"Aircraftman Torrance," he said. "You are relieved of duties tomorrow until eighteen hundred hours."
"What have I done, Sarge?"
"Nothing I know of. You"re to report to Dispersal 11 before nine hundred hours tomorrow. Know where that is?"
"Yes, Sarge." In fact he did not, but was not about to reveal that. He could ask one of the others or find his way somehow. "Can you tell me what it"s about, Chief?"
"Search me. Orders from Group. Pa.s.sed on by the Station Commander. Do what you"re told, then back to normal duties after that. Got it?"
"Yes, Sarge."
"Go on get on with it."
Torrance went to the canteen to try to scrounge a late meal before heading back to the hut.
6.
The morning was bright. Warm early sunshine flooded across the runways. He was already halfway across the airfield, following someone"s imprecise directions, when Torrance realized that Dispersal 11 was the part of the base where the arriving ATA pilots parked the new aircraft. There was not much to see: just a couple of familiar-looking single-storey brick buildings with flat roofs, square windows, a couple of doors each. A twin-engined Avro Anson was parked on the concrete ap.r.o.n in front of the buildings.
He left his borrowed bicycle leaning on the wall somewhere around the back of the building, and walked out to the ap.r.o.n. He stood close to the Anson, professionally aware of the smells and sounds of the workhorse plane. The engines were making noises as they cooled down. The entrance to the c.o.c.kpit bore many scuffs from people climbing in and out the sun on the perspex canopy was reflected by the myriad of tiny scratches on the surface, testament to hundreds of hours of flying time. It was a bright, warm morning and the early mist had lifted. The sky was cloudless. Somewhere on the other side of the airfield he could hear the familiar sound of a Lancaster"s Merlin engines being run up on test. He found it easy to imagine the scene of activity as the crews went to work on the various aircraft: the engine nacelles open, the bomb bay doors hanging down, the ladders and the trolleys and the equipment dollies scattered all about.
He noticed a car driving at a moderate speed along the perimeter road, approaching the dispersal where he was waiting. A shift in the direction of the wind made the sound of the Lanc"s engines louder, purer, wafting across the flat airfield. Because he was away from his usual work area, Torrance"s senses were more acute. He was aware of the smell of cut gra.s.s, and of wild flowers. There was a banked hedge behind the buildings, a haze of white and yellow blooms this was a part of the perimeter he did not know. The sense of the open countryside out there, beyond the edge of the airfield, away from the war, hit him hard, another reminder of past years, imprecise but potent.
The car curved around and halted outside the building. A WAAF was driving. A young woman in a smart dark-blue uniform stepped out of the pa.s.senger seat at the rear. She put on a forage cap and walked towards him. The WAAF driver moved off immediately, turning the car around and back to the perimeter road, accelerating away.
He thought the young woman was about to salute him, or was expecting him to salute her, such was the ingrained ritual of RAF life, but she came to a halt a short distance away from him. Her stance was completely informal. She seemed transfixed by his appearance, staring towards him with a smile of recognition. Then she sagged expressively, bending her knees, thrusting out her arms towards him. Torrance a.s.sumed she recognized him, as if she was expecting him to know her too. She tore off her cap and threw it on the ground, then walked quickly towards him. Both her arms were raised to greet him.
But she did not embrace him. She said something aloud, a stream of foreign words. He caught only the first, or thought he did. It sounded like "Thomas!", or perhaps "Torrance!"
Then she was standing right before him, her hands reaching up to rest on his shoulders, beaming at him, her face raised as if for a kiss. Torrance froze with embarra.s.sment, not resisting or backing away from her but amazed by her behaviour.
The moment died. Only a second or two pa.s.sed before she lowered her hands, took a step back, turned her face away.
In English she said, "You are Mike Torrance?"
"Yes."
"I am Krystyna. Krystyna Roszca. I am so sorry I am here to meet you, but the moment I saw you I thought a miracle had happened. I thought you were someone else. You look so like him-"
"I heard you say "Thomas"."
"Tomasz." The long o and the soft consonants at the end gave the name a foreign sound. She said, "It is almost the same name, I think, in Polish. I was . . . surprised when I saw you. I hope you did not think that I-" She stepped back from him, leaned down to retrieve her cap from where it had landed on the gra.s.s. She brushed it with the edge of her hand. "You see, there is someone I know, still in Poland, a good friend, a close friend. His name is Tomasz. You look so like him. It is astonishing to me! Your hair, your eyes! I could not believe it when I saw you. I am sorry I should not say these things. You must be wondering what I was doing." She held out her hand. "I have come for my purse, that you telephoned me about. Do you still have it?"
"You mean the wallet? Of course." He fumbled with the b.u.t.toned flap of his breast pocket, found the treasured, safeguarded thing, slipped it out and held it towards her. The bright colours shone in the sunlight. It was the moment of transaction he had been imagining and dreaming about for nearly five weeks, and now it was all but over.
She took it from him, held it briefly against her breast.
"Thank you again! I do not know what I would have done if it was truly lost." She was unwinding the leather laces, her face shining with eagerness. As soon as it was open she slipped her hand inside and pulled out the two photographs he had touched with his fingertips, yet had never actually looked at.
She glanced quickly at them both, then held one of them out for him to see.
"This is Tomasz," she said. "You see how much alike you are? You are like brothers, like twins!"
He took the fragile square of card carefully and peered at it. The picture had apparently been cut from a larger photograph, because as well as a head-and-shoulders shot of a young man, there were partial glimpses of other men he was standing among: he was part of a sports team, or a group of friends, or perhaps a squadron like the one he was himself a part of. There was a diagonal crease across one corner. The photo was not sharply in focus but Torrance could see that the young man had an open, good-looking face, high cheekbones, a long forehead, curly hair, dark brown or black. It was difficult for him to tell if there really was a resemblance, but he appeared to be roughly the same age, seemed to be tall, and his hair was a little like Torrance"s, a dark, unruly tangle.
"You see?"
"Well, yes." He handed the photograph back to her. She glanced quickly at it again, then slipped it inside the wallet once more. "I a.s.sume he is ?"
"He is Tomasz, my fiance. We were planning to be married four years ago, but there were problems. I could explain if we had more time. Tomasz and I had been meeting for a long time and trying to move away from Krakow, where we both lived, and it seemed at last we would be able to, but then the n.a.z.is " Suddenly she stopped. "You do not wish to know any of this."
"I do," he said, because he had realized that now he had handed back her purse there was no more excuse or reason to stay there and talk. Soon she would leave. He did not want her to go. No matter what she was saying about her fiance he wanted to be with her. He was trying to appraise her without appearing to do so, without staring obviously at her, but he found it almost impossible to take his eyes away from her. He could not think of any other young woman he had ever known who was so interesting, so astonishingly attractive. He thought her devastating in her dark-blue uniform, which looked smarter and more a.s.sertive than the standard grey-blue RAF uniform he was so familiar with. On the left side of her chest, above the pocket, the double-wing ATA pilot insignia was sewn in place.
While they had been talking the distant engines on the Lancaster had continued to roar, a familiar accompaniment to his day"s work out there in the flights, but now, unexpectedly, they fell silent. He and the woman were standing next to the Anson, and they were both resting their hands lightly on the leading edge of the wing.
"Do you like to fly?" she said.
"Of course I do! But I"m not allowed, unless-"
"I have the use of this Anson all day. Would you like me to take you on a flight? I want to show you how grateful I am to you, how much it meant to me when you found my purse. We don"t need permission. It is all taken care of."
7.
They flew across the country to an airstrip she told him was a satellite field, only used in cases of returning night-time emergencies or diversions because of bad weather. She said she had learned about it when she was forced to make a landing when fog closed in on her destination. It was in the low-lying country between Shropshire and the hilly Welsh interior.
She made Torrance sit in the co-pilot"s seat on the right-hand side, the starboard, beside her in the c.o.c.kpit. On a Lancaster this was where the flight engineer sat and was considered by all to be a privileged position. Torrance was familiar with the cramped c.o.c.kpit in the Lancs, but the Anson"s felt about half the size. When he squeezed himself on to the hard metal seat his shoulders were pressing against hers. She seemed not to mind. She pulled on a flying helmet, then gave him a pair of brown Bakelite headphones so they could communicate with each other in flight. He discovered how close and intimate her voice sounded in his ears, but it also lost direction and gained a tinny, almost mechanical quality. When he replied to something she said, he felt her reacting.
"No need to shout!" she said, emphasizing the point with a friendly nudge of her elbow.
He sat back and tried to relax, determined to enjoy the flight. At first he a.s.sumed she would be going to do a few circuits of the airfield, the sort of short test flight on which the airmen sometimes took a few of the ground crew as a favour, but it was soon clear she had other plans. After running rapidly through the pre-flight check, and a brief radio-telephone conversation with one of the controllers she taxied the Anson to the end of the relief runway, then without any delay opened the throttles. With a roar the plane rolled down the concrete. They were in the air in what seemed like moments. She banked steeply and turned towards the west.
"Are you sure we should be doing this?" he said, suddenly nervous of what might happen if any of the NCOs in the Instruments Section should find out where he was.
"I told you not to worry. I have this aircraft for today."
"But you can"t just borrow RAF planes when you feel like it."
"Sometimes I can. Later I will tell you how."
She levelled the plane out, not at a great alt.i.tude. He could easily pick out houses and fields, roads and woodlands. At first Torrance was so enthralled by what they were doing that he could barely take in what he was seeing. He felt hypnotized by the movement, the sensation of height, the oily smell inside the plane, the noise and the vibration. As soon as they were in the air it was much colder inside the c.o.c.kpit, but the sun dazzled down through the canopy. When he asked her about their height she pointed to the altimeter on the instrument panel in front of them it was of course an instrument he had fitted or adjusted many times, but it had not occurred to him to look at it in flight. It showed they were at just over 2,000 feet.
The Anson was a famously slow aircraft but they were in the air for less than an hour. She carried no maps, and navigated by constantly watching the ground as she flew. She told him that all the ATA pilots had learned to memorize landmarks: mainly ca.n.a.ls, rivers and railway lines. She said she had a route-map of England in her head. She spoke from time to time on the radio-telephone, obtaining permission to cross from one control sector to another, reading from a series of codes which were scribbled in an exercise book, folded open at the page and strapped to her right leg just above her knee. It was the same open handwriting he had seen before. The casual way she pulled back the hem of her skirt, or moved her leg against his to read the codes, had a perturbing effect on him.
All too soon she told him on the intercom that the airfield she was heading for was in sight. She pointed down and to the left, but because of where he was sitting he could not see the ground ahead. She throttled the engines back, making the plane seem to brake in the air, then went into a steep turn. The sky, now scattered with a handful of bright-white c.u.mulus clouds, deep blue above, circled around them. The steeply inclined glimpse of the ground made it feel as if they were about to tip right over. He was terrified and thrilled by the sensation, somewhere between soaring and tumbling. The turn caused him to lean against her, but she did not seem to mind. Soon she levelled the plane out and he could see a long section of yellowing gra.s.s mowed flat to form a landing strip in a field ahead.
The plane landed, b.u.mping and rocking on the turf. She was calm, matter-of-fact, taxiing the plane across the uneven ground. As the plane swayed from side to side, his arms and shoulders bounced against hers.
8.
There were formalities. A solitary RAF warrant officer was on duty, in a caravan parked on the side of the field. He accepted her inward flight plan. Something written on it made him start with surprise he immediately began addressing her as "Ma"am". There was no problem with the return plan, which he filed with obvious haste. He asked if she would need a car placed at her disposal, or would be requiring lunch. She politely turned down both offers, and the W.O. looked disappointed. She asked if the airstrip was on emergency stand-by that night, and he confirmed that it was.
"Ma"am, I have to be sure to clear your Anson for take-off well before nightfall."
"It will be," she said.
"Does it require refuelling?"
"No, thank you."
Torrance"s ears were ringing from the endless racket of the Anson"s engines, heard inside the c.o.c.kpit. He followed her as she walked away along the path behind the warrant officer"s caravan, through a wooden gate and out into a narrow country road. She was carrying a canvas bag, which she had slung over her shoulder. The lane ran parallel with the edge of the small airfield, but as soon as they had pa.s.sed through the gate it was almost as if the airstrip was not there. Tall hedges grew on both sides, and a calm silence rested on the land. A haze of light scents drifted through the air. The sun shone down on them and Torrance unb.u.t.toned his jacket.
"You are not a curious person, are you?" she said.
"What do you mean?"
"Ah, now then, you have asked a question. I thought you would not. But you ask no others."
"I don"t like to," he said. "I mean, I have nothing to ask."
"Yes, you have. You want to know why I have taken you for a flight, and where we will be going now. You want to know why I am Polish and what I am doing here in England. And most of all you are wanting me to tell you how I can borrow an aircraft from the RAF and fly it about wherever I please, all day. Is that not true?"
"Well, I was wondering should I call you "Ma"am"?"
She laughed. "No, you must please call me Krystyna. I am not a senior officer. I am not even in the RAF. And you, Mike Torrance I wish to call you by your first name. Is that right? Mike?"
"Mike, or Michael. Since I"ve been in the RAF everyone I work with calls me Floody."
"Floody?"
"Floody Torrance." She was looking puzzled, so he added, "It"s a nickname. Flood, Torrents. Torrance."
"No, I do not understand. I will call you Michael." She p.r.o.nounced it Mee-chyal.
"But why did that warrant officer call you Ma"am?"
"I showed him my orders and he saw who had signed them." She pulled some papers from inside her jacket. "Do you recognize the name?"
The orders were typewritten. At the bottom was a large rubber stamp, showing that the orders had come from No.1 Site, Bomber Command HQ, High Wycombe. The signature was an indecipherable scribble, but beneath it was typed AVM Hon T. L. A. Rearden (Bart). Torrance stared at the name, aware that it was familiar, but at that moment, as he walked slowly along the sunlit lane with this amazing young woman, it was impossible to make sense of it.
"Air Vice Marshal Rearden," she said. "Does that help you with the recognizing?"
"Rearden! He"s Harris"s second-in-command!" Torrance said. "How on earth did you get Rearden to sign this?"
She was laughing again, but it seemed to him that it was with the delight of surprising him, not from making fun of him.
"His name is Timothy, or as I know him, Tim. I have a room-mate where I am living, Lisbeth. She is in the ATA as well. We share a house in Hamble. That is where our ferry pool is based, close to one of the aircraft factories. I"m not allowed to tell anyone what kind of aircraft they build there, but that"s why we stay where we do. My room-mate"s name is Rearden, Lisbeth Rearden . . . her father is the Vice Marshal. Sometimes she takes me home at weekends, and once or twice the Marshal has been there and we played cards and we drank gin and whisky and he would tease me and once he made me sing for him, and he always tells me long stories about flying in the last war."
"You know Rearden?" Torrance said, stunned by this news.
"I know Rearden, yes. So sometimes, if I do not do it too often, I can ask Lisbeth"s father if he will do me a big, big favour. And for today I asked him if I could borrow one of his training aircraft for a few hours. I did not tell him why and he did not ask. So here I am and as long as I return the aircraft to Hamble by nineteen hundred hours, I can go where I wish and take who I like with me."
"May I remove my jacket?" Torrance said to her. "I"m feeling awfully warm."
"Yes, Michael. If I may also remove mine."
9.
They came shortly to a village. They walked past a row of terraced cottages and small shops, then at the point where the lane joined a wider road she took him through a lych gate and into a churchyard. Torrance had noticed a pub in the village and would have liked a beer, but she said she never touched alcohol when she was flying. The churchyard was shaded, with bright patches of sunlight where it broke through the shadowing trees. Many of the old gravestones were overgrown with bushes or weeds. Birds sang, insects flitted about. There was no one else in sight.
"I discovered this place last summer," she said. "I come here whenever I can, which is not often. I like it because it is so beautiful and it reminds me of a place in the hills near Krakow which I knew when I was a child. It was somewhere I liked to walk by myself, then later I would go there sometimes with Tomasz."
"You say Tomasz is still in Poland?" Torrance said. He felt a stirring of quiet jealousy whenever she mentioned him.
"I will tell you about Tomasz soon, but before that I must have something to eat. I did not have any breakfast. I brought a little food with me, which we can share. Are you hungry too?"
They walked through to the far side of the churchyard, where there was a small cleared s.p.a.ce between three raised, ancient catafalques, the engraved names and tributes long blurred away by time or the elements. A low bench was here, facing back towards the grey walls and tower of the church. Cows were grazing in the field behind. Torrance stood beside her as she sat on the bench and pulled two or three packages and a bottle from her bag.
"You like cheese?" she said. "Hard-boiled eggs? I have brought some very English sandwiches for us." She also produced a gla.s.s jar of pickled cuc.u.mbers, which Torrance had never seen or tasted before.
They sat side by side, eating in silence, then shared the bottle, which contained lemonade squash. Now that the flight was over and he was alone with her, sitting quietly in the peaceful churchyard, Torrance felt tongue-tied. He did not want to hear any more about Tomasz, the newly discovered rival. Yet he hardly knew anything else about her: how could he claim anyone to be his rival for a young woman he had met barely more than an hour ago? And he was acutely aware that her work in the war, ferrying operational aircraft all over the country, was far more interesting and daring than his own modest job, adjusting compa.s.ses, cleaning out Pitot tubes and replacing faulty instruments. What could he tell her about himself that would interest her?
She kept glancing sideways at him while she ate once he caught her eye, and she smiled.
As she screwed up the paper food bags she had brought, and stuffed them back into her bag, she said, "You will never know what this has meant to me, Michael. I know you are not Tomasz, I know it is a big mistake to think the way I am thinking, but I was so shocked to see you."