I heard a yelp. The Lewis gun rattled. I glanced behind. Two bright red Fokkers on our tail.

‘Hang on!’ I shouted.

Both hands on the joystick, forcing us up, up. Then a sharp twist. Bullets smashed into the woodwork, twanged off the engine. Something tore at my boot.

‘Now!’ Burke yelled.

Hell of a way to learn how to loop the loop. We roared in a circle, hanging upside down, then rolling once, twice, and circling back towards our lines. Almost the Immelmann Turn. Banjo would be proud.

I twisted around in my seat. They were still there.

Damn.

Burke was slumped over his gun.

No time to think. Just fly. I banked left, fast—faster than I ever dreamed Matilda could fly—then dropped the nose sharply so the Fokkers soared past, over my head. And into my gunsights. One hand on the control, one on the trigger. And fire.

Missed.

Again.

The Fokker dipped and swerved. I couldn’t get him in my sights. He was good, this chap. Smart. Faster than me. Could it be? The Red Baron.

Bam! A cloud of black smoke just off his wingtip. And another.

Archie. Our gun crews had spotted us. Bam!

I had to get out of there. Much as I loved our anti-aircraft battery at that moment, I didn’t want to get caught in their line of fire.

I circled back over the ruins of Ypres, trailing black smoke through the air, and headed for home.

It wasn’t really home. It was just a motley collection of huts and tents in a muddy field. But it felt safe. Well, safer than anywhere else on the Front.

Charlie ran out onto the runway as I taxied in. Ground crew and medic were ready. They’d seen us coming in, spewing oil and smoke.

Len and the boys lifted Burke out of his seat.

Charlie climbed up the ladder and offered me a hand.

‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘Burke’s—’

‘I know.’

I gazed around me. The dashboard was splintered and puckered with holes. There was blood all over my flying suit. Charlie stood above me, one hand outstretched. Everyone else was waiting.

‘I don’t think I can move,’ I whispered.

Charlie called out to the men below. ‘He’s hit. I’ll need help.’

‘It’s not that,’ I said. ‘It doesn’t even hurt. It’s just …’

‘Come on, cobber,’ Charlie said gently. ‘Let’s get you back on the ground.’

He and Len prised me out of there somehow. I don’t remember much about it. The ambulance took me off to the hospital, and I was back at the airfield the next morning.

I was lucky, they said.

I guess that’s true. Every week, sometimes more often, one of the planes would go missing. There’d be a space in the hangar, but no news. Later, a call would come through from a hospital or a nearby regiment or from HQ.

‘Plane wreckage located. No survivors.’

Or: ‘Reports RE8 down over enemy lines.’

Or worst of all, we saw it happen, as bullets tore off the wings or the petrol tank exploded or the plane went into a tail spin and fell out of the sky.

Burke had been right. It was much easier to think about the machines, not the men.

‘No empty chairs.’ That was the motto. Empty chairs around the dinner table made us jumpy and morose. Not good for morale, old chap. Now there was a gap where Burke once sat.

So nervous new lads arrived every few days to fill those chairs. As if we didn’t notice the changing faces. As if our own faces weren’t pale and sometimes twitchy. As if we didn’t know that our life expectancy here on the Western Front was eleven days.

Eleven days. That’s how long most pilots lasted.

Every day longer than that was a blessing—a freakish, beautiful blessing.

After a month on the Front, I was a walking miracle.

A limping miracle, really. Matilda was hammered by gunfire and needed a week or so in the workshop. Burke was buried in the cemetery behind the hospital. And I had a nasty bullet graze down my leg. Yes, I was lucky. This time.

The Commander grounded me for a week. I could have asked for leave and scarpered off to Paris, but I didn’t want to leave all the work on Matilda to the other boys. Besides, making her right again, fixing the holes and replacing the damaged parts, working alongside Len and my other mates in the workshop, was exactly what I needed to do.

I couldn’t bring Burke back. But I could make Matilda fly again.

September, 1917

7 Squadron,

Royal Flying Corps

Proven, Belgium

Dear Sis,

First up, I’m all right. Don’t worry. Second, I did get a little bit wounded but it’s nothing to worry about. I’m back on my feet already. Didn’t want you to find out from anyone else and fret. All is well. Got a hole in my good boots. That’s the worst of it.

Thank you for all the birthday presents and the food parcel. Blimey! I’ll be the most popular fellow on the airfield. I’ll write to Ma in a mo and say thanks.

Can’t say I celebrated turning twenty-one in style. I was tuckered out after a day in the air and sneaked off to bed as soon as the sun went down. The other chaps celebrated for me, judging by their sore heads the next morning. I dreamed of summer days—teaching Bertie to swim at Sandridge beach, and sitting on the sand eating fish and chips straight out of their newspaper wrappings. I seem to do nothing but sleep nowadays, while Charlie and the others do nothing but let off steam. Everyone reacts differently, I guess, to this new world we’re in.

Just think, a few years ago most of us had never seen an aircraft. Now we live for them, live in them, and die in them too. Once they were things of wonder, now they are flying guns. Sorry to be morbid. But that’s how it is out here. We bury more blokes each week. Sometimes we never even know what happened to them—they simply never come home at the end of a run.

We’re not like those fighter squadrons, though. They go looking for a scrap every day. They have these new machines, Sopwith Camels, that fly like bats out of hell. We are their slow, steady cousins. They come out to guard over us now, to keep the Hun off our tails, so we’re a lot safer. They get all the glory, but we don’t mind that. I don’t anyway. I don’t want medals or kills to my name. I just want to make it home in one piece.

Soon.

A