"By Jove, 'Miss Mary'!" Biggles exclaimed in surprise. "It's been simply ages!"
She smiled, her eyes crinkling around the edges in the way he remembered well.
She'd changed a little since he last had seen her. Instead of schoolgirl plaits, her dark brown hair was tied back and pinned in place at the back of her neck. The large brown eyes sparkled in her heart-shaped face. Her slight olive colouring and full lips betrayed the Anglo-Indian heritage on her mother's side. She had grown since he had last seen her, and now was almost the same height as he. His heart lightened as he looked at her.
"Have you come to see your father?"
"Oh dear me no! He'll act like I've tried to smuggle Hitler into the war office if I haven't made an appointment," said Mary with a laugh. "Mother included a letter for him with mine this morning and I'll leave it with his secretary."
Her eyes examined his tired and emaciated face keenly. "What about a spot of tea and a catch up? I could just do with a cup and I'm sure you could too. If you have time that is," she added.
Biggles paused. He was tired and sore, but the faint wistful note in her voice didn't escape him. He couldn't be rude. He'd known her a long time. And he did need a cup of tea, didn't he?
"That would be nice."
"Lovely. I'll be back directly," and with that Mary Raymond ran up the steps and into the building.
Biggles watched her lithe figure go and tried to remember the last time he had seen her run. Was it when Ginger had pinched her hat or her brother had put a frog in her teacup?
He must be getting soft. Bertie would think so for accepting the invitation.
"There! That's done. Shall we?" Mary was back; her eyes scanning his face carefully, noting the shadows and lines that now marred his still boyish face.
Biggles eyes met hers for a second. "We shall," he said with a smile.
The tea shop, surprisingly, wasn't particularly busy for that time of day.
"This is what passes for afternoon tea these days," sighed Mary, looking at the meagre slices of cake on the plate. "Still, at least it doesn't come out of the rations! Shall I be mother and pour?"
"Please."
Mary put down the teapot. "So what have you been doing since I last saw you?"
"Fighting a war," snarled Biggles.
Mary dropped the tea strainer she had been holding with a clatter and looked stricken.
"Sorry Biggles I didn't mean it like that."
Biggles looked contrite. "I know you didn't, kid. It hasn't been an easy couple of weeks and I took my beastly temper out on you. I'm sorry Mary."
"Would it help to tell me about it?"
Their eyes met. Biggles saw the compassion in her brown eyes. He felt... something. He put it down as hunger.
"It might. I'm not sure what I can and if I can, if you see what I mean?"
"Yes. Take your time."
Biggles took a sip of his tea.
"A few weeks ago I was asked to go somewhere to do something. The situation was more complicated than expected and became more so when I stopped a bullet. It looked as if I would be staying where I was for the duration." Biggles spoke quietly and in a monotone. "Algy, Ginger and Bertie came to find me, and in doing so Ginger caught one in the thigh and Bertie got a knock on the head. They found me. We had to leave quickly and bring some people home. Ginger has fallen in love with one of the girls." He laughed bitterly.
"Have some more tea."
Biggles took another gulp and crumbled some cake on his plate, his fingers shaking slightly.
Mary looked at them thoughtfully.
"Why should Ginger being in love upset you so much? Is there something objectionable about the girl?"
"Jeanette? No! It's just..., I just..."
"Are you afraid he will get hurt?"
Biggles paused to think for a moment. "Or someone else. Or do something stupid."
"Biggles, it's war. War itself is stupid. It's inevitable that some people we love will get hurt. But being in love doesn't have to hurt."
Biggles looked up and his red-rimmed eyes met hers in silent anguish.
"Oh Biggles!" Mary took his cold hand. The circle of her identity bracelet made a warm spot on his wrist. "Who did this to you, my friend?" she asked gently.
He looked down at her hand holding his for a moment debating whether to remove it before replying.
"Her name was Marie. I met her in the last days of the first war. I did something incredibly stupid – delivered a letter over the lines to her father. It had a secret map with the location of our squadron marked on it. It was going to be bombed by the Germans. It failed. She left me a letter telling me she had come to take me away that night or die with me and she loved me.
The brass-hats somehow found out about her. I was shot down in flames in more ways than one."
"Could you have continued to love a woman you believed killed your friends?"
"I found myself asking that question earlier today," he answered slowly. "No. And I probably couldn't have lived with myself had she succeeded. You don't want to think someone you love is capable of cold-blooded murder and deceit. But it still bothers me after all this time."
Mary poured him another cup of tea.
"It bothers you because you haven't let it go, Biggles. You've held onto it for what – over twenty years? It's been there, like a knot in your stomach, gnawing away, colouring every move, every decision. Yes, what you did was hot-headed and stupid. In wartime anyone can be capable of murder. Every time I look at the ruined men we try and piece back together I want to take a shotgun to Hitler. We can't control who we love any more than who we hate; just what we do with it. But maybe the circumstances were beyond her control and she was just doing her job – as Daddy tells me you have done."
Biggles eyes blazed. "I've never used another person without their knowledge or sent them to do something I wouldn't do myself!" he exclaimed.
"And that's the difference isn't it? You don't plan to fall in love. It's something that just happens," she added.
"Maybe," sighed Biggles.
Both Biggles and Mary drank their now cold tea. Biggles grimaced.
"Miss, could we have some more hot water please?"
"Certainly, sir." the waitress smiled as she brought their water.
Biggles poured some hot water into their cups
"That's better," Mary smiled at Biggles.
She was pleased he looked a little less careworn than he had an hour ago.
When the bill arrived each had insisted on paying for the tea, saying it was their treat. After settling the bill between them they walked outside. The earlier cloud was beginning to produce its promised rain.
"This will never do. You'll get your feet wet and I need to see you home safely before I meet up with Algy and Bertie at Victoria station. We need a taxi. Biggles hailed one as it went past.
"So what brought you to London, Mary?" Biggles asked when they were settled in the taxi and Mary had given the driver her address.
"I needed to do something useful for the war effort."
"But not sewing?" quizzed Biggles.
"No definitely not! You know my love of sewing", she laughed. "That was one of the few Guide badges I couldn't win. I trade with the girls at the hostel. I fix things or give them finger waves if they do my sewing for me. It's kept me in clothes so far."
She continued. "Daddy said it was wicked to take paid jobs away from girls who need them while I had an allowance so I joined the WVS. I do anything that needs to be done, sometimes I work with the IIP, but most of my efforts are in a hospital garden with other volunteers. The grounds have been turned over to vegetables and sometimes the convalescent servicemen help out with things. We try and have things so that almost everyone, no matter what their injury is, can do something. Tell Algy we had a few sunflowers where we couldn't grow vegetables in summer!"
Biggles laughed as the taxi drew up outside the Girls' Friendly Society, an imposing barracks of a building where many women engaged in war work were living.
"Wait please driver."
Biggles and Mary got out.
"I hope it's comfortable here?"
"Oh yes. Much better than the digs we stayed in before. I share a room on the third floor with my school friend Agatha. She's a nurse at the hospital. I'm lucky to have her and we can share the costs."
Mary laid her hand on Biggles's arm.
"Biggles, I wouldn't worry too much about Ginger. You knew we have been writing to each other as friends? Ginger has got his head screwed on properly and is unlikely to go too far overboard. And he's got you and Algy to guide him. If she truly loves him he won't come to any harm." Mary blushed slightly.
Biggles looked searchingly at Mary for a moment. Had she felt something for Ginger? "If he loves her he'll never hurt her. Any man who loves a woman as she should be loved would do the same," replied Biggles quietly. "I must go. Goodbye 'Miss Mary'."
"Goodbye 'Captain James'."
Mary watched the taxi until it turned the corner. She rubbed a tired hand across her face and swore softly, much to the shock of the elderly lady walking past. She vowed if she ever caught up with that woman she'd know about it!
Biggles sank back into the cushions of the taxi and sighed.
"Is that your sweetheart?" asked the driver
"No, just a very wise friend."
"Where to?"
"Somewhere near Victoria Station where I can get a drink."
"Any place in particular?"
"I don't care. I need a drink."
Algy and Bertie were waiting when Biggles finally joined them. He smelled slightly of whisky and looked very tired. On the journey down they found him distracted and unwilling to talk.
Algy had given Bertie the barest outline while they had waited. Both put his distraction down to the memories that Algy's thoughtless comment had raised earlier.
Truthfully Biggles was exhausted. He knew once he got back to station the MO would give him a thorough going over and would be likely to ground him for a day or two.
He was eager to get back to his comrades: the men who were tied to him by such bonds of friendship as only war can create. Algy and Ginger were the only real family he had left and it looked as if he might be losing one of them soon. But as the train travelled rapidly back towards the aerodrome his thoughts kept straying to a pair of brown eyes.