The plane was a distant speck heading east toward Norway, and the whistling pilot wasn’t getting any help.

Jamie:

Ignacy was outraged. I’m pretty sure the only thing that stopped him going after that Ju-88 himself was Louisa sitting next to him.

“What the hell, Scotty?”

The German bomber was an ink splodge on the horizon.

“Mendelssohn’s banned in Germany,” I told him. “And it’s bloody ‘Pimms Leader’ to you.”

“What the hell, Pimms Leader?”

“We’re supposed to be holding fire anyway, and I’m not shooting down a dissenter on Christmas Day.”

“That is not what I meant by what the hell!”

“Well, what did you mean, then?”

“What is all this nonsense about Odysseus and a German courier?” Ignacy asked me.

The whole of B-Flight had heard us. All six of my flight crews had heard—eighteen men. Well, seventeen, not counting myself.

Phyllis might have heard. And even if she hadn’t, she was in the same plane as Dougie Kerr, who couldn’t keep his mouth shut for five minutes. I’d have to collar her the second we were back at RAF Windyedge—but dammit, then she’d interrogate every one of us in debriefing. Someone was bound to sing.

Ellen, I could trust Ellen to deal with Phyllis. But I’d have to warn her before we landed—

“I’ll tell you on the ground,” I said, trying to shut up Ignacy—and everybody else. “‘Careless talk costs lives.’”

Louisa:

When we landed at RAF Windyedge, Ignacy climbed out first, so he could help me get through the hatch and onto the wing. Derfel came behind, guiding me.

I’d completely forgotten about Bill Yorke. He’d been in the back with the radio and the rear gun the whole time, not saying anything—or not saying anything I could hear, at any rate. He had his own hatch to climb out of and was waiting for me when my feet landed on the ground. He threw a careless arm over my shoulders.

I hadn’t felt sick in the air. I’d been so worked up with excitement and awe and fear—I’d been wondering at the beauty of the sky and panicking at the possibility of being part of an air battle, and astonished that Felix Baer might be near me again in another German plane, and I had not devoted a moment to my stomach. But back on earth I suddenly felt sick.

I swallowed and swallowed, shrinking under the heavy arm of the strange gunner.

“Where did you learn German code names, then?” Bill Yorke asked casually. “Do we have a little Colonial spy in our midst?”

Ellen: