Under a Wartime Sky

by Liz Trenow

  ‘Just a small one, please?’

  His father poured two equal glasses, both large. ‘How’s it going, lad?’

  ‘Fine, thanks. Fine.’

  ‘You’re looking well.’

  ‘Must be all that Suffolk air.’

  ‘And the work? Is it interesting?’

  ‘Very, Father. Very interesting.’

  ‘And . . .?’

  ‘And that’s about all I can tell you, I’m afraid.’

  His father reached for the bottle and poured another. ‘I can taste the heather in this one, can’t you? And the peat. Makes me nostalgic for the old homeland.’ His brogue became broader with every gulp.

  Is it any wonder I’m confused? Vic thought to himself. Here was his father mithering on (a Suffolk phrase he’d heard Charlie Brinkley using) about his love of Scotland as they sat in a small terraced house in south England surrounded by reminders of what Vic considered his homeland. Here was the tri-fold screen with paintings of exotic landscapes, the carved dark-wood settee and the coffee table with its round engraved brass tray, a couple of table lamps with stems of green marble and a mantelpiece crammed with ivory ornaments.

  It was strange seeing these relics of his Indian life – so well recalled from the large airy bungalow at the top of the hill in Kerala, with undulating tea bush plantations like puffy green clouds stretching before them in every direction – transplanted into two dark rooms like a set of ill-fitting clothing. Nothing seemed comfortable, or felt at home. A bit like myself, he thought wretchedly.

  ‘What exactly is it you’re doing there?’ his father asked, pouring a third glass.

  ‘It’s government communications.’ The prescribed wording.

  ‘Wasn’t your doctorate on radio waves?’

  He nodded.

  ‘Wonderful thing, this new radio of mine.’ His father waved in the direction of a mahogany box in the corner with a fretwork sunrise pattern over the speaker. ‘Been hooked on the Test Match this past week or so. And the music is like having a symphony orchestra in your own home. A real treat.’

  So long as his father believed that he was working on radio broadcasting, Vic was on safe ground. But the relief was only temporary. His father looked up, fixing him with a slightly bloodshot eye. ‘So what exactly are you doing with radio waves, boy?’

  ‘You know I can’t tell you any detail. I’ve sworn not to.’

  ‘But I’m your father. You can trust me.’ A shaky finger found his lips. ‘Shhh. Won’t tell.’

  ‘It’s not that I don’t trust you. It’s just that we can’t tell anyone. Not even family.’

  ‘Just a hint?’

  ‘Please don’t press me. I’d be breaking the law if I told you.’

  His father harrumphed, slammed down his glass and pushed himself unsteadily up from the chair.

  ‘Time for bed, boy. You’re in the back room.’

  Auntie Vera had roasted a chicken for Christmas dinner the following day, and looked crestfallen when Vic asked for a plate of vegetables. ‘What’s wrong with it?’ she asked. ‘It’s from the farm up the road. Special for Christmas. I suppose this is one of your mother’s fads?’ She had never approved of her brother ‘going native’, as he’d once overheard her saying, marrying an Indian woman.

  He’d had the same grilling when first arriving at the Manor.

  ‘What, you don’t eat bacon, Mac? Is this some crazy religion of yours?’ Frank had asked, that first morning.

  ‘I don’t eat meat of any kind these days,’ Vic had replied. Since leaving school he’d decided to follow his own preferences. He’d even discovered the term for it: vegetarianism. ‘And yes, it started because my mother was Hindu, but I still keep the habit even though I’m not religious any more. It’s the texture I find difficult, to be honest.’ He refrained from adding his usual justification: the Greek philosopher Pythagoras, father of geometry, was reputedly vegetarian.

  ‘Hasn’t done the rest of us any harm,’ Frank had grumbled. Looking back, it was clear the man had marked him out as different right from the start. But why should that make him any less loyal? Even though he tried not to let it get to him, the suggestion still rankled.

  The cooks at the Manor did their best, slathering vegetables with scrambled eggs or glutinous cheese. Although he longed for one of his mother’s vegetable curries, coconut rice, sag paneer or a bowl of spicy dhal, Vic forced himself to eat them.

  For now, the pulling of crackers and the telling of weak jokes distracted his aunt’s attention and it was soon time for Christmas pudding. As usual, this was the only part of the meal he really looked forward to; at the Manor it was stodgy jam or treacle sponges, and even though he knew they were made with beef fat, they were just too delicious to resist, especially served in a pool of custard.

  On Boxing Day, his father saw him off at the crowded station.

  They shook hands. ‘Thank you for everything, Father. And I’ll see you again soon?’

  ‘Good luck with that work of yours, boy. I’m proud of you,’ his father said. Vic tried to shush him, but it made little difference. ‘With those ruddy politicians blithering about, it’s good to know that at least someone’s trying to figure out how to save us from the Hun.’

  It was a relief when the guard blew his whistle.

  He’d been unpacking when Johnnie knocked on his door.

  ‘Good Christmas?’

  ‘Pretty dire, actually. Couldn’t wait to get away.’

  ‘Sorry to hear it.’

  ‘And you? Family well?’

  ‘Yes, thank you. But I’m afraid I have to tell you there’s been a bit of a ruckus while we were away.’

  ‘Ruckus?’

  ‘The boss is stomping around like an enraged bull. The Germans are apparently onto something which could only have come from one of us here at the Manor, and the high-ups in intelligence are saying it must have been a leak.’

  ‘Crikey, that’s bad. Have they fingered anyone?’

  ‘No one’s said anything, but a couple of chaps have been called in.’

  ‘Do we know who?’

  Johnnie lowered his voice. ‘Our friend is one.’

  ‘FW? Do you really think?’

  ‘Who knows? But I’m sorry to have to break it to you, old man. The boss wants to see you, too. Pronto.’

  A shard of something cold and sharp pierced Vic’s chest, making it hard to breathe. ‘Should I go now?’

  ‘Reckon,’ Johnnie said, clapping him on the shoulder. ‘Good luck.’

  Robert Watson-Watt seemed to have calmed down. As Vic entered, his expression was almost cheerful. ‘Come in, Mackensie. Happy New Year and all that. How was your Christmas?’

  For a few uncomfortable moments they exchanged small talk, almost as though the boss was trying to avoid the other issue. Vic could bear the suspense no longer: ‘You wanted to see me, sir?’

  ‘Ah yes, this is a shocking business. I want to make it clear from the start that you are not in the frame, Mackensie, not at all. But I’m sorry to tell you that your name has come up in my interviews with others so I am duty bound to question you, for the record.’

  ‘Which others, sir, if I may be so bold?’

  ‘I cannot name them, I’m afraid.’

  He didn’t need to. The answer was obvious.

  The rest of the interview was straightforward, and Vic emerged relieved. Watson-Watt had asked a set of pre-planned questions and took copious notes of Vic’s answers. He made it perfectly clear that Vic could not possibly have known the information the Germans seemed to have got hold of. At last, he stood up from his desk, offering a hand. ‘Thank you, Mackensie. That will be all.’

  ‘What happens now, sir?’

  ‘Nothing that involves you, I’m pleased to say.’

  Vic took a breath. He shouldn’t ask this, and he knew there would be no satisfactory answer, but he was going to, all the same. ‘Why was I actually named by someone, sir, do you think?’

  Watson-Watt shook
his head. ‘That is for me to deal with, Mackensie. Now, back to work and think no more of it.’

  ‘That Frank Wilkinson is a snake in the grass,’ Johnnie opined later, as they dissected the interview. Vic remembered the terror a snake might cause in the village in India, and how his ayah would refuse to allow him out of the house because one of the gardeners had spied a cobra or other venomous creature in the flower beds, or lurking under the veranda.

  Then, as now, he felt the ground shifting beneath his feet.

  7

  Everyone in Felixstowe was familiar with the sight of the seaplanes based at the station where Mark worked. Each day you would see them lumbering into view, landing on the water and motoring towards one of the long jetties that stuck out like fingers into the sea just beside the Napoleonic fort at Landguard. There seemed to be any number of them coming and going. Some, according to Mark, had been sent here for testing from other stations around the country and even from abroad.

  He was obsessed by everything and anything to do with flying, and it had become so all-consuming that it was almost impossible to get him to talk about anything else, like when his friend Billy Bishop might be coming back for the holidays. He spoke about the test pilots so reverently, as though they were gods, his eyes sparkling as he described their skill and courage, how they brought in planes with broken engines or, once, when a propeller had fallen off; how they could analyse precisely what would make a plane fly faster, or higher. They were clever, brave and cool as cucumbers – particularly a certain Captain Burrows, who seemed to feature more frequently than any of the others in Mark’s thrilling tales of aerial derring-do.

  So it had come as no real surprise when he’d announced, on Easter Sunday, that he was going to apply for pilot training. An uncomfortable silence fell over the table, eventually broken by Pa: ‘Well, that’s great news, lad. You’ll really get to see the world. And the girls will be falling at your feet.’

  Mark blushed as Ma stood abruptly and began to collect the plates. A few seconds later they heard the loud crash of shattering crockery.

  ‘Go and help your mother, Kathleen,’ Pa said quietly. ‘And close the door.’

  She was standing at the kitchen sink, staring out of the window, shards of china at her feet. ‘Why can’t he just apply to be an engineer instead? It’d be just as interesting and nothing like to so dangerous. Look what happened to that other chap.’ A few years earlier, a plane had simply broken up in the air not far from Felixstowe, falling into the sea and killing the pilot instantly. He had been buried with full military honours, his coffin processed through the town.

  Kath pushed her mother gently aside and began to retrieve pieces of broken plate. ‘Mark probably won’t get accepted anyway. He’s only an apprentice carpenter, after all. Don’t you have to have all kinds of exams to be a pilot?’

  When Mark told them that the seaplane station would be opening its doors to the public for the first time on Empire Day, Kath’s first response was irritation. She couldn’t get excited about going to look at aeroplanes, and Saturdays were the best shifts for tips. But then Joan declared that she definitely wasn’t going to miss the chance of meeting one of those dashing test pilots, so they went out shopping for new summer frocks.

  It was a fine day, perhaps the first time the sun had actually given any warmth, and the breeze gentle enough for Kath to wear her hat. ‘You look the bee’s knees, missy,’ Pa said.

  Even as they entered the gates she began to sense what it was that held her brother in such thrall. She’d often watched planes landing and taking off, from the windows of the cafe. At a distance they appeared graceful, even beautiful, like swans landing or leaving a lake. And their names, so familiar from Mark’s recitations, sounded friendly: Fairey Seafoxes, a Swordfish, Short Cockles, Short Singapores, the Saunders-Roe Princess, the Sara London and the Short Knuckleduster.

  Now she could see for the first time how truly enormous these planes were, so powerful and even menacing, with their studded metal bodies and solid-looking engines, the propellers at their snouts and great wings stretching out for yards on either side.

  They watched as one of them revved its engines with an ear-splitting roar, motored out to sea and then, gathering speed, skimmed across the waves until it lifted into the sky, circling once or twice as it gained height. A few minutes later the crowd gave a collective gasp as a tiny figure jumped from the plane, falling unchecked for several terrifying seconds until the parachute opened above him like a white flower, jerking him upwards as it caught the wind, and then floating gently down into the sea. Everyone applauded. The plane made another turn and a second man jumped, then a third, as an inflatable dinghy circled below to rescue them.

  After the display ended they went in search of Hangar G, where Mark had said he’d be most of the day to staff an exhibition. He was particularly keen to show off a large model aeroplane he’d helped to build and, after giving it sufficient admiration, Kath and Joan wandered around the rest of the exhibits of photographs, uniforms and flags, doing their best to feign interest. It was warm inside the hangar, and Kath’s feet were already starting to blister in her new kitten heels.

  ‘I could do with an ice-cream. D’you think they’ll have a van somewhere?’

  Mark was demonstrating the model to a tall man in naval uniform, and from the way his eyes seemed to follow every gesture and how he laughed immoderately at every comment, it was clear this was someone very important. She’d never seen her brother so apparently entranced.

  ‘Ah, Captain Burrows, meet my little sister Kathleen, and her friend Joan,’ he said as they approached.

  ‘My pleasure.’ The man gave a formal little bow, and his handshake was warm and firm. He was tall and blond with a small ginger moustache and a smile that crinkled the corners of his eyes.

  ‘Captain Burrows is a test pilot,’ Mark said unnecessarily, as though she hadn’t already guessed.

  ‘But you’re wearing a navy uniform,’ she said. ‘Shouldn’t it be air force, if you’re a pilot?’

  ‘What sharp eyes you have, young Kathleen,’ the captain responded, with a smile that seemed to light up his face. ‘That’s because I fly a seaplane. Have you seen her outside?’

  ‘Sorry, seen what?’

  ‘My bird.’

  Bird?

  ‘The Swordfish out there on the apron.’

  Apron?

  ‘Let me show you. You can sit in the cockpit if you like.’ He could be talking Greek, but Kath barely cared. She was already mesmerised. Moments later she and Joan were being led past a queue of people, under a rope barrier and up a set of metal steps beside the plane. From the platform at the top they could see into the cockpit, narrow, bare and uncomfortable-looking.

  ‘That’s the navigator’s seat,’ Captain Burrows said, pointing to a vaguely chair-shaped angle of leather-covered metal, ‘and behind him is the rear gunner, which is why he faces backwards. This one in the centre is the pilot. That is, me. Who’s going in first, then?’

  Joan shook her head. ‘Not for me, thanks.’ Kath wasn’t that keen either, but felt it would be impolite for both of them to refuse.

  ‘Swing one leg over first,’ he said, steadying her arm with a firm grip until she found herself uncomfortably straddling the hard edge of the metal fuselage, wishing that she hadn’t shortened the hem of her skirt quite so much.

  ‘Now support yourself on your arms and swing the other leg over so you can lower yourself down inside.’ She got the distinct impression that he was enjoying her discomposure. With arms shaking from the effort she managed to manoeuvre herself onto the small hard seat, her skirt bunched up to her thighs on either side of the joystick. In front of her was a dizzying array of dials and switches.

  ‘Good show.’ The Captain’s eyes twinkled, unfeasibly blue. ‘I reckon you’re the first female ever to have entered my lair. How does it feel?’

  ‘It stinks of oil,’ she said.

  ‘Just wait till you’re up there,’ he po
inted to the sky, ‘with the wind in your face and all your cares left down below. It’s like no other feeling on earth, literally.’ He chuckled at his own joke. ‘You never really notice the discomfort, though one’s bum can get a bit numb after a few hours.’

  He gave her a brief run-down of what some of the instruments did.

  ‘Have I whetted your appetite yet?’ he said.

  ‘Me, do you mean? What for?’

  ‘Learning to fly.’

  ‘Me, a pilot? Do they take girls?’

  ‘Oh yes.’ His expression fell serious for a second. ‘Women make great fliers. Look at Amelia Earhart and Amy Johnson. And we’re going to need all hands on deck before long.’

  ‘I’d be terrified. It’s my brother who wants to be the pilot.’

  ‘So he tells me.’

  ‘But don’t you need qualifications?’

  ‘Not if you’re prepared to learn fast. Mark’s keen as mustard, which is what really counts in the end. Now, let’s get you out of there.’

  Before she’d had time to object, his hands were beneath her arms and she was being lifted over the edge of the cockpit and lowered until her feet met the wooden platform. Feeling slightly giddy, she held tightly onto the rail as they descended the steps.

  ‘What a dish,’ Joan said as they sat on the side of the wharf eating ice creams. ‘I nearly fainted with envy when he lifted you up like that.’

  ‘It was just embarrassing,’ Kath said, crunching the end of her cone. ‘C’mon, let’s say goodbye to Mark before we go.’

  When they got back to the hangar Mark and the captain were in conversation with a group of others, including a woman in a tight red dress. She’d obviously just said something hilarious, and everyone was laughing extravagantly. It embarrassed Kath to see her brother flirting so blatantly.

  ‘What’s the joke?’ she asked, as they approached.

  The woman turned, the smile freezing on her face.

  ‘Nancy? What are you doing here?’

  The answer was perfectly plain.