The fire flickered and snapped. Hector lay sleeping at my feet; Tommy, mesmerized by the fire, blinked and stretched and yawned. By my side was what remained of the bag of toffees; on the arm of the sagging old chair lay the book I had been longing to open since it shouted ‘Pick me up!’ from the library shelf.
First, I fanned the pages, stopping here and there to look at what had once been amateur snaps of crews and aircraft, and diagrams and plans of airfields – aerodromes, the compiler of the book called them.
By far the most important parts, as I saw it, were the runways and the control towers. The perimeter tracks – which ran right round each airfield – and various blocks of buildings were further away and lower in the order of things, it would seem. I turned to the index. What I sought was there, on page ten.
RAF STATION ACTON CAREY. Completed Oct. 1943. Aircraft consisted two squadrons of Lancaster bombers, Marks I & II.
There followed a history of all the raids from Acton Carey; which shipyard or factory or docks had been targeted and how many bombers were missing after each one. The operations flown from Acton Carey had been many. Each Lancaster carried a crew of seven, and seven young lives became statistics with each bomber that did not return.
I remembered the memorial outside the church, the grateful remembrance and the date. Then I scanned the list of sorties.
On 2 June 1944 a flying bomb site in France had been targeted, and on 3 June another site at Mont Orgueil. Then, right up until 6 June, marshalling yards in France had been raided every night.
And then it was there – 8 June 1944. Flying bomb site at St-Martin-Le-Mortier; a daylight raid on which four Lancasters were lost; one of them piloted by Sergeant J. J. Hunter.
I tried to remember what I knew about flying bombs; bombs with wings, hadn’t they been, and launched from France against the south coast and London? Hitler’s secret weapon; one which would wipe out the D-Day landings and bring Britain to its knees.
And Jack Hunter had dropped his bomb load on one of the launching sites, because until they were destroyed they were a very grave danger to this country. My history lessons in the sixth form had told me that, yet now I was looking at a list no longer impersonal, and I knew when and from where our bombers took off on so urgent a mission; knew too the name of one of the men who did not return from it.
Jack Hunter. Twenty-four years old and in love with Susan Smith from Deer’s Leap farm, who met him secretly at the creaking kissing gate. Did he ever get to meet her parents, I wondered, or were Jack and Susan never to see each other again?
I read on, fascinated to learn that on 15 July 1944, RAF Acton Carey had been handed over to the United States Army Air Corps, who flew daylight missions from there until the end of hostilities in Europe – VE Day. Those huge American Flying Fortresses needed longer runways to take off and land, and what remained of Deer’s Leap fields had been absorbed into the airfield.
Yet now Deer’s Leap was once again a place of tranquillity. All that was left were memories, a war memorial in a quiet village – and the ghost of a pilot who waited for his girl; had been waiting for more than fifty years.
Near to tears, I closed the book with a snap. It was history now, I insisted; had ended when my mother was a baby. It was nothing at all to do with me, so why was I thinking about it every spare moment I had? Why did I feel the need to find Susan Smith?
I had no way of knowing. All I could be certain of was that Jack Hunter had latched on to me as his only hope, and I could not let him down.
‘I lit a fire last night,’ I said to Jeannie as I stowed her bags in the car boot. ‘The house seemed a little cold, after the rain. Shall we light one tomorrow night? I’ve got a bottle of wine – or would you like to go to the Rose again?’ I said off-handedly, though I was desperate to talk to Bill Jarvis.
‘Go on the bikes, you mean? I’d love to, Cassie.’
‘So would I, actually.’ The relief in my voice was obvious. ‘And we’d be better at it this time. Cycling uses up four calories a minute, did you know?’
‘Big deal,’ Jeannie grinned, because she ate whatever she fancied and didn’t put on an ounce.
‘Bill Jarvis might be there. I’d like to talk to him again.’
‘It’ll cost us, Cassie. Bill never does owt for nowt!’
‘It’ll be worth it. I want to talk to as many of the old ones as I can – get them to tell me how it was when they were young. Money well spent!’
I indicated right at the next set of lights, taking the Clitheroe road. Soon we would be driving through Acton Carey; passing a clump of oak trees and the spot at which I first met Jack Hunter. I wondered if I wanted him to be there tonight when Jeannie was with me, and decided I did not, because Jeannie might not even know he was there. Not everybody can see, or even sense ghosts.
The matter didn’t arise, though. We drove past the oaks and The Place without incident and when she got out to open the white gate for me, I had time to take a look at the kissing gate. He wasn’t there, either.
‘Thanks, chum,’ I whispered as Jeannie waved me through; thanks, I meant, to Jack Hunter for not being there. After all, he was taboo, wasn’t he?
Jeannie took her bags upstairs whilst I made a pot of tea.
‘It’s a lovely evening. Shall we put cardies on, and have it on the terrace?’
Jeannie said it was a good idea, and was there any parkin left?
‘We ate it all, but Mum and Dad might come up for the day, next week, and she’ll bring some with her. I particularly asked her to. I thought they might’ve come on Sunday, but Dad’s busy, judging at flower shows.’
We sat there without speaking because Jeannie had closed her eyes and was taking long, slow breaths.
‘Penny for them,’ I said when I’d had enough of the quiet.
‘I was just thinking that I could get out of publishing,’ she smiled, holding out her empty cup, ‘if I could find a way to bottle this air. People in London would pay the earth for it.’
‘Then before you do – give up publishing, I mean – I think I ought to tell you that I’m getting ideas about the next book.’
‘Good girl. That’s what I like. Unbridled enthusiasm. Got anything of a storyline worked out?’
‘We-e-ll, what would you say if I told you it would have Deer’s Leap in it, and the year would be 1944? Will war books be old hat by the time I get it written?’
‘Dunno. Depends on who’s writing them, and the genre. Would it be blood and guts, sort of, or a love story?’
‘A love story – and tragic.’
‘A World War Two Romeo and Juliet, you mean?’
‘Mm. I was talking to Bill on Wednesday night. He told me there had been a lot of crashes hereabouts and that Acton Carey wasn’t a very safe place to be.’
‘And you feel strongly enough about that period to write about it with authority? There are a lot of people alive still who would soon let you know if you got anything wrong.’
‘I’ll tell you something, then.’ It was my turn to take a long, deep breath. ‘When I was at the library I saw a book about all the Bomber Command airfields in Lancashire during the war and bombing raids flown from Acton Carey are all listed in it. Someone went to a lot of trouble to get all the details. The Lancasters must have gone somewhere else, because in July 1944 the American Army Air Corps took the place over.’
‘I wonder where those squadrons of Lancasters went.’ Jeannie was getting interested.
‘I don’t know. But I did see the war memorial in the village.