The Colours of Love (9 page)

‘I enjoyed –
really
enjoyed – destroying Salty’s killer.’

‘Your friend was killed in front of you, and you settled the score, okay? You’re not a perfect human being, Monty, and you never will be. Learn to live with it. Personally’ – the SMO stood to his feet – ‘I’d give you a medal.’

A weak smile touched Monty’s face. ‘That’s all right then.’

‘You can’t afford yourself the luxury of remorse or regret or pity – it’s distracting and worthless. If that enemy plane could have taken you, it would have. Any of us who survive this war will have to put the feelings connected with it in a box and keep the lid shut down, and the way you’re feeling now is a perfect example. It doesn’t matter what you felt when you shot the plane down – only that you did it.’

Monty was shocked. ‘Do you really mean that?’

‘I’m a medical officer, and I was a GP before the war. I’m no psychiatrist, I admit, but for what it’s worth, this navel-gazing isn’t an option. You can do all the forgiving – and whatnot – you want after we’ve won the war, for now you take the so-an’-sos down at every opportunity you get, and to hell with your motives. All right?’

Strangely, it helped. Monty stood up, wiping his hand tiredly across his face before he said, ‘I could do with some of Lionel’s burnt sausages and overcooked eggs.’

‘Don’t forget his cindered toast. It’s an art form to get it that way.’ The SMO grinned and then his face sobered. ‘There’ll be those who come through this, Monty – believe you are one of them. You’re married, aren’t you? Any kids?’

‘No. We decided we’d wait until we knew what we were bringing them into.’

‘Well, for your future kids, believe you’re invincible, and that you are the good guy. And for what it’s worth, I think you are.’

Esther’s letter came in that morning’s post. He was lying with some companions on the grass at the edge of the airfield, listening to the nearby song of birds as the drugging effects of sleep took hold. The sun was high in a cloudless blue sky, and on the perimeter of his consciousness he could hear the others talking about the morning’s raid, but he was deep in the pleasant land of inertia.

The screeching brake-drums of the tea wagon intruded on his drowsiness, and he was dimly aware of willing figures jumping up to help unload the heavy thermos flasks of tea and plates of elevenses, courtesy of the much-maligned Lionel and his kitchen staff. Rolling over onto his stomach, Monty shielded his eyes from the sun as someone called, ‘Letters here for Croft, Lee and Grant.’ He and Esther had agreed that ‘Wynford-Grant’ was for civilian life rather than the RAF.

Hoping the letter was from Esther rather than from his mother or friends, he raised his hand, shouting, ‘Grant.’

It was her handwriting. He smiled, sitting up and slitting the envelope open as his heart raced. Just seeing the familiar, somewhat untidy scrawl was balm to his soul. As someone passed him a mug of tea he took it automatically, unfolding the contents of the envelope and smoothing the paper out:

He raised his head from the letter in his hand, staring into the distance where a heat haze shimmered over the airfield.

A baby! The flood of elation took him by surprise. There were a thousand reasons why this was the worst time to think of bringing new life into the world, but somehow it didn’t matter. He was going to be a father, and the next time he flew against the enemy, it wasn’t going to be merely for him and Esther and England, but for the future of his child. His son or daughter.

‘You all right, Monty?’

He came back to his surroundings to find his companions eyeing him anxiously. Bad news was a common occurrence these days. He nodded dazedly. ‘I’m going to be a father,’ he said weakly. ‘Esther’s in the family way.’

Cheering and ribald comments as to his prowess, and having his hand almost shaken off, ensued, and when one of the men produced a silver hip-flask full of brandy, everyone held out their mugs for a dollop. Suddenly the atmosphere had changed.

Monty stared round at the men who had become his friends, as his news provoked talk about their wives and children and sweethearts, and – for the unattached and fancy-free among them – girls in general. Victor, a long, lanky individual with a drooping moustache, was describing the attributes of a barmaid he’d successfully wooed the night before; and Doug, a cheerful northern lad whose wife had just presented him with twin boys, brought out his photographs of the babies and was trying to press them on the others for the umpteenth time.

‘Ugly little so-an’-sos, aren’t they, Doug?’ one of the airmen commented, with a wink at the others.

‘Take after their father, poor little blighters,’ another man chimed in. ‘Nearly bald, with faces like smacked backsides.’

Doug grinned, every inch the besotted father. He’d heard it all before.

Monty swallowed the rest of his tea, the brandy sending a warm glow into his stomach, and stretched out on the thick green grass, his hands behind his head and the sun hot on his face. He was back on track again.

Chapter Seven

It had snowed heavily all day and now it felt as though the whole of the world was asleep under its blanket of white. Esther sat at her bedroom window looking out into the moonlit night, her hands resting on her swollen belly.

She couldn’t sleep. She was so big now – as big as a house, she’d complained grumpily to her mother that morning – and getting comfortable in her soft bed at home had been an increasing problem, whereas in the farm cottage the hard beds had seemed to suit her condition. But at the end of January her mother and father had actually come to collect her, after she had made one excuse after another to delay her departure from Yorkshire. Now it was the middle of a bitterly cold April and, apart from the fact it had been snowing for weeks on and off, she supposed her time at home hadn’t been
too
bad. Esther wrinkled her nose as her thoughts meandered on. If it wasn’t for the constant worry at the back of her mind about Monty, she could have relaxed and enjoyed the time with her mother and Rose, both of whom had been thrilled to have her home.

The baby in her stomach kicked hard, as it was apt to do most of the night – another reason she found it hard to settle – and she smiled as she rested her fingers against the vigorous life inside her. ‘It’s all very well for Churchill to say your daddy and the rest of the RAF carry doom to tyrants,’ she murmured, ‘but I want him
here
, with us.’

Monty had managed to wangle a three-day leave at Christmas and had turned up at the farm unannounced, but Mrs Holden had made him very welcome. He’d had to sleep in the hay loft – Esther and the rest of the girls were packed into the tiny, two-bedroomed labourer’s cottage like sardines – but every evening she had crept out and joined him in his fragrant bed, climbing the ladder that led to the platform above the barn, where they had held each other close and made delicious love for half the night.

And then, all too soon, Christmas was over and she had waved him goodbye, trying to be brave, but terrified she would never see him again. The farm didn’t possess the luxury of a wireless or any modern conveniences, but every so often one of them would bring back a newspaper from the village and she would read with dread the reports of the RAF’s bombing raids. In January the RAF’s Mosquito fighters had launched two daring daylight raids on Berlin, just as the Reich Marshal, Hermann Goering, was to deliver a broadcast celebrating ten years of the Nazi regime; and later in the afternoon, at the time the enemy’s propaganda minister, Joseph Goebbels, was broadcasting. In March she read about the RAF’s bombing raids on Germany’s industrial heartland, which aimed to destroy more than 2,000 factories and a million tons of steel, along with engineering shops and coal production, whilst still keeping up the destruction of Berlin.

She sighed. Her father had been triumphant about reports that the fires in Germany could be seen 200 miles away and had rejoiced at the devastation, but all she’d thought about were the men who would never return home to their loved ones. She ached to hear from Monty, but as soon as one letter arrived, she began worrying as to whether there would be another.

Esther turned as one of the logs in her bedroom fireplace spat and crackled briefly before dying in a shower of sparks. She ought to put more logs on the fire, but she felt too tired to move – not that she had done much for weeks. It was just that with the difficulty in sleeping, especially now she was so huge, and the mental strain of worrying about Monty day and night, she felt constantly exhausted, but in a different way from when she’d been working all hours at the farm. She missed Priscilla and the others so much, and although they wrote to her religiously each week without fail, it wasn’t the same. She missed the camaraderie, the conviviality of having friends her own age, the sheer
fun
they’d had, and the laughs. Oh, the laughs. There had been times when her sides had ached with laughing.

A smile touched her lips and then, as the wind blew a swirl of fat snowflakes against the window, she shivered. She must try to sleep; the baby was due any day, and after that she might not get much rest. She had made it clear to her parents, and Rose, that she intended to look after the baby herself and breastfeed too; she wanted to immerse herself in motherhood for the first few months. And after that? She bit her lip. A home of her own with Monty and their child was her dream, but life in the RAF was so precarious. There was talk that, with the threat of invasion lifted and the country’s church bells ringing regularly once again, victory was in sight, but who really knew? So much propaganda went on. One minute the Russians were liberating cities held by the Nazis in the Soviet Union, and the Americans were driving the Germans back in Tunisia; the next minute the former Cabinet minister Lord Hankey was calling the anti-U-boat campaign a terrible failure. Who knew what to believe?

Slowly she manoeuvred her cumbersome body out of the chair and climbed into bed. She had left the curtains open, and the white world outside the window and the flickering fire provided enough light for her to see that her small bedside clock showed two o’clock.

At three o’clock Esther awoke as a pain – similar to that she’d felt when she’d eaten too many of Farmer Holden’s barely ripe Victoria plums in the summer – gripped her. But this was no over-indulgence on green fruit, she thought, as gradually the pain lessened until it disappeared altogether. It was another ten minutes before the pain came again, and so it continued at regular intervals until seven o’clock, when she decided to get up and sit in the chair again. She had no sooner slid out of bed and stood up than a trickle of water down her legs told her that her waters had broken and the baby really was on its way.

After sorting herself out in the bathroom, she brought a thick towel into the bedroom and folded it, to sit on in the chair. The pains were still far apart and she saw no point in calling her mother and Rose yet. They would both be rising shortly – time enough then to tell them that her labour had begun.

At eight o’clock Rose gently opened the door and poked her head round, to see if Esther was sleeping, knowing that she had bad nights and sometimes slept in. She didn’t notice the towel at first, but once Esther told her the situation, Rose ran for Harriet, who immediately insisted on Dr Martin being sent for, despite Esther’s objections.

The good doctor, now stooped and white-haired, had come out of semi-retirement when his son, who’d taken over the practice from him, had gone into the army as a medical officer at the outbreak of war. He confirmed Esther’s prognosis. The baby was still a long way from being born and the contractions could continue for some time. He would call back that evening, unless he was summoned in the meantime, but would send the midwife attached to the practice later that morning. And, with that, Harriet and Rose had to be content, in spite of all their fluttering anxiety. Esther, on the other hand, was as cool as a cucumber now that the time had come.

The day progressed slowly. The snowstorm continued, the midwife arrived and was soon comfortably ensconced with Esther, and the baby made it clear it was in no hurry to leave its warm, comfortable place inside its mother. Because her waters had broken, the midwife insisted that Esther stay in bed, because of the risk of infection. Esther didn’t mind too much. She chatted with the midwife, who had six children of her own, the youngest of whom was a young man of eighteen; and the woman regaled her with the escapades of her family, and what they were all doing in the war. One in particular, a girl of twenty-one who had made the most of the changes to women’s status brought about by the war, as the incursions into pub life and the grudging acceptance of this by men had taken place, was a constant worry to her poor mother.

The girl, Cathleen, was apparently having the time of her life and, as she earned good money in a munitions factory, saw nothing wrong in spending most of it with her friends and having a knees-up every night in the local pub.