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‘Extremely fit,’ he snapped ‘Sir’

Randall lifted a hand half an inch, dis the need for sirs

‘I meant your knee,’ he said mildly

‘Oh,’ Jerry said, disconcerted ‘That Aye, it’s fine’

He’d taken two bullets through his right knee a year before, when he’d dived after a 109 and neglected to see another one that popped out of nowhere behind hi out into a sky filled with s plane down, both of the as they fell out of the sky, Dolly I’s h his jacket, his right foot squelching in the blood that filled his boot as he stah, and had been on the sick-and-hurt list for two ret his smashed patella; he’d had his secondnine ht of his lad, and Randall smiled back in involuntary response

‘Good,’ he said ‘You’re all right to fly a long mission, then?’

Jerry shrugged ‘How long can it be in a Spitfire? Unless you’ve thought up a way to refuel in the air’ He’d meant that as a joke, and was further disconcerted to see Randall’s lips purse a little, as though thinking whether to tell him they had

‘It is a Spitfire ye mean me to fly?’ he asked, suddenly uncertain Christ, what if it was one of the experiain? His skin prickled with a combination of fear and excite else isand dodging What we’ve done is to take a Spitfire II, reuns, and refit it with a pair of ca of lips before Randall replied

‘You uns’

‘Oh Aye Well, then …’

The io to Northu trained in the use of the wing ca pictures of selected bits of landscape at different altitudes And where he’d ith a support tea the caet the fil it, just in case he had to After which …