Free Day of Vengeance by Johnny O'Brien

problem…” He glanced down at Jack, still tending to the pilot on the ground. “It’s going to be a tight squeeze. We’ll need to ditch our packs.”
    Jack clambered up and looked over Angus’s shoulder. “You’ll have to kind of sit on me.” Jack looked up to where Pendelshape’s aeroplane climbed slowly up into the sky. “If we don’t follow him now we’ll lose him for ever and we’ll never get home again.”
    Another pair of 109s screamed in over them, guns flaming.
    “That’s it – I’m not hanging round.”
    They squeezed in to the cockpit. Angus flung the canopy shut and took the controls.
    “I hope you know what you’re doing.”
    “Piece of cake.”
    But looking at the dials and levers in front of them, it seemed anything but a piece of cake. And Jack noticed another thing: the visibility was shocking. All he could see was the long nose of the Spitfire pointing up into the sky in front of them and the spinning propeller. Jack was squashed on one half of the pilot’s seat with Angus’s large frame plonked half on top of him. And for Angus, pressed up against the side of the cockpit, it wasn’t easy to see the ground and tell where they were going. Undeterred, Angus put on the pilot’s mask and helmet, found the control pedals with his feet and grabbed the joystick.

    Spitfires in flight
    “I guess we head for the runway,” he shouted, as the Merlin engine roared and the whole machine jerked forward.
    “Ooops – bit too much.”
    “I think you’ll have to weave around a bit so you can kind of see where you’re going.”
    In seconds they were on the runway. Jack scanned the sky through the canopy.
    “Is the raid stopping? They seem to be wheeling away…”
    Angus was too busy to pay any attention. “Right, we’re ready, bit of power, flaps, er, other important stuff, and…”
    “Don’t you have to say ‘chocs away’ or something?”
    Suddenly, the noise from the mighty Merlin engine crescendoed and black exhaust blew from the pipes on either side of the engine cowling. The airframe shook as they surged forward, then bumped along the ground, faster and faster. Angus increased the power again then, miraculously, they were airborne.
    “You’re going left! You’re going left! Straighten up!” Jack shouted.
    Angus overcorrected and they veered right. After a couple more wild corrections, they straightened up: Angus was in control.
    “Yes!” he shouted in exhilaration. “Come on!”
    “That sign,” Jack shouted, “says ‘wheels down’ – you need them up, don’t you? Get them up. Up!”
    “OK, OK, I know how to do that.” Angus pulled a lever and the sign changed to ‘wheels up’.
    They heard a clunk under the aircraft.
    “More throttle.”
    The Merlin responded again with a great roar and Jack felthimself being pushed back into the seat as they surged forward, with Angus still half sitting on top of him. Soon they were hammering up strong and steady into a cloud-dappled sky.
    “Red Two, Red Two, this is Acorn Leader, glad to see you have finally decided to join us.”
    “I’ve got someone talking to me on the radio in my ears,” Angus said.
    “Red Two, yes, you idiot it’s Acorn Leader, we are ordered to follow but not engage, repeat NOT engage until we have reinforcements…”
    Angus pulled the mask from his face. “I’ve got someone called ‘Acorn Leader’ babbling something on the radio – what do I do?” Angus shouted back to Jack.
    “Ignore him – we’re trying to keep on the tail of Pendelshape, can you see him yet?”
    Angus levelled out. The altimeter indicated just over seven thousand feet. Below them, Jack could see the rolling English countryside and already, not far beyond, the sparkling grey-blue of the English Channel.
    “Over there!” Jack shouted. Sure enough, about half a mile away, they could see a cluster of aircraft in the sky. In the centre they could make out the larger outline of the civilian aircraft looking like a fat bumble