Ed beamed when he saw them. They were scheduled to fly together, and they had a fighter escort again.
“What are we waiting for? Let’s get on with it,” Pru said matter-of-factly as Reggie grinned and shook his head. They locked the doors, strapped in, and taxied down the runway. They had twenty-four injured men to pick up, and everything went smoothly. Pru grinned at Emma after they landed safely back on base with their precious cargo.
“Better flight than last time, eh, Em?” she asked her, and Emma shrugged coolly.
“It was good enough. The last one wasn’t bad either.” They both laughed and walked into the hangar arm in arm for a cup of coffee before their next mission. They had a busy day ahead.
Chapter 13
As though to prove they were in control, or to regain it, the Germans increased the bombings in August, with severe damage to the cities and industrial areas, and intense hand-to-hand combat with fixed bayonets in rural areas on the ground. As a result, the flight nurses were flying with full loads of wounded, and sometimes took on more men than they had beds for. They couldn’t bear to leave anyone behind, and came back for second and third loads whenever they could.
Pru had flown six missions that day, with only enough time to refuel between them, when she walked into the barracks on a warm summer evening. Her overalls were covered with dirt and blood, and all she wanted was a shower and to lie down for a few minutes. The house officer pointed to the nurses’ battered sitting room when she walked by. There was a tall, thin, serious-looking officer waiting for her. She hesitated before walking in, steeled herself, and saluted him, and he invited her to sit down. She knew what that meant and braced herself for whatever he was waiting to tell her. He delivered the bad news swiftly, like a saber run through her heart.
Her younger brother Phillip’s plane had been shot down the night before on a massive bombing raid against the Falaise pocket, where the German army was fighting fiercely. Eighteen bombers had gone down the night before. Phillip had been one of the daring fighter escorts, and he had been shot down too. They had had confirmation that afternoon that he and his crew were all dead. They had become another statistic in the war that was devouring brothers and fathers, lovers and husbands and sons. Pru was one of the bereaved now. Her family had been lucky until then. The officer extended his condolences and left as quietly as he had come. He was the angel of death visiting the survivors, leaving tragedy in his wake.
She walked up the stairs slowly and was surrounded by her friends when she got to her room. The officer had told her that she had been cleared for a three-day leave to go home to Yorkshire, to see her parents. They had heard the news by then. She didn’t have the heart to call them. All she wanted was to go home. Her mind was a blank and Emma and the others helped her pack. Trains were scarce and were running off schedule, and all nonessential travel was discouraged. But she knew that if she waited long enough, she could catch a train north that night. She had priority as an officer. And all she had to do was hope that the train or the tracks didn’t get bombed while she was aboard.
She left the barracks in a blur an hour later, after all the girls hugged her. Someone with a car drove her to the train station—she couldn’t even remember who afterwards. All she knew was that her baby brother was dead. He had been flying daring missions for almost exactly five years, as her older brother, Max, had too. She had been told that they would not be able to recover his body. The plane had exploded in midair after the first volley of shots. She hoped it had been quick, and she was sure he would have been mad as hell when they went down. She hadn’t called her parents because she had no idea what to say. She saw men die every day, but she didn’t have to face their mothers and fathers or any of the people who had loved them.
She caught a freight train out at eight o’clock that night, and sat staring blindly out the window, remembering what a terror he had been as a little boy, how he had taunted her into climbing the tallest trees, and blamed her for everything he’d done. She had hated him for a while. Her older brother, Max, was always the sensible one. Then she had come to love Phillip more than ever before as they grew up. And now he was gone.
The train left her at the station in York at one in the morning. She hadn’t told anyone she was coming, and with her suitcase in hand, she walked the five miles from the station in the silent darkness, grateful to be alone to gather her thoughts. She would have to face her parents in the morning. She wondered if Max had gotten leave to come home too. She hoped so. They hadn’t seen him in months, and she needed his solid comfort now. He would be devastated too.