“Where are you going?”
Justin froze in the act of pulling on his trousers. Damn it all. He thought she was asleep. He grimaced at the sudden brightness as she switched on the lamp on her bedside table.
“I thought I told you.” He said. “I’m on duty tonight.”
“Oh,” She said blinking sleepily at him. “I forgot.” Actually, he hadn’t told her that but she was accommodating enough to believe him. She sat up and watched him finish dressing. “When will you be off duty?” She said. “We could go out again.”
Justin picked his jacket up off of the floor where it had been thrown earlier that evening and struggled to remember her name. Meg. That was it. She was pretty enough but he really wasn’t interested in any more of her company. One night had been more than enough.
“Of course,” He said flashing his most winning smile at her as he slipped out the door of her room. “I’ll see you soon.” Hopefully it would take her a minute to realize that he hadn’t told her when he’d see her again and by then she’d be too afraid of rousing the other women in the WAAF quarters to make a scene.
He made it out of the building without incident and walked the two blocks to where he had parked his Alfa Romeo convertible. He hopped in, started the engine and drove to the airfield. It was just after one in the morning, and he was tired and looking forward to his bunk in the readiness hut even if he’d only be able to be in it for a few hours.
He reached the airfield and parked the Alfa Romeo just outside the readiness hut. The airman orderly, Barclay, was dozing in a chair right outside the door of the hut, but he was a light sleeper and long used to having to be awake in a moment’s notice. He heard Justin’s step on the gravel path and snapped to awareness, performing a salute as he jumped up from the chair.
“Flight Lieutenant.” He said. Justin returned the salute and nodded.
“Is everyone here?” He said. Barclay nodded.
“Yes sir.” He said. “You’re the last to arrive. Who was it tonight?”
“I don’t think I caught her last name.” Justin said with a smirk. Of course Barclay knew why he was late. Justin’s reputation as a ladies’ man was well-known and well deserved. He had been stationed at three different RAF airfields since war was declared on Nazi Germany in 1939, just last year, and he had left a trail of broken hearts in his wake at each one of them.
Justin walked inside the hut. One or two of the other pilots were still awake; they had obviously just made it back to the hut themselves. They greeted him with a few ribald comments, their familiarity brought on by the combat situation of the last few months. He returned his own insults, remarking on how rumpled they looked and shouldn’t they be ashamed of themselves. The banter didn’t last long though. It had been a long, hard, hellish summer and the men were constantly exhausted. Their days off had all but disappeared. Now they had to content themselves with hours off. Most of the men used that time to rest. It was only the stalwart – and crazy – few, Justin among them, who used that time in pursuit of other things.
Justin walked to his bunk in the far corner of the hut and changed into his pajamas. The few men who had still been awake when he came in had finished changing their clothes and fallen into their bunks and were already mostly asleep. The only other sounds in the hut came from the night noises outside that were coming through the open window near his bunk. He knew that having a bed so close to a window would be hell in the winter, but it was the middle of August and the breeze coming through was soft and wonderfully cool. He climbed into his bunk, put his arms behind his head, closed his eyes and was asleep in moments…

…”Wake up sir.” Someone was shaking him; it took Justin a minute to recognize Barclay’s voice. “4:30 sir,” Barclay said. Justin sat up and began pulling on his trousers and jacket over his pajamas before leaving the hut to inspect his Spitfire. The inspection was mostly cursory. This ground crew was one of the best he’d ever had the privilege of working with and they knew just exactly how he liked everything. He climbed into the cockpit calling good morning to the fitter who had just jumped out. Justin checked the instrument panels and the fuel gauge. All was correct and ready for a quick scramble the moment they were called. Justin checked to make sure that the other pilots were doing the same before climbing out of the cockpit and going back inside the hut.
He changed into his uniform and sat down in one of the deckchairs that Barclay had just unfolded for the pilots. Hopefully he’d be able to catch a few more hours sleep before they got the call to take off. And hopefully it wouldn’t be before breakfast…

…“Take that you bastard.” Justin grinned as his bullets connected with the German fighter. He pulled his spitfire into a climb and as he passed the fighter he saw it begin to fall out of the sky, smoke pouring from the tail. Another kill to his credit; that made eight now. He felt exhilarated. Here in the air he was invincible, unstoppable. This was what he had been born for, the rush of excitement, the thrill of the kill.
It was always like this. Every time he took to the air. When he was back on the ground everything was boring and flat. Maybe that was why he spent all his off duty hours in pursuit of sex. It was the only thing that came close to how he felt when he was in the air.
The spitfire shuddered. It felt like he had run into something. Impossible. There was nothing in front of him. Then he realized. He had been hit. One of the bastards had got him from behind; he hadn’t even seen him. The spitfire shuddered again and then the fuel tank exploded. The cockpit filled with flames.
Justin desperately tried to free himself from the harnesses. The heat was like a blast furnace; it was unbearable. His gloves had burned away and the skin on his hands was shriveling up like burning paper in a fire grate. He could feel the flames licking at his face. This was hell.
Miraculously the straps gave way and he clawed for the latch of the cockpit almost blind from the pain and heat. He had to get away from the flames. The hatch opened and the flames roared from the sudden rush of air. The flames seared his face and he screamed in agony. He pulled himself out of the cockpit and tumbled into the air. He grappled with the rip cord of his parachute – his hands hurt so much he could hardly breathe – and felt the straps jerk under his arms as the chute opened and began to slow his descent. He looked down at the grey waters of the English Channel far below him. He knew that when he hit the water he would have to rid himself of his parachute very quickly or it would drag him under. He didn’t know how he’d do it though. His hands seemed to be useless; he wasn’t even able to hold onto the straps of his chute.
It felt like he was still on fire. The cold wind seared his face and hands; it was like knives cutting into his flesh. He looked down at himself to try to take stock of the damage. Some of his clothing had been burned away. He could see the burned flesh on his right leg through the remains of his uniform. He could feel the cold wind on his chest and saw that the fire had burned away parts of his life jacket and the uniform underneath it; the skin underneath looked raw and blistered. His life jacket would be no use to him now.
Then he was in the water. He hit the surface hard, the salt water felt like acid burning his flesh. He fought his way to the surface, frantically trying to free himself from the straps of the chute before he was dragged down again. He tried to undo the buckle of the parachute’s straps but he had very little use of his fingers. The pain was unbearable. He grappled with the buckle again but his hands slid off, too slippery to hold on. He looked down and saw that his hands were covered in blood; the skin had flaked away from his hands.
He almost lost consciousness at the sight. He couldn’t believe that those were his hands. All of this was a dream, it just had to be. He was in his bunk in the readiness hut. He had fallen asleep and was having a nightmare. Any moment Barclay would be waking him for lunch…
His head was pulled under the water again as his chute became waterlogged, the wet fabric weighing him down. The coldness of the water as well as the pain from the salt burning his blistered skin brought him back to himself. He had to get free from his chute. He hadn’t survived hell itself just to drown in the damned English Channel. He wasn’t even surprised to discover that the buckle of the parachute had been slightly warped by the heat of the flames making it difficult to remove even in the best of circumstances. He considered it just one more thing that had gone wrong today; one more thing to test the limits of his endurance. Every movement of his fingers was agony but somehow he managed to unbuckle the disc that held the straps together and shrug the parachute off of his shoulders. He kicked away from the submerged chute so that it couldn’t tangle up around his legs and pull him under again. The parachute hung in the water, just below the surface. To his fogged mind it looked just like a jellyfish that he had seen once during the summer that his parents took him on holiday to the seaside when he had been a little boy.
His face burned. The salt water had soaked into his skin and the straps of his helmet were digging into his neck and chin. He tried to make his fingers work again – if he could just loosen the strap he could pull off the helmet – but whatever strength he had found before was gone.
He knew that he needed to try to get closer to shore if he was to have a chance at rescue. He knew the direction of land even though he couldn’t see it. Now all he had to do was start swimming. But he couldn’t. He barely had the strength to keep himself afloat. He was still bleeding and he could feel the skin on his face flaking off with every splash of the waves against him. He could only lay helpless in the water and pray for rescue...

...He didn’t know how long he had been in the water but it felt like hours. Everything was beginning to blur, even the pain seemed less and he wondered if he were going into shock. Dimly his mind registered a new sound, something different from the sound of the water around him. It was a familiar sound but he couldn’t quite make out what it was. Then the fog in his mind lifted as he realized what it was. It was the sound of an engine – a ship’s engine. He turned toward the sound, kicking feebly and tried to find some way to let them know that he was there. He tried to wave his arms but found he couldn’t even lift them.
The sound grew louder. At first he thought that he had imagined it but there was no mistaking the sound of the engine coming closer to him. They had seen him. He just had to wait. A new sound came to him from across the water. It was the sound of a smaller engine, a motor boat. They had sent out a launch to pick him up.
The small boat circled him, coming close enough to see and hear him but not rescuing him just yet. They would make sure he wasn’t a Jerry before they pulled him out of the water.
“What are you?” One of the men yelled across the distance. “Are you a Jerry?”
He opened his mouth to answer, and tried to ignore the fresh pain that this caused.
“I’m Flight Lieutenant Justin Grant…RAF.” He called weakly. That was all the two men in the boat needed to hear. The launch pulled alongside him and he was pulled into the boat, the two sailors handling him with surprising gentleness.
“Holy hell Arnie,” He heard one of the men say. “Look at him.”
Justin knew that he probably should be alarmed by the sailors’ reaction but he was beyond caring about anything at the moment. A welcome oblivion was waiting to claim him. The last thing that he thought before the darkness washed over him was that he had been saved. The nightmare was over…