The Spitfire Girls

by Jenny Holmes

  Bobbie, however, took nothing for granted. ‘I’d rather do it on merit.’ She frowned and shook her head as she tucked into her breakfast. ‘Anyway, enough about me. I hear congratulations are in order.’

  ‘They are?’ Angela seemed puzzled and then amused. ‘Oh Lord, don’t tell me: I’ve gone and got myself engaged to dear Lionel without realizing!’

  ‘Very funny.’ Feeling a twinge of sympathy towards Angela’s long-suffering beau, Bobbie pressed on. ‘No, as a matter of fact I’m talking about the recruitment poster.’

  ‘Oh, that!’ Angela waved her hand dismissively.

  ‘It’s true, then?’ Bobbie persisted. ‘You’re destined to be our next Atta poster girl? Fame and fortune beckons?’

  ‘Apparently.’ Angela seemed unconcerned. Certainly some chap with a professional-looking camera had shown up one day in late August to snap her sitting on the wing of a Spit and climbing into the cockpit dressed in zip-up Sidcot suit and carrying her helmet, allowing her dark hair to blow freely in the wind. She hadn’t thought much of it until a letter had arrived two days earlier, informing her that she had the honour of being selected to be the latest ATA poster girl.

  ‘“Eager for the Air”, eh?’ Bobbie quoted the English translation of the Air Transport Auxiliary motto. She recalled as if it were yesterday the precious moment when her own flying instructor had told her, ‘It’s all yours, lassie!’, before sending her off on her first solo flight in a Gypsy Moth. Bobbie had taken off and risen high above the green aerodrome, leaving the land behind and heading out over the sea buffeted by her own slipstream. She’d felt no fear, only the thrill of flying; a thrill like no other before or since.

  ‘Oh yes, you know me; always ready for the next mission,’ Angela confirmed as the background music stopped and a voice blared at them through the loudspeaker system.

  The tinny voice on the Tannoy issued the first orders of the day: ‘Will all pilots report to the operations room for their chits. Repeat: all pilots to the operations room!’

  ‘Here we go!’ Quick as a flash Bobbie was out of her seat and racing for the door, ahead of Angela and half a dozen male pilots. They scrambled for the operations room on the first floor of the control tower where they formed a disorderly queue under a sign saying ‘Pilots Report Here’, waiting to be issued with a slip of paper detailing their destination for the day.

  ‘Let’s hope the rain holds off.’ A second officer at the rear of the queue glanced up at serious clouds gathering in the east. Having to fly through low cloud was an ATA pilot’s worst nightmare, forcing them down to unsafe heights and making it almost impossible to spot landmarks such as rivers, roads and railways.

  Bobbie reached through the hatch to take her chit then pushed free of the crowd. ‘Lossiemouth!’ she announced with a victorious wave of her slip of paper. ‘Hurrah, home from home!’

  Angela received her chit and read that she was to head a hundred miles north-west in her favourite aircraft, the glorious Spitfire Mark IX. She raced across the grass to the locker room to pick up her flying helmet and map then upstairs again to the met room for a full weather report before pulling her vital blue book out of her top pocket. Each page of the small spiral-bound notebook contained the basic dos and don’ts for piloting a plane, whether Hawker Hurricane, Spitfire or Lancaster. Angela devoured the page devoted to the latest Spit – speeds for take-off, climbing and cruising, the handling of the throttle and so on – then checked her chit again to note that her particular plane was adapted for photo reconnaissance, having cameras fitted to each wing and an extra-large fuel tank concealed under the cowling in front of the cockpit. ‘To take her out across the Atlantic,’ she said out loud as she sprinted across the airfield lugging her parachute pack with her.

  She found Stan and a young apprentice waiting on the runway next to her aircraft and watched the youngster wipe the Perspex canopy with a clean, soft cloth while Stan made a final check of the propeller speed unit. The experienced mechanic had already changed the plugs and topped up the fuel tanks before breakfast.

  ‘Over to you, First Officer Browne,’ Stan commented as Angela stepped in spritely fashion on to the port wing and climbed into the cockpit. She felt her heart rate quicken as she lowered the new bubble-type canopy over her head and settled into the narrow seat. Then she strapped herself in and adjusted her goggles before giving a thumbs-up to Stan.

  Chocks away. She opened the throttle and the Merlin engine emitted its throaty roar. Angela was all set to taxi to her take-off point, one eye on the ever-darkening clouds (were the met boys certain it wasn’t going to throw it down?), heart racing now as she picked up speed and felt the rise of the Spit’s nose, the surge forward as she left the ground. Like a kick up the backside, Angela thought. The new Spit was powerful, fast, utterly beautiful. Perfect; love at first sight.

  Later that day, as First Officer Jean Dobson approached Runway 2 at Rixley, she flew into a thick bank of cloud.

  ‘Damn!’ She couldn’t see a blasted thing, only wet, grey mist billowing past her cockpit. Less than twenty miles to landing and now this!

  As the aircraft shuddered and tilted off course, Jean remembered the drill for dealing with sudden cloud: straighten up first then climb to a safe height of ten or twelve hundred feet and return to the original course. Don’t fiddle with the throttle. Attempt a shallow dive to the safety break-off height of eight hundred feet.

  That’s all very well, she thought as her Spit Mark V lurched in the turbulence and her altimeter jerked down to six hundred. She was ferrying the four-year-old aircraft from Walsall in the West Midlands back to Rixley after some major repair work to the propeller shaft and undercarriage. It would help if they taught us how to read the blinking instruments instead of forcing us to rely on what we can see with our own eyes! The lights on the indicator panel winked at her without her having a clue what they were telling her. On top of which, the Spit had no working radio.

  Jean swore hard then climbed again. She would make one more dive and if she still had zero visibility she would have to admit defeat by climbing fast to a height of 1,500 feet then bailing out and relying on her parachute to bring her safely down. Otherwise she was in imminent danger of flying slap-bang into a hidden hillside. If in doubt, bail out – that was what the manual said. Save your own skin and leave the pilotless plane to crash to the ground.

  Jean’s mouth felt dry as she dived a second time. The plane jerked and shuddered then suddenly emerged from the cloud at not much more than treetop height, with the rain pelting down. By some miracle she found herself only half a mile away from her destination. But she wasn’t out of danger yet, for she knew that her nose-heavy Spit could easily flip over on a puddled landing strip and, lo and behold, Jean made out that much of the runway stood in water.

  She reminded herself that her stark choice was to climb again then bail out or else attempt to land. Swallowing hard, she chose the latter. Let’s risk it, she thought. Every single aircraft the RAF could lay their hands on was vital at this stage of the war and it was her job to deliver this Spitfire in one piece. So she flew in low over Burton Wood, keeping the aerodrome control tower in her sights, bracing herself for the impact of landing. Sure enough, there was a sudden bounce when the tyres hit the ground then the aircraft slewed to one side as mud and water spewed everywhere, covering the cockpit with mucky spray. Jam on the brakes, keep the plane upright. Pray.

  The Spit didn’t flip. Instead, it skidded down the waterlogged runway before squealing to a halt and allowing Jean to heave a sigh of relief. She sat for a few seconds without moving, listening to the rain pelt down. Then she released her harness and raised the cockpit roof.

  ‘That was a close shave,’ Stan shouted from under his sou’wester as he ran from a hangar and offered Jean a hand to jump down to the ground. A black oilskin cape protected the mechanic from the worst of the downpour. ‘You cleared those trees by thirty feet at the most.’

  ‘Thanks, Stan.’ Jean’s heart stil
l battered against her ribs but she wouldn’t show how scared she’d been. ‘What’s the met office playing at, giving us the go-ahead to fly in this filthy weather?’

  ‘Search me. I’m only the engine wallah.’ Stan was mightily glad to see Jean step out of that cockpit. She was one of the best and bravest, was Jean. And with her long, silky fair hair and wide grey eyes she was better-looking than Angela Browne any day of the week. In fact, in Stan’s humble opinion, if anyone deserved to be on a recruitment poster for the Atta girls, it was Jean.

  Not that he would tell her this and not that she would invite him to. Jean was the type who kept herself to herself and concentrated on her flying. And by God, she was an ace of the skies. Stan didn’t know any other pilot, man or woman, who could have landed that Spit in these conditions – mud and water everywhere, engine whining, tyres squealing. And then she’d stepped out of the cockpit cool as a cucumber, as if she’d taken a joyride in a Fox Moth at a flying circus: roll-up, roll-up, a half-crown a go! Stan had to hand it to Jean Dobson, she’d come up the hard way and risen to the very top. The crème de la crème, as the Angelas and Bobbies of this world might have said. The cat’s whiskers was Stan’s version. And a bloody knockout in the looks department. He watched Jean walk slowly through the downpour towards the operations room where she would report the Spitfire’s safe arrival then clock off for the day.

  It was a Saturday. For a second or two Stan thought of asking Jean to go to the flicks with him. He pictured it: a mumbled invitation from him, a cool glance from her then a quick, apologetic shake of her head. The idea flitted away again. Come to think of it, Stan couldn’t imagine Jean Dobson settling into a cinema seat with an ice cream in her hand and the light from the screen flickering across her beautiful face. No chance. So Stan would put on his raincoat and stroll down to the Fox and Hounds in Rixley instead. He’d throw a few darts, down a few pints – enjoy a normal Saturday night. Then, come Sunday, it would be business as usual.

  CHAPTER TWO

  ‘Apparently Jean flew into a freak storm.’ Later the following evening Angela sat with Bobbie, whisky glass in hand, in the officers’ mess at Burton Grange. ‘The usual problem: cold air blew in off the North Sea sooner than forecast. The met boys were caught with their trousers down.’

  ‘Don’t they have eyes in their heads?’ Bobbie protested after she’d listened to Angela’s account of Jean’s emergency landing in the middle of a downpour. Bobbie had recently got back from Lossiemouth after an overnight stay and a long train journey home that had involved many diversions and delays. Now all she wanted to do was to settle into a leather armchair and relax in the lounge bar of the stately home requisitioned two years earlier. One wing currently served as a convalescent hospital and the other as ATA officers’ quarters. ‘Anyone could see that there was bound to be a storm.’

  ‘It was the timing they got wrong,’ Angela emphasized. Her own weekend had been all work and no play too – flying the reconnaissance Spit over to the Lancashire–Cumberland border to drop it off in Whitehaven ready for service over the Irish Sea and beyond. She’d then stayed overnight in a down-at-heel bed and breakfast before being picked up and driven home by that mouse Mary Holland, who never had a word to say for herself unless absolutely pushed. ‘You know, I sometimes wonder about Mary,’ she mused as Bobbie put her dainty feet up on a padded stool and took a sip of her whisky. ‘What goes on inside that head of hers?’

  ‘Mary who?’ Bobbie’s attention was partly on Squadron Leader Hilary Stevens, the commanding officer of the ferry pool, and Cameron Ainslie; the two officers were ensconced in the far corner of the room, close to the bar. Shrouded in cigarette smoke, they were talking to a third man whom she’d never clapped eyes on before. The newcomer was slight and long-limbed, clean-shaven and with a neat side parting in his strikingly fair hair. His legs were crossed and he jiggled his right foot as he listened attentively to the other two men. ‘Who’s that?’ she remarked casually when Angela paused to draw breath.

  ‘I haven’t a clue. Mary Holland; that’s who I’m talking about. Do pay attention, Bobbie. You know: the driver with those enormous grey eyes and dark lashes, chin-length brown hair, never wears a scrap of make-up. Quiet as a mouse. You do know her!’

  ‘Oh yes. And why are we talking about her, pray?’ Bobbie felt the whisky burn her throat. There was a comforting glow from a log fire and a low table lamp cast long shadows over the intricate pattern of the Turkish rug. Breathe in oak and leather, polish and woodsmoke – close your eyes and for a few moments imagine you’re at home with springer spaniels Captain and Rufus at your feet and the war a million miles away.

  ‘Because Mary is an enigma,’ Angela insisted. ‘I’ve just spent several hours cooped up in a car with her and I don’t know any more about her than I did before we set off – which is almost nothing, by the way.’

  ‘She’s a pretty girl, though. I’ve heard she worked as a carder in a woollen mill before the war.’

  ‘Which one?’ Angela’s family owned several big woollen mills in West Yorkshire. They’d been founded by her grandfather in the late eighteen hundreds and made him pots of money: enough to buy up half the county and to build an entire town – street after street of respectable terraced housing, complete with shops and a children’s playground, for workers who agreed to sign the pledge and attend church every Sunday.

  ‘No idea.’ Refusing to be drawn on the uninspiring topic of Mary Holland, Bobbie’s gaze wandered around the oak-panelled room until she noticed Jean sitting by herself in a window seat, quietly reading a book. ‘Look over there; the heroine of the hour,’ she told Angela. ‘Now we can get the tale straight from the horse’s mouth.’

  Jean’s sleek blonde head was buried in Great Expectations, a gift from her mother on winning her Flying Scholarship at the age of seventeen. The book went everywhere with her, through Women’s Air Reserve flying school where she received fifty hours of instruction and clocked up two hundred hours’ flying time. From there, with no money behind her, Jean had been forced to drop out of the flying game for a while and find work as an usherette in the local fleapit and as a waitress in a Lyons tea shop, saving her wages, biding her time and dreaming.

  There was trouble at home: Jean’s mother had had to give up her job as a librarian to look after her ailing father, but Jean had never let go of her ambition to keep on flying and one evening, during a shift at the cinema, an item about the ATA on Pathé News had caught her attention. The civilian organization, officially set up at the start of 1940 but only fully operational in late 1941, needed more pilots and they needed them quickly. Jean had stored the information but not acted upon it until a chance meeting in a pub with a certain First Officer Douglas Thornton had kicked her into action. At his bidding she’d filled in an application form and been accepted on the training course at Thame. Here she’d buckled down to pass exams in maths, geometry, grammar and composition, besides going back to square one in a dummy cockpit, forced to relearn the basics despite her earlier experience. However, an instructor there had picked up on Jean’s unusual ability and taken her to one side.

  ‘You know you’ll be doing a man’s job without getting a man’s pay if you join the ATA?’ he’d reminded her. ‘You’ll get twenty per cent less than the men.’

  ‘Not if the push for equal pay gets through.’ The dispute had been going on for a while now. ‘It could happen at any moment,’ Jean had reminded her instructor. ‘Anyway, is that the only downside?’ she’d asked with a raised eyebrow and a direct stare.

  ‘Besides risking your life every time you take to the air, you mean?’ He was teaching his grandmother to suck eggs with this one, he’d quickly realized.

  Jean had nodded to acknowledge the danger. She’d heard of a recent near miss when an ATA pilot flying a Spit from one ferry pool to another in poor visibility had been mistaken for the enemy by British anti-aircraft artillery. The plane had come under attack and only the pilot’s skill and the Spitfire’s supreme han
dling had averted disaster.

  The instructor had left it at that. Jean would soon find out for herself the other pitfalls of joining the hundred or so female pilots currently ferrying fighters and bombers around the country. For the time being, he would let her follow her dream.

  Now, sitting in the lounge bar of the converted mansion, with the equal pay fight won and six months in to what Jean regarded as the best job in the world, she reached the part in the book where Pip discovers the shocking truth about Magwitch, his convict-patron. Terrific name for a jailbird, she thought with a shudder. Magwitch – part maggot, part sorcerer. And that harrowing scene in the churchyard near the beginning where the graves of Pip’s dead brothers and sisters are laid out like lozenges in a row – well, that was unforgettable. The surprise of the book was that in the end Pip’s savage benefactor turned out to be more honourable than many of his betters. Dickens was clever that way.

  ‘Hello there, Jean. What are you reading?’ Bobbie came across the room with a spring in her step.

  Jean looked up with a guilty start then held up the book for Bobbie to read the title on the spine, only to feel the volume snatched from her hands.

  ‘Forget that old dull-as-ditch-water stuff. Let me drag you over to have a good old chat with Angela and me.’