Sigrid, Evadne and Maggie collapsed on the grass outside their hut. There was complete silence for several minutes as they looked across the airfield. There were fighters strewn everywhere in conditions ranging from factory perfect, to one that was so badly damaged that Sigrid wasn’t sure how – or whether – the pilot had managed to land it at all.
Typically Evadne was the first to speak. “What just happened?”
“They bombed London,” Maggie answered, looking in the general direction of London. “Lots of them bombed London.”
Sigrid looked towards London as well. She thought she could see a slight haze high in the sky. “Do you think that’s smoke?”
“Hope not,” Maggie answered. “We’re not all that close to London. If we’re seeing smoke from here, then I really don’t want to think about how hard they were hit.”
“Given the numbers that were coming across the Channel, there’s no way that London wasn’t hit,” Evadne pointed out. She looked up as planes flew across the airfield. “Ours or theirs?”
“Theirs. All our planes are either damaged or refuelling and rearming,” Maggie answered. “Remember, every plane that we had was airborne and in combat not that long ago.”
“No prizes for guessing where they’re going,” Sigrid commented.
“No, but at least there’s not as many this time,” Evadne said.
“True, but there’s none of our boys in the air this time,” Maggie answered. “Where’s the bloody ack-ack?”
“Think again – that’s why there’s no ack-ack,” Sigrid said. The German formation had broken up slightly, and as they watched, a plane began plummeting towards the ground, thick dark smoke drifting behind it. “Ours or theirs?”
“Too far away to tell at the moment,” Evadne muttered. “I can’t see a parachute.”
“It’s far too soon to expect a parachute,” Maggie pointed out. “If the pilot managed to get out, we won’t see a parachute for a few minutes.”
“I guess,” Evadne muttered. “I wonder how many we’ve lost.”
“The Pole from Daniel’s squadron is dead,” Sigrid answered. “I heard them saying on the air that he went down in flames. No parachute.”
Maggie winced. “I heard that as well. Nasty way to go.” She looked over at the planes scattered across the airfield. “I don’t even recognise most of those planes.”
“Most of them are not from our squadrons. They were low on fuel and Control told them to land at the nearest airfields rather than sending them back to their home bases,” Evadne told her. “Our guys are scattered across the countryside as well.”
“Hopefully in one piece,” Sigrid muttered.
“Trust you to think of that,” Maggie said. “You can be such a pessimist at times, you know.”
“I’m realistic,” Sigrid responded as yet another wave of planes flew over the airfield. “It’s hard to be completely optimistic at the moment.”
Evadne glanced up. “Yeah. Those poor people.” She shook her head. “Those poor, poor people.”
+++
Daniel and Dave made it back to base about eight o’clock that evening. Daniel had been forced to crash land in a farmer’s field, while Dave had managed to land safely at another airfield.
They joined the girls in the mess. “Good day, was it?” Evadne asked.
“Well, it was an interesting day, that’s for sure,” Dave answered, sitting beside her. “I know that I never, ever want to see that many planes coming at me again.”
“Me neither,” Daniel said as he sat beside Sigrid. “They hit London hard.”
“We thought they had,” Sigrid said. “Is there much damage?”
“The docks got hit very hard – they won’t put those fires out for days,” Dave said. “I also heard they hit Buckingham Palace.”
“I’ve heard that too,” Daniel said. “We hit them hard – I’d love to hear what their losses were today – but there were just too many of them. There’s just no way we could stop them all, try as we might.”
Maggie glanced at her watch. “The news should be on soon,” she said. “I’m sure we’ll find out then.”
“I just don’t understand – why bomb London now?” Dave said. “We’re just about beat now – we’ve had to withdraw from a couple of airfields because they’ve been bombed out of commission. Another couple of weeks of bombing the airfields and we’d have to pull back even further.”
Daniel nodded. “Giving their fleet a chance to get across the Channel and establish a bridgehead.”
“What fleet?”
“They’ve got lots of boats in several Channel ports – Calais, Dunkirk – name a Channel port and they’ve got barges and other landing craft there,” Dave told them. “All they need are troops – and we know they’ve got those – and settled weather.”
“And they’ve had that,” Sigrid said heavily.
“Exactly. So why change their strategy? It was working. Within another couple of weeks we’d have to withdraw behind London. We wouldn’t be able to spend anywhere near the time over the Channel that we do now. They’d have free reign,” Daniel commented.
“Do you think they’ve made a mistake?” Evadne asked.
Dave shrugged. “I really don’t know.”
They fell silent as the wireless crackled into life. “Good evening. This is the BBC. Today the RAF shot down one hundred and eighty German planes for the loss of …” The rest of the news was unable to be heard as the mess exploded in cheers.
Sigrid wondered whether she was the only one who wondered just how many of their people had been lost today.
+++
“German military forces have been reported to have landed on the South Coast of England …”
Sigrid’s jaw dropped open as she listened to the radio news. It was barely after dawn, and the girls were having breakfast before starting their morning shift.
“I don’t believe it,” Maggie muttered.
“I do. This is what yesterday’s about,” Evadne said as she quickly drank her tea. “A diversion – so we didn’t see their troop ships crossing the Channel yesterday.”
“It makes as much sense as anything else does at the moment,” Sigrid said. “But surely somebody would have seen something yesterday.”
“Who? The pilots and the Observer Corps would’ve been watching the planes,” Evadne pointed out.
“All of them?” Maggie asked. “I can believe that their invasion fleet has been launched, but I find it difficult to believe that they’ve had enough time to come ashore and establish a – a landing area.”
“I agree,” Sigrid said. “The invasion’s coming – we know that, but I don’t think they’ve landed.” She frowned. “Well, I hope they haven’t. Not yet.” She thought back to the Home Guards she had watched training – with pikes and pitchforks in place of guns.
This was going to be a disaster – assuming that the invasion was underway.
Sigrid really hoped that the BBC had made a mistake.
+++
It wasn’t until mid morning that they realised just how severe their losses were. Fully a third of their pilots had been killed or injured the day before. Maintenance crews had worked through the night, frantically trying to repair the fighters that had appeared to be completely beyond salvation when they landed. Most of the debris had been removed from the airfield, however enough remained to give a fairly graphic reminder of what had happened the previous day.
They had been put on red alert that morning when the invasion was announced, but had been stood down when it became apparent that there had been no invasion yet.
After yesterday, most people on the base had begun to think that the invasion was both inevitable and imminent. Given their location south east of London, everyone knew that the German landing zones would almost certainly close by. The base already had a couple of anti aircraft guns – in itself a rarity – and more weapons were found.
Sigrid sat on the grass outside the huts and watched the ground crew swarming over the wrecks salvaging parts for future use. It was an overcast day, and so far had been fairly quiet. Then again, perhaps even the German war machine needed time to recover after yesterday. She smiled at the thought.
“What was that smile for?” Daniel asked as he sat down beside her.
Sigrid shrugged. “It’s hard to explain,” she said. “Aren’t you on duty?”
“We’ve been stood down till one o’clock, but we have to stay on base just in case things change as quickly as they did yesterday,” Daniel answered. “It’s a bit unusual to see you by yourself. Where are Maggie and Evvy?”
“It’s Maggie’s day off, so she’s gone into town. I’m not sure where Evvy is.”
Daniel nodded. “Probably with Dave,” he said. He looked down at the writing pad beside her. “Writing to Violet?”
“Yes, also your parents, Miss Annersley, Corney and Polly,” Sigrid answered. “It’s been so busy lately that I haven’t had time to write to them – and now I’ve got a couple of hours free, I’m daydreaming rather than writing letters.”
“You write to your old Headmistress?” Daniel asked.
“Yes, of course. She was very good to me over the last year,” Sigrid answered. “I’ve written to her since we left the Tirol, actually.”
“I can’t imagine writing to my old Headmaster,” Daniel commented.
“The Chalet School is different from most schools,” Sigrid said. “It was certainly better than the school I went to in Norway.”
“Violet said that about her school,” Daniel said. He looked over the airfield. “We got beaten up pretty badly yesterday.”
“Yes, we did, but so did they,” Sigrid answered. “Do you think that we did enough to stop an invasion.”
Daniel was silent. “I think the invasion is coming very soon, and that yesterday was a sign of things to come,” he said finally. “We’ve had a quiet morning – maybe they’re going to keep sending bombers through the night like they did last night.” He looked at her. “You’ve lived under Nazi occupation for a while. If the invasion is successful, what do you think will happen?”
Sigrid shrugged. “I don’t know. It’s a very different situation now than it was then. Remember, they saw Austria as being part of Germany – it was an annexation rather than an invasion.”
“Do you think they’ll come looking for you?”
“No – I didn’t do anything in Austria that would have caused them concern.” Sigrid frowned. “Evvy did, though.”
“Evvy’s American. She’s safe enough for as long as the Americans don’t enter the war. I doubt Hitler would want to start a war with them.”
“I wouldn’t have thought he’d want to start a war with the British, though.” She shrugged. “Then again, lately a lot of things have happened that I would have thought was impossible.”
“That’s true enough,” Daniel said.
Sigrid nodded and looked down at her writing pad. “It’s hard to actually find something to write about. All I seem to do is work, and I know that I can’t mention what’s happening here – the mail gets censored so much anyway that it’s impossible to figure out what anyone’s writing about.”
“I got a letter from Richard the other day and every sentence had been censored,” Daniel agreed. “I couldn’t figure anything out.” He shrugged. “Knowing Richard, it just would have been every detail – and I mean every detail – about life at school.”
Sigrid smiled. “Violet used to read his letters to me. They were … informative.” She yawned. “Excuse me.”
“Don’t do that,” Daniel said, stifling a yawn of his own. “I didn’t get much sleep last night.”
“Did anyone?”
“Probably not.” Daniel looked over at the maintenance crews. “I don’t know how they do it. They spend all day and most of the night patching up the planes for us to wreck them again.”
“I suppose it’s for the same reason any of us do it. Because the alternative is too dreadful to consider.”
“I have to wonder, though, how much of what we’re hearing is propaganda,” Daniel commented. “Surely they can’t be committing all those atrocities that are reported.”
Sigrid looked at him. “Based on my experience, I’d have to say there’s at least an element of truth in most, if not all, of the stories. You ask Evvy about a shopping trip to Spartz nearly two years ago. She can tell the story much better than I can.”
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