Catherine had a crush on her flight-leader, a silly, schoolgirl crush that made her blush every time that Polly entered a room. The first week at Helton Hall had had a distinctly new term feel for the women of 641 with new uniforms to match their temporary WAAF commissions, and thrown together with a group where few knew any one else. As the male officers restricted themselves to a small lodge in the grounds they had settled the Hall in a state approaching chaos, the initial free for all over room selection had resulted in the older women queening it over the younger ones, whose resentment was constantly bubbling up in petty squabbles. Anarchy reigned until the trim, wasp waited flight-lieutenant Watson arrived and set at once establishing military order.
Life until then had not been so different for Catherine from her time as a ferry pilot, the food was better and she dressed pretty much as she liked. The room she shared with another of the girls had already become a haven of sloth for both of them. Pat had appointed WAAF orderlies to clean their quarters while making it absolutely clear that this was not a licence to live like pigs, late nights and lazy mornings were also banished and order brought to the mess. She managed to do this with a minimum of fuss and very little rebellion from the ranks until she had insisted that slacks were only to be worn at the airfield and proper uniform at all other times. For many of the pilots who had spent years avoiding skirts this was an imposition too far, voices were raised, and conspiracies hatched.
Through it all Pat had retained an air of calm, talking to all the pilots individually and only when this had failed to bring round the most recalcitrant did she call on squadron-leader Trent to intervene. It had left a little bitterness in the mess, with several girls choosing to spend as much time at the field as they could get away with; which may have been what the flight-lieutenant had been trying to achieve.
There was however a deeper resentment that could have crippled all Pat’s efforts. Catherine like all the others had been incredibly excited to join an all female fighting squadron, to be given a chance to do more for the war effort than ferry planes from factory to depot and the announcement that in reality the fighting would still be done by male pilots was a crushing disappointment. After the announcement that the newcomers would be disguised as women she and her room mate had speculated wildly about what sort of men would allow this indignity to be visited on them, and giggled themselves breathless at the prospect of three effeminate female impersonators mincing about the station. It had been rather a shock when the newcomers arrived, they might have been somewhat prissy, slightly old fashioned in behaviour but the realisation of the effort it must have taken to appear so natural made a deep impression on almost all of them.
So far it had been Polly that had the most to with the women pilots, the other two appeared in the mess for meals but largely kept themselves apart from the rest of the squadron. Catherine did not doubt that she was the only one who felt relieved that flying-officer Crabtree stayed away, no woman would be comfortable with a pretty creature around, even mores when they knew that pout belonged to a man. Pat was eager to tap Catherine’s knowledge of the Hurricane as she had probably flown more hours in them than anyone in Helton. Even at close quarters it was hard to believe the neat young woman, with the softly curled brown hair was a man, everything about her was so feminine, almost unbelievably feminine. The only clues about her true gender were the ribbon on her breast, which with the attention to these things Catherine knew to be for a DFC and occasionally she caught something in Polly’s eyes, a distance, and a sadness that was slightly at odds with her manner. It would be very easy to fall in love with someone like that Catherine thought if only she was…
There had been a few smirks when Pat had emerged in slacks that morning but she had to admit that flying in the regulation skirt was impractical. It was the first time that she had worn trousers since the day Mal had revealed the nature of the assignment, and while a few weeks ago she might have welcomed the chance to adopt more masculine clothing. Madam D’Hibard’s training regime had been so efficient that she regretted the loss of freedom a skirt gave. She quickly banished the thought as she set off for the airfield, which was quite literally a field in the grounds that had been hurriedly converted to a landing strip, and furnished with an improvised tower, hangars and huts for the other ranks.
