It seemed the Group Captain and his men gathered around the map in headquarters had forgotten all about the Hendee Hawk.
“That’s the trouble in being a one-ship flight,” O’Malley muttered. “If we had three Spitfires we’d be up there now.”
An orderly entered and ran across to Stan. “Wing Commander Farrell’s instructions for Lieutenant Wilson,” he said as he handed Stan the paper.
Stan unfolded the paper and, with O’Malley reading the order out loud over his shoulder, he scanned the paper. They were to join a flight of Hurricanes and Spitfires setting out to contact enemy planes over the channel. Orders would be broadcast later, but the action was in connection with a naval attack. Their radio call would be Red Flight.
“Sure, an’ we’re still Red Flight,” O’Malley said as he whirled and made off.
They walked back to O’Malley’s room. Over a battered desk hung a piece of the tail of a Dornier showing a swastika and on the desk lay a heavy German pistol, a grim memento of some duel with death he had won.
Surveying these enemy souvenirs, Stan grinned broadly and remarked, “If this war keeps up you’ll be able to furnish a museum.”
O’Malley shook his head disconsolately. “’Tis little enough,” he complained. “This air fighting is bad for picking up such things. Every time I down a plane it’s me bad luck that it smashes to bits and leaves nothing behind for me to remember it by.”
“The ones that smash up feel worse about it than you do,” Stan reminded him.
The Irishman turned serious for one of the few times since Stan had known him. “Faith, an’ I think of them poor devils sometimes,” he muttered. “’Tis hard for them with nothing to believe in. Fighting because they’re told to fight. Crashing to flaming death because one man orders them to. ’Tis a bad state of affairs this world is in, so help me.”