Spitfire Song

By Richard Parkes

Life expectancy for a British fighter pilot in the summer of 1940 is short. Shorter still if your name's Jerome Jessup and you're still in training, then posted to a front line operational squadron. War in the air is a strange, often deadly business; routine patrol sorties interspersed with sudden scramble intercepts to confront German bombers and their Messerschmitt escorts.
Jerome's sister, Bell, joins the Air Transport Auxiliary ferrying warplanes. Supposedly an altogether safer occupation, but as Bell makes her landing approach to Hornchurch in a delivery plane, she's unaware there's a German Junkers 88 raider right on her tail. So… survival isn't a given. With luck, Jerome and Bell might see it through the duration, but meantime, getting on with things, just plain getting on with things, seems for the best. With loves on the ground to cherish and life in the tilting air to live, both these young pilots hang on the very cusp of their existence.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Riofrio Books
• Release date: Jul 18, 2023
• ISBN: 9781916484788

Book preview

1

JEROME JESSUP

SUMMER 1935 The plain fact of the matter is that I’ve got to get hold of the money before lunchtime or I’m sunk, and bye-bye to the whole plan. My fifteenth birthday tomorrow, so if Mum’s generous she might cough up. Ten shillings ― a big ask, and she’ll want to know what for and that’s dodgy. What am I going to say?

Mum’s whisking eggs in the kitchen so I wander through all casual and ask about white lies and half-truths and what’s the difference because she’s a sucker for anything to do with words. My way of seeing which way the wind’s blowing this fine mid-summer morning, a morning not-so-incidentally that’s going to deliver cracking flying weather. Three taps on the bowl with the whisk, she squints out the kitchen window working on her answer. 

White lies are kindness mostly, she says, sparing some poor soul’s feelings, while a half-truth is deceit wrapped up in a pretty parcel to fool you — and don’t you dare try one on me. Whisk and tap tap.

No luck there. She’s mysteriously cottoned on I’m hatching a plot and you never mess with mother, she’s Czech dynamite with a short fuse. My dumb question probably gave the game away anyway. Home from Prague in time for my birthday, that’s my cake she’s making.

Great­Aunt Vee on the other hand is fair game; I’ll try her when she arrives for breakfast and I hear her coming click clack down the passage. I position myself for a flank attack. First thing is not to jump the gun. Sure enough, she goes straight past me into the kitchen for her glass of liver salts then, wordless, sits at the dining table waiting for Mum to bring in her two boiled eggs, toast, butter and marmalade, and a pot of tea in a cosy. Every morning the same, except for Aunt Vee’s usual moan about the modern world which, today, is directed at me as Mum’s gone back to the cake. Yesterday it was Dad’s abominable tractor which woke her at six, so loud she couldn’t hear herself think, then an account of a train trip to Bexhill in a clattering stinking train. Today it’s those irritating aeroplanes buzzing around that are bound to give her a headache and what a vile little fad they are. I like Aunt Vee even if she is a funny old stick. She’s here for a month helping out while Mum’s been away seeing her sister. Hugely generous with pocket money, she’s mean as a snake in a game of snap and plays as if her life depends on it. Bridge is her game at home in Winchester, she tells me. Aunt Vee’s cooking is the daily disaster. She never makes gravy, and I’m stuck in the study for the duration so Aunt Vee and her Chinese thunder box can have my room. We all suffer, but for me it’s the worst because over my fold-out bed in the study hang two paintings that give me the creeps, Jessup family ancestors with mean eyes that follow you around the room.

Aunt Vee is finishing her tea in the midst of a battlefield of yolk stains, broken eggshells and crumbs. We approach the critical instance as she pours her second cup.

Jerome, be a dear and get me one of those... she waves a hand.

She’s after a cigarette from the silver box Dad keeps on the sideboard for guests. Aunt Vee, officially ― according to her lights, has given up. OP cigarettes, other people’s, don’t count. I need two hands to work the heavy table lighter. She puff puffs then takes a solid suck. This is it. The moment.

What is it, child?

It’s only five bob for the country fair, Aunt Vee.

Heavens, five shillings?

Each... there’s a circus as well.

Sister Bell and I run through the fair entrance and already we’re looking high in the sky. There is a circus, only it’s a flying circus ― deceit in its pretty parcel; but even if Aunt Vee does find out she’ll not mind for long. She’s not one for bearing grudges and Bell could learn something there, that’s for sure. Our five shillings are for flips in one of the biplanes droning lazily in the sky above the fields and tents. Bell says it’s her idea because she spots the Cobham’s Flying Circus poster first and I just let it go. What’s the point? because up there, a creaky Gipsy Moth hooks us into the element that redefines us — the air. It’s delicious violence on the senses, the smell of hot oily engines, petrol fumes and doped canvas. Soaring into the air, the beating engine, slipstream and shivering wing wires, looking down far below to minuscule flagged tents and people like ants dotting the rolling green countryside.

Aunt Vee’s off home to Winchester. I hope you’ve strapped in my commode nice and tight, she says. Aunt Vee says commode all la-di-da, like she’s French.

Nice and tight, Aunt Vee, and your eiderdown’s packed around the potty.

A sniff as she leans over to look at the back of the car where the thunder box dragon feet are sticking out the boot through a cobweb of ropes. She gives one of the ropes a tug. Seems alright ― here’s something for your trouble. You better give Bell half or I’ll never hear the end of it.

Dad sees her into the passenger seat and starts up the Austin.

How much? Bell tries to prise open my hand.

The car stops. Aunt Vee’s winding down her window and bangs her hat as she sticks her head out. And no more plane flips, you two, I forbid it!

Bell gasps, How did she find out, Jerome?

Someone must have seen us. I hope to hell she hasn’t read the paper, otherwise we definitely won’t hear the end of it.

Dad crashes the Austin into gear and moves off down the drive.

One plane’s okay, Bell says.

The other pilot’s dead, smashed straight into the ground.

Doing what? she asks, What were they doing?

Formation loops in the air display, with a ribbon tied wing to wing. They got too close and collided ― hold on a tick. I’m up on tippy toes watching the Austin getting to the storm water furrow across the drive. I hope Dad remembers to slow down... the car lurches through and the thunder box is on its way to Winchester.

How old do you have to be for lessons?

Older than fifteen, probably. I jingle the half-crowns in my pocket. Try ringing the flying club at Lasham and see how much they cost.

A phone call settles it. Flying lessons are out of the question until we’re older. We’ve got to be content with joyrides and flips from the Lasham aerodrome. It’s second prize but a good second. Sucking up the atmosphere around the pilots and planes must do for now. Our obsession comes off the boil and settles to a simmer.

SUMMER 1936 Mum’s in a tizz. Her sister, Wanda, is arriving from Prague with her two children. Accommodation is the problem so Dad borrows the neighbours’ caravan which now stands outside our kitchen back door. Wanda’s been coming over every other year for ages, but no one here has met these children, except for Mum, of course. There are fuzzy photos from her Prague visit last year: a gangly girl with braces in her teeth, and a scowling boy in shorts, a shock of hair and hands stuck into his pockets like daggers.

On my list of chores I’ve left the worst to last: greasing the tractor and an oil change. I’m underneath watching the last few drops leak into a flat can. Then screw the plug back in and fill up from the top.

Jerome? Is that you?

Screw the plug in and manoeuvre myself out, pulling the can backwards. A blonde girl stands there with an enquiring look on her face.

They said you’d be here.

I grab some cotton waste from the workbench and start cleaning my hands. I’m trying to work it out. Who are you? I’m not expecting this.

Oh, I see, she says. I’m Kristina.

Kristina, sorry, Mum’s photo.

Oh, that. What are you doing under there?

An oil change.

Looks like a messy business. She leans on the other foot. They say change can be a good thing.

Her eyes are the colour of lavender. I’m sure of it.

That’s how it begins. The gangly child with braces is gone, conjured into this striking girl with soft blue eyes who takes my breath away.

Does everyone speak English back home? You’re astonishing, Kristina.

I am? Some do, but not like our family. My uncle comes for holidays. He’s a Romance linguist. When he stays, it’s house law: at five every evening we launch into the language of the day. Monday it’s Spanish; Tuesday, Italian, but English is his favourite, that’s all we speak on Sundays ― except Czech for church.

And Latin; you must have a favourite.

Aunt Jolana said you’re sharp... It depends. She gives me a sideways smile. Today I’m crazy for English, but if you want to try your Czech I’ll love that, too. You choose. What’s this oxbow lake we’re off to? I don’t know the saying.

Easier to explain when we get there.

Getting there means a tramp across Home and Bottom Fields to the woods where Dad takes me shooting in winter. The horseshoe­shaped lake has a neck facing away towards the river like a pair of prongs where ― I tell Kristina ― the river now takes a short cut, sealing off the lake. Three immense oaks line the lake’s nearer, broader reach. Branches flanking the river eons ago loom over the lake edge. The biggest bough stretches far. A heavy rope, thick as a ship’s hawser, hangs there like a plumb line, attached to an old car tyre.

The trick is climbing halfway up with the other rope in hand, Kristina ― see it? that thin rope, attached to the tyre? Then haul up the tyre and when you’ve got it, hang on tight and jump off.

Katrina looks up where the rope is knotted around the branch. Even from half-way up it’s a heart-stopping thirty foot drop to the water.

I don’t have my swimsuit, she says. You go first.

Clothes are fine, you’ll dry off in no time.

Swinging round she laughs, Think I’m bloody mad?

Kristina’s grammar runs to what Mum calls the vernacular, but swimming’s not a strong point. Alexander does doggy paddle, and Kristina’s crawl in the shallows is a manic business, flogging the water, her head thrashing side to side. It doesn’t occur to me that they might not swim like we do. It’s Bell’s idea to fetch Jason, the farm cob, and take these two out into the lake holding onto his mane. Leading rein in hand she swims ahead of them like a frisky seal shouting encouragement, because it’s really only confidence they lack. By mid-day both of them are loose and relaxed, treading water like water babies and don’t want to come out.

Once she has her first go on the tyre swing after tea, Kristina’s keen to try it again. The thrill is holding onto the tyre as it gathers speed going down, then judging when to let go on the upward swing. Getting it right means momentum hurls you shrieking like a banshee out over the lake, splashing down in a tumble of arms and legs.

There’s competition to retrieve the thin rope as getting hold of it means you’re next. Perhaps it’s her wet feet; Kristina loses her footing on the oak, flails her arms and crashes to the ground with a sickening thud. At least a ten foot drop and a piteous wail as she clutches her ankle, screwing up her face. There’s no chance of her walking so Bell hurries back to the stables to hitch Jason to the cart and bring her home. She leads Jason at a slow, careful pace, Alexander’s bareback on the cob and I’m with Kristina in the cart keeping her leg cradled on cushions. She’s brave about it. A tremulous smile. I feel bad about this. My fault, I know it, getting her onto that swing. Kristina puts her head back and squeezes her eyes shut as we hit a bump. Her skirt flies up on her thighs and the reveal’s like summer camp reveille waking me to a morning glory in my jim­jams.

Tell me we’re not going back to that swing, Jerome!

Don’t worry; we’re going to the swimming hole.

Mum’s poultice and liniment on Kristina’s ankle is working, drawing out the bruise in yellowy brown smudges. Lend me a hand, cousin, Kristina says as she swings herself into the cart. It’s our grand expedition. Sandwiches in brown paper bags, ginger beer, a picnic blanket, towels and the two tyre inner tubes I’ve firmed up with the foot pump.

What a lovely place! Kristina looks around at our piece of heaven. She lets go my arm and points at a flash of blue over the river, Ah!

A kingfisher, Bell says. It’s good luck if you see one.

Kristina holds onto my forearm again. I feel lucky today, I do!

She squeezes my arm.

I thought all rivers were gin-clear like ours, white chalk lined with green weed fronds waving gently from the river bed. With luck, late afternoon today our Czech cousins will see brown trout dimpling the surface, feeding on mayfly. The river bank is grassed on a gentle slope, and the river makes a big loop here, the current deep and strong on the far side, leaving us a shallow sleepy refuge, where we can frolic in safety.

The heat builds this time of year and Kristina says the water’s near blood heat, and we’re not at noon yet. Bell and Alexander are wading out into deeper water with the black inner tubes.

What are they doing?

Going to float down to the weir probably. Cupping hands I shout, Bell, be careful, will you? She turns with a white cord in her hands and I see the two tubes are joined.

Come in a bit deeper and you can float to take the weight off your ankle.

She takes an awkward step and falls against me. You’ve heard of kissing cousins? she says.

Maybe.

She’s working her way round to face me. They’ll be gone a while?

Maybe... I hope so.

Kiss me, cousin.

My hands are around her waist and she’s drawing in as her lips open. A step back, Kristina crosses hands, drags down her swimsuit top as if she’s angry with it. Putting my hand to her breast, she comes in closer still, brushing against me then flinches. Pushes me away.

You shouldn’t! We shouldn’t!

I’m all at sea. God, I’m sorry, I can’t help it.

Her face is crumbling. She looks as if she’s going to break to pieces.

Hands fly to her face and she groans something.

What? I said I’m sorry...

God forgive me, I can’t help it either, her voice cracking. Lacing arms around my neck she presses her trembling frame hard onto me, her sweet mouth seeking mine. 

Time blurs. Faintly I hear sounds of the river as if I’m waking from a dream. Kristina’s limp against me saying nothing. She rubs her forehead against my chest. Kissing cousins! she says and swallows hard. Dear God, kissing cousins. I’ll never be able to face confession now.

Nebudeme to dělat, že?

Ne nejsme!

We’re not going to do it. It’s our pact, an understanding, and just as well because it hangs there in the air like forbidden fruit. The decision, for reasons of good common sense, brings on a sort of fury ― gasping, entwined moments that leave us shaking and breathless, then long breathers as we cool, languishing in the pools of each other’s eyes. Kristina, mining a rich vein in her imagination, pushes the boundaries. I’m already going to hell, Jerome, she says, so what’s the difference?

We are on our own most of the time so it’s down to the swimming hole every day. The hot weather settles and everything slows, even the river, and there are lovely long, lazy floating trips on the black rubber tubes drifting down to the weir. On the way we stop on the river bank behind willow tree curtains, away from prying eyes. Sandwiches wrapped in wax paper, bottles of lemonade and kissing, always kissing, then anything else we’re of a mind to try. Then floating on towards the weir where Bell and Alexander are usually busy somewhere with Dad’s fishing rods, trying the cooler feeder streams.

Kristina and I are in the cart on the way home with our legs trailing over the tail-gate. Bell is leading Jason and Alexander’s on the cob’s back as usual. Tomorrow’s our last day as the cousins are leaving for home, and Alexander’s thrilled that finally he’s caught a big silvery brown trout.

Kristina turns to me. You’re good at explaining things. Tell me why I’m so sure I’ll never be this happy again.

Dad sends me down to the river. It’d be nice, he says, to take a brace of trout over to the neighbours when he returns the caravan. Casting the dry fly time after time over the waters numbs my brain. Kristina’s essence lingers here like the aftersong of a tolling bell. Then it’s gone and I’m standing alone, devastated. No trout here at the swimming hole either ― the water’s still too warm. Trying the tumbling waters down at the weir I hear the echo of Kristina’s pealing laugh of delight as she points out moorhens, plopping water voles, and mallards shepherding a flotilla of duckling chicks, bobbing on the water like dusky dandelion clocks.

AUTUMN 1938 Neville Chamberlain is on the radio speaking about A quarrel in a faraway country, between people of whom we know nothing. Mum jumps up and turns it off with an angry twist of her hand and talks to the radio as if Chamberlain’s crouching inside. Horrible man! You might know nothing about the Czechs but that’s our family you’re talking about. And as for trusting Herr Hitler to keep his word!

Dad puts in a calming word but Mum’s having none of it.

It’ll be war, make no mistake, and when it’s finished we’ll get across right away and rescue them.

We’ll have to win that war first, dear! Dad says.

Right will always triumph over Might. Father D’Arcy says so. What do you say, Jerome?

I shrug because I don’t have any answers. I don’t even know the right questions.

You don’t care?

I do care.

I care deeply.

Kristina.

Kristina.

2

JEROME

WINTER 1939 My application to join the RAF results in a London interview by a three-man board. A stiff medical follows where I’ve got to blow mercury up a tube. My lungs and everything else must be in good shape as soon afterwards a letter arrives at the farm telling me to report for ab initio training at RAF Ansty near Coventry.

I am careful to avoid an ‘exceptional’ rating on Tiger Moths, as pilots rated as such will be spirited away and trained as flying instructors. I’d rather die. The last thing I want is to be selected for Flying Training Command, I want to be a fighter pilot... full stop. My instructor, Lee, at Ansty, is a fine pilot — he’s the exceptional one, and a gifted teacher for learning aerobatics. I never waste time getting out of a nasty spin because I don’t like them, but make certain I’m never quite a hundred per cent accurate on rolls, slow rolls and loops.

Lee, or Tweedlelee as I call him, sends me off solo after six hours of flying dual, and after watching me strap in, wanders off as if he couldn’t care less. He’d be watching, I know, and solo after six hours is pretty quick. Some pupil pilots take eight or even the top limit of ten hours on dual. A quarter of our course is never sent solo and they’re washed out.

I shan’t forget the exhilaration and enormous sense of freedom as I soar up alone. The trim a bit off, as there’s no lump called Lee giving me a hard time through the speaking tube. I’m master of my own destiny. Terrific! A thin line of stratus at four thousand feet gives me cover from seeking eyes on the ground, so I can do what I like above it, and what I like is practicing sideslips and outrageous loops. When my time is up I come in on a turning approach, deliberately a bit high, and at the last moment side-slip losing height drastically, positioning the craft dead centre for the runway and a feather bed landing.

Lee comes striding up with purpose as I taxi in and cut the engine. What the hell do you think you’re up to, Jessup? he bawls. That’s bloody appalling. If your approach is bad you do another circuit, you pillock, you don’t try something like that at the eleventh hour.

Well I got in alright, didn’t I?

He glares at me and then softens. It’s not good for my nerves, that’s all I’m saying. You better come along for a drink at the mess. I certainly need one.

There are RAF flying tests and ground exams to take with lots of work to get through: air navigation, instrument flying, and reading Morse. Finally, it’s all done and one day there’s a notice pinned to the lecture room noticeboard that those of us that remain have passed. My rating is ‘above average’. Onward and upward — so I think. We are expecting to be whisked off to the Uxbridge RAF depot for conversion from civilians into officers in the RAF. Instead, in all its wisdom, the RAF posts us down to Brighton for military drilling and looking at girls on the promenade. Square bashing, arms drill and the like.

Airman, am I ’urting you?

Our Drill Instructor breathing down my neck.

No, Sergeant.

What’s your ’andle then? Jessup, is it? Well surprise, surprise, Mr Jessup, ’cos I’m standing on your ’air. No sense an’ no feeling you are. Get a bleeding ’aircut.

Up and down the promenade we march first thing every morning.

Stop gawping at the ladies, you dozy bunch. Eyes front there! Gawd help us, what a shower you lot are! In spite of the polished tirade our booming drill instructor is at heart an affable soul, a caricature of himself, so it’s all enjoyable.

Our uniforms arrive from the London tailors and are fitted, taken away, then fitted again until the Adjutant is satisfied they’re up to scratch. RAF blue, but no wings, just a single thin uninteresting stripe on the sleeve. More preparation comes with visits to the doctor for vaccinations, then comes the news that we are off to Flying Training School at Todenham in the Cotswolds. Lovely country up there, I’m told. The FTS have the American single˗engine Harvards and the twin-engine Avro Ansons. I’m selected with a few of the others for A Flight on the Harvards, which means fighters sometime in the future, whilst the rest are on Ansons, so they’ll be flying heavier machines. I couldn’t be happier as everything is going according to plan. We’ll be at FTS for seven months, which means a ton of work so I’ll have to knuckle down properly.

The weather’s bloody awful when we arrive so we hang around inside the gate like bedraggled ducks until we’re marched off to a lecture room to be harangued by the Station Commander, a bald-headed First War veteran who looks and sounds as if he eats rusty nails for breakfast. We appear to be a pretty shoddy bunch, he says, then lightens up and talks more reasonably about what is expected of us. I see now that is the RAF’s way: give you hell, then build you up, then let you down again with a bump, then repeat and repeat like written gospel in RAF standing orders. If it’s aimed at teaching us to have a thick skin, it’s beginning to work.

There’s no time for contemplation as we’re at stores first thing next morning picking up flying gear. Face mask and helmet, overalls and gloves with silk inners, a Sidcot suit and flying boots, a parachute, and a load of books. We have to sign for everything and everyone on the issuing staff looks bored with us, as if we don’t really matter. It’s just like school, and I’m standing around like a lost fart in hanger 3 with my A Flight compadres, when in comes the Flight Commander. He’s almost as tall as I am and looks competent. Another introductory chat, a great deal more sympathetic and pleasant this time with an assurance that he’ll help as much as he can. I’m packing my gear in a locker in the crew room when there’s a tap on my shoulder, and I turn.

Morning, sir, I’m Lund. Seems I’m to be your instructor while you’re here.

I have to look down as Lund is short.

Good morning, sir, I’m Jessup, but you know that already, I dare say.

He gives a cherubic smile. That’s right, but it won’t do at all, you calling me ‘sir’, sir. I’m Flight Sergeant to you.

I’ll try and remember that.

I take careful