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‘I keep doing things. I make decisions without thinking. Crikey, firing a ruddy anti-aircraft gun – no authorisation whatsoever, and Messerschmitt 109s circling overhead!’

‘The Messerschmitt 109s circling overhead were the reason you were firing it,’ Queenie pointed out. ‘I authorised you. I’m a Flight Officer.’

‘You’re not my Flight Officer and you don’t have any gunnery authority.’

‘What else?’ Queenie asked.

‘Oh – things like guiding in the German pilot the other day. I’ve done something like that before, only in English.’ She told Queenie about talking down the lads in the Wellington, the first time. ‘No one authorised that either. I didn’t get in trouble, but I should have. So stupid. Why did I do it?’

‘Charity?’

‘I could have killed them though.’

‘You have to take risks like that. There’s a war on. They could have bought it and gone down in flames themselves, without your help. But with your help they made it down safely.’

Queenie paused. Then she asked, ‘Why are you so damn good at it?’

‘At what?’

‘Air navigation.’

‘I’m a pilot,’ Maddie said – you know, she was so matter-of-fact, she wasn’t proud, she wasn’t defensive – just, I’m a pilot.

Queenie was outraged.

‘You said you didn’t have any skills, you fibber!’

‘I haven’t. I’m only a civil pilot. I haven’t flown for a year. I haven’t got an instructor’s rating. I’ve a good many hours, probably more than most of our lads in the Spitfires; I’ve even flown at night. But I’m not using it. When they expand the Air Transport Auxiliary, I’m going to try to join – if the WAAF’ll let me go. I’ll have to do a course. There’s no flight training on for women at the minute.’

Queenie apparently had to turn all this over in her head on her own for a while as she considered the implications of it: Maddie Brodatt, with her unrefined South Manchester accent and her no-nonsense bike mechanic’s approach to problems, was a pilot – with more practical experience than most of the young RAF Maidsend Squadron who were daily and sleeplessly hurling themselves towards flame and death against the Luftwaffe.