Chapter Ten #3
But, as he picked up then tossed a broken branch to the ground, Iris saw the sudden sobriety in him, and knew he was remembering those long cloudless days, eighteen months before, when Winston’s few had taken to the skies for the Battle of Britain, and fewer yet had survived to see autumn.
She, in a station in Sussex at the time, had watched them all, every day: their vapour trails, and frantic dodging; the sparks of their guns, then sudden plummets to earth.
Even knowing the danger Robbie was facing now, it turned her cold that he’d been part of that.
‘I wasn’t happy when I got reassigned to bombers,’ he said, moving the conversation along.
She didn’t try to stop him. In his shoes, seeing what he must have seen, losing the friends he must have lost, she’d want to change the subject too.
‘Reassigned?’ she said. ‘It wasn’t your choice?’
‘It was a choice I was strongly encouraged to make. They needed pilots.’
‘They always need pilots.’
He sighed. ‘True.’
‘You must have been glad to get in a crew with Tim, though.’
‘I was furious with Tim. You remember his uncle in Oxford?’
‘Yes.’
‘He’s high up in Bomber Command. Tim gave him my name … ’
‘What? Without talking to you?’
‘He claims he was drunk at the time. Don’t laugh, it’s not funny … ’
‘I’m not laughing … ’
‘You actually are.’
She actually was.
He was a bit, too, and she was glad of that.
Glad to see the shadow that had descended over him, lift.
‘It’s just he was always so cheeky,’ she said, wrestling herself under control. ‘And I assume you’ve forgiven him?’
‘Just about.’
‘How do you feel about flying bombers now?’
‘I like being in a crew. I love my crew.’
‘Even Jacob?’
‘Even Jacob,’ he said, with another brief smile. ‘But I hate what we do. And Lancasters are heavy, much harder than a spit to manoeuvre in a fight.’
‘You seem to have been managing well so far. Jacob told me this is your third squadron.’ She didn’t mention what else Jacob had said, about the odds they were facing.
My fear is that when our luck runs out, it’s going to do so in spectacular fashion.
She didn’t want to think about that. ‘You must have flown scores of ops.’
‘Sixty-three,’ he said, ‘as of last night.’
‘That’s quite a number.’
‘It will be sixty-four tomorrow, when we come back from Italy, and you give us our permission to land.’
‘I’ll look forward to that.’
‘So will I.’
‘Are you scared, though?’ she asked, because she had to.
‘Not especially,’ he said. ‘Italy’s not like Germany.’
‘No,’ she said, and again, she’d heard the same from other pilots. The Italian defences were thinner, their flak fields lighter; they had fewer night fighters to scramble than in Germany.
Nonetheless, there were still always crews that didn’t come back from raids there.
‘Don’t worry,’ said Robbie. ‘It’ll be straightforward. We might even bring you some ice cream.’
‘It might melt.’
‘I don’t know.’ He smiled. ‘It can get pretty cold up there.’
‘Then don’t worry about the ice cream,’ she said. ‘Come back quickly and warm up.’
‘Do you not need to sleep?’ she asked him, once they were inside again, feeding the fire.
‘I don’t want to sleep.’
‘What about lunch?’
‘I think that ship’s sailed. But –’ he reached into his pocket, producing a chocolate bar – ‘you’ve reminded me. I’ve still got this from last night.’
‘Aren’t you meant to eat your rations on the flight?’ she said, eyeing the treat.
‘That’s the traditional approach.’ He handed her the bar. ‘I saved it for you, though.’
‘Just like your interlude chocolates,’ she said, breaking it in two, and handing half back to him.
‘Exactly the same,’ he agreed. ‘I often think how similar sorties are to pantomimes.’
‘You said you’ve flown sixty-three?’
‘That’s right.’
‘Does that mean you’ve only flown three so far, here?’
He grimaced. ‘Yes. We’ve had a lot of stand-downs. The weather … ’
She nodded, and didn’t have to work too hard to calculate how many more flights he’d have to survive as a pathfinder before he could hope for a safer posting in training, or on the ground.
It was a simple sum, and forty-two was the answer: fifteen more than it would have been if he’d been doing another tour with an ordinary squadron.
Pathfinding was still a new practice, and the pilots spearheading it had been handpicked from the cream of their previous squadrons (‘Think of them as bomber command’s cricket first XI,’ Iris’s CO in Norwich had told her and Clare; he’d been fond of euphemisms); they were given higher pay, and a jump in rank, but in return were expected to do the most dangerous work, leading attacks, flying low and laying targets that were a beacon to their own presence, for longer.
She eyed Robbie’s badge on his chest: the hovering eagle, glinting in the firelight, that was given to all pathfinders. They weren’t allowed to wear it on operations, because of the interrogation they’d face if they fell into the gestapo’s hands. Assuming they survived that long.
Raising her hand, she placed her fingertips to the eagle’s metal, and watched Robbie look down, his eyes on her touch.
‘Why did you agree to this?’ she asked him. ‘You could have said no.’ She dropped her hand. ‘Everyone’s allowed to say no.’
‘Then someone else would have had to do it instead of me,’ he said, lifting his gaze back to hers. ‘And at least this way, I’m doing something to get the bombs landing where they’re meant to be, not on schools, or hospitals.’ The lines around his eyes deepened in a frown. ‘It’s something.’
Iris nodded.
It was.
They left the cottage at a quarter to five.
Despite the blanketing dark, they were careful to rejoin Doverley’s driveway out of sight of the house, not wanting to risk anyone spotting them leaving the woods together.
They both knew the rules prohibiting what the adjutant had referred to as mischief.
Senior as Robbie was, he wasn’t exempt from them.
Iris certainly wasn’t, and she had no interest in running the gauntlet of a dishonourable dismissal.
Especially when she still hadn’t done anything to deserve it.
They were quieter for their walk back to the house; sober, now that the night ahead had become so suddenly imminent.
Iris didn’t have to report to the control tower for another two hours, but it would be all activity for Robbie from this point on, checking his plane, attending his intelligence briefing, changing into his flight gear, readying his crew.
They bade one another goodbye in the carriage turning circle, standing a careful distance apart. Iris shivered. The sky had cleared, and the temperature plummeted even further. The rising moon, unblanketed by cloud, was dangerously full.
‘You should head in,’ he said. ‘Thaw out.’
‘It’s even colder inside,’ she reminded him.
And he smiled.
But tightly.
Distractedly.
He needs to be gone, she thought.
I need to let him go.
‘Good luck tonight,’ she told him, looking to the airbase.
‘Good luck to you, too,’ he said. ‘I’ll be listening for your voice.’
‘I’ll be listening for yours,’ she said. ‘Or your wireless operator’s … ’
‘Henry.’
‘Henry,’ she echoed.
‘All right.’ He drew a sharp breath, seeming to brace himself to leave. ‘All right.’ And, with a nod, he turned and went.
For several paces, she watched him walking away, shivering more, from the cold, and fear too.
It was so much worse, now that he was going, to think of where he was heading to.
Because Italy might not be Germany, but it was still Italy, and even as she stood here, on this frozen Yorkshire gravel, breathing in this frigid British air, there were people on the ground over there, preparing their guns and searchlights with the sole objective of shooting planes like his down.
He knew that.
Of course he knew that.
How often must he have had to dodge their flak?
So, he must be scared.
Terrified, for all his talk of ice cream.
‘Robbie,’ she called out, and didn’t know what she wanted to say, only that she had to say something to help him with his fear.
Something to alleviate it, if only for a moment.
He stopped, turning back to her.
Desperate to run to him, she remained where she was.
He didn’t move either.
And, in a rush, the words came to her.
‘Don’t do anything stupid now, will you?’ she said.
To her delight, he laughed.
He was still laughing when, shaking his head, he once again turned from her, and carried on walking away.
The thought of that laugh kept her going through the long night that followed.
She held it very close, all the way until dawn.