The Hills and the Valley (25 page)

They all stared in awe.

‘What happened to the men?' Maureen asked.

‘One bailed out. The rear gunner we think – they haven't found him yet. They took the others away.'

‘Dead?'

‘I'm afraid so.'

A Home Guard man recognised Ralph and strolled over.

‘One less for the Luftwaffe,' he said cheerfully.

‘Yes. Any news about the one who bailed out?'

‘Not yet. He's hiding out somewhere. We'll find him, don't you worry.'

Amy shivered. ‘I don't much care for the idea of a Gerry roaming around, especially after dark.'

‘I expect he's far more scared of you than you are of him,' Ralph told her. ‘He's probably been told he'll be shot, or worse, if he's caught.'

‘So he will be if he comes anywhere near me. Not shot – but I'd certainly take my umbrella to him!'

Ralph laughed. ‘See what I mean? Come on then. Let's go home.'

They turned back towards the lane, but Barbara was still standing looking at the plane as if mesmerised.

‘Come on, Babs!' Amy called.

Barbara turned and there was a strange light in her eyes.

‘Mum – I've made up my mind,' she said. ‘I don't want to go to college. I want to join the WAAF.'

Over the next few days the arguments raged.

‘You can't join the WAAF, Barbara. You're not old enough,' Amy said.

‘I shall be next year.'

‘So why not go to college until then.'

‘Because I want to join up as soon as I'm eighteen. That would mean leaving college in the middle of term. It would be just silly.'

‘The silly thing is to waste a whole year for no good reason. You were very keen to get your qualifications and take a position with one of the companies until just recently. I don't know what's got into you.'

‘I want to join the WAAF.'

‘Well, I don't want you to. I might as well tell you that straight.'

‘Why not?'

‘Why not?' Amy raised her eyes heavenward. ‘Hundreds of reasons.'

‘Give me one.'

‘It could be dangerous. Most of the airfields are in the south-east and that's where the Germans are bombing.'

‘Huw's in the south-east. I'd be in no danger at all compared to Huw.'

‘That's different. Huw is a young man.'

‘Why should it be different?' Barbara argued. ‘The only difference I can see is that I am your daughter, and Huw is not your son.'

‘I've always treated him as my own!' Amy flared. ‘I brought you up as brother and sister and it wouldn't do you any harm to remember that.'

Barbara opened her mouth as if to say something, then thought better of it.

‘Anyway, I'm not prepared to argue with you about this,' Amy went on. ‘If you're still set on the idea this time next year then I suppose we shall have to think again. For the moment, my lady, you are going to college whether you like it or not. And that is my final word on the subject.'

Barbara hesitated outside the door of the Recruiting Office swallowing at the sudden lump of nervousness which seemed to be constricting her throat. Then she lifted her chin, pushed open the door and went inside.

A stern-faced woman in uniform was sitting at a bare table. Barbara looked at the iron grey hair, mannishly cut, and the tight uncompromising line of the lips and once again her courage almost failed her. Had there been a queue she did not think she could have stood the suspense. As it was there was no time for second thoughts for the woman glanced up at her, grey eyes snapping coldly, and indicated the chair opposite her with a quick jab of her pencil.

‘Morning.'

‘Good morning,' Barbara said, surprised.

The woman sat back in her upright chair. Behind her recruitment posters pinned to a screen made a colourful backdrop.

‘So you want to join the WAAF.'

‘Yes,' Barbara said.

‘Good. That's the spirit. The more young people who are prepared to volunteer the sooner this war will be over.'

Barbara nodded vigorously. Her sentiments exactly. What a pity her mother could not see it like that.

At the thought of Amy Barbara felt another qualm of nervousness. What on earth was Amy going to say when she found out what she had done? Barbara pushed the thought to the back of her mind. By the time Amy knew anything about it it would be too late. She would be signed on as a WAAF.

‘Name?' The woman was uncapping a pen, all brisk efficiency. Barbara supplied the details.

‘Age?' This was the one that had been worrying her. Barbara crossed her fingers tightly in the pocket of her jacket.

‘Eighteen.'

‘Birth certificate?'

‘Oh – yes …' Barbara opened her bag and fumbled inside. She had rather hoped they might not ask for her birth certificate. She was not certain it would stand up to inspection, though she had worked on it for half an hour last night with lemon juice and some of Ralph's thick black ink. She handed it over nervously and watched the woman straighten it out on the desk. Not a flicker passed across the woman's face and Barbara breathed a little more easily.

A few more questions then the woman nodded briskly.

‘Right. In a moment I'll ask you to sign this. Before you do so I should point out to you that it is a very serious offence to give false information – the penalty for doing so could very well be a jail sentence.'

Her eyes, hard as flint, met Barbara's then glanced obliquely for a moment at the birth certificate lying on the table; Barbara felt her stomach turn to water. She knew. Oh Lord, what had she done? A jail sentence! Oh jeepers!

The woman pushed back her chair and stood up.

‘Excuse me. I have something to attend to in the back office. I'll be back in just a moment.'

She disappeared around the screen without a backward glance. For a second Barbara sat as if rooted to the chair then realised – this was her chance. She leaped up, almost knocking over the chair in her haste, grabbed her birth certificate and the completed forms and ran to the door. As she opened it she was terrified she would hear the woman's voice ordering her to stop but she did not and she ran out into the street, not daring to look over her shoulder or stop until she reached the corner and lost herself in the scurry of shoppers.

What a narrow escape! If they'd checked her birth certificate and found it falsified, if they had realised she had lied about her age … But they hadn't. Luck had been on her side. The woman had had to leave the room and she'd been able to get away …

Her step slowed as a thought struck her.
Had
it been luck – or something else? Had the woman known all the time that she was lying and made the chance for her to escape rather than having her arrested, or whatever it was she would have done? Barbara couldn't be sure. She simply thanked her lucky stars that she was not at this moment being whisked off by a military policeman to answer charges. Next spring she would try again. For the moment she had had quite enough excitement.

Oh Lord, I've got to alter my birth certificate back to the correct date before I can go and see them again, Barbara thought. Why do things never happen this way in romantic novels? Then, girls could even dress as boys to follow their loves to war and get away with it. Whilst she had done something as uninteresting as adding a few months to her age and risked a jail sentence. Life simply wasn't fair.

Feeling very much a failed adventuress Barbara walked to the bus station to catch her bus back to Hillsbridge.

Throughout the month of August the Battle of Britain raged on, squadrons of the Auxiliary Air Force and fighter pilots of the Fleet Air Arm now fighting alongside the RAF.

Losses were heavy, though not so heavy as the toll they inflicted on the marauding Germans, and Barbara lived in a constant state of anxiety. There was little evidence in the western corner of England of the battle that was raging over the south-east, but they knew about it all the same and Barbara's supreme moment of pride came when she heard what Mr Churchill had said in the House of Commons: ‘Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few.'

Huw was one of ‘the few'. But for how much longer could he fly day after day without getting caught? The bombers came now in smaller formations with much heavier fighter escort – the Germans had learned that their famed Luftwaffe were not going to wipe out the aerodromes of Kent and Essex as easily as they had first thought, but they were as determined as ever, sending in wave after wave of planes to try to achieve by sheer weight of numbers what they had earlier been unable to succeed in doing.

Barbara no longer thought about it every moment of every day, for to do so was more than could be humanly endured, but it was there in her heart all the same, a constant weight, an agony of waiting.

Letters arrived for her and for all the family more frequently now but they were shorter and much less detailed as if Huw, too exhausted by a day's flying from the first dawn ‘scramble'to the last fading moments of dusk to push his pen across the paper for more than a few lines, yet somehow felt compelled to make contact with those he loved. As if he is afraid in his heart that each day might be his last – though he would never admit it, thought Barbara.

One such letter arrived during the first week of September – the very day that Barbara was due to begin her course of business studies at a commercial college in Bath. She was in her bedroom making sure her bag contained everything she would need when she saw the postman pushing his bicycle up the slope to the gate and she swiftly thrust the last items inside and ran down the stairs.

Amy was in the hall picking up the envelopes from the mat.

‘Anything from Huw?' she called eagerly.

‘Looks like it.' Amy began ripping open the envelope. ‘It's addressed to all of us,' she added, seeing Barbara's face.

‘What does it say?'

‘Give me a chance!' said Amy. She was as anxious as Barbara though she would never admit it. Then her face whitened. ‘Oh Lord, he got shot down!'

Barbara began to tremble. ‘Is he all right?'

‘All right enough to write,' Amy said shortly.

‘What happened? What does he say?'

‘I'll read it to you.' Amy took the letter into the dining-room and sat down at the table because her own legs were trembling too much to support her a moment longer. ‘It's pretty brief – you know Huw – but here goes. “We were alerted late and didn't have the chance to get high enough before we met the Nasties. That's a pretty fatal situation – you need height and speed to control a fight and we didn't have it. We were sitting ducks. One of my mates was killed and I got a cockpit full of bullets. I think I managed to put a round into the nose of a Heinkel but I couldn't hang around to see. Two 109s got onto me and shot me up. I had to bale out. Landed in a hop field with nothing more than a few cuts and bruises to show for it. But my Spit is a goner and I'm sick about that. Seven notches on her wing and she has to end up as scrap. Suppose I'm lucky not to be scrap, too, but all the same it hurts to lose a kite – especially when they are so damned precious!” There you are, he's unharmed, thank God. But how like Huw to be simply concerned about losing his plane instead of thanking God he escaped with his life! He could have been …' She broke off, swallowing hard.

‘He's right, of course,' Ralph, who had been listening quietly, said. ‘We're losing too many planes every day.'

‘How can you talk about planes as if they were more important than men's lives?' Barbara asked passionately.

‘I didn't say they were more important. But if we don't keep the numbers up we have no chance of defending this island of ours – and then none of our lives will be worth living,' Ralph said. ‘As a matter of fact, I've been wondering if we couldn't do something about it.'

Barbara, re-reading the letter over Amy's shoulder, said nothing but Amy asked: ‘Do something? What do you mean?'

‘I thought maybe we could raise the money to buy a Spitfire.'

‘We
could?'

‘Well – Hillsbridge and the surrounding areas. We could get a committee together and organise fundraising events.'

‘What would it cost?'

‘I haven't gone into that yet. Several thousand I should think. But I thought I could start the fund off with a good donation and I'm sure people would be willing to do all they could. The rate we've been losing Spits we'll be shot out of the air soon if we don't do something.'

‘That's a marvellous idea!' Amy enthused. ‘Hillsbridge's own Spitfire! Our little bit towards the war effort.'

‘I'm glad you think so. I'll get on the telephone today and have a word with a few of those who might be interested in helping us. And now,' said Ralph, ‘we'd better be going. Do you want a lift, Barbara, or are you going to miss the bus on your first day?'

‘I'm ready,' said Barbara. She was still trembling from thinking how close Huw had come to death.

‘We really should contribute something to the war effort,' Ralph said again from the doorway, obviously preoccupied as he waited for her to gather her things. ‘If we don't the Luftwaffe is going to overrun England.'

That night when Barbara returned from her first day in the new business college they heard the news.

For the first time, London had been bombed.

And so it continued while the blue and silver of September became the russet reds and golds of October and into the dark and dreary days of November.

By the middle of September the Battle of Britain had been virtually won. The RAF had the Luftwaffe on the run and Hitler was obliged to disperse the barges he had waiting in the ports of Northern France and Belgium and postpone his invasion plan, Sealion, for the winter at least. But new tactics had been adopted. If the bombers could not get past the Hurricanes and Spitfires during the hours of daylight then they would come when they could hide in the darkness.