The Enigma Game by Elizabeth Wein

Author:Elizabeth Wein [Gatland, Elizabeth]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781526601667
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Published: 2020-03-30T00:00:00+00:00

Jamie:

B-Flight flew out of Deeside along with A-Flight, on fishing-fleet and battleship escort duties for the whole December moon, getting in the way of the Spitfire fighter squadron based there. Meanwhile the holes in the runway at Windyedge were mended and a new hangar got thrown up next to the crater where the old one used to be.

ABERDEEN SECTOR CLEAR START XII UNTIL FURTHER NOTICE

Normally I’d have had my heart in my mouth worrying that we might run into Messerschmitt 110 night fighters on these ops. That message in Louisa’s notebook reassured me. Aberdeen had been bombed pretty fiercely right through October; now the Luftwaffe seemed to be holding back.

Phyllis came to Deeside with us, but I only saw Ellen twice while we were there, taking Cromwell on some inspection errand. The second time I didn’t even get to talk to her. She just gave me a look and shook her head ever so slightly.

I shrugged in reply, and went off whistling, to let her know everything was all right.

Actually, everything was fine.

I’d wanted an edge over the Germans and now that I had one, I felt like our luck had changed. Finding that coding machine, getting unexpected tip-offs that helped us sink four U-boats, saving all our planes from being turned into scrap metal on the ground when the aerodrome was bombed – being one step ahead of the enemy for a week or two – made us lucky.

We hadn’t lost a man since 7 November. That was six weeks ago, and that was a record for 648 Squadron. It is true that one night on warship escort with A-Flight we got caught in the crossfire of a naval battle. One of my propellers was blown away by anti-aircraft fire from a German battleship, and they also smashed Dougie Kerr’s gun turret. But the Royal Navy took care of the German battleship, and although it was no fun limping home on one prop, I managed to land upright. Dougie, whose head stuck up in the shattered turret of the Aussies’ plane, came home with a bloody ear – he’d been clipped by a shard of flying Perspex. Not by a bullet. He’d ducked out of the way just in time.

Lucky!

The mechanics got to work on my plane and we were back in the air two nights later. The turret was harder to fix than the propeller, but a ferry pilot brought in another new Blenheim and took the old one away. Dougie walked around with a plaster over his left ear for a few days.

Six weeks and nobody even had an injury, apart from my lucky bullet on the Bell Rock Light run, and Dougie’s lucky clip on the ear. Dougie’s grazed ear didn’t qualify for a wound stripe any more than my grazed leg did, but in Aberdeen we all chipped in and bought him a gold hoop earring like a pirate.

Windyedge was ready for B-Flight to come back just in time for Christmas.

The moon was old on

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