‘Did they work?’
‘Never in a month of Sundays.’ He said all this with his pipe in his mouth, but removed it to give a great spit. ‘Nothing ever bloody does any more, do it?’
He pulled down the chute and rolled the silk, the shrouds and the harness into a ball which can’t have been much more than eighteen inches across: I got the feeling that he’d done this before. I recalled that the Yanks had flown Thunderbolts from near here after D-Day, and had dropped them all over the shop . . . so maybe my shepherd had had some practice. The dog snarled at me as it followed him away.
I took my time walking in. The Oxford was already on the ground. Sergeant Hickman asked me to go back and get the parachute, and I told him I’d lost it. The corporal looked worried, and said he thought I’d have to pay for it. I observed that if I had to explain what had happened to the parachute, we all might have to explain what a girl was doing up in an aircraft chartered to the RAF, with her skirts around her ears. They got my unsubtle point. The corporal looked even more worried. The onshore puff had disappeared again; it was absolutely still.
Randall told us, ‘I think your parachute got blown to shreds in the gale, Charlie. I guess you were lucky to get down.’
‘You’re right, Randall. I probably owe my deliverance to the fine training these two gentlemen have given me today.’
Ivy butted in and said, ‘I don’t understand what you’re talking about.’ Then she asked the sergeant, ‘Can’t I have the parachute, after all?’
At least he had the grace to blush until Randall rescued him with, ‘No you can’t, honey. It got lost. We’ll catch you another time, OK?’ and we all shook on it.
The corporal explained, ‘You were supposed to land in the middle of the airfield, but everyone freezes the first time they jump, so we tell them early, count to five, and then shove them out. I touched your shoulder, shouted Go! . . . and you went straight away. That’s never happened before. It’s why you nearly ended up in the drink.’
‘I wasn’t going to let any bastard push me out of an aeroplane.’
Honours even, I supposed. I was an NCO myself once and liked the breed, so I didn’t prolong the agony for them. They gave me an A Pass certificate for falling out of aircraft, and another for firing sub-machine guns in empty hangars, and I shook their hands and watched them go.
Ivy and I waited to wave Randall off. It was still early afternoon, and the sun had a couple of hours in it. I told Ivy about the Listening Ears, and she didn’t believe me, so I had to walk her over to see them for herself.
I’ve often thought that big strange-shaped objects have a profoundly odd effect on young women. That’s probably why most of the girls I’ve really fancied chose tall boyfriends instead. Ivy and I tried out the body-sized dip in the shingle where I’d arrived. I lifted her skirt for a slow and detailed reconnaissance, and thought I’d arrived all over again, but eventually she pushed me off and said she was saving herself for her wedding night. You can’t argue with that, can you? I ached, but it didn’t stop us laughing a lot, and walking back in the twilight arm in arm . . . which isn’t too bad a way to end a day.
Lucy was inspecting the guard when we got back. I wondered what authority a Wren officer actually had over serving airmen, CO or not – but this lot were all national service heroes from grammar schools, so they wouldn’t have known any better anyway. She had three of them in a line, and was giving them one of her evil little bawling-outs. We had to wait the other side of the compound gate until she dismissed one of them to open it. He grinned, and mouthed old cow as I drove past him. Lucy spotted Ivy, and waved me down – but she went to Ivy’s side of the car.
Ivy beat her to the draw with, ‘Mr Bassett passed me as I was walking in, ma’am. Offered me a lift.’
‘That was kind of him.’ Then she bent down, and looked across Ivy at me. ‘How did it go, Bassett? Any problems?’
‘No. Not once I got over the shock, ma’am. Parachute training.’
‘Always comes in handy.’
‘You’ve done it yourself, ma’am?’
‘I’m not that damned stupid, Mr Bassett.’ That was me told, wasn’t it? She re-addressed herself to Ivy. ‘You’re off back to your factory in a couple of days, aren’t you?’ Ivy nodded in response. The CO continued, ‘Would you mind doing the early shift this morning – two till six? One of the other operators has reported sick. I’ll come on myself and relieve you for a break.’ They’d be on their own: the rest of us would have our heads down. Ho hum, I thought.
Ivy looked down at her feet and nodded. Then she said, ‘Yes; fine.’ There was no ma’am – perhaps the civvies didn’t have to – and no emotion in her voice, one way or the other. Ivy risked a glance at me. She knew I could have got her off the hook by volunteering for it myself. But I didn’t, of course. We didn’t speak as I drove the Singer into the black shadow of the blockhouse. She got out without a word.
I leaned across the passenger seat, and called her back, ‘Ivy love . . .’
She turned and bent down; stuck her head back in the car. ‘Yes?’
‘Leave your knickers off tonight . . . it will save
