The Seventh Link by Margaret Mayhew

Author:Margaret Mayhew
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
ISBN: 9781780105734
Publisher: Severn House Publishers
Published: 2014-07-23T16:00:00+00:00

SEVEN

The reunion dinner was to be held that evening in a banqueting room at a hotel in Lincoln. Don Wilson had sobered up enough for his comrades to take him along with them in one of their two cars while the Colonel drove Geoffrey and Heather Cheetham in his Riley.

The three towers of the cathedral stood out clearly on the hilltop as they approached the city. A very useful landmark for any aircraft trying to find its way home at dawn in bad weather, the Colonel thought. And God only knew how they had managed it at night. Hallo Darky, he knew, had been the wartime emergency call sign of a bomber in trouble.

Hallo Darky, Hallo Darky. Mayday, Mayday, Mayday. A soft-voiced WAAF would have answered calmly out of the night. Hello, aircraft calling Darky. Transmit for fix.

To an exhausted pilot returning with a badly shot up aircraft and probably with wounded or dead on board, it must have seemed like the voice of an angel.

Pre-dinner drinks were being served when they arrived and the gathering included city dignitaries with their wives, a local reporter, a press photographer and ordinary civilians, some of them about the age that the crews would have been during the war.

‘We had to limit the numbers or we’d have been swamped.’ Geoffrey said. ‘There’s been a lot of interest from all over the county. Now, more than ever, apparently. Strange, isn’t it?’

The Colonel didn’t think it was strange at all. The men of Bomber Command might have been cold-shouldered by post-war governments but, by now, ordinary people were well aware of the guts and grit that they had demonstrated. The steadfast bravery that they had shown unflinchingly for nights on end. They had been a big part of England’s finest hour. An hour to be proud of – unlike some others since.

Before the dinner started there was a photocall for the veterans who lined up dutifully, blinking in the flashlights, unused to being treated like film stars. Spontaneous applause broke out, everyone clapping them loudly. Being the only surviving complete crew, Bill, Jack, Bob, Roger, Ben, Jim and Don came in for special attention and a photograph on their own, the Australian having been persuaded to put down his beer. There was more applause.

The seating was at round tables and the Colonel had been placed next to Heather Cheetham. The older woman on his other side was very small and thin but far from frail. Sprightly was the adjective he would have used. Even tough. She had served in the Air Transport Auxiliary in the Second World War, she told him. Her job had been to collect and deliver planes all over the country. There had been more than a hundred women serving. They had flown in daylight within sight of the ground, with no radio, following a map balanced on their knee and a book of pilot’s notes for the aircraft type. She had flown many different kinds: Hurricanes, Spitfires, Sea Otters, Walruses, Oxfords, Blenheims, Lysanders, Mustangs, Corsairs … and even the four-engined Lancasters.

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