Churchill’s Angels (13 page)

Rose finished plaiting her long fair hair, which she had to tie up for safety at the factory, and leaned forward. ‘Will he take you up again?’ She was as thrilled as her parents at Daisy’s adventure.

‘Better.’ Daisy leaned forward on the sofa. ‘He says he’ll teach me to fly. Easier than the van, he says, and I’ve had a good look at the controls. Only thing really that I don’t have in the van is a compass because you have to know which direction you’re flying in or you’d get lost. When in doubt, look for a river, is what Adair said.’

‘Oh, you are brave.’ Rose began to speak just as ear-splitting blasts on what Fred had told them was a ‘fixed-pitch’ hooter sounded, followed by sharp blasts from police and wardens’ whistles. Flora covered her ears and seemed to shrink inside herself but the family were better prepared by now, and had become more accustomed to reacting promptly.

‘C’mon, Mum, it’ll be over in a jiff,’ whispered Rose, who had been told at the factory that hearing the hooter at the Burroughs Wellcome works meant that the enemy were dropping deadly flying bombs. These bombs were huge cylinders, which descended quickly but silently.

Rose kept her worries to herself, and quickly and quietly they got into their shelter. It now held magazines and playing cards, air-tight tins and jars filled with Flora’s scones and whatever fruit she had been able to get, on this occasion apples. Flora’s knitting was there, and the three women sat quietly and chatted while Flora tried to concentrate on the cardigan she was knitting.

‘What pretty lilac wool, Mum,’ said Rose. ‘Who’s it for? Refugees?’

‘Oh Lord, I never thought of them, poor souls. Next time, love. This one’s for Daisy. I thought as how you’ll be wearing blue all the time when you go off, you might be glad of another colour and it will look nice with your new slacks.’

‘Oh, Mum, you are lovely,’ said Daisy, and she leaned across her sister’s long legs to hug her mother. ‘But who says I’m leaving? I haven’t applied for anything and the Government doesn’t seem in any hurry to use me. But never mind that, I thought any time you had, you was going to make curtains.’

‘First things first and I haven’t got any material yet. I’ve been checking a new source but there’s a lot of work involved preparing and I’ll do the cardy first.’

The twins looked at each other and it was obvious that their thoughts were identical. ‘Mum, you haven’t found a market that sells the silk that’s used for lining coffins? That would be so awful.’

‘’Course, I haven’t.’ She looked slightly guilty. ‘It’s not actually muslin, which, by the way, my dears, would make ever such lovely undies, but it’s as good as, and it’s used …’

Two pairs of wide eyes, one pair blue, one brown, were gazing at her, forcing her to tell the truth.

‘… butcher’s wrap …’ Daisy and Rose covered their ears but they still heard, ‘… carcasses in it. It’s lovely quality but needs a lot of soaking and, girls, I wouldn’t make you new undies, unless you need them, just new curtains. Soon we’ll be grateful for anything we can get. I’m sure you’ve grown again, Rose, and a new coat will cost at least twelve pounds and heaven knows how many coupons. I’ll let down your winter coat and I’ll try to find a nice piece of contrasting material for a new hem, collar and cuffs. Fake fur would be classy, don’t you think, or a nice bit of black velvet. Black’s ever so smart with grey.’

‘I’ll be fine, Mum, and I have enough coupons saved for a new coat. Please alter that one for Daisy.’

‘She’s talking too much, too quickly, Rose,’ said Daisy when they were finally able to get off to bed. ‘Anything to avoid thinking about what’s really bothering her. What are we going to do?’

‘Not a problem for you, Daisy, if you go off with the WAAFs. I don’t blame you, not for a second. If Vickers would release me, I’d be off like a shot. They need drivers in the army, did you hear? And I know I’m a good one, and I can fix the engine too.’

‘Adair says it’s hotting up; worse than Dunkirk, he says, and that was bad. The country’ll want both of us, Rose. Me first, probably, since you’re actually churning out munitions and being really useful. I can’t leave Mum, not unless I get conscripted. She depends on me.’

‘Too much, Daisy. She’s always expected you to be there, doing the shop, delivering orders, fixing the blooming van. We’re all going to leave her; it’s the natural way of things, so join up while I’m still here.’

Daisy was quiet for a while. Was Rose right? Should she enlist and hope that Flora would cope without any of her brood? Adair and Sam thought she should. Flying. That surely was an impossible dream. Even if she joined the WAAF, women did not fly planes; they worked on them, keeping them and their male pilots in the air.

She lay down, covering herself with her quilt. ‘Rose, can you imagine anything more wonderful than being able to fly?’

Rose smiled. ‘No, I can’t,’ she said with a giggle, ‘especially if the teacher’s someone you fancy like mad.’

Daisy shot up in the bed. ‘Rose Petrie, no I don’t. Is that all you factory girls talk about all day, fellas? Me and Adair, it’s different. He sees me as a mechanic what could help with his engine, and me, I see him as a toff as owns a plane.’

And as she lay down again she felt rather ashamed of herself. She knew perfectly well that her feelings for the ‘toff’ were changing and softening.

There was no time to think of flying lessons in the next few weeks. The phoney war was well and truly over. Night after night, and even day after sunny day from late June onwards, the RAF battled it out against the German Luftwaffe in the skies above southern England. There were rumours that the enemy forces wanted to destroy as many British fighter planes as they could in as short a time as possible so as to make an armed invasion a definite plan of action.

The air-raid sirens sounded in deadly earnest almost every day or night, and Daisy had long since given up all dreams of being taught to fly. She felt as if she were the most incredibly selfish person in the whole world. Every day Adair, and men like him, challenged the enemy and risked their lives in a superhuman effort to keep Britain safe; all Daisy Petrie could think of was that he had not returned to give her a flying lesson. Surely she would forget the little she had learned. Was there nothing she could do?

She scoured the newspapers in an attempt to find a reasonably close flying school. People who were not in the air force had learned to fly, therefore there must be schools, or – horrible thought – were all flyers rich men who taught one another?

One evening she did find a small newspaper advertisement at the very bottom of a page. ‘Flying lessons, experienced trainers, three guineas per hour.’

Daisy groaned. That was a fortune, more than a whole week’s wage. Where would anyone find money like that? She could not possibly ask her father. Then another fabulous thought came: what if she were to work at the school in return for lessons? But when she looked closely at the advertisement she saw that it would take her most of a day merely to get to and from the location of the aerodrome.

‘You’ll just have to hope he comes back soon,’ she told herself, and sat down with a thump on her bed.

She laughed, remembering how she, Rose and their brothers used to play as children. They could be anything, do anything. One day they were knights in shining armour jousting with the enemy, who always lost, and next day they were cowboys galloping across the plains, always on white horses. The bad guys stood no chance against the white-hatted cowboys.

Her bed became a plane. She sat there, going through all the motions she had seen Adair perform, hearing his melodic voice in her mind; what speed had he said? If she could not have a plane, she would do the next best thing.

Her trusty old bicycle became an Aeronca, which she named
Adair
, but naturally told no one. Up and down the roads she went, imagining herself gaining speed and lifting off. She played the same game with the van, keeping the windows wide open on even the windiest, rainiest day and all the time, from switch on to switch off, she practised flying a plane. Until Adair came back, that was the best she could do.

Every time planes were heard or seen in deadly combat in the sky above Dartford, Daisy prayed that, if he were up there and surely he must be, he would be safe.

It became known that Britain had a brilliant weapon at its disposal, a priceless asset called radar. Radar constantly scanned the skies over the sea between Britain and mainland Europe for approaching planes. When planes were spotted a highly skilled ground control system sent details of the exact position of enemy aircraft to the RAF pilots.

Dartford came in for more than its share of air raids as the enemy planes passed over its streets both on their way to London and on the survivors’ way home.

On the morning after a particularly intense raid, Fred took over the shop while Daisy went to the post office to buy stamps.

‘Have a gander round, Daisy, love, see wot’s wot, afore your mum goes to her bingo. Don’t want ’er seeing anything that’ll worry ’er.’

To be out of doors felt wonderful. Daisy walked along Spital Street and onto the High Street. Her heart sang with joy when she saw that the fifteenth-century Holy Trinity Church was unscathed. Five hundred years, give or take a year or two, it had stood there. Daisy felt that she would be content to live in Dartford always. She loved its mixture of ancient and modern buildings, its unappealing built-up areas, and its wide green spaces. But she knew that she would be compelled to leave when she was called up for war work, and she would go willingly. This summer she had learned so much, not only about planes, but about herself. Would she be afraid to join the war? She hoped not, but if she was, she would do her best to hide it. The raids of the next few weeks tried everyone’s patience. ‘I’ve had it,’ moaned Daisy. ‘I’m tired of being stuck in the shop or in that airless, windowless refuge room. Almost every time I’ve been out for the past three weeks I’ve ended up diving into a shelter.’ She remembered her splendid feelings as she had contemplated leaving home to do something special and wished she could reignite them. How she wished it were all over or, even better, that it had never started. She continually asked herself, why do people fight with one another? She could not give herself an answer.

‘Me an’ all, Daisy,’ complained Rose, who was relaxing at home, for once. ‘Goodness knows, I like a lot of the folk I work with but I sometimes feel I’m spending more time in the factory than at home. I’m sure some feels the same way about me. All right to work with, but eating and sleeping with is getting just a bit much. Plus, if I don’t straighten these long legs of mine, they’ll set in a bent position. I’ll soon be the same height as our Daisy.’

That nonsense made her parents laugh and earned her an affectionate swipe from her sister, who realised that Rose’s working life was so much worse than her own. Sometimes Rose got home after hours spent in the factory shelter, with little time before she had to leave to start her next shift.

‘Come on, girls,’ coaxed Fred, who was also very tired and over-worked, ‘it can’t go on for ever. Our lads are downing those Messerschmitts like nobody’s business.’

And we’re losing Spitfires. Daisy thought it but said nothing.

‘They was over yesterday and the day before, Daisy. Bet they don’t come today. We could have a nice run on the Heath.’ Rose turned to her mother. ‘And be home before you miss us in time for tea.’

‘“And is there honey still for tea?”’ Daisy had absolutely no idea where the words had come from.

‘Honey? I don’t remember when I last saw honey. Do you remember, Fred?’

‘Nancy must have given us some, I suppose,’ said Fred doubtfully.

‘Sorry, Mum, the words just popped out; some old poem, I think.’

Flora looked at her daughters. She knew how difficult it was for them to be cooped up. Since early childhood they had cycled for miles in the countryside, played exhausting games with their brothers or just run for the sheer exuberance of it. They wanted her to agree with Rose’s suggestion but she could not. She felt her legs trembling and tried to still them so that her girls would not see how afraid she was.

‘Happen Rose’s right, Flora, love. Even Germans needs a rest, and it’s Sunday. Besides, why would anyone want to drop a bomb on Dartford Heath? No munitions dumps or engineering works wot I know of. Mind you, there’s one really big gun they might want to take out, if they know it’s there, that is. Trust me, love, it’s our factories they’re after. Go on, girls. Have a nice run.’

Flora said nothing and the twins looked at each other, hope in their eyes.

‘They’re sensible girls, love. They’ll dive in a trench or ditch first sign of a Jerry plane; won’t you, girls?’

‘Right, Dad.’

Flora could only try to smile as she watched them leave. ‘I’ll have the tea on, but no honey, Daisy Petrie.’

The twins could not hold back a swift glance at the blue summer sky. One or two puffy white clouds drifted along on the breath of a slight breeze.

‘Perfect,’ said Daisy, and then grimaced as the smell of burning reached them on that same breeze. It was not a welcome smell, like that of wood smoke from a family picnic fire. This smoke carried the stench of wanton destruction.

‘Forget what Mum says about being hoydens, Daisy. Let’s run,’ suggested Rose, and side by side the girls began to lope easily along the High Street, then on to Lowfield Street and further, to Heath Lane. Rose had longer legs but Daisy was faster over shorter distances, and they arrived together, exhilarated but exhausted, on the Heath.

‘I’d forgotten how good exercise is.’

‘You should come into Vickers and take my physical jerks class.’

Daisy smiled at her sister. ‘No, thanks, but I am enjoying myself. It’s ages since we had any fun together and I really miss Grace and Sally. Suppose that comes with growing up.’ She pointed to a grassy hillock. ‘Look, other people have had the same idea, a lovely walk in the fresh air. Oh, look, Rose. That little boy and his mum are trying to fly a kite.’

The girls wandered for a while, keeping the boy and his mother in sight, willing and able to give assistance if necessary.