It had only been a single day’s respite, but it had done wonders for the mood of the squadron.

The pilots had done the rounds of the entire base, carrying Gwen with them in her “throne”, one of the armchairs from the officer’s mess. They had made sure that everybody saw her, spreading smiles and laughter wherever they went and there was a much different feeling on the base the next morning when operations started just after dawn with a clear blue sky and the prospect of more than a dozen hours of flying ahead of them.

The squadron was ready for takeoff and were just waiting for Scarlet in Hummingbird to be pushed into the hangar before taxiing out. She had had another dangerous mission to take care of - she had been woken in the middle of the night by Abby and all but dragged out of bed when surprise orders had come through from Whitehall.

Gwen had been frightened for her - she had been woken as well when Abby had come in, then again when Scarlet had returned to get her flightsuit and the look on the Irishwoman’s face when she had muttered something about “ports” before hurrying back out had had her concerned, prevented her from returning to sleep; anything that made the Irishwoman, who daily went across the channel on missions that even the bravest of pilots would shy at, look that scared would have to be dangerous indeed.

She was understandably glad to see her safely back, but as the aircraft got closer she was able to make out extensive damage to its tail unit and saw that part of the overhead rotor was missing. Scarlet herself was slumped in the cockpit, her eyes closed and looking paler than ever and Gwen frowned, worried, but realised that the woman couldn’t have been injured, otherwise there would have been medical orderlies swarming all over her. She was extremely relieved when Scarlet’s eyes opened to meet hers and the Irishwoman smiled faintly, but Gwen lost sight of her as Hummingbird was swung around into position for rewinding and couldn’t assess her any better. She desperately wanted to find out what had happened and whether her friend was alright, but she had no choice except to forget her concerns as the order for the fitters to push out the aircraft came and she had to concentrate on the sortie.

The Misfits intercepted a small bomber group with its escort over Dover. There were maybe forty aircraft in total and both A and B flights dropped on them from above, taking down almost a dozen of them in the first pass. The enemy immediately dropped their bombs and dived, turning on their wings and heading back the way they had come in a panic. The Misfits harassed them for as long as they could, but the RAC in its entirety were under orders not to pursue too far out to sea, so they were forced to let the remainder of the bombers go, but they were satisfied with knowing that several tonnes of bombs wouldn’t be falling on their targets that morning.

With no other raids within their range they were sent back home and immediately on landing Gwen went in search of Scarlet with Abby. They assumed that they would find her in the mess and were correct, but the door opened before they got even half-way across the airfield and the Irishwoman came out.

Gwen rushed to meet her. ‘Scarlet! Are you alright?’

‘I’m fine.’ She nodded, but barely looked at Gwen, her dark blue eyes immediately going to Abby. ‘We need to talk. Everybody needs to hear this.’

The wing commander nodded, then turned to look at the pilots who were coming out of the hangar in dribs and drabs behind them. ‘Gwen, make sure everybody comes to the bar as quick as they can, please.’

The wing commander took Scarlet by the arm and disappeared into the mess, leaving Gwen frowning after them.

Gwen waited outside until the last of the pilots, Owen, had made his way across the runway, then accompanied him into the mess. She found the other members of the squadron already sitting in armchairs in a circle on the far side of the room, gathered around Scarlet, who was pacing up and down, clutching a mug of tea in one hand and chewing on the nails of the other, something which Gwen had never seen her do before. She wandered over to the group with Owen and both of them were handed mugs of tea before Abby waved at them to take a seat.

Gwen went to sit down in the armchair that Kitty had saved for her, but paused and looked around the room. Apart from the pilots there was nobody else there, no other officers, which wasn’t unusual for that time of day, but also none of the staff that worked in the mess. It looked like whatever Scarlet was going to tell them was for their ears only.

Abby waited until the two latecomers sat down, then spoke quietly. ‘What you’re about to hear is not common knowledge and it is not likely to become so, at least not until it doesn’t matter anymore. Do not speak about this outside of this room, not to your fitters, not to your friends and for god’s sake Mac, keep a hold on yourself when you’re drunk next.’

There weren’t many laughs at her joke and those that came were very subdued as the pilots saw the serious expression on their commander’s face.

‘Scarlet?’ Abby motioned for the restless Irishwoman to take the floor, then sat down.

Gwen had already been quite worried, but she went completely cold when she saw the expression on Abby’s face and how white her friend still was.

The Irishwoman spoke quietly, not meeting their eyes. ‘I was sent out this morning to recce occupied ports.’

There were gasps at this news because it spoke of a desperation that none of them knew Whitehall possessed; Scarlet was sent on dangerous missions to scout enemy territory all the time, but the places she tended to scout were things like isolated bases and factories in areas with plenty of trees and hills that she could hide among. A port was a whole different matter; not only would she be exposed with no cover, but they were heavily defended with anti-aircraft guns. It was a miracle she had gotten back at all, let alone with so little damage to her machine.

Chalky frowned. ‘But we already have enough pictures of the French and Belgian ports from high-level reconnaissance aircraft, god knows I’ve taken enough of them myself! Why do they need more?’

Abby answered him. ‘Whitehall have been interrogating the pilots that have been shot down. As you can imagine, they haven’t been giving us much in the way of useful intelligence, but one thing that they all agree on is that they don’t expect to be in captivity for long.’

This news was greeted with silence and the blood drained from the faces of not a few of the pilots as if they were under high G’s.

Wendy put what they were all thinking into a single, dreadful word. ‘Invasion.’

Abby nodded, but all eyes turned back to Scarlet when she resumed speaking. ‘Whitehall have known that an invasion has been coming for a while, they just didn’t know when, but the enemy pilots seemed fairly sure it was coming soon. They assumed that it was just Prussian propaganda to raise the morale of their own side, but then they spotted a few things on the photos that people like Chalky have been taking. They didn’t tell me what they saw exactly, but you can imagine. Unfortunately, while those reconnaissance photos could tell them things like how much shipping is in the ports they couldn’t tell them how close the Prussians were to actually mounting the invasion.’

She perched on the arm of Abby’s armchair and took a deep breath. ‘I only managed to recce Dunkirk and Calais before I sustained too much damage and had to head for home.’ She turned to smile weakly at Abby. ‘By the way, I was chased by a couple of MU10’s and managed to shoot one of them down off Dover - I should have some good photos of that.’

Abby laughed. ‘I’ll get confirmation. Maybe someone spotted the wreckage.’

‘Thanks. Someone in this squadron has to get a few kills...’

There were a few chuckles at that, but once again the pilots fell silent when the smile disappeared from the Irishwoman’s face once more. ‘What I saw...’ She coughed and took a big gulp of her tea. ‘Sorry. What I saw was...’ Her voice failed her again and she closed her eyes and took a shuddering breath. ‘I couldn’t see how many men there were, but there were thousands upon thousands of tents and row upon row of tanks, guns and vehicles under camouflage netting, so many that it’s easy to see why their pilots are so confident they’re not going to be prisoners for long.’ She opened her eyes and looked at them. ‘They’re not coming quite yet, but they’re definitely ready and when they get here there’ll be no stopping them.’

Over the next few days, the Misfits flew one interception mission after another and the story was always the same - they would surprise the bombers, shoot down the ones that they could in two or three passes, but then have to let them go as the enemy invariable jettisoned their bombloads and fled. They were fast approaching the level of frustration that they had been feeling before the glidewing competition, but on the 11th September, before anyone could do anything stupid, the pilots were pleasantly surprised when, instead of being sent up for their usual patrol at dawn, they were called into the briefing hall by Abby.

The pilots wandered into the hall at the appointed time, laughing and joking and bringing with them toast and tea left over from breakfast, as lapse in discipline as ever, but they quickly fell silent when they realised that Abby wasn’t alone; she was accompanied by an officer who Gwen recognised as Group Captain Dorothy Campbell, the base commander from her old squadron, but she had obviously been promoted because there was a single thick line of gold braid denoting a sky commodore on her cuffs. The pilots made their way quickly to the front and formed something that approximated a straight line, standing at ease and awkwardly holding the remnants of their breakfasts, unsure of how to behave in the face of this invasion of their territory.

Abby grinned at them. ‘While it’s nice to see that you haven’t completely forgotten about discipline and respect for your betters it would be nice if you showed me some every so often.’

Owen turned to frown at his wife. ‘Did she say betters?’

Wendy shook her head as she took a loud bite out of her toast then spoke with her mouth full. ‘I’m hoping it was something about butter; this toast is dry. But I don’t know, I wasn’t listening, I was mesmerised by all the gold on that woman’s arm... it’s so shiny!’

The squadron’s lamentable show of discipline completely broke down as the pilots tried to keep straight faces and most failed dismally. Thankfully, the visiting officer had known what she was getting into when she had journeyed to the base that morning (most visitors did and if they didn’t, they soon found out) and she just grinned at them and looked sideways at Abby.

The wing commander shook her head in exasperation. ‘Sit down and shut up, Misfits. Behave nicely or the nice little officer won’t let you go on the lovely mission she’s brought for you.’

There was scattered laughter but the pilots did what they were told and sat down, looking at the commodore expectantly, eager to hear anything that would break the monotony of the sorties that they had been flying recently.

‘Good morning, my name is Dorothy Campbell and I was appointed to twelve group two weeks ago. As you probably know, we’ve been taking a bit of a beating from bombers escorted by the Crimson Barons and frankly we’re miffed with the situation and would like to put a stop to it, but to do that we need your help.’

‘About bloody time!’ Mac called out, drawing vigorous nods of agreement from the rest of the Misfits, including Abby and the commodore herself.

‘It is, and that’s what I’ve been telling them since the day I was promoted, but they were reluctant to do anything until Abby and I presented them with a plan which they liked.’

‘Hang on a second...’ Owen interrupted. ‘You have a plan and it’s already been approved?’ He raised an eyebrow at Abby. ‘Just how long have you been working on this and why didn’t you tell us about it?’

‘For about a week and because it’s classified. If I’d told you I would have had to kill you.’

Owen crossed his eyes and poked his tongue out at her in reply, drawing more laughs. The Misfits had very quickly returned to their usual high spirits with the prospect of going up against their most dangerous opponents.

Campbell took over, putting the briefing more or less back on track. ‘The Barons have become rather comfortable of late and have been flying two missions per day, one in the morning at ten and one in the afternoon at four. Regular as clockwork.’

‘Oh, how lovely!’ called out Lady Penelope. ‘Bomb a few cities after breakfast, be back in time for elevenses, then do it again after lunch and home for afternoon tea and a nap!’

‘Indeed.’ Campbell nodded. ‘They’ve become rather complacent and you are going to use that against them this very afternoon.’

At precisely four o’clock that afternoon the eight Misfits of A and B flights arrived on their assigned station at thirty five thousand feet over the Lincolnshire countryside. They were all equipped with duel springs, but it had been a long flight, climbing to their maximum ceiling before throttling back to save tension, and they had almost expended the entirety of the first one. The only reason this plan was going to work was because the Barons had gotten into a routine; if they’d had to wait around for them to turn up for more than an hour or so they wouldn’t have enough time left in their springs to engage.

At that height it was cold and the air was thin, but the Misfits were well-prepared. Every aircraft in the RAC was fitted with a compartment underneath the seat which could hold a combination heater-breathing apparatus with hoses that attached to flightsuits and masks. Most flights didn’t require the apparatus to be carried, instead it was replaced with a simple oxygen supply device, but today’s flight up into the rarefied air at high altitude had necessitated its installation. The Misfits had custom-built ones and were consequently all snug and warm with the fluid in their G suits being gently heated, making them feel as if they were surrounded by hot water bottles.

Bloodhound was the only aircraft from C flight that had been called upon to join them and Owen was above them at almost forty-five thousand feet, keeping an eye on the enemy bombers that were about to cross the coast below them. He was accompanied by Wendy, who had threatened to stop servicing the guns of the squadron if Abby didn’t let her go along. The wing commander had compromised, not allowing her to bring Dreadnought, but giving her permission to accompany the engineers working the radar in the back of her husband’s aircraft. Neither Scarlet nor Chalky Isaacs had accompanied them, though; Vulture had been called upon to do another flyover of the French ports to make sure that the invasion fleet weren’t going anyway and Hummingbird was still out of commission. Scarlet’s request to accompany Wendy in Bloodhound had been denied; there just wasn’t room even for her diminutive form.

The plan that the commodore had outlined was eminently simple - the Misfits would loiter as high up as they could, out of sight of the usual afternoon raid, which would be met by the usual RAC forces. Once the presence of the Barons had been confirmed and they had made their way sufficiently inland, committing to their escort duties, then the Misfits would swoop, ignoring the bombers and engaging the red-painted enemy. If something happened, if for example the target for the day’s bombing was not far enough inland for the Barons to not be able to just turn and run, then the Misfits were ordered to remain out of sight and would try again the next day, repeating as many times as they needed in order to get a clear shot at the enemy aces. Every single one of the Misfits was of course hoping that conditions would conspire to allow them to attack that day, though; they were impatient to get another crack at their arch-rivals.

Luck or the fates were with them that day, though, and the raid headed inland towards Sheffield.

The Misfits shadowed them, keeping between them and the sun to minimise the possibility of being seen.

Even with their lenses at maximum magnification the pilots couldn’t make out whether any of the enemy aircraft were red or not, so there were some tense moments as they waited for confirmation that their targets were there and every radio was tuned in to the local control frequency, waiting for the intercepting squadrons to give the code and for the commodore in the control room to signal the attack.

The neatly organised black dots far below were met by a lesser amount of smaller ones and a few of them broke formation, spoiling the neatness of the tableau.

The hoped-for report that there were sixteen “Robins” escorting the bombers immediately came from the leader of the RAC squadron.

Eight thick thermal gloves tightened around eight control sticks in eight aircraft as the Misfits tensed, waiting for the command to dive.

A minute passed, then two, until finally Mac’s familiar growl came over the squadron frequency. ‘What the hell is she waiting for? They’re almost over the factories...’

‘Be patient Mac, we discussed this - today isn’t about a fair fight, we want the Barons committed, tired and low on ammo and we want them as far inland as possible, which means giving the boys and girls down below their crack at them first. If that means a few more bombs are dropped on our factories than is strictly necessary, then so be it; that is a sacrifice that Whitehall are willing to make in the short-term for long-term gains.’

Mac grumbled; like all of them he didn’t like it one bit, but he was smart enough to see the twisted logic behind it.

Thankfully, the familiar voice of the commodore came over the radio shortly after, calling the RAC squadrons and identifying herself as “Nest”, a code name that was never used, giving the Misfits their go signal.

‘Badger leader to all Badgers. Jettison springs and let’s go. Happy hunting.’

A sharp pull of a lever was all it took to send eight flat cylinders tumbling away, then the eight aircraft dived together, keeping the sun behind them, aiming well short of the enemy formation so as to be able to pull up and be level when they did their first pass, not wanting to dive below them and have to claw their way back up, making themselves vulnerable.

The enemy formation were at fifteen thousand feet, twenty thousand feet below them. It was a long way down, more than enough distance for the aircraft to reach the maximum speed that their airframes would tolerate. Air brakes deployed from the wings of the faster aircraft as the pilots fought to keep their machines down to the speed of the slowest of them, the two biplanes of Bruce and Monty, wanting to arrive together for the largest punch. Even so they were dropping out of the sky at almost five hundred miles an hour, which was nothing for B flight, whose machines were capable of far more, but disconcerting for the members of A flight, whose machines were not built for such speeds and complained vocally with creaks and whines that their pilots had never heard come from them before.

Such haste was necessary, though, because the Barons would undoubtedly flee as soon as the Misfits were spotted.

They were within a mile or so before they were seen and the bombers started to open fire with their waist and tail guns even as they scattered in panic, but they weren’t the targets and the Misfits just ignored them, passing them by.

The enemy fighters had been drawn away by the RAC and taken low. They were going slowly as they gained altitude, clawing their way back up to the bombers that they were supposed to be protecting.

Fifteen red Blutsauger fighters, led by a single red triplane, in three finger-four formations.

They were late seeing the Misfits; the sun at the British pilot’s backs, usually the friend of the Fleas, worked against them that day, hiding the death that was screaming down on them and by the time they reacted, turning and dipping their wings, pushing their noses down as hard as they could to gain speed, it was already too late.

Eight Misfit fighters, arranged in a neat line and arriving at exactly the same time, opened fire simultaneously with more than fifty guns.

Four of the red monoplanes disintegrated, the Barons losing in an instant as many aircraft as they had during the entirety of the war up to that point.

The Misfits pulled up, streaking back into the sky, G forces, pushing them down into their seats, their shouts and screams not only expressing their triumph, but helping to keep them conscious as not even their suits could keep the blood from draining from their heads.

The speed bled from them as they headed almost directly upwards, but before they could slow too much, Abby took them round, describing a U shape in the air that brought them back to face the enemy squadron.

However, rather than turn to face the British as the Misfits had expected, the Prussians had seized the opportunity given them by the Misfits having to decelerate enough to turn and had beaten a hasty retreat. Even now they were several miles from them and streaking in a shallow dive towards the coast.

Abby swore; there was no way that they would be able to catch them, even with their height advantage.

But there was something else they could do.

‘All Badgers, this is Badger leader. Targets at twelve o’clock. Engage in pairs.’

With the Barons gone, the forty enemy bombers which had survived the initial RAC attack were alone, a long way from the sea and the Misfits had a field day.

The bombers dived, frantically trying to copy the Barons’ escape, but they were far too slow and the Misfits caught up to them in less than a minute.

With almost a hundred mile per hour advantage in speed over the heavy steam-powered aircraft, the Misfits weaved and turned, swarming around them like mosquitoes around cattle, the return fire from the enemy gunners as effective as the swishes of a cow’s tail.

Abby ordered them to break off the pursuit after ten minutes when the bombers reached the coastline, something that the pilots were happy to do, seeing as the only thing they would have been able to throw at them were insults; despite carrying far more ammunition than Harridans and Spitsteams, every single one of them had managed to expend all of their ammunition, the last aircraft to do so, Wasp and Hawk, having run out only moments before.

The Misfits turned for home, leaving the wreckage of twenty-three bombers and four red fighters strewn across the countryside. Fully half of the aircraft that had invaded British soil that afternoon would not be leaving it.

Thank you so much for reading. ‘The Battle Over Britain’ is Simon Brading's first novel in his ‘Misfit Squadron’ series. More information on where to obtain the book as well as other information about Simon and the series can be found on his website. Also, Simon would love to hear from you about this, or any of his work — please get in touch on Bluesky. We invite you to read Chapter Sixteen by clicking the right-arrow down there on the right. If you missed out on Chapter Fourteen you can go back and read it now by clicking the left-arrow below. Alternatively, you can go back to the beginning, the Prologue, with the beginning-arrow also over on the left.