Quinn took a sip of his ale and considered this. O’Regan had had no uni or even technical school education, yet had finished Service Flying Training School being awarded the King’s Commission…
‘What were you, Dux of the course?’
O’Regan only winked in reply, peering over Quinn’s shoulder, as he did, noticing the pretty young officer of the British Women’s Auxiliary Air Force. ‘There’s a Waaf over there keeps looking at you,’ he advised softly. ‘Must like your back… She keeps looking up and down it.’
‘Is she nice?’ muttered Quinn.
‘That she is.’ Breaking into a smile O’Regan added, ‘And bugger you, I thought she was looking at me for a sec. Got a nice friend, though. Yes, a cherub. Reckon I should invite them over?’
‘Sure, Mick. Thanks,’ Quinn chuckled, though a little off-balance.
The boy from Lewisham leaned in slightly. He spoke now just above a whisper, his expression quite earnest: ‘Daniel, it’s not like back home over here. Even the ah… nice girls can seem a little… forward. Realised life’s too short or something… Trust me, son. I’ve been here almost a month.’
‘I’ll take your word for it,’ smiled Quinn after a rather large gulp of ale.
‘A bit odd though,’ qualified O’Regan, ‘them being billeted here… The powers that be generally commandeer hotels for men… hotels for women…’
After a moment his eyes met Quinn’s. They raised their pints.
Quinn initiated the toast. ‘Here’s to…’
It left their lips together.
‘Administrative - Error.’
*
In the WAAF, Assistant Section Officer Victoria Haimes held equivalent rank to the boys, Lucy Green, as a Warrant Officer, one below them.
O’Regan smiled at her as he lowered another round of pints to the table. ‘I think Royal Air Force protocol demands we address you as ‘Miss Green’, doesn’t it?’
Her eyes beamed straight back at him. ‘Call me Lucy.’
In appearance, to Quinn they were disarmingly similar, each with their hair in the regulation ‘short rolls’, both blonde against the grey-blue of their tunics. Though sparring with each other and even completing each other’s sentences now and then, the girls hailed from altogether separate corners of England: Victoria from the county of Norfolk, landed gentry it seemed, her father some sort of army type, Lucy’s parents owning a pub in London’s East End. Yet they seemed sisters. Lucy had the biggest brown eyes Quinn thought he’d ever seen though, despite her ready smile, they seemed sad like a puppy’s. Old-hand O’Regan appeared already lost in them.
‘So your father’s in the Military, Victoria?’ Quinn asked.
The eyes before him were icy blue.
‘Yes, he’s a Colonel. With the Commandos.’
‘Must be a fit sort of bloke – That’s pretty impressive…’
‘Yes, I suppose it is, for his age. He helped set them up, you see, the year before last… Before that he was with his regiment, joined straight from school, via Sandhurst of course.’
‘The military college?’
‘The same. As with every Earl before him.’
‘A family tradition?’
‘Yes, the eldest son each generation goes in.’
‘Do you have brothers and sisters?’
‘Four brothers… They’re all in now.’
‘Where are they serving?’
‘Security, Daniel.’
‘Ah yes: Loose Lips Sink Ships,’ he concurred. And concluded, ‘Sorry.’
‘That’s alright, darling. You’ll soon get used to it.’
Quinn found it quite arresting that she should call him that so readily. Maybe it was just her turn of phrase. In any case, it felt nice from the lips of such a good-looking girl. ‘So… The Commandos. I should watch my step with you then; father may come up from behind and slit my throat or something. That’s what they do, isn’t it?’
‘No. No, I think he’d like you,’ Victoria chuckled.
‘How’s that?’
She lit a cigarette. ‘I expect he’d see something of himself in you, though he’d never admit it.’
Quinn paused a moment. ‘What do you think he’d see?’
‘Well, you’re a bright one, as he is – You’d have to be or they’d never have made you a pilot… And you clearly give a damn about others… or you wouldn’t be here.’
‘It’s very kind of you to say that, Victoria.’
‘No, I mean it…’ Her eyes now darted around his face, as if surveying it. ‘I suppose that’s what makes a commando, really… They’re smart boys, yet still volunteer for such a dangerous job. And they’d better be smart because, in action, even though part of a unit, when the heat’s really on a commando has to think and act independently… The individualist within the team.’
‘Seems I’ve heard that before somewhere,’ Quinn mused across the bar.
‘Yes, that’s it…’ She ashed her cigarette. ‘Smart enough to make the team, but not to see the danger. Or else they choose not to… And once a part of that team, they act outside it.’
‘Too many contradictions for me,’ smiled Quinn.
‘And he’d like you because he’d see that I like you.’
‘As I do you, Miss Haimes.’ Quinn raised his glass to her. ‘Cheers.’
‘Cheers, darling.’
As they sipped, Victoria didn’t miss a beat. ‘And just a touch of evil in you as well.’
Quinn nearly coughed on his mouthful. He had to admit it: This was one engaging young lady. ‘How do you reason that?’ he managed with a quizzical grin.
She took another sip and answered slowly. ‘Well there’d have to be. Otherwise you’d never have made the team.’
*
After dinner and warmed by a few more drinks, the four grabbed their service great-coats from respective double rooms and strolled in the dark down to the sea. Though they soon paired off, Mick and Lucy ambling further ahead in the blackout.
As they sauntered arm in arm toward the wavering beams of the searchlights, the touch of Victoria felt delightful to Quinn – the exquisite newness of it. His elbow pressed gently against her side, her hip against his, she spoke softly to him as they walked.
‘You remind me of my youngest brother actually.’
‘Is that a good thing?’
‘Goodness no, he was a complete bastard to me when we were small.’
‘Make you a deal,’ said Quinn. ‘Guarantee me he’s not a commando, I’ll go and thump him for you.’
‘No, he’s nice, honestly,’ she laughed. ‘And funny, like you. Yet also a complete idiot… Absolutely no concept of fear.’
‘I imagine there’ve been a few brave men in your family,’ sided Quinn. ‘Through the generations, I mean.’
‘Yes,’ she returned flatly. ‘A few dead ones in there as well. The Third Earl went at Waterloo… Queer thing, bravery.’ They stopped as she lit a cigarette. ‘Uncle was with the Royal Flying Corps, last war. I read his memoirs.’ Quinn shielded the flame for her. ‘He defined bravery as – I love this, “a quality arising solely out of and in direct proportion to one’s daily terror”.’ She exhaled the smoke, then looked up at Quinn. ‘…Sorry.’
‘What for?’
‘I shouldn’t be telling you about him. …I mean, telling you that.’
‘No, that’s alright,’ Quinn countered. ‘I volunteered. Like he did, I s’pose.’
‘You’re a darling. Thanks.’
‘Yet he survived the war…’
She hesitated again.
‘Sort of.’
‘Sort of?’
‘He died of wounds in 1920.’
‘Oh, I’m sorry…’ Quinn paused. ‘Strange, for a moment it sounded like you knew him.’
‘Well I did, in a way, through his writings. And Father kept his memory alive for us; I suspect they’d been very close…’
As she adjusted it around her neck, Quinn noticed the patterned scarf she wa
s wearing. He decided to play the Drill Sergeant: ‘Assistant Section Officer Haimes. You’re out of Uniform.’
‘Prophetic words, Pilot Officer Quinn.’
They strolled a little further in silence, until she stopped them again – to listen to the sea. She offered Quinn one of her cigarettes and lit it for him.
‘Are you ever scared, Daniel?’
Breathing out the smoke, he opted not to tell her about the Atlantic crossing – maybe later. ‘Well… I was a bit scared first time up in the air. But that went away… I’ve done pretty well with my flying up till now. Up till now…’ Quinn suddenly realised he was considering the question for the first time. ‘…You don’t really have time to be scared when you’re flying; there’s just too much going on, you’re always focusing so hard on what you’re doing in the moment. I s’pose I’m sort of more… scared of being scared, when I finally do go into action. They say you never know how you’ll feel until the actual moment…’
Victoria drew something from an inner pocket of her great-coat. A thin pewter flask. She removed its cap, took a swig and offered it to Quinn.
‘Ahh, that’s warming,’ he exhaled, handing it back to her.
She capped it and slipped it back inside the coat yet, instead of buttoning it up again, wrapped it and herself around Quinn. ‘ That is my earnest intention.’
‘Miss Haimes,’ his lips smiled close to hers, ‘you’re trying to get me drunk…’
‘Call me Vic.’
‘V for Victory?’
‘V for take me to bed please.’
‘Victoria…’
She stopped his words with a kiss. Then leant back subtly. ‘… What is it?’
‘Vic, I’ve never…’
She smiled at him. ‘…Your first time?’ She kissed him again.
‘Only a few sweethearts… Yes.’
‘Don’t worry, darling. You’re a gorgeous boy…’ – another kiss – ‘…and I’m a good teacher.’
*
Quinn awoke a little stunned. She was holding him very tightly, her body sculpted to his from behind. He felt her hair on his neck. And remembered the way it had come undone. Though one thought swam most pleasantly of all around his head: He simply could not get over how something so deliciously exhilarating could be so easy, so natural-feeling. That, and the fact that Victoria was, to say the least, a natural teacher.
In the dim first light, he knew she was already awake by the way her hand very slowly circled his chest.
‘What d’you do here, Vic?’
‘Personnel.’
‘Personnel…’
‘Lucy and I run the typing pool that sends you where you’re going.’
*
Quinn passed a giggle from Lucy in the corridor as they swapped back to their rightful billets.
He was greeted by a shaving Mick.
‘Well,’ grinned O’Regan. ‘Look what the cat dragged in.’
Quinn dropped his great-coat on the unused bed and flopped himself down upon it.
Mick carefully negotiated the straight blade in the mirror. ‘How’d you go?’
‘Well, Mick, a gentleman never tells but… …Jesus Christ.’
Mick chuckled slightly through his shaving lather, rinsed the blade, and continued. ‘Missed y’calling have ya, son?’
Quinn just sighed heavily on the bed. After a few minutes, he spoke up. ‘And Miss Green, eh?’
Mick peered out of the corner of one eye. ‘Miss Anything but…’
Mick was glad for the new arrival. Glad he’d just dipped his wick for the first time. He thought it fitting a young man should know the joys of a young woman before putting his life on the line on a daily basis, and Quinn had had ‘virgin’ written all over him. Luckily for Quinn, and thousands of young aircrew arriving in Bournemouth, the local conditions seemed set in their favour.
Mick couldn’t believe it at first. In the three weeks since he’d got back from his AFU he hadn’t been so much looking for young ladies as taking his pick. Back in Sydney, it was a strict case of ‘marriage first’ – with ‘nice’ girls, anyway. Not here. Not anymore, evidently… No, something strange seemed to be going on over here: As far as Mick could make out, Bournemouth had been invaded by thousands of young women who’d not only been bombed in their homes by the Germans for the past few years but had seen husbands and sweethearts killed already. In addition, the majority of them were living away from their parents for the first time while receiving their first independent income. To Mick, it seemed they were taking the whole ‘life’s too short’ thing not only to heart but to bed.
And Mick O’Regan had no argument with them: If his balls were on the line, he was glad at least that a generous bevy of British girls had had a damn good go of them first.
*
Saturday flew for Quinn. The only official duty the day held for him was an hour’s ‘orientation’ session at the Centre where, on top of routine administrative items, it was confirmed that, at some time in the near future as yet undetermined, he would be contacted at the Russell Court regarding his posting to an Advanced Flying Unit. Despite this prospect, he could think of little but the night ahead.
Victoria went off duty in the early evening and took him to the bar of the Royal Bath Hotel, a grand old towered place in the centre of the town. Her arm inside Quinn’s all the way there, she’d been virtually skipping at the possibility of wangling them Leave together.
‘I’d love to show you London, Daniel…’
As Quinn ordered first drinks, Victoria looked on at the modest young man in Number 1 Service Dress – that profile so new, so thrilling to her. About once an hour all day long, however, she’d found herself questioning the honesty of his claim to have been a virgin, quite frankly.
‘Here you go, Vic.’
‘My first cold beer. Thank you, darling.’
‘Cheers,’ he said into her eyes. ‘It seems the season for firsts, doesn’t it.’
‘Well it certainly is for me,’ she whispered, one eyebrow markedly raised.
Quinn saw they were darker than her blonde hair, somehow strong, and now why her beauty seemed so very striking to him.
Her eyes never left his as she sipped the icy brew. Her feeling of pride next to him verged on the physical. ‘It’s lovely.’
He adopted her whisper. ‘You know, Vic… I’d love to give you a kiss right now, but I suppose we can’t really in here, can we…’
‘Oh, I concur,’ she returned. ‘ Bad form.’
Then leant directly forward to his lips.
*
Sunday, they’d planned to start out early and take a picnic to a favourite spot of Vic’s along the coast nearby, yet this had been ruled out by the weather. Each becoming vaguely aware somewhere past noon that it was raining very heavily outside, they’d been forced to stay in bed. Quinn could have stayed there for days – enveloped in this bliss of her smooth, slim body next to his.
‘I presume Lucy’s holding the fort at Personnel?’ he hummed. ‘What did you do, pull rank on her?’
‘I reject your insinuation, Sir.’ Victoria let the pause extend. ‘Though a little well-placed blackmail does sometimes work wonders…’
‘You’re a wicked woman, Miss Haimes.’
‘Not half as wicked as something I just thought up…’
‘Show me.’
*
Late in the afternoon, Victoria’s laughter grew to an uncontrollable fit when Quinn asked her quite genuinely if she knew where the nearest Catholic church might be.
When finally able to speak again, she pleaded that if he needed to make an emergency Confession, the priest would just have to make a housecall, and if he did then she was prepared to testify from bed in evidence against Quinn, detailing to the priest not only what Quinn had done to her but how many times.
‘Still,’she grinned, ‘my silence could be bought.’
*
On Monday morning, Quinn awoke in his own bed, O’Regan’s hand nudging his shou
lder – There was a messenger boy at the door, something about a phonecall for Quinn, downstairs at reception.
Quinn made it downstairs and accepted the receiver handed him from behind the desk. It was Victoria.
‘Daniel, I must see you this morning…’
‘Is everything alright?’ He could tell in her voice that it wasn’t.
‘Yes and no. I can’t talk now. Look, I have my tea break at ten. I’ll see you then on the steps of the Centre.’
*
At the appointed hour, Quinn arrived in full uniform just as the town clocks were chiming. At the sight of Victoria’s face, any thoughts of sneaking her a hello kiss evaporated. She looked at him briefly but intensely, in her eyes, none of the joy he had seen all the previous day.
‘Vic, what’s the matter?’
She didn’t speak, simply putting her arm inside his, and gesturing towards the promenade. Once there, she gave him a peck on the cheek, and glanced behind them, only seagulls in their wake.
‘I couldn’t talk on the phone,’ she said as they went. ‘They’re all tapped for security of course.’
‘What’s going on?’
‘I’m not supposed to be telling you this, obviously, but your posting has come through. Mick’s too. The orders have just been typed.’
A tickle of nervous excitement circuited Quinn’s stomach. ‘O-kay… But what’s wrong?’
‘He’s going to OTU.’
‘I imagine he’ll be glad to hear it,’ said Quinn.
‘Yes… The thing is, so are you.’
*
The telegrams arrived at the Russell Court by RAF dispatch rider in the early afternoon. By the time he’d made it back to the counter of the Aircrew Centre, Quinn had read and re-read his own many times.
‘REPORT NO 58 OTU RAF BALADO BRIDGE AT ONCE. STOP. RAIL WARRANT ENCLOSED. ENDS. ’
OTU? He was supposed to be going to an Advanced Flying Unit, not an Operational Training Unit yet! Could there have been a mistake? When he’d put this to Victoria, she said the only thing she could guarantee was that, administratively speaking, the orders were ‘in motion’.
Nor the Years Condemn Page 9
