The Last Letter from Juliet

by Melanie Hudson

  Marie left two days later. She never did buy that motorbike. We had a last, fun-filled night of impromptu singing and dancing at the Bugle Pub, ending with We’ll Meet Again and Anna’s favourite, Somewhere Over the Rainbow. which made us all cry.

  We cried a great deal that night and we cried because we knew it was the end of an era, that despite her promise to fly the Spitfire again, Marie would move on for good. It was simply her way. And there was something else too, a sense of things beginning to draw to a conclusion.

  She wouldn’t let us see her off at the station – said it would ruin her make-up. Instead Marie hugged us at the door and with the parting words of, ‘I love ya, you crazy sonofabitches.’ She walked away. Nothing at Hamble was ever quite the same once Marie left and little did we know, things were about to get much, much worse.

  Chapter 32

  Juliet

  An angel in the cockpit

  The weather conditions were marginal as Anna and I sat chatting with our fellow pilots in the mess, grounded by the weather, waiting for the cloud base to lift, killing time. Anna was thrilled that we’d been tasked again to deliver two Spitfires to Predannack and was particularly anxious to go. Bill, Anna’s new boyfriend, was still flying with his squadron and would be waiting for us on arrival, so long as we arrived that day, because the following morning he was being posted to another squadron in Scotland. Anna, standing at the window literally watching the clouds roll by, insisted we were to get airborne the moment the weather started to improve, which wasn’t like her, she was always the cautious one – overly, sometimes. But I wanted to delay our departure, even if that meant Anna would not see Bill. Yes, it was usual for ATA pilots to fly at the edge of the weather envelope, but too many names had been rubbed off the chalkboard by now, fellow pilots who had fallen to the perils of flying in bad weather and I was determined that our names would still be written on the board at the end of the war.

  I pointed to a poster on the mess wall at a copy of the top three rules for ATA flying and read two of them out loud to Anna:

  i) Bad weather flying strictly prohibited.

  ii) No flight shall be commenced unless at the place of departure the cloud base is at least 800 feet, and the horizontal visibility at least 2,000 yards

  Nevertheless, an hour later, the cloud base lifted to seven hundred feet and the visibility improved to 2000 yards with the forecast of a cold-front clearance moving in from the west. Anna grabbed her kit.

  ‘Come on, Foxy,’ she said, excitedly tapping me on the leg. ‘Remember the ATA motto, Juliet, anything to anywhere!’

  Reluctantly, I also began to gather my things, but I refused to fly on her wing. If we hit a bad spot of weather it would be difficult to retain the required visual references to stay in close formation, especially if she began to make unpredictable turns in attitude and height while trying to navigate around low cloud, so we agreed to depart twenty minutes apart.

  Anna went first. She dashed out of the ops room and blew a kiss in my direction, grabbing her flying jacket as she ran. But it wasn’t her jacket, it was mine, which had my father’s compass in the pocket. I couldn’t fly without it.

  I dashed out after her. She was already in the cockpit, the canopy pulled back, going through her checks, the rotor blade not turning yet. I climbed on the wing.

  ‘That’s my jacket,’ I said, but she was already strapped in. She began to unstrap. ‘No, don’t worry. I’ll fly in yours, but I need my compass. It’s in the right pocket. Sorry, I know it’s ridiculous, but I never fly without it.’

  She reached through her parachute straps and delved into the pocket.

  ‘And don’t forget,’ I shouted above the noise of the airfield, taking the compass, ‘if the weather closes in, turn back.’

  ‘It won’t!’ she said, smiling. ‘And anyway. It’s time I was a little more confident, you said so yourself.’

  ‘But not in bad weather, Anna. And remember I’ll be twenty minutes behind you, so if you turn back, watch out for me coming the other way!’

  She shoo’ed me off the wing. ‘I won’t be turning back. I’ll see you there.’ She pulled on her helmet and goggles. ‘And don’t worry, I’ll be fine.’

  I kissed her on the cheek. ‘Stay safe.’

  ‘Safe? In a few hours we’ll be dancing in the mess hall,’ she said. ‘Now off you go.’

  I watched Anna let off the break and open up the throttle. She waved as she taxied past me and I couldn’t help but remember another smiling woman waving at me from another aircraft in another field, many years before.

  It was a terrible flight.

  The slight rise in the cloud layer at Hamble had been no more than a sucker’s gap and by the time I hit Devon, the low cloud, mist and rain hit me. But where was Anna? Which way had she turned?

  I considered my options. In an ideal world I would keep clear of the high ground of Dartmoor and skim over the sea towards Cornwall, with the hope of the promised weather clearance hitting me sooner rather than later. But the south Devon coast was heavily defended against attack from the Luftwaffe and it would be too risky to head towards the coastal defences at Plymouth.

  For the first time in my entire flying career I had absolutely no idea what to do for the best. I descended lower and lower, trying to stay below the cloud, skimming church steeples and looking out in desperation for a decent navigable landmark, such as a river or a train line. If forced to climb into the cloud, goodness only knew if I would ever find a gap to descend through and without instruments, or a radio or any kind of training of flying blind, I would either run out of fuel or fly straight into the cloud-covered ground. Either way, I would crash.

  My worst nightmare soon became a reality when the visibility became so poor I had no option but to climb into cloud. It was like playing blind man’s bluff, but with the added pressure of certain death if I walked in the wrong direction. I checked my fuel gauge over and over again. With my detour away from Dartmoor well under way to the north, I realised that I no longer had sufficient fuel to make it to Predannack. I looked at my father’s compass and checked my general direction of flight. I was heading north west. And then I remembered the lesson that the RAF pilot had given me in the ill-fated dance hall that time, a lesson in instrument flying. I recalled his instructions, to straighten the aircraft using the artificial horizon and mark my last known point before becoming disorientated. RAF Chivenor was in North Devon, I knew, and if I continued to head in a north-north-westerly direction, I would hopefully come across some better weather and either head to Chivenor or find a suitable field to land in. If I didn’t, my fuel would run low and I would be forced to descend through cloud.

  I flew on for another fifteen minutes watching the fuel gauge as it slowly wound down. For a moment I began to shake so violently that I was hardly able to keep my hands steady on the controls. I looked out of the canopy at the pillow of cloud engulfing the aircraft and wondered if this was what drowning felt like. But then, the most calming sensation of peace came over me, as if the Spitfire was under the control of another force altogether and the clouds that had acted to suffocate now seemed to swaddled me into a safe embrace.

  With absolutely nothing left to lose, I closed my eyes for a moment, took a deep breath and allowed my hands to lift from the steering column and for a few seconds, handed my fate to nothing more than chance – but it was more than that. I had the feeling I was no longer alone – that another presence was in the cockpit with me. I felt such an overwhelming feeling of being flooded with love that I would not have cared right at that moment if I’d crashed and died. I was already in heaven.

  The moment of peace didn’t last for long. Suddenly shaken awake as if from a wonderful dream, I regained control of the aircraft and allowed my beautiful Spitfire to fly in the direction she had settled of her own accord, the direction I’d been gifted when I had simply sat back, believed and let go.

  Less than five minutes later, the blanket of grey began to disperse and gav
e way to whiter, wispy clouds. I banked hard to the left and to my absolute relief saw land, roughly two thousand feet beneath me, and ahead of that, the North Devon coastline. RAF Chivenor, my chosen diversion airfield, would now not be difficult to find.

  From that moment on, although I’ll never know who or what flew with me, I never in my life felt completely alone again.

  The ground crew at RAF Chivenor were surprised when a Spitfire appeared through the clouds. They were even more surprised when a woman opened the canopy. I explained the circumstances of my arrival and asked to be pointed towards two things – a toilet and a telephone. My only thoughts now were of Anna. Had she turned back to Hamble? Had she diverted to another airfield, or had she, by some miracle, made it to Predannack.

  I phoned Hamble and asked if Anna had either returned or checked in. She had done neither. With fear rising in my belly I phoned RAF Predannack and prayed to almighty God that I would be told of her arrival there.

  I wasn’t.

  I sat in the met office and hovered over the phone, berating myself constantly for bending to the pressure to fly. It took several hours for the news to be confirmed, but eventually it became clear that Anna never made it to Predannack, or to anywhere, in fact. By late evening the news reached Hamble that a gunner on a Royal Navy Frigate operating just off Plymouth had seen what might have been a Spitfire appear through low cloud and fog off the starboard bow. It had ditched into the sea. He thought he’d seen the pilot bail out. The captain of the frigate ordered a search to be conducted, but after several hours of scouring the Channel for any trace of an aircraft or a survivor, the search was abandoned and the aircraft and pilot declared lost.

  With all other ATA aircraft accounted for and with no RAF squadron aircraft losses reported, there could be no doubt that the crashed Spitfire was Anna’s, and that my wonderful, kind and beautiful friend, was gone. I wrapped myself in her jacket and wept.

  Losing my parents to a flying accident had been unbearable, but with the help of the Lanyons, despite the odds, somehow I got through it. But a part of my soul disintegrated the day I lost Anna. For weeks all I could do was replay the day, picturing what might have been if the course of events had run differently. The what-ifs were agony. What if I had agreed to fly in formation? What if I had followed my conviction that the weather had not improved significantly enough to risk the flight? What if I had never taken her to Lanyon – she would never have met Bill and would not have been desperate to see him. What if his squadron had not been deploying the next day? But the biggest what if of all, was this: what if, on the most important day of my life at an airfield called RAF Upavon, Marie and I hadn’t persuaded Anna to fly the Spitfire when she clearly didn’t want to? The answers all led to only one outcome – my darling Anna would still be alive.

  But that was the problem with accidents, if we could only foreshadow them we could very quickly break the chain of events that lead to disaster.

  But it was too late.

  It was always too late.

  A hardness crept into my soul that hadn’t existed before. I flew harder and longer than ever. I was living in a fog of grief and the only scrap of tenderness left in my heart was for Edward. With Marie gone, I dreaded going back to my home in Hamble. Anna floated around in the ether waiting to be grabbed onto. Every room contained a multitude of memories. But now, knowing that the memories could never be replayed in real life, recalling our time together at Hamble no longer brought happiness, but a deep and desperate sadness that suffocates the heart when it finds it necessary to endure the loss of an interconnected soul. Anna was an angel. She was a good woman with not one ounce of badness of selfishness in her. There would never again be any woman in the whole world who I would admire, adore and love so deeply. I have missed her every single day of my life.

  Chapter 33

  Katherine

  Christmas Eve

  Yvonne intercepted me on the way to Juliet’s room, guiding me into the manager’s office. She sat me down.

  ‘Juliet dictated this to the night manager in the early hours,’ she said, handing me a letter. ‘Listen, I know you had the best intentions,’ she continued, with quite a kindly tone for Yvonne, ‘but I think the trip out yesterday was too much for her.’

  I opened the note.

  My dear Katherine.

  Thank you so much for yesterday, it was wonderful day, wasn’t it? I’m so sorry but I’m not feeling particularly well tonight. A kind of hushed daze seems to have overwhelmed me and I think it’s best if I rest tomorrow. As you know there are three more ammunition boxes out there. I have written down the locations, attached to this letter, and I wonder if you might take a trip out on your own, see if you can find them? I hope and pray the compass is in one of them, but that search is beyond me now and if you don’t find it, please don’t worry, I know I’m going to have to let it go.

  Sam has messaged to say that he is on his way home and I hope – more than anything I have hoped for in my life – that he is able to take me flying, which is another reason for resting up today, because I need the energy to fly, one last time.

  I’ll rest up now and save my energy for the big day!

  With all the love in the world,

  Juliet.

  ‘Would you like a cup of tea?’ Yvonne asked as I stared blankly out of the office window, my glazed eyes skimming over the expanse of lawn and down towards the sea.

  I smiled, put my hands on my knees and stood to leave. ‘No – thanks, Yvonne. I’ll be getting on my way.’

  She put a hand on my shoulder, her face was the picture of pity.

  ‘I think you probably realise now that Minack was a bad idea, but don’t feel badly,’– so this was the tack she’d decided to take – ‘But if you don’t mind, we’ll keep her inside from now on and make sure she’s taken care of properly, get her back up to strength. Perhaps it would be best to let her stay here for Christmas Day, I’ll explain it all to Mr Lanyon if you like.’

  I paused at the door and smiled.

  ‘I don’t feel badly about yesterday. Not at all. Even if she’d died at the Minack – even if her wheelchair had gone careering down the steps and she’d plummeted head-first into the sea – she’d have loved every minute of it. Juliet was – is – an Attagirl! I’ll be back tomorrow with Mr Lanyon to take her flying.’ I opened the door. ‘Goodbye, Yvonne.’

  ***

  The remainder of the day saw me walking miles and miles along the coastal path looking for the ammunition boxes. And I found them, too. One at Kynance Cove, one at the Lizard and the final one under a twisted oak on the banks of the Helford. Despite the dank morning, the mist cleared by eleven only to be replaced by a delicious Cornish blue sky. It was a wonderful day. A day of adventure and promise, of retracing Juliet’s footsteps. I wished I’d met her twenty years ago, when we could have talked for hours and I could have picked her sharp brain about so many things. I wanted to tap into her experiences. Juliet had moved on to consider bigger, more universal questions in her later years and I wondered, was this out of a genuine scientific interest on her behalf, or if she simply want to prove to herself that heaven really did exist – and that Edward, in whatever form, existed too and really was out there waiting for her? I also wanted to ask, how can you tell about love? How do you know who to walk through eternity with? What if I moved on with someone new, only to meet a smiling James at the pearly gates and have to tell him that I’d fallen in love again, that my love hadn’t been reserved only for him, after all? I sat on the cliffs at the Lizard, with a box stuffed with yet more twenty-pound notes sitting next to me, and remembered our wedding vows, to love and to cherish, till death us do part. And Death had parted us, which left me, what? Released from the agreement? Free?

  My day of coddiwompling ended just before sunset with an hour at Fenella’s. We needed to finalise arrangements for the Boxing Day party and I wanted to talk to her about Juliet, too.

  I took my usual place at the kitchen table and wa
ited to be fed.

  Fenella, sporting yet another Christmas jumper (a chirpy-looking snowman with little flashing lights), dropped an un-iced Christmas cake onto the table in front of me with a thud. The cake had an inconsistent texture on the top, like it had been … nibbled. Fenella, muttering something along the lines of, ‘The little beggars have been at it again,’ took a bread knife out of the drawer and rather than cut me a slice, put the cake on its side and carefully sheared a centimetre off the top of the entire cake. Fruit and crumbs were swept onto the bin leaving a much-reduced cake, in height at least, sitting on the table in front of me.

  ‘I daren’t ask, but I’m going to have to,’ I said as she cut a couple of slices. ‘Why did you cut the top off?’

  She waved the knife, dismissively. ‘Oh, I forgot to cover it when I went to bed last night, and the mice have been at it. Not to worry, they’ve only got little teeth, and even if they pee’d on it, the pee wouldn’t penetrate much more than half an inch down, so it’s fine.’ She handed me a slice on a patterned china plate. ‘Eat up!’

  The conversation turned to Juliet.

  ‘The thing is, she keeps talking about endings,’ I said, taking a mouthful. It was delicious. ‘It’s as though everything she’s doing is quite consciously the last time she’ll do it, like she knows she’s going to die very soon. But how could she know that? Do you think she’s ill?’

  Fenella glanced up from her cake.

  ‘When you reach one hundred years of age, Katherine, I’m sure every day feels like it may be the last.’

  ‘Yes, I know. But this is different.’

  ‘It probably is,’ she said with a comforting smile, ‘but don’t you go thinking or worrying about it now. That’s the last thing she would want you to do.’