I helped to unload the old woman’s things, but I couldn’t stop to move them in. I was meant to be on my way back to the airfield, not wasting Air Ministry petrol running errands for Nancy Campbell. As I turned the Tilly to face about so I didn’t have to reverse down the lane, I saw Louisa holding the door open for the old woman. I wondered how the brown-skinned lass would cope with Nan when they met for the first time.

Not my lookout, I thought with relief, as I headed back to RAF Windyedge.

I didn’t have any idea who was in the plane that had just landed, but I didn’t take Louisa’s warning very seriously. It was likely some bigwig, or prisoner even, who needed to be shuttled someplace. The airfield staff would miss me right away if they needed me.

Sergeant Norbert Fergusson was standing outside his guard’s hut in front of the barrier to the aerodrome drive, watching the sky through field glasses.

I cranked down the window of the Tilly and leaned out. “What is it, Nobby?”

“Bloody Jerry just landed on our airfield,” he said through his teeth.

Shaness. The oath in Traveller cant hissed in my head, though I’d taught myself not to speak it aloud. Louisa had been right. It was a German plane.

“Why didn’t we shoot him on his way in?” I exclaimed.

“The ack-ack lads on the north side gave him a burst, didn’t you hear? But then they stopped. He had his cockpit open, waving a big white sheet behind him, and his Luftwaffe markings are all covered up, too. Looks like he means to surrender, or something.”

“Get the barrier up,” I told him. “They might need me to drive somebody somewhere.”

“Better you than me if there’s a bloody Jerry involved,” said Nobby, and raised the barrier.

I went along the gravel drive as fast as I dared. I was in two minds as to whether I ought to hurry in case I got in trouble for not being about when I was supposed to, or to go slowly so I didn’t have to meet any German airmen. The Tilly’s tires spat up pebbles behind me. I passed the concrete barracks and the aircraft hangar with its faded green paint, and pulled up in front of the operations building.

There was one plane on the airfield, a great gray ugly thing, wings like knife blades and high Perspex cockpit bulging on top like a giant one-eyed insect.

I could see what it was, up close on the ground. It was a Messerschmitt 109 fighter.