Mary’s maiden flight over the Pennines went without a hitch. The nerves that she’d experienced at take-off soon vanished and she opened her mind to the marvellous sights below: huge expanses of heather moorland broken by rocky outcrops, with mill towns nestling in green valleys, their tall chimneys visible even at 2,000 feet, their steep rows of terraced houses partly hidden beneath skeins of thick factory smoke. Careful to pick out the triple landmark hills of Pen-y-ghent, Ingleborough and Whernside, she flew on in clear skies over the Lancashire border past Pendle Hill and on towards her destination – an RAF base outside the ancient county town of Lancaster.
This was the only way to live, Mary decided: in the moment and flying free as a bird, blissfully cut off from the rest of the world. The powerful little Spit was a demon of speed and manoeuvrability, the most thrilling aircraft in the world, and she enjoyed every second in the air, wanting it to last for ever. But all too soon the end was in sight – three rough airstrips running parallel on flat land close to the coast, surrounded by the usual array of camouflaged Nissen huts, single-storey military buildings and a prominent control tower. So Mary prepared for landing with a light touch on the joystick and an easing of the throttle as she pressed the overhead switch to bring down the undercarriage. The Spit’s wings shuddered at her final approach but Mary held a steady course and touched down with scarcely a jolt; no last-minute drama, no slewing to the side on the smooth runway, no unnecessary burning of tyres on tarmac.
Two members of the RAF ground crew waited with the chocks as a smiling Mary cut off the engines, unstrapped her harness then raised the canopy. When she stepped out on to the wing and took off her helmet, the two men on the ground looked at her in amazement.
‘Where’s the pilot?’ the older one asked, as if expecting a second person to emerge from the tiny cockpit.
Mary approached them, grinning broadly. ‘It’s me; I’m the pilot.’
‘Blimey!’ The sergeant mechanic still couldn’t believe his eyes. ‘Did you just land that crate by yourself?’
‘Bloody brilliant.’ The younger one ran up to congratulate her. ‘You handled her just right.’
‘Not bad for a woman,’ the sergeant added grudgingly.
‘Take no notice of the sarge – he still lives in the Dark Ages. I’m Archie, by the way.’
‘Hello, Archie.’ With his arm hooked through hers, Mary let herself be guided towards the control tower by her new friend. Her confidence soared to fresh heights as she followed him into an office at the base of the tower. ‘Third Officer Holland bringing in the new Spit from Rixley,’ she reported to the clerk at the desk as she handed over her chit.
‘Sign here.’ The brisk, bespectacled operations officer shoved a form at Mary without looking up. ‘And here. And here.’ He jabbed with the blunt end of his pencil at the necessary boxes.
‘Now, it’s time for a cuppa.’ Archie held the door open for her and they left the office together. ‘I say, Mary; no offence, but what’s a nice girl like you …?’
‘Doing behind the controls of the latest Spitfire?’ Mary gave a good-natured laugh. She felt wonderful – the best she’d ever felt in her whole life – and for once, she decided not to let any man’s opinion bother her. ‘No offence taken. I just follow orders, that’s all.’
‘Tea!’ Archie said again. He was curly-haired and bright-eyed; one of life’s breezy optimists. ‘When I say “nice”, I mean not stuck-up like some Atta girls I come across. You look a million dollars in that uniform, but I could tell the minute you opened your mouth that you were one of us.’
‘I am,’ Mary agreed as she followed Archie into the canteen. ‘An ex-mill girl and proud of it. I’ll have two big sugars in that tea, please.’
After Cameron had finished his meeting in Lancaster with a set of high-ups in the RAF, he made his way to the base where Mary had landed her Spitfire. A thought crossed his mind that Douglas’s allocation of the latest model might have been a touch too ambitious for a first flight but he dismissed the doubt by recalling Mary’s excellent record at Thame. I’m damn sure she made it through without a hitch, he told himself as he drove up to the sentries at the gate and announced the reason for his visit. The sentry checked Cameron’s documents then signalled him through.
It was a large base for RAF squadrons that carried out operations over the Irish Sea and the Atlantic, so there was all manner of aircraft lined up beside the runways – a dozen twin-engine medium bombers alongside the bigger Lancasters and Stirlings. The smaller Hurricanes, Corsairs and Spitfires were gathered beside a second runway. It was an altogether magnificent sight. Cameron felt his chest swell with patriotic pride as he pulled up beside the control tower. How long would it be before his stint of duty at Rixley ended? Not long, he hoped. Like all pilots in the RAF, he badly wanted to get back to active service and engage with the enemy, or at least be in charge of training new recruits rather than filling in endless forms and carrying out disciplinary procedures for the ATA.
Stepping out of the car, Cameron straightened his jacket and adjusted his cap before knocking on an office door. As he entered he was pleasantly surprised to see an old acquaintance manning the desk. ‘Well, if it isn’t Laurence Craddock! How are you, Laurie, old chap?’
‘Bloody hell, Cameron Ainslie!’ As Laurence took off his glasses and stood up to shake Cameron’s hand, it was obvious that his left arm hung uselessly at his side. ‘Not too bad, except for this.’ He poked the arm with his forefinger.
‘What happened?’ Cameron and Laurence had been in the same squadron at the start of the war and Cameron had always looked up to ace-pilot Craddock, who had chalked up eight kills and innumerable direct hits.
‘I came off worst in a spat off the Italian coast. The docs told me I was lucky to keep the arm. They awarded me a DFC then kicked me off operations for good, worse luck.’
‘I sympathize; I’m itching to get back in the air myself.’ Cameron spent a few minutes with his old flying pal, exchanging stories and recalling better days. Then he explained the reason for his visit. ‘I’m here to pick up one of our pilots.’
‘The girl who landed the Spit?’ Laurence had in fact paid more attention to Mary than he’d let on. He’d been impressed by her smooth landing and then rather taken aback by her broad Yorkshire accent when she’d handed over her chit. ‘I wouldn’t have thought she was your type, Cameron old son.’
His visitor’s fair complexion turned bright red. ‘Strictly business,’ Cameron retorted. ‘I was at a disciplinary briefing at Lancaster HQ so it made sense for me to drop by and pick her up.’
‘Pull the other one,’ Laurence teased. ‘Not that I blame you. Third Officer Holland is easy on the eye, to say the least.’ He’d noted Mary’s large, wide-apart grey eyes, her trim figure set off by close-fitting trousers and bags of what he would call spirit.
Cameron’s shrug was dismissive. ‘What about you, Laurie? Did you tie the knot with the Land Army girl you used to knock about with?’
Laurence shook his head. ‘Marjorie decided I wasn’t such a good bet after all. She got herself hitched to an able-bodied bloke in the Merchant Navy instead.’
‘I’m sorry to hear that.’
‘Don’t be. I reckon I had a narrow escape.’
‘Plenty more fish, eh?’ Despite the forced bonhomie, Cameron found his old friend’s situation disheartening. ‘Anyway, I’d best be off. Any idea where I’ll find my passenger?’
‘Try the canteen – second building on the left as you go out.’
They shook hands again then Cameron followed Laurence’s directions. He found the canteen deserted except for a woman behind the counter and Mary sitting alone at a table by the door.
She glanced up from her magazine with a triumphant grin but then her habitual shyness kicked in and she quickly dropped the smile.
Cameron hesitated. He seemed to have this effect on women: their faces went from sunshine to shade as soon as they saw him – all except Angela, whom he’d known since they were kids. Mary, in particular, brought the shutters down whenever he came near. ‘Are you ready?’ he asked in his formal, precise way.
Mary jumped up and followed him outside. She saw Archie and his surly sergeant running engine checks on the Spit that she’d delivered and returned Archie’s cheery wave. Then she got into Cameron’s car, predicting a long, silent drive across the Pennines, through the Yorkshire Dales and across the Wolds to Rixley. She was surprised when, not two minutes into the journey, Cameron made a foray into everyday conversation.
‘Lucky for you the weather was perfect for your first flight.’
‘Yes,’ she answered quietly.
‘It can change quickly at this time of year.’
‘It can.’
‘The forecast for tomorrow is rain.’ Cameron persisted despite Mary’s curt replies. ‘Douglas won’t send anyone out until it clears; they say around noon. You’ll be able to have a lie-in.’
‘That’s good.’
He drove along a narrow road between well-maintained drystone walls. The massive bulk of Pendle Hill lay ahead of them, reminding him of a local legend he’d learned about in his youth. ‘According to the history books, there were witches here in the olden days; in the early sixteen hundreds.’
‘The Witches of Pendle.’ Mary knew the story. ‘The court found them guilty of witchcraft and hanged them.’
‘They were a barbaric lot back then.’ Relieved to have found a topic that interested her, Cameron went into more detail. ‘I think it had something to do with two feuding families, each accusing the other. There was a living to be made out of casting spells, apparently, and neither family liked the competition. So they say.’
‘So nothing to do with actual witchcraft?’ Mary was amused.
‘No; money was at the bottom of it. The feuding ran out of control and it ended up with the whole lot being brought before a judge. They all pleaded not guilty but it was too late. Eight were hanged.’ Cameron slowed down at a fork in the road. ‘Listen, Mary; my family used to own a country house a mile or two from here so I know this area like the back of my hand. What do you say we stop off for a drink?’
‘All right,’ she agreed without thinking. ‘Do you know a decent pub?’
‘Just up here.’ He took the narrower road that led towards the famous hill. He and Mary were making progress, it seemed. Still, it would be best to tread carefully.
‘A country house?’ she echoed. ‘Does that mean you had one in the town, too?’
‘In Liverpool. My old man made his pile in shipping insurance. That was the business to be in before the war.’
‘Two houses.’ The idea was unheard of in Mary’s world and she fell quiet as they wound their way up a twisting lane.
‘It’s not as grand as it sounds. Anyway, those days are in the past. Dad had to sell both places once the effects of the war started to bite.’ Cameron glanced sideways and saw that Mary had retreated into her shell. Luckily the Red Lion lay at the top of the hill, in the small village of Ketley. He pulled up outside the door then waited for her to get out. ‘I’ll be back in a jiffy,’ he told her as he drove into the yard beside the pub. Tread carefully, he repeated to himself. Find out what makes her tick. For Cameron was more and more fascinated by Mary’s apparent contradictions; by her mixture of fierce ambition and trembling insecurity and by the vulnerability he detected beneath the sometimes hostile exterior. Maybe I’ve got it wrong, he thought as he parked the car. Perhaps I’m just not her type. Anyhow, let’s find out.
There was quite a view for Mary to take in as she stood by the door of the Red Lion, with Pendle looming behind and a long, open sweep of farmland below. The pub itself was an old building with narrow, mullioned windows, a shallow porch and an oak door. The sign above the porch showed a lion standing on its hind legs, wearing a crown.
‘Let’s hope Beryl has lit the fire,’ Cameron said when he returned and held the door open for her to enter. ‘It’s turning chilly.’
‘Beryl?’ Mary queried.
‘She’s been the landlady here for as long as I can remember.’ Sure enough, a log fire greeted them. It belched smoke across the empty room as the draught from the open door reached the flames. The smoke caught in the back of Mary’s throat and made her cough as Cameron chose a table near the window.
Once Cameron had taken off his cap, the elderly woman behind the bar recognized him and bustled across. ‘Look who it isn’t!’ she declared, wiping her hands on her apron before embracing him. ‘You’re a sight for sore eyes.’
Cameron extricated himself from the hug. ‘Beryl, how are you? You’re looking in the pink, as ever.’
‘Not too bad,’ she conceded, her grey eyes sparkling. She was a round woman with a huge bosom and apple cheeks whose movements were surprisingly light and sprightly. ‘And how are Mr and Mrs Ainslie? Both well, I hope. Did you know that the people who bought your old house lost two sons in quick succession – one in North Africa, the other in the Far East? The mother hasn’t left the house since, poor thing.’ Beryl paused for breath then eyed Mary. ‘And who is this young lady?’
‘This is Mary Holland. She’s a pilot with the ATA.’
‘Never!’ the landlady marvelled. ‘You don’t look old enough. But you and Cameron make a handsome pair, I must say.’
‘Oh, no …’ Mary began.
Cameron laughed awkwardly. ‘Hold on, Beryl; I’m afraid you’ve got the wrong end of the stick.’
‘Have I?’ Undeterred, Beryl pressed ahead. ‘I’ve got eyes in my head and they’re telling me something different. You’ve got yourself a catch in this one,’ she told Mary with theatrical confidentiality. ‘Good-looking and clever with it; a real brainbox, in case you didn’t know.’
‘Honestly and truly,’ Mary protested, her face burning, ‘Flight Lieutenant Ainslie is driving me back to base, that’s all.’
‘If you say so. Now, Cameron, will it be your usual pint of best bitter? And you, Miss Mary; what can I get you?’
‘Sorry about that,’ Cameron muttered as Mary ordered a shandy and the landlady sailed off. He fixed his glasses more firmly on to the bridge of his nose then sat down with a worried frown. ‘Beryl has a reputation for putting her foot in it, but she’s harmless enough.’
‘No need to apologize.’ Perhaps stopping for a drink hadn’t been such a good idea after all. Mary shifted uncomfortably on her chair then suddenly saw the funny side.
‘What?’ Cameron asked when he saw her smile.
The smile developed into a laugh. ‘Your face; you look as if you wish the ground would swallow you up.’
‘I’m glad you find it funny.’ He screwed his face into an even deeper frown. This was not going at all well.
Realizing that Cameron wasn’t used to being laughed at, Mary made an effort to straighten her features. ‘I’m sorry.’
Beryl was still busy behind the bar. ‘Would you rather skip the drink?’ he offered. ‘If you like, I can pay up and we’ll head straight off.’
‘No; I’m happy to stay.’
‘To celebrate your first official flight,’ he agreed. When Mary smiled, her face changed completely. The shadows fled; she looked open and relaxed. ‘Have you phoned home to share your good news?’
‘No, Dad doesn’t have a telephone in the house. And anyway he wouldn’t be that bothered.’ She spoke matter-of-factly. ‘I’ll write to my brother Tom and tell him. He’ll be pleased as Punch for me.’
‘Where’s Tom?’
‘In Tunisia, the last I heard.’
‘When was that?’
‘In June this year. He’s not a great letter writer,’ Mary added wistfully.
‘No news is good news in this day and age,’ Cameron reminded her. The rapid changes in Mary’s mood continued to intrigue him: one moment laughing, the next drifting off into dreamy sadness. ‘You have another brother, I seem to remember?’
Mary waited for the landlady to bring their drinks before replying. ‘Frank – he’s the black sheep. Don’t ask.’
‘Your mother?’
‘She died a while back.’
‘Mary, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to pry.’
Back behind the bar, Beryl stood with a satisfied smile, watching Cameron and Mary lean forward to talk as she wiped glasses and stacked them on a shelf.
‘What about you?’ Mary asked. ‘Do you have any brothers?’
‘No, I’m an only child.’
‘I’ll bet your mum spoiled you rotten.’
‘Guilty as charged.’ It was true; Cameron had formed only a hazy idea of how easy he’d had it until the lead-up to the war, when he’d joined a long queue inside a giant aircraft hangar to swear his oath of allegiance alongside hundreds of other would-be recruits. There were lads there from the back streets of Liverpool and Manchester, desperate to become wireless operators or gunners. All were rejected for not having gone beyond elementary standard in school. They trudged off, heads hanging – some swearing, some swaggering, saying they’d only applied for the sake of the uniform and free dental care. Sod the RAF, they’d said, and getting shot to smithereens for one and six a day.
It was still hard for Mary to picture Cameron’s comfortable, cushioned life before the war. ‘When did you leave home?’ she asked.
‘At eight.’ He smiled at her shocked reaction. ‘To go to prep school and then on from there to Rugby, then a year at Oxford before I volunteered.’
‘How old are you now?’
‘Twenty-three.’
‘What was it like – leaving your family?’
‘Hard,’ he admitted. ‘I wrote dozens of letters pleading to be allowed home: “Dearest Mother, I am very unhappy here. The big boys are bullies. The food is horrid and my bed is hard.” With rotten spelling and smudged with tears. I’ll never forget how lonely I felt that first term.’
‘But you got used to it?’
‘Eventually. I can’t say I actually enjoyed it, though. But then no one likes their school, do they?’
‘I did,’ Mary countered. ‘School was better than home for me. I loved arithmetic and composition. My teacher gave me books to read that took me out of myself for a while; Just William and King Solomon’s Mines were my favourites, and Black Beauty.’
There she went, off on one of her journeys to a destination where it was impossible for him to follow, so Cameron quietly drank his beer and waited for her to come back.
‘I had to leave school when I was fourteen to get a job – working in the local mill from seven in the morning until half five at night. I carried on reading, though, whenever I found time; I prefer history now – the Tudors and Stuarts.’
What seemed normal to Mary was strange to Cameron and vice versa, yet somehow learning about the differences brought them closer. He saw her in a new, brighter light that revealed the dreams underlying her words. ‘I was once engaged to be married.’ Out of the blue he told her something that few of his colleagues knew. ‘To a girl at Oxford.’
Mary tilted her head to one side and gave him a sharp look. ‘What was her name?’
‘Valerie Martin. Her mother was a suffragette fighting for votes for women and she passed on the beliefs to her daughter. That’s the reason I fell for her, I suppose. Equality between the sexes has always struck me as blindingly obvious. Valerie and I were too young, of course.’
‘Who broke it off?’ Mary had stopped noticing the nosy landlady or the sudden, heavy patter of raindrops against the window panes. Her drink stood on the table untouched.
‘She did; sensible girl. I’m no good with women in general – perhaps you’ve noticed.’
‘Why not? I mean, why are you no good?’
‘I don’t know. I suppose, like a lot of men, I find it hard to say what I feel. To me it’s worse than pulling teeth.’
Mary smiled at the image. ‘You expect us girls to know how you feel without you having to explain?’
‘Yes. Women have more intuition.’
‘In general?’ she teased.
Cameron gave a self-deprecating laugh. ‘Drink up,’ he prompted. ‘Otherwise we’ll be here all day.’
So Mary downed her shandy and let the conversation drift along on a less personal level – the success that Angela’s poster seemed to be having in recruiting more women into the ATA, the gaps in engine theory that Mary had noted in the course at Thame, the scandal of paying women pilots twenty per cent less than the men until as recently as May.
‘We’re paid the same now, thank goodness.’ Mary stood up first and reached for her cap. ‘It’s just a pity that they still won’t let women fly for your lot,’ she concluded.
‘For the RAF?’ Cameron considered this one step too far. ‘Personally I’m not for it,’ he admitted with a swift wave of farewell to Beryl as they left the pub and hurried out to the car. ‘I can’t see women being prepared to drop bombs and fire machine guns willy-nilly. It doesn’t seem natural.’
So much for equality between the sexes. Mary made a mental note. ‘But it’s all right to send us up without weapons or even a radio to our names,’ she pointed out, turning up her collar against the rain. ‘To make us sitting ducks.’
‘Touché!’ Always the gentleman, Cameron held open the door.
She had one foot inside the car and one hand on top of the door to steady herself when she paused and glanced at his face – smooth, unmarked skin, grey eyes with hazel specks, fair hair lifting straight back from his forehead.
Catching the moment, Cameron leaned forward and kissed her.
It was a brief, soft touch of lips but it changed everything.
‘I hope you don’t mind?’ he murmured as he drew back.
She shook her head and kissed him again in the deep shadow of Pendle Hill, haunt of witches and their black magic spells. Mary and Cameron cast caution to the wind that gusted down from the high ridge and kissed a third time, arms locked around waist and neck, lips wet from the rain.
Bobbie had flown Magisters many times before. They were slow, two-seater trainer aircraft: monoplanes with a fixed undercarriage and an open cockpit, lumbering old crates made out of spruce and plywood that were to be avoided if possible. Today, however, Bobbie scarcely cared what she flew.
Open to the elements, she sat at the controls hoping that it wouldn’t rain. The wind was bad enough, gusting in from the north-west and doing its best to push the Maggie off course. Her destination was the ferry pool at Whitchurch and she observed the various landmarks with a weary familiarity, only paying proper attention when the glistening waters of the Bristol Channel and her journey’s end finally came into view. ‘Thank the Lord!’ she said with a sigh as she began her descent. ‘The sooner this is over the better.’ She’d lowered her revs and was keeping an eye on the altimeter when, out of nowhere, an aircraft sporting the RAF insignia shot at high speed at right angles across her bow with a single Jerry in hot pursuit.
Suddenly Bobbie was fully alert. She recognized the two outlines at once: a DH80 Mosquito and a Focke-Wulf, one of the best piston fighters that the Germans had. She watched in horror as the Focke pilot released a hail of bullets at the Mosquito, which banked then increased height steeply before performing a rapid loop and coming back at Jerry, his own guns blazing.
The action was too close for comfort, Bobbie realized, and the Maggie was notoriously slow to respond. At this rate, she was in danger of being caught in the crossfire. So she descended more steeply and felt a sudden lurch in the pit of her stomach. Again the two fighter planes crossed her path, guns going at full blast and bullets strafing through the air as they dipped below her. To her horror, the Focke gained on the Mosquito and scored a direct hit on the RAF man’s tail fin and fuselage. Bobbie watched the Mosquito stall then struggle on in the direction of the coast while the German pilot eased off, seemingly content to observe his stricken enemy rapidly lose height. There was no choice for the RAF man: as his Mosquito plummeted in a plume of blue smoke, he was forced to eject. She prayed that he would make a clean exit and sure enough, his parachute opened – pure white against the bright blue sky – which left Bobbie and her Maggie at Jerry’s mercy.
The Focke pilot turned. He came at full speed directly towards her, reserving his fire until he was close enough for Bobbie to see the head and shoulders of the helmeted figure at the controls. He fired wide then, with split-second timing, he banked to starboard, the wing tips of the two planes almost touching.
Jerry was toying with her – and enjoying it. As he gained height, Bobbie followed her only course of action, which was to continue her descent, hoping that he wouldn’t come at her again once she flew within range of ground-defence gunners. Gripping the joystick and with the ferry pool runway now clearly visible, she fought to hold her nerve.
The gunners on the ground reacted as she’d hoped. They let rip at the Focke, holding him off as she approached the airstrip. But he made one last attempt; roaring at her from above and behind and firing furiously before overtaking her and ascending almost vertically out of reach of British fire. Bobbie heard his bullets rip through her port wing. The tip of the plywood frame splintered with a loud crack, throwing her off balance as she went in for landing. She stamped on the rudder pedals. At 300 feet she was still in control. The green landing strip blurred beneath her, and she skimmed the tree tops then landed with a thud and a strong thrust backwards in her seat, squealing to a halt.
Bobbie slumped against her harness, head spinning, unable to believe that she’d survived the attack. Ground crew came running but she stayed in the cockpit. Her fingers refused to cooperate as she fumbled with buckles and when she did release the harness, her head fell forward and hit the control panel. For a few seconds she was knocked unconscious and when she came round she felt hands helping her and saw two faces at close quarters, too blurred for her to make out.
‘Take it easy,’ a voice said as Bobbie tried to fight the men off.
‘She’s taken a knock to the head,’ someone else said as he pulled Bobbie upright. ‘Blimey, she’s light as a feather.’
‘Careful; she’s bleeding. Steady now; we’ll lift you out.’
Bobbie was too weak to push them away. She felt herself being raised from the cockpit then lowered and placed gently on the ground. The sun blinded her when she tried to open her eyes.
‘What’s your name, love?’ one of the blurred faces asked as he attempted to unzip her suit.
She tried to answer but could only groan.
‘Someone, fetch a medic.’
‘Does anyone know first aid? Don’t move her.’
‘That was a damned close shave.’
A babble of voices surrounded Bobbie. Only dimly aware that she’d managed to land her plane, she lay on the ground without moving. Blood trickled from her temple and she wondered why she couldn’t raise her head or move her hands. She groaned again and gave in. What would be would be.
Olive sat in her car at Whitchurch watching planes come and go. She’d parked by the control tower to wait for Bobbie and was busy filling in a crossword puzzle when the action started. She heard the sudden rattle of gunfire and looked up to witness a fierce dogfight between a lone Focke and a Mosquito, going at it hammer and tongs while an unarmed, yellow Magister was caught helplessly in the crossfire. At first Olive concentrated on the two fighter planes but then it occurred to her that the unlucky third pilot might, in fact, be Bobbie.
With a knot forming in her stomach, Olive opened her door and stepped out of the car for a better view. As the fighters banked and looped the loop, firing furiously, she saw the Mosquito come off worst. The pilot bailed safely, thank heavens, but that left the Maggie at Jerry’s mercy. Olive crossed her fingers, hardly daring to breathe but relieved to see the gunners in two bunkers at the edge of the airfield spring into action to drive the Focke away. The end result: one lost plane and a damaged Magister. Could the pilot bring it limping in? Olive set off at a run towards the runway where it aimed to land.
‘Take it easy,’ a mechanic said to the pilot as Olive reached the scene and saw in a moment that her fears were realized. It was indeed Bobbie who lay semi-conscious on the ground, a small figure with her sandy hair fanned out around her head.
‘She’s taken a knock to the forehead.’
‘Steady now; we’ll lift you out.’
Four men had climbed on to the wing and raised Bobbie out of the Maggie’s cockpit as Olive pushed her way through.
‘What’s your name, love?’ someone was asking the injured pilot.
‘Her name’s Bobbie Fraser,’ Olive said as she came to Bobbie’s side. First aid was called for. ‘I know first aid,’ Olive said. ‘That’s the way; try not to move her in case she’s broken something. Bobbie, it’s me – Olive. Can you hear me?’
Bobbie sucked in a long, jagged breath and tried to raise her hand while Olive took out a clean cotton handkerchief, folded it into a pad and pressed it against the gash on Bobbie’s forehead. ‘Someone, fetch water,’ she instructed. ‘Grasp my hand,’ she told Bobbie as she tested her reactions. ‘That’s good; now the other one.’
Slowly Bobbie opened her eyes. When she was able to focus she recognized Olive and gripped her hand more firmly.
‘Good. Do you think you can sit up?’
‘I’ll try,’ Bobbie breathed. Her head hurt like billy-o and she felt terribly weak.
By this time a second woman was on the scene, working with Olive to raise the patient. ‘Third Officer Betty Cooper,’ she muttered by way of introduction. ‘I qualified as a nurse before I joined the ATA.’
Together Betty and Olive sat Bobbie up. Betty quickly replaced the blood-soaked hankie with a thick pad of lint, which she secured with a sticking plaster.
‘Will it need stitches?’ Olive wondered.
‘Probably not,’ Betty replied. ‘The cut’s not deep. It’s the concussion we have to worry about.’
‘I’m all right,’ Bobbie said faintly as she made an effort to stand up but her legs failed to cooperate.
‘Says you,’ Olive remarked.
‘Here; we’ll carry her.’ Two of the men who had been first on the scene gently lifted Bobbie under instruction from Betty and carried her off the runway.
‘What time is it?’ Bobbie whispered to Olive as she slowly made sense of what was happening. ‘Are we in time to drive to Walsall?’
‘Never mind about that.’ As the panic subsided, Olive began to plan ahead. ‘Let’s get you sorted out first.’
The men took Bobbie to the first-aid station then hung around outside the door with Olive while Betty cleaned the wound and applied a dressing.
‘She was bloody lucky, excuse my French.’ One of the men offered Olive a cigarette, which she refused. ‘I thought she was going to crash into those trees.’
‘Luck had nothing to do with it; Bobbie is one of our best pilots,’ Olive argued. ‘I’m proud of her, if you must know.’
In the short time that Olive had been at Rixley she’d got a fly-on-the-wall measure of most of the female ATA pilots. She’d liked Jean from the start and just lately Mary had earned her grudging respect. But it had taken her longer to warm to Angela and Bobbie. Olive and Angela were obviously chalk and cheese – worlds apart in every way – while Bobbie had seemed wet behind the ears, with an annoying childlike quality when it came to men. Despite that, Olive had to take her hat off to both women: they were daredevils in the air and willing to face any risk to get their planes from one ferry pool to the next.
Before long, Betty and Bobbie emerged from the first-aid room. ‘No broken bones,’ Betty reported briskly. ‘Still some dizziness but no nausea, and the bleeding has stopped. I’d say she was fit to carry on.’
‘I’ll keep an eye on her,’ Olive promised. Walsall was three hours away so it would be dark before they got there.
‘Don’t do anything strenuous for the next day or two,’ Betty instructed Bobbie as she handed her over to Olive.
‘I’m fine,’ Bobbie asserted. ‘Honestly, I don’t want any fuss.’ She thanked everyone who’d rushed to her rescue then refused Olive’s help into the front passenger seat. With a backward glance at the Maggie listing to portside on the runway, she sighed then looked straight ahead.
‘Sit back and take it easy.’ Olive started the engine then eased the car towards the exit. ‘By the way, I’m sorry I was offhand with you the other morning.’
‘Were you?’ Bobbie couldn’t remember.
‘Yes, when you borrowed my clothes. I was a bit hasty: too quick to judge.’
‘Apology accepted.’ Bobbie looked down at her hands. Her head throbbed and she wasn’t fine, not really. Her chest was tight and her pulse raced. She could have died up there; been snuffed out like a candle. And what would it all have been for? For King and country, she tried to remind herself. That’s what I’m meant to think.
Only it hadn’t felt like that when she’d come face to face with the Focke pilot. Beneath his helmet and behind his goggles there was a young man more or less the same age as Bobbie, with a mother and father to mourn him if his plane went down – a boy-killer with death in his heart. It shouldn’t be this way, Bobbie thought as she rested her head against the seat. War is madness when all’s said and done.