‘Make it stop…’ she whimpered.
A white-hot crescendo transfixed her spine. She lay impaled on its impossible agony for one searing moment, then a whirlpool of ecstasy and relief dragged her down and away from the suffering.
‘It’s a girl, Molly. It’s a lovely, healthy little girl.’
****
The return to light dazzled Gerry. He squinted against it and recognised the blue dome of the sky about his head and the grey, white-flecked sea stretched out below him. The dense cloud bank receded in his wake.
‘Yellow Leader to Yellow Section’ – Bryan’s voice came over the wireless – ‘re-form on me, please, it’s about time we went home.’
Gerry quartered the sky above and around him searching for the others. Glancing down, he spotted Bryan’s Spitfire much lower on his starboard side. Banking his machine into a shallow dive, he switched to transmit: ‘Yellow Two to Yellow Leader. I am above you on your port side. Coming down now. How did you get all the way down there?’
‘How did you get all the way up there?’
Gerry pulled into station next to his leader and looked across into the canopy.
‘Yellow Leader calling Yellow Three, Yellow Leader calling Yellow Three’ – Bryan’s gaze held Gerry’s – ‘are you receiving me, Yellow Three?’ Bryan finally unlocked their eyes and looked away into space: ‘Where are you, Vincent, old boy?’
Dungeness flashed by underneath as Gerry followed Bryan’s banking turn onto a north-west heading to base.
‘Bluebird Yellow Leader calling Beehive Control. Yellow Section returning to base. Listening out.’
****
Gerry landed in formation on Bryan’s port side. The two Spitfires slowed to taxiing speed and bumped away across the grass to their dispersal bays.
Gerry shut down his engine and hauled the canopy back. His mechanic jumped onto the wing and helped undo the harness.
‘Any luck today, sir?’
‘No, nothing doing.’ Gerry pulled himself out of the seat. ‘Has Yellow Three landed yet?’
‘Just the two of you so far, sir.’
Gerry jumped to the ground and strode towards the other Spitfire. Bryan climbed down onto the grass as he arrived, chatting with his mechanic.
‘What happened up there, Bryan?’ Gerry’s voice held an edge.
Bryan glanced at him from under a frown and turned back to his mechanic.
‘Just top her up with fuel and that should do it; everything else is working spotlessly.’
The man nodded and moved away.
Bryan glared at Gerry: ‘Don’t ever use that tone to me in front of my ground-crew, do you understand?’ He stalked away past Gerry’s shoulder.
Following, Gerry persisted: ‘What happened, Bryan? One second you were there on my starboard side, next second you were gone – and Vincent has disappeared.’
Bryan pulled up short, rounding on Gerry. ‘We flew into clouds,’ he hissed. ‘People vanish in clouds.’
Gerry studied the other man’s face.
Abruptly the menace dropped from Bryan’s features. ‘You’d better flight-test your altimeter, Yankee,’ he said. ‘I think it might be broken.’
Bryan strode to the dispersal hut with Gerry trailing in his wake. They entered the hut just as Fagan replaced the receiver on his telephone.
‘Good afternoon, gentlemen,’ he said. ‘That was Beehive on the phone. The observer corps report seeing a Spitfire diving vertically into the sea just off Camber Sands about 15 minutes ago. Yours was the only section airborne.’ He looked at them over his glasses. ‘I’m posting Sergeant Drew as missing.’
Bryan tutted and shook his head: ‘Bloody cloud. Ten-tenths. Like bloody soup, it was.’
****
‘You do know what you’re suggesting, don’t you?’ The adjutant frowned.
‘I’m just telling you what I saw,’ Gerry replied.
‘Well, you’re not are you’ – the adjutant leaned back in his chair – ‘because you didn’t actually see anything.’
Gerry remained silent.
The adjutant pursed his lips: ‘Three Spitfires fly into ten-tenths cloud and become separated. It’s hardly an Agatha Christie.’
‘Squadron Leader Hale has had it in for Sergeant Drew for a long time.’
‘That’s not surprising now, is it? He and Andrew had been flying together since ’35; they were best friends.’
‘That isn’t an excuse for what happened.’
‘But you don’t know what happened, Gerry. That’s the whole point.’ The adjutant passed a hand over his face. ‘Look, I can’t take any action on this. And I suggest you forget about it. Hale is a solid leader; Bluebird could do a lot worse.’
Gerry stood to leave: ‘Thank you, sir.’
The adjutant waited for the door to close and reached for the telephone.
6th October, 1940
A teasing breeze cut through the wrought iron gates in the brick arch, agitating the first of the autumn’s leaf-fall around Bryan’s shoes. The funeral attendees drifted away in groups and he maintained a respectful distance while they departed. Molly remained alone at the graveside.
As Bryan approached, she looked up with red-rimmed eyes: ‘Thank you for coming, Bryan. It’s a long trip for you.’
Bryan put his arm around Molly’s shoulders. ‘He was my best friend,’ he said quietly. ‘He was the best of men.’
Molly leaned her head against Bryan’s chest, gentle sobs rose and subsided in her throat.
‘Would you like to go for a walk, maybe get some tea?’ Bryan asked.
Molly straightened herself, wiping the tears from her cheeks. ‘I have to go and feed my baby.’ She smiled through her tears. ‘I have responsibilities, you know.’
‘Of course.’ Bryan took her hand and kissed it: ‘I’ll always be there.’
Molly nodded and turned for the gate.
The blue of Bryan’s uniform drained into the grey of the early autumn sky. He bowed his head and surrendered himself to tears.
10th October, 1940
Gerry paused at the door of the officers’ mess. Down the driveway he could hear a female voice rising in distress. He strode down to the guard-hut where a woman was in heated conversation with the guard.
‘I’m sorry, Madam,’ the guard said. ‘We’re an operational airfield on war footing. I can’t let you in without express permission.’
‘Hello,’ Gerry said.
The guard snapped to attention.
‘You’re the American,’ the woman said. ‘Vincent wrote about you in one of his letters.’
‘Mrs Drew?’ Gerry shook her hand. He nodded to the guard: ‘It’s all right, I’ll look after this.’
‘Thank you, young man. Please call me Eileen.’
They walked up the drive together.
‘I wanted to see where he worked,’ Eileen said. ‘It’s so difficult when there are no…’ The word caught in her throat. ‘…When you can’t have a proper funeral.’
They crested the rise and Eileen stopped. She gazed out at the aeroplanes dotted around the airfield.
‘Did he really fly one of those?’
Gerry nodded.
Eileen looked into Gerry’s eyes through the beginnings of soft tears: ‘My son was murdered.’
Gerry returned her gaze: ‘Murdered?’
‘How can anybody teach a young man like my Vincent to fly a machine like that in six weeks?’ She searched his face as she spoke. ‘The RAF needed numbers, that’s all. They made my son into cannon fodder.’
‘I wish I could tell you it wasn’t true, Eileen.’
17th October, 1940
Gerry entered the office. Day stood up and smiled broadly: ‘Sit down, Gerry.’
Gerry sat and placed a brown envelope on the desk between them. ‘The rest of my manuscript.’
Adjutant Day picked up the envelope, stuffing it into his briefcase. ‘Thank you.’
‘Is that all that’s required of me?’
/> Day smiled and laced his fingers together: ‘Your compatriots have caught up with you at flying school. We now have enough trained Americans to form a squadron. The adjutant at Bluebird suggested you might make a suitable leader. Winston is very keen to call it Eagle Squadron.’
31st October, 1940
Samuel Drew climbed the two steps and leaned over into the narrow metal pen. The bullock snuffed in alarm. Samuel pressed the bolt-gun against the beast’s forehead and the shot echoed around the room.
The creature dropped to its knees on the sloping floor, lolling against the side of the pen. Samuel climbed down and pulled a lever. The pen swung open and the bullock rolled out onto the floor.
Samuel stepped over to the rack on the wall, selecting a long, thin, flexible rod. Crouching next to the stunned animal he inserted the rod into the bolt-hole, thrusting it through the brain. Jabbing and twisting, he found the end of the spinal column and pushed the rod down its length. The body quivered and quaked. He removed the rod and the animal shuddered into stillness.
Samuel attached a chain to a back leg and pressed a green button mounted on the wall. An electric motor whirred into action, hoisting the creature into the air; its tongue lolled from its mouth.
The hoist clicked off and Samuel selected a long, straight knife from the rack. In one easy motion he slashed the bullock’s throat.
Dark red blood splashed onto the ground. Samuel stood back as the flow spurted to the beat of the failing heart, slowly diminishing to a trickle. Another man appeared with a large wheelbarrow. Samuel plunged the knife into the bullock’s navel, drawing it down in a straight line to the bottom of the neck.
The creature’s intestines and viscera sloshed out into the wheelbarrow. Samuel reached into the carcass to cut loose the connections and the man pushed the steaming barrow-load away.
The electric motor whirred into motion again and the bullock moved along the overhead rails to the cutting room to be skinned and butchered. Samuel hosed down the floor and lifted the side of the pen, clicking it back into place.
‘Next!’
The door at the end of the pen opened into the holding room and another bullock was corralled into the narrow space.
Samuel leaned into the pen and held the bolt-gun in place. Another cartridge crack echoed off the walls. Samuel pulled the lever and turned to the rack. Behind him he heard hooves scrabbling on concrete, turning in time to see the bullock lurch to its feet.
The huge black bulk fell into Samuel, crushing him against the wall. The tools on the rack transfixed his back and the sickening grind of broken ribs sent electric shards of pain through his chest.
The stunned bullock fought to stay on its feet, bouncing and jostling its weight against the trapped man. With no air in his lungs, unable to draw breath, Samuel could only stare, slack-jawed as the light faded from his eyes.
The flat slap of cleavers in flesh drifted through from the next room where the men butchered the recently killed carcasses.
****
Blackbirds
A London Blitz novel
Melvyn Fickling
PART 1
AURORA
Chapter 1
Sunday, 6 October 1940
A teasing breeze cut through the wrought iron gates, agitating the early autumn leaf fall around Bryan Hale’s shoes. The funeral attendees drifted away in groups and he maintained a respectful distance while they departed. Molly remained alone at the graveside. As Bryan approached, she looked up with red-rimmed eyes.
‘Thank you for coming. It’s a long trip for you.’
Bryan put his arm around Molly’s shoulders. ‘Andrew was my best friend,’ he said, ‘he was the best of men.’
Molly’s chin dropped and she crumpled against his chest, sobbing gently.
Bryan clenched his jaw against his own emotion, holding her as much for his own comfort as her need for support. She took a deep breath and the sobbing subsided.
‘Would you like to go for a walk, maybe get some tea?’ Bryan asked.
Molly straightened herself, wiping the tears from her cheeks. ‘I have to go and feed my baby.’ She smiled through her tears. ‘I have responsibilities, you know.’
‘Of course.’ Bryan took her hand and kissed it. ‘I’ll always be there.’
Molly squeezed his arm and turned for the gate.
She climbed into a car and Andrew’s father closed the passenger door after her. He glanced over at Bryan, loss and empathy in his gaze. Bryan nodded once and looked away. The car coughed into life and moved down the lane. Bryan bowed his head and surrendered to his own quiet tears.
Someone nearby cleared their throat, awkward and self-conscious. Bryan raised his head, blinking the moisture from his eyes to focus on a man dressed in rough, mud-streaked clothes. A flat cap dangled from one hand, the other clasped a spade. The man glanced at the soil heaped on boards next to the oblong hole in the turf and raised an eyebrow.
‘Yes, sorry,’ Bryan muttered. He squared his shoulders to the grave and drew himself a touch straighter, but he did not salute. Andrew wasn’t in the RAF anymore. Swivelling on his heel Bryan strode back through the arch.
The man jammed the cap onto his head and plunged his spade into the heavy, clodded earth. The rhythmic, boxy echo of soil striking oak receded as Bryan walked away from the cemetery gates along the road towards The Railway Hotel.
People slowed their pace as they passed him on the pavement, offering wan smiles of condolence. None of them knew who he was, but in the small town of Wells-On-Sea they had all known about Andrew, and Bryan’s RAF uniform broadcast the obvious connection on this funeral day. Face after face looked into his eyes, searching for something to take away, something to talk about, something that might place them closer to events they had no hope of understanding.
Bryan’s breathing constricted around the bubbling anger in his throat as he fought the urge to shout in their faces about the fear, the bullets and the fire, how much he hated and loved it at the same time, how better men, indeed the better man now inside that wooden box, had gone to an early grave to save them their lazy, gossiping hours of freedom. He struggled to bite his tongue and they mistook his anger for grief, gifting him the mantle of disguise he needed to make it back to the hotel porch.
The clunk of the closing door brought the manageress into the hall.
‘Will you be dining with us tonight, Mr Hale?’
‘No.’ The word rang harsh, he cleared his throat and continued in a softer tone. ‘I’m leaving today. I won’t be staying another night.’
‘Oh’ – the woman dithered, thrown by the change – ‘would you like me to prepare your bill?’
Bryan started up the stairs. ‘Yes, please.’
He fished the key from his pocket and pushed his way into the room. Scooping his shaving gear into a toilet bag, he glanced into the mirror and paused. A haggard edge pulled at his features; his tear reddened eyes added an aged weariness beyond his twenty-eight years. Behind it, he discerned a faint shadow of fear, the unspoken, uncertain count of days separating him from his own hole in the ground.
Bryan slung his duffel bag over his shoulder and descended to the hall. The manageress stood waiting, twiddling with a hand-written bill. Bryan took the bill and scanned the scrawled writing. The total included the room charge for the second night. He glanced up, but the woman had busied herself straightening a picture on the wall. Bryan folded a ten-shilling note into the bill and handed it back.
‘Keep the change.’
Bryan pushed through the door, back into the crisp, early autumn day. The brisk breeze was bedecked with the salt and seaweed smells of a North Sea fishing harbour. He wrinkled his nose against the onslaught, set his back to the water and walked down the hill towards the railway station.
Steam billowed above the station’s slate roof. An engine had just arrived and would be ready to leave the terminus within the hour. He’d make it back to London in time to catch a bus to Kenley.
***
The train clonked and lolled as it slowed into its approach to Liverpool Street station. The unlit urban landscape echoed the darkness in the carriage, the city’s life made anonymous under its thick curtain of blackout, its packed acres of buildings skulking behind a delusion of safety, hoping that a simple absence of light might deflect the German night raiders.
The carriage lurched over points, rousing Bryan from a fitful snooze. Squinting through the carriage window he could make out the looming silhouettes of tenements lining the track, here and there a leaking glimmer of light outlined an ill-fitting curtain. His eyes were drawn up to the black dome of the night sky and a spasm of anxiety crawled over his skin.
A conductor sidled through the carriage. ‘No alerts yet tonight, ladies and gentlemen. Have a safe onward journey.’ He passed to the next carriage and his litany drifted back. ‘No alerts in London yet tonight…’
The train jolted to a halt and Bryan pulled his duffel bag from the overhead rack. He champed against the dryness in his mouth; he needed a drink. Shuffling off the train he skirted around the throng of travellers and strode towards the station entrance. Once outside he paused to make out his surroundings in the dark. Cars and buses trundled past and people tripped and stumbled on their way. Across the road a door opened, a brief slant of light escaped with the hubbub of voices and the clink of a bottle against glass. Moving with exaggerated care across the road, Bryan headed for the now-closed pub door. On the far pavement, he bumped into an older man who cursed under his breath as he disappeared into the gloom. Bryan scrabbled for the handle and pushed through the heavy curtain inside the door.
The immediate warmth in the smoke-filled room relieved the press of hovering menace suspended in the blank, black skies outside. Bryan lit a cigarette. Drawing deeply on the smoke, he moved to the bar.
‘Pint of bitter, please.’
As he waited for his drink he glanced about. A few uniforms dotted the room, mostly soldiers. Other men wore civilian clothes, standing at the bar in drinking groups or sitting apart, at tables with their wives.
The Bluebirds Trilogy Box Set Page 26
