Even then he still kept struggling, like a red snapper reeled in from the green waves on a fishing line.

Someone snatched off the German’s leather flight helmet and goggles.

I recognized Felix Baer.

Jamie:

Louisa lurched forward. Jane was hanging on her arm, and Ellen grabbed Louisa’s other shoulder.

“Whisht. Take care,” Ellen said.

They both recognized that captured German.

I was looking at “Odysseus.”

One of his fellow airmen bent to yell a single ferocious word at him, and Felix Baer spat in his face in reply.

The other man wiped his cheek, and I saw he held a Luger pistol in his gloved hand, which in another second he pressed against Baer’s head.

Almost everybody froze.

Not Tex. Sergeant Chester Wingate took this opportunity to slam his fist into Felix Baer’s face and break his nose.

“Stop it!” Louisa screamed. “What are you doing?”

Ellen’s arm was around her shoulder, but to be honest I think the only reason the kid didn’t run forward to stop the fight herself was because of the old woman leaning on her.

I tried to wade in and stumbled. I was still shaking like a leaf. Silver hauled Chip off the German bloke by the back of his life jacket.

Felix Baer’s face was awash with blood, one eye already beginning to swell shut. He spat again, but he might have been trying to clear his mouth. He said to the other German airman—my German is not fluent but I know what he said—“You can’t kill me, you blockhead.”

“No,” answered the other, and according to Jane, he added, “but I’ll blow your ear off if you don’t stop fighting.”

Felix Baer’s teeth were chattering. I could see it—could see his jaw shaking as badly as my own hands. I had no doubt he was the pilot who’d been flying when his plane nearly collided with mine.

No one else noticed. Everybody was too busy starting a fresh brawl with the Luftwaffe airman holding a gun in the middle of an RAF aerodrome. There was another tussle, less dramatic than the first, as our lads took possession of the pistol, searched the enemy, and grabbed hold of the third German while they were at it.

Felix Baer sat sullenly on the frozen ground watching with his hands tied behind him and his nose dripping blood. He kept his mouth pressed tightly shut, trying to calm the shaking.

I stepped forward and held my cigarette to his lips.

“Hell of a landing,” I congratulated him, even though I knew he wouldn’t understand it. “Glad you missed me.”

Ellen:

I thought my heart would burst. I’d never seen Jamie Stuart so broken down he couldn’t light his own smoke.

It made everybody quiet. Not a soul there but didn’t see the trembling as his neat, slim fingers held out that cigarette to the enemy.