At eight o’clock on Saturday morning, a car arrived at Fenton Royal to take Angela and Bobbie to the factory in Castle Bromwich: a journey of some six miles through wooded countryside into the outskirts of the town and the vast factory where Spitfires were manufactured.
They waved goodbye with undisguised relief to poor Miss Wilby and her crumbling mansion.
‘She can’t have two spare pennies to rub together.’ Bobbie sat back for the short drive. ‘What good are oak furniture and oil paintings when you can’t afford to keep a place heated?’
‘Unless you burn the furniture,’ Angela quipped. ‘I wonder where and when the “Royal” came into it. I mean, why Fenton Royal?’
‘And why the Queen’s Room?’ The countryside was changing quickly, giving way to neat modern bungalows and after that to acres of low factory buildings made out of steel and concrete. ‘I suppose we’ll never know.’ Bobbie had started to look ahead to the task in hand when Angela broke into her thoughts.
‘I feel so much better after our talk last night,’ she confided. ‘It’s quite remarkable.’
Bobbie smiled in response. ‘In what way, better?’
‘Lighter,’ Angela explained. ‘It was such a relief to let it all out; like going to confession. Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned.’
‘Not at all similar.’ Bobbie, who had been brought up a Catholic, found this amusing. ‘I didn’t dish out any Hail Marys, for a start. And I’m no priest – For one thing, I don’t intend to stay celibate all my life.’
‘Be that as it may …’ Angela smiled warmly back. ‘I mean it, darling. A problem shared …’ She’d lain awake long after Bobbie had fallen asleep, thinking about her engagement to Lionel. Eventually she’d been able to see beyond her doubts. Lionel certainly had his good points, besides the obvious one that his family was sufficiently respectable and well off to satisfy Angela’s father, which would have proved an obstacle had it been otherwise. No, the thing that really mattered was that Lionel was exceptionally kind and considerate. Beneath his reserve and recently acquired military manner there was gentleness and a true desire not to do harm – rare qualities in a man. He might not be the most garrulous and socially adept, but his actions were generous to a fault; witness the time when Hilary of all people had come a cropper over a gambling debt and Lionel had helped him out, no questions asked. Lying in bed with Bobbie’s regular breathing as a backdrop, Angela had convinced herself that this was the kind of fertile soil in which the seed of love might grow.
‘So you’re happy now?’ Bobbie asked as their driver took them along a straight, flat road bordered by a tall chain-link fence topped with barbed wire. Beyond the fence was an enormous factory built mainly of corrugated iron and beyond that an airfield with four concrete runways.
‘Happier.’ The qualification was important. ‘Still not head over heels, but definitely more willing to make a better go of it.’
‘Good for you.’
The car stopped for two sentries to check the girls’ documents before they were waved through the gates.
‘What a place!’ Bobbie gasped as they drove past rows of brand-new Spitfires lined up by the side of the nearest runway. ‘I can count twenty without even trying.’
‘Most impressive,’ Angela agreed. Their driver pulled up close to the Nissen hut that served as an office while Austin pickups criss-crossed the airfield, carrying engine parts and pieces of fuselage from a mountain of scrap metal in a far corner of the airfield. They took them towards the part of the factory where they reassembled aircraft out of cannibalized spare parts. Closer to where Angela and Bobbie sat, wide doors opened on to the section where the new Spits were built. Inside they caught a glimpse of engineers with clipboards and mechanics in overalls climbing up a scaffold to run final checks on a plane that was almost ready to go.
Bobbie took a deep breath to control her mounting excitement. ‘Here I come; Second Officer Fraser reporting for duty,’ she murmured to Angela.
She was first out of the car and first into the office where a manager in a brown suit with a green tie peered over the top of his glasses and gave her the usual disbelieving shake of the head. ‘Blimey; are they sending you straight from school these days?’ he said by way of greeting as Bobbie produced her documents for a second time.
Angela followed soon after. She glanced at the array of posters behind the manager’s desk: a dog-eared one for the RAF – Make the RAF Supreme – Only the Best Are Good Enough! – and beside it her own smiling image on the newly published recruitment advertisement for the ATA. It was the first time she’d seen it in glorious technicolour with all the lettering in place and she thought she looked rather good.
The factory manager did a double-take. He glanced from Angela to the smiling girl on the poster and back again. Not only were recruits getting younger, now they were sending them from the Paris catwalks as well. Wait until the blokes on the factory floor get an eyeful of these two, he thought as he double- then triple-checked Bobbie’s and Angela’s paperwork. Talk about Anything to Anywhere; that doesn’t cover the half of it!
‘If ever there was a plane for a woman to fall in love with, it’s this one.’ Angela stood on the runway, hands on hips, admiring the newest version of her favourite fighter plane. She patted her top pocket containing the precious Blue Book. ‘There are seventy different aircraft types listed in here, and not one even comes close.’
Bobbie looked down from the cockpit that she’d just climbed into. It was barely wider than her shoulders – a tight squeeze even for her – and she smiled when she remembered the looks of horror that the ground crew had exchanged when they realized that she was to take charge of their valuable war machine. ‘What are you waiting for?’ she yelled down to Angela. ‘Your chariot awaits; over there on Runway One!’
So Angela set off at a sprint across the grass, lugging her parachute and overnight bag and watched by the mechanics who had wheeled her plane out of its hangar. Instead of ignoring their loud shouts and whistles, she stopped suddenly, turned and dipped a quick curtsy. The men cheered raucously and waved their spanners and oil-stained rags in the air. She laughed back at them then ran on, reaching her Spit just as a member of the ground crew finished his checks.
‘You’ll never fly anything better than this,’ he told her, giving the blue fuselage an affectionate pat. ‘Make sure you look after her. And remember, you have no radio – you’re on your own.’
Angela tutted at him as she sprang from ground to wing and from there into the cockpit in one smooth, elegant movement. ‘This isn’t the first time I’ve done this; far from it.’
‘Even so.’ Joe Kerr, the mechanic, belonged to the old ‘hand that rocks the cradle’ school. ‘She’s faster and lighter than ever. And her controls only need the lightest touch. You hardly have to breathe on them and they move.’
‘Thank you, Sergeant.’ Angela gave Joe a disdainful stare and strapped herself in. Didn’t the dullard know that she’d beaten hundreds if not thousands of other women applicants to get on to the ATA training programme? Not that she wanted to boast about it, for that would be infra dig.
Joe and a second man in overalls waited for her to give them the thumbs-up. ‘Happy?’ he yelled up.
‘I’d be happier if I had a radio and a couple of rounds of ammunition on board, but heigh-ho!’
Angela was well aware of the official line that contact with the enemy was rare during the short hops between ferry pools. On the few occasions when ATA pilots were unlucky enough to encounter German aircraft, they would normally be flying low enough for ground defences to engage with and shoot down the marauder. So what would be the point of furnishing the aircraft with precious ammunition before the RAF boys got their hands on them? Privately, Angela blamed a clerk in the War Office for pushing through this short-sighted view. Basically, no one with any authority cared enough to have thought it through properly.
‘And I’d be happier if she put her lipstick away and stuck to flying the bloody thing,’ Joe muttered to his companion.
It was true; Angela had flipped open the lid of her gold compact and was freshening up her lipstick. Bobbie had been given the green light to be first to take off, so in fact there was plenty of time.
On the neighbouring runway, Bobbie opened the throttle and hurtled down the concrete strip, faster and faster until she saw the Spit’s cone-shaped nose tilt and felt a surge of upwards motion as she took off. She climbed rapidly, feeling the kick of extra power in the new engine. Soon she was soaring at 2,000 feet in perfect conditions: low winds, good visibility, with her compass set and the engine purring happily. A quick glance behind told her that Angela had also taken off successfully.
Bobbie sighed happily and eased back on the throttle until she saw Angela bring her Spit up alongside. They headed north-east together, exchanging broad smiles and thumbs-ups.
Oh joy! Angela mouthed.
Loop? Bobbie queried with a grin.
Angela nodded. A second later the two pilots flipped their aircraft into perfectly synchronized acrobatic back somersaults, nose over tail and turning full circle to fly smoothly on.
Angela grinned at Bobbie. Roll?
An answering nod sent them banking to starboard. But the Spits were heavier to roll than expected and it took longer so that when they emerged from the manoeuvre they found that they’d flown slap-bang into unexpected cloud.
‘Where did this weather front come from?’ Angela spoke out loud. She checked her altitude dial then signalled to Bobbie that she was about to straighten up then let down in a shallow dive to see if she could fly beneath the cloud.
Where are we? Bobbie checked her dials. They were further east than she’d expected and between the thick clouds she caught occasional glimpses of a wide estuary below: sea stretched out to starboard and a long hook of land to port. But where was Angela? Bobbie searched all around; there was no sign of her fellow pilot and conditions were rapidly deteriorating.
Meanwhile, Angela dived until her altimeter read 700 feet. There was no land visible through the mist and the Spit was buffeted this way and that by strong turbulence that quickly disorientated Angela and forced her to consider her next move. OK, so she was below safety break-off height and dare not fly lower. Visibility was practically zero. Worse still, she’d lost all contact with Bobbie. The needle of the altimeter jerked dramatically downwards. Four hundred feet and Angela still had no sight of land. ‘Ghastly pea-souper,’ she muttered angrily. ‘The blasted fog must have rolled in off the sea without warning, damn it.’
Bobbie found that visibility was no better straight ahead. To the west, the bank of cloud was also impenetrable, while to the east there was the faintest glimmer of sunlight. At 1,200 feet she decided to alter course and fly in the direction of the sun. But where was Angela? What decision had she come to?
Still zero visibility. The Spit’s engine sang sweetly as it carried Angela into the unknown. Head east, she decided. East towards the North Sea, racing on at 250 miles per hour, blinded by fog.
From concrete lookout bunkers strung out along the coast, members of the ground defence forces stared up into dense fog as they heard a sole aircraft approach from the south-west: a single-engine model, identity unknown. An instant decision must be taken. A rapid, low-level approach – possible rogue enemy on a solo bombing raid. A sergeant in a bunker on sand dunes overlooking the steel-grey sea gave the order to fire.
Machine-gun bullets strafed through the cloud cover. There was no clear sight of the target – only a shadow in the fog. The roar of the engine increased. Fire again. Keep on firing until the danger was past.
Hell and damnation! Bullets hit Angela’s Spit with enormous, ear-splitting force and the plane tipped over as metal struck metal and the Perspex canopy disintegrated over her head. The blast of cold air almost ripped her seat from its bracket. She stamped on her rudder pedals as her starboard wing tip was torn off and the plane wobbled erratically. Three pieces of shrapnel lodged themselves in her instrument panel and she recoiled in shock. If in doubt, bail out. More bullets cut into the fuselage of her perfect flying machine. The poor, precious Spit was done for, wobbling and swinging out of control, with only seconds before it spiralled downwards and crashed. Destroyed by friendly fire.
Angela released her seat harness and braced herself as she turned the plane upside down. Gravity kicked in and she fell from the shattered cockpit. She had a split second to pull her ripcord then pray that it would open in time. So Angela left the Spit to its fate and plummeted down.
Bobbie heard the gunfire. It came from ground level but she had no way of knowing if the gunner had hit his target. Damn this foggy confusion! She kept on flying east until at last she cleared the mist and looked down on a steel-grey sea. The gunfire ceased. Now all Bobbie could hear was the steady thrum of her Merlin engine.
What next? Should she resume her original course? Or should she circle the area and look for Angela? The last Bobbie had seen of her was when Angela had gone into a shallow dive, no doubt to see if she could fly below the cloud. What if that had proved impossible and Angela had drawn the attention of the ground forces who manned the lookout points all along the coast? It seemed more than likely that it had been friendly fire that Bobbie had heard. She felt her stomach tighten; despite the risk, she must try to find out.
So she eased back the revs and slowly turned her plane towards the coast, flying in low and feeling the heat of the sun on her back through the Perspex canopy. The mist rapidly thinned, allowing her to make out pale strips of beach and black, rocky headlands. There was still no sign of her fellow pilot and a glance at the gauge told Bobbie that she was short of fuel. Their earlier acrobatics had cost her dear, it seemed. Should she continue to search or ought she to head straight back to Rixley? Stay and search. With her heart pounding and with a sense of mounting foreboding, Bobbie flew on.
Angela’s parachute opened over the sea. As her Spit hit the water and broke apart like a child’s balsa-wood toy, she floated peacefully down, white silk canopy above her and the chilling prospect of an ice-cold dip below. No Mae West jacket. No rescue flare. She braced herself as the restless waves raced up to meet her. In feet first and fumbling to unbuckle her harness, she felt the parachute descend over her head. Free of the harness, she plunged underwater and kicked hard, leaving the parachute behind. Angela resurfaced to fill her lungs with air and discover that she was roughly a mile out to sea, surrounded by pieces of the Spit’s wing and fuselage. The water was bitterly cold, her flying suit waterlogged and threatening to drag her down. A mile was a heck of a way to swim in these conditions, but what choice did she have? So she tugged off her boots then struck out towards the distant shore.
Bobbie reached the coast and flew over beaches lined with concrete bunkers. The mist had almost evaporated; surely to goodness if the ground defence gunners spotted her plane they would recognize the Spit’s distinctive shape and hold their fire. The thought that Angela had fallen foul of their guns in the fog drove Bobbie on with her search. In vain she scanned the sky for a sighting of a second Spit. Then she looked out to sea. She saw a tiny fishing boat on the horizon and beneath her a headland where breaking waves threw up clouds of white spray. She glanced at two upturned rowing boats on the sand close to the headland and then again at the brown, broiling surface of the sea. That was when she spotted wreckage: a black tyre floating on the surface next to shards of blue-green metal, a propeller blade then part of a wing with the red, white and blue RAF insignia. And swimming through the waves and the debris was Angela.
A plane flew overhead. Angela looked up. The shape was unmistakeable: a Spit flying low over the water. Hit from behind by the force of a large wave as it rolled towards the shore, she swallowed sea water then raised both arms and waved frantically.
Angela! With her bird’s-eye view Bobbie saw that her friend was unlikely to make it to shore unaided. She was too far out and the offshore currents were strong. Without hesitating, Bobbie knew what she must do. Ignoring the unseen occupants of the squat concrete bunkers, she circled the nearest beach with the aim of bringing her plane down on a strip of firm sand close to the water’s edge. With her heart in her mouth, she unlocked the undercarriage and prepared to land.
Bobbie! Seeing that rescue was at hand, Angela was struck by another breaking wave. Blinded by salt water, she was pushed towards the headland then sucked back out, arms flailing and helpless against the force of the waves. Still half a mile from shore, she struck out towards the beach where Bobbie’s plane had landed. Swim! she told herself with angry determination. Swim for all you’re worth!
The tyres of Bobbie’s plane hit the beach and churned up the dark brown sand. With the brakes slammed on, she fought hard to keep a straight course. The last thing she wanted was for the Spit to veer into the water to her left and leave both her and Angela at the mercy of the incoming waves. She prayed for the strength to bring the plane to a halt. Meanwhile, two soldiers had emerged from the nearest bunker and were standing on top of one of the upturned boats watching her.
I did it! Bobbie was thrown forward as the Spit stopped within a few yards of their bunker. She was out of her seat and clambering from the cockpit, yelling at the men before they had decided on their course of action. ‘I’m Second Officer Bobbie Fraser, heading for Rixley ferry pool! One of your boys has shot down my fellow ATA pilot, damn it!’
The two bemused men – a corporal and a private – scratched their heads as they jumped down from the boat and strode to meet her.
‘She’s in the drink!’ Bobbie slid down from the wing of her plane and waved frantically in the direction of the sea. ‘We need a boat – a pair of oars. What are you waiting for?’
To their credit, once the ground defence men took in what was happening they were quick to react. A glance out to sea showed them the plane’s wreckage and a closer inspection revealed the dark head of a swimmer struggling with the currents. The head vanished beneath a giant wave then appeared again once the wave had broken on the rocks. ‘Hold on!’ The corporal cupped his hands to his mouth and yelled above the roaring water. ‘We’re coming to get you.’
The private helped Bobbie to manhandle the rowing boat. Together they heaved it the right way up and began to drag it towards the water while a third soldier ran out of the bunker with oars. Within seconds, Bobbie and two of the gunners had shoved the boat into shallow water. The third man handed them the oars and with a final push the boat was launched.
Bobbie sat in the stern, clinging on while the men rowed. The power of the waves terrified her. The boat rocked and dipped, allowing only occasional glimpses of Angela, who seemed almost to have stopped swimming and was struggling to stay afloat. ‘Hang on. We’re on our way!’ Bobbie shouted. ‘Try to grab hold of something. Angela, don’t give up!’
Angela heard Bobbie’s voice but couldn’t make out the words. The effort to swim was too much. Her limbs felt like lead weights in the vicious cold. She doubted that she could hold herself up until rescue arrived.
‘Angela, can you hear me?’ Though the soldiers rowed strongly, their progress was agonizingly slow. Bobbie heard the grating of the oars in the metal rowlocks, the slap of the waves against the sides of the boat. ‘Keep your head above water. Hang on!’
Angela could scarcely move her legs. She saw Bobbie in the boat then, almost within reach to her right, a piece of wreckage from her Spit. It was a section of wing bobbing on the surface. With one final effort she lunged towards it and managed to slither on to it and lay face down, her fingers gripping its edge.
Bobbie gasped with relief. ‘Almost there,’ she muttered to the soldiers who strained every muscle to pull the oars through the turbulent water.
Angela turned her head in the direction of the boat. The piece of flotsam barely bore her weight and she feared the waves would snatch her back at any instant. Still she clung on, her eyes fixed on Bobbie and the straining backs of the two oarsmen.
They were within arm’s reach, tossed this way and that. Bobbie leaned out as far as she dared. ‘Take hold of my hand!’ she yelled.
Angela groaned and raised her arm. She felt a hand around her wrist as she slid from the wreckage.
Bobbie hung on desperately. If she let go, Angela would drown. But Bobbie wasn’t strong enough to haul her out of the water single-handed, so the corporal edged towards the stern to help her. As he leaned over the port side, the boat tipped dangerously and sea water rushed in. The private threw his full weight to starboard, allowing Bobbie and her helper to heave Angela into the boat.
She collapsed backwards against the side, lips blue and eyelids fluttering. The soldier who had helped Bobbie to pull Angela to safety swiftly took off his jacket and placed it over her then took up his oar again. Bobbie held Angela’s hand as the men turned the boat and rowed for shore.
‘You’ve had enough excitement for one day.’ In the bar at Burton Grange that evening, Hilary was unusually solicitous as he led a groggy Angela to a chair by the fire. ‘There’s no need to go into lengthy explanations. Just sit down there and let me fetch you a brandy. Bobbie, you too. Put your feet up, both of you. I’ll be back in two ticks.’
Neither Bobbie nor Angela had the strength to argue. Almost twelve hours had passed since Bobbie had pulled Angela out of the sea, during which time Angela had been provided with a set of dry clothes by the ground defence team that had shot her down and Bobbie had telephoned Rixley to give Douglas a brief description of what had taken place. Arrangements had been made to bring the surviving Spit back to base and a doctor at the hospital in Highcliff had examined Angela and declared her none the worse for wear. Hilary himself had driven over to fetch Bobbie and Angela home.
‘I reckon we owe you an apology,’ the corporal from the offending team had said sheepishly as the girls got in the car in the hospital car park. He was a tall, gangly lad with a big nose and ears, accentuated by his short-back-and-sides haircut.
Angela had nodded from the depths of his oversized khaki jacket. Her face had regained some colour and though her body still shook with cold and shock, she was starting to feel something like her old self. ‘I’ll tell you what you really ought to feel sorry about,’ she said with a twinkle. ‘I lost my powder compact when my Spit went belly-up. It fell out of my pocket into the drink. It was a twenty-first birthday present from my fiancé.’
‘We’ll buy you a new one,’ the corporal had promised as Hilary had started the car. Relief had softened all hard feelings and the near-disaster had ended with handshakes all round.
There had been reports to write when Angela and Bobbie got back to the airfield and much sympathy from Douglas and Cameron amongst others. It hadn’t been until teatime that Angela had finally been able to take off her borrowed clothes and soak in a hot bath while Bobbie had given Jean a full report of the day’s events. And it was half past eight in the evening before everyone finally congregated in the bar at the Grange.
From her fireside chair Angela fretted about the loss of her Spitfire. ‘Lord knows, the RAF can ill afford it,’ she grumbled. Her almost-black hair was swept back from her face and she was without make-up. ‘If only we hadn’t run into that fog.’
‘Yes, then none of this would have happened.’ Exhaustion had set in and Bobbie’s response was subdued. ‘I blame the person who let us set off from the factory in the first place.’
Jean happened to be sitting nearby with Douglas and Cameron. ‘It was the usual story – the met people didn’t cotton on until it was too late,’ she informed Bobbie, looking to Douglas for corroboration.
‘That’s right,’ he confirmed in his low, comfortable voice. ‘The predicted weather front now wasn’t due to blow in until evening. Luckily no other flights on the schedule were affected.’
‘I got down to Kent and back without any problems.’ Jean’s day had been long but uneventful. She’d flown the Corsair into Rixley at four o’clock, when the base was already abuzz with Angela’s catastrophe and Bobbie’s audacious rescue. Pilots and ground crew alike could talk about little else – ‘friendly fire’, ‘a brand-new Spit up in smoke’, ‘a nearby rowing boat, thank goodness’. As Hilary returned with a brandy apiece for Bobbie and Angela, Jean smiled then took up the conversation with Douglas and Cameron where they’d left off. ‘It’s high time Thame taught us blind flying,’ she insisted. ‘Surely today shows us that if nothing else.’
‘It would certainly put an end to the dangers of low flying.’ Cameron sided with Jean. ‘If pilots were taught how to read instruments properly, they could fly as high as they liked to avoid fog. As it is, you always have to be within sight of familiar landmarks, et cetera.’
Douglas shook his head. ‘Realistically, it’s not going to happen,’ he pointed out.
‘Even if it meant Angela could have got herself out of trouble and delivered her very costly Spit in one piece?’ Exasperated by the short-sighted policy, Jean gave a loud sigh.
‘Talking of Thame, how’s Mary Holland getting on?’ Douglas asked Cameron. ‘Is she expected to pass her conversion course at her first attempt?’
Cameron knocked back the last of his pint. ‘Yes, from what I hear, she’s set fair. Now if you’ll excuse me …’ His face was flushed as he got up and left, hands in pockets to affect a nonchalance that he didn’t feel.
‘Was it something I said?’ The oddly discourteous behaviour wasn’t typical of Cameron, but Douglas let it pass. He had something on his mind that he wanted to investigate with Jean’s help. ‘Do you happen to know when Teddy brought his motorbike to Rixley?’ he asked without preliminaries.
She frowned and smoothed out the wrinkles in her skirt. ‘A few days ago, after his last home leave. Why not ask him yourself?’
‘He’s not due back from Greenock until late tomorrow. Can you be more exact about the date?’ Since his early unease about Teddy, Douglas had begun to look at inconsistencies in Teddy’s recent logs, tiptoeing around the vexed subject without confronting it directly. The discrepancies could possibly be down to slackness on Teddy’s part, or else it might be something more deliberate.
‘I’m sorry, Douglas, I don’t know.’ Unusually, after a few seconds of awkward silence, Jean’s curiosity got the better of her. She leaned forward in her armchair and spoke quietly. ‘Is it important?’
He passed a hand through his hair and returned her question with another. ‘Could it have been Friday the first?’
‘Yes; around then.’ If something about Teddy was troubling Douglas, Jean was willing to pursue it with him. ‘It was a surprise to everyone when he roared up the drive without helmet or goggles, scarf flying in the breeze. You know Teddy: he likes to make a grand entrance.’
‘That fits with my theory,’ Douglas said even more quietly, leaning forward until their heads and knees almost touched. ‘What about petrol coupons? Has Teddy ever talked to you about how he got his hands on a book of coupons at such short notice?’
Staring at Douglas’s worried face, Jean shook her head at his odd question. ‘He wouldn’t discuss such things with me.’ Then she experienced a leap of logic that made her gasp. ‘You’ve noticed petrol going missing from the tanker at the base? It started after Teddy showed up with his motorbike?’
‘Let’s just say there are discrepancies. And that’s not all, Jean.’ In for a penny … ‘I’ve found out that our absent friend’s record at the Initial Training Wing isn’t as exemplary as he likes to make out. In fact, he only just scraped through at his second attempt – his navigation skills weren’t up to scratch, apparently.’
Slowly Jean shook her head. What was there to say, without revealing her increasing dislike of her insensitive fellow pilot?
‘He came up the hard way, through the ranks. He eventually achieved sergeant, also at his second attempt. Not that I’m against that per se. It’s just that Teddy gives a different impression.’
‘I know what you mean.’ Jean looked up to see that Bobbie and Angela were casting curious glances in their direction. She quickly sat back in her seat.
‘I met some show-offs in my time in the RAF.’ Now that Douglas had started, there was no stopping him. ‘Flying sometimes attracts brash characters – young chaps who are mad about speed, dreaming about hurtling along at four hundred miles per hour. And what did Mr Churchill call us? “The means to victory”, I think it was.’
‘I can see that the idea of glory might attract them.’ The heroics, the square-cut uniform that attracted the girls, the romantic notion that they were volunteering to join an elite few.
‘But there’s a difference between showing off and, shall we say, playing fast and loose with the truth.’ Douglas too caught sight of Bobbie’s and Angela’s amused expressions. He cleared his throat then tapped the top of his thighs. ‘This is all in the strictest confidence, of course,’ he told Jean.
She assured him it would go no further then asked him if he would like another drink. He nodded and she went to the bar to place her order: ‘A pint of Tetley’s and a port and lemon, please.’
Angela and Bobbie watched her closely. Jean Dobson was a dark horse, they agreed. She and Douglas seemed to have grown very close. Never mind the age gap; any fool could see that there was a romance in the making. And very sweet it was too.