Vera Lynn
More than 80 years have passed since then. I can clearly recall the night I heard you singing on a BBC radio broadcast a few hours before the alarming sound of the scramble bell calls me to meet my fate. For some reason I knew it was going to be my last and fateful mission. I was in the officers' parlour with some chaps of my squadron when, sweetly and softly, your voice started sounding in our ears, warming the hearts and enlighten the souls of all those who were there that night. And there you were my dearest Vera, doing what you knew best, renewing faith and bringing hope to every distressed heart. I remember that there were other men sitting around the tables drinking brandy and smoking their pipes while playing chess. Others preferred to focus on reading. If I close my eyes now, I can "see" them leafing through the pages of a book or an old magazine with their bodies half buried in the sofas scattered around the room. You were singing "We'll Meet Again", a song that soon became like a prayer of hope for each soldier fighting on land, at the sea or in the air. While listening to those magic words intoned by your sweet voice, I couldn't help thinking that despite my bad feelings about this mission, I had a strange and strong conviction deeply engraved in my heart that made me believe that we are bound to meet again whether in the present life or the next.
" We 'll meet again, don't know where, don't know when"... ♫ ♪
I took a look at the big clock hanging on the wall behind the counter. Its hands marked five past ten. I thought to myself that I should go and try to take some rest. The lads seemed strangely excited and amused, perhaps intoxicated by the ethylic vapours that had the power to drive their minds away from the tragic reality. No one would say that at any moment, those men would be called upon once again to face death and fight for their lives. Shouts and laughter, the noise was immense and yet not even the euphoric outcry of the voices had the power to muffle out the sound of your voice that was filling the whole room and making more breathable the air saturated with thick clouds of smoke blended with the smell of cheap brandy. I took one last look around and off I went...
I could not sleep a wink that night. I tried not to make anything able to bother the few men that were already sleeping in their bunks. I got rid of my boots and walked barefoot up to one of the doors of the dormitory from where I could see the runway. As I opened it a cold ghostly mist caught me by surprise chilling me to the bone. I stood there for a few moments staring at nothing until my eyes get used to darkness. Little by little, the mist became less thick easing my temporary blindness. There I was, eyes wide open, peering into the darkness just to find seven Spitfire lined up an hundred yards ahead seeming to be asleep while waiting to be awakened by the distressing sound of the scramble bell at first light. My aircraft was the second from the left. I could see the code letters on both sides of the roundel painted on the fuselage. It was truly impressive the sight of those terrible war machines shrouded in a eerie cold mist that had slowly grown as thick as my unconfessable fears ...
"Keep smiling through"... ♫♪
Carefully I closed the heavy door and got back inside the barracks. Absorbed in my thoughts once again I let my eyes peer into the gloom of the night through the fogged glass of one of the windows overlooking the runway. Little did I know I was looking at the night lights of RAF Station Biggin Hill for the last time.
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Biggin Hill, Kent 1940
(shot down over the Strait of Dover in July, 1940)
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Comments
Hello Aires, this reads like a wonderful flash story. A moment captured from time. I loved the interlacing of the beautiful Vera Lynn throughout. There is an eerie sense to this piece. You managed to take the reader into the moment, and the feelings felt in anticipation of the next event. A great write
Gwen x
Hi Gwen. Thank you for your noteworthy comment. I really appreciate it.
The man in the story is me and the story is nothing but the repeated nightmare that has haunted my life since childhood put down in words..
Hi Aires, yes I got that, hence the eerie feeling to the piece. Dreams can tell us so much and sometimes take us to places that are haunting. Be that past events or even future ones to come x
What a sad and poignant tale...I could see the images and sense the mood Aires..like a film laid out before me x
Thank you for your precious comment Marion
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Deja vu, nightmares, memories of a previous life that ended too soon and tragically... diving in a spiral of fire and smoke... can't turn the aircraft belly up... water engulfing me to death... faceless ghosts haunting my life since childhood...
Powerful of you to share and very heartwrenching to read. ~Rob
Thank you for your words Rob. I've always had the strange feeling that I live in this existence as if I came here by mistake, as if I didn't belong here. In my bad dreams I see my soul trapped in the past, in another life, in a different body... ln my restless sleep I'm always taken to the last days of a wasted existence... I travel back in time to Biggin Hill RAF station to relive the same nightmare time and again. Part of me is still there... I never left Biggin Hill...
I can't imagine the grief that comes with that, I bet it makes sleeping difficult. Hopefully by continue to write about it , it helps with it. Your imagery through words are that spoken by someone who experienced actual accounts with the realism behind them.
Yes it's true. It's like a mute suffering that drags through life with ups and downs and permanent anguish. Even though is almost imperceptible to others it is very real. Sleepless nights, nightmares, deja vu, mood swings, depression caused by various factors. A melody, an old photograph, a smell, a sound or a certain place are enough to change everything and suddenly my heart is invaded by strange feelings and an unbearable longing for a time that does not belong to this existence...