Ever since he was a child he’d looked up into the sky with wonder and naivety. He’d seen the birds and wanted to fly – years later saw the planes and wanted to fly them. Now he sat perched in the clouds, both man and child, staring at the ground with a mix of past wonder, and present terror. It was at once fantastic and terrible; there were dreams in the sky but Jerry was in the sky as well. The Battle for Britain began.

Below the machines a new generation looked up into the sky with wonder and naivety, as their fathers fought off the monsters in the cupboard. He closed his eyes and wished he was young again but the noise of the engine would not stop.

–

His back leaned against earth and mud; it was raining and his heels sank easily into a river of soil. But it was either here in the dug-out or over there…

Bellowing artillery, gunshots and screams were over there on no-mans land. The screams could be his friends, dying or maimed, or it could be another scream ordering him to charge onwards, bayonet forward and screaming as he charged, into the same fate.

They were all of them courageous, but very few were brave; those were the ones with no family at home, no children or wife waiting for them in comfort. It was a dark and evil place; no dreams or soul, no pleasance about it. No family; only friends, as though all the evil of human corruption had been poured out until the dead soil was thick with it, corrupting everything good, in all the land there remained not one seed of innocence. Friendship was the most enduring quality humanity had, even in death and corruption it endured. But that too passed and died; every day his friends were taken from him.

Better to be in sea or sky than here, better to be where death came quickly and fear was a romantic fear set between the clouds and the waves. Where you could still see your country from above or by telescope.

In the seconds that remained he thought of London, free and safe, the sound of jazz music and the taste of cold beer. He dreamt, in the seconds that remained.

–

“Sprachen! Hund! Wo bist deiner Fruenden?!”

She focused, not upon the grip of arms holding her, or the Gestapo’s loaded questions but on the clock – another twenty minutes and she would have lasted for an hour. Her captors were perspiring, and when they threatened her their brows wrinkled and grips tightened. They had time to question her. But not much time.

“Je…Je…”

“Auf wachen! Was ist dein Namme!”

No matter what they did, they were mortal, it could not last forever.

“Je m’appelle Marie. C’est tout!”

No matter how much it hurt she was mortal, it could not last forever. Could it?

The next time they hit her she might black out.

“Dummkopf. Wir wissen du bist Englisch. Sprachen. Was ist dein Namme?”

“C’est tout! Je n’ai dirai pas.”

She focused on the clock, counting out seconds until minutes, counting out minutes until death.

–

He landed slowly. He had killed two men. As the craft sank to the ground he was as though looking from afar, unable to discern whether he was landing or crashing, terror of death so clinging in his heart. He would still feel for days as though he was fighting. He would be lying in bed, turning from one side to the other, unable to escape the planes. He’d be sipping champagne to the sweet sound of Glen Miller and the sordid sound of Hurricane engines.

It was as though his whole life was a blur; dreaming dreams, achieving them, defending dreams and killing men -  it seemed good but with evil mixed in. It was Britain’s finest hour but a war too grim, too dark to count the cost. Though history had been made and the cause was just and true, the cost of being a hero was more than he had ever dreamed.

FIN