef Ratusz, bored. ‘I, of course, will fly only Polish Mustangs.'

Edith moved to the entrance and watched the clouds overtake the setting sun, the voices of the group reverberating through the now empty house.

What would this evening bring?

She had a terrible urge to see Errol, and she beckoned Molly as the guards moved Raine and Zuki to a waiting lorry.

It had been decided that the poetry reading would proceed as planned, and when Valerie arrived with Duncan and Kay, Edith breathed a sigh of relief. They had flown in to Weston Longville and had been due to be wined and dined in the luxurious officers' dining room, with Charlie Buxton their gregarious host. A relaxing meal had not taken place: the group was grief-stricken at the loss of Marion Harborne and Valerie seemed unusually distracted by the reality of a parentless ATA infant waiting at home for the pilot mother who would never return again.

By eight o'clock Edith was anxious because she could not locate Errol, but the rest of the group had departed for the village. She knew the reading was to commence at half past eight before blackout reduced light to a minimum, and finally she gave up her search for her former lover. Molly drove her to the small village hall, where a collection of polite ladies had managed to organize light refreshments in a time of harrowing shortages.

Kay began her reading, but Edith could not concentrate. By now it was assumed Errol had shied away from the performance because of last-minute nerves arising from the Truman affair. Edith watched the light fade and saw that Valerie was sobbing quietly against Duncan Worsley's shoulder.

Edith did not feel moved by death this evening. She was cold, the hooting of an owl making her shudder as the old ladies listened to Blake. Words of Jerusalem and evocations of Albion oozed from Kay's lips, and Edith could only tremble.

Kelvin Bray had been infuriated when his tour of duty as a lawyer for the United States Army became twisted into a gazebo-like detour culminating in his return to Philadelphia.

Errol Carnaby's trial had prevented Kelvin from seeing his friends, all based in England, and when the protracted Old Bailey spectacle had come to a conclusion he had felt no joy upon the acquittal of his Negro client. It had been the opinion of the Army that Kelvin tired easily, and indeed he had to admit that having to listen to an English barrister fight his battle had been more exhausting than taking centre stage himself. His banishment from Britain, he felt, had deeper connotations, but the second-generation Irishman was too weary to decipher the machinations of the military machine.

July had been hellish and Kelvin looked out at the stillness of the centre of town, William Penn seeming to perspire between his masonry features atop City Hall. Gazing along the length of Benjamin Franklin Parkway, Kelvin could see the sun just beginning to swing around, its scorching rays bouncing off the exquisite golden filigree along the roof of the Art Museum. He thought of his parents, and of the poor men saved from the brink of starvation by the innovations that had burst forth from Roosevelt's New Deal, including the programs like WPA that had used the talents of artisans astride the Art Museum's edifice.

It was nearly a year since Errol Carnaby, named after a street in London his slave grandparents had never seen,
had blasted Lord Truman to oblivion on the eve of the Glorious Twelfth. Kelvin chortled at the thought of Englishmen stopping in the middle of a war to celebrate the ritual slaughter of defenceless birds.

Mutual Broadcasting was interrupting Kelvin's favourite radio show. He was too hot to rise from his chair and raise the volume on the wireless. Eddie Cuomo's voice shouted excitedly and when the name ‘Errol Carnaby' crackled across the room Kelvin leapt to his feet and grabbed the volume control.

‘From Norfolk, England this is Eddie Cuomo reporting,' announced the voice, now deafening.

Kelvin ran down the steps of the army legal department at the Customs House and strode into his superior's office.

‘Has there been some news about Errol, sir?' Kelvin demanded, saluting the Colonel.

His Colonel looked up from an uncluttered desk top. ‘Sure thing, son – sit down.'

Kelvin felt a wave of sickly heat reaching out like an unfriendly palm across his forehead.

‘Your Negro boy hanged himself,' the Colonel said, a tiny smile trickling across his face.

‘Errol Carnaby … never!' shouted Kelvin.

‘Keep your voice down, Bray,' barked the Colonel. ‘We knew about this incident a couple of days ago but that goddam Eddie Cuomo stuck his ass into things and got the story over on Mutual Broadcasting.'

Kelvin's eyes had glazed over. ‘He was not suicidal – he had everything to live for!' he cried, hearing his own voice shrilling against the walls of the old colonial building erected in the shadow of Thomas Jefferson.

‘It seems,' the Colonel continued, ‘this fellow was found hanging from a tree near the base, and he'd left a note saying something about a guy called Blake or some such shit.'

Kelvin turned and moved to the door.

‘I didn't give you permission to leave, Bray.'

‘I apologize, sir.'

‘Carnaby's note,' crooned the Colonel, ‘said something pretty personal about that Jewish gal Edith Allam – the flying dame who works for goddam British Air Auxiliary.'

‘With all respect, sir,' said Kelvin, ‘you make the British sound like our enemies.'

‘Watch your step,' snapped the Colonel. ‘And I want your solemn undertaking, Bray, that you won't go snooping into this business and trying to make it look like it ain't what it seemed.'

‘I can't imagine it being anything other than what it seemed,' Kelvin replied calmly, his stomach churning.

‘You said just a minute ago you thought the nigger wouldn't have hung himself.'

‘That was speculation, sir.' Kelvin could feel bile rising in his gullet.

‘Do I have your solemn undertaking?' the Colonel asked quietly.

‘What if I don't give you that?' asked Kelvin.

‘If you don't,' said the Colonel, ‘we'll drum up some nice little story saying you and the Negro were fucking each other, and secondly you'll be kicked out of the army on your ass – and be disbarred.'

Kelvin knew he would be sick in a moment. ‘I won't interfere, sir,' he muttered.

‘At ease – you're excused, Bray.'

Kelvin darted from the office and down the endless, winding steps into the enormous lobby, barely reaching the Chestnut Street pavement before vomiting violently on the cobblestones. When he had composed himself, Kelvin walked to the waterfront, the Navy Yard busy with wartime operations. A newspaper stand had just received its delivery of first editions, and he looked with dread at the photograph of a smiling Errol Carnaby in the
Philadelphia Daily News
. Folding the paper, Kelvin walked back to the Customs House and as he settled in his office a WAC arrived, holding out a V-Mail letter officially stamped Norwich, England. Grasping the neatly handwritten communication, he closed his office door and drank cold coffee from a paper cup.

Reading Edith's carefully worded sentences, he was astonished that her message had not been censored by the army in wartime transit. Obviously it had arrived on an Atlantic ferry plane, but the news was already three days old. As he read, Kelvin perspired, and as the reality of Edith's meticulously couched phrasing sank into his tortured insides, he knew his Negro should never have been left at the mercy of Frank Malone.

Kelvin looked up as the bright July sun poured into his humid office. Errol Carnaby had not hanged himself – he had been hanged. No-one would ever know who had performed the task, a grisly act incongruous against the wartime setting and enacted while villagers listened to Blake being read in the dim light of blackout. Lynching had now been exported to Britain, by the descendants of those very same villagers.

There was nothing to do now, Kelvin told himself. He
could feel sanity leaving his soul and wished Edith could be there beside him to talk him out of his next act. She was far away, as were Molly and Burt and Errol's corpse – which, according to the V-Mail, had been hideously mutilated. Somewhere in this city a faceless Negro family begged for information about their lost son. Kelvin felt an inexplicable wave of guilt for Errol's lonely, horrible demise, wishing he had fought to be allowed to stay behind to remain guardian to the remarkable Blake scholar.

The Delaware river sparkled in the distance, and, as Kelvin left the building once more, he knew his war was over.

Angelique Florian could not believe how many babies had been born during this war. Lying on the spacious sofa in her father's London flat, she counted the children of conflict inside her head: first, there was little Alexandra Harborne, now three years old and destined to be an actress if her adorable histrionics were to be regarded as a signpost. Marion's bitter parents had suggested the child was ‘by some other chap', and had signed the papers allowing Delia Seifert and her new husband adoption rights.