That Burning Summer

by Lydia Syson

  Peggy’s heart seemed to do a double-beat. But Henryk didn’t elaborate; he simply turned back to the Parade program. He knew as well as she did that there would be no Polish pilots in the fly-past, but he couldn’t seem to stop looking.

  “Henryk,” she said, putting a hand out for the program and gently pulling it away from him. “Don’t torture yourself. Please.”

  “Sorry,” he said, but he wouldn’t give it up until he had read every word. At last he looked up, his face transformed by an enormous smile. He jabbed at the paper with his forefinger.

  “Look, Peggy! Look! The Central Band of the Royal Air Force. Poland has not been forgotten—not completely. Our musicians will play today!”

  “We could go back, after this, if you like … if you think we’ll be in time?”

  His eyes alarmingly brighter, Henryk blinked a few times, and looked away, leaving Peggy wondering still. What kind of plans had he meant?

  It had been so long now, with so many letters between them, and she had survived all that time, hadn’t she? Whatever he was about to say now, whatever conclusion he had reached, surely, surely she could take it too. As June had said only the other weekend (tapping her toes impatiently while Claudette carefully tied her own shoe laces) if there was one thing you could say for a war, it makes a girl independent.

  Peggy had managed to keep herself together when they took Henryk away for assessment, off to that horrible place—the NYDN centre, it was called: Not Yet Diagnosed Nervous. Where they stripped pilots of their badges, and made them parade on the seafront in their mutilated uniforms, and judged them fit to fly again, or not. Henryk couldn’t have got through that ordeal without her. He had told her so.

  And hadn’t she spoken out without faltering at two inquests, telling the coroner exactly what she knew in an empty room at the George, shutting out the ominous sounds coming from the crowds gathered outside in the High Street? It had been far worse at her own trial, of course, in the juvenile court. Standing before the magistrate, ears singing and ringing, she barely understood the sentence. She had prepared herself for Borstal, imagined a cell of her own. If Dad could survive prison, so could she. It wouldn’t last forever. So then, to be let off with a fine … she had cried with relief. And worked hard to pay it.

  Peggy was twenty-one now, and her own woman, even if that did mean twelve girls to a bathroom in a bomb-damaged hostel in Marylebone. She had a job, and a life, and that was more than a start. In fact, she really ought to check her diary for the following week. Sort it all out in her head. She started to rummage in her handbag, and stopped almost as quickly. No—no more waiting.

  “Henryk … tell me, what did you mean, before? What plans?”

  Henryk turned back to face her.

  “You know the choice we have to make? There is this new Resettlement Corps—it has an Air Force division—they’ll look after us until … until we find something. Or we go back to Poland.”

  She nodded, her mouth too dry to speak.

  “I’ve decided,” he said. “I can’t. I can’t go back. Not now. I’ve thought and thought about it and there’s no point. There’s nothing there for me.” He sounded almost matter-of-fact, accepting, which increased Peggy’s bitterness on his behalf. He had told her in the end of his sisters’ fate. A day didn’t go by without her thinking about them. “But there’s work for good airmen all over the world—Holland … Argentina … Pakistan … They are all asking for us.”

  So far away, thought Peggy.

  “There’s also a company near Bristol looking for test pilots. What do you think? Shall I put in for that? This is what I want most of all … so I can be with you.” He paused, and waited until he knew she had taken his words in. “May I?”

  Historical Afterword

  All the characters in That Burning Summer are entirely fictional, but the novel is very much inspired by historical events around the time of the Battle of Britain. I’ve taken just a few small liberties for the sake of the story, mainly with timing—sheep were actually evacuated before children, for example. Perhaps I’ve also taken a liberty in the creation of Henryk. I certainly don’t know of any Polish pilots who either went into hiding or were charged with “LMF.” But a German airman, Josef Markl, who bailed out of a bomber plane near Newbury in July 1940, survived for nine days uncaptured before giving himself up.

  You’ll find plenty of ideas for further reading and other resources on all the following subjects on my website, lydiasyson.com, where you can contact me with your own thoughts too.

  LMF

  Records of psychological casualties in the RAF during World War Two are far from clear. The peculiarly British term “Lack of Moral Fiber” was introduced at speed in April 1940 to deter aircrew from refusing to fly without reason. Men with LMF were branded as cowards, and received “firm treatment.” In 1942 the Flying Personnel Research Committee (FPRC) admitted that there was a great deal of confusion about this among those in charge of psychological welfare. Thinking and terminology varied, but most medics agreed on one thing: men who broke down under the stress of flying in battle were “constitutionally timid” and unfit to fly. Their characters were at fault, and their genes or family background were blamed. Yet the problem was seen as “dangerously contagious,” particularly in Bomber Command, where breakdown rates were highest. Some doctors recognized that flying stress built up over time and everybody had a “breaking point.” But no official distinction was made between a crisis of confidence during a training flight and a collapse of nerve after an airman’s twentieth sortie. By late 1945, “LMF” had been abandoned. It is still a controversial and politically sensitive subject.

  Peace protests and conscientious objection

  The Peace Pledge Union was founded in 1934. Within a year, over 100,000 people had joined, promising to renounce war. In the first year of World War Two, over 50,000 men applied for exemption from military service because of their beliefs. Before the war ended, about 5,000 men and 500 women had been charged with offences relating to conscientious objection. Most were sent to prison. A number of PPU members were also arrested for holding open-air meetings and selling their newspaper, Peace News, in the streets.

  Missing pilots

  Many airmen on both sides could not escape when their planes went down, and are missing to this day. The excavation of crash sites on and around Romney Marsh was extremely difficult during the war. Sergeant Stanisław Duszyński was shot down near Lydd in September 1940, while attacking a Ju 88. Neither his body nor his Hurricane were recovered at the time. Decades later, despite several attempts—official and unofficial—his remains have never been found.

  Spies

  Spy fever was running high in the summer of 1940. Four rather incompetent spies landed on the Marsh coast in early September and were caught red-handed, although one had already managed to transmit several messages. Three of the four were found guilty at the Old Bailey and sentenced to death. In 1941, unknown German agents were suspected of the murder of a Lydd builder, found dead in an unoccupied rectory: his death remains mysterious. The only instance I know of an RAF airman “faking his own death” was a Czech called Augustin Přeučil: his double-identity as a spy for Germany was revealed ten years ago.

  Polish pilots in Britain

  There’s a myth that the Polish Air Force was destroyed on the ground within days of Hitler’s invasion of Poland on September 1st, 1939. But despite their outnumbered and out-of-date planes, Poland’s highly trained pilots fought bravely for several weeks before accepting defeat. Most eventually managed to reach France to continue the fight for freedom.

  By June 1940, France had fallen too. Over 8,000 Polish airmen were evacuated to Britain, arriving exhausted and battle-weary in yet another new country. They called it “The Island of Last Hope.” On June 18th, Churchill declared: “Hitler knows that he will have to break us in this island or lose the war. If we can stand up to him, all Europe may be freed and the life of the world may move forward into broad, sun
lit uplands.”

  Forty Polish pilots took to the skies at the beginning of the Battle of Britain, scattered among a number of RAF squadrons. In August 1940, two new Polish fighter squadrons were formed—No. 302, “City of Poznań, and No. 303, “Kościuszko.” By 1941 a fully fledged Polish Air Force was operating alongside the RAF. Polish pilots quickly acquired a reputation for unprecedented skill and bravery in action, winning 342 British gallantry awards.

  Between 1939 and 1945, over 200,000 Poles fought under British High Command. But in the program for the Allied Victory Celebrations in London a year later, you will only find a mention of Poland under one heading—the Central Band of the Royal Air Force. By this time it was Stalin, not Hitler, who seemed to require appeasement. The terrible fate of Poland, a subject far too vast for an afterword, had already been determined around conference tables at Tehran, Yalta, and Potsdam.

  Acknowledgements

  Of all the books I read while writing this one, three stand out: Adam Zamoyski’s The Forgotten Few: The Polish Air Force in World War II, Lynne Olson & Stanley Cloud’s For Your Freedom and Ours: The Kościuszko Squadron—Forgotten Heroes of World War II, and Edward Carpenter’s Romney Marsh at War.

  Edward Carpenter was also extremely generous in sharing his vast knowledge of the history of Romney Marsh in person. Likewise, I had the great pleasure of discussing wartime memories with Doreen Allen, Esther Bourne, and Marie Voller (also known as the Lyddite Chicks), who were kindly introduced to me by Alice Boxall (Friends of Lydd). Recorded recollections in the form of audio interviews and diaries formed a large part of my research, and those of Michal Leszkierwicz, John Anthony Kaye, Audrey Louise Hammon, and Miss M. Cooke made a particular impression on me. I’d like to thank all the museums, archives and libraries who supported my research in different ways: Brenzett Aeronautical Museum; the British Library; the Imperial War Museum (London and Duxford); Kent Battle of Britain Museum, Hawkinge; the London Library; Lydd Town Museum; Parham Airfield Museum, Suffolk; Sikorski Museum, London; Southwark Library Services. Thanks to Lydd Aero Club for making it possible for me to see the Marsh from above, to Barry Banson and Dorothy Beck for other Marsh information, Foppe and Lizzie d’Hane for vintage car expertise, Loraine Rutt for pottery know-how, and Caroline Ridgwell for canine advice.

  I am blessed in my agent Catherine Clarke, and my publishing teams: special thanks to Georgia Murray at Hot Key Books for editing with such sensitivity and insight, and also to Adrienne Szpryrka and Kylie Brien at Sky Pony Press.

  Friends and family have been enormously supportive along the way, reading, listening, discussing, and often re-reading with vast patience and good humor. I can’t thank you all enough: my Finsbury Group (particularly Keren David, Becky Jones and Amanda Swift), Tig Thomas, Antonia Syson, Natasha Lehrer, Polly Radcliffe, Richard Taylor (special thanks for technical and military advice), and Bożena Burda (for whose unstinting help with all things Polish I am utterly indebted). As always, my daughter Phoebe has been invaluable in more ways than I can say, and she, Martin, Adam, Rufus, and Solomon have lovingly endured my obsessions with a minimum of mockery. I thank them all with all my heart.

  Lydia Syson

  Lydia Syson was born in London, England, and lives there now with her partner and four children. She has worked with words and stories all her life, in her early career as a radio producer for the BBC World Service, and now as an author of historical fiction. Detours along the way include a doctoral thesis about poets, explorers, and Timbuctoo and a biography of an eighteenth-century fertility guru, Doctor of Love (2008).

  That Burning Summer is the second of Lydia’s YA novels. Her highly acclaimed debut, A World Between Us, is a story of politics and passion set during the Spanish Civil War, while Liberty’s Fire tells the little known story of the 1871 Paris Commune, through the eyes of four young people caught up in that dramatic revolution. This is the third of her novels to be inspired, very loosely, by family history: Lydia’s anarchist great-great-grandmother moved in Communard circles in late-19th-century London. Read more about Lydia and her books at www.lydiasyson.com or follow her on Twitter: @lydiasyson