Wish Me Luck (10 page)

‘Calm down, mate, calm down,’ Johnny said. ‘No offence meant. If she’s your girl, then—’

‘I’m not his girl,’ Kitty piped up. ‘Only he’d like to think so. Tek no notice of him. He’s nowt but a kid. Ought to be in uniform, he did. He’s old enough.’

There was a brief silence whilst the locals glanced at each other uncomfortably.

‘Now, now, Kitty,’ Bill said gently. ‘No need for that sort of talk. The lad works on a farm. He’s doing a good job.’

Kitty said no more, but her lip curled disdainfully.

‘So why aren’t
you
in uniform?’ Alfie spat back at her, struggling to free himself, but the young airmen were holding him fast. ‘Like that lass there.’ He nodded towards Fleur, who felt embarrassment creep up her face. ‘Or are you “doing your bit” another way?’

His crude meaning was obvious to everyone listening and a gasp rippled around the room. But Alfie turned his attention to the young men holding on to him. He glared into the face of each one of them and then, slowly and deliberately, he said, ‘And I hope your bloody plane crashes.’

Now there was a shocked silence through the whole bar. For a moment, no one moved. Then Fleur leapt to her feet, her eyes blazing. ‘That’s a wicked thing to say!’

‘Steady on, lass. He doesn’t mean it—’

‘Oh yes, I do,’ the youth muttered.

‘He’s had one too many – he dun’t know what ’ee’s sayin’,’ Bill said and moved from behind the bar to step between the airmen and take firm hold of Alfie himself. The burly man held the lad quite easily. ‘Time you was going home, Alfie Fish. You’ve said quite enough for one night. More than enough. Now, I don’t want to ’ave to bar you from my pub, but if you can’t behave ya’sen, I will. Mek no mistake about that. These lads’ – he nodded towards Robbie and the rest – ‘and those lasses there an’ all’ – now he included Fleur and the other girls too – ‘are all here for a very good reason. They’re fighting this war for us. They’re in the front line, as it were. Now, to my mind, we’re all doing our bit. You’re working on the land, providing us all wi’ food. I’m doing my bit, giving these young ’uns a bit of fun on their time off. So, we’re all doing our bit one way or another. Everybody here.’ Now he swept his arm wide to include everyone sitting in the bar room. ‘So let’s have no more fighting amongst oursens. We’ve got enough on, fighting old Adolf. And as for Kitty – well – you’re hardly going to keep her with this sort of behaviour, now a’ ya?’

Suddenly, the fight seemed to go out of the young man and he slumped against Bill. The older man took his full weight and the airmen released their hold. With a shake of their heads the locals resumed their conversations and took a swallow of their beer, whilst Bill helped Alfie from the bar room out into the night.

As Bill returned, he nodded towards Robbie and the others. ‘Sorry about that, lads. Just give him a minute or two to get hissen down the road home afore you leave.’ He winked at them meaningfully. ‘I ’aven’t got so much authority on the public highway and PC Mitchell’s nowhere to be seen when you want him.’ He laughed heartily. ‘Mind you, it’s a good job sometimes if I’m a bit late closing.’

After about fifteen minutes, Tommy said, ‘We’ll have to get going, chaps, else we’ll be late back at camp. ‘Specially if we’ve to escort these lovely young ladies back to their billets.’

‘No need,’ Ruth said brusquely. ‘We’ll be fine.’

‘And I, of course,’ Kay remarked dryly, ‘am going the same way as you lot anyway. Back to my biscuit bed in a draughty hut.’ She cast a mock resentful glance towards Ruth and Fleur, who merely grinned in return, refusing to rise to her bait this time.

‘Right then. Time to go,’ Robbie said, standing up and holding out his hand to Fleur. As they moved towards the door, calling ‘goodnight’ to Bill, and out into the darkness, none of them noticed the three youths who had been sitting with Alfie in the corner rise to their feet and follow them out.

The youths came at them out of the blackness, launching themselves at their perceived enemies with the same ferocity as any trained solder with a bayonet in his hand.

‘Look out!’ Fleur’s cry came too late and, as she found herself pushed to her hands and knees on the rough road, Robbie and the rest were under attack.

It was an unequal fight, even though it was four against four. Alfie too had appeared out of the shadows. The airmen, though fit from drill and gymnastics on camp, were no match for the brawny strength of the young farm workers. Fists flew and solid punches found their mark. Grunts and shouts filled the night air, whilst the four girls peered through the gloom, watching helplessly.

‘Ouch! You little sod!’

It was Robbie’s voice that galvanized Fleur. ‘Stop it! Stop it this minute!’ she cried and then launched herself at the youth attacking Robbie. She clung to his back and wound her arm around his throat. Suddenly, all the play-fights she had ever had with her younger brother came back to her. She hooked her leg round Robbie’s attacker and pulled him backwards so that he lost his balance and fell to the floor.

‘Ruth!’ she yelled. ‘Come and sit on this one.’

‘Attagirl!’ Ruth whooped and threw herself bodily across the prone figure, satisfied to hear his weak groan of futile protest as her weight knocked the last ounce of breath from his body.

Squinting through the darkness, Fleur saw that Tommy was taking a real battering.

‘Come on.’ Now she heard Kay’s voice at her side and together they launched themselves against Tommy’s assailant. A moment later, he too was lying on the ground with Kay sitting astride him.

With both Robbie and Tommy now free, Alan and Johnny’s attackers were soon dispatched. They fled into the darkness and only then did Ruth and Kay release their captives.

Panting heavily, the airmen and WAAFs stood in the lane listening to the pounding feet growing fainter in the distance.

‘Now we’ll be for it,’ Tommy muttered. ‘Fighting with the locals. We’ll be on a charge and no mistake.’

‘Well, I’m going to say I fell over in the dark. That’ll explain my laddered stockings,’ Ruth declared next morning. ‘What about you?’

Fleur bit her lip. She’d never liked telling lies. She’d always owned up to any misdemeanour either to her parents or to her teachers. But now, others were involved and she didn’t want to get anyone else into trouble. ‘I wonder how the lads are faring.’

‘It’s a clear forecast for tonight – so Peggy was saying,’ Ruth told her as they left the dining room together after breakfast. ‘They’ll be flying for sure. I doubt a word will be said as long as no one from the village makes trouble. And I don’t think they will. You heard what Bill Moore’s attitude is. And I reckon most of the villagers feel the same.’ She laughed wryly. ‘More likely those lads will get a leathering from their dads for being such idiots.’ She nodded wisely. ‘The station brings a lot of trade to this area to say nothing of the little treats that find their way from our NAAFI onto the tables of the villagers.’ She tapped the side of her nose. Fleur laughed, hoping fervently that Ruth was right.

As she climbed the steps to the watch office that evening, Fleur found her heart was hammering inside her chest and she felt sick. Already, the vehicles were ferrying crews out to their aircraft as she took her place beside Kay. Although she’d spent four hours earlier in the day familiarizing herself with how things were done in this particular flying control, this was her first time on duty during a mission. Kay was a good teacher, brusque and to the point as was her manner, but in no way irritable or impatient. Fleur, meticulous as she had always been since the day she’d signed up, welcomed the other girl’s professional attitude. Bob Watson was on duty that night. He smiled and nodded at Fleur as she took her seat, rearranged her writing pad and pens in readiness for the notes and lists she would be required to jot down through the busy night. She adjusted her headphones and the microphone around her neck for comfort as, behind her, other members of the team readied themselves too.

On the walls around the room were maps and clocks, and blackboards giving local weather conditions and target information. The most interesting one to Fleur was the operations blackboard with ‘WICKERTON WOOD’ painted in white at the top. Beneath it, the station’s call sign ‘Woody’ and the numbers of the two squadrons operating from Wickerton Wood with their respective call signs, Lindum and Pelham. In the centre of the board was the word ‘RAID’ with a space for the name of the target to be chalked in each time. Below that was a white painted grid where Peggy was already filling in all the details of each aircraft and the pilot’s name for tonight’s raid. As each one took off she would fill in the time. And then, lastly, there was the blank column that everyone watched most anxiously: ‘RETURN’.

Fleur glanced over her shoulder to see Peggy writing in Tommy Laughton’s name. Now there could be no mistake. Robbie was definitely on tonight’s raid.

She glanced out of the window, criss-crossed with tape, in front of the long desk where the R/T operators sat with all their instruments and telephones overlooking the airfield’s runways. Her heart skipped a beat. In the distance she could see the airmen climbing into their planes. She strained her eyes but could not pick out Robbie. Good luck, darling, she said silently. Safe home.

One by one, dozens of engines burst into life, their throbbing filling the night air and almost shaking the ground as they taxied from the various dispersal points, forming up to take off at 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, it began its cumbersome, breath-holding take-off. One by one the Hampdens, heavy with fuel and bombs, lumbered down the runway.

On take-off and until the aircraft reached the target there was radio silence, unless in a dire emergency. Landing back at base, when security no longer mattered quite so much, was when the girls in the watch office would have radio communication with the aircraft. But they were all on duty for take-off, listening in, ready to help if needed.

‘Right, ladies and gentlemen,’ Bob Watson said. ‘Let’s see these lads into the air.’

There was a clatter of footsteps outside and the door burst open. A breathless Ruth came to attention in front of Bob’s desk. ‘Permission to go up to the roof, Flight?’

With a small smile, Bob nodded and Ruth rushed out of the room.

Fleur blinked and turned questioning eyes towards Bob Watson, who said shortly and with a trace of sarcasm, ‘Your friend seems to think it vital that she waves off every mission from the roof of the watch tower. Some silly superstition of hers. She comes in even when she’s not on duty herself and, if she’s on leave, she makes someone promise to do it for her.’

Fleur said nothing. She understood about superstition and ‘good luck’ charms that the airmen carried. Why, at this moment, one of her initialled handkerchiefs nestled in the breast pocket of Robbie’s uniform. No, she didn’t blame Ruth one bit for her ‘silly’ superstition.

It was a long night. Once the flurry of activity of watching all the aircraft get safely airborne was over, there was nothing for the team in Control to do but wait.

‘You girls can take it easy for a while. It’ll be several hours before they’re back,’ Bob said. ‘Get a cup of tea in turns … er … write letters, knit or do some … er … mending …’ Fleur noticed that Bob was looking hopefully at Kay, who was studiously avoiding his eyes.

Fleur chuckled. ‘I think Flight has a job he’d like you to do, Corp,’ she said, pretending innocence.

‘Then he can think again,’ Kay said tartly, but Fleur caught the twinkle in the girl’s eyes and she sent Fleur a surreptitious wink. She was toying with Bob, who looked crestfallen. Suddenly Kay swivelled round on her chair. ‘What is it this time? Socks? Shirt buttons?’

‘Actually – it’s a button on my jacket …’

‘Oh, now that is serious,’ Kay mocked. ‘Just think if you were called to the CO’s office with a button missing on your jacket. Tut-tut.’ She winked at Fleur. ‘You any good with a needle, Fleur?’

Fleur caught the mischief in Kay’s eyes and shook her head. ‘Terrible! My mother despaired of me.’ She could hardly stop the giggles that were welling up inside her from spilling out. The truth was that Betsy had brought her up to sew, mend and make do. She was quite expert with her needle and thread and no slouch with a sewing machine either.

Now the two girls dissolved into laughter whilst Bob stood looking at them helplessly. Peggy joined in the conversation. ‘You’re rotten, you two.’ She turned to Bob. ‘I’d offer, but I really am useless at needlework. I bet that one’ – she jabbed her finger at Fleur – ‘is pulling your leg. She’s been brought up on a farm and I bet she could knit you a jumper straight off a sheep’s back.’

Fleur wiped the tears of laughter from her eyes, thankful that for a few moments she had been able to put aside her anxiety over Robbie. ‘Not quite, Peggy, but I am teasing. Yes, I can sew. My mother would have a ducky fit if she heard me denying all her teaching. Hand it over and I’ll see what I can do.’

As she fished in her bag for her ‘housewife’ with, amongst other items, its sewing needle, blue thread and tiny pair of scissors, Bob brought his uniform jacket to her, holding out the shining button in the palm of his hand. ‘Lucky I didn’t lose this.’

‘Well, on your own head be it, Fleur,’ Kay remarked. ‘Don’t say I didn’t warn you. Word will go round this place like wildfire that you’ve set up as the camp seamstress. You’ll have all these ham-fisted fellers beating a path to your door.’