The Spitfire Girls

by Soraya M. Lane

  On a lighter note, I have a feeling that your next letter might paint your Captain Montgomery in a different light? Sometimes the men who infuriate us most are the ones we are most drawn to, and I could sense a spark of something between you both here, even though it probably felt like nothing more than anger and butting heads to you! He’s a good man, Lizzie, truly he is. You know, you were right about me and Ben. He’s a good man too, and I’m finally ready to admit how much I need him.

  Tell me more about your logistics if you’re permitted to. I’d certainly like to hear what obstacles you’re up against and whether you need any advice on navigating such a difficult transition. The acceptance of women pilots is, for some reason, not something that comes easily.

  Yours truly and with all my love,

  May

  She set her pen down as Ruby burst through the door, breathless.

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘Sandy just landed,’ Ruby told her. ‘She turned around as soon as she realised the weather was making a safe landing impossible. She said the conditions were challenging.’

  ‘Just her?’ May asked, standing and holding the edge of her desk.

  ‘Yes.’

  May breathed deep as hope filled her heart. ‘There could well be more. I’m coming – we have to keep an eye out for them, Ruby.’

  She headed back outside. If Sandy had returned, then more of them may well do so, too. Unless they encountered the same enemy aircraft, but weren’t so lucky. She saw the young pilot further down the runway and ran over to give her a big hug. ‘I’m so glad to see you.’

  Sandy hugged her back, visibly shaken. ‘Me too. The visibility made it impossible. I couldn’t see anything, and I had to turn around while I could.’ Her face was pale, and May held on to her, hoping she wasn’t about to faint on the spot.

  ‘Did you see anything else?’

  ‘No, but I was scared. The clouds were so dense and . . .’

  ‘Shh, we can debrief later,’ May said. ‘Now get yourself into the mess room. You can warm up and we’ll talk soon.’

  Sandy left her, and May stared at the sky, relief coursing through her as an engine roar caught her ear, followed soon after by a Spitfire emerging out of the clouds. They had a little longer until dusk, and she’d keep standing there until she saw every one of her women land. Some might have carried on, but others would come back to the place they knew how to find in the cloud. There was no protocol for turning back, but she was confident they’d all make the best decision they could.

  ‘What’s up?’ A hand brushed her shoulder and she recognised Ben’s voice. She leaned back into him, needing him, not caring who saw. He put his arms around her from behind, warming her as his lips brushed her hair. ‘What are you doing out here?’

  ‘Something doesn’t feel right. I just . . .’ Her voice trailed off. ‘Who was I kidding, thinking I could keep them all safe with no radios? With no instrument training? Why didn’t I push back harder on this instead of being told what to do? I think I may have lost some of my pilots, Ben. I think our luck has run out.’

  Ben pulled her even closer, as she blinked away tears. They stood together, teeth chattering in the cold, staring at the darkening sky.

  ‘You don’t have to wait with me,’ she said.

  ‘Yes,’ Ben said, like a warm blanket cocooning her close. ‘Yes, I do.’

  As the sun finally started to rise, May didn’t care that her body was so cold it felt like her bones had turned to ice. She was not giving up her position until she saw her girls with her own eyes; the only thing she cared about was her list of pilots and trying to account for each and every one of them.

  ‘May,’ Ben said gently, pulling up the blanket that had slipped from around her shoulders. She’d been awake all night, staring into the sky, then pacing, then checking her list and starting the process over again. Nothing would still her mind as she waited, although she was grateful that Ben had been by her side through the long hours. ‘May, you’re needed.’

  She turned and saw Captain MacMillan approaching, his smile sending relief through her.

  ‘They’re alive, May,’ he said. ‘Anyone unaccounted for turned around and landed at a closer airfield, and a couple even made it safely to Colerne, except for one pilot who landed in a field and spent the night with a farmer.’

  May laughed, throwing her arms around Ben. ‘They’re alive! Oh my goodness, oh my goodness! This is wonderful news!’

  Ben kissed her and took a step back as other pilots came closer, some still yawning from a late night and an early start. May had ended up telling everyone on base what had happened before sending them off to rest the night before, unable to lie to her team when she was asked why more pilots hadn’t returned.

  ‘Great news, ladies! We’ve heard that no pilots were lost. Everyone has officially been accounted for!’ She grinned as the women all squealed and laughed in relief. ‘But those additional Spitfires we have here still need to get to Colerne,’ she said, smiling up at the clear day as the sun rose around them. ‘There’s no rest for the wicked, I’m afraid.’

  ‘Would you like me to assign flights today?’ Ruby asked. ‘You must be exhausted.’

  ‘I only need to put the allocations out,’ she said, pulling the blanket from around her shoulders. ‘But thank you. I appreciate the offer.’

  May didn’t want anyone to see her fall apart, but the relief that her girls were all alive, that she didn’t have to wipe any names from the board, that she didn’t have to tell anyone’s mother or father that they weren’t going to make it home, threatened to cut her off at the knees.

  She made it to the bathroom and shut the door, pressing her back to it as a sob erupted from deep within her, choking her as it made its way through her throat. She slid to the ground, tears streaking down her cheeks as she gasped for air, silently crying as she remembered her brother, as she wished that she could see him just one more time. Then, hands shaking, she wiped her cheeks, gulping back air as she tried to pull herself together.

  ‘I can do this,’ she whispered. ‘I can do this.’ She’d pulled herself together when she’d stepped up as commander, and she was going to darn well pull herself together again this time. No one had been lost. They’d survived. But the long night of waiting had rattled every emotion inside her.

  She pushed herself up to her feet and folded the blanket she was still clutching, holding it tight against her for a moment. She breathed deeply, ready to go into the mess room and deal with the flights for the day.

  ‘May?’ Ruby’s voice echoed out from the other side of the door.

  ‘Coming,’ she called

  She hurried out to find Ruby standing there, ashen, as if she’d seen a ghost.

  ‘What is it?’ she asked, her heart starting to race.

  ‘I’m so sorry, May, but Evangeline just arrived in on the first flight back from those other airfields, and she said there was a plane behaving erratically, and then she saw it drop suddenly, far too low.’

  ‘And you think it was one of ours?’

  ‘We don’t know, but we’re sending out an ambulance responder now, even though it must be at least an hour’s drive away, if not further.’

  May thought quickly. ‘I’m sure it’s not one of ours,’ she said. ‘I don’t even think anyone was cleared to fly out yet.’ She walked to collect her chits from her desk, trying to stop her hands from trembling. ‘I need to put these out. We have plenty of planes to ferry today and we’re already behind schedule.’

  Ruby followed her. ‘Should I go with the ambulance, in case they need assistance?’

  May frowned. ‘Why would you go?’

  Ruby looked uncomfortable. ‘I have a bad feeling that it might have been . . .’

  May stared at her. ‘Might have been who? Who flew out?’

  Who could have been given clearance to leave so early, before the chits were even put out? Her friend shook her head, as though trying to convince herself she’d got something wrong
.

  ‘Polly,’ May suddenly gasped. ‘Oh my gosh, it’s Polly, isn’t it? She left for Colerne to bring the other pilots back here. I cleared her last night to leave early!’ May felt herself break into a cold sweat. ‘Find Ben for me!’ she said. ‘Tell him to stop whatever he’s doing and to come and find me.’

  Then she stepped forward from around her desk to address the girls in the mess room. ‘We’ve had a rough night,’ she said in a low voice, ‘but the show must go on, and we need to thank our lucky stars that someone up there was looking down on us all. Now, here are your cards – please take your ferry notebooks as required.’

  May’s bottom lip started to quiver. She dug her fingernails deep into her palms, and quickly left the room. Ruby was waiting in a car when she emerged back out into the brisk morning air, and she saw Ben in the driver’s seat.

  ‘Do you have clearance to take this?’ May asked, climbing in.

  Ben didn’t respond. He simply put his foot down and they sped off after the ambulance, which May could just make out in the distance.

  May went back in her mind. She could remember the rumble of the departing plane now: she’d known Polly was leaving and she hadn’t thought anything of it. But that didn’t mean this was her. It could be a male pilot, or someone from another airfield.

  ‘It doesn’t have to be Polly,’ she muttered.

  ‘No. But something keeps telling me it’s her,’ Ruby said.

  May didn’t question her; she just nodded and stared straight ahead. If Polly was injured or worse . . . She swallowed and chewed the inside of her lip, refusing to think about that yet.

  They drove for well over an hour before the ambulance ahead of them slowed. May was surprised at the pockets of fog that still lingered, and hadn’t been present back at Hamble. She knew first-hand how tough it was to navigate through conditions like this without instruments, and without clearance to fly higher. May’s mouth ran dry as she stared into the field at the base of a hill. She saw the plane – or what was left of it. The entire aircraft was smouldering, and the moment Ben stopped she pushed her door open and started to run.

  ‘Here, over here!’ a woman yelled, waving her hands frantically.

  May forgot her fatigue and ran as fast as she could, arms pumping as she saw something on the ground, a farmer bent over a body while the woman beside him cried.

  As she neared, everything seemed to go in slow motion. She saw the legs, saw the burn marks, the skin black, charred, like food cooked on an open burner. She saw one arm, unmistakably a woman’s slender arm, and then she saw the desperate look on the farmer’s face. His mouth opened but she couldn’t hear the noise; all she could see were tears dripping past his lips.

  May stopped moving as medics pushed past her. She stumbled and then righted herself, watching as they dropped to their knees, as they shouted and then stopped. No one did anything. Ruby moved past her, saying something, her mouth opening and closing, eyes wide, hands moving fast.

  But May still couldn’t hear, she could only see, and when Ben’s arms closed around her she fought against him, silently fighting to get closer, to do something. To do anything.

  The farmer’s hands now covered his face, his wife standing over him. The medics were shaking their heads. May looked at the plane and started to walk towards it, but Ben grabbed her hand, tugging her hard, refusing to let her take another step.

  Polly was dead. That was Polly’s body back there. Polly, who’d flown them home safely, and shown such aptitude in the cockpit. Polly who was so bright and cheerful, who she was just about to put forward for conversion to fly four-engine bombers at Hamble. Polly who’d obviously had to drop too low to try to see, with no instruments to guide her. Polly who’d smashed straight into a hill, taking a risk that had cost her her life.

  May looked up and the sun blinded her at the same time as the bright sky started to spin. She reached out a hand to break her fall, and as Ben’s arms caught her, everything went black.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  AVENGER FIELD, SWEETWATER, TEXAS,

  NOVEMBER, 1942

  LIZZIE

  Lizzie stood before her squadron of women to give a speech she’d given many times before, but today she felt stuck for words. She conjured an image of May in her mind, imagining how she was coping, how she was still managing to keep commanding her squadron after such a loss. May had always been an exemplary leader, and Lizzie hoped to inject as much enthusiasm and self-belief into the women she’d just finished training. But after receiving the news about Polly, she wished she had her commander and friend by her side. It had come as a blow out of nowhere and she’d cried into her pillow all night, imagining the terror her beautiful friend must have experienced, and hoping upon hope that her death had come fast. Speaking to her squadron seemed impossible, but she knew they were counting on her. She had to pull herself together.

  They’d been at their location at Avenger Field in Sweetwater, Texas for a couple of months now, and it was so much easier to run her operation from the bigger, more suitable airfield; she was so much closer to her father, too. The difference was that now it wasn’t just in theory: they actually had women in the air ferrying planes, and the realities of what her female pilots were up against had hit her hard. The news of Polly’s death, a death that could have been avoided, had filled her with sadness at first, then made her angry – angry that women could be treated so unfairly, as if their lives somehow weren’t as important.

  She cleared her throat, glancing at Captain Montgomery, who was standing out to the side, and two officers who’d been instrumental in training her pilots. She had to begin.

  ‘Ladies, I’m so proud of every single one of you,’ she said, annoyed by the croak in her throat. She cleared it and tried again. ‘As of today, you have all passed your training and become WASPs. Well done!’ She clapped, and they all joined in. She studied their faces, knowing that it was her job to fill them with confidence. ‘It’s time for you all to go on and make me proud. I hand-picked every one of you, sat through hours of interviews and reviewed so many candidates – you are the women I chose to fly our mighty warplanes. You will be ferrying planes over our great country, which will allow our men to fight, and to succeed in winning this war.’

  Polly was gone. She swallowed hard, refusing to let the thoughts creep in. She held her head high and jutted out her chin. She’d underestimated how difficult it would be to deal with the turmoil in her head, but she wasn’t about to ruin the day by failing to deliver her speech – not with so many women graduating.

  ‘We are all making history here, paving the way for women to not only fly, but also to defy the gender roles that we are so often defined by. Women can make a difference, and we are showing that against all odds, and despite having to fight to be heard and fight to be here flying, we deserve our title of pilot. The army may not recognise us as such, but that does not take away from the incredible role each and every one of you will play.’

  A single tear plopped down her cheek and she steeled herself, waiting for the moment to pass. Her breath shuddered as she thought again of Polly, imagining her terror as her plane smashed into the hillside. She opened her mouth, but this time, not a sound came out.

  Captain Montgomery was at her side then, standing close to her, almost shoulder to shoulder. Then he stepped forward to take over, as if he could feel her pain and wanted to spare her, and she was both stunned and grateful. They would have all heard a pin drop as he began to speak.

  ‘I have treated you like I would any soldier, and you women, every single one of you, have proven me wrong,’ he said, his voice low and deep. Everything about the man oozed authority, and Lizzie admired the strength in his stance and the breadth of his shoulders as he stood on the small makeshift stage. ‘You are all courageous and fiercely talented, and I applaud you as you graduate here today and take the next step in your careers.’ He paused and held out a hand to Lizzie. ‘You have this very special woman to thank for your new positio
ns, because without her determination to see women in the air, you wouldn’t be sitting here today.’

  Everyone in the room clapped and Lizzie smiled, trying to be brave.

  As Captain Montgomery saluted the crowd and stepped from the stage, Lizzie tracked him with her eyes. He was the perfect example of a leader in the way he held himself and the way he commanded, but she’d also found him to be overly exacting and demanding of her pilots. Yet today she’d seen a different side of him, and she was shocked to find respect replacing her disdain for him.

  As she moved through the crowd and congratulated each woman individually, fixing their wing pins to their jackets, Lizzie decided it was time to thank him; it was stupid to continue with their rivalry and unfriendliness.

  ‘Congratulations, girls. You will find out later today which bases you will be sent to. Please enjoy the afternoon,’ Lizzie announced, before seeking Montgomery out.

  ‘That was quite a speech,’ she said, hoping to break the ice.

  ‘I could say the same,’ he replied, one eyebrow arched. ‘You’ve done well today.’

  She touched her hair, her fingers absently smoothing strands that were already perfectly in place. ‘I don’t often admit to being wrong, but I think we not only started off on the wrong foot, we’ve stayed there.’

  He smiled, and for the first time she saw how handsome he was; a dimple flared in his right cheek and humour shone from his bright blue eyes. It was quite a combination, such blond hair and golden skin, and eyes that matched the sky on a perfectly cloudless day.