‘Well, I think he’s very good-looking,’ Tess said obstinately. She put the plates into the cupboard and shut the door on them. ‘His face is so strong . . . his eyes are the brightest blue . . .’
Marianne, turning away from the sink, shook her head, but she was smiling. ‘Now I know you’re in love! He is certainly pleasant-looking, and he does have very blue eyes. I like him and approve of him and what’s more important perhaps, I’m positive that Peter would have taken to him. I can’t say more than that, can I?’
‘Bless you, Marianne,’ Tess said fervently, picking up another pile of plates. ‘You couldn’t have said anything which would please me more. Isn’t his accent attractive? I could listen to his lovely, slow voice all day.’
‘Now I
know
you’re in love,’ Cherie said, imitating her mother’s earlier remark. ‘An Aussie accent isn’t lovely, it’s a mixture between Birmingham and cockney. But I like him ever so much, Tess. I – I envy you. He’s just right for you. He’s – he’s dependable and huggable.’
‘That’s it exactly, Cherie, you are a clever kid,’ Tess said eagerly, sliding the plates on to the plate rack this time. ‘You just feel you could lean back on Mal and he’d always be there to catch you. I know he isn’t really handsome, like Ash, or sophisticated or anything like that, but he’s most tremendously nice.’
‘Why didn’t Ash come to the party?’ Cherie said curiously, standing cups in their places on the dresser. ‘It wasn’t as though it was just your party, Tess, he could have come for Maman and Maurice.’
‘He was on standby,’ Tess said patiently, not for the first time. ‘Besides, he’s always had such a – a proprietorial attitude towards me that perhaps he can’t actually bring himself to admit I’m going to marry someone else.’
‘He’ll say it’s just a phase you’re going through,’ Marianne said with some shrewdness. ‘He won’t give up until you’re actually married, not that young man.’
After the excitement of the engagement party, it was odd to leave the beautiful sunshine for the blacked-out briefing room with the haze of cigarette smoke hanging above the lines of straight-backed chairs and the large map on the blackboard with their proposed route outlined in scarlet.
‘Where is it this time, Skip?’ Sidney hissed as they settled into their seats. Germany, sure, but where?’
‘Hamburg,’ Mal decided, squinting at the map. ‘Well, it won’t be the first time.’
‘True. At least we know the way,’ Fred said. ‘You know the way to Hamburg, don’t you, Perce?’
‘And the way back,’ Percy said. ‘Hush, here come the big guns.’
The Station Commander and the Squadron Commander entered together, the little blonde WAAF who took shorthand notes slightly ahead of them. The buzz of muttered conversation died away. Notebooks were produced, everyone sat up straighter. The briefing began.
They took off at two minutes to midnight and reached the target area in good time, but after that, all hell was let loose. The flak was the heaviest Mal had ever known, the scarecrow flares – horrible inventions which looked, when they burst, exactly like a kite going down in flames – everywhere. They must have been amongst the last to arrive, since the flak and the bullets were flying and the sky was lit up with a demonic glare. The fighter defences hadn’t picked them up on their way in to the target, perhaps because they had been one of the last kites to take off, but now they were here, it was clear that Hamburg, tonight, was a bad place to be. Mal didn’t believe in safety in numbers – it was too easy to collide with another Lancaster if you were all milling around the target together, but he ordered everyone to keep a sharp look-out, conferred briefly with the bomb aimer and the navigator, and then put the kite as nearly over the target area as was possible in the circumstances.
‘Bomb run starting,’ he said presently over the intercom, when navigator and bomb aimer judged the time to be right. ‘Okay, Perce?’
‘Okay,’ Percy called back.
‘Fred?’
‘Any minute, Skip . . . bombs away!’
The aircraft surged as the weight left it and Mal adjusted speed and turned away from the target. If it was the target – difficult to tell with the mass of enemy fire, flak and flares which were dancing below them, turning the night into hell.
‘Turn starboard on to two-one-five degrees,’ Percy said into his mike. ‘Steady . . . what the hell was that?’
‘Dunno,’ Mal said. ‘I felt her judder . . . anyone see anything?’
‘Flak, Skip,’ Geoff called from the turret. ‘Caught us on the fuselage, near the wing. Doesn’t seem to have done any real dam . . . oh well, there’s quite a lot of cold air, but that’s nothing.’
‘Good,’ Mal said. ‘Eyes skinned, please. I want a quiet run home.’
They were an hour from the target when the rear gunner suddenly came to life. No one talked more than necessary on either a return trip or an outer – you could be picked up from radio transmissions – and Mal often teased Dave, the rear gunner, accusing him of falling asleep, though his position, with the firing point above his head, would not have made a snooze an easy matter. But his yell now had real urgency.
‘There’s a Junkers behind us, Skip – just over a thousand yards, I’d say.’
‘Watch him, tell me when to weave,’ Mal roared back. ‘Geoff, Paul . . . keep your eyes skinned!’
‘He’s coming in!’ Dave shouted. ‘Go starboard, Skip . . . now port, now port!’
Mal, jinking desperately, heard Geoff chime in. ‘Directly above us, Skip . . . lose altitude, perhaps . . .’
‘Go port, port,
port
!’ Paul, in the mid-upper shouted, and Mal realised, with considerable horror, that there must be more than one JU88 circling them.
Then he saw the plane, coming alongside, guns spitting, and saw a line of neatly drilled holes appear in the fuselage, shattering the perspex of his left-hand window and letting in what felt like iced water, though it was only wind.
‘Paul, can you . . .?’
He heard the cannon roar, saw the Junker shudder, then Dave was shouting again.
‘Starboard, Skip . . . starboard . . . get me round so I can get him!’
More fire, then another hit. The kite actually leaping . . . the Jerry appearing, disappearing . . . Paul saying ‘Starboard, Skip, star . . .’ his voice cut off suddenly, completely.
Mal shouted ‘Percy? You there?’
‘Just about, Skip. Where did Paul go?’
‘Go port, Skip,’ came from Geoff, obviously too busy watching the Jerry to wonder at his oppo’s sudden silence. ‘Now starboard!’
‘Percy, see what’s up with Paul,’ Mal said as he manoeuvred the big plane into a violent fishtail motion. ‘Everyone else all right?’
He thought he heard Sidney answer, knew Fred said he was still around, but then Geoff began shouting again and just as Percy reported, in a subdued voice, that Dave had been hit in the stomach and was unconscious, an explosion almost lifted them all off their feet. Light filled Mal’s office, as the cockpit was usually called, and one of his unvoiced fears – that, in the event of trouble he would be unable to get out of his pilot’s seat – was promptly proved groundless. He was out, a mighty roaring wind was tearing at him, and there was a terrible, excruciating pain in his right shoulder. He was falling, falling, head over heels, the noise was tremendous, yet above it he could hear someone screaming at him.
‘Pull the ripcord, you prize pratt, pull the bloody ripcord!’
It seemed a pretty pointless exercise. Something hit him across the shoulders and for a moment he thought he had fainted from the pain. He fumbled for the ripcord, couldn’t find it, felt a terrible, tremendous blow on his head and lost consciousness.
They all liked Mal, the girls, Mr and Mrs Sugden, the farm workers. They told Tess she was a lucky girl and advised a register office wedding because it would be quicker than going through all the business of a church ceremony.
‘I will, if it’s quicker,’ Tess said. ‘I don’t want any more delays, not now I know what I do want.’
‘Wish I was getting married,’ Susan said. Her boyfriend was an American, who flew in one of the big Liberator aircraft as a nose-gunner. His name was Benny Kertzer and he had been rather evasive about marriage. Susan sometimes came down in the morning red-eyed, because she had managed to convince herself, during the long watches of the night, that he was married with six kids.
‘Oh, your turn will come, Sue,’ Tess said cheerfully. ‘Anyway, I’m not married yet. Which reminds me, if I’m going to a register office I really should telephone Marianne and tell her. She’ll be pleased. Probably.’
‘Why?’ Molly asked. The three girls were cleaning out the cowsheds, wielding shovels, large brooms and buckets of water.
‘Because she and Maurice have decided on a register office. I think she’ll feel that we’re both marrying in the same sort of way, if you understand me. And of course she’s so delighted that I’m not marrying Ashley that she’d be pleased about most things.’
The girls laughed, though Molly said wistfully that she wouldn’t mind any sort of wedding, personally. Molly’s boyfriend was a brown job, out in the Far East. They would marry when the war was over, not before, because he wouldn’t be home until then. I am so lucky, Tess told herself, pushing a huge pile of dung along on her shovel. Most other people have to know someone for months or years before they marry. But me and Mal . . . oh, he’s such a marvellous person, I am so very lucky!
‘Why not phone your stepmother now, in our brekker break?’ Susan said presently, when the sheds were immaculate and they were heading across the yard towards the kitchen. ‘If she’s booking the register office for herself she might as well do it for you and Mal, too. It’ll save time and the Sugdens won’t mind, if you go on your bicycle and hurry.’
‘Good idea,’ Tess said. ‘Tell them I shan’t be long, would you? What’s next anyway?’
‘Stables,’ Molly said briefly.
‘Oh, right. I rather enjoy mucking out the stables,’ Tess said, going into the cart-shed to fetch her bicycle. ‘See you soon, then.’
‘Marianne! I’m home, but I can’t stop long. I’m on milking first thing, so I’ve just rushed over to have a quick word.’ Tess stopped short half-way across the kitchen, realising that the person she had been addressing was Cherie and not Marianne, as she had supposed. ‘What’s up, kiddo? Where’s Marianne?’
‘On the telephone,’ Cherie said. ‘I thought it might be for me, but Maman beat me to it because she’s waiting for a call from Maurice. I’ll tell her you’re here, though.’ And before Tess could stop her she had hurled the kitchen door open, poked her head round it and shouted: ‘Tess is back, Maman!’ before clapping the door shut again.
‘You are so noisy, Cherie,’ Tess groaned, slumping down on a chair. ‘Make a pot of tea, there’s a love, and get out the bickies. I missed high tea because I wanted to come over tonight, see how the wedding arrangements are going.’
‘Oh, right,’ Cherie said. ‘Maman made shortbread earlier; would you like some?’
‘Would I! I wouldn’t mind a sandwich, either – got any cheese?’
Cherie shrugged and sighed, looking very Gallic. ‘Who knows? But I’ll have a ferret around if . . .’
The door opened. Marianne stood in the doorway. She stared at Tess as if she was an apparition.
‘Tess! I thought Cherie said . . . you’re wanted on the phone, dear.’
Tess got up off her chair. ‘Is it Mal?’ she asked eagerly. ‘If so, he’ll ask about the wedding arrangements – what am I to tell him, Marianne? Did you manage to get a date for us?’
‘No, it’s not . . . it’s someone else. An officer, I think. Come along, he’s holding on but you know what the exchange is like.’
‘Oh. Right,’ Tess said. She bounced across the hall and picked up the receiver from where it lay on the half-moon table. ‘Hello? Tess Delamere speaking.’
‘Squadron Leader Matthews here, Miss Delamere. ’Ummm . . . was that your mother I spoke to just now?’
Mystified, Tess confirmed that it was.
‘I see. Good, good. Because I’m afraid I have some rather worrying news for you.’
Tess opened her mouth but no sound came out. Her heart, which had been leaping excitedly about in her chest, seemed suddenly stilled. The lamp had looked cheery and welcoming a few moments earlier but now it cast long and terrible shadows.
‘Miss Delamere, I’ve just come across a letter amongst Pilot Officer Chandler’s effects. It asks that, in the event of an emergency, we treat you as – as next of kin. As you know he’s an Australian with no . . .’
‘Is he dead?’ The question was torn from her, she shrieked it, yet it came out in such a dry, husky little whisper that Squadron Leader Matthews had to ask her what she had said.
‘Is he . . . is he . . .’ Tess stammered, and found she could not complete the sentence. ‘You said . . . his effects . . . isn’t that . . .’
A hand touched her arm. Marianne’s face was concerned, sorry. She had lugged a chair out of the kitchen and now she pushed Tess into it and moved a little way off. But the Squadron Leader’s voice was still talking. Tess strove to listen with intelligence, to damp down the wild flames of panic which threatened to engulf her.
‘. . . There was a big raid on Germany last night and several of our aircraft failed to return.’
He had a young voice. He didn’t sound old enough to be saying what she thought he was trying to say.
‘One of the missing aircraft was Delta four one ninah, piloted by Malcolm Chandler. Obviously it’s too early to say what has happened to the crew, but another squadron member believes he saw parachutes, which should mean that though the kite crashed, the crew have survived. They were over open country, too, which is always a good sign.’
‘I see.’
He must be used to hearing the shock, the pain. His voice dropped a tone, became warmer, more personal.
‘Look, m’dear, I know it’s a terrible thing but I promise you he’s got a good chance! They think he went down over occupied France, better than Germany, and though it may be a while before we know for certain, we’ll find out exactly what happened as soon as we can and let you know. Normally, this sort of thing’s done by telegram or letter, but . . . well, the chaps told me you and Mal were getting hitched, I thought a personal call . . .’