Philly #2
As the weeks went by, I slowly regained my strength and, as I did so, I thought more of Janina, Jakub and their newborn daughter.
I hoped they were growing strong enough too to make the journey on foot into Spain, although I knew it was very unlikely they’d be able to carry their baby through the mountains in the middle of winter.
There’d be deep snow on the high passes now.
The route was fraught with danger at the best of times.
But every day they remained in France increased the risk of them being arrested.
I was desperate for news of them, but, although I repeatedly asked Ben to check with Major Bertram, there was no word yet.
It was January before any more news of the Poles finally came through.
There were no details, but we heard two groups of four had left Toulouse on the fourteenth, and a party of others were expected to leave a week later.
I breathed a small sigh of relief, praying that Janina and her baby daughter would be able to make the dangerous journey safely and that one day soon I’d hear they’d arrived in Britain.
One cold, bright day in February, during a new moon period, Ben and I were married in the church at Tangmere, right beside the airfield.
Back in Dundee, my mother was now too infirm to make the trip and my brother Frank couldn’t leave her or the factory, but they’d sent me some sprays of the white winter heather from Teddy’s grave.
My friend Jess came down from Bletchley and, to my delight, Agnieszka arrived in style in a Spitfire that she was delivering.
She’d managed to wangle it with Miss Gower at White Waltham, she told me.
All the Attagirls sent their congratulations, along with a case of champagne gleaned from heaven knows where.
My long white dress disguised my wooden leg, and I managed to walk up the aisle on Major Bertram’s arm with scarcely a limp.
I carried a posy of holly and ivy, which I’d picked from the churchyard, with the sprigs of white heather tucked into it.
Ben smiled at me as he waited beneath the Gothic archway framing the altar, looking especially dashing in his uniform, and when he read the poem that had come to mean so much to us both there was a sudden flurry of handkerchiefs among the small congregation.
As he placed the ring on my finger, my wedding present to him glinted in the golden light streaming through the stained-glass window.
I’d given it to him that morning – a signet ring engraved with his initials: BCD, those same letters that he’d written in my ATA logbook on the day we first met, more than three years before.
On the inside of the band were inscribed the words from the poem: I’ll always be yours.
P. He’d laughed as he read them, saying, ‘Great minds think alike!’ Then he’d shown me the wedding band he’d had inscribed for me with the same words and his initials.
He slipped the ring I’d given him on his little finger, saying, ‘I’ll never take it off. You’ll be with me everywhere I fly.’
Some of the other Special Duties boys were there too and they formed a guard of honour for us as we emerged into the winter sunshine as man and wife, while a Spitfire roared overhead, just clearing the point of the steeple.
We didn’t have far to go afterwards. Ben and I had been allocated one of the RAF cottages in the village as our married quarters, so we all walked there together for the wedding breakfast.
Ben would be able to continue his duties from our new home, and I would be taking on a new role.
Major Bertram had asked me to join the team looking after the Resistance workers when they were brought over.
I would help train them for their return to France, teaching them how to set up and use the radio transmitters they’d be taking back with them and briefing them on the use of the other equipment the Special Intelligence Service had developed for agents in the field.
On the day of our wedding, once the final guests had downed the last of the beer (the champagne having long since been polished off) and meandered a little unsteadily down the path from our little cottage, Ben scooped me into his arms – just as he’d done in the pale light of dawn when he’d flown the rescue mission to bring me back from Uzès – and carried me up the narrow stairs to our bedroom under the eaves.
I felt self-conscious, suddenly, and I turned to stop him, burying my face in his shirt front.
He reached out a finger and gently tilted my face upwards, looking into my eyes.
‘Are you all right, Mrs Delaney?’ he asked.
I nodded, then shook my head. ‘My leg ...’ I said. Although he was used to seeing the stump of my knee, in the intimacy of that moment I became acutely aware of how ugly it looked. I felt unworthy of him.
‘You have never looked more beautiful to me, Philly,’ he whispered. ‘I love you more than I ever thought possible, body and soul, exactly as you are. My courageous wife. For the days without number, I’ll always be yours. ’
‘ By the dark of the moon and the light of the sun ,’ I whispered back.
I reached over to turn out the lamp beside the bed. And then I smiled as he stilled my hand and we began to kiss again.