The Secret of the Irish Castle by Santa Montefiore

Author:Santa Montefiore
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2018-06-17T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter 17

The Battle of Britain had indeed begun and, at Biggin Hill, JP was on the front line. The RAF base in the southeast of London was built on a plateau that was known throughout Fighter Command as “Biggin on the Bump.” Responsible for protecting the approaches to the capital, it already bore noticeable signs of war: craters where bombs had eaten chunks out of the ground, wrecked Spitfires and Harvards abandoned on the grass like fallen beasts, hangars burned to the bone. But JP was now eighteen years old, a young man with a strong sense of his own immortality, a young man hungry for action. He’d trained for this. He’d worked hard for his wings. He was eager to play his part, even though he was aware that it could be the last part he ever played.

At first light he walked to his Spitfire with his squadron, which included Jimmy and Stanley. The plane looked almost delicate in comparison to the Harvard, like a mosquito as opposed to a fat fly. With his parachute slung over his shoulder and his helmet on his head JP made his way toward the two ground crew, who had been busy removing the cover and plugging in the starter trolley. This was his moment. The moment he had been waiting for since he joined the RAF the previous autumn. The adrenaline was pumping through his veins, but his nervousness was fueled by excitement, not fear. He was ready to turn all his fury at the unfairness of love onto the Germans.

The sky was clear, the air damp. There was a stillness to the morning as if it was holding its breath for the battle ahead. JP walked across the grass, and the dew collected on his flying boots. For a moment a memory surfaced, of walking across the lawn outside the White House in Ballinakelly, but the shoes on his feet then were small and laced, those of a young boy.

The sound of Spitfires starting up broke the silence and JP’s memory, which dispersed like a reflection in a puddle that is briskly agitated. The engines exploded to life with a burst of flame from the exhaust stubs. The air vibrated with the noise; behind the planes the grass was flattened by the slipstream and all around the ground trembled. JP glanced at Jimmy and Stanley and nine other men in his squadron and wondered which of them would fail to come back.

Leaving his parachute on the wing, he climbed into his cockpit and gave the plane a quick once-over: fuel, brake pressure, rudder, elevators, airscrew, then he had a short chat with the fitter and the rigger who had been waiting to brief him. The preparation completed, he returned to the hut, put on his life vest and lay on a bunk to wait for the call to scramble. Some of the men read magazines, others slept, no one talked much. The atmosphere was tense, the air thick with anticipation. A few hours later the telephone gave a shrill ring, and they all jumped.

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