The Last Letter from Juliet - Melanie Hudson Page 0,72

down after all the details had been discussed, but somehow, it worked.

Pa deemed it best all round if the confused and despairing Lottie, who by her own admission was not capable of caring properly for the child at this time, returned to her life as a WAAF with a new posting wangled, by hook or by crook, to RAF Predannack, just five miles down the road. Pa knew people who could make this happen, and he did.

And as for me? I was promoted to First Officer Caron and was now qualified to fly all RAF and Fleet Air Arm aircraft with the exception of the heavy four-engines bombers. Life in the ATA was exhausting but exhilarating, and not, as Edward had said, without a significant degree of danger. It wasn’t long before female friends in the ATA lost their lives to accidents caused by pushing the envelope by flying in poor weather conditions, and it was heart-breaking to see names of our co-workers rubbed off the chalk board in the operations room, one by one, as they passed away. But the pressure to deliver to the squadrons, who lost aircraft on a daily basis, was immense. As women pilots in the ATA, we possibly felt the pressure greater than our male counterparts. Determined to prove anyone who questioned our capabilities wrong, we pushed on.

Early one summer morning that year the Spitfire Sisters cycled to the airfield from our home by the river. We headed straight for the ops room to pick up our flying chits for the day. Anna and I were programmed to fly two Spitfires to RAF Dishforth, in Yorkshire. The taxi Anson would arrive at RAF Leeming, ten miles north of Dishforth, the next day, to bring us back to Hamble. Which meant we would have an overnight stay in Yorkshire. Marie was peeved to be missing out, but didn’t mind too much because she was having a trial run out on a motorbike that evening.

‘But that’s brilliant,’ I said to Anna, once Marie had walked away. ‘We can fly up there together, in formation, and stay with Lottie and her aunt nearby, rather than in the mess.’

Anna, despite being desperate to meet the notorious Lottie, wasn’t so sure. She began organising the maps we would need on the table.

‘I think we should fly separately,’ she said, having studied the route. ‘I’ve never flown in close formation before. I don’t think I can do it.’

I could understand this. Formation flying could be tricky.

‘How about you take the lead and do all the navigation,’ I suggested. ‘I’ll sit on your wing. I used to do it all the time with Pa. I loved it.’

Anna glanced at me.

‘You’ll let me navigate – the whole way?’

I nodded. ‘Of course, I will!’

‘I don’t believe that for a second,’ she scoffed. ‘But all right. If you’re happy to sit on my wing. Let’s do it.’

I had yet another idea.

‘Don’t you have an uncle near Oxford?’

Anna looked up from her selection of maps.

‘Yes. Why?’

‘What say we give him a bit of a flypast, pop into Brize Norton for a suck of fuel and he can bring us some lunch out to the airfield?’

Anna’s eyes burned bright as a flame.

‘Oh, Juliet. He would absolutely love it! Imagine both of us turning up in Spitfires … jeez, Louise, that would be the business! He’d die and go to heaven, right there and then!’ She leant in. ‘But we’ll get in terrible trouble if anyone ever finds out we beat up the village.’

I glanced around the ops room.

‘But no one is going to find out, are they, so don’t worry!’

After a rather marvellous lunch, we arrived at RAF Dishforth around six p.m. to find that Lottie had wandered into the Officers’ Mess the night before and declared that two of the most beautiful women in England were flying into Dishforth the next day and would require a lift to RAF Leeming. She was inundated with offers and an hour after telephoning the RAF Leeming Officers’ Mess to announce our arrival, Anna and I were sitting in the back of a Canadian Air Force Jeep being escorted up the road by a couple of airmen from Montreal.

Lottie was waiting outside the Met Office when we arrived, wearing her WAAF uniform. She hugged me as if she had just that second discovered the whole world would end tomorrow.

‘Oh, Juliet,’ she cried, not letting go. ‘I was so relieved when you said you could come. I can’t tell you