‘If I never have to make another paper chain in my life, it’ll be too damn soon,’ I said to Leonard Kane as I stepped back from the ladder to look at the results of our handiwork.
Len, still at the top of the ladder, pinned the last one to the ceiling and grinned down at me. ‘Looks good, though.’
The station party was tonight; practically the whole island was coming and Flight Lieutenant Jackson had insisted we go all out with the decorations. The entertainment hall was festooned, not only with those damned paper chains, but anything remotely festive we could lay our hands on. There was even a Christmas tree in the corner; God knows where that had come from. There were tables laid out for food and the low stage at the front was set up for the group of musicians coming over from Talafirth.
Len climbed down from the ladder, jumping off the last few steps to the floor with an ease that sent a stab of envy through me. I was doing my physiotherapy exercises daily, but my leg still ached all the time, especially now the weather had turned cold, and I still couldn’t raise my right arm more than ninety degrees. I didn’t even turn twenty-five until March, yet some days I felt about ninety.
Len and I put the ladder away and he came back to Hut 1 with me as he wanted to talk to Al about something. I stretched out on my bunk and started writing to Rose. In my last letter, I’d told her about Hedda and Eirik and helping to deliver baby William; she’d replied with a fat missive telling me about the concerts she’d been singing in, a party she’d been to and an air raid on London that had flattened her early childhood home – Mummy was devastated, even though we’ve not lived there for years and I can barely remember the place. Honestly, the way she’s going on you’d think she was wandering the streets of the city, homeless, rather than safely tucked away with her sister in Sussex. There were several paragraphs about the house in Surrey, too, which I hadn’t had the heart to try and put her off yet. She hadn’t even mentioned the baby or Hedda.
I’d read it with a sigh. The life Rose led felt so distant from mine here in Shetland that I could hardly connect the two. Sometimes reading about the things she got up to cheered me up, reminding me there was a world out there still, but more often, her letters left me feeling lonely in a way I couldn’t really explain.
Dear Rose, I wrote.
I hope this finds you well. I’m afraid we will have to wait a while longer before I’m able to get leave. Winter has come to Shetland with a vengeance and even the supply ship can’t get to Fiskersay at the moment, so there’s no chance of me getting back to England any time soon!
Weather aside, things have been pretty quiet here. We are getting ready for a Christmas party tonight for the locals and everyone at the station…
I stopped, tapping the end of my pen against my chin as I wondered what Rose would make of the party. It would be nothing like the ones she was used to, that was for sure. I tried to imagine her here on Fiskersay, slogging through the rain and ever-present mud in her elegant clothes and expensive shoes, and couldn’t help letting out a snort of laughter that made Len and Al glance round at me. I was pretty sure she’d hate it.
Hedda, on the other hand… As her face drifted into my mind, I felt a stab of guilt. Why was I thinking about her all of a sudden? I’d only seen her a couple more times since bumping into her outside the C.O.’s office that time: once when I was down in Talafirth, and once when I was walking past the croft where she was staying. It was a cold day, but sunny and still, and she’d happened to be outside. She’d hailed me and we’d made small talk for a few minutes, mostly about how Eirik would begin attending the local school in the new year. There seemed to be an awkwardness between us, but I couldn’t quite put my finger on why. Talking to Eirik, who’d been there too, had been much easier; he’d been keen to show me some shells he’d found on the beach near the croft, chattering away enthusiastically in a mixture of Norwegian and English, and as I’d admired his collection, I couldn’t help marvelling at the change in him. The kid I’d pulled from the hidden cabin in the boat, barely clinging to life, had become a smiling, talkative ball of energy with colour in his cheeks and a sparkle in his eyes. I was glad to see it.
I sighed, forcing my attention back to my letter to Rose, and managed to get it finished half an hour before the party was due to begin. By the time I got over to the entertainment hall, it was already filling up with locals, adults and children alike, and the band from Talafirth – three fellows with fiddles and a guitar – were setting up on the stage.
People greeted me, the women smiling, the men coming over to pat me on the back. It had been the same ever since little William Thomson was born; I couldn’t even walk past one of the crofts now without being hailed and invited in for a cup of tea, and I’d often find myself being roped in to help with odd jobs, too. After so long keeping myself to myself, it had taken me a while to get used to it, but Lewis, Len and Al, who I was now starting to think of as friends rather than just colleagues, found it highly amusing. ‘You know, Billy-boy, when you first came here I thought you were gonna be a bit of a cold fish,’ Len had said to me a few days ago, just after we’d come off duty. ‘Wasn’t even sure you’d last if I’m honest. And now look at you – you deliver one baby and you’re friends with the whole island. What a change, hey?’
I’d almost told him about the accident then – about Robert – but in the end, I’d just shrugged and laughed, and offered him one of the Sweet Caporal cigarettes that had just arrived in a much-delayed parcel from my parents. What a change, indeed.
As I wandered over to the stage, the band struck up a jaunty tune and Lewis and Len joined me. The three of us fell into pleasant conversation with old Bertie Sutherland, father of postmistress Bertha, about the fishing prospects in Talafirth harbour. Then I saw Charles Mackay, the island’s headmaster, schoolteacher and captain of the Fiskersay Home Guard all rolled into one, pushing his way through the crowd towards us.
‘Good evening, chaps,’ he said as I groaned inwardly. ‘Thought it went rather well yesterday, eh?’ His accent was Scottish, but different to the locals’; he enunciated every word carefully and clearly. All those years as a teacher, I supposed. He was referring to an exercise that had taken place at the station the previous afternoon, intended to test the evacuation procedures on the domestic site and the manning up of the defensive positions. The Home Guard, pretending to be an attacking force, had stormed the camp, cutting the fence wire to sneak in. We’d ‘won’, but by a narrower margin than Flight Lieutenant Jackson would have liked; he’d gone about for the rest of the day with a face like a thundercloud.
I prayed Mackay wouldn’t start going on about radio sets again. They were, as he’d told me yesterday, a passion of his, and after I’d foolishly let on I used to be a wireless operator, he’d gone on at me about them for almost an hour.
I gave myself a mental shake. Mackay was perfectly decent – a smart fellow in his early fifties with brown hair and a neat moustache. It wasn’t his fault I found him dull.
Suddenly, over the music, I heard a shout. ‘Mr Bill! Look!’
I saw Eirik pushing his way towards me, waving a toy Spitfire at me, with Hedda close behind. ‘Hey, bud,’ I said as he reached me. ‘What’s that you’ve got there?’
‘I am sorry,’ Hedda said, looking slightly flustered. ‘I told him you were already talking to someone but he insisted on coming to say hello.’
‘It’s fine,’ I reassured her, as Bertie said, at the same time, ‘Ach, don’t you worry about dat. We don’t mind, do we?’ and grinned at Eirik, showing two rows of large and startlingly white false teeth. Lewis, Len and Al greeted him too. Captain Mackay nodded politely and – to my relief – went off to talk to someone else.
‘Right, show me that plane,’ I said, making an effort to crouch down so I was on Eirik’s level. ‘Wow, that’s fantastic – did you make that yourself?’
He nodded and gave the Spitfire to me. I turned it over in my hand, making a show of examining it before giving it back to him. It had been carved from a piece of wood, painted green, with accurate if slightly wobbly RAF roundels on the wings, and a propellor fashioned from what looked like a piece of tin can held in place with a nail to allow it to spin.
‘Now, Eirik, you had plenty of help from Donald, didn’t you?’ Hedda said. I glanced up and saw she was smiling wryly.
‘Oh, yes, Uncle Donald made the shape out of the wood,’ Eirik said quickly. ‘He said his knife was very sharp and I might cut myself. But I did the painting and I helped attach the propellor!’
‘Well, you did a wonderful job,’ I said. ‘I’m very impressed – you can hardly tell it apart from the real thing!’
Eirik beamed at me. ‘Mamma said you used to fly planes!’
My heart gave a little jolt, remembering that conversation I’d had with Hedda a few weeks ago after she’d been asked to take up the position of Fiskersay’s nurse – the conversation where I’d almost let it slip about the accident. ‘I didn’t fly them,’ I said. ‘I wasn’t a pilot. But I flew in them, and helped the pilot work out where he needed to go.’
‘In a Spitfire?’
‘No, a Stirling. It’s a very different kind of plane – bigger and heavier, and there are more people on board.’
‘How many?’
‘Seven of us altogether.’
He frowned. ‘So why don’t you fly in aeroplanes now?’
Damn, the kid was persistent. I took in a deep breath and was wondering how to answer him when one of the musicians on stage bellowed: ‘Take your partners, ladies and gentlemen, for “Da Full Rigged Ship”!’
Relieved, I turned and saw everyone was lining up, the men opposite the women and the boys opposite the girls. I ended up standing across from Bertha Sutherland.
‘You’ll have to tell me what to do,’ I said, ‘because I have no idea.’
Bertha laughed. ‘Ach, don’t you worry, I’ll show you,’ she said.
As the band began to play, I noticed Hedda was with Charles Mackay, and Eirik opposite a dark-haired girl his own age. The tune was fast and upbeat, everyone swapping partners as they wove in and out of one another and linked arms to spin each other in circles. Bertha and the other women led expertly, and didn’t seem to mind that it took me a while to get the hang of the dance, bumping into people when I went in the wrong direction. Soon I was laughing breathlessly, the awkward end to my conversation with Eirik all but forgotten.
The song had almost finished when the air raid siren went off, its wail cutting the music off abruptly. A collective groan went around the hall, and I glanced across just in time to see Eirik’s smile fade. He ran to Hedda and huddled against her, bunching her skirt in one fist, his eyes growing wide and fearful until he looked so much like he had that day I lifted him out of the boat cabin, I felt my chest ache.
Lewis got up onto the stage and commandeered the microphone. ‘Ladies and gentlemen,’ he said calmly. ‘I’m afraid Jerry’s trying to spoil our plans for this evening. If everyone could make their way to the air raid shelter in an orderly fashion, it would be much appreciated – our men will show you the way.’
I started directing people, wondering how the hell we were going to fit all these people into the station shelter. We managed it in the end, but it was so crowded there was barely room to move. I found myself standing shoulder to shoulder with Hedda and Eirik, who was trembling as we listened to the siren continue to wail. Then I heard the unmistakable drone of engines and the crump, crump of the station’s anti-aircraft guns.
Eirik wasn’t the only one frightened by the raid. Several other children began to cry, their mothers trying to comfort them in vain.
‘Hey! Kids! Don’t worry about those planes!’ I didn’t really know what I was going to say until the words left my mouth, but it did the trick: several pairs of eyes swivelled to look at me, including Eirik’s.
‘Did Eirik tell you I used to be on a bomber crew?’ I said. ‘We flew much, much bigger planes than those. The Germans don’t have anything like that – their planes are weedy little things. You don’t need to worry about them with our boys around!’
I knew it wouldn’t fool the adults for a second – across the shelter, I saw Lewis grin at me and shake his head – but soon, I was surrounded by a small crowd of interested children as I regaled them with tales from my days as a wireless operator. Even Eirik forgot his terror, gazing up at me with a rapturous expression as I told them about the time when I was a trainee, and one of the fellows in my unit had ‘borrowed’ one of the bright yellow de Havilland DH.82 Tiger Moths we all practised in. He’d wanted to impress a girl who lived on a nearby farm but had taken a turn at too steep an angle and ended up having to ditch the plane in a river. It had been a long, wet walk back to the base for him. The kids all giggled as I described how he’d slunk into our hut to change, hoping our C.O. wouldn’t see him, and found a tadpole in one of his boots.
By the time I’d finished that particular story, the all-clear was sounding. The raid had been a short one; less than forty minutes had passed by the time we got back to the hall.
‘Did that really happen?’ Hedda said as Eirik ran off to join the other children who’d been listening to me in the shelter, the little group accepting him into their midst with that ease only kids seem to have and clamouring to see the toy Spitfire. The band had already struck up another tune, the air raid a mere annoyance to be quickly brushed aside.
I grinned and shrugged. ‘Ditching the Tiger Moth in the river? Sure. He got a hell of a roasting for it when the C.O. found out. I might have invented the tadpole, though.’
She laughed – the first time I’d seen her do that, I realised. ‘Well, it certainly helped to distract them. Thank you.’
‘Think there might be any more babies on the way tonight?’ I quipped as we made our way over to the tables where the food and drink were laid out; I’d had enough of dancing for now.
‘Oh, goodness, I hope not.’ She pretended to look around the room, studying all the women present carefully as if she was making sure, and laughed again.
‘Let me get you a drink,’ I said.
‘I would like that, thank you.’
Cups in hand, we found a quieter spot at the edge of the room where we watched people whirling around energetically to the band again, and spent the rest of the evening talking to each other about nothing in particular. Something was different, but it wasn’t until much later that night, when I was lying in my bed and almost asleep, that I realised what it was: the awkwardness between me and Hedda had completely disappeared.