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understood how it was transmitted. Was it touch, was it airborne in the breath or a sneeze, or was it something unknown? The hot weather seemed to stir it upand every few years the summer months would be blighted by an awful dread as the disease scythed through the children and teenagers of the area.
    Its effects were completely unpredictable too. The great strapping athlete who played in the school football team would die in a couple of days; the delicate boy who was always ill would shrug it off with barely a scar. Sometimes polio left you with withered legs that could no longer support your weight. Some were left paralysed, or brain damaged. Sometimes you had to spend the rest of your life in an iron lung, when the disease stopped the muscles that made you breathe from working.
    Harry had been one of those polio victims who’d been unmarked by the disease once it had worked its way through him. David had died. Harry had never told his parents he’d persuaded his brother to stay at the museum. And ever since he’d wondered whether they could have saved David if he’d got to hospital a few hours earlier.
    That was the thing that made him volunteer for the air force. It was to make amends for that. If God wanted to punish him, then He would have a perfect opportunity.

    That afternoon a fresh breeze blew in from the North Sea and the sun came out. Harry walked to the airbase perimeter and stared through the wire fence over a late crop of golden barley. He wanted to reach out and touch it as it rolled and rippled in the wind. He loved the way you could see the wind when you were watching a field of crops orwild grass. The chimes of Saint Mary’s, the local village church, drifted over the field and he was seized by a painful awareness of the passing of time and his own little place in the world. Soon the crew of the Macey May would find their names on the combat roster. Who knew what would happen then?

CHAPTER 5
September 12th, 1943
    That evening, as they assembled for a final inspection on the concrete in front of their B-17, Holberg outlined their flight plan.
    ‘We’re flying north-west to Birmingham, then over the Pennines and up to Edinburgh, then we have a long trail back over the North Sea. We’ll be making our way up to a final height of twenty-five thousand feet so you’ll be on oxygen. We’ll stay up there until the final hour, when we’ll descend to nine thousand and you’ll be able to breathe without your masks. We should be home about 2.30 a.m.’
    The Macey May took off just as the first hint of dusk began to colour the edge of the sky. Ten minutes into the flight, Harry squeezed into his ball turret, from where he had a wonderful view of an English autumn evening. Flying over a network of waterways in Norfolk he saw a painted canal boat making its leisurely passage east, a thin stream of white smoke trailing behind it. Harry considered for a moment whether he’d rather swap places with the boatman. No, he decided boldly. For all the dangers he faced, who could imagine seeing the things he was seeing?
    There on the underside of the ascending B-17 he felt invincible. As they headed north, the shadows crept across the fields and he peered in wonder until they were too high to distinguish such detail on the ground. Holberg’s voice came over the interphone: ‘Beautiful, isn’t it? But don’t get distracted, you gunners. There’s always the chance the Krauts will have some random patrols up here.’
    By now night was almost upon them. After it got dark, if there were Nazi night fighters to contend with, they would not know they were there until the Macey May shook with the impact of cannon shells.
    After half an hour they flew over a great urban conglomeration, just visible through the gloom. The city was observing the blackout well enough, and when it got properly dark it would be almost invisible from a height. ‘We’re just flying over Birmingham,’ a voice came through his headphones. It was