Chapter Eleven

“Cheer up, Penny, you’ll find something,” Doris advised, riling Penny even more.

“But we’ve only a week to go, and I’ve not got Celia anything for Christmas! No matter where I look, I can’t find anything suitable.” Penny slumped face down on her bed and thumped her pillow in frustration. After a minute or so of beating it up, she flipped over, taking the pillow with her and hugging it to her chest.

Doris sat on the end of her friend’s bed. “Why’s it so important? I know you left her on good terms, but you weren’t close before.”

Penny threw the sorely abused pillow into the air and punched it on the way down. It went sailing over Doris’s head and was neatly caught by Mary as she came into the room. “What did this poor pillow ever do to you?” she asked.

“It was there,” Penny unwittingly paraphrased George Mallory. “And I wasn’t actually aiming at you.”

Mary gathered her friend up and hugged her. “And we both know who always loses in a pillow fight, don’t we?”

Unbeknownst to either, Doris had picked up the pillow from where Mary had hastily discarded it and promptly whacked her two friends around the backs of their heads. “The two of you!”

Penny raised an eyebrow at Mary, and the two of them darted out, and a few minutes later, both were back with pillows of their own. Lines were drawn.

Backing up until she was against Penny’s wardrobe, Doris raised her pillow. “If that’s how you want it to be, have at it, you varlets!” cried Doris.

Penny went in low, aiming for the American’s knees, and at the same time, Mary aimed for her friend’s head. “I think we’ll have to, if for no other reason than for your mangling of the English language!” Mary declared, failing to spot Doris’s pillow aiming for her left ear.

“Ouch!” Mary muttered, retreating a little.

Doris got halfway through a cry of triumph but was cut off as Penny chose her distraction to swing her pillow around and land a resounding strike upon Doris’s head, making her knees wobble. Before she could recover, Mary came back and connected with her other ear. Briefly making a recovery, Doris managed to catch Penny a glancing blow off her left shoulder before both Mary and Penny swung and connected at the same time, on the top of her head and her stomach respectively.

Staggering backward toward Penny’s bed, at the same time holding up her free hand to fend off the relentless assault from her friends, Doris fell onto the covers. “Get her!” Mary yelled and launched herself on top of the squirming American. After a moment’s hesitation, Penny joined her, and with one girl sitting on her chest and one pinning her knees, Doris was soon pleading for mercy.

“You were saying?” Mary demanded, jumping deftly off to stand beside the bed and holding out a hand to help Penny off Doris’s legs.

Doris struggled up onto her elbows and fixed her two friends with a death stare. “That was hardly the same thing. It took two of you to beat me!”

The distinct possibility of the whole thing degenerating into a full-blown argument was nipped in the bud by a burst of laughter. All three heads turned to find Betty leaning against the door frame, red in the face from holding in her laughter for nearly too long.

“Oh, why did you stop? That’s the funniest thing I’ve seen in years! Can we set up a weekly match?”

Doris looked at Penny, who looked at Mary, who shared a nod with the other two. A little too late, Betty realized the danger she was in and took to her heels, her three friends close on her heels.

****

“So what brought that on?” Betty asked, flicking a strand of loose hair back behind her ear.

Wiping a hand across her mouth, Mary put down her glass of water and stared across at Doris and Penny, who were also drinking heavily from their own glasses. She shook her head and replied, “You know, I haven’t got a clue. It just kind of happened.”

“I remember Penny throwing a cushion at my head. It hit Mary, and things progressed from there,” Doris added.

Giving up trying to put her hair right, Betty aimed an eyebrow at her younger friends. “So I was…what? Collateral damage?”

All three exchanged looks, and when none of them could think of any other excuses, Penny took it upon herself to say, “Kind of. Sorry, Betty.”

Getting up, Betty put on the kettle. She was a great believer in the healing power of a cup of English tea. “I suppose it’s one way of blowing away the cobwebs,” she told them, chuckling to herself, before noticing what the time was. “Come on, you lot,” she told them, taking the kettle off the plate and turning off the gas. “We’re going to be late unless we leave now, and I for one don’t want to try using a pillow fight as an excuse.”

Betty’s warning galvanized everyone, and in a few short minutes, everyone had put on their remaining uniform parts, pinned their hair into what could be considered a reasonable shape, and were out the door at the same moment Ruth and Walter were passing the gate.

Walter exchanged a glance with Ruth before deciding to ask, “Is it worth asking why Doris has a feather in her hair?”

Before anyone could embarrass her further, there was a loud, “Quack!”

Doris, still with the feather she’d missed sticking out of her hair, bent down to pick up her perennial aquatic companion. Straightening up, she tucked him under her free arm, and with Penny on one side and Betty and Ruth on her other, they all set off down the riverbank. Walter, even though he’d seen and been part of the same strange procession, still shook his head every time he saw it. Each morning, the self-same duck, come rain or shine, waited for the American, ever since she’d picked him up whilst in a temporary fury a few months ago. It was now a tradition, yet still one of the strangest any of the group had ever been a part of.

“A very good morning, Duck,” Doris told the fowl, beginning to stroke its back.

“You’ve named it now?” Ruth said. “Since when?”

Doris turned her face to the newspaper editor. “Why not? He’s a friendly little soul.”

Penny reached out a hand to stroke him and was immediately rewarded by it snapping its bill at her, forcing her to hastily pull her hand out of the way. “Maybe to you,” she muttered, checking she still had the same number of fingers.

“But, Duck?” Ruth prompted.

“He comes only when it suits him, so why give him a proper name?” Doris stated as they came to the bend in the path where one path led toward RAF Hamble and the other led into town.

“Makes sense,” Mary replied, whilst making a grab for Ruth’s arm. “Cats only come when they feel like it too.”

“Right.” Doris beamed back.

“You lot go on,” Mary asked, hanging on to Ruth’s arm. “I need a word.”

Once everyone had nodded and made off toward the airfield at a slower pace, to give her a chance to catch them up, Ruth sent Walter ahead and waited until everyone was out of earshot before asking, “I assume you’re wondering when Lawrence will be back?”

Mary grinned. “Am I so transparent?”

Ruth squeezed her arm and returned the smile. “Only to those who love him.”

“And?” Mary prompted. She was pressed for time, and she’d also noticed her friends had stopped a little way up to wait for her.

“He’ll be back tomorrow,” Ruth revealed, and then when Mary gave all signs of squealing, pressed a hand to her mouth. “Too early in the morning, my dear.”

Looking a little embarrassed, Mary bit down on her lip. “Sorry.”

“Apart from the obvious, is there any particular reason you need to see him?”

Mary nodded. “I haven’t told Betty about this,” she began. Before Ruth’s eyebrow could morph into a verbal protest, she raced on, “She told us last night about the message she found from her sister. I think we’re going to need the help of a policeman to track this solicitor down.”

“Solicitor?”

“Mary!”

They both looked up toward where Betty had shouted out and was waving at them.

“I think that means I’d better go,” Mary said to Ruth, waving a hand toward her friends.

“Quick explanation!” Ruth demanded, gripping her friend’s hand.

“We think it’s a clue.”

“A clue to what?” Ruth queried.

Mary shrugged her shoulder. “We don’t know. The only other line on the note hinted she wasn’t alone.”

Ruth looked over Mary’s shoulder and locked eyes with Betty, who twitched her eyes back to Mary, then back to Ruth. With a brief nod, Betty yelled out Mary’s name again.

“I think I’d better go.”

****

Penny was standing half in and half out of the flight line hut. She was fully dressed in her Sidcot suit and flying helmet, parachute in one hand and overnight bag in the other. “Do you think she’d mind?” she yelled again, striving to be heard over the whine of the Cheetah engines.

“I can’t hear you!” Thelma shouted back, even though she could.

“Come on!” Mary put in, marching up and attempting to pull her friend toward the Anson awaiting them. “Lizzie says the engines will overheat unless you put a shake on,” she shouted into her friend’s ear.

Penny snapped her head around. “I’m trying to get Thelma to let me borrow an aircraft!”

Mary took a step back and rubbed her ear. “Have a word when we get back,” she told her and pulled her friend by the hand until they were at the door of their taxi.

Penny turned and shouted, “I’ll speak with you when I get back.”

“Okay!” Thelma waved.

“That she bloody well heard,” Penny muttered to herself as she allowed Mary to shove her into the aircraft, where she hunkered down next to Doris, not to speak a single word until they got to the maintenance unit. Then she made up for lost time.

“What the hell is that?”

It was a very apt question.

Penny wasn’t alone, amongst the pilots Lizzie had dropped off, to be on her hands and knees and staring at the strange objects strapped to the underneath of the Spitfires they were due to fly north. Beneath each normally smooth fuselage was a tank-like object. She felt a tap on her shoulder as she reached out a knuckle to rap it.

“It’s called a Slipper tank,” Doris supplied as Penny looked up.

“A what?” Mary asked.

“Slipper tank,” Doris repeated and then elaborated. “It’s an extra fuel tank, gives the plane a heck of an increase in range.”

Mary frowned. “I thought we were only going to Scotland. I didn’t pack for anywhere else.” She threw a skeptical look at her overnight bag.

Doris helped Penny to her feet. “Don’t worry,” the American said. “We’re only taking them as far as RAF Woodvale. I’ve a feeling we wouldn’t want to be going with them any farther.”

Doris’s statement sobered them. Hamble was mounting a major effort today, and after watching the rest of the girls walk off toward their mounts, Penny leaned in close and almost whispered, “Convoy?”

Mary nodded. “They’re either covering a convoy, or something secret’s up, and if so, I’d rather not know what,” she ventured, then clapped both her friends on the shoulders before giving Penny a quick hug, knowing her husband’s brother had been killed on convoy duty. “Come on, the sooner we get these crates up there, the sooner we’ll be back. At least it’s the only delivery we have to make today,” she added, reaching down to pick up her kit from where it lay at her feet.

****

Mary slammed the phone down, which earned her a full-bodied stare from the RAF flight sergeant on duty in the operations room. They’d already handed their delivery chits to him, so she grabbed her things and stormed out of the room, found where Doris and Penny had ensconced themselves on the steps of the hut, and flopped down beside them.

“When’s the taxi due in?” Penny asked, leant back on her elbows with her eyes closed.

It had been an uneventful flight, albeit a long and tedious one. There had been a rain squall to navigate around just after they’d passed the Midlands, and nothing else of excitement occurred at all. Flying as a threesome, they’d taken their turn and shared the role of lead aircraft for part of the trip, which kept them all alert enough to avoid any danger of getting lost. Liverpool was quite a big city to miss, and Jane would never have let them hear the end of it if they had got lost. As they approached their destination, though, they had dropped back behind the others and followed them in to safe landings. Now they were all anxious to get home, and because of this, Mary’s news wasn’t best received.

“It’s not.”

Both girls’ heads snapped up to look at the bearer of bad news.

“You’re kidding!” Doris said, shaking her head.

“So what do we do now?” Penny wanted to know.

Mary flopped down between the two and filled them in. “Jane says she’s very sorry. Our Anson’s gone unserviceable, and the other’s busy at the other end of the country. I’m sorry, girls, but it’s going to have to be the train.”

At that moment, an American Jeep pulled up next to them and a corporal shouted over at them, “You girls for the station?”

Penny and Doris looked at their companion.

“Jane’s work. As soon as she knew what was going on, she arranged for transport to the station and for these…” She fished out of her inside pocket three train warrants and handed one each to Doris and Penny.

“Shouldn’t we change?” Mary asked, glancing down at herself. All three were still in their flying suits.

“Did the others?” Doris asked, looking around and ignoring the driver, who’d begun to lean on the Jeep’s horn. “I don’t see them anywhere. Hey, corporal,” she turned and shouted over at the driver, throwing in her best eyelash-bat to get him to lay off the horn, which worked. “Did you drop off any of our colleagues?”

“A mate of mine did, hon.”

Doris frowned and considered her options. Why did every British man, the first time they met an American girl—she could tell—go all Hollywood? Their American accent was worse even than her best English one. However, as she needed information off him, she couldn’t kill him—yet.

“Did they go in their ATA uniform, or as we are?”

The corporal, very annoyingly, leant back in his seat, and all three quite clearly saw his gaze rove over them.

Penny picked up and flicked a small stone which hit him on the forehead. “Eyes up, or risk losing the ability to ever have children,” she shouted.

He cleared his throat, rubbed his forehead, and at least pretended to be serious, though his answer didn’t leave them much time to think things over.

“Well, seeing as they all arrived a good twenty minutes before you lot, I only saw the back of them as my mate sped off to the station.” He shrugged.

Mary walked over and leant on the rear of his seat, forcing him to bend his head back to see her, “So what you’re actually saying is, you have no idea what they were wearing?”

“Um…” The corporal cleared his throat and was rewarded by Mary swatting him around the back of his head.

“If those eyes even leave the road whilst you’re driving us to the station,” she began, “it may be the last sight you ever see. Do we understand each other?”

Not certain if he had permission to speak or not, the corporal swallowed hard and nodded.

“Good boy.” Mary patted his cheek. “Now, how long until the train leaves?”

Risking a glance at his watch, he replied, “If we leave now, you might just catch the three-thirty train.”

Whether to change or not was now answered for them. All three exchanged glances before grabbing their gear. Doris, thinking it would be a good idea for their chances of making it alive to the train station for Mary to ride in the rear, hopped in the front.

“Well, what are you waiting for, boy?” she added for his benefit. “Let’s get these doggies rolling!”