‘Sorry.’
‘You know, I suppose, that the airwaves are meant to be kept as clear as possible?’
‘I’m sorry,’ she repeated.
But she knew he wasn’t annoyed.
He was smiling.
He turned back to the window, watching them come in, and she followed his stare.
Their wing lights were getting bigger now. Lower. The morning was still like night, the sun wouldn’t lighten the horizon for another hour, but they’d be here to see it when it broke.
They were home.
‘Might I ask a favour?’ said Fred.
‘Of course,’ she said, not lifting her eyes fromMabel’s Fury, landing now, without a bounce.
‘That lot –’ he nodded at them, speeding to a stop on the runway – ‘are a shade late for interrogation, and so am I.’ Leaving his post at the window, he moved to the door. ‘You wouldn’t run out to them, would you? Hurry them along?’
She looked at him, wondering if she’d heard him right.
On-duty WAAFs weren’t meant to go racing out to the runway to welcome crews home.
It wasn’tdone.
But Fred’s lips twitched in another smile.
‘Go on,’ he said, ‘that’s an order. Best not mention it to Ambrose. He’s a stickler.’
‘Thank you,’ she said, pushing herself to her feet. ‘Thank you so much.’
They didn’t have long together.
And they weren’t alone.
When she caught up to him – crossing the meadow’s frosted grass as the runway flares were extinguished – he was surrounded by his crew, the seven of them already making their way to the motor waiting to take them to interrogation, their parachutes slung on their shoulders. They of course hadn’t needed any hurrying along.
‘Iris Winterton,’ called Tim. ‘Just look at you, all grown up, and still doing what you shouldn’t.’
‘I’m not doing what I shouldn’t,’ she called back, laughing, because he – tall and boyishly handsome, in the way he’d always had in him – had grown up too. And it was so very, very good to see him again. After all these years.Safe. ‘I was sent.’
‘By Fred?’ said Robbie, coming to a halt before her.
In touching distance.
Meeting his blue gaze, she nodded.
‘I’ve a present for you,’ said Tim, tossing her something small and round.
She caught it, then laughed more, seeing it was a boiled sweet.
‘From your mum?’ she asked.
‘From me,’ he said. ‘It felt like a lucky charm in my pocket, knowing I’d be back here, giving it to you.’
‘Are you absolutely pancake?’ asked another, older man, joining them. She placed him instantly as Henry from his gritty voice.
