A Pair of Silver Wings

by James Holland

  ‘If not sooner,’ said Harry.

  Later, Edward wrote again to his parents. His mother had been worried about him; another letter had arrived that morning, in which she had fretted about Cambridge being bombed. ‘We have had a few warnings, but no raids, so please do not concern yourselves on that account,’ he scrawled. ‘I may not be able to write again for a while because our course has now been shortened and we have to cram all our exams in before we finish. I shall barely be able to think straight let alone write letters.’ He was itching to tell them about Canada, but instead added, ‘Also, we might not be getting our promised leave. The CO’s trying to get us 48 hours, so fingers crossed. More than that I can’t say – you know how it is. Everything’s very hush-hush. I’ll send a telegram when I know more.’

  Forty-eight hours it was – two days that had to include the time it took to reach Chilton from Cambridge and then to get to Liverpool. It did not worry Edward; as far as he was concerned, the sooner they set sail the better. And in any case, he knew he would quickly tire of his mother’s fussing. Even so, in order to add a sense of drama to the occasion, he decided not to forewarn them with any telegram, but to arrive in Chilton unannounced. The ploy worked, as he knew it would. ‘But why didn’t you warn us?’ exclaimed his mother, embracing him tightly. ‘You poor thing! Come in, give me your bag, let me get you a drink.’ Edward almost believed he’d been one of the pilots fighting to save Britain, rather than an RAF trainee with only a few weeks at an Initial Training Wing to his name.

  As soon as they had sat down he told them about Canada. ‘No bombs there, Mum.’

  ‘Yes, well that’s something,’ she said. She still looked pinched and anxious. They were in the drawing room, with its familiar and comforting furniture, pictures and smell; a smell of wax polish and the faint scent of late summer roses from the garden. The grandfather clock ticking imperturbably, unobtrusively making itself heard whenever there was a pause in the conversation.

  ‘Fancy a stretch in the garden?’ said his father suddenly. Edward glanced at his mother – sounds serious – then said, ‘Yes, all right.’

  ‘I’ll see how cook’s getting on,’ said his mother, rising.

  It had been raining during his journey down, but had now cleared. It was early evening, the light already drawing in, but the air was fresh and clean.

  ‘I’m glad nothing’s dropped near here,’ said Edward as they walked across the damp lawn. ‘I’ve far more reason to feel anxious about you two being here, so close to London.’

  ‘Oh, we’re all right. I hardly think the Germans are going to try and bomb Chilton, or even Woking for that matter,’ he said.

  ‘And what about you, during the day? London’s changed in the last month.’ He’d seen some of the damage for himself, having decided to walk across the river from the Embankment to Waterloo. Bombed-out buildings had been vomited onto the road. Edward had watched teams of men and ARP wardens busily trying to clear up the mess; and as he walked over the Thames, a heavy, acrid stench wafted on the breeze of the river – a smell like the embers of a bonfire after a heavy downpour of rain.

  His father nodded. ‘Most of the raids seem to be at night. But you’re right. It’s looking a bit of a mess. Don’t worry, though, we’ve a very strong basement that could withstand most things.’ He smiled then added, ‘and I promised solemnly to your mother that I would always take cover in case of a raid.’

  ‘She does like to worry.’

  ‘We’re lucky she cares.’ They had reached the copper beech at the end of the garden. There was an old bench there, left by the previous owners. Edward’s father sat down. ‘I’ve always liked this spot,’ he said. ‘Hard to think there’s a war on when you’re sitting here.’ The leaves rustled gently in the breeze. From somewhere safe in the foliage above, a wood pigeon was cooing. Edward looked at the carving he had made six years before, and ran a finger over the letters etched into the bark.

  ‘Still there,’ said his father.

  ‘Yes. It seems a lifetime ago that I did that.’ Edward sat down beside his father. ‘You were furious, do you remember?’

  ‘Well,’ he said, ‘it’s wrong to go around carving on trees. Blatant vandalism. You had to be taught a lesson.’

  ‘A painful one if I remember rightly.’

  ‘Did you ever do it again?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Well, then. An entirely justified course of action.’ They both laughed. In truth, Edward had found his father George a remote figure when he’d been young; someone who was away for much of the time, and all too often meting out some punishment or other whenever he was home. They had become closer, however, as Edward had grown and his father had spent more time in London and less overseas. His father, he realised, had punished him only because his mother would so rarely do so. He had invariably deserved it. Edward glanced at him now: greyer, much greyer in recent years, but in his fifties still fit and healthy, and the cornerstone of their small family. And no matter how distant he had once seemed, he had always been the person Edward looked up to above all others; the person he trusted the most; the person he relied on to guide him through life.

  ‘Ah, you were always a headstrong young boy,’ said his father, stretching. ‘It’s a good thing, you know. You stand up for what you believe in and you’ve determination too. But Edward, you must promise me something.’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘Promise me you won’t be reckless. There’s a fine line between the two. One is a positive, the other quite the opposite.’

  ‘I won’t, I –’

  His father held up a hand to quiet him. ‘I saw what happened to reckless young men in the last war. Few ever made it home again. You’re a grown man now, and no doubt you feel immortal and untouchable. I know you’re itching to do your bit, and I’m very proud of you for that. But you’re also still my boy. War is very dangerous. Aeroplanes are dangerous. Be careful, that’s all I’m saying. Be determined, but don’t be reckless. Come home for your mother – and for me.’

  Edward felt emotion welling within him. He wanted to speak, but for a few moments he was worried that if he did so, he might cry. So instead he just nodded, and when the moment had passed, said, ‘All right, Dad.’

  ‘Good boy,’ said his father, gripping his son’s knee. Then he shivered and said, ‘It’s getting cold. Shall we go in?’

  Thirty-six hours later, as the sun rose pinkly in the east, he was on board ship, bound for the New World, the Liverpool shoreline inching further and further away, until it was completely enveloped by the morning haze.

  ‘Gone,’ said Edward, exhaling a cloud of smoke.

  Standing beside him, Harry Barclay was also smoking pensively. ‘Next time we see England,’ he said, ‘we’ll be qualified pilots.’

  Edward grinned. ‘I can’t wait,’ he told his friend.

  Somerset – May, 1995

  Edward had been right about one thing: interest in the war had quietened considerably in the days and weeks that followed the fiftieth anniversary celebrations. There had been no more documentaries, no more features, and no more interviews with veterans. In Brampton Cary the bunting had come down, as it had elsewhere around the country. Edward’s life continued as before: his daily routines and rituals, watching the school’s increasingly successful season. Occasionally seeing former colleagues and friends. A night at the theatre in Bath.

  But his life was not the same. The rest of the world might have put the war to the back of their minds once more, but he had been unable to do so. The dreams had become an almost nightly recurrence. Moreover, for the first time in many years, the nightmares had begun to vary. The old one still plagued him, relentlessly the same in every detail, but other images haunted his sleep. There was one in which he was flying through towers of white cloud, all sense of time and speed halted, as though he were motionless. Below, the earth seemed distant. He was so high that it was impossible to see any distinct features. Nothing to suggest the turmoil being waged b
elow. He felt at peace, drifting there amongst the heavens. But a deafening noise shattered this calm. The screaming roar of aero-engines, and then two Messerschmitts were bearing down upon him. Edward swivelled his head frantically from one side to the other, but although they sounded loud enough to be almost on top of him, he could only see them fleetingly, a glint of metal, the smiling faces of the goggled pilots, and cannon tracer hurtling over the wing of his own machine. He was screaming, trying to block out the noise, whilst clutching the control column and desperately thrusting the aircraft back and forth in an effort to shake off his attackers. But the controls became heavier, the response more sluggish. Panic overtook him; he knew what he must do, but he could not, no matter how hard he tried. The aircraft was slowing, and its movement lessening, until it was flying in an almost straight and level line. And this time when he glanced behind him, he could see one of the Messerschmitts just yards from his. Could see the pilot grinning, his lips curled in satisfaction. A moment later he was not in the cockpit but watching, listening to the screams of another man: ‘Oh Jesus no . . . Mother, save me . . . Jesus Christ . . . Mother, please!’ And then just as the aircraft blew up, Edward was jolted awake, writhing and clutching his ears until he came to, and he realised he was no longer eighteen thousand feet high, but only in his bedroom with its double-glazed windows and warm cream walls.

  Nor was it only at night that his mind had become dominated by war. During the day he repeatedly found his thoughts returning to those events, remembering incidents, snapshots of conversation, and thinking about the people he had known. Thinking about certain people in particular. How incredible the mind was. More than fifty years had passed and yet he found he could recall so much with absolute clarity. More than that: he could picture where the conversation took place, and the circumstances in which it had done so, and yet he’d not been aware that these memories had been stored away all these years, like folders in an old filing cabinet, brought out now, shaken free of dust and reread once more.

  Harry, Harry. Edward had taken out his diary on a number of occasions, had looked at the address and telephone number of Andrew Fisher. Once he had even gone so far as to lift the receiver of the telephone. But, no. A letter would be better. Tomorrow, he had told himself. I’ll write tomorrow. Tomorrow became the next day. A fortnight after returning from London, he still hadn’t written to Andrew Fisher.

  Sometimes his memories were prompted by chance references. One day he was reading his Times when he came across a small article about Uplands, Ontario. ‘Well, I never,’ he muttered to himself. He could certainly remember that place all right. Harry had been right about the flying in Canada. It had been cold, certainly, and there had been much snow on the ground for much of the time, but for almost the entire ten weeks of the course, the skies had been clear and blue. They’d all heard of trainee pilots getting lost in low cloud in Britain and hurling themselves into the side of a hill. There had been no such danger in Canada – the greatest risk to begin with had been landing on compressed snow – the brakes had been difficult to control, but to begin they had flown with experienced instructors and no-one had come to any serious harm.

  It had been the ideal place to train: the nearest town was some miles away, and in what little free time they were given, there was not much they could do. Instead, he and Harry had decided to continue to work as hard as they could, helping each other through the large theoretical part of the course and giving one another encouragement with the flying. Once again, their dedication had paid off. Halfway through the ten-week course, when the Initial Training School was complete, both Edward and Harry had been assigned to continue their training on single-engine aircraft, while half their number were to immediately convert to twin-engines. He remembered scanning down the list put up in the mess, and the overwhelming sense of relief when he saw his name in the left-hand column.

  His instructor throughout his time in Canada had been a huge, burly Canadian called Rex Miller. ‘Flying will feel awkward and unnatural to begin with,’ Miller had told him at the beginning of the course, ‘but the day will come when suddenly it will feel as natural as riding a bike. The aircraft will feel like an extension of your own self. When that time comes, then we can really start getting down to business.’ He could picture Miller saying that as though it had been last week: walking towards one of the line of Tiger Moths, feet crunching the snow. Edward had patted and rubbed his gloved hands together, and nodded; he had believed Miller, but at that moment, just a week into the course, was feeling twitchy about the flight they were about to make. Edward smiled to himself. He was sitting on his favoured bench under the horse chestnuts, and barely watching the cricket at all. Miller had been right: he could remember the flight when everything clicked; could remember it better than his first solo, or even his wings test. January, 1942, a week or two before his wings. From the moment he’d clambered into the front cockpit of the Harvard, turned on the magnetos and fired the engine, he’d felt a sense of empowerment and control. Climbing to nine thousand feet, he’d seen the vast flatness of the Ontario plains spread out beneath him, disappearing into an infinite blur on the horizon. The sun streaked across the wings, and then he began to twist and pirouette, dancing through the sky, the sky and ground rolling around him. And he was doing it without thinking, just as Miller had said; the aircraft had become a part of him, and he had whooped and laughed for joy at the sheer thrill of flying, and had thought how lucky he was to have the chance to do something so utterly exciting and wonderful.

  The wings test had been a formality after that – both he and Harry had passed with ‘above average’ marks, and although both had behaved with restraint as the announcement had gone up on the notice board, back in their room he and Harry had laughed and clasped one another. ‘We did it! We bloody well did it!’ Harry had said, jumping up and down with glee. Both had laughed again at their shaking fingers as they’d tried to sew on their wings badge. ‘Too excited to stitch anything,’ Harry had said, then cursed as he pricked himself with the needle.

  That had been in February, 1942, but it was not until the middle of May that they had finally made it back to England. For five weeks, they had been stranded at the embarkation depot in Nova Scotia, waiting for a passage home. Others from the course had already gone, but a half dozen, including Edward and Harry, had not been drafted for departure. Edward had thought teaching at a prep school had been frustrating, but it was nothing to the disappointment he had felt in Nova Scotia. ‘We’re standing still,’ Edward had complained. ‘Why is there so much waiting in the RAF?’ Even Harry, so much more even-tempered, had been champing at the bit.

  At last, at long, long last, they were told they would be shipping out. They were packed and ready to go – due to board the ship the following morning – when someone at the camp developed scarlet fever. Everyone was immediately ordered to the sick bay to be tested for immunity. Of the six due to sail that day, three were immune; Harry, Edward and a Canadian pilot were not. They would not be getting on the ship after all. Edward had thought he would explode. He had shouted and railed, bemoaned the unfairness of life, expressed his utter contempt for the doctors at the camp, but it was no use. He and Harry had come to loathe Nova Scotia. ‘Brilliant if bird watching’s your thing,’ Harry had said, ‘otherwise pretty pointless.’ The camp was surrounded by wild country, wooded and rugged. It was, they agreed, probably a beautiful place in summer and in peacetime, but hellish if you were desperate to fly and do your bit to win the war; and made considerably worse by the fact that it was now spring and the snow had turned to rain, and the rows of wooden huts in which they were housed were surrounded by thick, glutinous mud. The mud! It got everywhere: into their huts, splattered around their trousers, into the deepest crevices of their boots. And there was nothing to do. The nearest town was Debird – renamed ‘Deadbird’ – a half-hour walk away through the mud, and consisting of four shops and a collection of windswept houses. ‘A trip to the seething metropolis?’ Harry wou
ld say most days, and Edward would nod sullenly and off they’d trudge.

  To while away the time, they played endless games of cards – Edward’s poker skills improved enormously – and spent hours discussing their perfect day should they ever make it back. This would see them spending lavishly. The amount of pay they were saving was the only consolation of this enforced confinement; with nothing to spend it on, both there accruing more than they had ever had in their lives. The details varied from day to day, but the essence was this: they would book themselves into a smart hotel – the Ritz, for example – have long, hot baths followed by a shave at the barber’s in Victoria Arcade. The afternoon would be spent in a leisurely tour around Lord’s Cricket Ground, then, with the sightseeing over, it would be back to the hotel for cocktails, where, through the combination of their great charm and pilots’ uniforms, they would persuade two beautiful girls to go out to dinner with them at one of the finest restaurants in town. This was to be followed by a long night of dancing and further drinking.

  They never did have the Perfect Day, however – at least, not as they’d imagined. There’d been no time. Having spent the best part of three months doing nothing, it appeared the RAF needed them urgently after all. From Liverpool, they had reported right away to the officers’ mess at Uxbridge. From there they would be posted to their Operational Training Units. Edward could remember very clearly the sense of mounting anxiety both he and Harry had felt. They still desperately wanted to fly fighters, but this was far from certain: they could easily end up flying twin-engine aircraft after all, or be posted to Army Reconnaissance or Coastal Command. Nor did they want to be separated, although they knew it was very likely; the RAF had little time for the personal wishes of its junior officers. Yet having trained together, and remained in Nova Scotia for so long together, they had come to depend on one another enormously. Edward had made good friends at school, but had never had a friendship as close as the one he now shared with Harry.