Nobody had ever seen evidence of Takada having a sense of humour and his scowl almost melted the Scottish boulders.
‘I’d love to sit and draw this,’ Paul said as he looked at steep hills and birds circling in the clear sky. ‘It’s breathtaking.’
Luc sneered. ‘Breathtakingly crap from where I’m standing. I hate the countryside.’
‘So where are we?’ Rosie asked, as she looked along the deserted platform and then turned a complete three-sixty to take in the scene. ‘Are we supposed to walk?’
‘I think that’s a signpost over there,’ Joel noted. ‘But you can bet that it’s all painted over.’
Their uncertainty ended with the arrival of a squat paratroop sergeant, who emerged between overgrown hedgerows behind the platform and rattled off words like machine-gun fire. ‘Well, that made a nice little bleedin’ pantomime out of getting off the train,’ he said happily. ‘I’m Sergeant Parris, with two Rs. Truck’s parked down the hill. It’s just you lot for now. The Polish idiots missed their connection in Glasgow.’
The kids picked their bags off the platform and crunched down a steep path to an RAF truck with a canvas awning covering the rear. They threw their belongings in before sitting along the wooden benches on either side.
Canvas isn’t a good insulator and frozen air blasted through every gap as the truck belted along a single-track road, with overhanging branches clattering against the side. After winding around the hillside, the land opened into a shallow valley with two concrete runways arranged in an X near the bottom.
A wire fence marked the perimeter of the airfield, there were wooden huts, two large hangars and a windsock catching the gusts blowing over the hills.
‘This is all we’ve got,’ Parris shouted rapidly, as they jumped out of the truck alongside a grim-looking hut. ‘Accommodation is in huts A through G. Admin office in hut H. Latrines hut J, showers K, female staff quarters huts L, M, cookhouse hut N. Classrooms huts O and P, first aid and medical is hut Q.
‘At the very far end you’ll find our hangars, which we call Brahms and Liszt. There’s a map and a training schedule pinned to the door of your hut. I’m not your mother, so I expect you to be at the correct hut at the time stated on the schedule. This field trains operatives for special military operations, the intelligence service and the Special Operations Executive. Careless talk costs lives so do not speak to members of the other training groups.
‘You will eat in your huts and return the trolley to the canteen afterwards. For entertainment you’ll find a draughts board and a Bible standing in the piss pot under each bed. Any questions … ?’
Parris spoke so fast that they’d missed half of what he’d said, but nobody raised a hand.
‘Right then, study your schedules and report for your medical in hut Q at eleven-fifteen.’
The airfield had only been open for a few months and every comfort had been spared in the prefabricated accommodation hut. There was a tiny room for a commanding officer by the entrance. After this came a dozen narrow beds with thin mattresses and frames nailed together from unsanded timber. At the far end were two tables made from the same rough wood and three-legged stools to squat on while you ate.
After dumping bags on their beds everyone crowded around the schedule pinned to the door.
‘Static jump, tomorrow,’ Rosie said, before laughing anxiously. ‘I thought it would just be training on the ground until at least Tuesday.’
Joel patted her on the back. ‘Don’t worry, toots, it’s just jumping out of an aeroplane. Gravity does most of the work for you.’
‘I don’t think a static jump is from a plane,’ Luc pointed out. ‘I think it’s from a tower, or a balloon.’
‘Oh my god,’ Rosie squawked, as she put her hands over her face. ‘I’m going to die.’
‘I’ve never seen you acting so girly,’ Paul told her. ‘You’ll do it easily.’
The wall clock hadn’t been wound up and Takada was the only one with a watch, so he warned the kids that they only had ten minutes to change into the plimsolls and light clothing mentioned on the schedule.
The medical was a routine check-up. The orderly was perplexed to find himself examining kids but his job was to tick boxes on a form not to ask questions.
Marc was first in line and lifted up his vest so that the orderly could listen to his heart. ‘Cough.’
Marc coughed. The orderly read off a long list of medical conditions which Marc hadn’t suffered from and finished off by tearing a two-part form from his pad and handing over the bottom copy.
‘You’re healthy,’ the orderly said jovially. ‘Next patient.’
Marc found himself waiting outside the medical hut in the cold. The scenery was striking, but eyes were drawn to a full-figured WAAF1 private, who stood outside her hut pegging up washing which steamed into the cold air. She looked no more than eighteen, and wore a tight-fitting singlet and gym shorts. Marc blushed when she gave him a smile.
‘What an eyeful,’ Joel said eagerly, as he emerged with his medical certificate. ‘Cold weather does wonderful things to nipples!’
Marc laughed, but then shrivelled with embarrassment as Joel crammed two fingers in his mouth and blew a loud wolf whistle.
‘Don’t,’ Marc grimaced, as the girl turned away from the line. ‘You’re so embarrassing.’
The girl didn’t seem to mind and she blew Joel a cheeky kiss.
As she picked up the laundry basket and took three steps towards an empty strand of washing line, Joel looked at Marc. ‘Have you ever kissed a girl?’
‘I had a thing with this girl called Jae, back when I was in the orphanage,’ Marc replied. ‘She was the daughter of the farmer whose land I worked on after school.’
Joel sensed longing in Marc’s voice and couldn’t resist the urge to tease. ‘I bet she’s got a German soldier for a boyfriend now.’
Marc tutted with contempt. ‘She’s our age.’
‘Marc’s in love,’ Joel grinned, before adopting the dramatic tones of a movie trailer. ‘Marc and Jae, two young lovers separated by fate. But will the winds of war blow them back together?’
‘Shut up,’ Marc said, as he swung a soft punch at Joel’s belly. ‘We just chatted and I snogged her a few times. And I bet that’s more than you’ve ever done.’
By this time Luc was out of his examination and the WAAF private was bending over her washing basket. ‘Nice view!’ Luc grinned, before sticking both fingers in his mouth and giving a wolf whistle.
This time the girl didn’t seem nearly as amused.
*
While the Brahms hangar housed the parachute school’s two Wellington bombers, the larger Liszt hangar was fitted out for ground training. The equipment inside looked like a mix of oversized playground apparatus and a medieval torture chamber.
There were harnesses, swings and two mock-ups of aircraft fuselages. Most dramatically, the back wall furthest from the hangar doors had a specially raised section from which you could drop twenty metres on to feather matting.
Sergeant Parris and four junior instructors were in charge of twenty-four trainees. Besides Takada and the six kids there were four Polish intelligence officers, a group of five Norwegian women plus their male instructor and seven thuggish-looking Frenchmen in British Army uniform. By the time they’d watched a fifteen-minute introductory film on the history of parachuting and listened to a rapid-fire lecture from Parris, the junior instructors had decided to name the groups the Poles, Birds, Frogs and Kids.
The instructors took one team at a time on a different set of apparatus. The kids started in the aeroplane fuselages, with a red-faced Scottish corporal named Tweed. He gave them time to familiarise themselves with the cramped aircraft interior and explained the differences between aircraft where you jumped out of a door and aircraft where you jumped through a hatch in the floor.
They practised lining up and jumping out of the aircraft on to mats less than a metre and a half below. The crash landings were fu
n and the kids were in a cheerful mood. Paul particularly enjoyed himself as he realised that parachute training was all to do with nerve and skill. He wouldn’t have to worry about being the smallest and finishing last.
For the next stage Takada and the kids were each given a parachute. Tweed showed them how to put the chutes on. After this, Marc and PT were lifted on a hoist and left with their legs dangling at head height.
As they swung gently with the chutes on their backs, Tweed talked the group through the procedure for controlling their descent angle by using the lift webs and gave instruction on the correct body position during flight. After this, Tweed raised a laugh by accidentally-on-purpose releasing the pulley holding the boys in midair too quickly and sending the boys crashing to the ground in a heap.
‘I just illustrated the most difficult part of parachuting,’ Tweed explained, as a rather shocked Marc and PT found their feet. ‘Any idiot can fall out of an aeroplane. The skilful part is landing without smacking into a tree and bloody well killing yourself.’
Tweed then demonstrated how to crumple on landing without hurting yourself. The kids did a good job copying the technique because it was similar to safe falling techniques Takada had taught during combat training.
The final stage was trickier. With dummy parachutes on their backs, the kids had to climb to the top of three-metre-high ladders fixed against the wall and jump down on to thin gym mats. The first landing made Paul groan as his ankles slammed the ground and sent a jolt through his body.
Paul expected Tweed to yell as he staggered back to his feet, but was finally forced to ask. ‘Sir, I’m not exactly sure what I did wrong.’
‘You did nothing wrong,’ Tweed said, shouting so that the others could all hear. ‘Even when you land properly it’ll give you a hell of a jolt. Now get back up there and give me three more just like it.’
As Paul climbed back up, he noticed that one of the Poles using identical ladders on the opposite side of the hangar was rolling on his back, clutching his ankle and getting shouted at by an instructor who didn’t seem as friendly as Tweed.
After three jumps from the ladders, Tweed congratulated Takada and the kids on a job well done.
‘I’ve just taught you everything you need to know in order to make a parachute jump,’ Tweed explained, as his group stood around in a semicircle, catching their breath. ‘Now we need to practise these skills until you can do it without thinking, in high winds, in thunderstorms, or at night.’
* * *
1 WAAF – Women’s Auxiliary Air Force
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Most of the trainees had never flown before and after lunch they were taken up in one of the Wellingtons for a familiarisation flight. The aircraft was cramped and even Paul had to duck and weave around the equipment. There were no restraints except dangling hand straps and nowhere to sit but the bare floor.
Marc and PT boarded first and charged towards the back so that they got the best view out of the domed glass gun turret built around the rear. The pair fought over the empty gunner’s seat, but Parris blew a fuse and ordered them to stop buggering about.
After barrelling down the runway, the bomber lifted off to applause from the passengers seated on the aircraft floor, holding hand straps and bracing themselves against the metal ribs. The pilot climbed quickly. Ears popped and condensation formed on the interior of the fuselage as the air temperature aboard the unpressurised plane dropped below freezing.
Rosie hadn’t followed instructions to wrap up warm and was soon huddled up to PT with her legs pulled up to her chest and her fingers tucked under her armpits.
Everyone slid forwards and yelled as the pilot threw the bomber into a steep dive. The noise became unbearable. Marc and Paul shielded their eyes as the sun blasted through the glass dome. Just as suddenly, the pilot pulled up and the boys were astonished to see the dome filled with a view of grass and the runway less than thirty metres below them.
The pilot spoke to his passengers through a speaker in the ceiling. ‘Would any of you like me to demonstrate that manoeuvre again?’
Relieved laughter and a few shouts of no thanks penetrated the engine noise. After his little stunt, the pilot took the plane up so that it was cruising at four hundred metres. Sergeant Parris opened the door behind the wing and told everyone to form a queue.
‘I want each of you to look down and see what it’s like,’ Parris said, as the wind buffeted his clothes and hilltops drifted below. ‘The next time you see this view, you’ll be about to jump out.’
The Poles went first, showing some bravado as they approached but more serious as they stepped away. Takada took his turn. PT and Rosie held hands and looked down together, Joel turned pale and didn’t stick around long while Luc swaggered up and gobbed out a huge ball of phlegm.
‘Some farmer’s gonna get a shock when that plops on his head,’ he grinned, but fierce looks from Takada and Sergeant Parris straightened his smile.
Paul and Marc came last. They were small enough to stand in the doorway together as the pilot turned slowly over a village for their return to the airfield.
‘Everything looks like little toys,’ Paul said cheerfully.
Marc took a deep breath and shuddered as he looked down. ‘Christ,’ he said.
‘OK, boys,’ Parris said, as he grabbed the metal door to close it. ‘Let’s get you back on the ground and rested ready for tomorrow.’
Marc didn’t say a word, but Paul knew him well enough to realise something was up. The door clanked shut and the aircraft interior felt darker than before as they stepped over the Poles’ outstretched legs.
‘You OK?’ Paul asked, as Marc sat with his back against the fuselage and reached up to grab a hand strap.
‘Not really,’ Marc admitted, as he clenched his fists and blew out his cheeks. ‘Heights aren’t my thing, I guess.’
*
Back in their hut, there was a cheerful mix of excitement and bravado until dinner killed the mood. The potatoes were boiled to grey mush, the minced lamb had black edges and the gravy poured over it was cold and had a skin of glistening fat.
‘English food!’ Joel protested, as he shoved his plate away in disgust.
Paul and Rosie were half English and leaped to their country’s defence. ‘Technically, this is Scottish food,’ Rosie pointed out.
‘Yeah,’ Paul added. ‘And the food Pippa makes back on campus is always great.’
‘It’s better than this, but it’s still flavourless,’ Luc complained. ‘Some butter, some garlic, a little love! That’s what food needs.’
Paul smiled. ‘I bet all they get in Paris now is German sausage and sauerkraut.’
Luc glowered across the table at Paul, but ever since the towel-whipping incident he’d stopped making threats. Sometimes he even tried being nice, though Paul found it difficult to respond because he suspected Luc was only doing it because he wanted to be friends with Marc and Joel.
Takada pointed at Marc and Luc when they’d finished. ‘Stack the dishes and cutlery and take the trolley back to canteen.’
‘Why me?’ Marc protested.
Takada flicked Marc’s ear. ‘Because I say so. Now move!’
Paul felt like he’d got away with something and laughed as he walked back to his narrow bed. He grabbed an artist’s pad and pencils from his suitcase and tried sketching the view he’d seen out of the aeroplane. PT and Rosie snuggled up next to each other on the bed nearest the entrance.
Joel realised there was nothing to do, so he caught up with Marc and Luc as they pushed the trolley out of the hut.
‘Where are you going?’ Marc asked.
‘Nothing to do in there with the artist and the lovers,’ Joel shrugged. ‘At least the trolley gives us an excuse to get out for a few minutes.’
The canteen hut was a two-hundred-metre walk along a concrete path. In theory the night-time blackout was nationwide, but German bombers didn’t trouble themselves attacking rural Scotland so people out here we
re more relaxed.
Light shone through gaps in the thin curtains installed in the huts and the hangar doors were open. A crew worked on a floodlit taxiway, patching up a Hurricane that had made an emergency landing after getting lost on routine patrol over the North Sea.
Beyond the canteen was the WAAF hut, with the washing now stiffened by the cold.
‘What about that girl when we came out of the medical?’ Joel grinned. ‘Beautiful or what?’
‘I bet she’s a right dirty slag as well,’ Luc nodded.
Marc grinned. ‘You’re an expert on that, are you?’
‘His mum taught him all there is to know about slags,’ Joel laughed. ‘She was the biggest one in France.’
Luc furiously made a grab. He easily got Joel in a headlock and rubbed his knuckles hard against the top of his head. ‘You mention my mum again and you’ll be nothing but a stain on this path.’
A month earlier, this situation would have ended with Joel getting a black eye, but the post-towel-whipping Luc let go and gave Joel a half-hearted kick up the backside. Meantime, Marc had dropped off the trolley and started walking towards the WAAF hut.
‘You’re going the wrong way, dummy,’ Joel said.
Marc turned back and spoke in a whisper. ‘What if that girl is in that hut right now, bouncing around the room with no clothes on?’
‘Actually, there could be loads of girls in there,’ Joel noted, as he followed Marc towards the WAAFs. ‘Big-bosomed, sexy and naked!’
Luc wasn’t convinced. ‘If it’s as cold as our hut they’ll probably be wearing fur hats and gloves.’
But the alternative was to go back to their own hut and be bored until bedtime, so Luc tagged along anyway.
The chinks of light between the curtains told them where they’d get the best look inside. Marc put his face up to the glass and was startled to see a woman lying on her bed. Her head was less than thirty centimetres from his and he could easily read the words in the romance novel she held in her hands. Sadly, she wore a thick nightdress and was old enough that the boys preferred her to keep it on.