Code Name Verity(36)

I had better get to work – though I have bought my extra week, I now have only half as much time each day for writing. And my day is longer too.

I am getting tired.

I know, I know. Special Ops Exec. Write –

Ferry Pilot

Maddie went back to Oakway. There was now an Air Transport Auxiliary ferry pool there, and Oakway had also become the biggest parachute training centre in Britain. As an ATA pilot Maddie was demoted in rank and a civilian again, but she was able to live at home, and she was given a petrol allowance for her bike so she could get to the airfield, and she could trade in a day’s completed ferry chit for a two-ounce bar of Cadbury’s milk chocolate.

Maddie was in her element at last. No matter that the sky had changed – it was an obstacle course of balloon cables and restrictions and military aircraft and, often, dirty weather. Maddie was in her element, and her element was air.

They throw you through some aerobatics that you’ll never use, watch you take off and land something and, hey presto, you’re qualified to fly Class 3 aircraft (light twin engines) and all the Class 2s (heavy single engines) without ever having seen most of them. Maddie said they are supposed to do 30 long-distance training flights up and down the country to imprint it on their brains until they can fly without looking at a map, but she got signed off at 12 because it was taking too long to wait for decent weather and they wanted her working. There is an ATA pilot killed every week. They are not shot down by enemy fire. They fly without radio or navigation aids into weather that the bombers and fighters call ‘unflyable’.

So Maddie, first day on the job, walks into the hut that the Oakway ATA pilots laughingly call their ‘Mess Hall’.

‘There’s a Lysander chalked up here with your name on it,’ says her new Operations officer, pointing to the blackboard with its list of aircraft to be moved.

‘Has it really?’

Everyone laughs at her. But not meanly.

‘Never flown one, have you,’ says the Dutchman, a former KLM pilot who knows the north of England almost as well as Maddie does, having made regular passenger landings at Oakway from the time it opened.

‘Well,’ says Ops, ‘Tom and Dick are taking the Whitleys over to Newcastle. And Harry is taking the Hurricane. That leaves the taxi Anson and the Lysander for the ladies. And Jane’s got the Anson.’

‘Where’s the Lysander going?’

‘Elmtree, for repair. Faulty tailplane handwheel. It’s flyable, but you have to hold the control column right forward.’

‘I’ll do it,’ says Maddie.

Not a Safe Job

They gave her a very thorough navigation briefing beforehand, as the aircraft’s defect meant she couldn’t expect to fly hands-free. She wouldn’t be able to juggle maps en route. She sat studying the pilot’s notes for an hour (the detailed notes they give the operational pilots who’ll only ever fly one type of aircraft), then panicked about losing the weather. Now or never.

The ground crew was aghast at the idea of a girl flying the broken Lysander.

‘She won’t be strong enough. With the tail set for take-off yon slip of a lass won’t be able to hold the stick hard for’ard enough for landing. Don’t know if anyone could.’

‘Someone landed it here,’ Maddie pointed out. She’d already been given the chit for the job and wanted to leave while she could still see the Pennines. ‘Look, I’ll just set it neutral by hand before I get in. Easy peasy –’

– And she gently pushed the tail into place, stood back and dusted her hands on her slacks (navy, with an Air Force blue shirt and navy tunic and cap).

The mechanics were still frowning, but they’d stopped shaking their heads.

‘It’ll be a pig to fly,’ Maddie said. ‘I’ll just keep the climb-out and landing nice and long and shallow. Come in fast, 85 knots, and the automatic flaps’ll stay up. It’s not too windy. Should be fine.’

At last one of the lads gave a slow, reluctant nod.

‘Tha’ll manage, lass,’ he said. ‘I can see tha’ll manage.’

That first ATA flight Maddie made was hard work. Not frightening; just hard work. It was hard, at first, to look past the gun sight sockets and camera fixing plates and rows and rows of bomb selector switches for bombs she wasn’t carrying, a Morsing key for a radio that wasn’t connected, etc.

Fly the plane, Maddie.

The six familiar, friendly faces of the flight instrument panel smiled at her behind the control column. One of the ground crew anxiously made sure she knew where to find the forced-landing flare release.