My passengers were quiet as we sped along the narrow drive. I wondered what the Jerry pilot was thinking about. What would happen at the airfield when he tried to get me, or Louisa, into his plane? Would the RAF Windyedge lads let him take off? What would happen to me, or to Louisa, if they didn’t?

God pity us.

Louisa:

It wasn’t as dark now. Felix Baer would have daylight to fly in.

I was crammed between him and Ellen and couldn’t possibly try to escape until one of them got out. I squinted into the gloom over the gun on the dashboard, trying to ignore it, and stared out at the aerodrome.

I am on a Royal Air Force aerodrome.

I thought I’d suffocate with fear and excitement. It was like having my own private Blitz in my head and my stomach.

I saw a cluster of sheds and barracks, concrete and boards and weathered brick. The drive was rutted gravel and the runway was grass. It all looked the same color in the gray dawn. There was one plane parked on the grass.

It was the German pilot’s Luftwaffe fighter, like some giant stinging insect with broad blades for wings. Its markings were covered, but it was as sleek and dangerous as a sword, a battle weapon and armor rolled into one.

I thought of Ellen saying that driving made her feel powerful. What must it be like to fly?

It may have been nerves or petrol fumes going to my head, but for a moment I envied Felix Baer even more than I envied Ellen McEwen.

Ellen:

I pulled up by operations. But the Jerry wouldn’t walk across the airfield with folk such as Nobby and Jack chasing him. “Go, go.” He pointed angrily to his plane, on the grass outside the hangar, and rapped his pistol against the windscreen for emphasis.

I didn’t ken how many shots he had in that pistol, and I didn’t want to find out. Never have I felt so sick with fear.

I drove as slowly as I dared, bumping over clats of turf, trying to give our lads a chance to come after us without giving the Jerry another fright.

I stopped alongside the plane and opened my door and climbed out. So did he. He wasn’t going to give us any chance to make a run for it.

Louisa:

I jumped out after both of them. In the gloom, I could see the shadows of men running, and it looked like every one of them held a rifle. It was like watching a cinema newsreel, all black and gray, soldiers rushing into battle.

Weren’t we supposed to let the German pilot go? Didn’t he have a code name in some secret Intelligence plan? The guards at the gate nearly killed us trying to take command of him. But there wasn’t supposed to be a battle.