Free Our Yanks by Margaret Mayhew Page A

wooden crates. A Lightning was taxiing along the track from the other direction and two Yanks in caps and overalls were standing watching and waiting for it. Chester propped the bike against the nearest hut. ‘Stay right here out of the way, Tom. Don’t come any closer, case you get hurt.’ He did as he was told. The fighter turned off the track and onto a concrete stand and the engines stopped, the propellers turning slower and slower until they were still. Chester and the other two Yanks had gone forward to put chocks in front of the wheels and Chester got up onto the wing and helped open the cockpit cover. The pilot climbed out. He stood there on the wing with his goggles pushed up onto the top of his helmet, oxygen mask dangling, a yellow life vest over his brown leather jacket, a white scarf round his neck. Tom gazed at him. He had seen lots of pictures of fighter pilots in comics but this one was really real. The pilot jumped down to the ground and stood talking to the three Yanks for a while until a jeep came fast along the track and stopped. The pilot walked over towards it, carrying his dinghy pack, and when he saw Tom standing there and staring, he grinned at him. ‘Want a lift back, kid?’
    He sat in the front in the space between the driver and the pilot. There were four more pilots squashed in the back with their packs and the jeep roared at top speed back round the track. His heart was pounding again with excitement. When they stopped outside a hut and all of them had spilled out his pilot said, ‘You from the village, kid?’
    â€˜Yes, sir.’ The pilot would be an officer and he knew that you always called them ‘sir’. He pulled up his socks. ‘I’m Tom Hazlet.’
    The Yank lit a cigarette and snapped his lighter shut. ‘Know anyone who’d do laundry there, Tom?’
    He thought of the often-empty Oxo tin on the kitchen shelf. ‘My mum might.’
    â€˜Where do you live?’
    â€˜Number 14, in the high street, past the bakery.’
    â€˜Great.’ The pilot ruffled Tom’s hair with one hand. ‘I’ll come by and see her.’
    â€˜What name shall I tell Mum, sir?’
    â€˜Lieutenant Mochetti.’ He pronounced it Loo-tenant, like the Yanks always did. ‘Call me Ed. Like some gum?’ Tom caught the Wrigley’s packet neatly.
    He walked straight out of the main gate, ducking under the striped pole and past the sentry on duty, who gave him a wave. On the way down the hill towards the village, the old bus that had been converted into a WVS canteen passed him going up. He could see that bossy old trout Mrs Vernon-Miller looking out. He swaggered down the high street, chewing a piece of Wrigley’s, and ran into Dick and Robbie and Seth. Dick barred his way.
    â€˜Where d’you get that gum?’
    â€˜Yank pilot.’
    â€˜You been up at the ’drome?’ Seth asked suspiciously. ‘You get inside?’
    He knew they were always hanging about up there. ‘Nah. No use trying. They won’t let you in. It’s Top Secret.’
    He wasn’t going to tell them about it, not for all the tea in China. He sidestepped Dick and sauntered on down the street, hands in pockets, chewing his gum and whistling.
    Sergeant Chester Somers freewheeled down the hill towards the village. He’d bought his bike in a secondhand shop in Peterborough and it had cost him ten shillings, even though it was real beat-up. He reckoned it had been through a lot more than two owners, like the guy had told him, but he’d paid up. Soon as he’d arrived in England, he’d cottoned on that you couldn’t get about without one. For a start, the base wasn’t like the ones back home where everything was close together. Over here, the RAF had put buildings all over the place and kept the planes scattered round the airfield so the Germans couldn’t bomb the lot together. It made good sense but it