Chapter Twenty
Iris
Time is running out.
Iris more felt than heard the whisper of those words, like a shadow coming over her. And she didn’t know if they really might be a warning from another life, another fall, or were simply borne of her own fear in this one, but what did it matter anyway?
She couldn’t see that there was anything to be done about it.
Except wait.
Wait, and hope.
Like she was waiting and hoping now, staring out of the control tower window, into the silver light of the late summer’s dawn.
The fading moon was full, just as it had been for Iris and Clare’s first shift at the station, when the boys had flown to Milan.
Tonight, the squadron had been sent to the Baltic coast, and Iris and Clare were once again at their desk, Sergeant Browning at his chalkboard, the three of them poised for them all to start returning.
They were just missing their old group captain, Fred.
But he, tragically, wasn’t with them any more.
He and his crew had disappeared over Essen, the same night that Iris hadn’t fallen down the control tower stairs.
No notification had been received that any of them had been taken prisoner, so they were all missing presumed.
Iris thought of them every day, hoping they’d somehow made it to safety.
She thought of them now, as she sat twitchily beside Clare, and of Fred’s kindness most of all.
His wife had taken their daughter to live with her parents in Kent.
And maybe Fred would find his way back to them there, surprise them by suddenly appearing.
It did happen.
Sometimes.
Pulling at her hot collar, Iris checked the time.
Almost five.
God, she hated it when the moon was full.
HQ had declared its light essential for the accuracy of this raid, though.
The target had been a Nazi weapon plant; the rumour was they were building pilotless rocket bombs there – missiles devastating enough to win them the war – so nothing less than its total destruction would do.
Several hundred crew had been sent to see to that, and Mabel’s Fury had led the attack as Master Bomber.
There’d have been no swooping in and getting away for them on this raid.
Instead, they’d have had to circle the target for the entire operation, coordinating it through a new high-frequency transmitter, dodging flak and fighters until it was complete.
It hadn’t been done before.
No one knew what the chances might be of survival.
If there was any chance at all.
Robbie and the others had been away training for the best part of a month.
They’d only returned to Doverley last night, straight from a briefing at Bomber Command, with barely time to refuel before they flew off again.
To Iris’s fury and frustration, she hadn’t been able to get to them before they went.
Get to him. Ambrose, with typical timing, had appeared in the control tower to supervise take-off, and been impossible to escape.
All Iris had seen of Robbie since July had been for a snatched, delirious weekend in London, two weeks ago now, when they hadn’t gone to a show, or eaten chocolates in any interlude, but had barely left their hotel room, which Robbie had booked for them at The Savoy.
He’d spent a chunk of June away too, on a period of enforced rest. Tim’s high-up uncle in Bomber Command had ordered it for the entire crew at the entreaty of his sister – Tim’s mother, who’d used to fill Tim’s pockets with those sweets, and who, at the start of June, Iris had written to, by then much too worried about her old friend, not to.
He doesn’t seem to be sleeping at all any more, she’d told Mrs Hobbs. I don’t think he can be eating either. He’s lost a lot of weight, and although he tries to pretend that he’s coping, he’s jumpy, distracted, and his hands shake, much more than the usual. I think you should visit.
Mrs Hobbs had arrived the morning Mabel’s Fury had returned from another sortie to the Ruhr, from which three of the fifteen crews that 96 had sent, hadn’t come back (including the last ever V for Verity; it had been scratched from use now); she’d taken her son out for lunch, visited a payphone, and within twenty-four hours, Tim, Robbie, Jacob, Henry, Ames, Gus and Danny had been packing their bags, off to a convalescent hotel in Hampshire.
If only they never had to leave, Mrs Hobbs had written to Iris.
Thank you, dear girl. He’s all I have left in this world.
I’m sure his papa would want me to thank you, too – I’m certain he’d tell me off for all those pantomimes I should have taken you to.
I really do feel so terribly about that now.
Please accept the apologies of a very silly woman.
‘I hate her,’ Robbie had said to Iris when they’d met in the cottage before he’d left.
‘No, you don’t,’ she’d said, wrapping her arms around him.
‘In fact, I do. And you might as well know that I’m seriously reconsidering my feelings about you.’
‘You need this,’ she’d told him. ‘All of you need this.’
She’d really thought they had.
That it would do them good.
But Tim as well as Robbie had written to her whilst they’d been gone, saying what torture it was, being reminded what safety felt like, knowing the life he must return to.
I know you meant well, Iris, but I wish you hadn’t done it.
And although he, Robbie, and everyone, had returned from that restful fortnight looking younger, healthier, refreshed (‘Iris, darling, can you please talk to Tim’s mum about me?
’ Lewis, in his tartan slippers, had said), they’d been put straight on to battle duty, sent once more to Essen, and come home ten years older again.
Then, in no time at all, they’d been made into master bombers and sent off to learn how to do even more perilous work.
Time hadn’t raced, only dragged, whilst they’d been away, and although the summer days had mostly shone bright and warm, like this one promised to be, Doverley had felt relentlessly bleak without Robbie in it.
To make matters worse, at the end of July, the house had started to fall apart, causing devastation in the administrative offices, many of which had lost their ceilings.
Now, there were workmen all over the place, their relentless hammering putting paid to any chance those of them on nights might have of catching up on sleep (‘I’ve finally discovered some sympathy for Prim,’ said Clare), whilst Ambrose had become even more bad-tempered, shouting at everyone, poor Beth most of all, who was in enough of a state as it was, with Jacob gone so long.
She’d seen him in London too, the same weekend Iris had spent in The Savoy with Robbie. Jacob hadn’t reserved a room at any hotel though. Instead, he’d taken Beth to stay with his parents at their home in Barnes.
‘I know where I’d rather be,’ Iris had said to Robbie, as, unlocking their door, he’d swept her up, carrying her into their room, making her dissolve into laughter.
‘I know where I’d rather you were, too,’ he’d replied, kicking their door shut.
‘It was all very proper,’ Beth had told Iris as, together, they’d caught the train back north. ‘Separate rooms, whist after dinner, all that. But they were lovely. And really, it’s terribly optimistic of Jacob, isn’t it, taking me there?’
‘Any talk of a proposal?’ Iris had asked, thinking of Prim, who was expecting American Clint to pop the question, any day now, and talked constantly of the exciting new life waiting for her in Denver, just as soon as the war was over. (Assuming it did ever end.)
‘No,’ Beth had replied, biting her lip on a smile. ‘Not yet. And you?’
‘No.’ Iris had shaken her head. ‘I’ve told him he’s not to.’
Don’t, she’d said, back in the Savoy, when, rolling over sleepily on the pillows, he’d pulled her warm body to his, and told her that he had something he needed to ask her. Not until this is all over. It’s just tempting fate, otherwise.
It’s not tempting anything, he’d protested.
Please, she’d insisted. Let’s wait until the end of your tour.
That’s a very long wait, he’d said.
And it was.
Grounded for all these weeks, he and the crew were still barely halfway through.
Plenty of 96 were further along, and had knocked off a quick series of operations through August, when the truncated summer nights had made for shorter raids, mostly into Italy, who everyone hoped would soon surrender after the toppling of Mussolini back in July.
Lewis and his Bucks Boys had only to fly three more times, including tonight, before they’d be done.
‘Here’s to lucky three,’ Lewis had said the night before in The Heaton Arms, taking a swig from his watered-down beer.
‘Where are they?’ said Clare now, moving to the window, her arms folded tight. ‘Where?’
‘They’ll be coming,’ said Browning stoutly. ‘They’re on their way.’
The squadron had sent a full quota of crews up the night before. Browning had the code names of all twenty-four of them on his chalkboard, blank space beside them, awaiting the time of their return.
It was another seventeen agonising minutes before the first descending plane flickered into view, and the call of their operator ended the control room’s terrible silence.
‘Hello, Tower, Percy here. It’s good to see you.’
‘Hello, Percy, it’s very good to see you,’ said Clare. ‘Absolutely pancake, over.’
‘All right,’ said Browning, marking them, Harlow’s Heroes, off on his board. ‘One down, twenty-three to go.’
And, over the following half hour, plenty of those twenty-three did come back.
To Iris’s quaking relief, Mabel’s Fury came back, at two minutes before six: intact, smoke-free, its lumbering weight touching effortlessly down on the runway.
Clare had given them their instruction to land, since Iris was busy with another crew. But hearing her do it, Hello, Oscar, knowing that she would now get to see Robbie again – speak to him, touch him, be with him, if only for one more day – she very nearly broke down.
Time is running out.