It was one of those experiences both women knew they would never forget. It had been terrifying, but Pru had never lost her head, nor had Emma. They just kept on plugging away and walking until they got to the coast, and then got on the fishing boat. Until then, they both expected to be shot at any moment.
They were as calm as though nothing had happened when they both reported for their missions the next day.
Ed beamed when he saw them. They were scheduled to fly together, and they had a fighter escort again.
“What are we waiting for? Let’s get on with it,” Pru said matter-of-factly as Reggie grinned and shook his head. They locked the doors, strapped in, and taxied down the runway. They had twenty-four injured men to pick up, and everything went smoothly. Pru grinned at Emma after they landed safely back on base with their precious cargo.
“Better flight than last time, eh, Em?” she asked her, and Emma shrugged coolly.
“It was good enough. The last one wasn’t bad either.” They both laughed and walked into the hangar arm in arm for a cup of coffee before their next mission. They had a busy day ahead.
Chapter 13
As though to prove they were in control, or to regain it, the Germans increased the bombings in August, with severe damage to the cities and industrial areas, and intense hand-to-hand combat with fixed bayonets in rural areas on the ground. As a result, the flight nurses were flying with full loads of wounded, and sometimes took on more men than they had beds for. They couldn’t bear to leave anyone behind, and came back for second and third loads whenever they could.
Pru had flown six missions that day, with only enough time to refuel between them, when she walked into the barracks on a warm summer evening. Her overalls were covered with dirt and blood, and all she wanted was a shower and to lie down for a few minutes. The house officer pointed to the nurses’ battered sitting room when she walked by. There was a tall, thin, serious-looking officer waiting for her. She hesitated before walking in, steeled herself, and saluted him, and he invited her to sit down. She knew what that meant and braced herself for whatever he was waiting to tell her. He delivered the bad news swiftly, like a saber run through her heart.
Her younger brother Phillip’s plane had been shot down the night before on a massive bombing raid against the Falaise pocket, where the German army was fighting fiercely. Eighteen bombers had gone down the night before. Phillip had been one of the daring fighter escorts, and he had been shot down too. They had had confirmation that afternoon that he and his crew were all dead. They had become another statistic in the war that was devouring brothers and fathers, lovers and husbands and sons. Pru was one of the bereaved now. Her family had been lucky until then. The officer extended his condolences and left as quietly as he had come. He was the angel of death visiting the survivors, leaving tragedy in his wake.
She walked up the stairs slowly and was surrounded by her friends when she got to her room. The officer had told her that she had been cleared for a three-day leave to go home to Yorkshire, to see her parents. They had heard the news by then. She didn’t have the heart to call them. All she wanted was to go home. Her mind was a blank and Emma and the others helped her pack. Trains were scarce and were running off schedule, and all nonessential travel was discouraged. But she knew that if she waited long enough, she could catch a train north that night. She had priority as an officer. And all she had to do was hope that the train or the tracks didn’t get bombed while she was aboard.
She left the barracks in a blur an hour later, after all the girls hugged her. Someone with a car drove her to the train station—she couldn’t even remember who afterwards. All she knew was that her baby brother was dead. He had been flying daring missions for almost exactly five years, as her older brother, Max, had too. She had been told that they would not be able to recover his body. The plane had exploded in midair after the first volley of shots. She hoped it had been quick, and she was sure he would have been mad as hell when they went down. She hadn’t called her parents because she had no idea what to say. She saw men die every day, but she didn’t have to face their mothers and fathers or any of the people who had loved them.
She caught a freight train out at eight o’clock that night, and sat staring blindly out the window, remembering what a terror he had been as a little boy, how he had taunted her into climbing the tallest trees, and blamed her for everything he’d done. She had hated him for a while. Her older brother, Max, was always the sensible one. Then she had come to love Phillip more than ever before as they grew up. And now he was gone.
The train left her at the station in York at one in the morning. She hadn’t told anyone she was coming, and with her suitcase in hand, she walked the five miles from the station in the silent darkness, grateful to be alone to gather her thoughts. She would have to face her parents in the morning. She wondered if Max had gotten leave to come home too. She hoped so. They hadn’t seen him in months, and she needed his solid comfort now. He would be devastated too.
Emma had helped her put on her uniform after she heard the news. She had dressed her as she would a child. Pru saw that there were still dim lights behind the blackout shades at her home, when she got there after two in the morning. The faint trace of light was coming from her parents’ room. When she opened the front door, which was never locked in the big rambling manor house, she could hear them talking in the back parlor. There was a fire dying in the grate. The house was always drafty, even in the summer. Her mother turned to look at her in the dying light of the embers. Max was sitting with her, and their father was dozing in a chair by the fire, his chin on his chest. Even in the half darkness, they suddenly looked so much older to her. Everyone did now, a whole nation of people who had aged from hunger, heartache, and grief for five years of war. Max stood up, walked toward her, and put his arms around her. He looked just like their father when he was younger, which was comforting in an odd way. There was a sense of continuity to it.
“I was hoping you’d come,” she said softly, her words muffled by his jacket as he held her. “How are they?” she whispered about their parents, but she could see for herself when she went to kiss their mother. She held tightly to Pru’s hand as Pru sat down next to her, and her eyes looked ravaged. But she was as they always were: strong, quiet, determined to prevail no matter what it cost them, brave in the face of sorrow. They were the people she could count on, whatever happened, just as they could count on her. She hugged her mother close, and they both cried for a moment, and then her mother sat up straighter and Max watched them both. They were the two women he most admired. He always thought of them as brave and strong, and now was no different.
“I’ve spoken to Reverend Alsop. We’ll hold a service for Phillip in two days, before you and Max have to leave,” she said quietly. Pru wondered how many more of these services they could endure going to. There were so many. So many boys from the farms had been killed, and from the great houses. All the boys she had grown up with and found so boring before the war. They weren’t boring now. Most of them were gone, had been killed in the last five years in battles with names she would always remember, in Europe, North Africa, in places she had never been to.