Annie Groves - Where the Heart Is

Luke

As Katie tried to gulp back her tears the light from the lamp shone on the engagement ring Luke had given her just before he had been posted overseas.

That had been such a special day, filled with sunshine and happiness. She had felt so happy, so proud, so delighted, not just that she was going to be his wife but that she was going to be a member of the family she had come to love so much.

Jean, Luke’s mother; Sam, his father; his sister, Grace, now married to Seb who was ostensibly with the RAF but working for the intelligence agency known as the Y Section, and then the twins, Lou and Sasha, had all welcomed her so warmly into their family and she had felt so at home there, so safe and protected and loved.

She hadn’t just lost Luke, Katie recognised, she had lost them as well.

The diamonds in her engagement ring seemed to quiver beneath her tears. Her fingers trembled as she slipped it off and put it in the envelope that had contained Luke’s letter.

From now on, for her, no matter how long she lived, Christmas Day would always be the day she remembered that Luke had destroyed their love and broken her heart.

Mid-February 1942

Lou Campion eased her regulation WAAF duffel bag off the luggage rack. She had packed everything so carefully, warned by the more experienced girls of what she could expect if she didn’t, but still somehow or other she had ended up with the sharp edge of one shoe catching in the net as she tried to roll the bag clear.

The February afternoon was already fading into dusk, the seemingly endless frost-rimed flat fields the train had carried them through on the long journey from Crewe now wreathed in fog. Lou was tired and hungry and feeling very sorry for herself, already missing the familiarity of Wilmslow where she had done her initial ‘square bashing’ training along with dozens of other new recruits.

They were a jolly crowd, even if she had been teased at first for her naïvety when they had found out that she had joined up with dreams of learning to fly.

‘Have you heard this?’ one of the girls, a chirpy cockney who seemed to know everything, had asked the others. ‘Lou here reckons she’s going to learn to fly. No, love, what the RAF wants you for is to mend the planes, not fly them.’

Lou remembered how she had gone bright red with discomfort when the other girl burst out laughing.

‘You’ve got a lot to learn and no mistake,’ the girl had continued. ‘The only flying you’ll be doing is off the end of the sergeant’s boot on your backside if she gets to hear what you’ve just said. Hates women pilots, the sarge does. Says they shouldn’t be allowed. See, the thing is, it’s only them rich posh types in ATA that get to do that; them as already can fly before they get taken on – savvy? No, love, wot you’ll be doing is filling in forms and fixing broken engines – and that’s if you’re lucky.’

‘Leave off her,’ one of the other girls had called out. ‘The poor kid wasn’t to know. It’s not as bad as she’s making out,’ she had told Lou comfortingly, ‘especially if you get put in a decent set of girls.’

The last thing Lou had expected when she had originally signed on for the WAAF was that she would end up being sent for training as a flight mechanic. However, flight mechanics were a Grade Two trade and, as such, Lou would be paid two shillings a day more than less skilled personnel.

She had felt quite pleased and proud of herself then, but this morning, standing on Crewe station with the other new WAAFs, waiting for the train to take them to Wendover – the nearest train station to RAF Halton, the RAF’s largest training station and the Regimental HQ – she had wondered what exactly she had let herself in for. If Wilmslow in Cheshire had seemed green and rural compared with Liverpool, travelling through the pretty Buckinghamshire countryside had had Lou studying the landscape with wary curiosity. Such clean-looking picturebook little towns, so many fields and trees.

The train had slowed down. Betty Gibson, a bubbly redhead who kept them all entertained during the long cold journey with her stories of how accident-prone she was, had jumped to her feet announcing chirpily, ‘We’re here, everyone.’

There were five girls altogether, all from the north of England, although Lou was the only one from Liverpool. They’d soon introduced themselves and exchanged stories. Lou had discovered that she was the youngest, and a chubby placid girl named Ellen Walters, from Rochdale, the eldest. Of the others, Ruby Symonds, Patricia Black and Betty Gibson, Lou suspected that Betty was the one she had most in common with, and she’d been pleased when she’d learned that, like she, Betty was down to do an eighteen-week flight mechanic course. Lou had enjoyed their company on the long journey but that hadn’t stopped her missing her twin, Sasha.

‘Fancy you being a twin,’ Ruby had commented when they had all introduced themselves, ‘and her not joining with you.’

‘I bet the WAAF wouldn’t have allowed them to train together even if she had,’ Betty had said. ‘Just think, though, the larks we could have had if she had joined and you’d both been here.’

A frown crinkled Lou’s forehead now as she remembered Betty’s comment, and the miserable feeling she hated so much began to fill her, bringing a prickling sensation to her eyes. She did miss Sasha. Being without her twin felt a bit like losing a tooth and having a hole where it should have been, which you just couldn’t help prodding with your tongue no matter how much it hurt – only worse, much much worse.

Not that Sasha would be missing her, of course. Oh, no, Sasha had got her precious boyfriend to keep her company, the boyfriend whose company she had preferred to Lou’s.

The train had stopped now, and all the other girls were grabbing their kitbags.

‘These things weigh a ton,’ Betty complained, ‘and I hate the way no matter how carefully you pack a kitbag you still seem to end up with something sticking into your shoulder.’

‘It’s not surprising they’re so heavy when you think of our uniforms and everything we have to pack into them,’ Lou pointed out.

‘Item, one air-force blue battledress and beret, one dress jacket and skirt with cap for best wear, three blouses, one pair black lace-up shoes, two pairs grey lisle stockings and three pairs of grey knickers, two pairs of blue and white striped Bovril pyjamas,’ they all began to chant together, before dissolving in a shared fit of giggles.

‘At least it’s not as bad as the ATS uniform,’ Patricia said.

‘Come on,’ Ellen warned them. ‘If we don’t get off we’ll end up at the next station, then we’ll miss our transport and then we shall really be in trouble.’

Still laughing the girls picked up their kitbags and hurried off the train, Betty going first and Lou bringing up the rear, scrambling down onto the platform just as a military lorry pulled up on the other side of the fence separating Wendover station from the road.

‘Are you from Halton?’ Betty called out cheerfully to the uniformed driver, who had climbed out of the lorry.

‘That’s right. Climb on board, girls,’ the driver invited.

‘I’ve heard that Halton is quite some place.’ Ellen remarked once they’d all clambered into the back of their transport. ‘It’s even got its own cinema. And a big posh house that used to belong to the Rothschild family that the officers get to use as their mess.’

‘A cinema? Who needs films when there’s a camp full of handsome RAF men to keep us entertained?’ Betty laughed.

‘I thought there were rules about not fraternising with the men,’ Ruby said.

‘Well, yes,’ Betty agreed, ‘but just think of the fun we can have breaking them. I don’t know about the rest of you, but fun is definitely what I want to have. What do you say, Lou?’