Rose Under Fire (Code Name Verity, #2)(20)

Then I was chasing it.

I wasn’t thinking about engine pressure or fuel or anything – I was just hell bent on getting every extra second possible of power and speed out of that Spitfire. And yard by yard, I gained on the bomb.

I must have been going 400 miles an hour. But it didn’t feel fast. It felt like getting your teeth pulled.

‘Come on – come on –’

I talked to the plane like it was a racehorse. I couldn’t hear a thing with full power; I couldn’t hear the sound of my own voice.

‘Come on – nearly there!’

And then I’d overshot it. Getting the speed right was the hardest thing I have ever done – probably the best flying I have ever done too. I overtook the bomb four times before I found that sweet place on the throttle that let me scream along beside it in the air. And then I got my wing under the bomb’s wing on the first try. I didn’t even touch it. I saw the bomb wobble in the air and I thrust full power on again to get out of its way. Then I looked back over my shoulder and saw the bomb tip down gently, gently into a spin, just like Celia’s Tempest.

I let out a scream of nerve and fury and exhilaration, and cut the power and set up the Spit for a straight and level cruise, and began to battle the first wave of guilt.

Do you have ANY IDEA how much fuel you just wasted?

I didn’t even see the stupid bomb hit the ground – I was so busy trying to re-establish myself in real life. It must be what Superman feels like after racing through the sky after a speeding locomotive and then ten seconds later peering at the world through Clark Kent’s near-sighted glasses.

How much fuel have I wasted and where the heck am I?

How much fuel have I wasted and where the heck am I and did I damage the engine?

I was starting to panic. I knew I had to calm down, so I began to orbit – long, lazy ovals over rolling French crazy-quilt fields and woods. I was too high to see where my bomb hit – or maybe I was already too far away to see it. I knew I had to figure out where I was and how to get to Caen from there. I’d been relay-racing with the bomb for about a quarter of an hour, which meant I was now ironically south-west of Paris, about halfway between Paris and Dijon – that bomb wouldn’t have hit Paris anyway. I thought and scribbled on my map for ten minutes while I circled. I knew that all the time I was circling I was wasting still more fuel, but I needed to get it right.

I guess Daddy would say I had my head down in the cockpit for too long. He’d say I didn’t keep enough of a lookout. It’s true I didn’t see them coming. But I don’t think I could have done anything about it even if I had.

I didn’t know what the intercepting planes were. I knew they were German and I could tell they had jet engines, but I didn’t have a clue what kind of plane they were. They were in Luftwaffe camouflage, with black crosses on their fuselages and swastikas on their tailplanes. Their engines hung down from their wings like bombs. I’d never seen anything fly that fast.

I know now that in German they’re called Schwalben, swallows. They were Messerschmitt Me-262s. Those planes did fly just like a couple of swallows, great big enormous swallows with jet engines strapped under their wings. The first one came at me from below and behind, and the other from above and behind. They corkscrewed around me with their engines roaring and suddenly they were gone, one of them breaking left and the other right – but I was still in my wide, slow orbit and they came screaming back at me, one passing me on each side. It was exactly like watching swallows flying.

I did two things. I levelled out and headed north-west, straight back towards England as fast as I could go, and I flashed every single light I had – landing lights, nav lights, cockpit floodlights – and I pulled the flares out, something I’ve never, ever done before, to let them know I wasn’t armed. They came at me again and one of them settled on my tail – I could see him over my shoulder as I tried frantically to urge the speed up and flash lights with the same hand. I was so afraid he was going to blast me out of the sky that it took me a while to notice the other one flying calmly ahead of me, deliberately keeping pace with me. He wasn’t aggressive. He just flew along and let me set the speed. He was so close I could see the pilot’s head in the cockpit. After a moment he rocked his wings at me: ‘HI.’

I let go of the lights and kept my hand on the throttle. I pushed the control column gently from side to side. Light touch, one finger, trained in me from the age of twelve. ‘HI’ yourself.

God.

He made a wide, level turn to the left, practically a U-turn, and headed off back in the other direction.

I actually sobbed aloud with panicked relief, praying that I would never see him again, that I’d never see another Luftwaffe aircraft in my whole life. But then I glanced back over my shoulder and the other guy was still there, stuck to my tail.

‘GO AWAY!’ I screamed pointlessly at the sky.

In about a minute the first guy was back in exactly the same deliberate position ahead of me and to my left, and when he knew I was watching he rocked his wings again.

And I figured out what he meant: ‘FOLLOW ME.’

‘No no no,’ I sobbed at the indifferent sky.

I knew what I was supposed to do. I was supposed to rock my wings to answer him and let him know I was ready to follow his instructions. But I didn’t. I wasn’t ready to follow his instructions. So I just kept flying stubbornly straight in the direction I was heading and ignored him.