“But no address. No home to go to. People don’t like that—they think it makes you shifty. Lazy. Outsiders, not to be trusted.”

“We were outsiders too,” Louisa agreed. “Me and my English mum and Jamaican dad. We didn’t fit anyone’s rules, and it was hard being out and about together. But we loved being together. You have family to go to, as well, don’t you? Doesn’t that count?”

We’d reached the barracks. I pulled up and jumped out. Louisa was close behind me as I opened the back of the van, and David Silvermont pounded across the moonlit airfield to join us.

“Got him?” Silver demanded.

Best Jamie could do was make Chip sit up, but he wouldn’t get out of the Tilly.

“Goddamn it, Jamie!” Silver exclaimed. “He isn’t suited up!”

“I know it,” Jamie said grimly. He sounded done in. “Get his gear and we’ll drive him to the plane.”

We couldn’t get Chip into his flight suit, either. No amount of bawling in his earhole could stir him. Silver looked at the luminous dial of his watch.

“Jamie, we take off in ten minutes. For God’s sake. Leave him. It’s not your fault. We’re on fishing-fleet escort; we won’t be taking headings and we can manage without a gunner. You can work the radio from the pilot’s seat.”

“The start-up crew will notice if only two of us get in. And if my gunner gets court-martialed, I’ll be in for it too. If we could just get him into the plane!”

Louisa knelt on the floor of the Tilly by the slumbering Texan, holding his flight suit.

“Hey,” she said slowly.

She sat and hauled Nan Campbell’s boots off her feet. A moment later she began to climb into Chip Wingate’s flight suit. By the time she’d got her legs in and struggled to pull it up over her shoulders, I jumped up to help. In another second Silver was giving us a hand too.

Every one of us wanted to save Jamie’s skin. We didn’t give a toss about Chip Wingate.

“No, no, no,” Jamie objected. “Not Louisa.”

“Why not Louisa!” I said. “We’ll leave Tex to sleep it off! He’ll be all right under blankets and canvas.”

“No!”

“We’ll have to swap her back the second we’re on the ground,” said Silver.

“I’ll wait here,” I said. “I’ll drive up to the plane when you land and she can hop back in the van, and we’ll unload Texas Sunshine at the barracks door. No one will notice it wasn’t him with you the whole time.”

“Tomorrow you can pretend he fainted on the flight back and had to be carried to bed,” said Louisa, and Silver and I burst out laughing.

Jamie:

Were they all absolutely bonkers?