Julie had been right when she told Alec she expected to be posted. She was given a seventy-two-hour pass at Easter, when she went to Hillside Farm and spent the time amusing Liz and Alice, riding and walking. And on Easter Sunday she went to church with Walter and Maggie, where apart from celebrating the Resurrection, they prayed for the success of the coming second front. At the end of her leave, now promoted to sergeant, she reported for duty at RAF Manston. She couldn’t have been more pleased because Florrie was still stationed there, driving RAF bigwigs all over the place.
At the gate she was told to report to Section Officer Murray, officer in charge of the WAAFs, before she did anything else. Looking for Florrie would have to wait.
‘Welcome to Manston, Sergeant Seaton,’ the OC said, as Julie stood at ease in front of her desk. ‘You have been in the service long enough to know how things are done, so there’s no need for me to repeat it.’ She paused and looked closely into Julie’s face. ‘Nor do you need telling that we are going to be very busy in the next few weeks and some of the things you will be dealing with will seem very strange indeed. You are not to speak of them to anyone, do you understand?’
‘Perfectly, ma’am.’
‘Good. Report for duty at 0800 tomorrow and good luck to you.’
Julie saluted and turned about. She had the rest of the evening to find her way about and be reunited with Florrie, always supposing her friend was on the station and not away driving somewhere. She went outside, picked up her kitbag and haversack from where she had left them and asked to be directed to her billet. She was soon unpacking her kit beside her bed.
‘Where is she? Where is my soon-to-be sister-in-law? Let me get at her.’
Julie, in the act of hanging a skirt in her locker, spun round as Florrie came through the door. ‘Florrie.’
They hugged each other. ‘It’s good to see you,’ they said together and laughed.
‘I was going to see if I could find you as soon as I’d unpacked,’ Julie said.
‘Oh, I couldn’t wait for you to find me. Let me take a look at you.’ Florrie stood back and surveyed Julie with her head on one side. ‘You look good, really good; being in love must suit you.’
Julie laughed. ‘It does. I could say the same for you.’
Florrie sat on the end of Julie’s bed to watch her finish her unpacking. ‘We’re lucky, aren’t we?’
‘Yes, me in particular.’
‘Why you in particular?’
‘You know why. I thought my past, or lack of it, would put everyone off me, but it hasn’t, has it?’
‘No, of course not. It doesn’t change who you are, the person you are now, never mind what happened in the past. Anyway, you really were bombed out, so who’s to know that the rest of your story isn’t true? It easily could be.’
‘That’s what Alec said. He said the name I go by is unimportant.’
‘There you are, then.’
The last of her kit was stowed away. ‘Are you on duty?’
‘Not ’til the morning. We’ve got a lot of catching up to do. Let’s take a stroll and I’ll show you round. We can talk as we go.’
Manston, being so close to the coast and on the flight path of bombers returning from raids, had become an emergency landing field and was equipped with one of the longest and widest runways in the country. ‘When it’s foggy, they light flares all down both sides,’ Florrie told her. ‘It dispels the fog and guides the aircraft in.’
‘Doesn’t that attract German bombers too?’
‘It did, but there aren’t many raids now. One of ours came down only last week. It had been badly shot up and burst into flames and then it exploded.’ She shuddered. ‘The crew were all killed. I saw them being taken away in ambulances. I wish I hadn’t, it made me think of Matt …’
‘Don’t dwell on it,’ Julie said quickly, putting her hand on her friend’s arm.
‘No, let’s go and look at the sea. We can’t go on the beach, but sometimes I like to stand and look at the waves. There’s something timeless about the ocean, don’t you think? It’s so vast it puts our little lives into perspective and yet it’s part of us, especially in these islands. I like to remember times before the war when Alec and I were children and we used to go on seaside holidays.’ She laughed. ‘I had a knitted costume that covered me from head to foot and drooped when it was wet. Alec had one of those striped costumes with legs in them and straps to hold the top up. He was always a bit of a daredevil and would frighten my mother by swimming out too far.’
‘He told me he likes to stretch himself to see what he’s capable of,’ Julie said. ‘Perhaps that’s why he joined the paras.’
‘Possibly.’ Florrie laughed. ‘But I think it also had something to do with the fact that you were at Ringway.’
From where they stood, the coastline went round in a wide curve. Every inlet seemed to be filled with landing craft. ‘They’re not real,’ Florrie said. ‘They’re just empty drums and canvas. I reckon they’re there to fool the Germans.’
Julie wasn’t really taking in what Florrie was saying because she was looking at the beach. A faint memory stirred, as it had once before, of a crowded beach and a boy – not a toddler, too old for him to be her own child – and he wore a striped costume just as Florrie described Alec’s. There was music too and a Punch and Judy show. When and where had that happened? She strained at it, trying to make it stay and enlarge, but instead it faded, as so many memories had faded in the past, and left her wondering if they were real memories or only products of her imagination.
‘It can’t be long now.’ Florrie broke in on her thoughts and the vision faded and all she could see was the deserted beach dotted with seaweed and the odd tussock of marram grass.
‘The invasion. What else would I be talking about?’
‘Sorry. I wasn’t really paying attention. I was remembering a beach …’
Florrie whipped round to face her. ‘Your memory’s come back?’
‘No, it’s gone again. Sometimes I get pictures, but they don’t connect up and then they go again.’
‘Oh, you poor dear. It must be dreadfully frustrating.’
‘Yes, it is. I feel as though I’m living a lie.’
‘Well, you’re not. No one could be more honest and straightforward than you.’
Honest and straightforward? Had that always been true? What was her loss of memory hiding? ‘Let’s go back,’ she said, inexplicably ill at ease.‘I don’t know about you, but I’m starving.’
They went to the canteen for something to eat and drink. Florrie introduced Julie to one or two of the airmen, but they did not join them, preferring to continue chatting, reminiscing about previous postings, talking about their plans.
‘When this war is over, Matt and I are going to look for a house in the country,’ Florrie said. ‘All mod cons and three bedrooms for the children. You and Alec could live nearby and we could see lots of each other. Do you realise our children will be cousins?’
‘Of course I do, silly.’
A home of one’s own; how many people longed for that, Julie asked herself? People who had been bombed out, people who had been evacuated, people newly married, all praying that the invasion of France would signal the beginning of the end that Churchill had spoken about. She could not remember a time when there had been no war, but she could imagine it. Peace. The sky would be full of birds and butterflies and maybe the odd leisure aircraft, not the roar of warplanes. There would be no air-raid sirens, no bombs exploding, no great guns going off, and the children – all children – would be able to play in safety. It was a long time since she had asked herself what had become of the child she had given birth to, but now she found herself wondering what had happened to it all over again.
Maybe it was triggered by Florrie talking about children, or the fact that she was going to marry Alec and they had talked of having a family; maybe it was the brief stirring of something that might have been a memory earlier in the day. Whatever it was it made her feel uneasy. ‘I’m for bed,’ she said, standing up. ‘It’s been a long day.’
The strange things Flight Officer Murray had talked about turned out to be inflatable rubber tanks, lorries, guns and gliders, which arrived deflated on the backs of lorries and were taken out to sites dotted round the countryside and inflated. Even from a short distance it was difficult to tell them from the real thing; from the air it would have been nigh on impossible. An attempt was made to camouflage them – not too well, but well enough for enemy aircraft to believe there was something to hide. Tails of gliders stuck out from under trees and the undergrowth round them trodden down and wheel marks of heavy vehicles made in the grass to make it look more realistic. The contraptions were left in situ for a few days and then moved somewhere else, giving the effect of one vast army gathering, ready to invade the Pas de Calais. What it did for those on the ground was to tell them that Calais was not going to be the real invasion site, though when and where it would be Julie had no more idea than anyone else, but she knew, without being told, that Alec would be involved in it; all that training was not for nothing.
She longed to be able to talk to him, to compare notes, to tell him he went with her prayers for his safe return and she could not wait for them to be together again and the war over. She was not such a fool as to think everything was going to be plain sailing. There would be difficult times ahead, but she would not let herself dwell on the possibility of tragedy.
Security was tight, and towards the end of May everyone, except those who had official business outside like Florrie, who had been detailed to drive truckloads of airmen from stations in the north and east to the West Country, was confined to barracks until further notice. No telephone calls were allowed, except in the line of duty, and all letters were more heavily censored than usual. Sitting outside her billet in the warm May sunshine, Julie wrote to Alec, a loving letter of hope and optimism, but a little melancholy too. ‘I miss you, darling. I miss not being able to talk to you or write to you properly. I wonder where you are and if you are as nervous as I am. Pray God, all this waiting will soon be over and we can be together again. Be sure you are in my thoughts all the time, especially when I hear aircraft overhead. Take care of yourself because I want you safely back, to feel your arms once more about me …’
She couldn’t say half of what she wanted to, but he would know what she was thinking and feeling.
Alec was at Brize Norton where his training had continued, day in, day out, without let-up. They had practised jumping with kitbags, which they carried on their legs and released on the end of a line once they were in the air with the parachute opened. At first they had jumped from a single aircraft, and then been put through their paces in a mass drop at battalion strength. It was nerve-racking and at the same time extraordinarily impressive the way the sky appeared to be full of parachutes and aircraft dropping more and more, until the sky seemed full of them. How they didn’t get tangled up with each other was a minor miracle. There were one or two incidents but little was made of them for fear of deflating morale.
From battalion strength they graduated to brigade strength and were flown in Dakotas with American crews. The Dakotas carried a stick of twenty and the exit was through a port door and not the floor, as in the Whitley. After flying out over the Channel to give them an idea of what it would be like, they turned for home. Below them the sea was packed with shipping, line upon line of it of all shapes and sizes, filling all the ports and every inlet. It was an awesome sight. They couldn’t admire it for long because they were approaching the dropping zone and the usual drill began: hook up, red light, shuffle to the door, green light, ‘Go!’
The next day they began ground exercises in which they were to seize a bridge against Home Guard opposition. They soon discovered that if they surrendered they were taken to the Home Guard headquarters and entertained with tea and biscuits and took no further part in the exercise, a ploy which did not go down at all well with those in command and they had to do it again, but this time there were dire penalties for surrendering. Knowing the real thing could only be days away, they decided to be more cooperative. All they were waiting for was the time and place, and that was as closely guarded as ever.
Alec dearly wanted to see Eve, to share his experiences with her, tell her how much he loved her and that he had every intention of coming safely back to begin their new life together and she was to start planning their wedding. But he couldn’t do any of that. The south of England was sealed off from all communication with the outside world: the local population and all evacuees had been sent away, telephone lines to call boxes cut off, postboxes sealed and the perimeter patrolled to make sure no one chanced his luck on creeping out.
Tension was building alongside the boredom of waiting, even though they were kept busy with last-minute training and checks, topped off with a night drop from Sterling aircraft. Towards the end of May they were told there would be a full rehearsal and half the battalion were sent to a tented transit camp at Broadwell while the other half stayed at Brize Norton. No one was fooled by this tale of a rehearsal; they knew it was going to be the real thing and spirits were high.
They were allowed to write one letter, which they were warned would be heavily censored for any clue about what they had been doing, where they thought they were going and any guesses about the timing. ‘“Love and kisses and hope to see you before long” is about it,’ they were told. Torn between writing to his mother and writing to Eve, Alec decided to send it to his mother but expect it to be shared with everyone in the family, including Eve. If he wrote to Eve it would be one she would not want to share and he could not leave his parents out. Consequently it was a difficult letter to write. ‘I’m fighting fit, so don’t worry about me,’ he wrote. ‘I don’t suppose there’ll be any leave for a little while but when I do come home, we’ll have a party. Tell Eve it’s to be a proper engagement party and I can’t wait to hold her in my arms again. So Mum, get making the wine, and Pa, fatten up the porker. Give my love to Florrie and Matt and keep some for yourselves. And to Eve, my continuing and everlasting devotion. See you again soon, Alec.’
It seemed a stilted and inadequate description of how he felt for her, but he was mindful that it would be read by all the family and acutely aware of the censor’s eyes scanning it. He would tell her properly to her face when he saw her again, show her too in as many different ways as he could think of. The letters were collected by their platoon officer and taken to be vetted before being sent on, and the waiting continued.
The last Monday in May was Whitsun Bank Holiday and the weather was glorious, but for those waiting for the call, confined to their various transit camps, not one they could enjoy. The officers had been briefed and had briefed their men; now they knew where they were going and what was expected of them. Alec would be one of those parachuting into Normandy on the night of 4th June, ahead of the seaborne invasion of British, American and Canadian troops. C Company’s task was to clear the landing ground of the forest of upright poles put there to deter gliders, and when that was done to join the assault on Ranville, one of the villages on the Cotentin Peninsula. The weather held right up to 3rd June, then, just when they needed it to be good, it broke with squally rain and wind, which meant a postponement and had everyone feeling despondent.
Alec, already tense, felt sick and disinclined to eat the meal prepared for them. They should have been in the air by now and here they were still on the ground and kicking their heels in frustration. The weather showed no sign of abating but they were still on full alert. He spent the time reading Eve’s last letter over again and looking at the snapshot he had brought back with him after that last leave together. She was standing under a sprig of mistletoe in the hall of the farmhouse and laughing, her head thrown back and that lovely dress she had been wearing for the New Year dance straining across her bosom. He ran his fingers over it, wishing he could be with her, but on the other hand not wishing to be anywhere but where he was at that moment.
The weather abated sufficiently for them to take off the next night, twenty-four hours later than planned, although it was still windier than those who were going in by air would have liked. Alec, in charge of his stick of twenty, led the way to the Dakota. ‘What d’you reckon it’ll get postponed again?’ Trooper Langford said, as they numbered off and climbed in to sit down on either side of the fuselage ready for take-off. Keyed up as they were it seemed to take for ever. The engines had been running as they embarked, but now one of them coughed and stopped.
‘Sorry, folks.’ This was the American pilot. ‘We’re having trouble with the engines. We’ll have to transfer to a standby aircraft.’
‘That’s all we need,’ someone said as they scrambled out of the stricken plane and marched across the tarmac to another one. Everyone else was silent, wondering if it was a bad omen and not daring to say so.
They went through the drill again and this time they did take off. After a few minutes’ tense silence while they realised they were in the air and really were on their way, someone started to sing. Everyone followed suit and the strains of ‘Onward Christian Soldiers’ competed with the noise of the engines. Below them in the Channel a huge armada was steadily making its way towards the coast of Normandy. A lot depended on the airborne troops doing their job before the troops landed.
‘French coast ahead,’ the pilot called back to them. They flew on through the flak which was spitting at them from the coastal guns, some of it rattling on the fuselage like pebbles. They hooked themselves up ready to jump and waited for the red light, but it remained stubbornly unlit. Alec unhooked himself and made his way to the cockpit. ‘It’s only supposed to be about a minute from the coast to the DZ,’ he told the pilot.
‘We’ve been blown off course. Don’t know where we are.’
‘Well, we’ve obviously overshot, so go back and try again.’
‘Not so easy, we’ll come up against the incoming aircraft and paratroopers, if we manage to find them.’
‘You mean you’re lost?’ He couldn’t keep the annoyance from his voice.
‘That’s about it. We’re going back to England.’
‘Not with us on board, you’re not. We’re jumping.’
‘Where?’
‘Here. Now. We’ll find our own way.’
‘If you say so.’ It was obvious the pilot thought he was mad.
Alec returned to his place. ‘We’ve overshot and the pilot doesn’t know exactly where we are, but I don’t reckon you want to go home, do you?’
‘Not on your life,’ was the answer from Corporal Glover, his number two, and this was echoed by everyone else. ‘We’ve come this far, we’re not going home with our tail between our legs. You tell him that from us.’
‘I already have.’ As he spoke the aircraft levelled out, the red light came on, the door was opened and they went through the drill in silence.
Green light. ‘Go!’ Alec heard the dispatcher’s voice at the same moment he flung himself out.
As he drifted down, with his kitbag dangling on its line below him, he looked about him. He was alone in the sky. He was joined by the rest of the stick and the canisters containing their weapons, which had been carried under the fuselage and were released by the dispatcher in the middle of the stick, but he knew, even before he hit the ground, that they would be well scattered, and what was more, they were some way behind enemy lines.
Harry was back in the air. Every available aircraft and aircrew were needed and he wasn’t going to be left behind if he could help it. He had had a few qualms about Pam and the babies, but they had been overcome; these were momentous times and he was determined to be part of it all. Best of all, Tim had returned and they would be flying a Mitchell, a sturdy aircraft that could take a good deal of punishment but whose twin engines were the noisiest they had ever experienced. They had spent the last few weeks bombing the northern coast of France, targeting bridges, railway yards and factories, anything to disrupt Germany’s ability to hit back at the invasion forces, and doing exercises with the army because one of their roles would be to support the ground troops. He had not known any more than anyone else where the invasion was to take place, nor its exact timing, but the area around Calais and the Normandy Peninsula featured strongly. Every time he came back safely, he sent up a little prayer of thanksgiving and at the first opportunity raced across the field to Pam and his children. His family was everything to him; they were what kept him going. He parted from them reluctantly and at the end of each raid returned to them joyfully.
Tonight was no different and yet it was very different. The tension and feeling of expectancy were palpable as they kept the usual lookout for enemy fighters.
‘Look at that,’ Tim shouted above the noise of the Mitchell’s engines, though the rest of the crew hardly needed to be told. Through a break in the clouds the Channel appeared to be thick with shipping making for Calais, but they knew, because they had been told at their briefing, that it was a diversionary tactic, the barges were not full of troops; the real invasion was well to the west. Their job was to continue the deception by bombing installations in the Calais area. They left the make-believe armada behind and flew on to their target, all grinning from ear to ear, elated that it was happening at last.
They were going back to France to avenge Dunkirk and all those who had died then and since, Harry thought, and that included those many thousands of civilians, like Julie and George, who had perished as a result of Hitler’s bombs. Now he could think of Julie with a kind of affectionate nostalgia; someone he had once known but who had faded into history. It was difficult to recall her face now, and he could hardly remember what George looked like. That did not mean they didn’t have a place in his heart, but the memories were tucked away in a corner where they no longer tormented him.
The babies often disturbed Pam’s sleep, but it wasn’t the babies that woke her that night; it was the noise of aircraft. Out of habit she sat up in bed and began counting, but soon realised how futile that was. Leaving her bed, she went to the window. The night was cloudy and blustery, but even so, she could tell the air was black with aircraft, not just those from Swanton Morley, but hundreds, no thousands of them, droning on and on. This was it, this was what they had been building up to, ever since Dunkirk. Some of those aeroplanes would never return. She stood at the window and prayed, as hard as she had ever prayed in her life, that Harry would come safely back to her.
Everyone had the wireless on the following morning and all work stopped as they listened to the news. ‘This is the news and this is John Snagge reading it,’ came over the airwaves. ‘D-Day has come. Early this morning the Allies began the assault on the north-western face of Hitler’s European fortress, Paratroopers have landed in northern France …’ Julie and Florrie had been stood down and were listening to it in the mess, along with a crowd of off-duty airmen. The headlines were followed by a short account of the landing and the tremendous organisation which had been involved to bring it about. It had gone according to plan, so they were told, although the weather had not been favourable. It had been cold and cloudy and the sea rough.
‘Well, we know that,’ Florrie said to Julie. ‘Why don’t they tell us about the airborne troops? I know Matt shouldn’t have told me, but he’s towing gliders, and there’s Alec. He’s bound to be involved. I shall be like a cat on hot bricks until I know they’re both safe.’
‘Me too,’ Julie said. ‘How long do you think it will be before we know?’
‘Dunno. Probably days, if at all.’
Julie jumped to her feet. ‘I can’t sit here doing nothing. We won’t learn anything more for ages. Let’s go for a walk.’
‘It’s going to rain again.’
‘We can wear waterproofs. Come on. We can’t do any good here.’
And so they went. It was blustery but the rain held off.
It was strange how deserted the countryside was. The day before it had been bristling with troop movements. Now they had gone. The tented camps were deserted, the sea empty of craft, the inflatable equipment gone. And there were few aircraft on the ground.
‘It’s creepy, don’t you think?’ Julie said.
‘Yes, but it’s only a lull. Not everyone has gone, they will be assembling reinforcements and you can bet your life we’ll be as busy as ever tomorrow.’
‘You mean because people will have been killed and wounded. The news didn’t say much about casualties.’
‘Well, they wouldn’t, would they? I’m going to try and ring Matt tomorrow.’
They heard the drone of an aircraft flying very low and then a Mitchell broke through the clouds, coming down very fast, one propeller idle. ‘It’s going to crash,’ Julie said and started running back towards the airfield, with Florrie behind her.
* * *
‘We can come down at Manston, Skipper,’ Harry said, turning from the radio. ‘The runway’s clear to land.’
‘Right.’ The enemy, believing the invasion was going to be at Calais, had subjected the bombers to even more flak than usual, and they had been hit in the port engine and the undercarriage, which had affected the landing gear. ‘I can’t get the wheels down, it’ll have to be a belly flop, so hold on to your hats.’
The ground seemed to come up at an incredible speed and then they were sliding down the runway, bumping and jolting, making a terrible scraping noise along the tarmac as bits of the undercarriage sheered off, and then one wing tip hit the ground, the tail came up and they were all thrown towards the cockpit as the nose buried itself into the grass beside the runway. There was a second of complete and eerie silence.
Harry extricated himself from the tangle of arms and legs. He felt battered and bruised and his ribs ached. Tim was unconscious with blood pouring from a head wound. The gunner was moaning his legs were broken, the other two were swearing, so they were not so badly hurt. ‘Out!’ he said.
They didn’t need telling; the fear of an explosion and fire was uppermost in their minds. Harry reached across Tim to try and release the canopy, but it wouldn’t budge. The bomb aimer, ignoring his injured leg, crawled across to help. By this time they could hear vehicles arriving and then someone appeared on the other side of the canopy. He had an axe in his hand. ‘Keep clear,’ he mouthed.
Harry tried to shield Tim while the others hitched themselves up the splintered floor of the aircraft. It only took seconds to get them all out but it seemed like years. They had barely got everyone clear than the remaining engine burst into flames, followed by a huge explosion. Debris flew everywhere.
Julie and Florrie came sprinting across the field just in time to see and feel the explosion. They stopped and watched in horrified dismay as the Mitchell was engulfed in flames. Only then did they see the five airmen in flying kit nearby, two standing, two sitting and one on a stretcher. They were being put into the ambulances which had raced up behind the fire engine. ‘Did they all get out?’ she asked one of the firemen who was playing a hose on the wreckage.
‘Yes, all out, though we aren’t sure the pilot will survive; he’s badly hurt. The others will be all right once they get to hospital.’
‘Thank God.’
‘Come on, Eve, we can’t do anything here,’ Florrie said, pulling on her arm.
Julie was reluctant to leave. She had heard of casualties before, of aeroplanes who didn’t return from an op, paratroopers whose parachutes hadn’t opened, of road crashes in the blackout, of people dying in air raids, but since being bombed herself she had not been this close to a disaster and she felt she ought to be doing something to help.
‘Your friend is right,’ the fireman said. ‘We’ll deal with this and the medics will look after the men. Don’t trouble yourself about them.’
‘I can’t help it,’ Julie told Florrie as they moved away. ‘I keep thinking of Alec and hoping that if he was hurt someone would help him.’
‘I know. I think the same about Matt. Let’s go back to the mess, there might be more news.’
* * *
‘Harry! Oh, thank you, God, thank you.’ It had been the longest and most miserable twenty-four hours of her life, since the station commander and the padre had come up her garden path to tell her Harry had not returned and they feared he had been shot down. ‘Of course, they could have come down somewhere miles from anywhere and unable to contact us,’ the padre said in an effort to cheer her up.
‘You mean in occupied France?’
‘Perhaps.’
‘He could have been taken prisoner?’
‘It’s possible,’ the station commander said. ‘He could have been picked up by the Resistance. We haven’t had any contact since they turned for home. It may just be his radio malfunctioning and they’ve landed somewhere in England. If that’s the case, we’ll hear soon enough.’
They had no telephone at Honeysuckle Cottage but there was one at The Papermakers, and the landlord had sent her a message that a call had been booked for her at midday. Guessing it had something to do with Harry, she had been sitting beside the instrument, fearing the worst, for the last half-hour, and to hear his voice, sounding so normal, had filled her with unbounded relief and joy. ‘Where are you?’
‘I’m in Canterbury Hospital. We had to come down early, couldn’t make it all the way home.’
‘Hospital!’ she squeaked. ‘You mean you’re hurt?’
‘A few bumps and bruises, nothing serious. I’ll come home by train just as soon as they let me out of here.’
‘Thank God! What about the others?’
‘Tim bought it.’
‘Oh Harry, I’m so sorry.’ She knew how close the two men had been and how it must be affecting Harry. He’d try not to show it, of course. That’s why he used that idiomatic phrase, prevalent among airmen.
‘Yes. He was a damned good pilot besides being a good pal – but for him we none of us might have made it. I hope he gets a posthumous medal.’
‘What about the others?’
‘One broken leg, one gashed ear and broken ribs, one dislocated shoulder, nothing too serious but they’ll be in hospital a bit longer.’
‘Shall I get Mum to look after the twins and come down?’
‘Good heavens no, I’ll be on the way home in no time. I must go, my pennies have run out. I’ll ring again when I leave here to tell you when to expect me.’
She put the receiver down and burst into tears.
‘Bad news?’ Greg was standing over her with a glass of whisky in his hand.
She took the drink and gulped it down. ‘No, he’s all right. Harry’s safe. He’s in hospital in Canterbury but coming home soon. I must go and tell Mum and Dad.’ She handed the empty glass back to him and hurried out of the pub and down to the mill house.
‘The Mitchell crew, Sergeant?’ queried the sister on duty when Julie approached her. ‘What do you want to know for? Do you know any of them?’
‘No, but I was there when the plane came down. It was awful.’ Florrie had advised her not to come, that it would only upset her, but Florrie had gone off to drive the group captain to London for a debriefing and was not around to stop her.
‘It always is. I’ve lost count of the number of casualties we get in here from Manston. It’s right on the flight path of planes coming home and many’s the one that’s come down there in an emergency.’
‘I know that, but what about the crew of that Mitchell? I’ve brought them some cigarettes and magazines. Can I give them to them?’
‘Very well. You’ll find three of them at the far end of the ward. Their injuries are not life-threatening, though I don’t think they’ll be flying again for a little while.’
‘Three? I thought there were five.’
‘The pilot died and one was well enough to be discharged; he’s only just this minute gone off to catch a train.’
‘He must have been the one who passed me coming in. I’ll go and see the others.’
‘Don’t stay too long,’ Sister called after her as she set off down the ward.
The crash must have affected him more that he realised, Harry thought, but the WAAF he had just seen was uncannily like Julie. Older, of course, and not so waif-like, smart in her uniform with her sergeant’s stripes on her sleeve. He thought she had been on the airfield when the Mitchell blew up, but in the confused state he had been in at the time, he couldn’t be sure. He had nearly stopped and spoken to her, but she had hurried past him into the hospital without sparing him a glance. The encounter left him feeling a little disturbed, as if he had seen a ghost. Oh, he knew airmen were a superstitious lot and often claimed to have been aware of an extra crew member on a flight or had seen ghosts on airfields or near the sites of crashes, but he had never counted himself one of those. And why Julie, why not Tim or one of the others from the station who had died? Mentally he shook himself and climbed into the taxi taking him to the railway station.
He had to cross London from Waterloo to Liverpool Street and, in a moment of guilt, decided to visit Highgate Cemetery. It was three and a half years since he had stood there talking to Miss Paterson. He wondered what had become of her and whether she had managed to keep the grave tidy. He bought a bunch of lilies at an exorbitant price from a flower seller at the station and took the Underground to Highgate.
The cemetery was a haven of quiet and he strolled among the gravestones and statuary, letting the peace of it wash over him. After the turbulence of the last few days and the death of his pilot, it helped him to unwind. The grave was just as he had remembered it. The garden gnome remained stood at its head, still smiling, although the broken arm had weathered, the rawness of the stump changed from white to dirty grey. It was a casualty of the war, just as Julie and George had been, just as Tim Harrison had been, just as the thousands who had died on the beaches of Normandy were. He removed his cap and, kneeling, took the faded flowers out of the vase and replaced them with the lilies he had bought and picked up the gnome and cradled it in his hands, saying a prayer for all those who had suffered and continued to suffer, for Tim and others who had died, brave men and good pals whose like he would never see again. Giving thanks for his own deliverance, he carefully replaced the gnome to stand sentinel over the grave. Then he stood up and spent a moment in quiet contemplation, remembering the girl Julie had been. He recalled that first meeting on the beach with wry amusement, and the woman she had become, so innocently naive, so loving, so anxious to please him. What would their life together have been like if she had lived, he wondered? How would they have changed, because everyone changed as they matured? Would they have continued to love each other through the years into old age? There was no sense in torturing himself with unanswerable questions; his future was with Pam and his children and in a few hours, God willing, he would be with them again.
‘Ted Austen, as I live and breathe, can it be you?’
Ted swivelled round to face his sister whom he had not set eyes on since, as a twelve-year-old, he had run away from home. ‘Josie, I’d never have recognised you.’
‘I’m not surprised. How old was I when you left? Eight or nine. Why didn’t you come home? Mum went out of her mind worrying about you. Didn’t you give her a thought?’
‘Yes, I did. I thought of her a lot, but I swore never to go back while the old man was alive and I meant it. How is she?’
‘She’s dead, died three months ago with your name on her lips. She kept saying if she could see you one more time, she’d die happy, but no one knew where you were.’
‘Dead?’ he repeated, shocked. ‘You mean dead and buried?’
‘Yes, that’s exactly what I mean.’
‘The bugger killed her. I knew he would.’
‘Then you should have stayed around to prevent it.’ She gave an empty laugh. ‘As it happens, he died first. Got run over by a bus in the blackout when he was drunk. I wanted to let you know, but I couldn’t find you.’
‘No, I move about a lot.’
‘Doing what?’
‘This and that,’ he said vaguely. That last batch of stolen ration books had sold like hot cakes and the nylons he bought from a certain Yank, whose ideas about trade were the same as his own, had brought in a tidy profit. He lived like a lord, dressed to kill and could afford to treat his lady friends generously, as long as they were generous to him. Otherwise he soon dumped them. He no longer worked the East End, the pickings in the west were much more lucrative; the toffee-nosed women had money to burn and he could get pretty well anything for money. His move to the north of the river had been a wise and fortuitous one.
He had been strolling past the Walkers’ home in Islington when he remembered they had moved with the factory to Letchworth and the house was shut up. It had been the work of a moment to break in and make himself comfortable. A nosy neighbour wanted to know what he was doing there and he had explained that he was looking after the house for the owners. ‘Too many looters about to leave the place unguarded,’ he had said. It was an argument he had used again when writing to Mr Walker to suggest he could keep an eye on the house for him and make sure no one got in. Mr Walker had no reason to distrust him and had readily agreed to pay him a small fee. It tickled Ted’s fancy to think he was being paid to squat in his one-time boss’s home. It was from here he ran his business. He hadn’t given a thought to the fact that it was only a few streets away from his childhood home.
‘You seem to be doing all right on it.’
‘I do OK.’
‘You could have helped Mum if you were doing so well. I helped when I could, but I never earned very much and I married young. My old man’s in the army, gone to France I shouldn’t wonder. Good riddance to him.’
‘Did Mum get a good send-off?’
‘What do you think? I did what I could and the neighbours chipped in so she didn’t have to rely on the parish. That would have broken her heart. She’s buried in Highgate in the far corner. There’s no headstone, just a wooden cross. It wouldn’t hurt you to pay your respects.’
‘Yes, I’ll do that. And I’ll order a stone.’
‘Not much good to her now she’s gone, is it?’ she said. ‘But I suppose it will look better. And then how about visiting us and making the acquaintance of your nephews and nieces?’
‘Nephews and nieces?’ he queried. ‘How many of them are there?’
‘Two of each. My name’s Porson now. You know where to find us, I’ve taken over the tenancy of the old house.’
She turned and walked away, leaving him staring after her. She was only twenty-four but she looked a lot older. Her hair was bedraggled and her shoes down at heel, and he seemed to remember his mother wearing that black straw hat with the flopping silk rose on it. He watched her out of sight and then went to the cemetery where he found the grave after a long search. Hidden away in the corner, its simple cross was carved with his mother’s name and the date, nothing more. For the first time in his life he felt remorse, but it did not last. He became angry – angry with his father for his brutality, angry with his mother for not sticking up for herself, angry with Josie for not trying harder to find him, angry with the world.
He was still angry when he spotted Harry Walker kneeling beside his wife’s grave. The bugger looked so clean and smart in his uniform, his dark auburn hair sleek and shiny, he could have kicked him. He held fire, though, because he remembered the man was handy with his fists. It wouldn’t do to go about with evidence of a beating. It made his customers wary, it made the police suspicious and it wouldn’t look good when he went home bearing gifts.
The disappearance of Rosie Summers had set him thinking and he had come to certain conclusions, impossible to prove, but if he were right, Julie Monday was not in that grave. What use he could make of that he had no idea, but he smiled to himself imagining the horror on Walker’s face when he told him. He wouldn’t believe him, of course, so there would have to be telling evidence that he knew what he was talking about. A living wife, perhaps. He walked past the kneeling figure and on down the path and out of the gate. ‘One day, Harry Walker, you’ll pay dearly for what you did to me,’ he said. ‘Just you wait.’