“It’s a beautiful night for flying!” I told him, as if we were larking about.

“Enjoy it while you have the chance!”

We were over Norway in a little more than an hour.

Norway was as bright with snow and moonlight as Scotland, the rocky islets spread out in black and silver. It felt strangely still, nothing moving anywhere, no antiaircraft guns firing. We passed low over the aerodrome at Stavanger and dumped our bombs on their runway and hangars. No one fired a single shot at us. There was nothing to hear but the hum of our own engines, and the explosions beneath us in the dark.

“Circle over the docks and dump whatever’s left, and let’s get out of here,” I said.

“Too right,” called Adam Stedman. “This place is giving me the heebie-jeebies.”

We knew there was only one reason they weren’t firing.

There must be Luftwaffe night fighters patrolling—probably not more than ten minutes away, waiting for us to turn up at Utsira hoping to bag another submarine. The gunners on the ground didn’t want to hit their own planes, so they couldn’t fire at us, either.

We detonated another load over the shipyard.

I climbed away, scanning the moonlit sky for dark wings, holding my breath. We were high now—we’d just about got away with it.

“Cup of tea, Jamie?” said Silver, handing me the steaming cup lid of the thermos flask. I took it and raised it to my mouth.

I’d been expecting an attack for the last half an hour; we all expected it, but none of us saw it coming. The first I knew there were Me-110s in the sky with us was when I saw one of Adam Stedman’s engines explode into flame beyond our starboard wingtip.

I banked automatically away and got a faceful of hot tea at the same time. Silver caught the cup as I dropped it, spluttering and cursing, and a bloody good thing he did, or it would have been rolling around jamming the rudder pedals. I saw Stedman’s Blenheim screaming downhill as he dived in a desperate attempt to put the fire out, and I saw the black shape of the Messerschmitt 110 dive after him, then nothing but flames below.

The sky was suddenly full of the black wings of night fighters. Someone must have called them home. And of course they hadn’t had far to go.