Chapter 23
Bobby slept badly that night, over in the box room at Moorside Farm.
It had been her room when she had first worked for Reg, before her dad had come out to the Dales to live with her, but afterwards it had been occupied by Charlie, and it was still reserved for him whenever he came home on leave.
Many years before, it had been the nursery for Reg and Mary’s one deeply mourned child, Nancy, who had died at just two years old.
The wallpaper still bore the faded print of what had once been colourful merry-go-round horses.
It smelled of Charlie. That was the problem.
He seemed to have got into the walls and furnishings somehow, in spite of Mary’s rigorous housekeeping.
Whichever way Bobby turned her head, she could smell the tobacco he smoked and the aftershave lotion he used.
On the bedside table was her photograph of him, which she had brought from the cow house, and hanging on the wall was Mary’s painting of a stag, with those eyes that so reminded her of Charlie’s: deep brown and soulful. It felt like he was all around her.
At first, Bobby found the ghost-like presence of her fiancé comforting, but her thoughts soon cycled to worry.
Whenever she shifted on her pillow and caught the scent of his tobacco, she felt a wave of warmth, as if Charlie was there with her.
But this was quickly followed by a sharp, gut-wrenching pain when she remembered that he wasn’t – that he could be anywhere in Europe at that moment.
Was he on a raid tonight? It was a clear night, which meant he might well be. Where would he be? Germany? France? Could he be in the midst of one of those ‘sticky’ moments he had hinted at in his letters, with a German fighter on his tail? Would he be coming back?
Bobby buried her face in the pillow, endeavouring to shut out the presence of Charlie all around her, and dampened it with her tears.
Oh God, she couldn’t bear it. She didn’t know how any woman could.
Every time one of Charlie’s letters didn’t arrive when it was expected she fretted herself into knots, fearing the arrival of a telegram to say he’d never be coming home.
Dread like a lead weight settled in her belly every morning when she awoke and remembered he was out there.
Every moment, she wondered if he was safe; alive.
She wondered how many men he had killed so far, and how many cities he had helped destroy.
Every time a letter arrived, the sweet relief of knowing he was safe was made bitter through the knowledge that somewhere the wife or sweetheart of a German airman was opening a telegram telling her he wouldn’t be coming home.
After waking from an uneasy sleep filled with horrifying visions of the man she loved in a flaming cockpit, Bobby turned on the light.
The clock showed it was half past five – she would need to get up for work in an hour. Giving up on further sleep, Bobby sat up and took Charlie’s most recent letter from her handbag. She always kept his latest one with her. Perhaps seeing his words would help settle her worried mind.
It was quite a long letter for a change.
Charlie’s letters had been getting shorter since his move to Binbrook – there was so little he was allowed to tell her, now he was engaged in operational flying.
But long or short, they were more affectionate than they had been before – more like love letters.
Bobby had welcomed this at first, but now even that worried her.
In her fiancé’s earnest expressions of love, she saw only his fear that this might be the last time he would have the opportunity to tell her.
My dearest Bobby,
It seems like a thousand years ago that we were together in Skipton.
I certainly feel a thousand years older.
Was it really only three weeks ago? I hadn’t realised it was possible to miss someone this much.
I feel so far away from you here – physically far away, I mean.
You’re in my heart as much as ever. How are you bearing up, sweetheart?
You asked in your last letter how I found my new comrades-in-arms. Well, the boys in my squadron are a good bunch, although rather raucous compared with the recruits at Ryland Moor.
Flying ops certainly seems to have given them a lust for life – beer and girls are very much the order of the day.
They seem like such experienced old lads, smiling indulgently at us new boys while they tell us tales of their feats in the sky, and yet they’re all younger than me.
Some are barely twenty. It feels like they’ve become old men in boys’ bodies, trying to cram a lifetime of sensation into every day in case they never see another.
Anyhow, I soon learnt my lesson about trying to match my geriatric old bones with them drink for drink when they dragged me to the NAAFI to ‘baptise’ me, as they call it when they have a new chap to bring into the fold.
I almost ended up on a fizzer when I could hardly open my poor bloodshot eyes at parade the next morning.
You needn’t worry that I’m drifting back into old habits though.
You wouldn’t recognise this new, abstemious Charlie, who never has more than three pints of an evening and averts his eyes like a monk whenever he passes the dorm noticeboard, which the lads use to show off their favourite pin-ups.
I’d rather read quietly in my bunk with my photograph of you beside me and think about the next time we’ll see one another – our wedding day, I sincerely hope.
The Wingco has approved me to marry but he was being very coy about my chances of getting some leave to actually do the deed.
However, I’ve finally pinned him down to forty-eight hours on the 2nd and 3rd of May.
Three months feels like so long to wait, but only fair, I suppose, when some of the lads here have been waiting yonks for home leave.
I hope your commanding officer is equally sympathetic, and we can synchronise our watches soon.
I’ll arrange the licence if you put one of the village holy men on reserve, then everything is ready for the 2nd.
The more organised we are, the less your CO is likely to refuse.
We lost six men last week. A whole crew.
They were shot down over the Channel and are now at the bottom of the drink, I suppose.
Never even reached their target. Another crew was more fortunate, and went down over Germany with no casualties.
They’re in a POW camp now, where they can sit out the war listening to the wireless and drinking cocoa from their Red Cross parcels. Lucky devils.
I can’t stop thinking about those men who went down – men I’d shared smokes and drunk and joked with.
They were so alive – so real. One of them was to be married shortly.
Another was excited about going home to see the baby girl he’d never met.
I can see the photograph of his pretty young wife and their two little daughters next to his old bunk as I write.
It seems so horribly unfair, doesn’t it?
As I’m writing, my hand keeps pausing, wondering if I ought to share such bleak news. I know what your worries will be when you read it. Still, something tells me the Bobby I know would want to hear about everything I’m feeling, and not have me pretend for her sake.
Even so, I don’t dare say too much about my own experiences in the sky. The censor and my heart would never allow it. Suffice to say, I crawled into my bunk after the four raids I’ve been on so far feeling that I’d looked on Armageddon.
I often think about you, you know, and where you’ll be.
I look at my wristwatch and think, ‘It’s eight o’clock in the morning.
Bobby will be at Moorside, having breakfast in the kitchen with Reggie, Mary, Rob and the girls, feeding scraps to the dogs’.
Or ‘It’s seven o’clock in the evening. Bobby will be sitting with her father by the fire, or knitting in the ARP hut’.
I wish that wherever you are now, I was there with you.
Please write soon, and tell me all the news from home.
Don’t leave out a single detail, no matter how trivial.
Do you know yet when you’re to be drafted, and where to?
What news of Captain Parry’s discharge? Is your sister married?
How do Topsy and Teddy’s wedding plans go?
Has my brother found a new reporter? How are Norman and Jemima getting along in married life?
What of the dogs, and Boxer? I want to know everything that’s happening, whether human, horse, dog or goose, and feel closer to you all there.
It can feel like my old life in Silverdale was all a dream sometimes, until your letters arrive to make it real for me again.
I suppose I had better sign off, before this letter becomes as long as a novel. I know such frivolous waste of paper would make Reggie cry. I love you very much, darling. Don’t forget me.
All my best love,
Charlie x
It was such a different sort of letter from the buoyant, teasing ones he had once sent her. Bobby smiled as she read, and yet tears slid down her cheeks. The story of the crew lost over the Channel made her stomach churn with familiar dread.
Six young men, wiped out just like that. All with people who loved them, and with hopes and plans for the future. Somewhere a girl who had been excited for her wedding day was sobbing over her broken dreams. A baby would grow up never knowing her father. It all seemed so futile. Such a waste.
And it could be Charlie. Every time Bobby read a death notice or heard of someone being killed in action, that was the first thought in her mind: It could be Charlie.
He had only been flying ops for a couple of weeks, but already her nerves were frayed to breaking point. How did other women cope? It was hell.