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view the model locomotive and the display of explosive devices. Nothing like imagining explosions to take your mind off suffering.
    She gathered her notes and pens and followed the class out the door.

Chapter Seven
     
    February 1942
     
    “Welcome to RAF Ringway parachute training school, ladies and gentlemen. I hope you’re all ready for some excitement.” The instructor, who—perhaps deliberately—bore a significant resemblance to General Montgomery, paced as he spoke.
    Antonia looked around her for familiar faces and spotted the mouthy young Welshman. What was his name again? Oh, right. Rhydderch. He stood with his hands in his pockets, his chest thrown out, stalwart and a bit smug, while she shivered in her oversized RAF overalls.
    She turned her attention back to the instructor and to the giant slides built up against the rear wall of the hangar. They began at a height of about twenty feet and ended abruptly at about eight feet. Directly below the drop were mattresses that seemed far too small.
    “First of all, we’ll practice landing. As soon as your feet strike the ground, you must throw yourself sideways to distribute the impact to your calf, your thigh, your hip, and finally the side of your back. Keep your legs slightly bent at the knee, your chin tucked in, and your hands linked behind your neck.”
    He paused, as if to give them time to reconsider, then pointed toward the ladders. “All right, you lot. Up you go. Try not to break anything, will you?”
    Antonia dutifully executed the slides and tumbles, finding the first drop painful but each consecutive one more tolerable. By the tenth, she was more fatigued from climbing the ladder than from taking the fall.
    “Good show, chaps. No smashed bones yet,” the faux Montgomery announced. “Go get yourselves some sandwiches and tea, and in an hour, we’ll move on to the pulleys.”
    As the group migrated toward a table with the promised lunch, Antonia sensed someone at her side.
    “A right harsh way to treat a lady, innit?” a voice said.
    “Mr. Rhydderch,” she said, guessing, and looked over her shoulder at him. “Thank you for your concern.”
    “Please, it’s Llewellyn. Me mates call me Lew. And you’re Antonia, right? Toni.” They reached the food table and he handed her a tin mug of tea. “I was just looking after ya.”
    “No need for that, Lew. I’m doing just fine. What about you? How are you coping?
    “Smashing. I seem to have the knack, you know?” He handed her a spam sandwich but she raised her hand. “Thanks, I’ll take the cheese.” She reached across him and helped herself. “Do a lot of falling, do you?”
    He looked puzzled for a moment, then chuckled. “Aye, that I do. Rugby, see? When eight blokes at a time thrash you on the field, falling’s the easy part. Say, if you’re free this evening and fancy a bit of company, maybe we could have a pint at the village pub.”
    “Thank you, Llewellyn, but I don’t think we’re supposed to draw attention to ourselves in the village.”
    “Well, we can skip the pub and have us a beer at my place. Me flat-mate dropped out of the school, so I’ve got the place all to meself.” He bit into his sandwich.
    “Thanks again, but I think I’m going to be pretty knackered by tonight. Most nights, in fact.” She sipped her tea.
    “Pity,” he said through a full mouth, then chewed a bit more and swallowed before adding. “I could teach you how to fall.”
    She ignored the innuendo and looked to the side where the only other woman in the class was conversing with the instructor. “Why don’t you ask her? She might need help falling.”
    He scrutinized the other woman. “Quite a lot of nose, that one. Not me type.”
    “I don’t think I am either, Lew. Here, have another sandwich.” She slapped a spam-on-whole-wheat onto his open hand and walked away.
     
    *
     
    At ten in the evening Antonia stood on the field with the others who had made the first cut and stamped her