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sea next to them.
    All along the landing area men were coming ashore, amid the cacophony of noise and the acrid smell and taste of smoke, and the enemy shells falling around them, to get their equipment safely beached, before starting to push inland, alongside 146th Field Regiment RA, which was now attached to the 7th Armoured Division.
    ‘Fighting this ruddy war certainly doesn’t get any easier,’ Andy found time to mutter, in an aside to Luke, as the men fell in and started to push forward. The first rule of any beach landing was that you got off the beach as fast as you could, and as far as the enemy would let you.
    This time that distance wasn’t very far, a mile or so Luke reckoned, before all hell broke loose and they were under attack from the Germans.
    She had done it. Lou felt like whooping with joy as she taxied her plane neatly to a standstill, after her tenth cross-country flight. This one had been the hardest of all: from Thame to the Castle Bromwich aircraft factory – the largest Spitfire factory in the country – surrounded on three sides by barrage balloons to protect it. Lou had not had to land on the airstrip there this time to avoid clogging it up when it was needed for the removal of Spits to the maintenance units. Instead she had been instructed to drop down almost to a landing height and then lift off again. As the barrage balloons stretched to the western side of the airstrip, all landings had to be made to the west and all take-offs had to be made to the east. Today, even with good visibility and a lightly buffetingwind, Lou had been aware of what a challenge it must be to perform those manoeuvres when weather conditions were unfavourable.
    Lou had been glad she had listened to the advice of her instructor, Margery, who had told her to return via the maintenance units of Little Rissington, Kemble and Aston Down, where ultimately she would be expected to deliver the new Spitfires for their mechanical fitting out, and then Number 6 Ferry Pool at Ratcliffe before returning to Thame. Since the Fosse Way passed the boundary to Ratcliffe’s airstrip, once she had the road in her view, Lou had stuck with it, holding her breath when they had run into some unexpectedly low cloud.
    Technically she was not allowed to fly above it but if she dropped down too low to get under it she could end up dangerously close to the ground. In the end she decided to keep to a steady course and fly through it in the hope that it was only an odd patch. To her relief her guess had been right, and they were soon out of the cloud. Even better, she had been able to maintain a steady course.
    It was her longest and most complex cross-country so far, and she was thrilled when, once they were both outside the aircraft, Margery told her approvingly, ‘Very nice, Campion. Well done.’
    Just seeing those gleaming Spitfires all lined up awaiting transportation had filled Lou with excitement. It had been a wonderful day, she acknowledged happily to herself, removing her flying helmet and shaking her head to free her tangled curls.
    She had allowed June to persuade her into going to a dance this evening at a nearby American bomber base. A whole crowd of them were going, thanks to an invitation passed on to them via a male American ATA pilot. Several American male pilots had joined ATA in its early days, before America had joined the war.
    Although ATA had now opened its doors to girls from ordinary backgrounds, the ethos put in place by the original eight pilots, all young women from privileged and well-to-do backgrounds, still prevailed. ATA pilots were not subject to any of the rules and regulations imposed by the Armed Forces: there was no parading, no drill, no hierarchy, no jankers, no rules about wearing uniform instead of civvies. Instead what there was were a set of unspoken ‘rules’ accepted and adhered to as a matter of principle and honour.
    These included such practical aspects of their work as upholding the