Churchill’s Angels Read online

  She scanned the blue sky above her, wondering if she might see Adair and his beautiful plane, but only an occasional inquisitive bee circled her head before zooming off in disappointment.

  The plane was not in the stable yard but on the long driveway that led to the moth-balled manor house.

  ‘Runway,’ explained Adair as Daisy got off her bicycle and put it down on the grass under a brilliantly flowering rhododendron bush.

  She had not expected him to compliment her on her new outfit but still felt a tiny awareness that he did not.

  ‘How did it go?’

  He smiled. ‘How do you know it went?’

  ‘You look … pleased.’

  ‘Put this on and climb aboard.’ To her surprise and intense pleasure he handed her a real flying helmet. Daisy felt that she might choke with pleasure and excitement.

  ‘Is that cardigan all you’ve got? It’s cold up there.’

  Daisy was crushed. All she had thought of was her appearance and now she had shown how stupid she was. She should have thought, should have known. How many pictures of pilots had she seen, and every one wrapped up warmly against penetrating cold?

  He was shrugging off his jacket. ‘Here, put this on. I’m sorry, I should have brought you something. We cover ourselves from head to toe when we’re up: one-piece suit, no draughts.’

  She looked at his elegant slacks, and the sweater, obviously fine cashmere, that he was wearing with it.

  ‘This isn’t serious flying, Daisy, and I have another jumper in the cockpit. We won’t be up long enough to freeze.’ He was laughing and she tried to join in, all the while hoping that he was right.

  She began to pull herself up but was so surprised by what she saw that she almost fell into the cockpit and, for a moment, lay awkwardly on the wing unable to move.

  ‘Like it? Perfect name, considering everything. Shall I give you a push?’

  She wanted to say yes, but to push her he would have to touch what she considered to be a very personal part of her anatomy and she knew she would die if he were to do that. ‘No, it was just such a surprise. Thank you.’

  Adair stepped back as she hauled herself up and into the co-pilot seat. He had a blue and white handkerchief in his hand and he leaned over and very carefully dusted the little painting on the nose. ‘Simon painted the flower; good, isn’t it? He was at the Slade when war broke out. But I managed the name. Daisy. We christened her properly, but you’ll have to wait for your bubbly till I get more leave.’

  He seemed not to expect an answer and so Daisy stayed silent. He had named his plane Daisy, after her. Could life get any better?

  It could, because just a few minutes later Alf was there at the nose. He rotated the propeller and skipped onto the grass. While telling Daisy what he was doing with every move, Adair pressed a button and the engine fired into life. The plane began to move straight as an arrow along the grass verge of the driveway and then, before it reached the gates and the road that ran past the estate, it appeared to lurch or hiccup, and Daisy’s stomach – in fact everything in the lower half of her body – seemed to move around and … they were in the air.

  ‘Dear old Alf’s run back towards the house, Daisy,’ shouted Adair through the speaking tube. ‘Give him a wave.’

  Daisy looked out over the side. The farmhouse was a child’s toy below them. On the road in front of it stood a doll-like man waving a red handkerchief. Daisy waved back enthusiastically now that her organs seemed to have found their proper places again. She put out a hand in an attempt to touch a puffy cloud that floated beside them and drew it back in quickly. How cold it was.

  ‘There’s the Darent, Daisy, and over there, that really wide one is the Thames.’

  ‘I’m a bird, I’m a bird,’ she called, and the air stole the words out of her mouth as Adair laughed.

  ‘Me too,’ he shouted, and Daisy felt somehow warm and very happy. How could the sound of a voice warm her?

  It was time to descend and the ground seemed to rush up to meet them instead of waiting patiently for them to land.

  How could she thank him for the experience? How could she possibly explain the feeling, the exhilaration, to her family? Never, never would she forget that patchwork stretched out below them, or the feeling that only she and the birds knew what it was like to fly.

  ‘Do you think birds think about the beauty of the earth as they fly over it, Adair?’

  ‘Too busy worm-spotting, I should think,’ he answered practically, and she laughed a little shame-facedly.

  ‘You’re a natural, Daisy. Next leave, I’ll give you a lesson, but the war’s hotting up, and it will be worse than Dunkirk; who knows when I’ll be able to get away?’

  ‘I understand. But I’ve made up my mind about what I want to do, not just because of today, but my mum’s beginning to be more her old self, able to cope a bit more, though she can’t fool me that she’s not worrying about the boys.’

  ‘Lucky lads,’ he said, and his voice was sad.

  ‘I’ll worry about you, Adair Maxwell.’ Oh God, she hadn’t meant to say that, all serious. ‘And so will Alf and Nancy,’ she added quickly.

  She shrugged herself out of his fine leather jacket, aware that she had really enjoyed the feel of it around her, the warmth from his body still in the fur lining. ‘I’d best go. Wait and see, there’ll be an air-raid warning before I get home and everything’ll be spoiled if I have to sit for hours in a ditch.’

  ‘Be safe, Daisy Petrie,’ he said as she mounted her bicycle.

  ‘Be safe, Adair Maxwell,’ she replied as she cycled off down the driveway, wanting desperately to turn round for one final look – at the Daisy, of course, she reminded herself – but determined not to.

  Her parents and Rose were obviously thrilled to hear of her first flight and the uniqueness of the event certainly took Flora’s mind off her worries, at least for a time. Fred had to leave for ARP duty but Daisy assured him that she could tell him all about it when he got home and meanwhile she enjoyed answering all her mother’s questions.

  ‘Is it cold up in the air, love? Did you feel sick like when you were on that whirly thing at the funfair?’

  Daisy, who had to keep pinching herself to make herself believe that it had actually happened, smiled and said, ‘Yes to question one, and no to question two. I can’t begin to imagine what it’s like in the winter but Adair let me wear his jacket, lovely soft leather and with real fur inside. Ever so cosy. Oh, and I had this leather helmet, bit like our gas masks but with bigger goggly eyepieces. Wind makes your eyes water and you can’t fly if you can’t see where you’re going. Guess what I saw from up there. The River Thames and the Darent, and even the salt marshes, and Alf’s farm and him waving a big red hankie at us. It was the prettiest picture I ever saw in my life. Adair flew over the church and if it was night we would have seen Mr Tiverton up there fire-watching on the tower. What a surprise if he’d seen Daisy Petrie flying over him. I’ll never forget today, not if I live to be a hundred years old.’

  Rose finished plaiting her long fair hair, which she had to tie up for safety at the factory, and leaned forward. ‘Will he take you up again?’ She was as thrilled as her parents at Daisy’s adventure.

  ‘Better.’ Daisy leaned forward on the sofa. ‘He says he’ll teach me to fly. Easier than the van, he says, and I’ve had a good look at the controls. Only thing really that I don’t have in the van is a compass because you have to know which direction you’re flying in or you’d get lost. When in doubt, look for a river, is what Adair said.’

  ‘Oh, you are brave.’ Rose began to speak just as ear-splitting blasts on what Fred had told them was a ‘fixed-pitch’ hooter sounded, followed by sharp blasts from police and wardens’ whistles. Flora covered her ears and seemed to shrink inside herself but the family were better prepared by now, and had become more accustomed to reacting promptly.

  ‘C’mon, Mum, it’ll be over in a jiff,’ whispered Rose, who had been told at the factory t
hat hearing the hooter at the Burroughs Wellcome works meant that the enemy were dropping deadly flying bombs. These bombs were huge cylinders, which descended quickly but silently.

  Rose kept her worries to herself, and quickly and quietly they got into their shelter. It now held magazines and playing cards, air-tight tins and jars filled with Flora’s scones and whatever fruit she had been able to get, on this occasion apples. Flora’s knitting was there, and the three women sat quietly and chatted while Flora tried to concentrate on the cardigan she was knitting.

  ‘What pretty lilac wool, Mum,’ said Rose. ‘Who’s it for? Refugees?’

  ‘Oh Lord, I never thought of them, poor souls. Next time, love. This one’s for Daisy. I thought as how you’ll be wearing blue all the time when you go off, you might be glad of another colour and it will look nice with your new slacks.’

  ‘Oh, Mum, you are lovely,’ said Daisy, and she leaned across her sister’s long legs to hug her mother. ‘But who says I’m leaving? I haven’t applied for anything and the Government doesn’t seem in any hurry to use me. But never mind that, I thought any time you had, you was going to make curtains.’

  ‘First things first and I haven’t got any material yet. I’ve been checking a new source but there’s a lot of work involved preparing and I’ll do the cardy first.’

  The twins looked at each other and it was obvious that their thoughts were identical. ‘Mum, you haven’t found a market that sells the silk that’s used for lining coffins? That would be so awful.’

  ‘’Course, I haven’t.’ She looked slightly guilty. ‘It’s not actually muslin, which, by the way, my dears, would make ever such lovely undies, but it’s as good as, and it’s used …’

  Two pairs of wide eyes, one pair blue, one brown, were gazing at her, forcing her to tell the truth.

  ‘… butcher’s wrap …’ Daisy and Rose covered their ears but they still heard, ‘… carcasses in it. It’s lovely quality but needs a lot of soaking and, girls, I wouldn’t make you new undies, unless you need them, just new curtains. Soon we’ll be grateful for anything we can get. I’m sure you’ve grown again, Rose, and a new coat will cost at least twelve pounds and heaven knows how many coupons. I’ll let down your winter coat and I’ll try to find a nice piece of contrasting material for a new hem, collar and cuffs. Fake fur would be classy, don’t you think, or a nice bit of black velvet. Black’s ever so smart with grey.’

  ‘I’ll be fine, Mum, and I have enough coupons saved for a new coat. Please alter that one for Daisy.’

  ‘She’s talking too much, too quickly, Rose,’ said Daisy when they were finally able to get off to bed. ‘Anything to avoid thinking about what’s really bothering her. What are we going to do?’

  ‘Not a problem for you, Daisy, if you go off with the WAAFs. I don’t blame you, not for a second. If Vickers would release me, I’d be off like a shot. They need drivers in the army, did you hear? And I know I’m a good one, and I can fix the engine too.’

  ‘Adair says it’s hotting up; worse than Dunkirk, he says, and that was bad. The country’ll want both of us, Rose. Me first, probably, since you’re actually churning out munitions and being really useful. I can’t leave Mum, not unless I get conscripted. She depends on me.’

  ‘Too much, Daisy. She’s always expected you to be there, doing the shop, delivering orders, fixing the blooming van. We’re all going to leave her; it’s the natural way of things, so join up while I’m still here.’

  Daisy was quiet for a while. Was Rose right? Should she enlist and hope that Flora would cope without any of her brood? Adair and Sam thought she should. Flying. That surely was an impossible dream. Even if she joined the WAAF, women did not fly planes; they worked on them, keeping them and their male pilots in the air.

  She lay down, covering herself with her quilt. ‘Rose, can you imagine anything more wonderful than being able to fly?’

  Rose smiled. ‘No, I can’t,’ she said with a giggle, ‘especially if the teacher’s someone you fancy like mad.’

  Daisy shot up in the bed. ‘Rose Petrie, no I don’t. Is that all you factory girls talk about all day, fellas? Me and Adair, it’s different. He sees me as a mechanic what could help with his engine, and me, I see him as a toff as owns a plane.’

  And as she lay down again she felt rather ashamed of herself. She knew perfectly well that her feelings for the ‘toff’ were changing and softening.

  SIX

  There was no time to think of flying lessons in the next few weeks. The phoney war was well and truly over. Night after night, and even day after sunny day from late June onwards, the RAF battled it out against the German Luftwaffe in the skies above southern England. There were rumours that the enemy forces wanted to destroy as many British fighter planes as they could in as short a time as possible so as to make an armed invasion a definite plan of action.

  The air-raid sirens sounded in deadly earnest almost every day or night, and Daisy had long since given up all dreams of being taught to fly. She felt as if she were the most incredibly selfish person in the whole world. Every day Adair, and men like him, challenged the enemy and risked their lives in a superhuman effort to keep Britain safe; all Daisy Petrie could think of was that he had not returned to give her a flying lesson. Surely she would forget the little she had learned. Was there nothing she could do?

  She scoured the newspapers in an attempt to find a reasonably close flying school. People who were not in the air force had learned to fly, therefore there must be schools, or – horrible thought – were all flyers rich men who taught one another?

  One evening she did find a small newspaper advertisement at the very bottom of a page. ‘Flying lessons, experienced trainers, three guineas per hour.’

  Daisy groaned. That was a fortune, more than a whole week’s wage. Where would anyone find money like that? She could not possibly ask her father. Then another fabulous thought came: what if she were to work at the school in return for lessons? But when she looked closely at the advertisement she saw that it would take her most of a day merely to get to and from the location of the aerodrome.

  ‘You’ll just have to hope he comes back soon,’ she told herself, and sat down with a thump on her bed.

  She laughed, remembering how she, Rose and their brothers used to play as children. They could be anything, do anything. One day they were knights in shining armour jousting with the enemy, who always lost, and next day they were cowboys galloping across the plains, always on white horses. The bad guys stood no chance against the white-hatted cowboys.

  Her bed became a plane. She sat there, going through all the motions she had seen Adair perform, hearing his melodic voice in her mind; what speed had he said? If she could not have a plane, she would do the next best thing.

  Her trusty old bicycle became an Aeronca, which she named Adair, but naturally told no one. Up and down the roads she went, imagining herself gaining speed and lifting off. She played the same game with the van, keeping the windows wide open on even the windiest, rainiest day and all the time, from switch on to switch off, she practised flying a plane. Until Adair came back, that was the best she could do.

  Every time planes were heard or seen in deadly combat in the sky above Dartford, Daisy prayed that, if he were up there and surely he must be, he would be safe.

  It became known that Britain had a brilliant weapon at its disposal, a priceless asset called radar. Radar constantly scanned the skies over the sea between Britain and mainland Europe for approaching planes. When planes were spotted a highly skilled ground control system sent details of the exact position of enemy aircraft to the RAF pilots.

  Dartford came in for more than its share of air raids as the enemy planes passed over its streets both on their way to London and on the survivors’ way home.

  On the morning after a particularly intense raid, Fred took over the shop while Daisy went to the post office to buy stamps.

  ‘Have a gander round, Daisy, love, see wot’s wot, afore your mum
goes to her bingo. Don’t want ’er seeing anything that’ll worry ’er.’

  To be out of doors felt wonderful. Daisy walked along Spital Street and onto the High Street. Her heart sang with joy when she saw that the fifteenth-century Holy Trinity Church was unscathed. Five hundred years, give or take a year or two, it had stood there. Daisy felt that she would be content to live in Dartford always. She loved its mixture of ancient and modern buildings, its unappealing built-up areas, and its wide green spaces. But she knew that she would be compelled to leave when she was called up for war work, and she would go willingly. This summer she had learned so much, not only about planes, but about herself. Would she be afraid to join the war? She hoped not, but if she was, she would do her best to hide it. The raids of the next few weeks tried everyone’s patience. ‘I’ve had it,’ moaned Daisy. ‘I’m tired of being stuck in the shop or in that airless, windowless refuge room. Almost every time I’ve been out for the past three weeks I’ve ended up diving into a shelter.’ She remembered her splendid feelings as she had contemplated leaving home to do something special and wished she could reignite them. How she wished it were all over or, even better, that it had never started. She continually asked herself, why do people fight with one another? She could not give herself an answer.

  ‘Me an’ all, Daisy,’ complained Rose, who was relaxing at home, for once. ‘Goodness knows, I like a lot of the folk I work with but I sometimes feel I’m spending more time in the factory than at home. I’m sure some feels the same way about me. All right to work with, but eating and sleeping with is getting just a bit much. Plus, if I don’t straighten these long legs of mine, they’ll set in a bent position. I’ll soon be the same height as our Daisy.’