The controller remained silent as the big Merlin engine continued to haul the heavy fighter up through the clouds. Nothing entered Terence Hicks’ mind but the readings on the instruments. His eyes scanned calmly, sweeping back and forth with rapid precision, taking in every detail and making constant adjustments. Seconds became years, became eons, as the already-darkened world around Hicks narrowed still more. Nothing mattered now but the glittering array of gauges and dials in front of him, shimmering in the dim light of the cockpit. The tiniest shift of a needle could be the beginning of an uncontrolled, spinning end.

Then the world grew lighter. The shade of the grey wall surrounding Hicks’ tiny fighter lost just a hint of its darkness. The light brightened, and brightened, and brightened until it enveloped the entire sky and resolved into a brilliant, blinding sun off the Spitfire’s right wing. The whiteness of the clouds suddenly burned away into a sharp, shattering, deep blue sky so clear that the full moon could be seen hanging there. Terence swung his head to the right, then to the left, taking in the sheer beauty of this cotton-floored paradise. He almost forgot to count the three other fighters pulling up alongside. Even as he automatically checked off the safe rendezvous of his flight, Hicks was distracted again. Down and to his left was a mountainous cloud peak of incredible beauty, standing silent sentry over a hole in the cloud through which a broad sunbeam illuminated the green farmland below.

Perhaps this captivation with the natural wonders around him is why Lieutenant Terence Hicks never saw the twelve Messerschmitt fighters diving on his flight, although their approach out of the sun would have been difficult to spot anyway. The black silhouettes of the diving Germans twinkled devilishly as their potent armaments barked to life. A stream of bullets and shells shredded Sergeant Gaines right wing and whipped across his fuselage, killing him instantly. A second plane’s deadly projectiles tore into the engine of Pilot Officer Hartman’s plane, spraying oil across the canopy and igniting the huge fuel tank directly in front of the seated pilot. Wartime expediency had led to firewalls being omitted from many production fighters, making it Hartman’s tough luck that the inferno billowed back into the cockpit and consumed his entire plane. McGregor was the quickest of the lot, turning away as the first rounds struck his tail and diving to escape. The Germans had the advantage, however, and McGregor was forced to bail out with his plane coming to pieces around him. He survived.

Still staring at the beautiful, sun-lanced sea of clouds below his left wing, Lieutenant Hicks had no chance. A burst of German bullets and shells ripped his cockpit to shreds and sent his plane tumbling for the ground. No parachute was seen.

The twenty bombers which Hicks’ pitifully small force was sent to intercept turned out to be twenty far deadlier fighters. No British cities were bombed that day and no civilians killed. But such was the nature of this new war that a pilot who took even a second to appreciate the beauty of the land for which he was fighting was instantly condemned to death from above.