The moon rose so swiftly in the sky, it was as if it were trying to escape the clouds. The light, a ghostly layer, gave substance to the land below: there a church spire, there a river, there a shadow that must surely be a forest. It also left Miriam exposed, as if the moon had her alone in its beam. It was a gift and a curse, this light, though no Germans had been reported in the area.
She should be there now, but rain at Whitchurch in Bristol had held her up, and when it broke, she gambled the race against daylight because she’d heard that Frank would be at the Hawarden pool near Chester. This was a rare occasion to meet up with him at one of the ferry pools, despite the two of them criss-crossing the country thirteen days a fortnight, banking more hours than RAF pilots as ferry pilots for the Air Transport Auxiliary. This was day twelve for Miriam. Tomorrow she would take the overnight train back home, back to Edmund.
She checked her map and banked just enough to see the northern rail line below her. The night was cool, not yet cold, and she was glad for her sheepskin boots. She took a drink of tea from her flask, felt the warmth move through her, sensed exhaustion seeping in.
Edmund. He’d be listening to the Marconiphone, to news of the two hundred RAF planes that mounted an attack on Berlin while the German army placed Leningrad in a state of siege. He’d be focussed on another broadcast feature, though, that of “Potato Pete,” a new campaign by the British food ministry to urge citizens to eat lots of unrationed potatoes. It was a good move for him to switch his wartime duties. His personality was ill-suited to work as air raid warden—too much scolding. He was a natural as an agricultural officer, willing resilience and abundance in the wartime gardens and allotments. He was more himself in this role. He’d said as much to her. “I know who I am now,” he’d told her.
But what exactly did it mean to be more yourself? That’s what she wanted to ask him. What was the difference? Could he not try new things? Could he not be anyone else? This is what hours alone in the cockpit did. It made her think about her life, and Edmund’s, and the lives of others who were now part of her world. Conversations replayed, actions examined, in this way she whiled away the hours between pools. Audrey had said that to be part of the war effort people would see something of themselves that they had not previously seen. A journey into unknown territory, not just of the physical, but the psychological, emotional. This had frightened Miriam at first, especially in those first few months of war, when it was more of just waiting. How much could she take when it came? The question worked over like a worn pebble in her hand. It frightened her more when she saw Audrey retreat in those early months, barely leaving her caravan. Every day in the river, and most days not a soul to talk to. Miriam checked on her as best she could, but days would go by and when she’d return it was as though time had stopped for Audrey. It was as though she were already grieving her losses before they’d even started. Then, one day in April, not long after Miriam signed up to the ATA, Audrey was at her door. “I’m ready,” she said, and it took Miriam some time to figure out that in those months she’d been shoring up her strength to face this war, as she knew from the last one what was needed.
A cloud slowly shuttered the moon, and Miriam was flying blind again, her direction held steady with aid of the gyroscope compass. The Spitfire was a dream to fly, faster at two hundred miles per hour than most of the planes she’d flown in the past year. Frank had been right in pushing her in his training sessions. The ATA test was one of will as much as skill: that day she’d climbed into the Tiger Moth, and flown to two thousand feet, turning, first one way, then another, at first gently, then in a steep bank, and finally a forced landing when the examiner cut the engine.
The map between Bristol and Chester was one she’d drawn in her head, and then on paper, and it was a route she’d flown many times. Still, flying blind with no radio required her attention, so thoughts of Edmund, of their reunion in two days, and the birthday celebration they’d planned were put aside. Soon she would be on the ground, soon she would see Frank. They would find a nearby pub, where he would tell her again what he knew of Peter’s death—shot down near the Channel Islands, the plane and body recovered. He could not bring himself to go to the funeral, he’d told her when they met a month ago, just four months after Peter’s death. There was no question of his going. She’d known of their special friendship; others would have, too.
There was no time for mourning, that, too, a lesson in war. The ATA had saved Frank’s life just as it had given shape to hers. Everything more precious now, everything made normal.
And it was normal, their life. Normal in the way that the fundamentals were still in place—the need to eat, to work, to love. But now one had little time to reflect or anticipate. It was a constant of living in present time. Everything was in the moment, just as Audrey had told her it would be.
She would see Audrey this time, an invitation to tea in the caravan arranged in their last letters. She still felt the loss of campaigning, Miriam knew. What now, this cause of hers? Back to war—she was using her skill as a driver, bussing children from one location to another to escape danger. This was something she could do, she’d told Miriam. An acknowledgement that her experience of campaigning, of fighting for the rights of women, would serve no purpose now. Their lives diminished and swelled to fit the purpose. Each of them had become more intimate, more intense in their relationships. They understood the many ways love took shape.
A lightness in her body as she began the descent, the faint light of the airfield her guide as she reduced air speed and watched the numbers decrease on the altimeter.
Upon landing she took the delivery chit to the operations room with nothing to report. No one had been killed. No aircraft had been damaged. There had been no sightings of the enemy even though the entire route had been within range of the Luftwaffe, and bombing raids were still routine a year after the Battle of Britain. She removed her leather helmet and goggles, undid the top button of her Sidcot suit, and looked around to the group of men gathered in the room.
“Frank, there you are,” she called out to him.