A Nightingale Sang

A Nightingale Sang Chapter 2

Chapter 2 Bluebirds and Spitfires.

She stood surveying her surroundings, a small slight incongruous figure, nervously fingering the new uniform. The January air was bitingly cold. All around the air base fields were covered in hard white frost. The stark utilitarian concrete buildings, added an air of harsh severity to the winter morning. New runways were being laid. Even this early the camp was alive and busy. In the distance new aircraft hangers dominated the landscape.

Margaret had been right the war hadn't been over by Christmas, to many it was as if it had not really begun. The newspapers called it the phoney war. All that autumn the country waited for something to happen but nothing had, not in Western Europe anyway. The Germans were still fighting in Poland. Poor Poland, fighting tanks with horses, how could they ever hope to win? While Hitler remained occupied with Poland the allies set about preparing for war. Margaret was part of those preparations.

Despite her mother's protests she had set off for basic training. Square bashing and shouting as she called it. She learnt how to march and how to give orders. Rules and regulations, and the RAF had hundreds, were taught learnt and memorised. She had passed out as Assistant Section Officer Margaret Hale and was posted to RAF Andover in Hampshire. So the RAF had set her home, Helston was only thirty miles away. Who she was assistant to, remained a mystery, she was the senior WAAF on the base.

Her journey to Andover had been long and arduous, and her reception from the Station commander, Group Captain Bell had been frosty. He was an old school officer who believed woman had their place, and it was not on a fighter station.

"In the next two months this base has to become operational, I am busy with that, what am I supposed to do with you?"

"Put us to work Sir." Margaret had answered simply.

"Doing what!"

"Whatever is required of us?"

The rest of the interview had been a disaster. Once Margaret had pointed out that twenty WAAFS were due to arrive for basic training in one week's time and that they would need accommodation on the camp, Group Captain Bell had become ever more hostile. Woman staying on his station, it would be mayhem, he said. How could young pilots learn if they were distracted by young woman everywhere? Margaret had straighten her spine and politely explained that they would have to make the best of it. The RAF was not sending her and her WAAFS anywhere else.

A WAAF sergeant approached and saluted smartly. Margaret smiled, Sergeant Mabel Dixon would soon whip the new recruits into shape, a big buxom woman it was obvious she would stand no nonsense.

"Good morning Ma'am."

"Good morning Sergeant Dixon. Well accommodation is the order of the day. I have been told that a Flight Lieutenant Thornton has been detailed to find somewhere suitable. I received a message to make for the Nissan Huts on the north side of the camp; I am surprised that Group Captain Bell has not suggested Timbuktu," she said with a smile.

They began to make their way across the camp. Their progress was halted by the noise of aircraft above the camp. Several aeroplanes circled the base. So these were the much loved Spitfires. Margaret supposed if any aeroplane could be described as a thing of beauty the Spitfire was it. So new, so different; it was sleek and modern with low oval shaped wings, and a nose pointed up as if to say look at me. Even its engine, a Rolls Royce Merlin, spoke of class and elegance. The aeroplanes came into land and the young pilots climbed out, all whooping and laughing, as if sharing some new and exciting experience. Margaret and Sergeant Dixon shared looks of indulgence and amusement boys and their toys.

They moved on across the camp and the Nissen hut came into view. Margaret came to a standstill. The large dome shaped structure was in a sad dilapidated state. It was obviously one of the original structures from when the camp was opened during the First World War. Margaret's heart sank from the outside it barely looked habitable.