Page 14 of Times Four A woman walks up to join us. Perhaps her face is too strong for beauty, but her strength and her style give her an attractiveness most women lack. I know her, I know that I know her well but for a moment her name escapes me. I scrabble through my memories of this time to identify: “Kitty!” I greet her. She nods acknowledgement, then pulls out a chair. “This just isn’t good enough” she drawls in her transatlantic accent. “You Brits will put up with anything.” “What’s wrong now?” I query. Kitty is one of our new fliers who crossed the Atlantic to join us, but who is honest to the point of brashness. Whatever Kitty thinks, she says, and she does not care who hears her or who she upsets. I remember that Kitty disparaged our warm beer and cold pies, our weather, our buildings, our beds, the shyness of our British boys, the standard of their courtship rituals, our ATA medical examination – well she did have a point there. I suspect that the RAF doctor really is a pervert. He did take a very long time to examine us and to admit that women like us in our peak years, most of us in our late teens or early twenties, were fit enough to fly planes. But really, Kitty could be just a bit too outspoken at times. She had called that RAF doctor a pervert to his face and refused to undress for her examination. It caused quite a stir at the time. “Well, just look at that!” Kitty exclaims as she points to a table by the far wall where a hot water urn surrounded by all the crockery and paraphernalia for making tea or coffee sits in solitary splendour. Even though the urn is ready, bubbling away with steam rising, the table is lonely and unused. That is odd because usually we all queue for a cup of tea, enjoying the warmth of Pat the tea lady’s personality and conversation as much as the warmth of the beverage. Where is Pat today? Southampton people still turn up for work every day even when they are blitzed the night before but you did have to be careful now to avoid the trekkers if you drive around country lanes at night. The trekkers are the civilians who sleep rough because they do not feel safe anymore in their homes or in the 600 year old underground vaults now being used as bomb shelters. One of our ATA girls whose avowed mission is to romance every high ranking officer she meets complained only yesterday that she and her latest Brass Hat could not find a secluded spot to park in any of the local country lanes to get friendly, because they were all taken up by trekkers abandoning their Southampton homes for the night. This story is an excerpt from the e-book “Times Four” written by Sue Bagust and available on Smashwords and Amazon for US$2.95 https://smashwords/books/view/394626
Posted on: Wed, 23 Jul 2014 23:15:10 +0000
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