Jamaica! Was that in the East or West Indies? I didn’t like to ask. Was this how folk felt when they found I was a Traveller, so full of ignorance they couldn’t talk sense?

Of course most folk don’t ask those questions whilst driving an RAF utility vehicle, havering from hedge to hedge because they are trying to keep an eye on the German’s gun on the dashboard and hoping it doesn’t go off by accident when they hit a bump in the lane.

The pilot didn’t tell us to hush, though, so Louisa kept going, like a terrier with a bone. “Could you drive before the war?” she asked.

“Only—only a wee bit,” I said through gritted teeth. “I trained when I joined up.”

“Do you like it?”

Had I ever thought whether I liked it or not? It was a fair question.

“Aye,” I whispered. “I do like it. Makes me feel powerful, managing a big machine like this.”

“All that noise and speed!” she said as we rattled up to the airfield barrier.

“And the smell of petrol,” I agreed. “Sharp and fumy. Exciting.”

I stopped to wait for the guards to come out.

Louisa said fiercely, “An important job to do.”

I thought she sounded envious.

Sergeants Nobby Fergusson and Jack Hinton came up to the van, and Jack pointed his rifle at us.

Louisa:

It was still dark. Ellen cranked down her window to talk to the guards.

“All right, there, Volunteer McEwen?” one of them asked anxiously. He poked an electric torch through the window and swept it over us.

“I am still alive,” Ellen answered bitterly. “The Jerry’s heading home now. Get your light away, Nobby, you’re blinding me.”

“Who’s the colored girl?”

I tightened my hands on the dashboard. Why didn’t he ask me that question?

The light moved, and Ellen answered. “She’s called Louisa Adair. She’s new at the Limehouse. I asked her to come along with me.”

“Has she got ID?”

“Nobby Fergusson, I will give you ID at the end of my arm with my fist in your teeth. Or will you take over my job?” Ellen snarled. “Because I have got a ruddy Jerry’s gun pointed at my face today, as you can see—”

The torch’s beam fell still, lighting up Felix Baer’s hand on the dashboard holding the pistol. The curves of shining black metal gleamed softly in the dark.

Suddenly the barrel of the other guard’s rifle cut the light as he pushed it through the window past Ellen’s head, pointing it at Felix Baer. The end of the long gun was in front of my nose.