But now and then came a man’s voice, singing in German.

It was a Christmas carol. I listened and listened.

Jamie:

“Bloody Jerries,” said Silver.

They were singing “O Tannenbaum.”

“You hear that, Pimms Leader?” called Ignacy.

“It’s the Christmas truce of 1940!” I exclaimed. “But wasn’t it ‘Silent Night’ the Jerries sang with our lads in the trenches in the last lot?”

I gave the Germans a taste of their own medicine. “Stille nacht, heilige nacht—”

There was deafening stillness.

Then, in a burst of defiance, the German voice shouted: “Deutschland, Deutschland über alles, über alles in der Welt!”

All of B-Flight heard it.

“That’s no Christmas truce, that’s the Nazi national anthem!” yelled Harry Morrow. “Can we go get ’em?”

Bloody hell, I thought, not with the girls on board, you young tosser.

“We don’t know where they are,” I said. “Let ’em sing.”

Louisa:

We didn’t see any German planes.

But we heard the singing, off and on, the whole time we flew over the battleships. Derfel kept passing me his headset so I could listen.

We circled the ships for two hours, until Jamie said we’d passed the English border with Scotland. After that, another RAF squadron from farther south came flying up to meet us. Everybody waved their wings at each other in a friendly way and shouted Happy Christmas over the radio. Then that lot took over our job and we could go home.

We’d passed the Firth of Forth and the Firth of Tay and were heading up the Angus Coast toward Stonehaven when we met the Luftwaffe bomber.

It was a Junkers 88, a Ju-88—I recognized it as German the moment I saw it. To me it looked like the perfect match for the Blenheims we were flying, twin engines just like ours and about the same size, except the wingtips were squarely tapered instead of rounded like ours. It was flying low along the sea cliffs, scouting, an ominous black shadow below us against the winter sea.

Ellen:

I haven’t Louisa’s eye for German planes. But I worked it out quick enough, because when Silver pointed, bloody Jamie stood the Blenheim practically on its wingtip in a turn that made my stomach tumble the wildcat. I held on to my porridge, and I got an eyeful of the Jerry bomber out the side of the canopy, with one of our own Blenheims diving after him.

Flight Lieutenant Beaufort-Stuart suddenly pushed the nose of his Blenheim forward, too, and we swooped in a swan dive toward the planes below us.

Jamie:

Those young Australian blockheads were going after that Ju-88 with Phyllis on board. I could see the tracers flaming from Harry Morrow’s guns.

I dived after him. I couldn’t stop Morrow, not once a fight started. But I had to be there if he needed me.

Ellen:

God help me, I prayed.