“Helmets, good—don’t worry about masks, they won’t need mikes and we’ll stay low enough they won’t need oxygen,” I told the fitter who was equipping us. “Can you get three more Mae Wests? Extra gauntlets and as many Ever-Hot bags as you can find! Don’t tell ops.”

“As if I would! Whose head is on the block when someone twigs, anyway?”

“Mine, mine, always mine,” I assured him. “Nobody’s fighting today. There won’t be a bit of trouble. It will all be wizard.”

In flight suits and life vests, the lasses walked to the waiting planes without attracting attention. Madeira Section had already taken off, and the Old Flash had promised to make sure Cromwell didn’t go near the hangars or the radio room. Phyllis and Ellen and Louisa stayed close together, a complicated collection of nerves.

Phyllis wasn’t afraid of flying—she was just terrible at breaking rules, and she dithered with anxiety. “Oh dear—oh dear, I shouldn’t be doing this. It’s so important I set a good example—”

I knew Ellen was scared. I’d taken her up before, and she hadn’t liked it. But she wouldn’t admit it. She steeled herself by looking angry and bored, and kept close to Louisa, the baby of the gang.

“Who do you want to fly with?” I heard Ellen whisper to her. “Phyllis is going with the Aussies. You can choose.”

Louisa was the only one of the three who was visibly sparkling with excitement.

“You go with Jamie. He’s your friend,” she said decisively. “I’ll go with Ignacy and Derfel.”

“All right, Ignacy and Derfel are safe as houses, but look out for that Yorkie,” Ellen told her. “He’s pinched my bum five times since they got back from Deeside, once a day, regular. If he does it again I might have to thump him in the teeth.”

Bloody Bill Yorke.

Nothing I could do about it now; he wouldn’t be able to bother Louisa from the rear cabin.

But I made a note to keep a close eye on him back on the ground.

I wasn’t going to let him ruin my day, nor anyone else’s.

Louisa:

The only plane I’d been close to was Felix Baer’s Messerschmitt 109. Now I was going to climb inside a Bristol Blenheim bomber. With an engine mounted in each wing and the glass turret riding on its back for the gunner, it seemed gigantic. Its tail rested on a tiny wheel against the ground, and its nose pointed at the sky as if the silly tail wheel embarrassed it and it couldn’t wait to take off.

Jamie hustled me onto the wing of Ignacy’s plane, giving me a river of instructions.