I returned to Fiskersay ten days later. I’d tried to make the most of my leave, but I’d been dogged by a persistent gloom I couldn’t quite shake off, which deepened when I ran into a guy from my Heavy Conversion Unit training days and found out that what had remained of my old crew – Amir, Jonny, Jack and Kenneth – were all missing, presumed killed, after the Halifax they were flying had been hit and ditched in the North Sea on the way home from a raid two months ago. We’d always known that every time we went out, there was a high possibility we wouldn’t make it back, but that didn’t stop the wrenching stab of grief as he told me the news. I was sick of the war; sick of air raids; sick of blackouts and bombs and death. Yet it felt impossible, right now, to imagine things any other way. London had been crowded with American GIs, adding fuel to the rumours that, at some point soon, it wouldn’t just be Bomber Command going over to Europe to try and beat the enemy back but troops on the ground, too. But when?
When I stepped off the boat onto the quay at Talafirth, weary after almost two days of travelling and waiting around, it was drizzling, the tops of the towers on the Haug’s summit wreathed in mist. But despite the lowering skies and what had happened down in London, I felt a sense of peace returning. What was Hedda doing right now? I wondered idly. I’d been thinking about her a lot since I’d left Rose’s flat for the last time.
‘Bill!’ Len Kane was leaning out of the driver’s window of a station truck at the far end of the quay, waving at me. I went over, clambering gratefully into the cab.
‘So, you see your girl?’ Len said cheerfully as we bumped along the road out of the village. I’d told him and Lewis I was going to visit Rose, but hadn’t said why. Then – had it only been a fortnight ago? How was that possible? It felt as if months had passed – I’d still been hanging on to a thread of hope that there was an innocent explanation for those photographs.
‘Broke it off,’ I said. ‘She was having a fling with her manager.’
Len whistled. ‘Jeez, that’s rough. I’m sorry.’
I gazed out of the window. ‘Don’t be. At least I found out before the wedding.’
‘Yeah, I s’pose. But her manager? That bloke who couldn’t so much as look at the sea without spewing his guts up?’
I shrugged, and Len muttered something rude I didn’t quite catch. We spent the rest of the journey in silence.
‘You coming to the NAAFI?’ Len asked as we got out of the truck.
‘I’m gonna drop my bag off first,’ I said, heaving it onto my shoulder.
‘Okey dokey.’
Hut 1 was empty, but the stove was glowing, just warm enough to chase away the damp chill in the air, and the hut’s cluttered interior, with its pictures pinned to the walls, the radio sitting on its usual table and the clothes folded over the washing lines around the beds, felt familiar and snug.
As I put my kit bag down, I saw an envelope propped up on the little cabinet beside my bed, my name and rank typed on the front. Frowning, I picked it up and used my thumbnail to open it carefully so the envelope could be passed on to the station office to be reused; they were hard to come by here.
I scanned the single sheet of paper inside and felt my stomach lurch. It was a notification of a new posting. In theory, postings at radar stations were supposed to last six months before we were moved on to somewhere else, but the reality was that at remote stations like this most men ended up in the same place for much longer, and I’d accepted that would be my lot, too. Everyone grumbled about it, but there wasn’t much we could do.
But it looked like the higher-ups had been listening to the complaints. In a week’s time, I’d be leaving Fiskersay and heading back to England, to Stenigot Chain Home station in Lincolnshire.