‘Aye,’ a more serious Malcy agreed, ‘and this time we’ll have to make a better job of it.’ Secretly Malcy thought it would be stretching their luck too far to believe that they’d survive another onslaught.
Then one night, as Joe and Pete were writing to their wives, he began to think of Wincey, and to remember her red hair, her pale, freckled face and unblinking stare. He felt curious about her more than anything. She’d always been a bit of an enigma. He had already written to Teresa and Erchie to let them know that he was all right. Now he wondered if he should write to Wincey. At least it was something to do. He never took part in any of the card games that went on because they played for money. Not that it amounted to much—just coppers mostly. Even so, he rigidly avoided anything that involved gambling.
So he settled down and began writing a letter to Wincey. He told her about Dunkirk, going into more graphic detail than he’d been able to do in his hasty note to Teresa and Erchie. He poured out his thoughts on the course of the war, and the bravado of the locals. Then he asked about life in Glasgow, and if the factory was still doing well. It was a long letter—so long that he wondered if he should send it at all. In the end it went off to the post with the other envelope that contained Joe and Pete’s letters home.
Immediately afterwards, he felt strangely anxious and agitated. He put it down to the state of his health. Very few of the survivors had fully recovered from the trauma they had suffered. Malcy had come to believe that most of them never would. His own experiences continued to haunt him, although on the surface he appeared quite normal. Or at least he thought he did. He never cried out in his sleep like some, or gave in to the humiliation of weeping. Nor did Joe or Pete. But a few others he knew had been reduced to pitiful wrecks of humanity.
He wished he was back home in Glasgow. He talked about Glasgow a lot with Joe and Pete—the football matches they’d gone to and the teams they’d cheered on, their favourite pubs. Joe had been born and brought up in the East End and Pete had come from Springburn. Both Joe and Pete confessed that they’d rather have stayed in the East End and Springburn than move to their new homes in Clydebank. But at least the twins were happy, that was the main thing.
‘So once I’m home in the dear green place,’ Joe said, ‘I’ll never step out of it again. At least never out of Scotland. You can keep your foreign countries. You can stuff England as well.’
‘Me too,’ Pete fervently agreed.
‘The dear green place,’ Malcy echoed dreamily.
Pete shook his head. ‘The English seem to think we all go about with razors up our sleeves and do nothing but fight each other. I was talking to one of the locals and when I mentioned I came from Glasgow and asked if he’d ever visited the place, he actually said, “Oh, I’d be too frightened to go up there.”’
Joe laughed. ‘Never mind, it’s bad enough worrying about being invaded by Jerries, without having to think about hordes of Englishmen coming up north.’
‘I mean …’ Pete was still feeling insulted, ‘it’s such a good place to live, and damn it, it’s a friendly place as well. It’s a damned sight friendlier than London.’
‘Aye, well,’ Joe said, ‘they’re no’ so bad around here. They’ve treated us to a few good drinks, you have to admit.’
Pete shrugged then said, ‘I still wish I was in Glasgow. I’d give anything to be enjoying a drink in the Boundary Bar right now.’
Malcy nodded in agreement and his mind wandered far away.
19
It was strange how Malcy, who had once come between Wincey and the rest of the Gourlays, now had the opposite effect. They had all liked and defended Big Malcy while she had despised him. She would have got rid of him from the factory if she had her way. But it was always Charlotte who had the last say, and he had been Charlotte’s husband.
Now, however, Wincey was glad to share Malcy’s letter with the family and Teresa and Erchie and Granny were glad and grateful.
After poring over the first long letter that Wincey received, Granny said, ‘Och, it’s just wicked what that poor fella had to suffer.’
Teresa sighed. ‘I remember him in my prayers every night. I pray that one day soon he’ll be back safe and sound.’
‘He’s no’ out o’ the woods yet, hen,’ Erchie said.’ Aw the soldiers down there’ll have to pitch in an’ fight the Germans if they start invadin’.’
‘But,’ Wincey looked worried, ‘Churchill said the RAF would …’
‘See him,’ Granny interrupted, ‘he’s got the gift o’ the gab, I’ll gie him that, but aw this grand talk is no’ goin’ to be any comfort to aw the mothers that’s lost their sons. An’ aw the mothers that’s gonnae lose theirs. An’ he’ll no’ be any help to oor Malcy, will he? Just the opposite, if ye ask me. See him an’ his finest hour—ah’d finest hour him if ah got ma hands on him.’
Teresa’s voice came out sharper than she intended. ‘I wish you’d just keep your opinions to yourself, Granny. You’re always such a pessimist. We’re all worried enough without you making us feel worse.’
It was true that they were all worried and depressed. Life in general had become more and more difficult. It was a struggle now even just to get a few lumps of coal for the fire. Teresa had to trundle a home-made barrow to the nearest coal yard and stand for ages in a queue—even though she wasn’t really fit enough for such heavy and exhausting tasks. As she said herself, she was ‘a wee bit chesty’. More often than not, a few coal briquettes made with dross was all she got after her long wait in the pouring rain. Now in August coal wasn’t so urgently needed as it had been in the winter months, but Granny still felt the cold and with her arthritis, she had to be kept warm. Teresa couldn’t even find the wool now to darn Granny’s stockings.
Autumn would soon be here, and winter creeping in, and food getting scarcer. Teresa had always believed it was important to eat plenty of good nourishing food to generate heat inside you, and energy. Food—or rather the lack of it—was now a real worry. A lot of folk had to have their pets put down because they weren’t able to feed them. Only warehouse cats were entitled to a dried milk ration. Queues, queues—there were queues everywhere for everything. It was beginning to get them all down, although everyone tried their best to keep their spirits up. Or at least to make an outward show of doing so.
There was the black market, of course, but on principle (and for fear of Granny taking a heart attack if she found out), they never had anything to do with it. Dealing on the black market was a criminal offence, although everyone knew people who were getting away with it.
It was difficult too to keep cheery when there was so much bad news around. Closest to home had been the loss of Doctor Houston. None of them had quite got over that tragedy yet. Then poor Mrs McGregor’s man had been killed. And as if that wasn’t bad enough, Jimmy, one of her sons—a mere lad not long out of school—had been killed in a bombing attack on an airfield. He hadn’t been a pilot or anything glamorous like that. All he’d ever wanted was to be a mechanic. Mrs McGregor said he’d just been happily working on the ground when a whole lot of bombs had rained down on the airfield. That’s what she’d been told.
‘Poor wee Jimmy,’ Teresa said. ‘It’s just terrible. What can I say to poor Mrs McGregor? Her heart’s broken.’
‘I’m glad Malcy survived Dunkirk,’ Wincey said, and meant it. ‘It’s a miracle anyone did, when you think of it.’
‘Aye,’ Erchie said, ‘poor fella. His face got it, he said in the letter, an’ him such a nice lookin’ fella. Always so cheery.’
‘Yes,’ Teresa agreed, ‘and with such bright twinkling eyes. I never could get angry with him, even when I knew about his gambling.’
‘He told me before he left,’ Wincey said, ‘and I believe him, that he’d never gamble again.’
‘It was a weakness he had,’ Teresa said, ‘but he was never a bad man. Charlotte always said he was good to her.’
Erchie examined the letter again. ‘Maybe he’ll no’ be scar
red. He seems to go on more about his shoulder an’ his arm, but he makes it all sound as if it’s more of a nuisance than anythin’ else.’
‘Have you replied to his letter yet?’ Teresa asked Wincey.
‘Yes, I wrote quite a long letter back giving him the news about Glasgow, as well as the family. I tried my best to keep it as cheerful as possible.’
‘Good for you, dear. You’ll let us know when you get any more word from him?’
‘Yes, of course.’
It had not been as difficult a letter to write as Wincey had thought it might be. Once she’d got started, there seemed to be no stopping her. She’d described all the places in Springburn he knew, and told him everything that was going on. She gave him all the news about the factory—how they’d to work with the lights on day and night because they’d had to paint all the windows black, how Erchie was one of the few men left in the place. The others had either been called up or volunteered. It wasn’t so easy nowadays to get or keep women workers either. Quite a few of the girls he would remember had joined the WRENS or the ATS or the WAAFs. Nevertheless the factory was still managing to keep going. She told him how she’d shared his letter with the Gourlays and that they sent him their love and best wishes, and how Teresa was remembering him in her prayers. She hoped she managed to make him smile or laugh at the some of the things Granny had said or done and finished her letter by urging him to take good care of himself and to write again if he could.
For a few seconds she hesitated about how she should sign the letter. She couldn’t quite bring herself to write ‘Love’, so eventually she settled ‘Kind regards, Wincey.’
His next letter caused some dismay among the Gourlays and with Wincey. It spoke about the increasing number and ferocity of aerial dogfights. He was obviously too near an airfield for comfort.
‘It’s all right,’ he assured them. ‘The RAF is knocking out dozens of Messerschmitts every day. I’ve lost count of the ones I’ve seen going down in flames. I can’t see the Germans being able to mount an invasion now.’
It was good news in a way, but they still worried about Malcy’s safety.
‘Tell him in your next letter to go on bein’ careful an’ to look after himself, hen,’ Erchie urged. Wincey, they all knew, had been better educated than them and could write a better letter. As a result, they’d elected her to write on behalf of them all. She spent quite a few evenings now bent over the kitchen table, her auburn hair flopping forward, a writing pad in front of her, chewing at her pen and thinking of what to write. Erchie and Teresa and Granny kept chipping in with ‘Tell him this’, or ‘Remember to tell him that’, and she did. It was the personal bits from herself that always proved difficult. She had always found it difficult to speak about her feelings, in fact, she seldom spoke about herself. Oh, it was all right to go into great detail about how she was running the factory, how she now visited her mother and father every weekend. She had not been able to tell Malcy about the reunion with her mother and father, but Teresa and Erchie had in the first letter that had been written. Now she could describe what they were like, but not her feelings towards them. She’d mentioned Robert Houston’s death but nothing about how devastated she’d been, what regrets she’d had. She tried to shut it all out of her mind now. Life had to go on. Malcy was a survivor, but she was a survivor too.
She worked hard. That helped. She was lucky in having the love and support of the Gourlays, and her mother and father. She was glad that her mother and father had met Robert and liked him. Although she was a bit worried about her parents at the moment. Her mother was working longer and longer shifts as a VAD. Her father had more and more to do with the Home Guard. What spare time he had he was using to try to catch up with his writing. Recently, when she’d been having tea with a client in Copeland & Lye’s restaurant, she’d seen her mother sitting at another table with a man with silvery grey hair. They were chatting and laughing together, oblivious of anyone else. Wincey decided not to approach her.
She’d told herself later that it could have been a perfectly innocent meeting. The man could have been an ex-patient or someone connected with her work. It made her feel uneasy all the same. She didn’t like the thought of any trouble between her mother and father, especially if it meant her father getting hurt. She wondered if she should mention seeing her in Copeland’s. That would give her mother a chance to explain, to say who the man was. She kept wondering, and doing nothing about it, until she saw her mother with the same man again. This time she was getting into his car.
Wincey decided to speak up then. It turned out the man was a doctor from the Royal. Her mother had laughed and said, ‘Don’t worry. It wasn’t a clandestine meeting. We just happened to bump into one another and we were talking shop.’
Maybe it was just her suspicious nature, Wincey tried to tell herself. All the same, she couldn’t help thinking that her mother had acquired a guarded look and she’d spoken too cheerily. Instinct told Wincey that something was wrong.
20
Just for the first second or two, Richard was stunned at the sight of well over a hundred planes with black crosses on their wings. Then he became very still and cool. He banked his Spitfire hard around until he was behind a twin-engined Messerschmitt 110. With the throttle fully open, he closed in and opened fire. The 110 flopped onto its back and went hurtling down, trailing smoke. Richard pulled up just in the nick of time as another ME 110 latched onto him. Flinging his plane around the sky in a series of desperate evasive manoeuvres, Richard suddenly saw the silhouette of another 110 filling his gunsight. He fired a long, withering burst that raked the German fighter from end to end. Smoke poured out of one engine, then flames. As it fell away and plunged down, a parachute blossomed and drifted out of sight.
A moment later the sky was empty and so were his magazines. He turned back towards the airfield, landed on the grass and parked his Spitfire away from the hangars. This was just as well because within twenty minutes, the hangars were bombed. He only stayed long enough for his ground crew to refuel his aircraft, put in a new oxygen bottle and more ammunition before he took off again. As the day wore on, Richard lost count of how many dogfights he had been involved in, how many of the squadron had ‘gone west’, and how many times he himself had cheated death.
By the end of the day, the runways and a couple of hangars had been damaged again, but it was nothing compared to what had happened at other airfields. One had recently been hit by a hundred bombers. The station HQ, the sick bay and three of the four hangars had been destroyed. A lot of people had been killed and many fighters destroyed on the ground.
Whenever they weren’t in the air, Richard and the rest of the squadron tried to snatch some sleep, still wearing their clothes, including their flying jackets. They had to be ready to scramble at any minute, and ready to do it again, and again, and again. Despite his exhaustion, once Richard was up in the air he was completely alert. The exaltation rushed back as he wheeled and dived and fired. There was terror too, but it was all part of the excitement. He loved it. Sometimes, lying half asleep in his bunk, Richard would wonder if there was something wrong with him. Maybe he had already been at it for too long. Death and killing excited him. Even when he was with Davina now, he was restless to be back in the mess with the other pilots with their silly jokes and edgy remarks, and the way his stomach jumped when the tannoy clicked. The other young pilots, mostly from public schools like himself, were even more reckless than him. They got their excitement on the ground as well as in the air. Any time off was spent driving their Jags or Bentleys into London at breakneck speeds, bumping into obstacles, bouncing off and careering wildly onwards. Once in London, they had one hell of a time with women and booze before rampaging back to base again.
Any time off Richard had was spent with Davina. It was good to be with her, to hold her strong body and to make love to her. Afterwards, she would stroke his black hair and brows and trace her finger gently over his features. She’d say, ‘How handsome you
are, Richard.’
Jokingly he’d reply, ‘I know,’ and they’d both laugh.
He had less and less time off now, but he’d managed at least one letter to his mother and father, and one to his grandmother. He’d apologised for not writing more often, but said he was being kept rather busy at the moment. Understatement was becoming more and more the done thing. The last ten days of August had been very difficult. There just weren’t enough fighters or pilots. Richard wondered whether they had enough left to last more than a few days. The Germans, on the other hand, seemed to have an unlimited supply of men and aircraft. Hundreds of bombers overwhelmed the Fleet Air Arm, damaged Coastal Command and the radar stations. Raid after huge raid swept over a wider and wider area. Fighters kept being diverted all over the place to meet the bombers and try to stop them. And as the battle intensified, men and machines were being lost at an unprecedented rate. It became so bad that even the WAAFs at the control centres started to be affected. They often had to listen to pilots crying out over the radio when they were hit. Men who, only hours before, had been chatting and joking with them, and who were now trapped in burning cockpits of doomed aircraft.
* * *
From September onwards, things began to change. London was now the bombers’ primary target. Richard had heard all about it from the American journalists who had been staying at one of the local pubs. Up till then, they had been fully occupied watching the spiralling vapour trails above the airfields, reporting on the dogfights, and predicting the outcome of the ‘Battle of Britain’. Now, the journalists returned to the pub only to collect their belongings and to have a last few drinks. The next big story was in London. All was in chaos, they’d told Richard. The bombers were wreaking havoc throughout the city, causing large numbers of civilian casualties. Later he’d learned that many of the dead in London had to be buried in mass graves. In one of the worst incidents, more than two hundred people died as the result of a direct hit on a school in Agate Street.
Clydesiders at War Page 12
