To Kate's relief they spent the rest of the time, until Robert waved her off on the train back to base, talking about the war and the new aeroplanes, the bombers and fighters, which were being built. When she voiced her apprehension that soon she would be flying Halifaxes and Spitfires from their production lines to the RAF bases, he laughed and reassured her.
'I've flown them, and so long as you remember which aeroplane you're in you can manage.'
'I hope so. At least the information they give us is so sparse it's easy to memorise. Just a page of reminders, sometimes.'
She sat back in her seat as the train pulled out of the station, and closed her eyes. It had been far worse than she'd imagined. Somehow, during the previous year and a half, she'd persuaded herself she could be happy without Robert, would in time forget him, and the pain of loving him while being unable to admit it would diminish. It hadn't. Next time they met, though, she'd be better prepared. He'd probably be married by then. He hadn't said what his plans were, but surely they would not delay any wedding for much more than a year after his father's death? It would soon be Easter, a favourite time for weddings, and if he could obtain leave, if the conditions of the war did not make leave impossible, he and Daphne would soon be married. Robert would be even further out of reach than ever before.
*
Maggie looked round the bedroom with a sense of relief. They'd be safer here than in the more crowded streets of Spons End. She couldn't stop smiling. She hung up the last of her clothes, smoothed the eiderdowns on the two single beds, coverings which surely would not be needed now, at the end of June, and went downstairs.
Sheila looked up from where she was ironing. 'Settled in?'
Maggie nodded. 'It's as though a huge weight has gone. When they called up men in their twenties, and then we had rationing, Sam began to get twitchy. That raid on Tuesday finished him, and his pals. They couldn't leave fast enough.'
'And the bombs didn't even hit Coventry, just the aerodrome at Ansty.' Sheila put her iron to heat and picked up the other one, spitting on it to test whether it was hot enough.
'He was scared of the sirens. Oh, Sheila, how thankful I am that you're here to take us in. Even though we'd have had the house to ourselves once the men left, it would always have been a reminder.'
'Put the kettle on, Maggie. I'm ready for a cuppa. There's something I need to talk about.'
A few minutes later they were sitting at the table. Maggie waited and watched Sheila toying with her spoon as she stirred the sugarless tea. Then Sheila looked up and shrugged.
'George is getting more persistent. He wants me to go and take a cottage somewhere well away from Coventry. He's sure it will be a target, and we don't seem to be able to stop the bombers. Norway, Holland, Belgium, and now France. We might be invaded next.'
'Then being in a country cottage won't help,' Maggie said. 'We won't let the Nazis in. We've got Churchill in charge now.'
'Thank goodness. But George says they'll bomb us first, try to frighten us into surrender. He wants me and the kids safe. I'd take Hattie as well. She's a lot easier to manage now, and she's a real help with the kids.'
Maggie was silent, thinking through all the implications. 'If you go, Sheila, I can't stay here. But I don't want that to stop you! You must go if you think that best.'
Sheila smiled at her. 'It would be easier than constant arguments! And I could take your children too. You could come with me.'
Maggie shook her head. 'There's so much to do, I'd feel as though I was deserting if I left the factory. I'd be grateful if you'd take the kids, but that would make it even worse. What would people say if George and I were living here on our own? I could rent a room nearby, though.'
'Maggie, don't be daft! Why pay out good money when you can stay here? You're like my sister, and I'd trust you and George to behave, if that's what you're afraid of. It doesn't matter a toss what other people say.'
'It may not to you,' Maggie began, but before she could finish there was a tentative knock on the kitchen door.
'Come in,' Sheila called, and they both turned to look at the door when nothing happened.
Maggie, who was nearest, got up to open it. Outside, backed away from the door, holding his arm across his face, his coat badly torn, his feet bare, stood Sid.
'Mom? Oh Mom!' he cried and flung himself at her, almost knocking her over with the force of his rush.
'Sid? Is it really you? How did yer get here? Who brought you? How are you? Did those devils hurt yer?'
Sid was crying, heaving deep, racking sobs. Maggie hugged him to her, and she was weeping too.
'Come and sit down,' Sheila said, and somehow Maggie stumbled to a chair, Sid clinging to her as if he'd never again let her go. Sheila cut slices from a loaf, spread them with jam, and placed them and a glass of milk in front of Sid. He began to wolf them down, and at last he was calm enough to tell them the details.
'They kept me and Ronnie in a room at the top of the house we was in,' he said. 'The window was boarded up, and all we could see out the cracks was more houses. Then they took Ronnie away. Where is he, Mom?'
'It's all right, love, he came back, they brought him home, and he's at school. Were yer kept there all the time?'
Sid shook his head. 'They fetched me down daytimes, but I was never let out. They made me pack ciggies from big boxes inter small packets. I think they sold 'em cheap in pubs.'
'Stolen, I expect,' Sheila said. 'How did you get away?'
'They went, one day. I was all on me own, an' I climbed outta window. It was Sparkbrook. I asked, and they showed me which way ter walk ter get 'ere.'
'You walked? All that way?'
'I dain't 'ave no money,' he said indignantly, and Maggie hugged him tightly.
'Course you didn't. But it's a long way. It must have taken you days. What did you eat?'
'People in cottages give me things,' he said. 'I slept in haystacks two nights. Me feet 'ad got soft, and me shoes dain't fit no longer, so I got tired.'
'We must get a doctor to check him over,' Sheila said briskly. 'I'll go now, while you give him a bath.'
*
Robert stood watching his latest pupil, Ronald Frant, take the Tiger Moth on his first solo flight. He hadn't been fully convinced the lad was up to it, but the pressure to turn out qualified pilots as fast as possible was intense.
'Let him go,' his commander had advised. 'Nothing gives a fellow confidence more than being on his own.'
The take-off had been good, and Frant flew round the airfield keeping the Tiger steady. Perhaps his fears had been unnecessary, Robert decided. He was becoming more of a worrier, and part of it, he knew, was that he wanted to be away from here. He was an experienced pilot, more so than most of the ones now flying the RAF's bombers. He desperately wanted to join those seeking revenge on the Luftwaffe who had been creating such havoc attacking shipping convoys.
Only two nights before, less than two weeks after the RAF had shot down dozens of German planes in the biggest raid yet, the Germans had been back and had attacked several towns. They seemed to have endless weapons.
His musings were cut short as he saw Frant's Tiger losing height as it approached the runway.
'He's too low, he won't clear the hedge!' he exclaimed, and began to run towards the far side of the field.
The Tiger's wingtip touched the hedge and, so slowly that Robert covered a great deal of the distance still between them, twisted round and crashed to the ground.
One wing crumpled and the fuselage came to rest on its side. Robert was within twenty yards, when he was halted by a sudden whoosh of sound and heat as the engine caught fire. It spread rapidly to the flimsy struts and fabric, and set part of the hedge ablaze with a suddenness so unexpected he was momentarily confused.
Then he dashed forwards and bent down to reach into the cockpit. Frant seemed unconscious, and Robert had a struggle to release the straps. He began to haul the pilot out of the seat, flames licking at his hands and the crackli
ng noise making it impossible to hear anything else.
It seemed ages before he freed Frant and dragged him clear. Heaving him up onto his shoulder, Robert staggered away from the carnage. A sudden explosion behind him threw him forward, and the last thing he knew was an excruciating pain in his left leg.
***
Chapter 15
George and Maggie were both on fire watch at the factory. Maggie knew she was exhausted, and George looked haggard. There were air raid warnings almost every night now. The sirens were also sounded when Birmingham was the target, and few nights passed without their sleep being disturbed.
'Sheila's coming back,' George said when they were drinking tea from the flask Maggie had prepared.
'But it's not safe! We've had several raids the past month!'
'That's what I told her, but she says they get so many alarms where she is, even out in the country, that she might as well be here with us. Besides, she's really afraid the older ones will just come back of their own accord. Harry's been very envious of Sid, walking all the way from Birmingham on his own.'
'He'd think differently if he had to do it.'
Maggie was both relieved and apprehensive. On the one hand not a lot had happened, there had been few raids on Coventry, and it was just over a year since the war had started. It probably wasn't really dangerous, but there was always the possibility that the air raids would intensify. Did she want her children to be at risk?
On the other hand living in the house alone with George had been difficult. Since he had first rescued her from Sam's friends she had admired him, contrasting his strength and calmness with Sam's feckless and sometimes vicious behaviour. She was aware she was getting too fond of him. He treated her as though she was a sister, teasing her, making her laugh, but not for an instance giving her any hint that he thought of her in any other way.
When he'd suggested, though, that to save being disturbed in the middle of the night by having to get up and go to the shelter, they might as well sleep there from the start, she'd been horrified.
'I can't do that!'
'Maggie, why not?'
'Well, it's like us sleeping in the same room. It's not right.'
George laughed. 'It is sleeping in the same room, but there are separate bunks, Maggie! What about all the people who have decided to sleep in the communal shelters? They don't even know each other.'
'That's different. You know what I mean.'
'Very well, you sleep there. I'll come down if there's a raid.'
Maggie heaved a sigh. 'Oh, all right, George. I can't allow that, and you know it!'
'If it makes you feel any better it was Sheila who suggested it when I saw her last week. She said I looked exhausted, and I confess I am.'
Perhaps, Maggie thought, that was the unspoken reason why Sheila was coming home. However much she trusted both Maggie and George, it must be difficult for any woman who loved her husband as Sheila loved George to think of him and another woman sleeping in the same shelter, alone, in such frightening circumstances as this war. She would be heartily relieved to see her, whatever the danger. And she'd missed her kids, especially Sid, so soon after he'd come back to them.
*
Robert lay in the hospital bed, concentrating on willing away the irritation on his face and hands as the burns healed. This caused him far more annoyance than his broken leg. That would mend, it had been a clean break when he'd been blown forward by the explosion, tripped, and fallen awkwardly. His left hand had been badly burnt, he'd always have scars. And though the doctors reassured him that the scar on his face, a long thin burn where one of the metal wires had caught him, would fade in time, he did not believe them. He looked a mess. But more importantly, this accident had put him out of action for a couple of months.
His mother had visited him a week after the accident. She had been tearful and reproached him, saying that if he had listened to her advice and stayed to run the factory he wouldn't have ruined his looks.
'It's going to be six months or more before you are fit to be seen on wedding photographs.'
'Is that more important than saving someone's life?' he'd retorted. He'd known he was short-tempered from the pain, and had not meant to boast. He'd leave that to others. All except Frant, who had also been burnt badly, and who had for a while been in the adjacent bed. Robert had begged the doctor to move him.
'For I can't abide his gratitude!' he'd said with a wry laugh. 'The fellow doesn't let an hour go by without telling me how much he's in my debt. Surely he's fit enough to go to a different ward?'
'He'd be dead but for you,' the doctor said.
'I know!' Robert groaned. 'But I'd prefer not to have to live through every second of that again, many times a day.'
Frant had eventually gone, vowing eternal friendship, and saying that Robert only had to ask, and he would do anything in the world for him.
Frant couldn't free Kate and persuade her to marry him, though.
He'd managed to doze for an hour after lunch, and woke with a start when he heard voices beside the bed. He opened his eyes to see Daphne staring down at him, horror plain in her face.
'Robert! They didn't tell me it was as bad as this! Your face is terrible. I've not seen anything so bad even in the hospital where I'm working. Will it ever get back to normal?'
Robert grimaced inwardly. If this was the reaction he had from the girl he was engaged to, who presumably loved him, what could he expect from others?
'Hello, Daphne. Thank you for visiting. As for my burns, I have no idea whether the scar will be less terrible in time.'
Daphne bit her lip. 'I'm sorry, Robert, but it was such a shock. I heard all about it. You're a real hero at Tern Hill. But you risked your life.'
'I didn't stop to think about that.'
They made awkward conversation for ten minutes, and then Daphne looked at her watch.
'Robert, I mustn't tire you. I'd better go now.'
'Will you come again?' he asked, aware of her anxiety to be gone, the difficulty she had of looking him in the eye. Her reaction to his damaged face decided him to take a step he'd been contemplating for months, but shying away from because he considered it dishonourable.
Daphne paused, and then rushed into speech. 'It's a long journey, Robert, and I have so much work to do. They say you might be able to come nearer home in a few weeks. Perhaps then.'
Robert took a deep breath. 'Daphne, I can see how my changed looks distress you. Please wait for a few moments. We need to discuss our situation calmly. I've believed for a long time that I was wrong to ask you to marry me. If you would release me from my promise I would be for ever in your debt.'
'Why did you ask me, Robert?' For the first time she really looked at him. 'Did you ever love me?'
Sadly he shook his head. 'I should have been stronger. My father had been pushing me for years, wanting me to marry and produce grandsons for him. He cared very much to keep the business in the family. It made him very happy when we became engaged.'
'And I was more acceptable than Kate Martins, I suppose! Your father would have died on the spot if you'd taken her home.'
'Leave Kate out of this, please!'
'Willingly! I'm sorry I ever befriended her, she's turned into a deceitful, snake in the grass!'
'Daphne, will you release me?'
'And have everyone say it's because you've lost your looks?'
'Well, you must admit they horrify you.'
Daphne took a deep breath. He could see tears in her eyes, but she blinked rapidly. 'I suppose I knew, deep down, you never loved me, but I hoped, once we were married, I could change that. It would never work, would it?'
'No, my dear. Even if Kate is not for me, it would be wrong of me to marry you when I love her.'
She turned away and walked out of the ward, dabbing at her eyes. Robert cursed his clumsiness. He could have handled that better. But at least he was free, not facing a loveless marriage. He hoped Daphne would soon find consolation.
> *
Kate heard of Robert's heroism the next time she took an aeroplane to Tern Hill. The trainee pilots in the Mess were full of it, and so wild were the accounts of his injuries that she went immediately to find a senior officer who could tell her the truth.
'What's your interest, then, young lady?'
'He taught me to fly,' Kate replied shortly. 'From what those men are saying he's at death's door, every limb broken, and burnt almost to a cinder.'
The man laughed. 'No, not nearly so bad. One broken leg, but a clean break, he'll be out of plaster soon. His hands are badly burnt, but he'll be able to use them. And he has a burn scar down one side of his face, which I'm assured will not spoil his beauty.'
'Thank you.'
'Shall I tell him you enquired? I'll be visiting later in the week.'
'No, please! I don't want him to think – well, to think I'm specially interested.'
'H'm.'
Kate escaped, her cheeks on fire. Had that been stupid of her? If Robert got to hear of it, it had, so she could only hope the officer was discreet. But she had to know. She considered writing a brief note, but decided it was better to leave well alone.
She was not at Tern Hill again until the second week of November. In between she'd been flying larger aeroplanes, bombers and fighters, to RAF bases, and she wondered whether Robert was back on duty. He wasn't visible in the Mess, and she asked another instructor she'd met a couple of times if he was well again.
'Pretty nearly. Still has to use a stick, and he can't fly for a while. He's still in the hospital but will soon be going home for a few weeks, I believe. I could do with a break myself.'
Kate nodded. 'I've a few days off, till Sunday, and I'll be staying with my sister.'
'I'll tell him. Every time I go to visit he asks me if you've flown any more Moths here.'
Kate frowned, but decided it would cause more speculation if she didn't say anything than if she asked him not to mention her. She was going straight to Coventry that afternoon.
*
As Kate approached Sheila's house Jeannie, Harry and Sid, all on bicycles, swooped towards her.
Can Dreams Come True? Page 32
