What the Raven Brings

by John Owen Theobald

  ‘This isn’t a time when women should be patient, waiting for opportunity to come knocking. We are in a war and we need to fight it with all our ability and every weapon possible.’

  She stops in front of Joy. ‘And what is your name, pilot?’

  ‘Joy Brooks, Mrs Roosevelt. From New York City.’

  ‘It is very good to see you here. Here in England, where the need is great. You are ferrying planes and freeing innumerable men for combat service. In America, women pilots are a weapon waiting to be used.

  ‘Do your best, all of you. Be brave up there. Remember that a woman is like a tea bag. You never know how strong she is until she’s in hot water.’

  At that moment I recognize the figure under the umbrella at her side. Clementine Churchill – I have seen her before, two years ago, at the Tower. She is so graceful and dignified.

  A siren cracks the air.

  ‘It’s an air raid, Mrs Roosevelt,’ says the fireman, his voice unsteady.

  ‘I can damn well tell that, can’t I? Where are we going?’

  ‘This way, ma’am,’ he says, hurrying her away.

  We all rush off to the White Waltham shelter, giddy with excitement despite the real danger. Mrs Roosevelt has been secreted away somewhere – she is not here now.

  The First Lady has made a real impression on Joy. Even more than usual, Joy lets her hands do the talking. I lean forward, away from the stone wall of the shelter, listening in wonder. ‘Mrs Roosevelt visited the Tuskegee Army Air Field – it was in all the papers. The First Lady visiting an all-black flying unit. People thought she was crazy. But she went up with Charles Anderson, the self-taught pilot who started the training programme himself. They flew for an hour over the skies of Alabama. The First Lady, flying with a black pilot.’

  I nod, rebuking myself for thinking how easy Joy has it being done with the exams. She faced far more than I ever could in order to learn how to fly.

  The bombs are not close. We are not the target; neither is Mrs Roosevelt. It is not the V1s. But the Junkers still patrol the skies, and we’d better not forget it. I shall tell Mrs Wells she must use the blackout curtains again.

  ‘Won’t it be grand,’ I say, ‘when peace finally comes.’

  In the silence that follows I cringe at how I sounded. (Around Joy, somehow I end up sounding like old Mrs Morgan next door.) All at once I am aware of how cramped the shelter is. They are all listening.

  ‘I don’t know,’ Joy says, finally. ‘I’d not live a year of my old life again.’

  I say nothing. She was in a circus – she flew aircraft and laughed. She lived in America!

  Things changed after the last war, I remember Mum talking about it. Women were allowed to vote – and to work at newspapers like Mum did.

  What will happen when this war is over?

  I lean back against the stone wall, and close my eyes, Mrs Roosevelt’s words echoing in my head. Remember that a woman is like a tea bag. You never know how strong it is until it’s in hot water.

  Friday, 19 March 1943

  ‘Sun’s up and you’re not.’

  I pull inward, shield myself from the voice.

  ‘Cooper, get up already. Or your toast is mine.’

  I force my eyelids open, see exactly what I expect, and close them again.

  ‘Up, Cooper. Or I’m drinking your tea, too.’

  Is it three or four weeks that I’ve been at White Waltham? Three or four weeks of being woken up by Joy in the morning darkness. I shrug off the warm covers, pull myself to my feet. I fight back a wave of dizziness – you never quite adjust to the gnawing hunger.

  ‘I’m awake.’

  There is no light outside. Joy is wearing civilian dress – a white blouse and red skirt – and she looks different somehow, not so much older than me. I don’t bother covering a yawn.

  Ground School is over. The horrid exams, over. And my first leave is coming up. The next forty-eight, Joy calls it. I see what she means – it’s two days, but I plan to enjoy every hour. Joy is staying at a hotel in the city, and wants to take me out. I feel bad; she is not from here.

  I have money, too, as the ATA has paid my wages and reimbursed my uniform allowance. But I have to go to the Tower, see the ravens, find Timothy Squire. I have to go home.

  Lately thoughts of Mum have become even stronger. I remember her, lying still on the bed, no sound or lights. I can see myself, tiptoeing into the room, holding folded brown paper.

  ‘Mum?’ My voice is barely a whisper. ‘Is it... horrible?’

  No response comes from the dark, unmoving form.

  ‘Soaked in vinegar, like Dr Bishop said.’

  ‘Come on, Cooper,’ Joy laughs, and I blink away the memory.

  I am still not quite awake. Joy is looking down at me with her smiling brown eyes, and I see the friend – the only friend – I’ve made here. Maybe the only one I’ve got left.

  ‘Get up. Show me you Brits know how to have a good time.’

  Saturday, 20 March 1943

  ‘You’ve got your uniform, the boys will love you,’ Joy had said.

  She’d insisted that we wear the full dress uniform – our Best Blues – skirts instead of trousers for tonight, silk stockings and forage caps. I insisted that we both wear some of my red lipstick – I may have said, ‘good lippy is more essential than food’ – and we both look rather striking. People are looking at us at any rate.

  Or perhaps it’s because I look too young, or the colour of Joy’s skin, or because we’re two women in pilots’ uniforms. Joy doesn’t seem to care, so I try not to, either. Plenty of other Americans here, and some of them black soldiers in uniforms. Maybe Joy wants to go and talk to them? She doesn’t seem to notice them.

  Everyone is laughing or grinning, and a band blasts out music. Joy had smiled when she said she would take me out and treat me to ‘something stronger than ginger ale’. Is this what she has in mind?

  ‘Are you sure?’ I ask as we push through the crowds. I’ve heard of the Lansdowne, but never thought I’d be inside. In a cadet uniform. I wish Timothy Squire were here.

  ‘My dad used to say, “You gotta live like your hair’s on fire.”’

  I frown, absently reaching for my hair. I did live with hair on fire. And waited for ever for it to grow back.

  ‘This is Colonel Clarke.’ She points to a tall man, who nods in my direction. ‘And a few WASP girls from back home. Opal!’

  A sharp-featured girl staggers forward and locks Joy in a tight hug. Everyone is in their finest. Joy warned me with a story about Captain Billy Eugene being asked to leave the Lansdowne for violating the dress code.

  ‘Opal, this is Anna Cooper, new girl at the airfield.’

  ‘What I don’t understand,’ Opal says, turning from Joy to me, ‘is why all you Brits are so prim and proper all the time. I know you’re being bombed, but you’re not dead, are you? Fat Tim and his Band! Let’s go dance!’

  I shake my head.

  ‘Give us a few minutes,’ Joy says, steering me away. ‘Barely had time for a drink.’

  We squeeze into the queue at the bar counter.

  ‘What’ll you have?’ Joy calls over her shoulder.

  I stare back blankly. Mum always had gin. ‘Wine,’ I say. ‘Thank you.’

  There is something about a pilot’s wings. It is more than just a military badge; the golden wings topped with a crown, the letters RAF in the centre. And here, on almost every left breast pocket.

  ‘Be careful now.’ Joy hands me the glass. She is holding a pint. ‘Nothing worse than a cockpit hangover.’

  ‘Cockpit...? But I won’t be flying soon – I mean, yet.’

  ‘Bad habits are the easiest ones to learn, Cooper.’

  Joy introduces me to other pilots – a copper-haired girl, a plump girl with a wide, smiley face – and brings me another wine when my glass is suddenly empty.

  One of the girls leads us over to a new group, who are chatting loudly amid their drinks. Male pilots, all str
aight-backed and confident – officers. Eyes meet ours, glances are exchanged, and their group expands to accept ours. The conversation, however, carries on undisturbed.

  ‘Bloody navy can’t tell a Hurricane from a Messerschmitt.’

  More laughing, not particularly good-natured. ‘Fire at me every time. Everything they’ve got.’

  ‘Hard enough to patrol the Channel without your own ships firing at you.’

  A quiet voice speaks and the noise drops away. ‘Don’t be too hard on our navy boys,’ he says. ‘A sitting duck, in a tanker full of fuel.’

  Rapidly all the heads are nodding in agreement. The speaker wears a small smile, but he is quite apart from the boisterous group.

  ‘Cecil!’ I cry out, louder than I mean to.

  For a moment I’m not certain it is. He gives me a strange searching glance before a slow smile spreads across his face. He doesn’t recognize me. And I’ve just screamed his name across the Lansdowne. My face must be redder than my lipstick.

  ‘Well, Aircraftwoman Cooper. Fancy seeing you in that uniform.’

  I try to smile. He does recognize me. Of course he does – he took me up in the Lancaster. He also gives rings to every girl he meets.

  ‘You look so... you’ve grown up quite a bit, Miss Cooper. How are you?’

  I remember Joy and glance back but she has vanished. The copper-haired girl is practically grinning. Cecil finally steps towards me, nodding goodbye to the group. His old smile returns.

  ‘Sorry about the boys. This isn’t strictly an officers’ pub, not that I believe in keeping us all separate. They’re a bit hard on the navy, and we get the same back. All I know is that I was very foolishly shot into the sea over Margate. And if it wasn’t for the navy boys, I wouldn’t be here now.’ He laughs abruptly.

  ‘You got shot down?’ I say in surprise. ‘In the Lancaster? Was anyone hurt?’

  ‘I confess I did come within an appreciable distance of having my nose broken, but the crew is all spick and span. I have been moved off bombers for the time being. I’d say I’ve used up my good fortune. Unless, of course, you’ll say yes to some dancing?’

  My face must be a tomato. I am unreasonably relieved that his nose is intact. ‘I have to be back. Back to the Tower before nightfall. Curfew...’

  ‘You’re going to be a pilot, Anna. One of the few female pilots in the world. A thoroughly dangerous job. You have to dance while you can.’ He holds my gaze a fraction too long.

  He’s going to kiss me. The thought lunges into my head and my whole body tenses. What about Nell? What about Timothy Squire?

  ‘What do you say, Miss Cooper?’

  Unkissed, I blink my eyes open. How could I not dance with him? Nell would understand.

  ‘Cecil—’ The voice stops dead. An annoyingly beautiful girl has just appeared at Cecil’s side. But she has eyes only for him. She is not in her uniform – in fact, I recognize her dress only too well. Now the green seems properly fashionable, and the wide padded shoulders create a flat shoulder line which makes her slim waist look like an hourglass. And in her heels she towers over me. Perhaps she wouldn’t understand.

  ‘Oh, hello, Nell. So nice to see you again.’

  She is looking at me like I’m dirt. Like she did the first time we met. And she is wearing his ring.

  ‘Imagine the odds,’ Cecil says. ‘Your old friend from the WAAF is here. And now she’s a pilot!’

  ‘Pilot?’ She glances at the stripes on my shoulder. ‘You mean “cadet”, surely?’

  She turns away from me. I no longer exist.

  ‘Let us go and dance.’ She starts to lead him away. He casts a look back at me, but lets himself be pulled into the crowd.

  I stand still, awkwardly holding my wine. Well, she has won him from Isabella Pomeroy. I take a quick sip, let the cool liquid numb my throat. You thought he was going to kiss you? Cecil Rafferty?

  I recognize some of the smiling faces out there. Westin, for one, dancing with a full glass in his hand. He meets my eyes. My face lights up in recognition; his does not. If he notices me at all, it is with a small grimace. Joy, too, is out there, dancing up a storm and grinning wildly. I should finish this glass and slip out – Joy will understand. Cecil won’t even notice I’ve gone.

  I hesitate too long, as Cecil returns from the dance floor. Without Nell.

  ‘What’s the matter, Miss Cooper?’ he asks. ‘Not enjoying the company?’

  ‘Well, ATA pilots can be quite... tiresome, if you didn’t go to finishing school in Paris.’ I don’t know where I got the courage to say that, but it certainly is true.

  ‘I heard from Nell that you recently took up residence in the Tower of London. How grand.’

  ‘Well, yes,’ I stammer. Nell is not my friend; not any more, if she ever was. ‘I mean, I grew up in Maida Vale. I only moved to the Tower after the war started.’

  ‘And you don’t enjoy the company of the society girls.’

  ‘They are hardly inviting.’

  His smile softens. ‘They are threatened, Miss Cooper.’

  ‘By what?’

  ‘By you, of course.’

  I look up at him. He is not teasing. Is he? ‘Stop it.’

  ‘I mean it. By you, Miss Cooper, and by the hundred or so other girls to come to the ATA from scratch. To be a female pilot meant one was an elite – usually privately educated and well connected, definitely wealthy. And now... some ambulance driver can turn up and fly a Moth in a matter of weeks.’

  I never thought of it like that. He is smiling and again I am glad he has his nose unbroken.

  We settle quite nicely into chatting, discussing good and bad take-offs, and the problems of a sticky throttle.

  ‘What do you want to do after the war, Anna?’

  It is the first time he has used my name. ‘After the war...?’

  ‘It’ll all be over some time,’ he says.

  ‘I don’t know. What will you do?’

  Cecil shrugs his wide shoulders. ‘I was a tea taster before the war, believe it or not. I was told my job would be waiting for me. How it will compare to all this...’

  ‘Hey, Rafferty!’

  A pilot stumbles over, throws an arm around Cecil. ‘What? Scouting out the local talent without me, Captain?’

  ‘Ah, Duncan.’ Cecil coughs. ‘Dunk is my navigator, most important man in my crew.’

  ‘Who’s this then?’

  Cecil suddenly looks as red as me. ‘This is Anna Cooper, from the ATA.’

  ‘Yeah? She ever been in the cockpit?’ He sways forward, the beer spilling down Cecil’s front.

  ‘That’s enough, Dunk.’ He detangles from the drunken man.

  ‘Enough? This is my eighth. Where’s your eighth, Rafferty? Crew quota. No abandoning the quota because you met some new bird.’

  ‘Dunk. You’re a mess.’ Cecil glances around, his eyes wide. ‘Westin! West, can you give me a hand here? Duncan needs a hand getting down to a taxi.’

  ‘Taxi? It’s only – West, you bastard! What’ya doing? Rafferty won’t meet the quota on account of this bird—’

  With a grateful look from Cecil, Westin escorts the raving man towards the door. He gives me the briefest of nods in passing. I will have to study up on riveting to win his approval. By taking the screaming drunk away, he’s already won mine.

  ‘What do you say, darling? Time to be off?’

  Nell has returned, shoulders raised and arms crossed. I am forcibly aware of just how beautiful she is. If only Westin would come back and take her away. Darling?

  ‘Ah, I ought to stay a bit longer, I fear. The honour of my squadron is in question.’

  ‘I am knackered, Cecil.’

  ‘Go on without me.’

  A very long moment passes. Nell does not look happy as she sways into the crowd. I am surprised that, having vanquished Isabella Pomeroy, she would give up so easily.

  ‘We bombers get a good amount of attention, we know that.’ He smiles, but his smile fades as he c
ontinues. ‘But if this all goes wrong, if we lose this war, and Nazi Storm Troopers parade the battlements at the Tower of London, we will get the blame. Tea-tasting isn’t looking so bad these days.’

  I lower my head. I have never thought of that either.

  ‘Well, Anna? Shall we have a dance?’

  Wordlessly, I nod. Time slows. I am looking around, at the gleaming bottles, the hanging bunting, at everything but the man dancing in front of me. Joy is there, on the other side of the room, hands flashing. When the music turns slow, Cecil moves closer.

  What will happen now? There is of course no question of simply shaking his hand, thanking him for the dance, and saying goodnight. Then what are you doing? Insistent questions rise up, but I have no answers.

  Even after we move apart, I can still feel him. The warm imprint of his body against mine, his forearms firm around my sides, his hands on my back. I try not to look at him, my face turning hot. The next song brings us back together again. I glance up at him, for the first time, and just like that he kisses me.

  Softer than I could have ever expected. And nice. Warm. Still, I pull away.

  I step back, careful not to stumble. Suddenly I am conscious of my hair, my teeth, my body – and far too aware of him, his nearness, his smell, the heavy warmth of his hands. Some wild voice within me – not mine, not Flo’s – is telling me to run.

  Breath comes too fast. It is done. We have kissed. Something not unlike a bomb has raced from the sky and – what? Opened it up? Ruined everything?

  ‘Well, Anna. There’s a bar in my hotel, much quieter than this. What do you say?’

  I don’t know what to say. What about Nell? What about Isabella Pomeroy? All at once I am afraid that I have, in fact, ruined everything. Oh, Timothy Squire. I am sorry.

  ‘Anna?’

  ‘Oh no. I can’t. I mean... the curfew.’

  Another pilot saunters over, wearing a big grin. ‘Headed down to the Kit Kat Club for a grog – you coming?’

  Cecil shakes his head: ‘no’. But he gazes back towards the door. He seems to regret letting Nell Singer go home alone. Flushed red and feeling the fool that I am, I extend my hand.