The Girl on the Beach (19 page)

The dance hall was crowded with civilians and service people of both sexes in khaki, navy and air force blue, with a fair proportion of Americans. Everyone was determined to have a good time and the band played all the latest dances, from traditional waltzes and foxtrots to
boogie-woogie
and swing, from rumba and tango to the
hokey-cokey
and hands, knees and bumps-a-daisy and the conga, when everyone grabbed the person in front of them and paraded round the floor in a long crocodile. Just before midnight the last waltz was announced and Alec took Julie into his arms for that.

‘Had a good time?’ he asked her.

‘Yes, lovely, and so unexpected.’

‘I love giving you surprises.’

‘So I noticed.’

‘There’s one more to come.’

‘Oh, what?’

‘It wouldn’t be a surprise if I told you, would it? Wait and see.’

The music stopped and started up again to play ‘Auld Lang Syne’ and they linked hands with their neighbours for the traditional ushering in of the new year. ‘Happy New Year, my love,’ Alec said as someone switched on a wireless and they heard the strokes of Big Ben chiming midnight.

‘And to you.’

He kissed her chastely and they stood for the national anthem and then went out to find the car. Halfway home he stopped in a lay-by and turned towards her. ‘I haven’t kissed you properly for ages.’

She laughed. ‘It was only a few hours ago in your parents’ sitting room.’

‘That was ages ago.’ He proceeded to remedy the situation. ‘Pity we can’t go to bed,’ he said ruefully. ‘But I don’t think Ma would stand for it.’

‘No, I don’t think she would.’

‘It was good, though, wasn’t it, that last time?’

He was referring to that leave they had spent in the Lake District and what he laughingly called their honeymoon without a wedding. ‘Yes,’ she said, remembering again the wonderful feeling of being loved and wanted, and wanting him with every fibre of her body and soul, and how they had explored each other’s bodies and achieved something she could only call profound and unmatched ecstasy.

‘It’ll happen again, over and over when you become Mrs Kilby.’

‘I haven’t exactly said I will,’ she reminded him.

‘But you’re going to, aren’t you? You’re going to say yes, and you’re going to say it now.’ He pulled a small box from his pocket, took off the lid and picked out the ring that lay there. It sparkled in the moonlight. ‘Eve Seaton, I love you very much. Will you consent to marry me and make me the happiest man in the world?’

She looked from the ring in his fingers to his pleading face. How could she deny him when it was so much what she wanted herself? ‘Yes, Alec, I’ll marry you.’

‘Whoopee!’ he shouted and kissed her and in the process
dropped the ring on the floor of the car. They spent several seconds laughing and scrabbling round in the dark trying to find it, and as soon as they did and were once more seated side by side, he slipped it on her finger. ‘There it is and there it stays until the day you take it off to have the wedding ring put on,’ he said.

‘You know we’re not allowed to wear jewellery in uniform except a wedding ring.’

‘Then put it on a ribbon round your neck. Let’s go home and tell Ma and Pa.’

‘They’ll have gone to bed.’

He grinned. ‘Want to bet on it?’

‘You told them?’

‘Yes, while you were changing. They’ll be waiting with the wine uncorked.’

He was right. They toasted each other with Maggie’s home-made wine and laughed a lot and talked about getting married and dates and times for the wedding and the reception, until Julie was quite squiffy. She had to be helped to bed. Alec would have stayed with her but she was sober enough to send him away with a passionate kiss and no more.

She woke next morning with a raging headache. Alec, who was more used to his mother’s wine than she was, seemed not to be suffering and after breakfast suggested a long walk to clear her head. This they did and on returning home found the house empty and a note on the kitchen table. ‘Gone into Andover to shop. Dad’s helping with the hunt. Make yourselves some lunch.’

‘She thinks she’s being tactful,’ Alec said, laughing, and taking Julie’s hand, he led her upstairs.

Harry was tired; he was more than tired, he was exhausted. He had lost count of the number of times he had flown to Berlin in the last three months, and more recently against railways, bridges and other important targets in France, and it was taking its toll, not only of everyone’s nerves, but of men and machines. He was now one of the oldest and most experienced members of his squadron and it was his bounden duty to remain calm under pressure and set a good example. As soon as they landed he went to debriefing and then raced across the airfield to home, where Pam was there to soothe him and feed him and let him sleep. She was a roly-poly now, the time for her to give birth approaching, and he worried it would happen one night when he was flying, not that anything could be done about that. The local midwife had been alerted and her mother was near at hand, and they wouldn’t want an agitated man dancing round them when the time came.

The trouble was that he couldn’t help thinking about George – plump, happy George whose life had been so cruelly cut short. He could not bear the thought of something like that happening again. It was a good thing there hadn’t been so many air raids lately. Hitler had other things to worry him; when and where the invasion was going to take place for one thing. No one, except those at the very top, knew that but it couldn’t be long now; all the signs pointed to it. A ten-mile strip of the coastline from the Wash to Land’s End had been banned to civilians, more and more troops went on manoeuvres, more and more strange vehicles clogged the country roads. Guns and ammunition trains whooshed past wayside stations, holding up passenger trains. Southern England, and that included East Anglia, was becoming one vast army camp,
but still there was no announcement. No doubt he would have a role to play, but he was glad he wasn’t in khaki.

He didn’t know whether to be pleased or furious when the group captain sent for him and told him he was to be grounded and given a job in the ops room. ‘You’ve done your bit, Flight Lieutenant,’ he said. ‘Let some of the others take over …’

‘But, sir, I can’t sit on my arse, twiddling my thumbs while the rest of the crew go off night after night.’

‘You won’t be twiddling your thumbs, you can be sure of that. The job is a vital one and will be even more important when the balloon goes up. You’ve done more that your stint of operations. The MO tells me you’re tired …’

‘He’s an old woman.’

‘Flight Lieutenant, you will not refer to our medical officer in those terms,’ he said sharply. ‘Captain Marison is responsible for the fitness of everyone to do the job required of them and he says you need a rest. It’s non-negotiable. Take fourteen days’ leave and come back refreshed. You are soon to be a father, concentrate on that.’

Harry saluted and walked out of the office but underneath his annoyance was a sense of relief he would not admit to. He went to find Tim and tell him the ‘bad’ news, only to discover that Tim had also been taken off the flight and was being posted somewhere down south where he was to take on a training role. ‘I reckon it’s something to do with the invasion,’ he said. ‘They need extra pilots.’

‘They need wireless operators too. I don’t see why they have to break us up.’

‘Don’t tell me you want to move, with the delectable Pam about to drop her sprog any minute. Count your blessings, man.’

‘I’ll miss you.’

‘I’ll miss you too. We’ll have a good knees-up at the pub to see me on my way.’

‘You’re on.’

Pam, of course, was delighted by the news that Harry was grounded. She was tired too and felt lumpy and ungainly and longed to be slim again. She was looking forward to being a mother, and though she did not mind whether she had a boy or a girl, for Harry’s sake she would like to give him a son to make up for the one he had lost. He was a loving husband, caring, considerate and always cheerful, but she sensed he was under a lot of strain, and the only way she could help him was to be especially calm and not bother him with trifles. She knew he was disappointed at being grounded and would badger the powers that be to let him fly again. She hoped they would not listen to him, though she did not say so. They were extremely lucky to have been allowed to live together in the village and have something approaching a home life, if you discounted the times when he went off in the evenings and didn’t return until dawn, or when he was required to stay on the station in case he were needed. He’d have to do some nights in the ops room, but at least he’d be on the ground, and when she heard the planes take off and zoom over the housetops she would know he was not in one of them and she would not be sick with worry until he came back.

‘When’s Tim having this party, then?’ They had finished supper and she was sitting on his lap on the sofa, her head nestling in his shoulder, the big bump of her coming child sticking out under his hand where he could feel the baby kicking.

‘Saturday night. You don’t mind me going, do you?’

‘No, of course I don’t, silly. You enjoy yourself.’

He looked at her with his head on one side. ‘I love you, Pam Walker. Without you I’d fall apart.’

‘Oh, go on with you.’

‘I mean it. You hold me together, and when the little one comes and this war is over, we’ll have a grand life together, you and I and our children. I’d like more than one.’

‘So would I. Two little Harry Walkers as handsome as you and two little girls to match.’

He laughed. ‘We’ll need a bigger house.’

‘So, we get a bigger house. The Government has promised homes for everyone after the war. It was on the news.’

‘Believe that if you like. They’ll have to be paid for and there’s a lot of other things need rebuilding as well.’

‘You’re just a natural-born pessimist.’ She kissed him fondly and scrambled to her feet. ‘I’m going to make some cocoa, d’you want some?’

‘Yes, please, and then I’m for bed.’ He laughed suddenly. ‘And I don’t have to get up in the morning. Fourteen days, fourteen glorious days. If it weren’t for the baby we could go away somewhere.’

‘Do you want to go away?’

‘Not without you, I don’t. No, I’ll be content just to laze around here and watch you getting bigger and bigger.’

‘I’m not going to get much bigger. Very soon, I’ll be a lot smaller, perhaps while you’re on leave. That would be perfect.’

She had her wish. Colin Harold Walker was born at four o’clock on the morning of March 1st 1944 and his sister, Louise Jane, ten minutes later. Twins had not been
expected and caused a little consternation at first, but when everyone had recovered from the surprise they were delighted. ‘We’ve got half of our four at one go,’ Pam said, looking fondly at her tiny babies, lying head to toe in the cot they had prepared for one. Colin was the bigger of the two by half a pound, but they both had dark-brown hair and dark eyes and equally loud voices.

Harry, sitting on the edge of her bed, holding her hand, kept looking from her to his children and almost burst with pride and happiness. He knew he would have to go back to the war in a couple of days and there were some difficult times ahead, but he did not doubt that victory was within grasp and then there would be peace. Peace. How good it sounded.

Julie had been right when she told Alec she expected to be posted. She was given a seventy-two-hour pass at Easter, when she went to Hillside Farm and spent the time amusing Liz and Alice, riding and walking. And on Easter Sunday she went to church with Walter and Maggie, where apart from celebrating the Resurrection, they prayed for the success of the coming second front. At the end of her leave, now promoted to sergeant, she reported for duty at RAF Manston. She couldn’t have been more pleased because Florrie was still stationed there, driving RAF bigwigs all over the place.

At the gate she was told to report to Section Officer Murray, officer in charge of the WAAFs, before she did anything else. Looking for Florrie would have to wait.

‘Welcome to Manston, Sergeant Seaton,’ the OC said, as Julie stood at ease in front of her desk. ‘You have been in the service long enough to know how things are done, so there’s no need for me to repeat it.’ She paused and looked
closely into Julie’s face. ‘Nor do you need telling that we are going to be very busy in the next few weeks and some of the things you will be dealing with will seem very strange indeed. You are not to speak of them to anyone, do you understand?’

‘Perfectly, ma’am.’

‘Good. Report for duty at 0800 tomorrow and good luck to you.’

Julie saluted and turned about. She had the rest of the evening to find her way about and be reunited with Florrie, always supposing her friend was on the station and not away driving somewhere. She went outside, picked up her kitbag and haversack from where she had left them and asked to be directed to her billet. She was soon unpacking her kit beside her bed.

‘Where is she? Where is my soon-to-be sister-in-law? Let me get at her.’

Julie, in the act of hanging a skirt in her locker, spun round as Florrie came through the door. ‘Florrie.’

They hugged each other. ‘It’s good to see you,’ they said together and laughed.

‘I was going to see if I could find you as soon as I’d unpacked,’ Julie said.

‘Oh, I couldn’t wait for you to find me. Let me take a look at you.’ Florrie stood back and surveyed Julie with her head on one side. ‘You look good, really good; being in love must suit you.’

Julie laughed. ‘It does. I could say the same for you.’

Florrie sat on the end of Julie’s bed to watch her finish her unpacking. ‘We’re lucky, aren’t we?’

‘Yes, me in particular.’

‘Why you in particular?’

‘You know why. I thought my past, or lack of it, would put everyone off me, but it hasn’t, has it?’

‘No, of course not. It doesn’t change who you are, the person you are now, never mind what happened in the past. Anyway, you really were bombed out, so who’s to know that the rest of your story isn’t true? It easily could be.’

‘That’s what Alec said. He said the name I go by is unimportant.’

‘There you are, then.’

The last of her kit was stowed away. ‘Are you on duty?’

‘Not ’til the morning. We’ve got a lot of catching up to do. Let’s take a stroll and I’ll show you round. We can talk as we go.’

Manston, being so close to the coast and on the flight path of bombers returning from raids, had become an emergency landing field and was equipped with one of the longest and widest runways in the country. ‘When it’s foggy, they light flares all down both sides,’ Florrie told her. ‘It dispels the fog and guides the aircraft in.’

‘Doesn’t that attract German bombers too?’

‘It did, but there aren’t many raids now. One of ours came down only last week. It had been badly shot up and burst into flames and then it exploded.’ She shuddered. ‘The crew were all killed. I saw them being taken away in ambulances. I wish I hadn’t, it made me think of Matt …’

‘Don’t dwell on it,’ Julie said quickly, putting her hand on her friend’s arm.

‘No, let’s go and look at the sea. We can’t go on the beach, but sometimes I like to stand and look at the waves. There’s something timeless about the ocean, don’t you think? It’s so vast it puts our little lives into perspective and yet it’s part of us, especially in these islands. I like to remember times
before the war when Alec and I were children and we used to go on seaside holidays.’ She laughed. ‘I had a knitted costume that covered me from head to foot and drooped when it was wet. Alec had one of those striped costumes with legs in them and straps to hold the top up. He was always a bit of a daredevil and would frighten my mother by swimming out too far.’

‘He told me he likes to stretch himself to see what he’s capable of,’ Julie said. ‘Perhaps that’s why he joined the paras.’

‘Possibly.’ Florrie laughed. ‘But I think it also had something to do with the fact that you were at Ringway.’

From where they stood, the coastline went round in a wide curve. Every inlet seemed to be filled with landing craft. ‘They’re not real,’ Florrie said. ‘They’re just empty drums and canvas. I reckon they’re there to fool the Germans.’

Julie wasn’t really taking in what Florrie was saying because she was looking at the beach. A faint memory stirred, as it had once before, of a crowded beach and a boy – not a toddler, too old for him to be her own child – and he wore a striped costume just as Florrie described Alec’s. There was music too and a Punch and Judy show. When and where had that happened? She strained at it, trying to make it stay and enlarge, but instead it faded, as so many memories had faded in the past, and left her wondering if they were real memories or only products of her imagination.

‘It can’t be long now.’ Florrie broke in on her thoughts and the vision faded and all she could see was the deserted beach dotted with seaweed and the odd tussock of marram grass.

‘What can’t?’

‘The invasion. What else would I be talking about?’

‘Sorry. I wasn’t really paying attention. I was remembering a beach …’

Florrie whipped round to face her. ‘Your memory’s come back?’

‘No, it’s gone again. Sometimes I get pictures, but they don’t connect up and then they go again.’

‘Oh, you poor dear. It must be dreadfully frustrating.’

‘Yes, it is. I feel as though I’m living a lie.’

‘Well, you’re not. No one could be more honest and straightforward than you.’

Honest and straightforward? Had that always been true? What was her loss of memory hiding? ‘Let’s go back,’ she said, inexplicably ill at ease.‘I don’t know about you, but I’m starving.’

They went to the canteen for something to eat and drink. Florrie introduced Julie to one or two of the airmen, but they did not join them, preferring to continue chatting, reminiscing about previous postings, talking about their plans.

‘When this war is over, Matt and I are going to look for a house in the country,’ Florrie said. ‘All mod cons and three bedrooms for the children. You and Alec could live nearby and we could see lots of each other. Do you realise our children will be cousins?’

‘Of course I do, silly.’

A home of one’s own; how many people longed for that, Julie asked herself? People who had been bombed out, people who had been evacuated, people newly married, all praying that the invasion of France would signal the beginning of the end that Churchill had spoken about. She
could not remember a time when there had been no war, but she could imagine it. Peace. The sky would be full of birds and butterflies and maybe the odd leisure aircraft, not the roar of warplanes. There would be no air-raid sirens, no bombs exploding, no great guns going off, and the children – all children – would be able to play in safety. It was a long time since she had asked herself what had become of the child she had given birth to, but now she found herself wondering what had happened to it all over again.

Maybe it was triggered by Florrie talking about children, or the fact that she was going to marry Alec and they had talked of having a family; maybe it was the brief stirring of something that might have been a memory earlier in the day. Whatever it was it made her feel uneasy. ‘I’m for bed,’ she said, standing up. ‘It’s been a long day.’

The strange things Flight Officer Murray had talked about turned out to be inflatable rubber tanks, lorries, guns and gliders, which arrived deflated on the backs of lorries and were taken out to sites dotted round the countryside and inflated. Even from a short distance it was difficult to tell them from the real thing; from the air it would have been nigh on impossible. An attempt was made to camouflage them – not too well, but well enough for enemy aircraft to believe there was something to hide. Tails of gliders stuck out from under trees and the undergrowth round them trodden down and wheel marks of heavy vehicles made in the grass to make it look more realistic. The contraptions were left
in situ
for a few days and then moved somewhere else, giving the effect of one vast army gathering, ready to invade the Pas de Calais. What it did for those on the ground was to tell them that Calais was not going to be
the real invasion site, though when and where it would be Julie had no more idea than anyone else, but she knew, without being told, that Alec would be involved in it; all that training was not for nothing.

She longed to be able to talk to him, to compare notes, to tell him he went with her prayers for his safe return and she could not wait for them to be together again and the war over. She was not such a fool as to think everything was going to be plain sailing. There would be difficult times ahead, but she would not let herself dwell on the possibility of tragedy.

Security was tight, and towards the end of May everyone, except those who had official business outside like Florrie, who had been detailed to drive truckloads of airmen from stations in the north and east to the West Country, was confined to barracks until further notice. No telephone calls were allowed, except in the line of duty, and all letters were more heavily censored than usual. Sitting outside her billet in the warm May sunshine, Julie wrote to Alec, a loving letter of hope and optimism, but a little melancholy too. ‘
I miss you, darling. I miss not being able to talk to you or write to you properly. I wonder where you are and if you are as nervous as I am. Pray God, all this waiting will soon be over and we can be together again. Be sure you are in my thoughts all the time, especially when I hear aircraft overhead. Take care of yourself because I want you safely back, to feel your arms once more about me
…’

She couldn’t say half of what she wanted to, but he would know what she was thinking and feeling.

Alec was at Brize Norton where his training had continued, day in, day out, without let-up. They had practised jumping
with kitbags, which they carried on their legs and released on the end of a line once they were in the air with the parachute opened. At first they had jumped from a single aircraft, and then been put through their paces in a mass drop at battalion strength. It was nerve-racking and at the same time extraordinarily impressive the way the sky appeared to be full of parachutes and aircraft dropping more and more, until the sky seemed full of them. How they didn’t get tangled up with each other was a minor miracle. There were one or two incidents but little was made of them for fear of deflating morale.

From battalion strength they graduated to brigade strength and were flown in Dakotas with American crews. The Dakotas carried a stick of twenty and the exit was through a port door and not the floor, as in the Whitley. After flying out over the Channel to give them an idea of what it would be like, they turned for home. Below them the sea was packed with shipping, line upon line of it of all shapes and sizes, filling all the ports and every inlet. It was an awesome sight. They couldn’t admire it for long because they were approaching the dropping zone and the usual drill began: hook up, red light, shuffle to the door, green light, ‘Go!’

The next day they began ground exercises in which they were to seize a bridge against Home Guard opposition. They soon discovered that if they surrendered they were taken to the Home Guard headquarters and entertained with tea and biscuits and took no further part in the exercise, a ploy which did not go down at all well with those in command and they had to do it again, but this time there were dire penalties for surrendering. Knowing the real thing could only be days away, they decided to be more cooperative.
All they were waiting for was the time and place, and that was as closely guarded as ever.

Alec dearly wanted to see Eve, to share his experiences with her, tell her how much he loved her and that he had every intention of coming safely back to begin their new life together and she was to start planning their wedding. But he couldn’t do any of that. The south of England was sealed off from all communication with the outside world: the local population and all evacuees had been sent away, telephone lines to call boxes cut off, postboxes sealed and the perimeter patrolled to make sure no one chanced his luck on creeping out.

Tension was building alongside the boredom of waiting, even though they were kept busy with last-minute training and checks, topped off with a night drop from Sterling aircraft. Towards the end of May they were told there would be a full rehearsal and half the battalion were sent to a tented transit camp at Broadwell while the other half stayed at Brize Norton. No one was fooled by this tale of a rehearsal; they knew it was going to be the real thing and spirits were high.

They were allowed to write one letter, which they were warned would be heavily censored for any clue about what they had been doing, where they thought they were going and any guesses about the timing. ‘“Love and kisses and hope to see you before long” is about it,’ they were told. Torn between writing to his mother and writing to Eve, Alec decided to send it to his mother but expect it to be shared with everyone in the family, including Eve. If he wrote to Eve it would be one she would not want to share and he could not leave his parents out. Consequently it was a difficult letter to write.
‘I’m fighting fit, so don’t worry
about me,’
he wrote.
‘I don’t suppose there’ll be any leave for a little while but when I do come home, we’ll have a party. Tell Eve it’s to be a proper engagement party and I can’t wait to hold her in my arms again. So Mum, get making the wine, and Pa, fatten up the porker. Give my love to Florrie and Matt and keep some for yourselves. And to Eve, my continuing and everlasting devotion. See you again soon, Alec.’