[ JULY 1940 ]
“What’s the matter with you?” Linda sat behind Sharon in the Anson, their ride to the first delivery of the day.
Roger was up front, concentrating on his instruments. It appeared his frequent belching was an attempt at holding down a breakfast of greasy sausages he called bangers.
Sharon looked out her window for a glimpse of the ground. There was the hint of green treetops disappearing into a world of grey cloud. “I was hoping to fly today.”
“Today, tomorrow, next week, don’t worry — you’ll get back to Biggin Hill. I just hope. . .” Linda put her hand over her mouth.
“What? Spit it out!” Sharon glared at her friend. The Anson hit a patch of rough air. She grabbed the back of the seat in front of her. The wings flexed. The airframe groaned.
Linda looked around for a paper bag. “I hope your father isn’t a disappointment.” Her eyes rolled and she swallowed hard.
“Here.” Sharon pulled a paper bag from her coverall pocket.
Linda grabbed the bag and held it over her mouth and nose. “Don’t you ever get airsick?”
Sharon shook her head. She looked out the window. A railway line ran about five hundred feet below the aircraft. “It’s usually tension that does it to me. I think we’re getting close.”
They felt and heard Roger throttle back.
Sharon looked ahead, but couldn’t see much out of the cockpit windows because of Roger’s hulking frame, so she looked out through the side. I hope he wasn’t drunk last night. And I hope he isn’t drunk right now.
The flaps extended.
The wheels thumped down.
They passed through dense cloud and into the open. She could see the approach to the runway.
There was a bump of turbulence.
Linda threw up.
The wheels kissed the runway.
The cabin filled with the sweet-sour stink of vomit.
“Your stop, Canada!” Roger said.
When she climbed out the side door, Sharon had her gear in one hand, and Linda’s airsick bag in the other. She moved away from the wash of the propellers tugging at her coveralls. For a moment, Linda’s ashen features were framed in the rectangular window. The engines revved, and she was gone.
Sharon walked toward the dispersal hut.
A group of pilots waited near the canteen, looking at the clouds, sipping tea, and munching on white bread sandwiches.
Bully beef. Sharon’s stomach turned at the thought of what passed for meat in England. She looked at the bag in her hand. Oh, no.
“Wrong time of the month? A bun in the oven, perhaps?”
Sharon turned and saw Bloggs’ smug face as all the pilots turned to gauge her reaction.
She felt the weight of the bag.
“Morning sickness or just down a pint?” Bloggs was encouraged by the reactions to his first comments.
Sharon lifted the bag and considered throwing it in his face. She walked closer to the men. The woman in the canteen frowned from overtop of the heads of the men.
Bloggs turned to one of the other pilots. “There’s a rumour that Churchill might have to put the war on hold because female pilots are complaining about flying when they have their time of the month.”
Sharon smiled. “Here, Mr. Bloggs, this is for you.”
The young woman in the canteen hid a smile behind her hand.
Bloggs was silent. He kept his hands at his sides.
“Don’t feel like a light lunch?” Sharon lifted the bag for all to see. “Because what’s in here is better than what you’re eating right now!”
One of the pilots laughed. The others followed.
“Oi! Sharon. There’s a priority delivery!” Walter ran things at Castle Bromwich, the Spitfire factory. His round face wore a smile as he waved a chit at Sharon.
She set the bag on the table behind Bloggs, turned, and walked toward Walter.
When she was close, Walter said, “Biggin Hill.”
Her stomach lurched. She took the piece of paper.
An hour later, she was turning on finals for her approach to Biggin Hill. An airfield surrounded by trees and green fields (including one that was red) of various shapes. The clouds had lifted to two thousand feet. Still, the sun could not penetrate the overcast.
I wonder if I’ll see my father this time. She looked ahead and saw a red Very light flare as it hit the top of its arc.
Sharon checked to see if the wheels were down. “Gear down.”
She looked ahead. Another red Very light screamed up from the control tower.
The peripheral vision in her left eye caught a speck of motion. She turned her head.
A pair of Messerschmitt 109s streaked along the underbelly of the overcast sky. The green-grey Nazi single-engined fighters flew side by side. Their left wings dipped as they turned to attack her from behind.
She glanced at the overcast. Damn! Not enough time for me to climb and disappear into the cloud!
Sharon looked at the hangars below, then over her shoulder at the yellow-nosed enemy fighters.
She opened the throttle gradually. No! Don’t retract the gear. They’ll know you’ve spotted them. The altimeter read two hundred feet.
She looked in the mirror just above her head. The yellow nose and one wing of the lead Messerschmitt were visible.
Sharon looked ahead. Almost there! The timing has to be perfect. She squeezed her shoulders together and crouched lower in front of the armour plating.
She turned right, added throttle, and aimed for the gap between the grey curved roofs of a pair of Belfast hangars.
Tracer bullets appeared on her left.
There was a glimpse of upturned faces in the wide-open mouth of the first hangar door.
The Spitfire had its right wing within ten feet of the ground as Sharon hauled the control stick over, was sucked into her seat by the violence of the maneuver, and passed between the concrete walls of the hangars.
Sharon waited for the impact of German cannon shells. She passed beyond the hangars, over a stand of trees, and down, ’til she was ten feet over a pasture. A pair of startled calves darted for their mother.
Sharon lifted up over another stand of trees and turned right, following a roadway and a stone wall. Then she turned right again. A glance above told her the sky was clear. Another told her there was no one in her mirror.
She turned right and checked to make sure her wheels were down.
Ahead, a green Very light flare streaked into the sky, reached the top of its arc, and dove down.
A smudge of oily black smoke rose up beyond the hangars.
She throttled back. In moments, the main wheels kissed the runway. She taxied on two wheels until she was close to a hangar and throttled back.
The engine crackled at idle and she looked in the rear-view mirror to see if the yellow-nosed 109s were attacking.
The sky was empty.
When Sharon shut the engine down, she waited in the silence and looked at the faces of the men who came to examine her aircraft for damage. One man stood away from the Spitfire and circled. When he came to the right wing, he stopped and looked at Sharon. A frown spread lines across his forehead and created a V at the crown.
Sharon undid her harness and slid back the canopy. She opened the door and stepped out onto the wing.
“Lovely bit of flying, that,” someone said.
She looked to her right. A fitter was pointing past her at the black smoke. “Jerry tried to follow you. Isn’t that right, O’Malley?”
She stepped down onto the ground.
Sharon leaned against the wing when her knees began to shake. She looked at the balding man with a barrel chest and mechanic’s arms.
O’Malley said, “Leslie?”
“My mother’s name was Leslie. She emigrated to Canada and died last year. I came over here to meet my father.” Sharon thought, This is not how I planned for us to meet.
The V in O’Malley’s forehead deepened. His face turned red.
Sharon looked around her. The other men had turned their backs and were beginning to walk away.
“You almost got yourself killed!” O’Malley’s voice echoed off the wall of the hangar and bounced back at them. “Have you ever seen a body after a crash like that?”
Why is he yelling? “Of course I haven’t, you asshole!”
O’Malley moved in so close that his nose almost touched hers. His voice was nearly a whisper. “I may indeed be an asshole, but I’m also your father! Do you think I didn’t know about you? I’ve heard rumours of you for years. I even got a letter from your mother before she died. Now I almost get to see you killed before my eyes because you aren’t watching out for the bloody Nazis. Those bastards have become damn good at shooting down anyone who isn’t paying attention! They’re professionals, you know!”
Sharon’s voice shook. “Well, I guess that makes me better than that Nazi professional, doesn’t it?” She pointed in the direction of the crashed fighter.
“Come with me.” O’Malley grabbed her by the elbow and pulled her around behind the hangar, toward the black smoke rising from the wreck of the Messerschmitt.
“What are you doing?” Sharon asked, even though she knew exactly what he was about to do. It looked like there were fewer than a hundred yards between them and the crash site.
“We’re at war. There is a reality to war that you need to see.”
“Oi!”
O’Malley stopped and turned.
An officer approached. He was wearing aviator sunglasses and a white turtleneck sweater. “What’s so important that I had to interrupt a bloody good card game?”
There was a stink in the air. It wasn’t just gasoline. The last time I smelled that, I was at a ranch where they were branding cattle, Sharon thought.
“This young woman outfoxed that poor bastard over there,” O’Malley said.
“I’m not blind, O’Malley. The men back there say she’s your daughter! This is not the way to show her what war is like. She won’t thank you for it. Besides,” he motioned in the direction of the crash, “it smells worse than it looks by now.” The officer adjusted his sunglasses. “That was a lovely bit of flying, by the way. Used Jerry’s speed against him. Think I might try that one sometime, given the right circumstances.”
Sharon pulled her arm away from her father’s grip. “Be my guest.”
“Squadron Leader Malan, meet my daughter,” O’Malley said.
“Sharon Lacey.” She offered her hand. “I’ve already learned your ten commandments.”
Malan stared at her then took her hand. “I bet you have. Understand one thing. Those bastards won’t hesitate if they get the chance to shoot you down.” He looked at Patrick. “O’Malley?”
“Sir?”
“I’m going to take a pair of our new pilots up for some practice. Both are green as grass. Get me three Spits ready.” Malan turned and walked toward the dispersal hut.
O’Malley turned to Sharon. “Will you come and see me again?”
Sharon nodded. “Where will I find you next time I’m in the neighbourhood?”
“I’ll be here.”
“So you swore at him?” Linda chewed while holding her free hand in front of her face. In the other, she held a greasy page of newsprint and the demolished remnants of her fish and chips. “Must be some quaint Canadian custom you’ve yet to explain to me.”
Sharon began to say something; instead, she contemplated the wallpaper.
“Nothing to say?” Linda licked the fingers of her right hand. “I mean, you wait more than a year to meet someone, then get into an argument. I should have thought you would have prepared lots of other clever things to say.”
Sometimes, your British sense of humour escapes me, she thought. “There’s more to it than that, actually.”
Linda leaned back in her chair. She sat across from Sharon in the living room of her Aunt Rose’s cottage, located within walking distance of White Waltham. The same Aunt Rose who had gone to visit with her daughter’s family while her son-in-law was off at sea. “I’m waiting.”
“He was angry with me for not keeping my eyes open. The problem was my being preoccupied with what to say should I meet my father. So in a way, it was his fault I didn’t spot the Messerschmitt 109s right away.” Sharon remembered how red her father’s face had gotten when she swore at him.
“What do you mean, you didn’t spot the Messerschmitts right away?” Linda rolled the newspaper into a ball and looked for a place to toss it.
“A pair of Messerschmitts were hanging around the airfield, and they turned to get on my tail while I was landing.”
Linda leaned forward in her chair. The newspaper dropped on the floor. “What?”
“Two Messerschmitts. Both had yellow noses.” How did I remember that?
“How did you get away from them?” Linda was all ears now. There wasn’t a hint of irony in her voice.
“I flew in between a pair of hangars just as the first one opened fire.” Sharon remembered the panic, elation, and a remarkable clarity of thought that came with engaging the enemy fighters.
“And?”
“I circled around and landed.” Sharon looked out the window, where day turned to dusk.
Linda shook her head. “And Jerry just let you go on your merry way?”
“By that time, the remaining 109 had run off.”
“Remaining 109?”
“The one on my tail crashed. The wingman left after that.” Sharon remembered the smell of burning flesh. The stink of Linda’s greasy fish and chips caught at the back of her throat.
“You caused him to crash?”
“That’s right. I turned. He tried to follow and he either went into a high-speed stall or clipped one of the hangar roofs. I’m not sure which.”
“You outfoxed the Luftwaffe.”
“Well, not the entire German air force. Just one pilot.” Sharon swallowed as her mouth filled with saliva.