Philly #2
The Captain hadn’t finished with me yet, though.
He righted the plane, and I was mightily relieved to spot the airfield below us, but then he began a dive.
I saw the needle of the air speed indicator swing right, then tremble at the very edge of the dial, and gasped as the ground sped up to meet us.
At the last moment, he pulled out of the dive and began another sickening roll.
Finally, he cut the throttle, and in the sudden silence I heard him say calmly through my headset, ‘She’s all yours. Force land on to the field.’
Somehow, I managed to regain control of both myself and the aircraft and executed a bumpy landing.
As I climbed shakily out of the cockpit, having brought the Maggie to a halt in front of the hangar, Captain Weatherly reached into the breast pocket of his overalls and lit yet another cigarette.
He sucked in a lungful of smoke, then blew it out through his nostrils, reminding me of an angry dragon.
‘Well, Missy,’ he snorted, ‘I hope you’ve learned your first lesson today.
And if you ever disobey orders again, I’ll make sure you’re put straight back behind a desk for good, where you belong. Do you understand?’
‘Yes, sir,’ I replied, suitably chastened.
‘Bloody disobedient woman.’ His tone was caustic.
But then the expression in his eyes softened the tiniest bit.
He flicked the tip of ash from his cigarette before sticking it back into the corner of his mouth, and just as he was turning away, I thought I caught the faintest smile beneath the awning of his moustache as he made his final assessment of his pupil.
‘I’ll say one thing for you, though. You do know how to fly a plane. ’
After that, in the weeks that followed, I knuckled down and reined in my enthusiasm, and made jolly sure I obeyed the rules, practising endless circuits and bumps – as we called take-offs and landings without stopping – over the fields of Bedfordshire.
Early one grey December morning I was outside the hangar, chewing the fat with the mechanics and waiting for my instructor to appear.
I was to practise emergency landings for the first time that day and had spent hours poring over the ferry pilot’s ‘Bible’, a small ring-bound folder containing crib cards with the handling notes for every one of the hundred different types of plane we might be expected to fly.
Each entry included the standard settings for the aircraft as well as how to operate the undercarriage manually and what landing speed to use should the hydraulics fail.
I was feeling a little anxious, and I patted the knee pocket of my overalls, my fingers tracing the cardboard cover of my ‘Bible’ for reassurance.
But then I forgot to be nervous when a dark-haired young man in a flight suit appeared around the side of the hangar.
By then, I’d grown used to many of the characters who’d been drafted in as ATA instructors.
They seemed to be exclusively either ex-First World War pilots like Captain Weatherly (of whom I’d begun to grow rather fond, after our inauspicious start), or men who’d been rejected by the Royal Air Force because they didn’t meet the rigorous physical standards required to fly in combat, but who still wanted to do their bit for the war effort.
From the outset, I knew this man was different.
Despite the fact that his right arm was in a sling, there was an air of confidence about him.
He walked with a spring in his step and wore his RAF cap at a jaunty angle.
I stood up a little straighter and ran my fingers through the tangles of my hair, wishing I’d had time to brush it before leaving my digs.
‘Flight Lieutenant Ben Delaney,’ he said, holding out his good left hand for me to shake.
I took it, a little awkwardly, and then forgot to let go for several moments too many.
His eyes were as blue as the clearest summer sky, and as he fixed his gaze on me it felt as if the dreary grey clouds above us parted and the sun came out.
‘Is this your first time?’ he asked me, smiling.
I must have looked a complete idiot as I stood there, blushing. So taken was I by that smile that I could hardly think, let alone stammer a reply. It felt as if he could read my mind as I realised that, yes, this was my first time. The first time I’d fallen in love with someone at first sight.
Seeing my discomfort, he gently prompted me. ‘Your first time doing an emergency landing?’
I attempted to pull myself together. ‘It is,’ I said. ‘Sorry, I thought it would be Captain Weatherly or one of the other instructors ... I wasn’t expecting ... I mean ...’ I clamped my mouth shut, inwardly berating myself. Shut up, Philly, you sound like a complete imbecile.
‘I know. You weren’t expecting a newly qualified Spitfire pilot.
Bit of a setback. I’d just completed my training and got my wings.
Then the day I finished my stint in an operational training unit, I came off my motorbike.
Temporarily out of action due to mild concussion and a broken arm.
’ He raised his plaster cast in the air.
‘But don’t worry, between us we have three good arms and one brain that works properly.
I think we’ll manage. Shall we?’ He gestured towards our aircraft.
His unflappable demeanour – even when having to endure flying around above the airfield for half an hour at a time while his panicked pupil frantically operated the hand pump to lower the undercarriage, simulating emergency conditions – and the warmth in those blue eyes of his when he turned to congratulate me after my first successful emergency landing filled me with reassurance.
But his obvious skill as a pilot, when he took the controls on our next flight, filled me with awe.
With his right arm in its plaster cast, he used his knees to control the stick and reached over with his left hand to adjust the throttle without missing a beat.
Even one-handed he flew better than many able-bodied pilots.
In the mess hall afterwards, we talked for hours.
That day, I blessed the weather for closing in, so that his duties were curtailed.
He told me he was keen to get out on his first front-line duty.
‘That stupid accident put me out of action, but once my brain unscrambled itself enough, I thought I might as well volunteer to do some of the more advanced training for the ATA while I’m hors de combat .
Every cloud has a silver lining, though, doesn’t it?
Otherwise I wouldn’t be sitting here drinking tea with you. ’
He told me he’d only volunteered in order to keep up his flying hours, but I soon learned his love of flight equalled my own passion and he’d really just wanted to find a way to take to the skies until he was fit to fly fighter planes again.
In the days that followed, I wasn’t the only female trainee to seek him out in the mess hall as we downed endless more cups of lukewarm weak tea, waiting for the weather to clear.
But I liked to think his smile was especially broad when he saw me approaching.
He made me a better pilot. And he made me want to spend every possible moment in his company.
The sessions when his initials – BCD – were jotted in my logbook alongside the entries recording my flying hours and experience were the best days of all.
Once my training was completed, I wasn’t sorry to leave Luton, but I was very sorry indeed to say goodbye to Flight Lieutenant Ben Delaney.
My heart did loop-the-loops at the sight of him and, although I tried to dismiss it as a crush, no other man had had that effect on me.
So I also felt it breaking a little when the time came to say goodbye.
I was being deployed to the ATA base at White Waltham and he was champing at the bit to see some action, now his arm was out of its sling at last. I’d seen how his eyes lit up when he talked about getting back to his beloved Spitfires.
The Maggies and Tiger Moths we used for training must have seemed so dull and clumsy to him.
You can tell a lot about a person by the way they handle a plane.
I now knew from our training flights that he was as skilled as he was dashing.
He could get the best out of whatever machine he flew.
And he could get the best out of people too.
He somehow made me feel simultaneously more alive and more grounded, and chatting to him in the mess hall made the awfulness of the food and the dreariness of the surroundings evaporate.
Reluctant as I was to say goodbye to him, I knew we were both impatient to put our training into practice in our different ways.
I felt a sudden surge of fear, picturing him alone in a Spitfire and facing the enemy in earnest for the first time.
If he felt any qualms about the challenges he was about to face, though, he didn’t show them.
‘Good luck, Ben. I hope we’ll meet again someday,’ I said as he took his leave. I felt myself blush, realising I’d accidentally addressed him by his first name.
He smiled that calm smile of his and reached for my hand.
‘We will, Philly. It’s a small world. I’ll be watching out for you.
Fly safe.’ For a moment, I thought he was going to lean closer and kiss me.
And every cell in my body longed for him to do so.
But he just gave my hand a squeeze instead, then turned smartly on his heel and marched away.
‘You too,’ I whispered to his retreating back, the surge of hope rising in my chest making the bits of my heart that were breaking apart suddenly snap back together. But then I had to set my emotions to one side and focus on the next chapter of my career as an ATA ferry pilot.