Churchill’s Angels. Ruby Jackson

time? Did you get to sit in it, the plane? Come on in the kitchen and we’ll have some cocoa, and there’s a sausage and some mashed potatoes left if you didn’t have your tea. Crikey, look at your nails,’ she went on as they sat down in the kitchen. ‘No one’s going to want to buy butter from you tomorrow, Daisy Petrie.’

      Daisy was tired and somehow too deflated to talk. She sat quietly, watching Rose prepare the cocoa.

      ‘Want the sausage, Daze?’

      ‘No, thanks. Nancy made us coffee and we had a big slice of what she called a game pie, whatever that is. It were …’ she began and then corrected herself, ‘… it was delicious.’ Daisy smiled quietly. She was learning more than just how to maintain a plane.

      ‘Come on, tell us all.’

      ‘We drove out to The Old Manor and—’

      ‘Tell me about the car and about him, this pilot person.’

      ‘I won’t be able to tell you anything if you don’t stop interrupting.’

      Rose carefully undid a curl, rearranged it and pinned it down securely with a kirby grip before picking up the cold sausage. She began to eat it and so Daisy talked. She remembered little about the motorcar, having been too aware of Adair Maxwell to concentrate, but she described the little aircraft in detail, enumerating all its parts and telling Rose just what its owner thought needed to be done in order for it to be offered to the Royal Air Force.

      ‘Doesn’t seem to be too much, Daisy. Not too different from a lorry.’

      ‘Adair says he learned to fly in just a few hours, simple controls.’

      ‘A few hours? Don’t believe it. Two hours and you could maybe get it to go along the ground but how does it get up in the air?’

      ‘No idea, but I’m going to find out. He talked about something called …’ she thought for a moment, ‘… aerodynamics, whatever that is. Didn’t tell him I hadn’t a clue but I’ll find out.’ She clenched her fists. ‘Somehow. Anyway, he says when we get it ready, he’ll take me up. It’s got two seats, one behind the other. Remember Sam’s big go-kart?’

      Rose nodded.

      ‘It’s like being in that but with higher sides.’

      ‘Time you two was sound.’ Their father, wearing his pyjamas, his disreputable old dressing gown, his hat and a scarf, was standing at the door. ‘You’re at the factory early tomorrow, Rose, and you need to clean your hands, Daisy. Picture the poor vicar’s face if you was to cut his cheese with hands like that.’

      Daisy, laughed, said, ‘Aircraft oil,’ as nonchalantly as she could and blew out Rose’s candle.

      Rose had the last word. ‘Sally’ll be ever so excited, Daisy. Mrs B told Mum she thinks Sal will get a real theatre job soon with real actors an’ all, not just training, and here’s you meeting a toff and being friends. You two are for the high life.’

      ‘Don’t be daft, our Rose. Adair and me … and I … are working together is all.’

      ‘I know, Daisy, and I sing as good as Vera Lynn.’

      Daisy became accustomed to such phrases as dual ignition, interchangeable ailerons, magneto generators, which soon became as easily recognisable and understandable as spark plugs, brakes and crankshafts. By May of 1940 she was as at home in the cockpit of Adair’s beloved little yellow plane as she was in the driving seat of the family’s old van. Adair managed to get away only twice in those months but he wrote long letters in which he answered Daisy’s many questions and each time reinforced his feelings of gratitude towards her. Never, however, did he repeat his promise to take her for a flight. She had not expected it, and so was not overly hurt. After all, he was one of those brave young men who, every day and night, flew on what they called missions. Some never returned, having sacrificed everything so that others might live in peace.

      She did keep the letters and read each one several times – for the information, she told herself, not because they were from a rather handsome young man.

      Adair managed a pass early in May and, for once, had been able to bring Daisy to the farm. Usually she cycled, as petrol was now very scarce and the Petries’ allowance was needed for deliveries. Daisy had watched for him, one ear on her customer, the other desperately listening for the sound of his motorcar on the street outside.

      ‘I’ll pick you up about eleven,’ he had written, and Daisy knew that meant that Adair Maxwell, pilot, would come into the shop and happily introduce himself to whichever parent was there. For a reason she could not quite understand, Daisy did not want that to happen.

      Was it because her parents, solid hard-working people, did not quite trust young men like Adair, who had been born, not in a crowded flat above a shop, but in a magnificent manor house surrounded by thousands of acres of family-owned land? She pushed the disturbing thought away.

      The trees around Old Manor Farm were in glorious pink, white or purple bloom. The scent of lilacs floated gently around them as, after working hard for a few hours, Daisy and Adair sat on the ground under a great beech tree to enjoy the sandwiches Flora had prepared for them.

      ‘This is too good of Mrs Petrie,’ Adair said as he bit happily into a fish paste sandwich. ‘I never think of sensible things like food, and I ought to bring your mum something.’

      ‘She’s used to feeding boys.’

      He looked straight at her and Daisy felt her face warming, and not from the May sunshine.

      ‘I’m not a boy, Daisy,’ he said as he reached for a second sandwich.

      Daisy was speechless. No, he was not a boy, he was a man, a very exciting man. A thought entered her head and she tried to stifle it. Could he possibly be reminding her that she was no longer a girl? At eighteen, she was a woman. A woman who could … who could what? Love a man? Be loved by him in return? That thought was just too much. She was someone who could help him repair his engine and that was all.

      After a few minutes of slightly uncomfortable silence Adair spoke again. ‘You ought to go into the WAAF, you know; you’re wasted in a shop.’

      Daisy knew what the WAAF was: the Women’s Auxiliary Air Force. She had read about it in the Chronicle, and even the London papers, which a few of their customers ordered. She thought she could learn how to pack a parachute and probably she would be qualified for a catering job – after all, she had washed dishes and peeled potatoes all her life – but how could she be a meteorological officer or work with ciphers and such? She almost wept as she realised she scarcely knew what the words meant, let alone how to do the jobs.

      ‘Thanks a lot, and which job do you think the air force might be anxious to give me?’

      ‘You’re a good mechanic; we need mechanics.’

      ‘You need bits of paper, Adair. I left school at fourteen. I walk in there and say I’d like to be a mechanic in the WAAF and, after they’ve all had a good laugh, I’ll be dishing out plates of egg and chips to people like you.’

      ‘Vision, Daisy. You could train to be a pilot. Damn it, woman, you’re smart. Sometimes education is what goes on after you leave school, you know.’

      Woman. Her heart began to beat more quickly. What was happening to her? She felt wonderful but strange. She tried to joke. ‘You’re mad, Adair Maxwell, nice but mad. Come on, finish the apple pie and let’s get back to work.’

      He stood up and, reaching down, pulled her up to stand beside him. ‘I’ll teach you. Every day I teach men who’re not half as smart as you are.’

      Now her pulse was racing. She tried to remain calm and focused. Never once had she thought seriously that she might learn to fly. Her vision, as Adair called it, had allowed her to think, hope, pray that perhaps she might be accepted to help out with aircraft engines, but flying …

      ‘You don’t mean that.’