The Fleethaven Trilogy

by Margaret Dickinson

  They stood in the rain awaiting the funeral cortège which was already late. Then, as it appeared around the corner, they saw a strange procession walking behind the slow-moving vehicle. A man led the way, lurching from side to side, with a tiny, bird-like woman walking behind him carrying a child of eighteen months or so. Behind her straggled five more children of various ages and sizes. A tall, lanky youth, incongruously still in short trousers; a girl in a coat which was far too big for her, the hem flapping round her ankles; and three smaller children, one with jam smeared across his mouth, another with his nose running and grey socks wrinkled around his ankles. Kate glanced at Isobel, but she was staring fixedly ahead, deliberately ignoring the family.

  The man came and stood in front of them. ‘You ‘ere for our Edie’s funeral?’ The smell of alcohol wafted into their faces.

  ‘That’s right, sir. My name’s Trent – your daughter’s Commanding Officer.’

  The man wiped the back of his hand across his mouth and then proffered it to be shaken. Without a flicker, Philip took it and shook it firmly.

  “Ow do?’ the man said gruffly, then he jerked his thumb over his shoulder. ‘The wife and kids,’ he added, rather unnecessarily, Kate thought.

  Philip inclined his head towards Mrs Brownlow and her brood. Standing a pace or so behind their CO, the three WAAFs were able to avoid shaking hands with Mr Brownlow, as the party, now complete it seemed, moved towards the church porch. As they fell in behind the coffin, Isobel muttered, ‘Now we know why she had nits!’

  ‘Shut up, Iso!’ Kate hissed between her teeth as they passed through the porch and into the musty interior of the church.

  The service was conducted in a swift, unfeeling monotone. It was obvious that the vicar knew neither Edith nor any member of her family and Kate felt a surge of pity for the girl as her coffin was lowered into the grave. As the party moved away, Edith’s father said loudly, ‘I told ’er she’d come to no good, joining up. She had a good job – a safe job – in a factory. What did she ’ave to go and join up for? Officers’ groundsheets, that’s all them WAAFs are. I told ’er.’ He glared accusingly at the three girls in uniform as if he held them personally responsible for his daughter’s death.

  ‘She wanted to make something of herself, Bert.’ The woman looked up at Philip, appealing for support. ‘She was a good girl, sir. Not like ’ee’s makin’ out.’

  Philip nodded at the woman, his voice gently sympathetic. ‘She was a clever girl, Mrs Brownlow, and well thought of, I promise you. We shall all miss her.’

  The woman’s eyes filled with tears and she nodded, a swift, pecking movement, hitched up the child in her arms and turned away. The children followed her while Edith’s father, with a last baleful glare at the officer and three girls in uniform, sniffed, wiped his hand across his mouth once more, turned away without a glance at his departing family and shuffled off down the road in the opposite direction towards the swinging sign of a pub.

  ‘Good grief! What a family!’ Isobel could contain herself no longer as they got back into the car. ‘Ooh, sorry, sir.’

  ‘That’s all right.’ Philip took off his peaked cap and ran his hand through his springy hair. ‘Thank goodness that’s over. Let’s get going, Kate.’

  As Kate started the car she heard the gasp of surprise from the back seat at Philip’s use of her Christian name. Once out of the city, Philip relaxed and leaned back in the corner of the front seat, half-turned towards the two girls in the back, his arm along the back of the bench seat.

  ‘In the confines of this car, we’re unofficial,’ he grinned. ‘My name’s Philip and you’re . . .?’

  ‘C-Cartwright and Nuttall,’ Mavis stuttered.

  In the rear-view mirror, Kate could see Mavis’s eyes were nearly popping out of their sockets.

  ‘No, no, Christian names, please.’

  ‘Isobel – and I’m Mavis.’

  ‘Well, Mavis and Isobel, just so long as we’re very official when we get back to the station, eh?’

  ‘Oh yes, sir.’ Mavis gasped. ‘Of course.’

  ‘Now, Kate, if you can find us a quiet, out-of-the-way pub on the way back I’ll treat you girls to a spot of lunch.’

  The atmosphere relaxed at once and soon Mavis had them in fits of laughter with stories about the antics her young brother had got up to in his efforts to join up at fifteen. ‘My mother wanted Dad to leather him, but Dad just smiled and said he wished he could join up again himself. He was in the last lot and got gassed . . .’

  Kate was silent, but vague memories of her own father flickered through her mind; hazy pictures of an emaciated figure shaking uncontrollably. In her memories Danny was there and they were walking down the lane at home, one on either side holding the hands of the man they now knew had been the father of the them both.

  Over lunch, Kate was amused to notice that Isobel positioned herself next to Philip, engaging him in conversation, tilting her head to one side coyly as she listened, intensely interested in whatever he was saying.

  ‘Well, ladies,’ he said at last, ‘I’m sorry to break this up, but we must be getting back . . .’

  ‘Oh, isn’t he nice?’ Mavis said later, when they had returned to camp.

  ‘Is he married?’ Isobel asked, and when Kate glanced at her, she saw a cool, calculating look in Isobel’s eyes.

  ‘I can’t find out anything,’ Mavis said in disgust. ‘Even Dave doesn’t know, and normally what he doesn’t know isn’t worth knowing! I know he comes from the York area, but honestly, that seems to be all anyone can find out about him.’

  ‘Mmm,’ Isobel said and her eyes took on a faraway look.

  A week later a letter came from Danny containing anxious inquiries as to Kate’s safety. Although he was avoiding putting anything in writing directly, it was obvious he knew about the terrible raid on Suddaby airfield.

  ‘Please write back at once and let me know you’re safe.’ His concern gave her a warm glow, but in contrast the rest of his letter left her with the cold chill of being excluded from a happy event.

  ‘It was a shame,’ he wrote, ‘that you couldn’t get leave the same time as me. We had a great time.’

  We, who was ‘we’? The next line made it clear.

  ‘I took Rosie dancing in town, or rather – if I’m truthful – Rosie took me! She really is a great kid and fun to be with. All the fellers are around her like bees round a honeypot, but she danced with me all evening and made an old man feel young again!’

  Kate smiled as she read the letter. Fool! she thought, he’s only nine years older than Rosie and yet he talks as if she’s still a child. Then her smile faded and her glance went to the window. Her hands, still holding the letter, lay in her lap. She looked out across the gently rolling landscape. But Rosie was no longer a child. She was a young woman who liked to flirt and have a good time. And she had spent a weekend with Danny.

  For the first time in her life, Kate felt a tinge of jealousy towards Rosie Maine.

  In her reply posted the same day, Kate promised she would get leave the very next time he did. ‘Then we can go home together. I do miss you so, and I’ve so much to tell you.’ She paused, her pen wavering above the page, knowing that what she was going to write next was unfair, possessive when she had no right to be, and yet she could not help herself.

  ‘And if it doesn’t work out and I can’t get leave, maybe you could come and stay somewhere near here instead of going home.’

  Kate ignored her conscience and posted the letter quickly.

  A whole month went by and she did not hear from Danny. Now it was her turn to worry that something might have happened to him.

  Twenty-Six

  ‘I know what we ought to do,’ Mavis said in her best organizing voice. ‘We ought to go to a dance in Lincoln.’

  Kate gasped and Isobel looked disdainful. ‘Do you think that’s appropriate in the circumstances?’ Her glance flickered over the empty bed that had been Edith’s. No one had arrived yet
to fill it.

  ‘Edith wouldn’t have wanted us to mope about it. What matters is that we should remember her.’

  ‘I suppose you’re right,’ Kate said, and even Isobel shrugged.

  ‘If I can fix it up with some of the lads, we’ll go into Lincoln next Saturday night. There’s bound to be a dance going on somewhere. Dave’ll know.’ With that Mavis whirled about and was gone from the hut, banging the door behind her, without giving Kate or Isobel any time to argue further.

  Kate shook her head, smiling fondly after her friend. Then she reached into her locker for her writing pad.

  ‘Dear Danny,’ she began. ‘My new friend Mavis – you’d like her, she’s so jolly – has bullied us into going to a dance in Lincoln on Saturday night. How I wish you were nearer and could go too?

  Isobel eased her last pair of silk stockings over her shapely legs with tender care. ‘If anyone ladders these tonight at the dance, I’ll get them put on a charge.’ She turned to look at Kate who was still sitting on her bed. ‘Are you getting ready or what?’

  ‘I – I don’t think I’ll come,’ Kate faltered. Most of the girls not on duty were going to the dance in Lincoln, but Kate wasn’t in the mood. She’d had no reply from Danny to her last two letters and was just beginning to feel a little uneasy about his safety.

  Mavis, hands on hips, came and stood over her. ‘Oh yes, you are, my girl, so you’d better look slippy and get ready.’

  Adopting that stance, Mavis reminded Kate so sharply of her mother that she burst into laughter. ‘Oh, all right then. I’ll come.’

  She levered herself off the bed, gathered her things together to get washed, put on a clean shirt and brush her uniform.

  Mavis had not moved away but was still hovering near Kate’s bed. ‘I hope you’re not going to bawl me out,’ she said, chewing the side of her thumb.

  ‘Now what have you done?’ Kate said in mild exasperation.

  ‘I’ve fixed the three of us up with Dave and a couple of his mates.’

  ‘Oh, I’ll take Dave, then,’ Isobel said airily.

  ‘Keep off, Cartwright. He’s mine, and you too, Kate Hilton, with those green eyes of yours.’

  ‘Sounds like you’ve got the “green eye” over him yourself,’ Isobel drawled, and Kate said, ‘Oh, I get it! We get the pimply friends, do we? I’d sooner go with Sandy.’

  ‘Eh?’

  ‘You know, the navigator in T-Tommy.’

  ‘Oh yes, I know him. Sorry – he’s on leave, evidently.’

  Kate pulled a face. ‘On second thoughts, then, I reckon I will give it a miss . . .’

  ‘Oh no you won’t, when I’ve spent the last couple of days running round like a headless chicken fixing it all up.’

  ‘Nobody asked you to,’ Isobel put in tartly, but Mavis ignored her.

  ‘There’s the three of them,’ she went on. ‘My Dave, Johnny and Brian. Johnny’s a bit of a lad, but Iso will handle him. And Brian’s nice. Besides, he’s – er – married.’

  ‘I see – I get lumbered with the nice safe ones, do I?’ Kate pretended huffiness.

  ‘Well, to be honest,’ Mavis wriggled her shoulders with embarrassment, not realizing, for once, that Kate was teasing her, ‘the way you talk – I thought you’d want it that way. I mean—’ she was floundering now. ‘The way you talk about this Danny, I thought he was your boyfriend – someone special.’

  ‘He’s very special,’ Kate said softly, ‘but he’s not my boyfriend.’

  Mavis looked puzzled. ‘Oh. Then . . .?’

  ‘That’s enough questions for one night,’ Kate laughed, and linking arms, the friends ducked out into the night to dash across to the ablutions through the drizzle.

  Kate was wishing heartily that she had not come. She had never learned to dance properly, and the local girls in their pretty dresses with their hair curled into the latest styles, made her think of Rosie. Thinking of Rosie made her think of home and, of course, thinking of Fleethaven Point made her think of Danny.

  Brian – her blind date for the evening – proved to be not spotty and shy, but overweight, extremely loud and far too familiar for such a short acquaintance.

  ‘Oh Kate, do let yourself go a bit, for heaven’s sake,’ Mavis hissed, snuggling closer to Dave, who sat with one arm draped around her, leaving the other free for lifting his beer glass with frequent regularity.

  ‘You seem to be doing enough “letting go” for all of us,’ Kate snapped back.

  ‘Don’t be such a prude!’ the good-natured Mavis laughed. Morosely, Kate wondered if it was even possible to offend Mavis.

  ‘I quite agree with Kate,’ Isobel put in, crossing her legs and puffing elegantly on a cigarette which she had inserted into a long ebony holder. Her blonde hair was smoothed back into a neat pleat and, despite the uniform, she looked like a model off the front of a pre-war fashion magazine. She had taken an instant dislike to her date and had despatched him with icy politeness to try his luck elsewhere. Isobel looked so incongruous sitting there amidst the smoke and the spilled beer, coolly fending off any young man who dared to approach her with an invitation to dance, that watching her, Kate was suddenly overcome by a fit of the giggles.

  ‘That’s better.’ Mavis leaned forward and whispered in her ear, jerking her head in Isobel’s direction. ‘We can only cope with one killjoy at a time.’

  To her surprise, Kate began to enjoy the evening. It was not the local girls in their pretty, feminine dresses who attracted the attentions of the young men but the girls in uniform, and, once she decided to join in, Kate found herself never without a partner. Without causing any offence, she skilfully managed to steer clear of Brian for most of the evening. Before long, her feet were aching and she was sure she had left a few bruised toes where she had trodden on her partners’ feet. It hardly mattered that she couldn’t dance well, because there was scarcely room to do so anyway. But the atmosphere was wonderful; she had never known anything like it before. Everyone seemed so happy, so carefree. It was hard to believe that some of those young men singing heartily, their arms draped casually around a couple of WAAFs, might be flying over enemy territory dropping bombs by this time tomorrow night.

  And some would not be coming back.

  Kate shuddered. Suddenly, amidst all the jollity, she felt lonely. It was all false, a forced gaiety to hide their fear, their terror of tomorrow. But what else could these brave young men do? Sit around moping, waiting for death in the morning? No, this was their way of being courageous; it was the only way they knew.

  The music seemed to grow louder, the laughter became strident; Brian’s arm around her was suddenly too tight, the smoky atmosphere oppressive, cloying and stifling. She wanted to push her way through the crowd and escape into the fresh air. A sudden longing for the peace and tranquillity of the end of the Spit overwhelmed her. The desire would not be wholly denied. Kate gave a little sob and thrust herself away from Brian’s clutch.

  ‘Hey, what did I do?’ he asked, bemused.

  ‘Nothing, nothing,’ she mouthed above the noise. She put a hand to her head. ‘I must get some – air.’

  He grinned stupidly at her, misinterpreting her reasons. Lurching towards her, he grabbed her arm again. ‘What a good idea,’ he leered.

  Kate twisted herself from his grasp. ‘No!’ She pulled away from him, knocking against the couple dancing nearby. The whole dance-floor was crowded now, there was scarcely room to move.

  ‘Aw, now don’t be a spoilsport . . .’ he began. Blindly, Kate turned away, but found her face pressed against another blue uniform, the buttons digging into her cheek. Two arms were around her holding her tightly. She gave a cry and began to struggle.

  ‘Kate – it’s me . . .’

  With a gasp of surprise, she pulled her head back to find herself looking directly into a pair of laughing brown eyes.

  ‘Danny, oh Danny!’ And she flung her arms around him.

  Behind her, her former dance partner shrugged philosophicall
y. ‘Oh well, I know when I’m beaten. Hope you have better luck than I did, mate.’

  Danny pushed his way through the throng, with Kate in his wake. When they reached the edge of the floor, he said, ‘Come on, let’s get out of here,’ and together they almost burst through the doors of the hall and out into the open air.

  ‘Whew! I don’t think I could have stood another minute!’ Danny took great gulps of air. ‘It’s worse than being in the belly of a Manchester!’

  ‘What are you doing here? How did you know where to find me? How did you get here?’

  ‘Rescuing you, in answer to your first question. And not a moment too soon, by the look of it. As for your second question, you told me in your letter. Forgotten already?’ he teased gently. ‘And your last question – by truck, like you, I expect.’

  ‘But I thought you were miles away.’

  His grin broadened. ‘My squadron’s just been moved to East Markham.’ In the darkness she could not see his face, but she could hear the excitement in his voice. He made no effort to conceal it.

  ‘East Markham! Why, that’s only a few miles from Suddaby.’

  ‘I know.’ He put his arm casually around her shoulders as they walked along the street. The pavements were wet now with a fine drizzle. ‘We’d best get out of this, else we’ll end up soaked. There’s a pub over there. It might not be too crowded. Let’s try it.’

  Pushing open the door to the bar, they were met by that unmistakable pub smell, a mixture of beer and smoke. Four old men sat in one corner playing dominoes and the barmaid leaned against the bar examining her long painted nails in close detail. She straightened up as Danny approached the bar, and smiled.

  ‘I was beginning to think I’d ’ave to close up an’ go home. All our regulars is at the dance.’ She pulled a face and it was obvious the girl wished she were there too. ‘What’ll it be, love?’

  Danny ordered a beer for himself and a shandy for Kate. As he carried them across to her and placed them on a small round table, he jerked his head towards the opposite corner. ‘Reminds you of me dad and old Tom Willoughby playing dominoes in their usual corner in the Seagull, dun’t it?’