Miles nodded. “I know that, but she certainly put up a good front both at tea, and dinner. In fact, I thought she was really quite magnificent. That’s Daphne. She doesn’t want to appear weak, doesn’t want pity.”
“I thought of asking Laura Swann to come up from London for a few weeks, until I find another housekeeper for Cavendon. Also, I told Daphne she should use Hanson more. He might be old, but he’s rather fit, and he could do certain things for Daphne herself, so as not to step on Gordon Lane’s feet, now he’s head butler.”
“I think bringing Laura in is an excellent idea. Eric always manages very well. He can run the South Street house easily, and there’s Mrs. Wilkinson coming in every day to clean and do the ironing. Besides, we’re not there that much at the moment.”
“I’m glad you agree, Miles. There’s another thing. I want to ask you…” Cecily paused, and said a little hesitantly, “I don’t want to suggest that Aunt Charlotte is ill or anything serious like that, but she’s slowed down, don’t you think?”
“You’re right, she has. However, as far as I know she doesn’t have an illness. My father would have told me. Personally, I think it’s her age. Look, Papa has slowed down as well.” He frowned, moved closer to his wife, and put his arm around her shoulder. “Don’t worry about Charlotte, I think she’s doing fine.”
Cecily nodded. “I want to do something to cheer everyone up, especially Daphne. I’ve had an idea which I want to pass by you.”
He smiled. “You and your ideas. But they’re usually good, so go ahead.”
“Daphne and Hugo never went to the London opening of Gone with the Wind with us all this past April. Daphne was ill with the flu, if you recall. What I want to do is arrange for us to go and see it. Some of the cinemas have reopened again in Harrogate, and I noticed in the paper this morning that one of them is going to show Gone with the Wind. I thought of talking to the manager, trying to book a number of seats for us.”
“I know she’s longed to see it,” Miles said. “And I have a better idea. Why don’t you enlist Dulcie’s help. James has the connections. Why not ask him to get a print of the film, if he can, and we can hire a projectionist up here, from one of the cinemas, and the equipment required. Let’s show Gone with the Wind at Cavendon.”
“And invite everyone?” Cecily exclaimed, sounding suddenly excited.
“What do you mean by everyone?”
“The entire family, not just Daphne and Hugo. If James can arrange it, we should play the film on a Saturday when everyone’s up from London.”
Hugging her to him, he kissed her cheek. “There’s no one quite like you, Mrs. Ingham, and, by the way, I think Blackie O’Neill is our salvation. Not only for the North Wing, but other parts of the house which still need repairs.”
“I’m happy you liked him, and thought his suggestion of tenting the North Wing with tarpaulins was a wonderful solution. That would isolate the wing and protect the rest of the house during the repairs.”
“I was impressed with everything he suggested.”
They both fell silent. Cecily leaned against Miles, enjoying those few moments alone. She was worried about so many things, yet happy inside. She put her right hand on her stomach protectively. The baby was safe. They would be all right. Somehow. They would get through this war no matter what it took. So would the rest of Britain. They were an indomitable race on this little island. Germany would never defeat them.
Fifty-seven
Noel Jollion sat on his bunk bed, reading the letter from his cousin Paloma, totally aghast that a German plane had plunged into Cavendon Hall. What a mess that must have been. Paloma wrote well, and she had described everything down to the last detail. Thankfully no one at Cavendon had been hurt.
Even the Luftwaffe pilot had lived. He must have been lost, off course, Noel thought, out of fuel, losing altitude fast.
Noel tore the letter up, tore it again into the tiniest pieces, and threw them in the wastepaper basket. He never kept anything written, especially family letters. He didn’t want anything personal left behind, just in case he bought it, went down in the drink, never made it back to his station: Biggin Hill, just outside London.
Walking outside, Noel glanced up at the sky. Pale blue. No cloud cover. And for the moment no sign of the Luftwaffe. But they would be here soon and he would have to scramble. They all would. And they would then rise up into the air to fight the Heinkels, Stukas, and Messerschmitts sent to kill them.
It was a golden summer morning. The weather had been like this for days. He dropped down into the cool grass, leaned on his side, stretched out his legs, half dozing, as they tried to do as they waited for the alert to go off.
He was tired. Every fighter pilot was. But they could not give in to fatigue. Anyway, they were fit and young, and just over twenty; they were unmarried, and none of them had quite completed their formal education.
Instead they had become fighter pilots of the highest order. He had been one jump ahead of most, since he had learned to fly his own little plane in Yorkshire. The others were good, though, and the Fighter Command was the first line of defense in the Battle of Britain; it was under the command of Sir Hugh Dowding. Their commander in chief was nicknamed “Stuffy”; they were known as “Dowding’s Chicks.”
Like every flight lieutenant in the RAF, Noel loved airplanes, and the greatest thrill for the boys in blue was to soar up in their Spitfires and Hurricanes and defeat the Luftwaffe.
Noel flew a Spit, as they called it, and he loved her. She fit him like a glove, and he had named her Baby Doll, and that’s exactly what she was: his Baby Doll. Once he was in the cockpit, dressed in his flying suit, oxygen mask, Mae West vest, and parachute he felt truly secure, perfectly safe with Baby Doll. His right hand was close to the red button which controlled his eight machine guns mounted in the two wings. All he had to do was press it for firepower to start.
He had tried to explain these things to his mother, who worried about him constantly, had attempted to reassure her with good information. He had explained that he was flying a single-seater fighter that was so well designed the Germans coveted it. He said that to him it was a gorgeous thing, thirty feet of spectacular beauty. He added that it was powered by a Merlin engine of 1,030 horsepower, had a maximum speed of 360 miles per hour, plus a ceiling height of thirty-four thousand feet. He continued his little dissertation by pointing out that it was faster than its German counterpart at altitudes above fifteen thousand feet and that his Spitfire was highly maneuverable, could slip away from enemy planes with ease. He ended by saying, yet again, that he was in the best plane and she must not worry so much.
Sylvia Jollion’s answer had been to announce she would always worry about him, but now needed him to write down all those statistics so that she could better understand what he had just told her. In fact, she learned everything by heart later, and never forgot them.
His father, the commodore, had reassured Sylvia that Noel was as safe as he could possibly be in the middle of a war, even when he was in his Spitfire.
Nonetheless, Noel understood, deep down inside, that his mother would worry. Every mother worried because sons at war were risking their lives every day. And hundreds of thousands of sons would never come back to hug their mothers again.
* * *
This morning Noel wore his flying overalls, and that all-essential white silk scarf. When in combat his neck swiveled a lot, and the scarf gave some comfort to him. All the flyers wore them. He reached down for his Mae West, his life jacket, and put it on. He and the other men in the Thirty-ninth Squadron were at Readiness; other pilots on Standby were already in their cockpits. Waiting.
When the alert bell rang, Noel jumped up. He heard his squadron leader’s voice ringing out loud and clear. In the distance the sky was darkening. Hundreds of enemy planes were flying toward Biggin Hill.
He adjusted his scarf and scrambled to his Spitfire. He had joined forty or more fighter pilots sprinting to their planes. He was i
n the cockpit in seconds and his rigger was putting the parachute straps across his shoulders; the Sutton harness straps came next. Finally his oxygen mask was clipped across. Then the oxygen was switched on. He was ready for takeoff.
Noel turned on the engine, adjusted all the switches, and gave the sign to the mechanics on the ground. It was two thumbs up. Any minute now Noel knew the chocks would slip away and his Merlin engine, made by Rolls-Royce, would start to roar and lift his Spit up into the wild blue yonder.
Now his squadron rose. Up and up the planes went in formation. Suddenly the voice of Wing Commander Gerald Rayne was in his earphone, telling him what was happening out there. Bandits approaching, angels one-eight. Bandits were the enemy; angels meant height. He had his message loud and clear. He responded swiftly.
Suddenly he was in among the enemy planes. They were surrounding him. Stuka bombers and Messerschmitts fighters were out today. His head constantly moved from side to side, yet he had to keep his eyes peeled and on his front windshield as well. The scarf protected his neck, as he glanced every which way, and constantly so.
Noel saw two Stukas coming toward him, and he handled his Spit adroitly, dropping down under their bellies. He swerved and he dodged and flew on. And he maneuvered his plane away; that was what he could do with a Spitfire. Then he pressed his thumb on the red firing button and his eight machine guns blazed on either side of him, hitting the oncoming planes.
He nodded. Then grinned, as he saw the Stukas disabled, losing altitude, spiraling into the space below him. Into thin air.
A good hit.
Suddenly, coming right toward him were a string of Messerschmitts and his maneuvering started all over again. His guns blazed, and then he flew higher, had to peel off into a steep climb. He went high up into the clouds for cover. But he knew he had hit one of the Messerschmitts.
Moments later he was plunging down, and a quick glance on both sides told him that all of the Spitfires were being beautifully handled by his brother fighter pilots. Huge damage had been done to the enemy planes.
And then, as sometimes happened lately, the Luftwaffe airplanes turned away, flew back toward the English Channel. Had they recognized that the RAF still had plenty of planes to fly and the guts to keep going, to attack and destroy them? Noel grinned. His squadron had gone up in the air today and other squadrons as well.
What a dogfight it had been. But they had not lost any planes. All flew back; some with damage. But there had been no crashes and not one pilot had bought it.
Noel made a lovely smooth landing at Biggin Hill. His Baby Doll had served him well.
* * *
For the past week Noel Jollion and his pal Victor “Tory” Yardley, another flight lieutenant, had often done two flights a day when the Luftwaffe frequently returned in the afternoon and evening. After their success that morning, their squadron leader told them to take a break. “Push off to Teddy Preston’s pub, relax, have a drink. You’re not flying tomorrow. You’ve earned it, and you both need a rest.”
It was true they did. And they were soon piling into Tory’s two-seater Austin Seven, and driving over to the White Hart in Brasted. If the car was a bit rackety it got them there nevertheless.
This pub was the favorite of all the Biggin Hill boys, and when they walked in they were greeted jovially by men from various squadrons based at their station.
Noel and Tory made for the bar, where they both ordered half pints of bitter. Tory said, “Do you have any Gold Flakes? I could do with a good smoke.”
Taking out a packet of their favorite cigarettes, Noel offered it to Tory, and then took one himself. After lighting up, Noel glanced around.
It was softly lit, warm, smoky, and very welcoming. There was a piano in a corner where one of the local young women was playing a popular song, “Fools Rush In.” Some of the boys in blue were crowded around the piano, singing along with her, letting themselves go.
Noel sighed with pleasure. How wonderful it felt to be here with the other lads, enjoying this much-needed break. The squadron leader had told him last week that he was soon due for a forty-eight-hour weekend pass, and Noel planned to go to London. He could always stay in Kensington with his aunt, Adrianna Bellamy, who was now with the Red Cross. And Cecily and Miles had offered him a room at their house in South Street. He quite liked that idea, because they had also extended the invitation to Tory. South Street was much closer to Shepherd’s Market, where Shepherd’s Club was located. Noel called it “the unofficial headquarters of Fighter Command.” The pilots liked Oscar, the Swiss who managed the place. He knew the gossip, where every pilot was and what he was doing. He was a mine of information, and never failed to welcome them enthusiastically.
Tory turned to Noel and said, “Have you decided where we’re going to park ourselves when we get our weekend passes?”
“You just read my mind. Hopefully with Miles and Cecily. I know my aunt would let you stay with her, she’s bags of room. But South Street is in Mayfair.”
“Aha! You’re thinking of Shepherd’s. But what about Quags? We could go there.”
Noel nodded. “True. Still, I find Quaglino’s a bit fancy. Anyway we’ve time to decide.”
Tory nodded in agreement and ordered two more half pints. “I don’t want to get sozzled tonight,” he confided. “Although we’re not going up tomorrow, I don’t want to crash the Rolls. It’s the only transport we have.”
Noel burst out laughing. “If only it were a Rolls,” he said, and swung around as two pals from their squadron joined them at the bar.
Burt Mayfield said, “Jesus, I couldn’t believe it, Noel, when you pressed the tit and your guns started firing … it was great, and you brought down quite a few of the buggers.”
“We all did,” Noel answered. “It was a smashing dogfight today.”
“And we’ll have a lot more … we’ll get those bastards in the end. We’re going to win. Nothing will stop us,” Burt said. “And that’s a promise.”
* * *
Fighter Command fought on courageously. The Luftwaffe continued to attack all of the airfields in England, and hit factories and ships at sea. They were tireless, ruthless, and relentless.
The boys in blue fought back, and in the summer of 1940 they fought the first great air battle ever seen. And, in fact, they thwarted the Nazis’ preparations to invade Britain on land. Not one German ship had yet dared to cross the English Channel.
As the weeks wore on, Lord Beaverbrook managed to increase the output of airplanes, and repairs to damaged planes were done more swiftly. Thanks to Winston Churchill’s efforts with President Roosevelt, ammunition was now coming from America; it was an immense amount.
At the same time local factories were stepping up on their deliveries of guns, machine guns, and shell.
Britain had never had armies such as those assembled in wartime. On August 15, all the resources of Fighter Command in the south were used as the most difficult period of the battle was approaching. The British government knew that the Germans were about to throw everything they had against their little island.
It was on August 20 that Winston Churchill spoke in the House of Commons. It was a long speech, one which informed the House, and later the people, when it was broadcast that night, just where the country stood at that moment in time. It was Churchill’s last few sentences which were truly memorable and touched the hearts of everyone in the country, and indeed the world.
“The gratitude of every home in our island, in our Empire, and indeed throughout the world, except in the abodes of the guilty, goes out to the British airmen who, undaunted by odds, unwearied in their constant challenge and mortal danger, are turning the tide of the war by their prowess and by their devotion. Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few.”
BLITZ
This royal throne of kings, this scepter’d isle,
This earth of majesty, this seat of Mars,
This other Eden, demi-paradise,
&n
bsp; This fortress built by Nature for herself
Against infection and the hand of war,
This happy breed of men, this little world,
This precious stone set in the silver sea,
Which serves it in the office of a wall,
Or as a moat defensive to a house,
Against the envy of less happier lands,
This blessed plot, this earth, this realm, this England.
—William Shakespeare Richard II
Fifty-eight
Diedre sat at her desk in the special office section at the War Office. As usual, there were no papers on it, only a small card. She picked this up, read it again, and then put it down; something of a puzzle, but she would figure it out.
It was a strange message. Yet her gut instinct told her it was from Valiant. It had not come from a known source, such as the Vatican or Madrid. It had emanated from Lisbon. City of spies. That’s what she thought about Lisbon. It was a hotbed of intrigue.
Tony came into her office and Diedre picked up the white card. She read it aloud.
“Sea Lion drowned. Barbarossa floats.”
Seating himself opposite her, Tony made a face. “From whence does that little epistle spring?”
“Lisbon. Early this morning. It smacks of Valiant, don’t you think?”
“I do. Have you figured it out?”
“Some of it. ‘Sea Lion drowned’ obviously means that there’s not going to be a land invasion, the Jerries are not going to cross the English Channel in ships. So therefore Operation Sea Lion is dead, not active any longer. But why Barbarossa?”
Tony frowned. “I’m not too sure who Barbarossa is or rather was. A tyrant of some kind?”
“You’re correct. Actually he was King Frederick I of Germany, in 1160 or around that time, anyway in the period of the Holy Roman Empire.”