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There was a pause. In the darkness, Silk realized the Wingco suspected he was being facetious. “Honestly, sir. You see—”
    â€œI don’t care. There was a time, Silk, when I thought you were a prat. I see now that I flattered you.” The Wingco strode away.
    Silk had a quick bath and got dressed and went to the Mess. Tony Langham was drinking with a bunch of pilots and observers. “The motion was carried,” he told Silk, “by a hundred and seventeen votes to three.”
    â€œGood God. Well, Pixie’s taken the job away from me. Was all that stuff true? What LAC Barber said?”
    â€œEvery word. Where’ve you been all day?”
    â€œOh,
bollocks,”
Silk said.
    Langham shrugged. “You always were a bad loser, Silko. Remember the maiden flight of the SE5a? You behaved very badly then, I thought.”
2
    The Wingco appointed another Entertainments Officer. The government grudgingly allowed cinemas, theaters and dance halls toreopen. Bomber Command discovered the reasons for its heavy losses in ops on the second day of the war. The pilots were at fault. Their attacks had been too low and too near the flak batteries on the docks at Wilhelmshaven and Brunsbüttel. Therefore crews should fly higher and concentrate their attacks on ships at sea. It was noticeable that no aircraft had been lost to German fighters. If all crews kept a close formation so as to coordinate their gunnery, British bombers would be more than a match for any fighters.
    LAC Barber was posted to an RAF weather station in Orkney.
    For the next few weeks, Bomber Command attempted no raids on German warships. 409 Squadron could relax a little. “We’re obviously keeping our powder dry,” Rafferty said. “Keeping Hitler guessing.” But on September 29, two other squadrons sent eleven Hampdens to search the Heligoland area, about fifty miles north of Wilhelmshaven. The bombers were in two formations. One group of six Hampdens found a couple of destroyers, bombed them, missed them, went home. The other group of five Hampdens was swamped by enemy fighters, probably Messerschmitt 109s. That’s what German radio said in its English-language broadcast, and the crews at Kindrick (who were regular listeners) thought it was probably true, because there was no denying the fact that all five Hampdens had been shot down.
    Silk, Langham and Duff visited the Intelligence Officer. “Five out of eleven, Bins,” Silk said. “Not a funny joke, is it?”
    â€œRotten luck.”
    â€œLuck? You reckon it’s just luck?”
    â€œIn the absence of hard fact, Command isn’t about to leap to any conclusion. It could have been a freak loss. Maybe some of the guns jammed. Perhaps a collision. Or a Hampden lost an engine and fell out of formation.” Bins shrugged.
    â€œOr they all got struck by lightning,” Langham said. “All five.”
    â€œStranger things have happened.” Bins sharpened a pencil; he found the chore soothing. “This episode has jogged my memory. Something I haven’t thought of in an age. France, 1917, my squadron got given half a dozen brand new Bristol Fighters. Splendid bus, two-seater. The gunner had a tremendous field of fire. We were ordered to fly these machines in tight formation and use our crossfire to hack down any Hun who came near.”
    â€œSounds familiar,” Duff said.
    â€œAnd we lost five Bristol Fighters out of six on the first patrol.”
    â€œSounds very familiar,” Duff said.
    â€œStill, we won in the end, didn’t we? Despite everything.”
    â€œHoo bloody ray,” Silk said. They went out and left him still sharpening.

WIDE BLUE YONDER
1
    Adolf Hitler was not the only enemy. German measles struck RAF Kindrick.
    Not surprisingly, the disease spread rapidly in the ground staff who serviced the bombers: men who worked closely together, messed together, shared the same billets. It