Elizabeth Elgin - One Summer at Deer’s Leap

I smiled at the receiver as I put it down, deciding to take the car down to Acton Carey, and drink Coke instead of bitter, even though it was unlikely I would meet any traffic on the way back.

The way back. Would I meet any one , though? I hadn’t seen the airman since Saturday morning at the kissing gate, though I hadn’t gone out of my way to find him. I wondered if he was once billeted at Deer’s Leap after the Smiths left. At least I now knew the names of those long-ago people.

Maybe, though, Jack Hunter had been quartered somewhere else. He’d said he wanted to get to Deer’s Leap, but could he have been going there to meet Susan Smith? Had they been an item – or courting, walking-out as it would have been called in those days?

I put eggs to boil, then sliced bread. Lotus walked daintily into the kitchen, indicating, nose in air, that she would accept a saucer of milk. Tommy tried to share it and was warned off. I put a saucer down for him, then began to time the eggs as they came to the bubble.

That was when the phone began to ring. It was Piers, dammit! I moved the pan from the heat.

‘Hullo, darling. In a better mood, are we?’

‘I’m fine. Put in a good day’s work. I’m just about to eat.’ This time I wouldn’t let him get me rattled! ‘How was your day, Piers?’

‘Oh, routine, as always.’

‘Hm.’ He never explained what went on in that lab he worked in. I suppose that he supposed I wouldn’t understand it anyway. ‘I’m going out tonight.’

‘Oooh! Got a heavy date?’

‘Yes, and I’m looking forward to it. He’s called Bill Jarvis. I’m meeting him at the pub.’

‘Where’s that?’

‘In the village!’ Nice try, Piers!

‘And he’ll wine you and dine you, I suppose, then have his wicked way!’ It was meant to sound like a joke, but I knew he was purring with his claws out.

‘In the back of a Mini?’ I laughed. ‘I’m doing a spot of research, actually. I’m interested in World War Two. For a small village, it must once have been fairly jumping hereabouts. Lately, people seem to have got interested in that period. I might just use it for the next book. And for your information, I’ll be buying the ale! Bill is a pensioner, Piers. He’s seventy-six, and like I said, it’s research.’

‘Of course. As a matter of fact I thought it would be something like that, Cassandra.’

‘Oh, you did! Think I’m only capable of pulling a senior citizen, then?’

‘The thought never entered my mind! Have you been drinking? You sound – peculiar .’

‘Of course I haven’t!’ I smirked at the empty sherry glass on the drainer. ‘I just feel good, that’s all.’

‘Then it’s a welcome change! Usually, you snap my head off. Getting that book accepted has changed you, Cassie.’

‘Has it?’ I had a vision of him telling it to the long-suffering man in the mirror over the telephone. Piers Yardley was wasted on research! ‘Anyway, I’m going to have my tea now. Don’t ring again because I’ll be either in the bath or out! Take care of yourself, Piers. I’ll phone you at the weekend. Promise!’

‘Do I only merit off-peak, then?’

‘Bye, love!’ I ignored the snide remark.

Round two to Cassie Johns!

I parked the Mini at the back of the Red Rose, and, once inside, was glad to see Bill sitting alone, an empty glass in front of him.

‘Hi, Mr Jarvis,’ I smiled. ‘What can I get you?’

He smiled briefly and held up his beer glass, then asked me what the ’eck I was drinking when I sat down beside him.

‘I’m on Coke tonight. I’m driving. I want to pick your brains,’ I went on without preamble. ‘Will you tell me what it was like around these parts in the war? Was it really dangerous, having that airfield so near?’

‘Us called it an aerodrome in them days. ’Twas only the Yanks that called ’em airfields. I wouldn’t say it was dangerous, exactly. But when you come to think of it, they were nobbut young bits of lads flying those bombers. It must have been a bother getting them into the air. Well, they’d be heavy, wouldn’t they, with bombs and fuel?’

He placed his empty pipe between his teeth and sucked on it, reflectively.

‘I suppose that was before they made the runways longer?’ I suggested, trying to steer the conversation round to the Smiths’ fields.

‘Before and after. Was still a bit hair-raising. ’em made the chimney pots rattle as they flew over. Noisy, it was.’

‘I suppose it was better when they came back from a raid – well, safer for Acton Carey people, I mean. At least their fuel would be almost used, and their bombs would have gone. Landing wouldn’t have been so risky, would it?’

I saw Jack Hunter’s hands gripping the controls.

‘You might think not, but getting back from the raid didn’t mean they were home and dry, oh my word, no! Some mornings I’d be biking to the workshop, early, and I’d see ’em, wheels down, circling. Mind, it was when they was circling with their wheels not down that the trouble started.’

‘I don’t understand …’ I sipped at my drink, and wished it was beer.

‘Well, sometimes ’em couldn’t get their undercarriages down! Sometimes they’d been got at by enemy fighters; shot up, see, and the wheels wouldn’t work. Had to do a belly landing then, and the fire trucks and the ambulances standing by. It wasn’t a picnic in the Army, fighting in Italy, but I always reckoned I had a better chance of seeing my demob than those flyers.’

‘So there were a lot of accidents?’

‘Oh, aye.’

‘Where was the aerodrome exactly?’

‘Was about two miles from the village, going in the direction of that house you’re staying at. Two miles might sound a long way, but it was only seconds in flying time. I was once walking a girl out as lived in a cottage about half a mile from Deer’s Leap, though it’s tumbled down since. The land rises a bit at the back of the farm and we could look down, summer nights, and see them taking off below us. In miniature, sort of.’

‘So if I went to the back of Deer’s Leap and looked down, whereabouts would the aerodrome have been?’

‘If you was to walk to the top of that paddock, then keep on for about a hundred yards, and look over to your left, you’d have seen it. Mind, there was a wood there once. Sniggery Wood, we called it, and very handy for courting couples. The Air Ministry folk cut down all the trees. They’d have been a hazard, see, for bombers taking off and landing. Things change, lass, and not always for the better.’

‘So maybe,’ I asked cautiously, ‘the people – the Smiths, didn’t you say? – who lived there would be able to watch it all?’

‘Happen they would, if they’d been interested, but I suppose they had better things to do with their time.’

‘And the daughter – Susan – do you suppose she might have known some of the airmen there?’ Some , I said, trying to make it sound casual.

‘Her might’ve. Mind, it wasn’t encouraged. Getting fond of them aircrew lads could lead to trouble. They used to have dances at the aerodrome – had a good dance band there, I believe. Civilian girls were welcome, but my sister were never allowed to go!’

‘Why could it lead to trouble?’ I found myself sticking up for Jack Hunter. ‘I thought girls were sort of chaperoned in those days.’

‘You did, eh?’ He chuckled, wheezily. ‘We aren’t talking about when Queen Victoria was on the throne! Young lasses took notice of what their parents said, I’ll grant you that, and they didn’t leave home, usually, till they was wed or called up. But he-ing and she-ing went on like it always had and always will.