[Woman of WWII 02] - Poppy Redfern and the Fatal Flyers

by Tessa Arlen

  “You are not too particular about little things like black-market sausages, are you, Poppy?” Grable rushed in with her mouth full.

  I would have laughed if I wasn’t so busy filling mine.

  Grable reached forward and picked up the wine. “The old sweetheart always brings us a bottle of something delicious on a Saturday night, if any of us are at home. Sometimes he drops Vera off with us, but he never intrudes. Must have an endless cellar—I just hope it lasts the war.” And even Annie unbent enough to lift her glass and take an appreciative sip. But it was not enough to soften her manner. She was so reserved that it was difficult to draw her out about her life before the war and how she had come to join the ATA. I wanted to hear a bit more about her famous landing in a German airfield.

  “You must have been scared stiff when you saw the swastika on the tail fin,” I said, hoping that pork sausage and a bottle of Nuits-Saint-Georges had warmed her up for questions.

  “We would all be scared if we found ourselves landing in a German airfield,” she said. “Flying is one of the joys of my life, but it has truly terrifying moments. It doesn’t take much to get lost in the fog. I was lucky.” And that was all I could get out of her. It would be hard to count on Annie Trenchard to replace the flamboyant arch-adventuress, Edwina, in our film.

  I sighed with relief as Grable took over our dinner conversation. “I’m the one who hasn’t had any real adventures,” she said as she sipped her wine. “First of all, my father hates it when I fly, and Mummy simply pretends I don’t. I think they would be a lot happier if I were nursing or even driving an ambulance.”

  “When did you learn to fly?” I asked her. “Who taught you?”

  She put down her knife and fork. “An uncle: a wicked uncle.” She giggled, and I wished I could spend more time with her when our picture and this investigation were over.

  She cupped her pointed chin in an elegantly manicured hand. “I was about fourteen.” Another sip of wine. “Mm, this is good. My uncle flew during the last war. In fact, he was one of the first of his generation to take to the air, in those far-off days of invention and derring-do. Aircraft were parcels of canvas, wood, and wire with a motor in the middle. Can you imagine anything more terrifying?”

  Annie finished a mouthful of sausage. “Edwina said that’s all they are still. If you stripped off the thin outer shell of a Spitfire, all there is underneath is that massive Merlin engine that takes up all the nose and petrol tanks. When you are sitting right in the middle of an engine, surrounded by petrol, you don’t ask yourself about safety!” The wine, or perhaps my willingness to back down from questions, had made Annie a little less forbidding.

  “But all planes are safe now, aren’t they?” I asked my drunken question as I thought of Griff taking off in his Mustang. I was ignored.

  If wine relaxes some of us, it makes others more assertive. “That’s just the sort of thing Edwina would say. And it’s simply not true.” Grable thumped her wineglass down. “The Spit is incredibly safe. If June were here she would tell you so. Edwina loved to exaggerate everything she did—she lusted for attention. More wine, anyone?” Annie shook her head and took another bite of sausage as Grable splashed wine into her own glass. “Thank God I’m off duty for a couple of days.”

  “Edwina didn’t worry about safety—she was brave.” Annie made her statement in a firm voice, and I noticed that her brows were arched as she fixed her eyes on Grable’s wineglass.

  “What rot: she was reckless. That’s what happens when your nerves are shot to pieces. You either cave in or you take bigger and bigger risks. If she were in the RAF they would have grounded her.”

  “Shot to pieces?” I said to remind them I was still here.

  A tut of exasperation from Annie. “Ever since she was attacked by those two Messerschmitts . . .” she said in an impatient and chiding tone. No wonder she found being with her girls exhausting. She twirled a piece of hair with her finger and I felt her kick Grable’s leg under the table. “And she was overworking.”

  A derisive harrumph from Grable. “Annie, what are you saying? She was a wreck long before that. Ever since June . . . when that nutcase sent her the first letter.”

  Did she mean the month of June, or their fellow pilot?

  “Who doesn’t overwork these days?” I asked, remembering the hours and miles I had walked every night as the only Air Raid Precautions warden in my village earlier this year.

  Annie laughed down her nose. “You hardly overwork, Grable. You are always dashing off when your mum telephones.”

  “It’s true,” Grable said with disarming good nature. “True, all true. My parents are very demanding of my time.” She shook her head and giggled into her glass of wine.

  Annie had stopped frowning now that Edwina’s shot nerves were no longer under discussion. “And so are all the glam flyboys at Croydon, Biggin Hill, Northolt, and . . .” Annie waved her arm to indicate countless numbers. “Wherever Grable steps out of her plane and takes off her helmet to shake down that mane of hair, five pilots fall irretrievably in love. And she does her duty, don’t you, ducky? She dances the night away all over England.”

  They were both giggling now, humor restored thanks to the magical combination of sausages, wine, and Grable’s willingness not to take herself seriously. I breathed a sigh of relief; there is nothing more intimidating than two strong women in opposition. But I wanted to hear more about the complicated Edwina.

  I should have counted to ten. Annie put down her wineglass with the sort of finality that meant she was done with wine and song. “She is our pinup girl, aren’t you, Grable? You certainly put poor old Edwina in the shade, didn’t you?” The shift in tone made me want to run for the door. What was going on with these two? The mood in the cottage this evening was twisting and turning like a feral creature in a trap: Zofia’s story of love and courage had left us softly sentimental, and now this awful falling-out! I pushed away my half-finished glass of superb red wine. I needed a clear head.

  They are still coming to terms with Edwina’s crash, and they certainly don’t know about Letty’s death yet. I think we are going to hit what the Attagirls call rough air this evening, darling, so hang on tight. Ilona didn’t need to warn me, because I could have cut the tension in the room with a knife.

  Grable shrugged. “It isn’t my fault that I was born to be tall and blond,” she said. “There’s something about being a blonde, or a redhead”—she pointed at me—“that makes men behave ridiculously, right, Poppy? Poppy knows what I’m talking about, don’t you?” Grable chuckled away like a naughty schoolgirl. “Edwina was the real pinup girl of our group, not me. Until after her Luftwaffe incident.”

  “You could have been kinder to her when she lost her nerve.”

  “I was kind to her.” Grable frowned as she put down her wineglass. “What are you saying? I also stuck up for her, which is more than you ever did. It was me who covered for her with Vera when she went on a bender every bloody night of the week. And it was me who bailed her out when she was so hungover she couldn’t fly!” Grable’s chin was up with indignation.

  “After you got her drunk, which was very irresponsible of you!” Annie’s forefinger wagged at Grable: a nanny scolding thoughtless behavior.

  “Come off it, Annie, Edwina was soaking it up like a sponge.” Grable glared at her friend. “God, you sound just like a Girl Guide— and excuse me for saying so, but you have no idea what you’re talking about! You should have seen her. She had been drinking alone all night and she was paralytic when I found her. I had one drink with her before I realized she was a mess and got her out of there before she threw up all over the bar. It’s so unfair to say I was the one who got her tight, when I was the one who rescued her.”

  I sat still and silent through this horrifying exchange, barely breathing. But I plucked up enough courage to ask, “What do you think made her drink quite so mu
ch?” I wondered if our investigation was a waste of time. If Edwina was a habitual drunk, then “pilot error” was putting it mildly.

  They interrupted each other in their haste.

  “She was terrified to go up, after the Luftwaffe attack—”

  “It was those hateful letters,” blurted Grable.

  I went for the more informative statement. “Letters from who?”

  “No one,” Annie said and snapped her mouth shut.

  “They were anonymous. You know the sort of spiteful things people who are bonkers send. Usually old ladies, or batty old spinsters,” said Grable, avoiding Annie’s fierce stare.

  Annie sighed. “Old ladies and spinsters who knew about the Luftwaffe incident? Did you hear what you just said, Grable? Until last week, no one but us knew about Edwina’s Luftwaffe ambush. Those letters were not written by a dotty old lady with nothing better to do. They were written by . . .” She heard herself and folded her arms. “We just shouldn’t talk about it.”

  I wondered how I could get them to talk about it, but I needn’t have worried. Grable ignored her friend and leaned toward me. “The letters accused Edwina of making up a story. They said that there was no attack. That she lost her bearings when she was delivering a Spit to Biggin Hill and was late arriving. She got carried away with her excuse and turned it into an act of heroism rather than not paying attention to where she was going.” She shrugged as if the truth was anyone’s guess.

  Annie rolled her eyes. “Some crazy old lady in the village who knew how to spell ‘Luftwaffe’ and ‘Messerschmitt’ correctly, who knew there were two of them and that Edwina landed her plane on fumes? It wasn’t some old dipsy-doodle who sent those letters, Grable, and you know it. I read one of them. Believe me, there was a point to them. Someone was out to discredit Edwina in the most cowardly way. And it undid her, as it was intended to do.”

  A spiteful old crackpot, or someone who wanted to undermine Edwina’s nerve? “When did she get the first one?” I asked.

  “Oh,” said Grable. She stared down at her empty plate to concentrate her memory. “They were coming long before Edwina’s encounter with the enemy: nasty accusations and lies. It was the Luftwaffe ones that sent her over the top.”

  Annie looked at Grable with one of those you’ve-done-it-now expressions. But if either of them said anything, their words were drowned by a fervent pounding on the front door and the rattling of the latch.

  “Basil must have inadvertently dropped the snib when he left.” I heard the relief in Annie’s voice at the interruption.

  They both sat quite still, staring straight ahead. I got up, and out of the corner of my eye I saw Grable slide a hand across the table, palm side up, in appeasement, to her friend.

  I pulled back the blackout curtain to open the door. June Evesham pushed past me: her hair was disheveled and she was out of breath. The wheels of her thrown-down bicycle were still spinning on the ground behind her on the path.

  “Have you heard?” She put her hand up to her forehead as if she could hardly believe what she was about to tell us. “No, of course you haven’t, because bloody Vera Abercrombie has only just made her announcement in the mess. Letty crashed her Walrus yesterday morning! And Vera announced it to the whole world, without a whisper to us first. I can’t believe it.” She paused to catch her breath, and her voice was a lament of anguish. “I can’t believe that Letty crashed her plane.”

  “Good God, is she all right?” Annie got to her feet.

  “Didn’t you hear what I said? She crashed. She crashed that bloody Walrus into a bridge—she’s dead.” June turned away from them as if she could hardly bear to hear them speak.

  “Where did she crash?” Grable’s patrician voice cut across the heavy atmosphere of the kitchen like a draft of Arctic air.

  “Crikey, I don’t know!” June turned on her. “Does it bloody well matter where?”

  Grable pushed her into a chair and turned to the sideboard. “Here, drink this, June.” She put a glass into her hand. “You are in shock, darling. No, I insist, c’mon: one sip at a time.” She looked at me over June’s bowed head. “She was Letty’s closest friend,” she explained, as if June’s shocked grief needed an explanation.

  Annie put her hand between June’s shoulders and patted, the circular soothing stroke that mothers and grannies administer to hurt children. “Junie, did Vera say what caused the crash?”

  June lifted her head; her face was blotched with the tears that coursed down her face. “You know something?” she said, her accent so thick with pain and Australia it was difficult to understand what she was saying. “The only thing I could get out of the ruddy woman was that it was ‘pilot error.’ Can you imagine? She was flying a Walrus, for God’s sake! She was exhausted and in distress after Edwina’s crash and Abercrombie thought it was a good idea for her to fly a stinking Walrus six hundred miles to Scotland, in God knows what weather at this time of year. As if it couldn’t have waited another day. Struth!” She pulled a handkerchief out of her pocket and blew her nose. “Sorry,” she said as she handed her empty glass to Grable. “Didn’t mean to make such an exhibition. It’s such a shock, such a terrible shock. At least Vera called me into her office and gave me the news in private, before she made her announcement to the rest of them.” She stared grimly down into her replenished glass, breathing deeply, as she struggled to regain control.

  Grable stood looking down at her feet. “June, I think she was waiting for you to get back before she told everyone.” She put her hand up to her eyes and pinched the bridge of her nose, hard.

  “Letty. Whatever happened to you, my friend?” Annie’s eyes were wide with shock. I watched her swallow down emotion, her face rigid with the will to impose control over fear.

  Grable was busy at the sideboard. She handed me a small glass and I took a cautious sniff. Yes, it was brandy all right. I waved mine in the air. The last thing I needed was to drink it.

  “To Letty.”

  “To a great pilot and an even greater friend,” said Annie.

  June, knocking back her drink, was practically unintelligible. “She was true blue, all right.”

  “Perhaps I should be going,” I said as I put my glass down on the kitchen table. “I am so terribly sorry . . .” Letty had been my friend for an hour or two. She had been theirs from the ATA’s early days. She had helped them make history as the first women who flew for England in wartime, and I was just there to write up a story of that friendship.

  I found my coat hanging on a peg by the door. “I am sure you want to be alone, to . . .” I felt I was trespassing on their sorrow.

  I pulled aside the heavy blackout curtain that hung closed against the doorway. “Bessie, come,” I said and, knowing that she would never leave her bone, walked back to the kitchen table.

  Grable came over and stood in front of the door. “You are not going to walk back to the inn tonight, are you?”

  Oh yes, I am! I thought. I needed the night’s cool air, and its quiet, to try to piece together the odd events of the evening. “Perhaps I can borrow a bike? I can return it to the mess, or here, tomorrow morning.”

  Grable looked at her watch. “It’s half past ten and as black as pitch. Are you sure?”

  “I’ll be fine,” I said. “It’s just down the road.” I bent down and looked under the table. Bess was asleep with the bone between her paws. “Come on, girlie.” She roused herself and returned to her gnawing. “Let’s go home,” I said, reaching for the bone. She pricked her ears forward and looked at me as if I must be mad.

  “It’s a good half hour down the road even on a bike. Why don’t you doss down on the sofa?”

  “No, really, it’s all right. I have work to do anyway.”

  “Here.” She dug in the pocket of a trench coat hanging by the door. “Here’s my blackout torch. You can take my bike.” She slipped ahead of me
through the door and I followed, carrying Bess and her foul bone.

  With her torch clipped to its handlebars, Grable wheeled the bike out onto the path to the gate. “It’s straight on down this lane, past the hangar on the edge of the airfield. After about five minutes the river will be on your right. Keep a sharp lookout at the fork in the road because the turning to the inn is on the right just after the fork. If you continue on you will be on the road to Southampton; go left at the fork and you’ll be in the village.” I couldn’t see her face in the dark, but her shoulders were squared as she stood upright, away from the post of the porch, as if refusing to be defeated by the evening. She reached out and put a hand on my shoulder. “About those letters—you won’t talk about them, will you?”

  “What letters?” I said blithely, lying in my teeth.

  “They were just . . . spite, I expect.” She paused. “I don’t quite know how to say this, but Edwina was one of those girls who seemed to make enemies wherever she went.”

  “Not you, though?”

  “Me, Edwina’s enemy? No, not me.” She laughed. “Most of the time I just ignored her silliness. But I admired her skill, her courage. She might have been a pain sometimes, but there was no real malice in her, and in some strange way, I know I’ll really miss her. But Letty?” Her voice was deeply sad and still had traces of her earlier despair. “Now, there was one in a million: decent, kind—what June would call a real mate.” She bent down and, picking up June’s discarded bike, propped it where hers had been against the porch rail. “Both of them were exceptional flyers. So the term ‘pilot error’ really sticks in my throat.” She sighed and then shrugged her shoulders. “Poor old Vera, as if she hasn’t got her hands full as it is. All she wants to do is run an exemplary ferry pool, and two of her best pilots go down, one after the other.”

  “Her hands full?” So far as I could see, Vera’s job was shuffling papers and writing up flight schedules: long and tiring work to be sure, but not beyond the average competence of most organized women.