It was a momentous time at the beginning of the year 1945. The Americans had come to the Ardennes, the whole country was celebrating and I began slow labour at the unearthly hour of twelve o’clock in the night.
I got up and dressed and packed my little bag and then I woke Ella and Freddie. ‘I’m going home to have my baby,’ I said firmly. I knew Ella would argue and she did.
‘Not now,’ she said, ‘wait till baby come.’
‘That won’t be for a few weeks.’ I was lying through my teeth but Ella didn’t know it and she nodded.
‘I understand, you want your child to be Catolic like us.’
‘That’s right, Catholic,’ I said. It was the only way she would allow me to go. She frowned.
‘But at least wait till morning.’
‘I will go now.’ I kissed her and hugged her and then kissed Freddie. ‘Thank you for all you’ve done, I’ll write to you when I’m home.’
I set out, well wrapped in Freddie’s scarf, to the edge of the docks. There was a battalion of British soldiers and one American pilot.
‘What you doing here lady?’ The American pilot stood looking at my round figure with surprise.
‘I must get home,’ I said, trying my best to hide a small contraction.
‘You an English lady?’ He was even more surprised.
‘I’m Welsh,’ I said stubbornly. ‘My husband was a pilot, shot down a few months ago. I’m having his baby and I don’t want to have it here.’ I didn’t mention that Michael was flying for the Germans.
‘What do you expect us to do?’ one of the other men said, frowning at me.
‘I’ve been spying for the British,’ I volunteered, ‘I’ve put myself in danger to help my country and now I want to go home to have my child. Is that asking too much?’ I demanded. No one replied.
‘Look, I was supposed to be taken out of the country by the resistance but they had to leave rather hurriedly if you get my meaning and I was left to fend for myself, but now I’m asking, begging for help.’ I looked directly at the American pilot.
‘You got a plane?’
‘Of course I got a plane, lady, so what?’
‘My name is Meryl,’ I said sharply, ‘yours?’
‘Aldo,’ he said reluctantly. ‘You got a sister in Swansea, a girl called Hari?’
‘Yes, you know Hari?’
‘I met her, fine girl, lovely red hair.’
I was a little piqued, everyone admired my sister. ‘Well, Aldo, you can take me home. It will only take an hour or so, won’t it?’
‘There are fuel checks—you can’t just take an aeroplane, you know, mam.’
‘Why not, who is to know? I thought you pilots were daredevils.’
The men talked among themselves, one or two argued, and then Aldo grinned. ‘All right, for your cheek and because your sister was so nice, I’ll risk it. Tom, you drive us to the field and see about refuelling, OK?’
I breathed out a huge sigh. I didn’t think I was going to get away with it. Every bump of the jeep threatened to break my waters. I’d seen enough birthing on the farm to know more or less what happened. I knew the mother ewe delivered the lamb sometimes alone in a field and if a dull sheep could do it so could I.
It was an ordeal climbing into the plane but, by lifting up my heavy belly, I succeeded, managing not to moan with the pain. Thankful, I sat down and closed my eyes. Incredibly, I must have dozed and then I woke up sharply to the rat-tat-tat of guns.
‘Gerry on my tail,’ Aldo said, ‘some cloud to the right, I’ll hide in there.’ Through his windscreen I saw nothing but grey fog and I knew we would be in trouble if he couldn’t get out of the clouds again, but at least the enemy plane had given up and gone away. That was until we slid out of the clouds and then the shooting, alarmingly close, began again.
I pressed my palms together and like a child recited the Lord’s Prayer in English and in Welsh. ‘Ein Tad, Our Father’—the words whispered out like molten silver between my lips. Aldo ducked and dived and turned the plane and fired his own guns. I saw the German plane begin to smoke and then it screeched down towards the sea. ‘Good shot!’ I said, then, ‘Diolch yn fawr’, as I looked up towards heaven.
‘What damn language are you speaking now?’ Aldo asked.
‘Welsh of course,’ I said huffily as if he should know. ‘By the way, you can drop me on the Welsh coast, Carmarthen, it will be nearer for you and there are plenty of fields to land in.’
‘Thank you, mam.’ Aldo’s tone was dry. ‘At least I made another kill on the way so it wasn’t entirely a wasted journey,’ he said.
The landing was scary but, following my directions, Aldo landed within about a mile of the farmhouse.
‘You didn’t bother to tell me about the hills,’ he said. ‘Now go before I’m taken for the enemy and arrested.’
I flung my bag out of the plane and dropped it to the ground. Then I had to drop myself because there were no steps. I landed with a bump and my bump protested by squirming frantically to get out of this uncomfortable belly.
‘Good luck, Meryl, and love to that sister of yours.’ Aldo winked, looking every inch the dashing pilot. I waved back in the rose dawn and watched him lift his plane into the sky with great skill and aplomb. And then I walked to the cold, empty farmhouse that still held the scent of Jessie and my darling Michael and prepared for the birth of my child. Alone.