The women crowded around the crew room’s windows to catch a first glimpse of the new arrivals trooping after the squadron leader: the experienced pilots – the fighting pilots – who were there to take up No. 641 squadron’s combat responsibilities.

‘Oh gawd’ someone cried in a not very convincing parody of a cockney char she had once employed ‘they look like debutantes!’. The accent may have been wide of the mark but the description was not. While the women inside were dressed in a mishmash of civilian and service issue clothing, and all wore slacks the squadron’s three latest additions wore immaculate WAAF uniforms, neatly starched white shirts under a blue uniform tunic with matching knee-length skirts over grey woollen stockings. Even their issue gasmask cases were carried at the officially prescribed angle, barely moving as they picked their way through the airfield’s many puddles.

‘The one at the back’s a doll’ said another and all eyes were drawn to the diminutive figure trailing behind the group. She looked out of place in uniform with her tight blonde curls, a slight moue playing over her too pretty face and looked for all the world like Shirley Temple had raided the quartermasters and would suddenly break into a tap dance at any moment.

On one thing they were all agreed, there was no way they could be men.

Mal felt a surge of pity for the three young men waiting for their transport to arrive. No pilot could resist the temptation to volunteer for special duties, for a greater share of glory and now they had to come to terms with the outcome Special duty yes, plenty of flying that much had been true but the secret costs were very high. They’ll bear up thought Mal they’ll have to there’s no going back for them now.

All three were difficult tell apart, same age more or less, same height (the physical profile after all had been the main prerequisite for the posting) and with the self-possession, or élan, the RAF worked so hard to imbue in its pilots (though understandably the latter was temporarily subdued in this company). If Mal had to pick out one characteristic to identify each man it would be from the service caps resting in their laps.

The slightly scuffed and deliberately creased cap belonged to Flying-officer ArnoldCarstairs, one of the few surviving fighter pilots from the pre-war Auxiliary Air Force. Most of his comrades in the University Squadrons were littering the fields of South East England, or perhaps worse fighting their way back to a semblance of health in hospital. Carstairs had missed the greater part of the slaughter after breaking his legs in a motorcycle accident… in the officers’ mess at the end of July. Such frivolity had largely disappeared in the bloody months of August and September 1940.

In the next chair the owner of the badly battered cap, worn at the seams and almost crushed out of shape was Flight-Lieutenant Peter Watson, at twenty three the old man of the group. By rights he should not have been there, an officer of his experience was too valuable to fritter away but he had fitted the physical profile perfectly and it was felt he would steady the younger fellows. While service caps were routinely disrespected by new pilots eager to seem like old hands Watson’s creases had accumulated while flying Blenheims, first over France, then the Channel and latterly at night to intercept bombers they were barely able to catch.

The most pristine cap (though it was showing early signs of abuse) belonged to Pilot-Officer James Crabtree a nineteen year old, plucked straight from an operational training unit. Eager to find the quickest way to get at the enemy he perhaps most of all was ruing his decision to volunteer, a week or so would have seen him in squadron service, though perhaps he sensed that a pilot of his ability could have been held at the OTU or transferred to a basic training squadron as an instructor.

All three would no doubt perform admirably in their new task even though they might fail at first to see how it could be more valuable than the job they had trained for. They had a few minutes left to ponder their decision, what the future might hold while Aircraftswoman Penning brought the car around to take them away; Mal used these minutes to imagine how they would look in skirts.