‘Over the target, conditions should be fair . . . over base on return, clear . . .’
The Met man stepped down and the Flying Control Officer stepped up to give details of the runway to be used and take off times. The intelligence officer fascinated Kate and she found herself gripping the edge of the hatch as she leaned forward to listen to him giving route details, where the aircraft, once over enemy territory, might encounter flak and where they might expect to be intercepted by enemy night fighters.
Then came the Squadron Commander and lastly she watched Philip as he addressed his men, emphasizing the importance of accurate navigation and time-keeping. There were to be a great number of aircraft all heading in the same direction . . . Everyone in the room synchronized their watches and finally Philip wished them all good luck.
As the CO left the dais and marched between the ranks of men, Kate scuttled out of the building. By the time Philip emerged she was standing with the car door open in readiness. Only when they were in the staff car did he ask, ‘Did you manage to see him?’
‘No,’ she said, unable to keep the tremor from her voice. He leaned forward from the back seat as she added, ‘But I’ve only just realized, he’ll be at the other briefing, won’t he? He’s a rear-gunner.’
The radio operators and gunners had a separate briefing.
‘Oh Kate, I’m sorry. I hadn’t realized he was a gunner. I haven’t had chance to meet everyone yet. Tell you what – drop me off at my office. You might just catch them drawing their flying kit. But can you be sure to be back to pick me up in time to take me out to dispersal?’
‘Oh, thank you. Yes, of course I will.’
Minutes later, Kate was hovering outside Parachute Section waiting for the crews to emerge.
If only she could just see him, talk to him . . .
‘Kate! Kate!’ Suddenly there he was, coming towards her, a bulky figure in his sheepskin flying jacket and leather boots, his parachute slung carelessly over one shoulder. But the cheeky grin was the same as ever.
‘Danny, oh Danny . . .’ For a moment her vision blurred as tears filled her eyes. Then she was reaching out and he was taking her hands in his.
‘I had to see you, I want to tell you . . .’
‘Eland,’ came a deep voice behind them and they both glanced round. ‘Time to go.’
‘Sir,’ Danny responded and turning back, squeezed Kate’s hands quickly. ‘I’m sorry, Katie . . .’
‘But, Danny, I have to talk to you, I have to explain . . .’
‘Later, Katie, when I get back.’
For a desperate moment she clung to his hands, but he pulled himself free, smiled a rueful apology and hurried after the rest of his crew.
‘Danny, Danny . . .’ she called, running after him. ‘Which – which is your plane, please tell me?’
She had to know which aircraft he was in; she had to be able to watch for it coming back.
He turned back briefly, raised his hand in a wave, and called, ‘D-Doggo . . . I’ll see you when I get back.’
K
ate watched him walk away from her. There was still an hour to take-off, but the crews needed to go out to their aircraft, for all the cockpit checks and starting the engines of forty aircraft – more now a third squadron had arrived – would take up every minute of that time.
As she saw Danny climb into the back of a covered lorry, Kate turned towards the staff car. It was time to pick up Philip.
She watched take-off from the roof of the control tower as she had done so many times before alongside Philip. This time it was different; this time Danny was out there somewhere, hunched in his lonely rear turret, the most vulnerable position in the whole aircraft to enemy night fighters. The huge aircraft, cumbersome with their weight of bombs and fuel, taxied from the various dispersal points, forming up to take off in orderly, timed intervals. At the end of the runway, each aircraft waited for the controller’s red light to switch to green before revving its engines and beginning its lumbering, heart-stopping take-off. The noise of over two hundred Merlin engines filled the night air, as one by one they trundled down the runway, gathering speed, faster and faster, till Kate found she was holding her breath, willing each one into the air. The end of the runway came nearer and nearer until it seemed impossible they would make it. Then, just as her knuckles were turning white as she gripped the rail, the aircraft would lift unwillingly into the air, its undercarriage immediately raised. Silhouetted against the darkening sky, the bombers were like a flock of predatory birds carrying death and destruction in their bellies.
From this distance, she could not see which was D-Doggo, but it did not stop her praying, ‘Oh, please let him come back safely – let them all come back safely . . .’
Soon they’d be flying over the coast, maybe over Fleethaven Point. Would Danny be thinking of Rosie far below, blissfully ignorant of the danger he was in, when she, Kate, knew only too well?
In the control tower, in a pool of light, the personnel on duty – Mavis and Isobel among them – began to plot the movement of the aircraft.
As the sound of the last aircraft faded into the distance, Kate felt a light touch on her shoulder and turned to see Philip’s concerned face. ‘Come on, Kate,’ he said gently. ‘We’ll go back to my office.’
She nodded. ‘I’ll drop you off and then – then I want to go back to my hut . . .’
She hesitated as she saw the pain flit across his face, and added swiftly, ‘I need my coat, but I’ll come back if – if you want me to.’
His voice was husky as he said, ‘Of course I want you to.’
She took Philip to his office, leaving the staff car parked outside, for they would need it once more in the cold light of dawn as the Lancasters struggled home. She walked out of the airfield’s main gate and across the road to the WAAF site. Inside the hut she pulled on her greatcoat, feeling suddenly cold. About to turn away, she paused and, with fingers which trembled slightly, pulled open the drawer of her locker. The whelk shell nestled against her pile of clean handkerchiefs. Hesitating only a moment, she picked it up and slipped it into the pocket of her coat. It was their talisman and during the long night ahead she was going to need it. There was nothing to do now but wait!
When the first aircraft were due back the airfield beacon was switched on. How glad the crews would be to see it flashing the signal SB; Suddaby, home and safety. As the first planes began to land, Kate and Philip were back in the Control Room. While Philip stood quietly behind the R/T operator, Kate sat in the shadows in one corner, listening and watching in fascination as the personnel worked. There was an air of deliberate calm, and yet the atmosphere crackled with tension. A WAAF began to fill in the landing times of the returning aircraft on the huge board. Kate’s glance kept coming back time and again to D-Doggo.
There was no need for radio silence now the raid was over, and Mavis and Isobel began calling up the aircraft. One by one the planes landed. There were anxious moments when one aircraft had to do an emergency landing because its undercarriage was damaged, and another limped in on only two engines. As always, the fire crews stood ready and raced towards the aircraft as it slewed off the runway and on to the grass. There was another crisis when two planes wanted to come in at the same time because they were dangerously low on fuel and were given permission to land, one immediately after the other.
Kate felt the sweat prickle the back of her neck and marvelled at her two friends for their composed efficiency and the way they kept their voices calm and professional when giving directions to the aircrew. Long gone were any criticisms that Mavis was too excitable. Now, she nursed down a lame aircraft, soothed the momentary panic of a young pilot on his first op and juggled expertly with the extra aircraft stacking above the airfield, all demanding runway space at once, it seemed to Kate.
Now, there were only three Suddaby aircraft and four from the visiting East Markham squadron to come in.
Philip was bending down in front of her. ‘I must go across to de-briefing . . .’ he began, and as she made to rise to take him across in the car, he put his hand briefly on hers. ‘You stay here, if you want to,’ he whispered.
‘If you’re sure . . .?’ She looked up into his eyes, but in the dim light, his expression was difficult to read. He gave her hand a swift squeeze, straightened up, turned away and was gone.
Huddled in the corner, she watched and waited, feeling even more alone now that Philip had left.
The radio fell silent, yet Mavis and Isobel were still vigilant. They would not relax until all the aircraft were in, or . . . Kate shuddered, suddenly realizing what her two friends dealt with every day. Waiting and listening for the planes to come back. Sometimes, waiting in vain.
The waiting was becoming unbearable. Quietly, Kate slipped out of the Control Room.
The vehicles were drawing up outside de-briefing and she watched the young airmen walking towards the building, their young faces lined with tension and grey with exhaustion. It was so hard to believe that these were the same men who laughed and drank and made merry in the pub and the dance hall. Then, they looked as if they didn’t have a care in the world, whereas now . . .
Tentatively, she touched the arm of a pilot officer passing close by her. ‘Excuse me, are you from the East Markham squadron?’
His glance took in her WAAF uniform. Guardedly, he nodded.
‘Do you – know Danny Eland?’
‘Yes,’ he said briefly.
‘Is – is he safe?’
The young man, his eyes glazed with tiredness, shrugged. ‘Sorry – can’t say. I mean – I don’t know. I don’t know yet who’s back – and who’s not,’ he added significantly.
There was another aircraft approaching the runway, its engines coughing and spluttering. Any moment it would be out of fuel. Lower and lower it dropped until its huge tyres hit the runway with a squeal and it was racing along the concrete. In the darkness Kate could not see its name and she shivered in the cold morning, waiting, still waiting . . .
The crew were piling out of the crewbus and walking towards her. She moved forward a step.
‘Danny?’ she whispered, but the men were strangers. It was not Danny’s crew.
She swallowed the fear rising in her throat and looked anxiously towards the east, willing there to be another plane in view. But the dawning sky was empty and silent.
She went into the building where de-briefing was taking place; the crews, drinking tea, were moving from one WAAF interrogator to another as they gave their various reports. Kate felt the fear in the pit of her stomach, as she glanced around the room. There was no sign of Danny, nor of any other member of his crew.
She repeated her question. ‘Are you from East Markham? Do you know what’s happened to D-Doggo?’
‘No, sorry. Three aircraft went down over the target. Maybe . . .’
She turned away; she didn’t want to hear.
Across the room, she saw Philip, moving among the crews, glance at her. Kate bit her lip. She shouldn’t be here, really. But he did not look angry, only worried.
She left the building and ran, her heart thumping, back towards the control tower. Breathless, she ran up the stairs and burst into the Control Room. She paused in the doorway, her hand still holding the door-handle, her frightened eyes going at once to the blackboard.
There were two names still on the board: P-Pluto and D-Doggo. Dragging her terrified gaze from the board, she met Dave’s sympathetic eyes. Instead of being annoyed with her for charging into the Control Room, he rose, came towards her and led her gently to a chair in the corner. ‘Sit there, love, I’ll get you a cuppa.’
The room, which only half an hour ago had seemed chaotic, a nerve centre of activity, was now silent. Only crackles and whistles emitted from the radio, no pilot’s voice requesting permission to land, no voice giving the call-sign ‘D-Doggo here’.
She had to face the truth; Danny was missing.
Mavis and Isobel were sitting in front of their radio control panels and Kate sensed they could not bring themselves to say anything, or even look at her.
Kate started up as footsteps sounded hollowly on the concrete stairs outside. Then Philip came into the Control Room. He glanced immediately at the board, just as she had done, and then his gaze came around slowly to rest upon her huddled miserably in the corner.
Ignoring the rule-book once more and how it would look to those in the Control Room, Philip touched her shoulder, his voice firm yet infinitely tender. ‘Come on, Kate.’
Stiffly, Kate eased her aching limbs from their locked position and, with his arm about her shoulders, allowed herself to be guided down the narrow stairs.
Outside, to the east, the sky was growing lighter. Dawn would be casting its soft glow over Fleethaven, she thought, silhouetting the cottages, rousing the sleepy occupants to another day. Soon, at home, they would be rising, her mother first, then Jonathan, and the day’s work would begin.
And Beth. In her cottage she would be first to rise, perhaps taking Rosie a cup of tea in bed. Perhaps they would speak of Danny. Of course they would speak of Danny. But did they know, could they guess, the agony she, Kate, was going through at this very moment? Did they, too, watch the sky night after night, hearing the aircraft droning overhead, and wonder if somewhere in the vast dark sky was Danny up there? Did they lie awake waiting, listening for the return?
Walking along beside Philip, she thrust her hands deep into her pockets and felt the whelk shell. She gripped it until the point dug into her palm. Was this really all she would have left of Danny now? She would keep it with her always, she vowed, until he was safely home . . .
In the seclusion of his office, Philip took her in his arms. She clung to him, burying her head against his smart commanding officer’s uniform, her tears making mottled damp patches on his shoulder. Her held her tightly, stroking her hair, but saying nothing.
She drew back a little and looked up at him, his features blurred through her tears. ‘I’ll have to go home,’ she stuttered. ‘I must t-tell – Rosie.’