Elizabeth Elgin - All the Sweet Promises

‘A lot of casualties, I shouldn’t wonder.’

‘Over a thousand, I heard, and heaven knows how many more injured and homeless. What’s happening to us, Goddy?’

‘I don’t know for sure, girlie, but we’ll sort it all out in the end, just see if we don’t. They say the British lose every battle they ever fight, except the last one.’

The last battle. And how far away would that be? But there had been a full moon last night, a bomber’s moon, with all London laid out clearly for the Luftwaffe pilots. And this morning the devastation and burning had been terrible to see. Unexploded bombs everywhere; water for fire hoses almost non-existent; the acrid air thick with smoke and tiny pieces of charred paper swirling on the breeze. Poor, proud old London.

‘It’s wrong of me, but I wish I could be at Lady Mead, Goddy. It must be beautiful now, in Lincolnshire.’

‘Ah, yes.’ He clamped an empty pipe between his teeth. ‘I remember your christening. It was a May day just like now, and warm and sunny. The chapel at Lady Mead was full of flowers, and how you screamed and yelled. Nanny was pleased, I seem to recall. Said you’d cried the devil out of you, and that was good.’

‘Dear Nanny. She’s at Lady Mead, you know. The Air Force was very good. They didn’t throw us out entirely. Pa had all the good stuff stored in the Dower House when we had to leave, and Nanny’s there now, looking after it. She writes every week. But you must be very busy and I came here to ask a favour, a big favour. I hope you don’t mind?’

‘Of course I don’t. Just tell your old godfather, and if I can I’ll help. But what about a cup of tea, eh? My writer is a little wonder. Never seems to run out of rations, bless her. And last night she went to a do at the American Embassy and came back with a packet of chocolate cookies – er – biscuits, no less.’ He thumbed a bell-push on his desk, and a woman in naval uniform opened the door. ‘Leading Wren, this is Lucinda Bainbridge, and she’s in desperate need of a mug of tea. And do we – er – have a biscuit?’

‘Sir, you know we do, though how you got to know about them I can’t imagine.’

‘I want to be a Wren,’ Lucinda whispered when they were alone again. ‘That’s why I came – to ask you to help me. I ought to be doing more than I am. I – I had a terrible row at home this morning. I’ll have to go back and say I’m sorry, but I want to join up, truly I do. And not because of Mama,’ she finished breathlessly. ‘I really want to do something useful.’

‘I’m sure you do, but Kitty mustn’t ever know that I’d had a hand in it.’

‘Are you afraid of her? All right then, I’ll join the Waafs or the ATS. I don’t mind which, but I’ve got to do something, Goddy. Sometimes I feel so ashamed.’

A knock on the door announced the arrival of two white mugs of tea and an anchor-decorated plate on which lay, unbelievably, two large thickly coated chocolate biscuits.

‘Leading Wren, you’re an absolute marvel,’ the Admiral said.

‘Oh no, sir,’ she smiled, eyes bright with mischief. ‘It’s because I’m feeling so pleased about my leave chit.’

‘Your leave chit? Did I sign it?’

‘No sir, not yet. But you’re going to, aren’t you?’

‘Hussy,’ barked the Admiral to her retreating back. ‘She’s a good girl,’ he confided, offering the plate to Lucinda. ‘Her young man was taken prisoner at Dunkirk and not so long ago her father was badly hurt in the Clydeside blitz, but you’d never know it.’

‘There you are, Goddy. That’s what I mean. That’s why you’ve got to help. This war is affecting everybody but me, it seems. You will try to get me in quickly, won’t you? I can’t type or do anything useful that I can think of, but I learn quickly. There’s got to be something.’

‘Want a job here in the Admiralty, do you? Somewhere in London, near Charlie?’

‘Anything will do, though I’d rather go away, if you could manage it.’

‘Hmm. We’ll have to see. I don’t carry a lot of weight now, in spite of all my gold braid. Now a few years ago …’ His mind flew back with ease to the last war and an up-and-coming young officer on a smoke-belching dreadnought at Jutland. Now that had been one hell of a scrap. ‘Still, I’ll do my best for you, girlie.’

He discussed the matter later with his writer.

‘I’m afraid I’m not entirely au fait with the women’s side of things. Do we know anyone in Recruiting, Leading Wren?’

‘Is your goddaughter serious about joining up, sir?’

‘Very serious, it would seem.’

‘Then I think I know who’ll be able to help her. Oh, and sir, you’ll never believe this – it’s quite peculiar, really. It’s Rudolf Hess. There’s a strong buzz that he’s in Scotland. Have you heard anything?’

‘Hess? Here ? Piffle and tommyrot, Leading Wren!’

Hitler’s right-hand man in Scotland? Whatever next? The Admiral dismissed the rumour without a second thought and concentrated on more important matters: his goddaughter’s immediate entry into the Women’s Royal Naval Service, no less.

Poor child. Her mother wasn’t the easiest person to live with, but joining up! Surely she’d have done better to marry young Charlie Bainbridge and settle down to starting a family. Been on the cards for ages, that wedding. Strange that Lucinda should not want to stay in London. It was a rum do, and no mistake.

He regarded his in-tray with a weary eye, then, sighing, picked up his pen again.

Jane awoke without effort, Missy’s cold nose on her cheek.

‘What is it, girl?’ Her eyes were wide in an instant. The bombers were coming back. Missy had heard their engines long before a human ear could pick up the first faint sound and had come to tell her.

‘Can you hear them, then?’ She pulled back the curtains and opened the windows wide, patting the seat beside her.

The sky was light to the east, streaks of red and gold piercing the grey. Birds were starting their morning singing, roused by the missel thrush in the pear tree. Below her, in the orchard, apple and pear and plum frothed pink and white with blossom, and over in Tingle’s Wood a sea of bluebells rose out of the morning mist.

It was all so normal, this May-morning canvas, but soon the bombers would return, stark silhouettes against a pale sky, reminding her that the war was real, setting the frightened pulse in her throat beating again.

She saw them before she heard them. Two Halifax bombers, wheels already down; two black nightbirds coming home to roost. She held her breath, listening. They had taken off with ordered precision; they would straggle home in ones and twos, their engines making a different sound in the thin morning air.

‘That’s the first of them, Missy.’

She reached into her pyjama jacket and hooked out the chain that hung around her neck. On it were her confirmation cross and the farthing Rob had given her soon after they met. It was bright and new, with the King’s head on one side and on the other a wren and the date, 1941. Rob said it was appropriate, since that was what she was going to be. ‘Keep it for luck, Jenny-love.’

She had done better than that and taken it to a jeweller to be plated and put into a mount so it could hang on her chain. He had been obliged to tell her, of course, that it was an offence to deface a coin of the realm, but he had done as she asked because women brought sentimental tokens to him every day of the week and, anyway, it was only a farthing. To Jane, though, it was precious and priceless and she wore it always. Now she held it in her hand with the cross, a silent pleading for Rob’s return.

The ninth bomber came out of a lightening sky at six o’clock exactly, and though she sat there for another hour, it was the last.