THE INVISIBLE PIPER

A number of years ago I gave up my lecturing job to become a full-time writer. My friends told me that I was crazy and I'd most probably starve to death. I didn't; I learnt to live on little while I researched extensively for my historical novels.  I sold my house and bought a flat in St. Leonards-on Sea, E. Sussex overlooking the sea. Two years later both books were published and I was ecstatic! The Invisible Piper and its sequel Tempting The Stars are both set in WW11 and explore how relationships between people become transformed by war.

 I became so involved with my characters' lives whilst writing the novels that one of them, Charlie, my lion-hearted  eleven-year-old evacuee wouldn't go away and I had to rewrite both plots to give him a larger role! An interesting, if odd experience of a character writing himself! I discovered fascinating details about people’s lives from reading numerous war-time diaries in The Imperial War Museum library and from listening to tapes at its Sound Archives; details I had never heard about and which I have put into both books.

I hope you buy them on Amazon and write a review of them.

 The Invisible Piper opens with a dramatic question: does Rob Adams, a 20 year Spitfire pilot who is parachuting out of a burning Spitfire survive? We have to wait until the climax at the end of the book to discover the truth. In flashback, we explore Rob’s home life; his life in the RAF and the people he learns to love: Kate, his best friend’s sister and my favourite character, ten year old Charlie.

Charlie, a London evacuee, brings with him a traumatic background, a perceptive personality and a disarming ability to make people care about him deeply. He totally changes Rob's family's perception of themselves and the world.

In fact, the developing relationship between Rob and 10 year old Charlie is the pivot on which the book turns.  Rob gives Charlie the love and security which has always been missing from his life. However, as we follow their friendship, we gradually realise that it is not Rob, but Charlie, traumatised, but lionhearted, who is the stronger person; it is Charlie who forces Rob to look deep into himself after he barely survives the appalling disfigurement of burns; it is Charlie who ultimately teaches Rob about real love and courage.

Here is the first chapter. I hope you find it exciting. 

Chapter 1

‘Those who cannot remember

the past are condemned to repeat it.’

George Santayana

The Age of Reason, 1905

 Rob distantly heard the telephone ring, but it couldn’t have anything to do with him. He’d been flying for days without sleep.

He felt someone shaking him. ‘Sir. Come on – another scramble.’

It was impossible. He’d only just gone to sleep. He staggered to his feet and headed for the door, fully clothed. He hadn’t even taken off his flying boots; he’d been too exhausted after the last sortie. It was 4.30 a.m.

He saw the others running past him to their machines and suddenly, nervous energy flooded through his body. He ran towards his Spitfire, refuelled, rearmed and serviced in the short time since his last flight by the equally exhausted ground-crew.

The oscillating thunder of Merlin engines filled the air as pilots revved up. Rob could see the blue flames from the exhaust stubs, streaking through the half light.

‘Up again, Sir? Don’t them Jerries ever sleep?’ Pickles, one of the ground-crew, yawned widely. ‘Just oiled the canopy hood – bit stiff.’

Rob yawned back as he urinated on the grass: a practice which no longer embarrassed him since most of the other pilots did it to save time before sorties. He climbed into the cockpit. Shaking the sleep away from his brain, he tested the oxygen supply and R/T and then taxied out to the far end of the aerodrome and turned into the wind. He saw the thumbs up from Flight Commander ‘Sandy’ Lane and opened up. A throbbing roar filled the cockpit and cut off the outside world as he sped across the aerodrome. The bumps from the under-cart became less and less, until with a final bump, he was off the deck and a grey blur of grass slipped beneath him. His right hand dropped to the under-cart control and moved it back. Then he felt for the pump. A few seconds later, two faint thuds told him the wheels were up, only then did he reach behind him to pull the stiff hood shut. He stifled another yawn as he put the airscrew into course pitch, throttling back to cruising revs.

What the hell was he flying at 4.40 in the morning for? No sign of the bloody Hun.

A shiver ran across his body as the R/T crackled into life.

‘Seventy plus Bandits approaching south-south-west. Angels 15 to 20.’

Rob looked around wildly, thankful he wasn’t wearing a collar and tie. His neck had been rubbed raw for months until he’d taken to wearing roll neck sweaters and scarves, like most of the other pilots.

Then he saw them: thirty Dornier 17s and Ju 88 bombers at 15,000 feet, escorted by forty Me 109s at 20,000 feet.

Sandy’s voice stabbed through the headphones.

‘Go! Go! Go!’

Rob climbed steeply above one of the 109s and suddenly all he could see was hoar-frost covering his windscreen. No forward vision. His throat felt full of chalk. He watched the shaking in his hand as he rubbed a small section of screen. He had no idea where the 109 was. The oxygen was making him light-headed. It was a nightmare: trying to weave, scan his rear-view and clear the windscreen all at the same time. His breath came in short, agitated gasps as he broke away from the others and dived. At 10,000 feet the screen cleared.

Thank God. No Messerschmitt on my tail.

The air above the sea was misty so he didn’t see the olive-green camouflage on the long thin Dornier 17 until tracers streamed past his cockpit.

Jesus!

He suddenly saw large, black swastikas on the fuselage of the Dornier 200 feet away and climbed at breakneck speed, the sweat pouring from him; his eyes searing the skies until he saw the enemy beneath him. He banked violently and the Dornier’s starboard engine shot through his gun-sights. His thumb jammed down on the firing button and the Browning machine guns tore into the Dornier’s engine. The bomber erupted into flames and screamed into the sea.

For a second, Rob relaxed back into his harness. Only a second. But a second he was going to regret, forever. A Messerschmitt was above him, coming out of the sun. He was blinded by the sudden blaze in his eyes; he didn’t see the orange tracers stream towards him, just felt the violent thump thump thump of cannon shell screaming into his fuselage. He lost his elevator-control and the Spitfire went into a steep left-hand climbing turn. Rob felt the seat pressing deep into his body and momentarily blacked out. Then just as the pressure eased and the blood raced back through his brain, his oil tank burst into flames.

Terror electrified his body. He tore at the hood release. It wouldn’t move. His screams filled the small cockpit as he watched flames eating through his fingers. Ignoring the pain, he tore again and again at the hood release. At last – it slammed back. He groped for the release pin securing the Sutton harness, trying to hold his head back from the flames. And suddenly, he was out, tumbling through sky and sea. A remote part of his brain told him to pull the ripcord: burning hands moved in slow motion towards the chromium ring; exposed nerve endings touched it and pulled.

His screams exploded around the sky as the white silk canopy billowed above him. He looked down at the roasted flesh at the end of his arms and gagged at the smell. Then suddenly, the shock came. He started to shake, uncontrollably, and soon his parachute was swaying crazily from side to side.

From a long distance away, he heard someone scream.