He partly pulled away, his hand trembling slightly, but perceptibly. His blond hair appeared darker than usual – he hadn’t washed it for a month – and his skin was sallow with
angry blotches of eczema around the mouth. His blue uniform was creased and stained, and there were suspicious rusty-coloured splodges on the sheepskin tops of his flying boots.
That’s blood, or I’m a Dutchman, Mr Arnold thought to himself. My God, look at his face. He’s aged ten years in a month.
His son looked at them all. Lucy hovered nearby, listening.
‘Well . . . ’ John began. His eyes closed for a moment. He suddenly looked overwhelmed by exhaustion.
‘If you’d prefer, you can just leave it for now,’ Gwen said. ‘Don’t feel you have to go into any of it, dear. You’ve only just got home. Perhaps you should go
upstairs and rest?’
Her son smiled faintly and shook his head. ‘No, Mum, honestly, I’d like to tell you about it. I’m OK, just damn tired. Nothing a couple of nights’ uninterrupted sleep
won’t fix.’ He turned to Diana. ‘He really
is
OK, sis. I left him sound asleep on his cot. I imagine he’ll be down here tomorrow.’
Diana blinked and gave a quick little nod. Her brother led her inside to the drawing room, their parents following.
‘It’s funny,’ he said, sinking into an armchair. The others followed suit. ‘It’s nothing like you think it’s going to be. I bet you discovered that in the
last lot, Dad.’
Mr Arnold nodded. ‘Oh, yes. War is full of surprises, that’s for sure.’
‘Yes. Well . . . we didn’t go to France. Not as far as being based there, anyway. The government decided weeks ago that Spitfires should operate from here in England. So our lot have
been flying across the Channel from Upminster ever since the German Blitzkrieg started. I’m sorry I didn’t ring you, but we’ve been extraordinarily busy, every single day, and
anyway we were told in no uncertain terms not to talk about operational stuff to anyone. I don’t suppose that matters now, not now that we’ve been kicked off the Continent.’
The phone in the hall began to ring. John didn’t appear to notice.
‘We’ve been on the back foot since the tenth of May, to be truthful. Fingers in the dyke, and all that. It’s all been about covering a fighting retreat. The Army say we
abandoned them at Dunkirk but that’s completely untrue, Mum and Dad. Some of our boys have been beaten up in pubs by soldiers shouting, “Where was the RAF?” but we were there. We
just weren’t directly over the beaches.’
John began to speak more rapidly. ‘I flew three missions a day over Dunkirk for five straight days. Fifteen sorties, back-to-back. We took off at dawn, patrolled above the Pas de Calais
and got stuck into the bastards – sorry, Mum, the enemy – whenever they came in to attack. Christ, there were so
many
of them. Most of the dogfights were inland, away from the
beaches. I suppose that’s why the Army thought we’d let them down. The whole point was trying to stop Jerry’s planes getting to Dunkirk itself. But we didn’t have long to
engage them. After a few minutes we had to turn back home to refuel, grab a sandwich and a mug of tea, and then it was back over there again, a.s.a.p. It was absolutely bloody exhausting, I can
tell you.’
Lucy came in from the hall. ‘Telephone for Miss Diana.’
Diana slipped from the room.
‘The thing is,’ John continued, ‘the thing is . . .’ Here, he came to a complete halt.
‘It’s all right,’ his father murmured. ‘Take it easy, John.’
‘No, I’m all right, Dad – really I am. The thing is, well, we lost a lot of chaps, you see. Someone in Intelligence told me yesterday that at least sixty Spits have been shot
down over France and the Channel in the last three weeks. You’re not supposed to know that, by the way. And I saw some of them going down . . . heard them, too.’
His parents looked puzzled. ‘How could you hear them?’ his father asked quietly.
The boy pointed to his throat. ‘Over their radios. Some of the chaps accidentally leave their mics open, and when they’re hit, you hear – well, noises. You know. A lot go down
in flames and . . . stuff. It’s pretty horrible.’
Gwen and Oliver stared blankly at their son.
‘And we’ve lost four from our squadron alone. Really super chaps. Two definitely killed, one burned to a bloody crisp and lingering, another shot down and taken prisoner. All that in
less than a month.’ His head twisted away.
Diana burst back into the room. ‘That was James! He’s got leave too and wants to come down here. I told him that was absolutely fine. It
is,
isn’t it?’
Gwen stood up and took her boy into her arms.
‘Of course it is,’ she said over his shoulder. ‘It’s the least we can do.’
Brother and sister lay on the lawn behind the Dower House and stared up at the brightest stars that were beginning to appear in the summer night sky.
‘That’s Venus, isn’t it, Johnnie?’ Diana asked. ‘You know: “Twinkle, twinkle, little star” . . .’
‘Yes. That’s the Evening Star all right. Remember the Mad Hatter? “Twinkle, twinkle, little bat, how I wonder what you’re at”?’
‘“Up above the world you fly”,’ Diana continued, ‘“Like a tea-tray in the sky” . . .’
They laughed.
‘Bonkers,’ said Diana. She turned her head to his. ‘Johnnie?’
‘Yes?’
‘Have you killed anyone?’
‘Yes.’
‘More than one?’
‘Yes.’ Her brother sat up beside her, patting his pockets. ‘Do you have the cigarettes? I can’t find them.’
‘Yes. Here.’ She lit one for each of them. ‘Go on.’
John lay back on the grass. ‘I think I’ve killed three men, actually. Well, that’s stupid, I
know
I have.’
A shooting star flared across the sky and Diana grabbed her brother’s hand. ‘Make a wish, quick!’
He tensed, and then slowly relaxed. ‘It’s done . . . anyway . . .’
Diana waited. When her brother remained silent, she sat up and considered him in the gathering dusk.
‘We’re living in extraordinary times, aren’t we, John? I can hardly conceive of my big brother killing anyone, let alone three men. Tell me about it, if you can.’
After an even longer silence, he put an arm around her waist and rested his head on her lap. When he spoke, his voice was muffled.
‘It’s awfully mechanical, actually. Automatic.’
She let him gather himself. Eventually he pulled clear of her and finished his cigarette.
‘Let’s see . . .’ he started. ‘There were about six or seven of their dive-bombers headed for our men on the beaches late one afternoon. I think it was last Tuesday.
Maybe Wednesday. They were Stukas. Vile things. They have two men on board, you see, one flying, the other operating the machine-gun, shooting up the blokes on the beach. Stukas are bloody
terrifying if you’re on the ground; they’ve got sirens fixed to their wings and they make a ghastly wailing noise when they dive to attack. But actually they’re slow and
vulnerable in normal flight and I smacked one of them down in my first pass. It was easy. I saw my bullets smash through his cockpit canopy and . . . well, there was lots of blood. I mean a
lot
, sis; it was only a momentary image, but blood was spraying all over the shop. It was horrible.
‘There weren’t any flames; their plane just flipped over and sliced straight into the sea. The whole thing took less than ten seconds from start to finish.
‘A couple of days later I nearly copped it. We were about six miles inland from Calais and suddenly I saw flashes all over my wings and engine casing. Cannon strikes. Terrifying. Next
moment, a German fighter roars about ten feet above my Spit and there he is right in front of me. He was a good shot but a lousy flyer. Reflex – I pressed the firing button and he went up
like a Roman candle.
Foom!
Sheer luck.
‘I have no idea why his rounds didn’t do for me. They just went straight through or bounced off without exploding. Duds, I suppose. When I got back to Upminster they patched up the
holes and I was in the air again by teatime.’
Diana was silent for a long time before speaking again. She was trying to form pictures from the words he had spoken. She felt rather foolish: over the last few weeks when she’d tried to
imagine what John and James might be experiencing, it hadn’t once occurred to her that blood – real, human blood – would be a prominent feature. Now she remembered the strange
stains she’d seen on her brother’s boots.
‘Is that blood on your boots, James?’
‘Yes. It’s not mine though. I helped a chap down from his cockpit after he’d landed. He’d taken a shell in his shoulder and his arm was off. God knows how he landed in
that state. Anyway, we managed to stop the bleeding right there on the grass and he’s going to be OK. Says as soon as he gets his new arm he’ll be back with us. Knowing him, he
will.’
Diana considered this new image; her brother fighting to save a man’s life bare minutes after straining every nerve to keep his own and take those of others. She felt a wave of compassion
for him, and tears suddenly began pricking her eyes. She bit her bottom lip, hard. Crying would not do at all.
By now the faintest of the stars were joining the brighter ones above them. Diana stared up at them, blinking hard. When she felt able to speak in a normal voice, she cleared her throat and
asked: ‘Are you all right, Johnnie? I mean,
really
all right?’
‘Yeah. I think so, sis. When it’s happening you don’t have time to think, and when it’s over it seems like a completely insane dream. But I
am
worried about
James.’
‘What do you mean? You told me he was fine.’
Her brother turned to her. ‘He had a very narrow squeak, Diana. I’m sure he’ll tell you about it himself when he gets here. He’s hiding it well, but I think it left him
pretty shaken up. It bloody well would me. I’m hoping that seeing you again might give him a bit of a boost.’
He paused. ‘Can I ask
you
something, sis?’
‘I think I can guess the question,’ she said. ‘And the answer is “yes”. Yes, I believe I’m in love with him.’
From inside the cockpit, the engine of James’s Spitfire sounded to him like a mighty church organ, majestic chords pulsing and vibrating around him. The sound was oddly
comforting. He glanced to his left and right. Both the other Spits in his group of three were in position either side of him.
One of the other pilots turned and, catching his glance, flicked him a cheerful V-sign. James laughed and turned back to his instruments. They were almost at the end of what had been an
uneventful patrol over the Pas de Calais. The French countryside rolled slowly under their wings and the Channel gleamed seven or eight miles to the north. In five minutes they could turn for
home.
His cockpit exploded in fury all around him.
Holy fuck!!!
Instruments evaporated in a spray of glass and smoke as a cannon shell burst with a deafening bang through the canopy just above his head. There were more ear-splitting explosions behind him as
his fuselage was raked with fire, and to his horror he saw his aircraft’s left wingtip blown clean away by another shell. The plane slewed drunkenly to the right and the joystick was snatched
from his grasp as if by a giant invisible hand.
He looked around frantically, but to his astonishment the other Spitfires had vanished. He was seemingly alone in an empty blue sky, his plane beginning to plunge into an uncontrolled dive.
He grabbed at the stick and pulled it back, hard, into his stomach. The aircraft’s nose lifted reassuringly.
Thank Christ. Still flyable.
The thought had barely registered when more thunderous explosions rocked and shuddered his Spitfire, and there was a blinding flash just behind the propeller.
Stop it! Bloody stop it, you vicious bastard! You’re going to kill me!
His canopy was hit again and this time most of it was blasted completely away. The airstream instantly tore at his eyes and nostrils and mouth: he could scarcely see or breathe. Where the fuck
were his goggles? Vanished, along with his flying helmet and oxygen mask. The nose of his plane dipped down again, more sharply than before.
Right. You want to dive? Good. Let’s bloody well dive then. I’ll show you what a dive is.
He ducked his head as low into the shattered cockpit as he could, thrust the stick forward and boosted the throttle all the way open. The engine responded instantly with a throaty roar and the
Spitfire arced into a near-vertical plunge. The whole aircraft began to tremble, whether from the increasing speed or more enemy strikes, he couldn’t tell. Jesus, he must be pushing 500mph,
easy. The bloody wings would strip off at this rate. He didn’t care. All he wanted was to get away from the maniac who was trying to murder him.
Very close to the ground, he levelled out and for the first time twisted his head to look behind him. Nobody there. He must have outrun the bastard.
He peered along both wings. Hell, the one with the missing tip had definitely been bent backwards in the crash dive. It didn’t look right at all. The other had several terrifyingly large
holes, and it looked to him as if he’d lost a chunk of propeller – its whirling arc had a peculiar shimmied pattern to it that he’d never seen before.
But, incredibly, the plane was still responding to his controls, and as a long sandy beach flashed under his wings and he shot out over the sea, he began to think he actually might, just might,
get back. All his instruments were gone – there was a great gaping hole under the remaining jagged shards of his canopy – but the weather was clear and he could already see the white
cliffs of the English coast lining the horizon ahead.
He pulled up a couple of hundred feet and took another quick look around, as best he could in the raging slipstream. Not another aircraft in sight, friend or foe.
All the same he slammed his battered aircraft down again until the Spitfire was almost skimming the waves.
He was bloody well going to make it.
Diana heard the sound of tyres crunching up the gravel drive and ran to the front door. The little MG was pulling up next to her father’s garage. Its hood was down and
there was James Blackwell sitting in the sunshine and grinning at her from behind the wheel.