and of a victory won not only for ourselves, but for all; a victory won, not for our own time, but for the long and better days that are to come.’
Finishing his speech, he sat back in his chair and emptied his glass of whisky. Filling the air with more blue cigar smoke, he seemed pensive, as though he’d once again forgotten that Julia was there.
Then all at once, he came to his senses, barking out instructions on where he needed the speech to go.
She rolled the paper out of the typewriter and separated the carbon and the copy, then placed the original on his desk as he pulled out a pen and started to make the edits he wanted. ‘Will that be all, sir?’ she asked in a quiet voice.
He grunted, nodded his head, absorbed by the words on the page. As she got to the doorway, his voice reached out to her. ‘Thank you, Julia. I’m very grateful for your service.’
She nodded, and as pride sprang up in her heart, she closed the door behind her.
Going back to the typing pool, she felt encouraged, strengthened by the work she was doing and knowing that, in her small way, like so many others, she was encouraging her own prime minister to do the job he needed to do. But deep inside she wondered, was all of this futile? Would England be overrun by Germans one day? Would she see Nazis goose-stepping down the Strand or taking over Buckingham Palace? She couldn’t even think about the Houses of Parliament with Nazi flags flying over the top of it. It just couldn’t happen. One thing she knew about her nation: the people of Britain would fight to the death to preserve their freedom. They may be just a small island, but they had a mighty history of fighting for what was right. Taking in a deep breath, she strode back to the pool, put the extra copy of the speech on her desk, and started her day of work.
23
The first time Lizzie heard his voice over the radio, two days after they had met, her heart skipped a beat. She’d always felt the extreme importance of her job, plotting the pilots’ movements during their air battles, but now to hear Jack’s voice through a headset made her stomach flutter.
‘Red Leader moving into position. I can see three enemy planes from here. I’m going in,’ came his calm delivery.
Lizzie hadn’t seen him since that first night and she suddenly felt close to him, imagining his smile, his eyes on her, that warm kind voice calling her by her name and she wondered if he thought about her down here listening in. However, she didn’t have long in her reverie, as she was pulled sharply back into the present and the need to do her job.
‘Acknowledged, I see all three,’ came back Jack’s counterpart.
Praying for his safety and holding her breath, she pushed the three enemy planes into position on the map. It was hard enough when any of the British pilots were in the middle of a dogfight, but now to have the man she couldn’t stop thinking about up there put her heart in her throat. His wingman, Alan, answered him, ‘Falling in behind Red Leader.’
‘I’m going to veer right and come down below them,’ Jack stated, and Alan replied in the affirmative. She listened intently as the battle unfolded in the sky above her.
When the rattle of gunfire disrupted the transmission, Lizzie froze as she listened for his voice.
But it wasn’t Jack she heard, it was Alan saying in a frantic tone, ‘Watch out three o’clock, Red Leader! Three o’clock!’
Lizzie paused. As she waited for the response, there was the sound of another round of bullets.
‘Coming around. I’m coming around.’ Alan’s voice again.
Where was Jack? Another rattle of gunfire. All of a sudden, it was him, he sounded intense, but assured. ‘I’m going to climb higher, see if I can shake them off.’ The sound of his engine as it climbed steeply whined through her headset.
Then all at once the sound of an explosion. Lizzie couldn’t help but suck in air and thrust a hand to her throat. Below it her heart was beating rapidly and she felt light-headed.
‘Please, God, let him be all right,’ she whispered to herself. The radio crackled in response, and there was no more communication for about thirty seconds, but it could have been two hours as far as Lizzie was concerned. She closed her