The Spitfire Girls(7)

‘How about I make the travel plans and you follow orders,’ he said gruffly. ‘We don’t want to send the army into collective heart failure over female pilots just yet.’

Lizzie beamed at the men seated in front of her. England, here I come!





CHAPTER TWO

LONDON, ENGLAND, JANUARY 1942

RUBY

Ruby Sanders sat beside her mother and held out her cup for more tea, concentrating on keeping it perfectly balanced on the saucer. She reached for a cube of sugar and dropped it gently into the cup, cringing when she saw the look on her future mother-in-law’s face. Carolyn sighed and pointed at the tiny tongs on the tray. Ruby didn’t want a second sugar, but she smiled and reached for them anyway. The woman was a stickler for manners, and despite her best efforts, Ruby still managed to do the wrong thing almost every time she visited.

‘Darling, if there’s enough available, would you like silk and lace?’

Ruby nodded politely. ‘Of course. Although I’m more than happy to alter my mother’s dress if need be.’

‘There’s no need for hand-me-downs,’ Carolyn said, visibly shuddering. ‘I wouldn’t hear of it!’

‘Well, thank you,’ Ruby said, squirming in her seat as she sipped her too-sweet tea. ‘But only if it’s not too much to expect, after the war.’

‘If you want silk, we’ll find silk,’ Carolyn said with a curt nod. And Ruby believed her. She was certain this woman got everything she wanted in life, no matter how high the stakes. ‘We certainly don’t want this to be a common wedding by anyone’s standards, now do we?’

‘Mmmm, of course not.’

‘But you wouldn’t want to show too much skin. Modest is best, don’t you think, dear?’

Ruby blinked away images of the pretty, deep V-neckline she’d been coveting, not about to disagree. ‘Yes. Of course.’

Tom. That’s why she was here. That was the reason she was even in this posh sitting room, pretending it was the most natural thing in the world to talk about silk and dresses and fancy cakes, despite the fact that her fiancé was away fighting, with his life on the line. The way Carolyn talked, it was like she expected the war to end and everything to go back to normal with a click of her fingers – almost as if they were pretending that Tom was away on business, and not part of a war!

‘And white? Or cream? I think your beautiful peachy skin tone will look stunning no matter what you wear.’

Ruby smiled. She couldn’t wait to marry Tom, but the finer details were lost on her. She just wanted him to make it home safely; however and wherever they got married wouldn’t matter. So long as I get my Tom back.

‘Ruby?’

She glanced up, realising how long she’d been in her own little world, daydreaming.

‘Darling, you’re a million miles away!’ Carolyn exclaimed. ‘We were just talking about cakes. Fruit cake with white icing, do you think?’

Ruby nodded politely, as she always did. ‘That sounds perfect.’ She was certain they’d discussed the cake every single time she’d come to visit, and they always all agreed on a fruit cake.

‘Won’t it be wonderful to see our two lovebirds finally united,’ her own mother eventually said, giving her a strange look.

Ruby sat up straighter, trying to focus on the conversation. But she knew why she was so distracted. She glanced down at her bag, thinking about the advertisement she’d seen in Aeroplane magazine only a few hours earlier. It was burning a hole in her mind and she wanted to find the page again and make sure she hadn’t dreamt it. It seemed an eternity since that scathing article she’d read about women pilots in the same magazine two years earlier; the tide was turning, and it wasn’t so common to read negative feedback about women taking to the sky. In fact, everyone seemed to be applauding them now, after being so terribly mean to them in the beginning.

Women pilots. She’d read about May Jones and the First Eight with so much excitement at the time, but the idea of joining the ATA hadn’t seemed like a real possibility to her, and she’d certainly never considered that she might be good enough. Flying for fun was one thing, but flying warplanes? She couldn’t ever imagine being brave enough to put her hand up for that.

Ruby tried to imagine what it would feel like, climbing into a plane to deliver it to a military base, and almost laughed at the thought; it seemed so ridiculous. It would be incredible and so rewarding to help the war effort so boldly, but would she be capable of flying those types of planes? Was she cut out for flying so defiantly and taking risks like that? She sighed. Probably not. Not without Tom beside her in the co-pilot seat, guiding her when she needed him.

The wireless crackled into life, and Ruby jumped up to tune it, used to doing it for her parents, who were always glued to the news each night. She stood for a moment, listening, then shuddered when the announcer stated that Japanese aircraft had launched a surprise air raid on an airfield in Western Australia. Every bulletin made her fear for Tom, and she preferred to imagine him doing his job and coming home to her safely than worrying about every loss and casualty reported. She went back to her seat, hoping the Australian losses weren’t severe.

‘I pray to God they don’t attack Australia like they did Pearl Harbor,’ Carolyn said. ‘It’s unbelievable!’