‘True.’
‘So?’
‘No, I didn’t resent you. Honestly, I didn’t think about you. I thought about what we were doing, and carrying on doing it.’
‘And now?’
‘Now?’ Robbie had shrugged. ‘You’re here, there’s a war still to fight because of everyone who’s spent the past three years making sure of it, and hopefully together we’ll win it sooner.’
‘Cheers to that,’ the New Yorker had said, raising his pint.
They hadn’t seen him again.
His plane had gone down over Munich the following day, and although chutes had been spotted, Prim’s Clint said there’d been no notification of any of the crew being taken prisoner on the ground. The battered locals didn’t particularly like bomber crew.
It could happen that they disappeared before getting processed.
They’d all been relieved that no one from 96 had fallen over Essen the night before. Although another V for Verity had been hit by flak, they’d managed to limp back to France before baling out, so stood a chance of being smuggled home by Mabel’s friends in the resistance. Other than for them, every crew had returned, and Iris and Clare had taken it in turns to instruct them to absolutely pancake, which everyone, besides Ambrose, had enjoyed.
‘Why are they still doing that?’ he’d demanded of Sergeant Browning, appearing from nowhere in the control room.
Fred hadn’t been there; he’d gone to Essen too, and had been aerodroming at fifteen before absolutely pancaking himself.
‘Because it makes everyone happy,’ Sergeant Browning had replied.
‘It makes everyone happy, sir,’ Ambrose had corrected him.
‘It makes everyone happy,sir.’
‘Hello, Queen. Absolutely pancake, over,’ Clare had toldBucks Boys.
And Iris, who’d just told Henry inMabel’s Furyto do the same, had smiled.
‘This isn’t a game, Winterton,’ Ambrose had barked. ‘It’swar.’
‘Is it really?’ she hadn’t been able to help herself riposting. But she’d been tired after the long night, and impatient to see Robbie, and so very fed up with all of Ambrose’s endless pettiness. She’d given up counting the number of times he’d now attempted to ground either herself, or Clare, or both of them, and it wasn’t just them he did it to. He nitpicked at everyone (except Prim), handing out punishments for everything from badly polished shoes, to sloppy salutes, to untidy billets, to curfews missed by a minute. ‘And here was me thinking I was doing all this for fun.’
For which impertinence, the crime ofbeing smart, Ambrose had once again declared her grounded,until further notice,then he’d grounded Clare and Browning too, for protesting at how unfair he was being.
Robbie, his superior, had taken him aside though, straight after Iris had filled him in at interrogation, and had a word with him about the misguidedness of interfering with the morale of the crews, who probably wouldn’t enjoy learning that their radio operators had been punished for keeping up their spirits by a man who, when all was said and done, tucked himself into bed every night.
‘So now he hates you too,’ said Iris to him, when he’d arrived at the cottage afterwards.
‘I don’t give a damn what he thinks of me,’ Robbie had replied, tossing his cap to the floor, smiling as he’d joined her in the kitchen doorway. ‘It might make life easier if you stop annoying him though.’
‘But hewantsto be annoyed,’ Iris had said, leaning back against the door’s frame, raising her face to his.
‘And you love obliging,’ Robbie had replied, running his hands around her waist. ‘I can’t keep going into bat for you … ’
‘I love it when you talk like a cricket captain.’
‘I mean it. I can’t. He’s unimaginative but not stupid. Eventually he’s going to guess that we’re … ’
‘Up to mischief?’ she’d said, unbuttoning his tunic.
‘Exactly.’ He’d kissed her neck. ‘He’ll start watching you too closely.’
She’d closed her eyes. ‘He already watches me closely.’
