Chapter Twenty-Three
Iris
It was a moonless night, and the darkness blanketing the windswept base was almost complete.
The only light came from the runway’s flare path, its burning torches shimmering in the gusty air.
Iris, once so captivated by these torches’ sinister beauty, paid them scant attention as she came to a halt on the control tower’s frosted stairs.
Rather, it was the squadron’s Lancasters that stole her focus, all of them taxiing into position for take-off: their cabins full of men, their bellies packed with bombs.
All day, ever since she’d woken to the deep darkness before dawn – shocked into consciousness by a force of panic so strong she’d had to fight for breath – she’d been dreading this moment.
She hadn’t known for certain when she’d woken that Robbie would be flying tonight, yet she had known.
And, alone as she’d been as she’d moved to her window, staring down towards his billet, she’d felt a presence: that shadow stealing over her, into her, just as it had so many times now, no longer whispering, but insisting, that time really was almost out.
Do something.
Now, at another belt of icy, petrol-scented wind, she reached up, holding her cap firm. Down at the foot of the stairs, Piper strained to escape her leash, watching the planes too. Barking, Iris was sure. She couldn’t hear her.
She heard nothing but the guttural roar of the Lancasters.
They were going to Berlin.
Not all of them would come back. Desperately as Iris wished it could be different, she knew that it wouldn’t.
Not tonight. And although she’d learnt by now not to trust that a full quota of crews might ever return from a sortie so deep into the Reich, she’d also never known who’d be the ones to fall.
Never, in her heart, been so agonisingly sure it would be them.
Tonight’s mission was meant to be the last of their tour.
Against every odd, they’d made it through forty-four operations, so nearly at the end.
So very nearly safe.
She watched them pull to a juddering halt at the head of the runway, her eyes wide, stinging in the cold.
Had Robbie reminded everyone to wear their parachutes?
He’d promised her he would, but she was scared he’d been humouring her.
Terrified that, in the close confines of the fuselage, they’d all left their chutes off, no matter how that had ended for Lewis and his crew.
They all had extras now anyway.
Iris had decided that they should when she’d been standing at her window this morning.
At breakfast, she’d persuaded the parachute rigger, Lydia, into sneaking them out of the store for her.
One of the drivers had agreed to play taxi, running Iris and the chutes out to the plane.
And Prim – who’d stunned Iris when she’d snuck Robbie up to her room after Clare had been killed – had stunned her again by insisting on coming along too, helping Iris to stow the chutes in Mabel’s Fury.
‘Let me do it since Clare can’t,’ she’d said to Iris, a little stiffly – she was, after all, Prim – but with kindness in her eyes.
She didn’t talk any more of going to Colorado after the war.
She wasn’t expecting Clint to propose.
They all knew now that Clint had already done that once, to his wife: a woman called Cynthia, who was currently back in Denver raising her and Clint’s three children.
Cynthia’s friend, an American Red Cross worker, had broken the truth about that to Prim last week, at Bettys, intercepting her as she’d been dancing with Clint.
It had been Clint, rather than Prim, who the woman had aimed her rage at, but Prim – dressed in her very best frock – had still looked as though her world was ending.
Iris – only in Bettys herself because Robbie had persuaded her to be (Clare wouldn’t want you to bury yourself.
I wouldn’t. Please remember that, won’t you?) – had pulled Prim away.
Robbie had driven them home, where Iris had taken Prim up to the attic, given her a dose of Clare’s medicinal brandy, and put her to bed, knowing that Prim wouldn’t want her to say another word about it in the morning.
Prim still hadn’t talked about it.
But Iris often heard her crying, through their shared wall.
She wasn’t doing that now. She was already in the control tower, ready for the night’s vigil ahead.
Clare’s replacement was inside as well, managing take-off with Sergeant Browning.
Shortly, all too shortly, Iris would join them, helping to direct these crews before her on their way.
And, in the morning, she’d bring the lucky ones back.
Absolutely pancake.
She still gave them that foolish instruction.
‘Don’t stop,’ Henry had said, when she almost had after Clare went. ‘We all like it too much.’
Robbie had told her just now that he rather than Henry would be the one to call the control tower tomorrow, letting her know they were coming.
‘I’ll be doing it before you know it,’ he’d said. ‘You’ll guide us in. Get us home. Do you believe it?’
Silently, unable to talk, she’d nodded.
‘No.’ His brow had creased in a frown. ‘Say it, please. I need to hear you say it.’
So, she’d said it.
‘I believe it,’ she’d forced out, knowing only that she’d wanted to. So very, very much.
He’d smiled, reassured.
It was something, at least, that she’d been able to give him.
And now, before her brimming stare, Mabel’s Fury jerked back into motion.
Iris’s colleague inside had clearly issued the command.
That’s a green for go. Proceed to angels ten and vector ninety to Idaho.
Gripping the stair rail, Iris followed its thundering silhouette as it gathered speed, nose lifting, Robbie pulling back on his throttle.
She hadn’t told him her secret.
Their secret.
At the thought, the baby in her stomach fluttered, and her eyes fell shut.
When she opened them again, Mabel’s Fury was airborne, rising slowly, then disappearing, fast, into the black sky.
Her tears, contained for too long, broke free, snaking down her frozen face. Hastily, before anyone could see, she wiped them away.
Then, dragging her gaze from the void Mabel’s Fury had left, she turned, heading up the rest of the control tower stairs.
You’ll guide us in, Robbie had said.
Get us home.
She pulled the tower door open, not ready, by no stretch ready, but resolved at last on facing all that this night was about to ask of her.