B-Flight was scheduled for its first nighttime op since the Jerries landed. But they stopped by the Limehouse before their afternoon kip, no doubt hoping for a keek at so-called Sergeant Lind. She was away translating German that day, so they’d have to wait. The wireless ops all ganged together, chatting up Nan’s mousy village lass Morag behind the bar, until she was blushing and getting orders wrong.

I saw Bill Yorke give Dougie Kerr a warning thump in the shoulder, and Dougie went red. Yorkie gave him a wee lecture.

It looked more like a superior officer dressing down a sprog than Yorkie’s usual stirring up mutiny. I caught Jamie’s eye, and he raised his glass ever so slightly. He was watching the wireless ops too. He still looked knackered. But not so old these days.

I wished I could take over his job for a day and have a go at whipping his lads into shape.

The wireless ops took their drinks and left the bar, crowding on stools among the rest of us lasses. Yorkie sat himself between Louisa and Phyllis, with his thigh pressed against Louisa and his arm over Phyllis’s shoulder. Phyllis was such a flipping good girl she put up with it, but Louisa scooted her chair to get away from him.

“Colored gal’s playin’ hard to get,” Chip Wingate drawled.

“Colored gal prefers Germans,” said Bill Yorke. “Bats her eyelashes at ’em like she wants to get paid.”

“Oi, set an example, Flying Officer Yorke,” Jamie warned. “I’m counting on you.”

Louisa stood, her hand quivering on her chair back.

She’d told me she’d blinked Morse code at Felix Baer. Yorkie was a wireless operator—she must be feart he’d noticed. She couldn’t risk getting angry.

She moved to put Jane and the table between herself and Yorke.

“I prefer musicians,” she said.

That fetched a good laugh from the lads. I stood up to join her so she’d know I had her back. But Yorkie didn’t move aside for me to pass.

“Gadgy pillock,” I muttered, going round the table the other way.

Shaness. I’d used a Traveller word.

Nobody noticed. Or if they did, they didn’t wonder why I’d used it. Ignacy Mazur, the Polish bloke, told Yorkie, “You will never win a lady by questioning her character.”

Dougie Kerr laughed. Then he opened his flapping gob and said, “Mazur, mate, you’re not qualified to give advice about girls.”

They were all ready for a fight.

“Shut it, you blabber-mouthed Australian git!” snarled Derfel. “You blab about every flight, you blab about every transmission—you blabbed to Morag that you’ve taken an oath under the Official Secrets Act, what kind of a chat-up line is that?”