“Well, it seems they have run short of experienced pilots. It is careless of them, of course, but that’s the English for you. I will not ask you to be faithful. That is like asking a cat not to catch mice. But I believe we are going to win this war, we are going to beat the Fascists at last, and when it’s over I would like to marry you.”

I was so shocked, I nearly tumbled off the bed.

“Me? You’re nuts. You should marry some girl from home. You know we won’t suit. You’d want me to give up my freedom, and I’d never obey you, which would make you miserable, because you love to be obeyed.”

He picked up my hand and held it to his lips. “The girl I was going to marry is dead now. I have no home left to me. For many years I said I would never marry at all, that the world was too terrible a place to bring children into it, and I was too poor in any case. But now there is hope. There is some possibility of a future. And though I am too gruff for you, and autocratic, and ugly—”

“You aren’t ugly at all.”

“But you are beautiful, and I have no right to you. Still, I promise I will make you a good husband. I will do my best to make you happy. All I ask is that you consider what I say. Then when the war’s over, the day Hitler surrenders, I will come back to you and ask again and again until you relent and become my wife. What do you think of this idea?”

“I think it’s nuts. You’ll want a dozen kids, for one thing.”

“That’s not true. Three or four would suffice.”

“What about your mistress in London?”

“I will keep her, of course,” he said gravely. “Every man needs a little variety.”

That was the night I took that photograph of him, while he was trying to pin me down, as it were. I then put down the camera and performed an act on him that made him howl, made him curse all my ancestors, made him collapse at last on the sheets and swear the most exquisite vengeance on me, to which I replied that it was a woman’s duty to give her lover satisfaction, because he was otherwise liable to cause trouble. Then I laid my head on his thick, furry chest and listened to the thud of his heartbeat through his bone and skin until we both fell asleep.