“The bit about the half-moon makes sense,” he said at last. “When the moon is dark, it’s probably just as difficult for the Luftwaffe to find targets as it is for us. So this means something like ‘Leave Shetland alone till the next half-moon.’” He pointed farther along my pencil jottings. “And here it looks like they’re going to lay off Aberdeen while this other thing is going on. The city took a pounding in October. Those Roman numerals must mean a Junkers 88 bomber, a Ju-88. I wonder what their special detail from Lista to Deeside is.”

“Where is Lista?” Ellen asked.

“Norway. Just about the closest point to Scotland—we think they’re planning to build an aerodrome there, but it’s not much more than some surveyors’ stakes at the minute. We’ve taken pictures.”

“We ought to warn Deeside,” Ellen said. “Else A-Flight might run into trouble.”

Jamie screwed up his mouth, staring at the machine. Suddenly he seemed less intimidating. He looked stubborn and baffled and not much older than me.

He nodded. “I’ll warn them,” he said. “But I’m not telling Cromwell. I’m damned if I’m going to hand this over to Cromwell! Not when we’ve got an edge on the Luftwaffe at last. I know him, he’ll send the machine off to Coastal Command for fingerprint testing, or make us wait till he tries it himself, or refuse to let anyone else near it. He’ll block us from using it because it’s not in the rule books, especially if he thinks I have anything to do with it.”

Ellen hesitated, and then blurted out, “But, Jamie-lad, what if it was sent for someone else to use, and not for 648 Squadron? That Robert Ethan, that Intelligence toff, he isn’t anything to do with you. The Jerry who brought it was supposed to meet him specially.”

Jamie narrowed his eyes again, thinking about it.

I shook my head. I didn’t want to let the machine go, either. What Jamie had said—Not when we’ve got an edge on the Luftwaffe at last. Not when I was finally able to do something useful to fight back.

“Felix Baer left the settings for me,” I said. “He said my name and looked straight at me, and stuck a key up in the bar like your airmen do with their sixpences. For luck, he said. In English. And he’d hidden a note in it.”

“Aye, he did that,” Ellen admitted.

I suppose it was odd Felix Baer would do that. Why had he chosen me? I wasn’t even in uniform. Perhaps he guessed his contact would talk to me later, and I was the one who had seen the machine.

However, Robert Ethan hadn’t asked about the machine, and I didn’t find it till after he left.

Jamie reached out a fine, narrow finger and dialed back one of the rotors.