When the Lights Go on Again

by Annie Groves

  ‘Sorry to disturb you,’ he began, ‘but since you was saying that you thought you might get a dog, I was wondering, if you’d like this little ‘un.’ As he spoke he was walking back to his cycle and opening the saddlebag on the back. ‘Found her this morning, the only one left alive in a litter, left behind by some folks who’d been living illegal, like, camping in Taylor’s Wood, up by Hugh Williams’ Farm. Caused a real nuisance, they did, stealing chickens and that.’

  Although she was listening to the sergeant Emily was focusing on the small bundle of black, tan and white fur he had lifted from the saddlebag.

  ‘Too young to be without its ma, it is,’ Alf told Emily knowledgeably. ‘It’s no more than four weeks old, I reckon, and chances are it wouldn’t have survived another night. It will need feeding every few hours. I called at Williams’ farm and Mrs Williams has sent down a bottle and some milk. Mind you, she reckons the poor little thing won’t survive. Too young, she says.’

  Emily, who until that moment had been on the point of thanking the sergeant but refusing his gift by pointing out that what she needed was a fully grown well-trained dog to protect the house, not a weak four-week-old puppy, somehow found that the pathetically fragile bundle of fur had been passed into her hold, and that she was stroking the shivering little creature, appalled to find that she could feel its bones beneath its fur.

  Ten minutes later, her baking put on hold, she was sitting beside the Aga, trying to coax the puppy to take some of the milk she had warmed for it. The puppy, though, wrapped up now in Emily’s oldest winter jumper, wouldn’t have anything to do with the carefully prepared baby’s bottle, and it seemed to Emily that she could almost see the poor little creature slipping away before her eyes, giving up on life before it had really had a chance to experience it. Poor, poor little thing. A determination filled Emily. She was not going to let it die. Patiently she poured some of the milk into a dish, and then dipped a corner of a piece of cloth into it, squeezing the milk from it into the puppy’s mouth. The first few times she tried the puppy didn’t respond, but then just when she thought it was too late and the limpness of its little body meant that she had failed, suddenly the puppy started to suck on the cloth.

  A little at a time, that was all she would give it, Emily told herself, remembering what the doctor had told her when she had first taken Tommy in, half starving and so thin you could see his ribs sticking out.

  Of course when Tommy came home from school and found the puppy curled up in a basket in front of the Aga he was ecstatic, and nothing would do but that Emily showed him how to feed ‘Beauty’, as he had – in Emily’s view at least – somewhat inappropriately named the puppy.

  ‘Look how big her feet are,’ Tommy told Emily.

  ‘Paws – dogs have paws, not feet,’ Emily corrected him. The puppy’s ‘feet’ were indeed large in comparison to the rest of her.

  ‘I can’t wait to show her to Wilhelm,’ Tommy told Emily. ‘He’ll be able to help me train her.’

  Delightful images of Tommy, the puppy, Wilhelm and herself enjoying an idyllically happy life together filled Emily’s imagination. In those images she automatically visualised herself wearing a simple plain wedding ring. A wedding ring. They had talked about it, but both of them knew that, whilst the war was on, a dream was all that their getting married to one another was.

  NINE

  She’d done it. She was now authorised to fly Class 2 planes – advanced single-engine aircraft, which included Hurricanes and Spitfires. Lou had felt a bit selfconscious but very proud accepting the congratulations of the other ATA pilots over breakfast this morning.

  ‘I’m really pleased that you’re going to be staying here,’ had been June’s comment when Lou had told her that she’d been informed that she would be remaining at Thame, attached to Number 5 Ferry Pool.

  Lou glanced at her watch, her tummy muscles tightening with a mixture of excitement and nervousness. Five to nine. At nine o’clock on the dot all the pilots had to report to their respective ferry pools, no matter what the weather, to collect their delivery chits for the day from the pool operations officer.

  The ops room was filling up with other ATA pilots when Lou went in, hanging back a little shyly, and feeling very ‘new’, even though she was familiar with the procedure from her previous ferry pool posting.

  ‘Castle Bromwich for you this morning, Campion,’ the pool ops officer informed Lou breezily as she passed Lou her chit.

  Castle Bromwich? The Spitfire factory? Lou almost dropped her chit. Her heart was thumping with pride and delight, her hands trembling slightly as she read her chit. She was to be dropped off at Castle Bromwich, where she would pick up a new Spitfire and fly it to a maintenance unit base, to be fitted out for action. At the MU she’d then pick up another Spitfire, which she would then fly to an RAF base before returning to Castle Bromwich and going through the entire process again with a second Spitfire, with the taxi Anson picking her up at the RAF base later in the day to bring her back to Thame.

  Somehow managing to put to one side her sense of awe and excitement, Lou followed the procedure all the pilots had been taught, which involved checking the weather report with the pool Meteorological Office, then checking with Maps and Signals to see if any changes had been made with respect to flying hazards such as barrage balloons, and restricted areas. Having done that, Lou then quickly read through the handling and pilot’s notes, which all ATA pilots were given – put together by ATA pilots themselves – and which contained detailed information on the workings and flying of every aircraft the pilots were likely to handle. As well as all the technical information a pilot might need the notes contained little warnings from other pilots of the foibles an aircraft might possess, and Lou quickly saw that it was apparently a mistake to leave a Spitfire standing on the airstrip instead of taxiing it to where it needed to be immediately on landing, because the engine had a tendency to overheat. If that happened it would cut out, which meant that the plane could not be moved until the engine had cooled down. Lou certainly didn’t want to embarrass herself on her first Spitfire flight by leaving her aircraft stuck on the landing strip, preventing any other aircraft from landing until hers could be moved.

  By half-past nine the taxi Anson was full of ATA pilots, eager to get on with their day’s work. Lou looked down at her small overnight bag – an essential just in case for some reason she couldn’t get back to Thame and had to find a billet for the night. Her nails and lips were painted the obligatory ATA red, and she’d tucked into her pocket a pretty red, white and blue patterned scarf, which had been a Christmas present from her aunt Francine, remembering the unwritten rule that she must step out of the plane looking glamorous and serene.

  Some of the pilots, like Lou, were already wearing their Sidcot flying suits, with their warm detachable linings and boots. Others, the more experienced pilots, Lou suspected, would be wearing one of the much-coveted Irvin flight jackets, and their uniform slacks. The flying jackets had originally only been issued to ‘fighting forces’ although the Government had relented and now allowed ATA pilots to purchase one at their own expense if they wished to do so. Lou was determined to save up for one.

  Three other girls were dropped off along with Lou at Castle Bromwich, the four of them making their way to the operations room where they had to queue to present their chits to the ops officer.

  Half an hour later, Lou was strapped into ‘her’ plane. All she could see in front of her was a big black semicircular instrument panel, a dome of sky around it and her rear-view mirror. Nervously she focused on the six central instruments: airspeed indicator, artificial horizon, rate of climb indicator, altimeter, turn indicator and gyroscopic compass. The plane fitted round her as snugly as though it had been made for her. Now she knew what the other pilots meant when they said that the Spit was a woman’s plane.

  She was third in the queue to take off. Her stomach muscles cramped and then there was no time to worry, no time to do anything but releas
e the brakes and feel the power kicking her in the back, then surging through the plane, almost as though the plane itself was desperately eager to be airborne, Lou thought, as a thrill of excitement pounded in her body in much the same manner as the Spit’s Merlin engine was pounding in its. Cautiously Lou taxied down the runway, picking up speed as she did so, holding her breath when the plane started to lift and then exhaling on a breath of pure joy as the Spit almost soared through the air. This was a plane designed to fly at speed, Lou recognised immediately, well able to understand now why so many of the ATA pilots spoke yearningly of longing to break the rules in it, and soar high and fast above the clouds.

  Even at a steady safe pace, Lou felt the sheer exhilaration of flying such a delightfully responsive plane. It would be dangerously easy to be reckless, she acknowledged. But her job was to get the Spitfire safely to its maintenance unit to be fitted out for combat, not to enjoy herself. She knew the route off by heart but she still looked at her map and then down at the ground, heading for the familiar landmark of the A1 as she flew south, checking the map for any possible barrage balloon sites she might have forgotten, before turning east towards her destination.

  It was a perfect day for flying, with good visibility, high cloud and a light southwesterly wind. The site of the maintenance unit, like most, was hidden from enemy aerial view by trees, and Lou held her breath a little as she brought the Spitfire down, warning herself not to brake too hard because on the ground the plane was nose heavy and would tilt forward if one applied too much brake.

  If her landing was textbook perfect, right up to her neat taxi off the runway to where several other planes were already lined up, that was down to the plane itself and not her, Lou told herself. She brought the Spit to a standstill and then quickly removed her helmet and her goggles, shook her curls free, tied her dashing scarf round her neck, before wriggling out of her seat and climbing out onto the wing, accepting the helping hand extended to her by a burly mechanic.

  There was just enough time to gulp down a drink of tea, and take a bite of the chocolate bar the girls were issued with, just like their male RAF counterparts, before their transport back to Castle Bromwich was ready for them – a transport plane on its way north, which would stop off at Castle Bromwich so that they could pick up their next planes to ferry back to the maintenance unit.

  By the time she was strapped into her third and final ferry for the day, Lou’s confidence had grown, but she still remembered to follow the instructions she had been given whilst training, feeling the now familiar kick of the Spit’s engine and the surge of power that followed it as it lifted into the sky apparently effortlessly.

  Along with the other girls, Lou had checked on the weather before taking off and been told that nothing had changed. ATA pilots flew only in daylight as they used ground landmarks to guide them and not instruments.

  Lou headed for the A1, following it until she reached the point where she had to turn east, humming to herself under her breath, only to stop abruptly when suddenly out of nowhere she was in cloud. What had happened? Had she somehow or other accidentally let the plane go higher than she should have done? Lou studied the instrument panel, not sure whether to be relieved or not when she saw that she hadn’t. Her met report hadn’t given any warning about low cloud, which must mean surely that it was just an unexpected patch she had flown into. She was on course, all she had to do was keep flying and the cloud was bound to disperse.

  Only it didn’t. If anything it was getting thicker. Lou tried dropping closer to the ground, hoping that she would be able to get beneath the cloud, and then when she didn’t real anxiety gripped her. She couldn’t continue to fly through the cloud; it simply wasn’t safe and they were always being told not to take risks with themselves or their planes. Frantically Lou tried to calculate how far she had come before looking at her map for the nearest airfield, knowing that the safest thing she could do was to land the plane, and wait for the cloud to lift.

  The nearest airfield was a bomber base, where Lou hoped that the landing strip would be clear since Bomber Command flew night raids over the Channel and into Germany.

  Very carefully she started to take the plane down, her heart in her mouth as she prayed for the mist to lift, The base was 650 feet above sea level, which meant that she could drop down to 750 feet, giving herself a clearance of 100 feet, at which level surely she would be under the cloud and able to see the airfield? But at 750 feet Lou couldn’t see a thing apart from cloud.

  At 700 feet her heart was thudding far too fast, apprehension crawling along her spine; 680, and she dared not go any lower. And then, to her relief, just when she was beginning to think that both she and the Spitfire were destined for destruction, she could see the grey shapes of hangars looming towards her out of the mist, followed by the wonderful site of the runway.

  This time she didn’t care one bit about a perfect landing. All she wanted was to get the plane down safely, and she had to fight not to reach for the brake when she finally hit the tarmac, cutting her speed until she was able to bring the Spit to a halt alongside a Lancaster bomber.

  She must be better trained than she had known, Lou decided shakily as she realised when she stepped out onto the Spit’s wing that she had actually remembered to remove her helmet and goggles.

  ‘What the hell do you think you’re playing at landing here? Where do you ruddy well think this is? We fly bombers here, not ruddy Spitfires?’ an angry male voice demanded, an RAF mechanic standing with his hands on his hips glowering up at her whilst what she assumed were the crew of the bomber she had stopped next to looked on in interest.

  ‘I got into thick cloud, and couldn’t risk flying on—’ Lou began, only to have the mechanic continue, ‘Ruddy women pilots, ruddy useless, they are, the whole lot of them. They shouldn’t be allowed, if you ask me.’

  Lou was beginning to feel slightly sick and very shaky.

  ‘I need to speak to your ops officer. If you could help me down and direct me to the ops office…’

  ‘What use would that be? You’d never be able to find it in this mist, would you?’

  The crew began to laugh. Lou was perilously close to tears. But she wasn’t going to humiliate herself or ATA by letting the men see how upset she was.

  She was just about to try to scramble down off the wing by herself when one of the men detached himself from the group, telling the mechanic in a familiar voice, ‘Leave it out, Len. It’s not her fault she got caught out by the weather.’

  Kieran Mallory, with his flight lieutenant’s wings stitched to his uniform, Lou noted as she was forced to wait and watch as he strode towards her to help her down.

  The grip of his hand on hers felt warm and unexpectedly comforting. Comforting? Kieran Mallory? After the harm he had done to her and Sasha’s relationship? After the hurt he had caused them both?

  Lou’s ‘thanks’ was stilted, as she determinedly refused to look at him. But either he wasn’t aware of her desire not to have anything to do with him or, more likely, Lou thought darkly, he was taking a delight in ignoring it and tormenting her.

  ‘You did well to come down through this mist,’ he told her. ‘I watched you coming in. Just as well you came in from the west, otherwise you wouldn’t have cleared the ops block.’

  Privately Kieran had been astonished when he’d recognised the ATA pilot who had brought down the Spitfire with such skill was Lou. He’d got less than fond memories of the twins and all the problems they’d caused him…It had been a relief to join the RAF, where all he’d had to worry about were the practicalities of learning to fly, instead of having to worry about all the problems he’d had in Liverpool. Kieran might have grown up surrounded by females, and then, after his father’s death, having to keep an elder brotherly eye on his younger brothers and sisters, but that didn’t mean that he enjoyed that kind of responsibility.

  He pulled a packet of cigarettes out of his pocket and offered Lou one. She didn’t smoke very often but right now s
he needed a cigarette. Kieran’s comment had left her feeling even more shaky at the thought of what it would have meant if she had hit the ops block, not just for her and the Spitfire, but for all those working in the block.

  Kieran leaned forward to light Lou’s cigarette for her.

  To Lou’s chagrin her hand was trembling so badly she couldn’t even hold the cigarette steady.

  Automatically Kieran reached out to steady her hand.

  Kieran’s hand was so much larger than her own that hers was practically engulfed by his. Lou could feel the warmth from his skin against the chill of her own.

  ‘Your mechanic wasn’t very impressed by my flying,’ she pointed out, gamely trying to make conversation as Kieran leaned closer to light her cigarette. She could smell the Brylcreem in his hair and the maleness of his skin, those scents somehow too intimate for her own comfort, causing her to draw back from him in a jerky uncoordinated movement.

  ‘He’s a bit anti women at the moment. His girl has just dropped him.’

  Lou nodded and drew on her cigarette, exhaling before she told him, ‘I need to go and check in with Ops here. I’ll have to ask them to get in touch with the maintenance unit I was heading for and my base, and ask them what they want me to do.’

  ‘I’ll walk you over. Been giving any more dance demonstrations lately?’ Kieran asked her.

  Lou shot him a mutinous look. ‘No I haven’t. Have you dated any more American ATA pilots?’

  ‘Who said I have dated any of them?’

  ‘You were with Frankie Truebrooke at the dance,’ Lou pointed out and then, worried that she’d said too much and that he’d think she was actually silly enough to mind who he dated, she added hastily ‘Not that it matters to me who you date.’

  And nor did it matter to him what kind of danger she got herself into, Kieran told himself. Just because he’d known her as a naïve kid with stars in her eyes back home in Liverpool, ready to trust anyone, that didn’t mean that he had to make himself responsible for her safety now.