It’s hot. Blisteringly hot, for all it’s so early.
Autumn’s coming though, it’s just around the corner, and I can’t bear that either.
Time,my mind whispers,is running out.
Chapter Twenty
Iris
August 1943
Time is running out.
Iris more felt than heard the whisper of those words, like a shadow coming over her. And she didn’t know if they really might be a warning from another life,another fall, or were simply borne of her own fear in this one, but what did it matter anyway?
She couldn’t see that there was anything to be done about it.
Except wait.
Wait, and hope.
Like she was waiting and hoping now, staring out of the control tower window, into the silver light of the late summer’s dawn.
The fading moon was full, just as it had been for Iris and Clare’s first shift at the station, when the boys had flown to Milan. Tonight, the squadron had been sent to the Baltic coast, and Iris and Clare were once again at their desk, Sergeant Browning at his chalkboard, the three of them poised for them all to start returning.
They were just missing their old group captain, Fred. But he, tragically, wasn’t with them any more. He and his crew had disappeared over Essen, the same night that Iris hadn’tfallen down the control tower stairs. No notification had been received that any of them had been taken prisoner, so they were all missing presumed. Iris thought of them every day, hoping they’d somehow made it to safety. She thought of them now, as she sat twitchily beside Clare, and of Fred’s kindness most of all. His wife had taken their daughter to live with her parents in Kent. And maybe Fredwouldfind his way back to them there, surprise them by suddenly appearing.
It did happen.
Sometimes.
Pulling at her hot collar, Iris checked the time.
Almost five.
God, she hated it when the moon was full.
HQ had declared its light essential for the accuracy of this raid, though. The target had been a Nazi weapon plant; the rumour was they were building pilotless rocket bombs there – missiles devastating enough to win them the war – so nothing less than its total destruction would do. Several hundred crew had been sent to see to that, andMabel’s Furyhad led the attack as Master Bomber. There’d have been no swooping in and getting away for them on this raid. Instead, they’d have had to circle the target for the entire operation, coordinating it through a new high-frequency transmitter, dodging flak and fighters until it was complete.
It hadn’t been done before.
No one knew what the chances might be of survival.
If there was any chance at all.
Robbie and the others had been away training for the best part of a month. They’d only returned to Doverley last night, straight from a briefing at Bomber Command, with barely time to refuel before they flew off again. To Iris’s fury and frustration, she hadn’t been able to get to them before they went. Get tohim. Ambrose, with typical timing, had appearedin the control tower to supervise take-off, and been impossible to escape. All Iris had seen of Robbie since July had been for a snatched, delirious weekend in London, two weeks ago now, when they hadn’t gone to a show, or eaten chocolates in any interlude, but had barely left their hotel room, which Robbie had booked for them at The Savoy.
He’d spent a chunk of June away too, on a period of enforced rest. Tim’s high-up uncle in Bomber Command had ordered it for the entire crew at the entreaty of his sister – Tim’s mother, who’d used to fill Tim’s pockets with those sweets, and who, at the start of June, Iris had written to, by then much too worried about her old friend, not to.
He doesn’t seem to be sleeping at all any more,she’d told Mrs Hobbs.I don’t think he can be eating either. He’s lost a lot of weight, and although he tries to pretend that he’s coping, he’s jumpy, distracted, and his hands shake, much more than the usual. I think you should visit.
Mrs Hobbs had arrived the morningMabel’s Furyhad returned from another sortie to the Ruhr, from which three of the fifteen crews that 96 had sent, hadn’t come back (including the last ever V for Verity; it had been scratched from use now); she’d taken her son out for lunch, visited a payphone, and within twenty-four hours, Tim, Robbie, Jacob, Henry, Ames, Gus and Danny had been packing their bags, off to a convalescent hotel in Hampshire.
If only they never had to leave, Mrs Hobbs had written to Iris. Thank you, dear girl. He’s all I have left in this world. I’m sure his papa would want me to thank you, too – I’m certain he’d tell me off for all those pantomimes I should have taken you to. I really do feel so terribly about that now. Please accept the apologies of a very silly woman.
‘I hate her,’ Robbie had said to Iris when they’d met in the cottage before he’d left.
‘No, you don’t,’ she’d said, wrapping her arms around him.
