The moon was out at the moment, she noticed, but they were flying towards a bank of cloud in the east that would conceal them over enemy territory. The Met Office men had got it right for once. The crews would be more dependent on RDF to find their targets, but at least they would be less vulnerable to anti-aircraft fire from the ground.

She wished Mark hadn’t told her about the mission, but now she knew he was up there she could think of nothing else. She would have to wait at least twenty-four hours before she knew whether or not he had returned safely. Fear lodged in the pit of her stomach, a constant ache as debilitating as any pain of her monthlies, but impervious to the two aspirin she’d taken. She went for supper just before the shift, but had no appetite. Every mouthful tasted like cardboard.

‘Have you seen him yet?’ Marcia whispered, at the shift changeover.

‘Him? Who?’

‘Your Indian prince?’

‘What? Here? Stop teasing.’

‘No, I’m serious. He was here to fix the IFF. His mate’s over there.’ Monty was sitting in the corner, head rested back against the wall, eyes closed, his slightly gaping mouth emitting small, rhythmical snores.

‘Fix the IFF? What’s wrong with it?’

‘Buggered. In a word.’

‘A technical term?’

‘Our engineers were perfectly clueless, so they called in the boffins. Him over there and your prince. The pair of them had to go up the mast in the dark, bless ’em.’

Vic, up a mast in the dark? ‘That’s pretty heroic. Is it working now?’

‘We haven’t had any targets to test it on yet, but the bombers who went out earlier will be back in a few hours, no doubt. Did you hear them?’

‘Hitler would have heard them in his bunker.’

‘Let’s hope they blast him to hell.’

Kath’s head was in a spin. It was enough to worry about Mark without the embarrassment of bumping into Vic again. He still had not replied to any of her letters, and she assumed he’d taken umbrage after seeing her with the wretched Larry at Martlesham. The memory of those kisses still left a sour taste in her mouth. If only she’d taken more notice of Marcia’s warning about the cocktails.

They bid goodnight to the previous shift and immediately settled into their stations. Kath took the first turn on the screen, and for the first hour everything was quiet except for the occasional ship passing by, so they had time to listen in to reports being sent to HQ at Stanmore from other stations. These were usually a staccato blur of acronyms, technical language and map readings that were almost impossible to follow. But every now and again a few terrifying phrases would emerge – ‘taking fire over Bremen’, ‘two down’, ‘identified hostile’ – that could grip you with panic if you listened too hard. It was easier when you were too busy to worry.

She’d taken her turn on the plotting tables and returned to the screen when it began to light up with faint blips. She took plots, range and height, and calculated that there must be thirty of them, perhaps more, still eighty miles out. Probably our own, she thought, returning from the raid. By now Vic’s mate had ceased his snoring, introduced himself as Monty and was on full alert, peering at the screen over her shoulder.