‘That’s great, Dudley,’ Eddie said, smiling. ‘The RAF are always looking for German speakers to interpret what Luftwaffe pilots are saying to each other, and what they say to their command centre.’ Eddie’s smile slowly faded. ‘You’ll be based on the south coast then?’
‘I suppose I will.’
‘How long will you be away?’
‘Well, there’s a couple of training courses, so it could be as long as six weeks, perhaps longer.’
Eddie stuck out her bottom lip. ‘I shall miss you.’
‘I’ll miss you too, Ed, but it’s too good an opportunity to turn down. Oh, and I’ve been given forty-eight hours leave. So if I get through the first course in time, I can go home for Christmas before I go south.’ Claire looked away. She hated lying to Eddie. She hated lying full stop, which was why she rarely did it. She could remember anything she put her mind to, but she had a hard time remembering lies. She satisfied her conscience by telling herself that she would be going south, eventually. Now the Canadian captain had passed her physically and mentally fit, she would be going to London to meet officers of the Special Operations Executive, after she’d been to Manchester and learned how to jump out of aeroplanes. Bubbles of excitement fizzed in her stomach.
CHAPTER FIVE
Claire jumped out of the taxi, paid the driver and, taking her suitcase from the back seat, ran across the drive to the front door of Dunham House. The brief said to be there at six o’clock for tea and introductions. Dinner was at seven. She looked at her watch; it was five to six. She inhaled and exhaled slowly to calm her nerves. It didn’t work. ‘Here goes,’ she said under her breath and, approaching the door, she lifted her hand to the bell.
‘Hello?’ Claire heard someone shout. She turned to see a young woman getting out of a car on the far side of the drive. ‘Hang on, will you?’ she shouted. Claire watched the girl pay the driver, grab the handle of her suitcase and drag it across the drive. ‘I’m Ellen,’ she said. Taking off a glove, she offered Claire her hand.
‘Claire. How do you do?’ Claire said, shaking Ellen’s hand.
‘Thanks for waiting for me. I was dreading going in on my own.’
‘Me too.’ Claire lifted her hand again and, with her forefinger poised before the bell, said, ‘Shall we?’
Ellen hunched up her shoulders and, with her lips pressed tightly together, nodded.
No sooner had Claire pushed the brass button than the door opened. ‘Welcome to Dunham House,’ said a tall, grey-haired man in a black suit. He looked from Claire to Ellen. ‘Miss Dudley and Miss Southall?’
‘I’m Claire Dudley.’
‘And I’m Ellen Southall.’
‘If you’d like to follow me,’ the man said, taking both suitcases. ‘Two of the gentlemen on the training course have already arrived and are in the sitting room.’ As they walked through the entrance hall the man dropped the cases at the side of a wide stairway. ‘They will be taken to your room,’ he said, opening the door opposite.
Claire followed Ellen into the sitting room. With matching settees and chairs, thick rugs on a parquet floor and tapestry-style drapes tied back with gold tasselled plaits, the room reminded her of the sitting room at Foxden Hall. In the hearth a fire blazed. ‘Come and warm yourselves, ladies. I’m Johnny Tremaine and this is Nick Wood,’ the taller of the two men said.
‘Claire Dudley.’ Claire shook Johnny’s hand, and then Nick’s.
‘And I’m Ellen Southall.’ Johnny took Ellen’s hand, holding it for so long that Nick waved his hello over Johnny’s shoulder. While the boys made a fuss of Ellen, Claire wandered over to one of the tall sash windows. The view reminded her of Foxden, before the war. The fields and meadows appeared to roll on forever and the drive leading to the house was lined with trees.
‘Nice, isn’t it?’ Nick said, suddenly at Claire’s side.
‘Yes, it reminds me of where I was brought up.’
‘Oh? Should I touch my forelock when I speak to you?’
Claire laughed. ‘I don’t think people do that these days. But no, my dad was head groom on a country estate and we lived in a tied cottage. The lord and his family were good people, but the only thing estate workers’ kids shared with them was the view.’
Claire and Nick turned as the door opened and a waitress brought in tea. ‘Come on,’ Nick said, ‘or Johnny will eat all the biscuits.’
‘I’ll be mum,’ Ellen said, pouring the tea. Sitting round the table, they talked about the training and what they hoped to get from it. The others didn’t say why they were on the course, so Claire didn’t either.
At half past six, the RAF training instructor, Martin Richards, from Ringway’s Parachute Training Squadron arrived. After introducing himself he spoke briefly. ‘There are dozens of trainees like yourselves at Ringway. And, like you, they have been split into groups of four. Stay close and get to know each other until you can trust each other completely. Watch each other’s backs, as you would do in the field. You are Group A, the first of my trainees to jump.’ Martin moved between them handing out timetables and briefing notes. Claire glanced at the others. Their faces showed nervous eagerness and excitement, as she suspected her own did. ‘Study the briefing notes until you are able to recite them backwards. Before you go up, you will know your chute and equipment as well as you know your own bodies. If you don’t, you won’t be going up. It’s as simple as that. Get an early night – you’ve got a big day tomorrow.’
The four trainees stood to attention and saluted. Martin returned the salute and left.
Claire and Ellen went up to their room to change, meeting the lads twenty minutes later for dinner. When they had finished eating, Johnny tried to persuade them to go to his and Nick’s room for drinks. Claire said she wanted to study the briefing notes and Ellen, blushing, said perhaps another night. Johnny pretended to be hurt, but Nick put his arm around his neck and strong-armed him out of the dining room.
In their bedroom Ellen confessed to Claire that she thought Johnny was nice looking and if he asked her to walk out with him she might. ‘What about you? Do you like Nick?’ she asked.
‘He seems very nice. I like him, but that’s all. Besides, he likes you.’
‘Me?’ Ellen said, sounding surprised. ‘Why do you think that?’
‘He goes doe-eyed when he looks at you, and when you speak he hangs on your every word.’ Ellen sat on her bed and picked up her notes, but made no attempt to read them. ‘I’m here to learn how to jump out of an aeroplane,’ Claire said, ‘not to find a sweetheart. It’s important to me that I become proficient in parachuting. So no boys for me.’
The car arrived the following morning soon after breakfast. It left with its cargo of trainees at 08:30 hours, arriving at RAF Ringway shortly afterwards. Although she was nervous Claire entered the main building first and followed the signs to the lecture hall, or school room, as Martin Richards called it. On the door was a hand-written note that said IF YOU DO NOT WANT TO LEARN, DO NOT ENTER THIS ROOM. ‘Better behave myself then,’ Johnny said, as the four of them trooped in.
‘I intend to,’ Claire said. If things went wrong it would mean at best a broken leg, at worst a broken neck. Claire committed to memory everything she was told about the parachute, the transportation of equipment, how to fasten and unfasten the harness – and how to drop it if she landed in a tree or a river and needed to get rid of the release box, straps and buckles. By lunchtime she was exhausted. The afternoon session was about the full moon and the eight nights around it when a pilot would risk flying his plane without lights. And the wind, how the body oscillates while it descends, and how difficult it is to judge the swing when all you can see is the ground rushing towards you. Martin also talked about what to expect if a cord snapped or the chute didn’t open. Claire looked at Ellen. Her face was as pale as Claire suspected her own was.
The following day, hardly able to contain her nerves, Claire scrambled onto what looked like a cradle attached to the underbelly of a bal
loon. She followed the instructor, who shouted, ‘First trainee to board will be first to jump.’ Again she tried breathing deeply to calm her nerves. Again it didn’t work. Nick boarded behind her, followed by Ellen, and Johnny climbed in last.
The motorised winch juddered and the balloon began to rise, but Claire’s stomach stayed on the ground. It soon caught up. All of a sudden the engine cut out and the winch jolted to a halt. Claire peered through the opening in the centre of the cradle at the fields below and wished she hadn’t. Her heart was beating like a drum and her legs began to shake. Was she frightened of heights? She didn’t think she was. In class, Martin said the balloon would be anchored at a thousand feet, which meant they were stuck at around five hundred.
‘A small hitch,’ Martin shouted above the labouring engine and blustery wind. ‘We’ll be on the move soon.’ And they were. It felt like an hour but could only have been a couple of minutes before Claire heard a dull cranking sound and the balloon began to rise again. She smiled nervously at Ellen who grinned back, her lips a tight line.
The winch stopped and Martin pointed at her. ‘First,’ he shouted, ‘second, third and fourth,’ he said to Nick, Ellen and Johnny. Keeping her eyes on him, Claire moved closer to the hole in the middle of the cradle. ‘Prepare to jump,’ he shouted. She nodded. ‘And go!’
The next second Claire was plummeting to the ground. A squeezing sensation gripped the pit of her stomach and she squealed. Air rushed into her mouth and up her nose as she dropped like a stone. Worried that something had gone wrong, she looked up. At that moment the chute opened its dome and ballooned like a huge mushroom. She felt exhilarated, excited, and squealed again as she was swept up and dropped. Suddenly the ground was coming up to meet her. She began to panic and, misreading the swing of her body, landed badly. Propelled by a strong ground wind she was dragged along at a speed almost faster than her legs could cope with. She feared she would fall. Before she did, the wind lessened and she was able to slow down until she was sprinting and finally walking. Struggling for breath, she pulled the guide lines of the harness, controlled the parachute, and managed to collapse it.
She watched the others as they came down. All but the instructor and Johnny had a problem controlling the chute in the wind. Johnny, Claire thought, had probably controlled everything in his life, all of his life.
‘Well done, everyone,’ Martin said, as they walked back to the hanger. ‘We’ll go up in the balloon again in the morning, and in the afternoon I think you’ll be ready for the real thing. Go to the canteen, get yourself something to eat, and do something relaxing for the rest of day. You’ve got a big day tomorrow. See you in the morning at 09:00 sharp,’ he shouted, heading towards the next group of trainees.
In the canteen they joined a queue of flyers and ground staff. The choice of main course was meat and potato pie and gravy, or fish and chips with mushy peas. Claire loved fish and chips, but after looking at the greasy batter and thin chips she decided on the pie. She was ravenous – as, it seemed, were Ellen, Johnny and Nick. The four trainees, who Johnny referred to as the A team, had become firm friends after their shared experience. They talked excitedly about the jump, how much they’d enjoyed it, and how they were looking forward to the real thing the next day. When they had finished eating they decided to take the instructor’s advice and relax by going to the flicks in Manchester.
The film showing at the Carlton was Gone With The Wind. Ellen swooned over Clark Gable as Rhett Butler. Claire, using Eddie’s pet name for Captain Mitchell, said, ‘He’s all right if you like beefcakes. I prefer Leslie Howard.’ The boys said they liked Vivien Leigh and Olivia de Havilland equally, so the girls chose Leigh for Nick and de Havilland for Johnny. They were still discussing which of the actresses was the most beautiful when the lights began to fade. A woman in front of them tutted loudly and Ellen giggled.
Johnny bought popcorn and tipped it accidentally, or so he said, down the neck of the tutting woman, which made Ellen giggle even more. Johnny and Nick smoked cigarettes and at the interval bought the girls ice cream.
During the second half of the film, Johnny put his arm around Ellen, catching Claire’s shoulder. She looked at Ellen, who was smiling like the cat that had got the cream. Johnny whispered into Ellen’s ear and she giggled again, causing the woman in front to turn and glare at her. She said, ‘Shush’ several times, but Ellen couldn’t stop giggling.
When the flick ended they jumped into a taxi. There had been an air raid earlier in the day and the main route out of Manchester was blocked. By the time they got back to Dunham House there was no one in the dining room.
‘The kitchen’s closed,’ the waitress said, as they entered. ‘I can make you some sandwiches and there’s apple cake left, if you’d like some?’
‘That will be lovely,’ Claire said. ‘Could we also have some tea, please?’
‘Yes,’ the waitress said. ‘If you’d like to go into the sitting room, I’ll bring it in as soon as I’ve cleared the tables in here.’ When she and the other waitress arrived with their supper, Johnny made a fuss of helping them, causing them to blush.
The lunch they’d had at Ringway was so filling that the girls weren’t hungry. The boys were and devoured the sandwiches, insisting the girls shared the apple cake, which they did. It was a perfect end to an exciting day. When they finished supper they went up to their rooms. Johnny again tried to persuade Ellen to join him for a nightcap, but she wasn’t having any of it.
‘Nice of you to ask, Johnny, but I think we should all get some sleep. We’ve got an early start tomorrow. Night night,’ she said, going into the bathroom as Claire came out.
Claire had just undressed, put on her pyjamas, and was sitting in bed reading the parachuting instructions when there was a knock on the door. ‘Who is it?’
‘Nick. Can I come in?’
Claire jumped out of bed and grabbed her dressing gown. Pulling it on, she opened the door. ‘What’s the matter?’
‘Johnny has locked me out of our room. Ellen’s in there with him. I can hear them talking.’
‘I thought she’d been a long time. You don’t think he’ll take advantage of her, do you?’
‘No. At least I don’t think he will. He has done in the past. He sweeps girls off their feet with his charming ways, and a few days later he tires of them and leaves them, breaking their hearts.’
At that moment Ellen came skipping into the bedroom in her towelling robe, with her wash bag in her hand and a towel over her arm. ‘Hello, been swapping notes? If you need to know anything, Claire’s the girl to ask. There are a couple of things I need to pick her brain about, so if you don’t mind,’ she said, holding the door open and smiling at Nick.
Claire burst out laughing. ‘Sorry, Nick, I think you’ve had your leg well and truly pulled.’
‘I think I have.’ Blushing with embarrassment or anger, Claire wasn’t sure which, Nick said goodnight and left the girls’ room.
‘I’m going to sleep, unless you want to talk about tomorrow?’ Claire said, taking off her dressing gown and getting into bed again.
‘No. I only said that to get rid of Nick.’
‘If you’re sure?’ Ellen nodded. ‘Put the light out then, will you?’ Claire turned over, pulled her pillow down so it nestled between her chin and her neck and was asleep in seconds.
At breakfast the next day the atmosphere between the boys was frosty. It didn’t last long. By the time the car came for them they were talking, and by the time they arrived at the hanger, they were chatting as normal.
The windsock on the control tower had been horizontal the day before, but today it was drooping, which meant it wasn’t as windy. Without a gusting ground wind the second jump from the balloon went well for all of them. Afterwards they were taken to another hanger and shown an old fuselage with a hole in the middle.
‘This is the size of opening you’ll be jumping through, ladies and gentlemen. Do you have any questions?’
‘The hole
doesn’t look big enough for someone wearing a parachute to get through,’ Claire said.
‘Deceiving, isn’t it? But I assure you it is. OK, take a break, eat something, and be back here at two o’clock.
Again they discussed the training over lunch. None of them ate much; they were all too nervous. Claire decided on a sandwich – it would be less to lose if there was turbulence. When they had finished eating they returned to the hanger, put on their parachutes, piled into a light utility truck called a Tilly, and were driven to an outlying runway where they boarded a twin-engine Whitley III.
As the Whitley took off, Claire’s stomach churned. A few seconds later she went deaf. She swallowed hard and yawned. Neither action made any difference. Eventually the plane levelled and her ears popped, but all she could hear was the roar of the plane’s engines.
Martin beckoned her with his thumb. She put two thumbs up to let him know she was ready. Staggering to the hole at the centre of the fuselage, she took a deep breath – and on Martin’s count of three, Claire fell from the plane. Without a strong wind the drop was more enjoyable. Her tummy tightened, as she expected it to, and air whooshed into her mouth and up her nose. She was lifted and dropped, as she had been when she jumped out of the balloon, and the parachute opened. Swinging and falling, she looked down and prepared to land. When she landed it was at a speed she was comfortable with. Without a ground wind to hinder her, she gathered up the chute quickly. The next three practice falls were progressively better. The last, Martin said, was perfect. By the end of the course, Claire was confident that she was good enough to parachute into France. She hoped she was good enough to get the job with the SOE.
China Blue (The Dudley Sisters Saga Book 3) Page 5
