I crawled forward to a swiveling stool in the nose of the plane. There were wide, clear Perspex panels in the front. I crouched on the metal seat in a cocoon of glass, and I could see everything as we took off to the west, into the wind.

Jamie was right about the super view. The Highlands were magical ahead of us. We were still lower than their snow-covered heights, white and pink and gold in the elusive winter sun like a glittering Christmas card. We flew over the moors where the main road passed on its way to Aberdeen. Beneath my feet was a herd of red deer, dozens of them, leaping away as we skimmed overhead.

I hadn’t realized how beautiful it would be. I forgot it was dangerous.

Derfel tapped me on the shoulder and beckoned. When I crawled back to him, he offered me his own leather helmet so I could hear the radio.

“Hallo, Louisa!” came Ellen’s voice in my head, crackling over the static. “Happy Christmas!”

Only Ignacy had a microphone that connected to Jamie’s plane, so I couldn’t answer her. All I could do was beam. It was smashing.

Ignacy’s voice spoke clearly in my ear.

“You want to fly?”

He lifted his hand from the controls, and to my surprise the plane flew steadily on.

“The Blenheim flies herself,” he told me. “Here, try, you will do it—”

He let me crouch next to him and hold the controls. He coaxed me to tilt the wings, following Jamie ahead of us.

Ellen:

Jamie had one extra leather helmet with a headset in it, and I was the lucky lass who got to wear it.

“All right?” he asked.

“Braw!” I said. I’d been up with him once before and never showed him how it frighted me the first time, and I wasn’t going to now, either.

“Stand up and take a look out the back!”

“Stand up? Are you daft?”

“Maybe, but look at Ignacy waving to us!”

I was too tall to stand all the way straight, but I put my head up in the clear canopy for about three seconds, holding hard to Jamie’s seat back and Silver’s shoulder. I could see Ignacy’s Blenheim flying behind us away off to our left, with the Aussies lined up on our right. The wings of Ignacy’s plane were rocking gently up and down.

After a moment Jamie dipped our own wings to wave back, and I tumbled over into Silver’s lap.

“Jamie Stuart, you raging gumpus!”

Then Silver and I laughed so hard untangling ourselves that I feared it would make Jamie crash the plane.

But of course he did no such thing, and with the rest of Pimms Section close behind us, we all veered round together to head out over the North Sea.

Louisa: