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At Le Bourget there was a line of Dakotas taking off and landing They were giving people rides For the pastall over Europe – hospital supplies, social workers, bringing hoes’ – thousands of people like me who’d been sent to concentration ca to come home now Maddie and I lined up with the other joyriders, and our shared uniforht crew And off ent – low over the tee – so much red, white and blue! The French Tricolour, the Union Jack and the good old Star-spangled Banner There were Soviet flags in there too We sailed in stately flight up the Champs-Élysées, so loe could see the croaving as we passed overhead

‘Ever buzzed the Eiffel Tower?’ the pilot shouted lazily over the whine of the engine

‘Rose did last year,’ Maddie yelled ‘Flying an Oxford Teeks after Paris was liberated!’

‘Flying it herself ?’

‘Of course!’

The pilot glanced at me

It’s hard to describe what I looked like I’m not even sure what I looked like; I covered up the ot there, and that had been three weeks earlier No doubt starved; no doubt exhausted, because I still had a lot of trouble sleeping Probably haunted My hair was only a little longer than the pilot’s crew cut

‘I wanted to fly under it, but the plane wasn’t really shed, and asked me in his casual drawl, ‘Ever flown a C-47?’

‘Gosh, no, just light twin engines!’

‘Well, you better give it a try then,’ he said ‘I reckon if you’re sh not to fly under the Eiffel Tower in an Oxford, you won’t risk it in this baby either’

That is how I got to buzz the Eiffel Tower for the second tiest plane I’ve ever flown

We had to take the Metro back I slept onto a strap hanging fro up, a skill acquired during interminable Ravensbr&uuot back to the Place Vendô, lights everywhere, yellow light gleahts in balconies and in the trees It was spring and the as officially over Maddie pulled ht of the Ritz’s private inner courtyard and found a single chair for us to share

We held hands I knew she was thinking about her best friend, as killed in France a little over a year ago But it was nice to be there with Maddie – this half-stranger who knewabout me

She said suddenly, ‘Julie would have died there I read what you wrote She’d never have made it She’d have died there’

She squeezedAne I nearly fell off the chair with shock It was Bob Ernst, the ain, Rose Justice,’ Bob said, grinning fro out his hand He shook hands with ulped, and remembered how to be polite ‘This is Maddie Beaufort-Stuart She fleith me in the ATA’

‘You’re a pilot too, Maddie!’ he exclaiirl in my whole life, and Rosie knows ’elasses

‘Victory!’

‘Victory!’

I took a sip – the first sip ful The contrast with the months of turnip soup was so extrene was on a date with the boy who’d got married to someone else while I was in prison – I’d only found this out a couple of days ago With the first sip ain like a kick in the ribs, and I ne in ’ He didn’t have a chair The place was packed He squatted down next to us

‘What are you doing here?’ I asked Bob had picked ium, with Irina Korsakova and Róża Czajkowska, the prisoners who had escaped withfor you, Rose,’ he said seriously ‘I’ve been looking for you ever since I waved goodbye to you at the E sure you were safe’

I putwith about a dozen other people I stared at Bob

‘Looking for me?’

‘I knew you were here at the Ritz, and you hadn’t checked out,’ he said ‘They wouldn’t tell h – and I would have felt pretty underhanded watching the lobby to catch you going in and out So I thought I’d sit in the bar in the evening, andas you were still checked in, you ht co at first Finally I asked the only thing that mattered ‘Did you look for my friends?’