Itfelt good to be putting on her flightsuit again. It had been folded at the bottom of her kitbag, all but forgotten, since she’d taken it off after that fateful flight and she’d feared she would never wear it again. It was not much different from her work coveralls, just a plain one piece suit in a lightweight brown fabric, baggy enough to wear thermal clothing underneath, with a small black chalkboard attached to her right thigh, but it had a much deeper significance than her work clothes; she only put it on when she was going to fly.

She sat down on the bed to pull on her black leather calf-high boots, then reached under her pillow to grab the photo of her husband. She touched his face with her fingertips and gave him a smile before putting it in her breast pocket.

From separate boxes at the top of her wardrobe she took out her RAC issue compass, which she snapped onto her right arm, and her chronograph, which went on her left.

Lastly, she dug the box with her flight helmet and gloves out of the bottom of the wardrobe. The helmet was as simple as the flightsuit - a fairly stiff padded leather helmet with attached goggles and magnification lenses which could be slid up and down at whim. She put it on; it was easier than carrying it, then tucked her gloves under her arm.

Fully dressed she stood and inspected herself in the mirror.

The woman was the same one that had stared back at her every day for the past few weeks, but in flight gear she just looked so much more.

With a smile, she touched her fingers to her helmet in salute and marched out, heading for the airstrip.

Waiting on the airstrip was Wing Commander Lennox and her yellow aircraft, Dragonfly, its elegant lines picked out with black highlights. It looked like the whole of the rest of the squadron were there too - they had dragged the deckchairs into the sunshine in front of the mess building and settled in. They looked like they were expecting a show. They were still in their flightsuits, but she was shocked to see that there was not a single RAC regulation suit among them; they were all wearing custom suits, each a masterpiece and they were displaying a riot of colours to rival those of their machines.

Suddenly finding herself quite nervous and certainly feeling drab and unattractive in her standard issue flightsuit, Gwen stomped over to Abby, who was performing final checks on her machine with a couple of Dragonfly’s fitters before takeoff. She looked up as Gwen approached and came round the aircraft to meet her.

Gwen came to a halt and took in the sight of her new commander’s custom yellow leather flightsuit, picked out in black to match her aircraft. It was tightly fitting around the legs and lower abdomen where it had bulging pockets holding liquid to help her combat the stress of tight turns. It flared out from her waist to wide lapels that would be folded closed to form a high neck when she was flying, but which she had left open in the mid-morning sun. She had her custom compass on her left arm, and an ornate brass antique chronograph on her right, which told Gwen that she was left-handed.

Her suit was a delight to behold, but it was her helmet which caught Gwen’s attention for long seconds. The helmet itself was yellow leather, matching her suit, and was designed much like Gwen’s, but, instead of the simple hinges over the temples that held the goggles and lenses on a normal helmet, it had some kind of mechanism to which were attached an extremely complex array of lenses, a few of which were different colours for various light conditions. Wires went from the mechanism through loose gold rings along her collar and down the outside of her left sleeve to her glove where they finally disappeared. Slight bulges on the back of her glove revealed where they had gone and their purpose - they were pressure controls, electric devices that would turn the clockwork mechanism at her temple and slide chosen lenses up and down at a simple press.

‘Ready, Aviator Sergeant?’

Gwen was startled out of her inspection and coloured when she realised that she had been staring at the woman for some time. ‘Yes, ma’am.’

‘Well, then, I suggest you go and get Wasp.’

Gwen nodded and hurried over to the workshop, smiling when she saw that the doors were closed, hiding the machine inside from prying eyes. The six fitters were at attention in front of the workshop waiting for her, Sergeant Jenkins standing a few feet in front of a line formed by the other five. Every single one of them had dark circles under their eyes from lack of sleep, matching the ones she’d seen in the mirror earlier, but they wore their tiredness as a badge of pride. Jimmy was to one side, leaning against the wall and he gave her a grin and thumbs up.

The fitters came to attention at Jenkins’ order when she came to a halt in front of him and he saluted her, paying the traditional tribute to the pilot of their aircraft, even though as an NCO she didn’t warrant a salute.

She nodded solemnly, acknowledging the salute, but unable to return it by regulations that prevented possible damage to her lenses. ‘Sergeant.’

Jenkins nodded to her. ‘At your command, Aviator Sergeant.’

‘Roll her out, please.’

Jenkins smartly turned to bark at the other fitters. ‘Right! You heard the boss! Get those bloody doors open!’

The fitters broke to each side, the movement as well-coordinated as if they had practised it (which she didn’t put past them) and Jimmy joined them as they pulled the doors open.

The Sergeant continued giving orders and the men and women raced to positions around the fighter, which was almost invisible in the dark confines of the workshop - Jenkins evidently had a flair for the theatrical and had kept the lights off, not wanting the machine to become visible until it was revealed by the bright sunlight.

Another order had the fitters pushing and Gwen held her breath, straining to hear any reactions or comments from Abby or the gathered pilots as they finally got a good look at Wasp. There were a few as the more mechanically-minded among them began pointing out her modifications to the others and she heard the word “cannon” two or three times, but the murmuring very quickly died away again, which wasn’t wholly unexpected; they would reserve their opinions for when they saw how she flew the aircraft and wouldn’t be impressed by a fresh coat of paint and some repairs that could have been done by anybody with the help of the expert fitters that Misfit Squadron had to offer.

The fitters rolled Wasp around to Dragonfly’s right side before turning her smartly and bringing her exactly level.

Despite Gwen’s modifications and the two cannons poking forward from the wings, it was clear that they shared the same original designers. However, the contrasting paint jobs made them look very different - Gwen had kept the bottom side of Wasp a gloss black in homage to the heritage of the machine, but she had had the top half painted a bright pink, the colour of the sky at twilight on her parents’ estate in Oxfordshire (she hadn’t been lying when she’d told Kitty that it was her favourite colour). It was undoubtedly garish, but it would fit in perfectly with the rest of the machines in the squadron, some of which were much much harder on the eye, as if their pilots had been competing to see who could do most damage to the enemy’s eyes. The paintwork on the enormous Dreadnought was especially jarring, for example; it had been painted with a dazzle camouflage, usually reserved for ships, and in clashing colours that certainly didn’t serve to camouflage anything.

Abby wandered over to Gwen. ‘Well, it looks good, and I see you fit Wendy’s guns in, but she needs a couple more coats of paint to really do that colour justice.’

Gwen grimaced; the fitters had obviously been up much earlier that morning because Wasp was buffed to a high shine, but it showed that they had only had time to do the primer and a single coat the night before - the black was fine, obviously, although it could do with being deeper, but the pink was looking decidedly grey and sorry for itself as the primer showed through.

Abby saw her expression. ‘Not to worry, it’s her airworthiness that matters this morning, you can finish off the paint some other time. Go on, get your pre-flight checks done and let’s go have some fun!’

‘Yes, ma’am!’ Gwen returned the woman’s grin and skipped off to carry out her checks.

It didn’t take long and soon she was sitting in the cockpit ready to go. She plugged her helmet into the radio and the wing commander’s voice immediately came over her headset.

‘All set?’

‘Yes, ma’am. What are our call signs?’

‘The squadron call sign is Badger, you’re Badger Two and you’re sitting on Badger Base, understood?’

‘Roger, Badger Leader.’

‘Good. Release springs.’

Abigail pulled the lever that released the hold on her Ozymandias spring and gently moved the throttle forwards.

The airscrew in front of her smoothly and silently started to turn and out of habit she cringed, saying a silent prayer, waiting for a creak or crack to indicate that the spring was starting to slip, but it never came; this squadron didn’t have to make do with worn Ozzy’s like everyone else.

The airscrew built speed as she slid the throttle forwards, the thrum of it moving through the air swiftly becoming audible and the machine seemed to come alive around Gwen, like a racehorse in the starting gate, or a greyhound sighting the rabbit.

‘Chocks away!’

The wing commander gave the signal to the fitters who pulled the wooden blocks from the wheels and the two machines surged forwards, throttles to the stops. Gwen was pushed back into her seat far harder than she had ever been in her Harridan; despite having the same spring, Wasp was so much lighter and better at converting the power provided into thrust. She lightly touched her brakes to allow the leader’s machine to draw ahead a few feet, then pushed her nose down, bringing her tailwheel off the ground to better build speed.

She couldn’t believe it when she felt the machine come alive around her and almost immediately began clamouring at her to pull back on the stick and set it free. The takeoff run was incredibly short, barely four seconds instead of the six or seven the Harridan took and she rotated at exactly the same time as the wing commander, only just restraining herself from yelling in exhilaration as Wasp came unstuck from the ground with a joyful leap.

The two machines climbed swiftly and were already above the level of the trees as they passed the last of the buildings, only half way down the runway. As soon as they had clear air below them, Gwen adjusted her position and settled behind and slightly below her leader.

‘Check in.’

Abby’s voice came over the radio loud and clear and Gwen scanned her instruments, quickly seeing that everything was showing perfect readings, as expected. ‘Badger Two, Roger.’

‘Climbing to angels six on heading three one zero.’

Gwen followed her onto the new heading, still climbing, and found her face was starting to hurt with the huge grin that was plastered onto it. She worked her jaw, hearing it crack, then tried to relax, but found that the smile just kept coming back.

After what seemed like no time at all, they levelled out and Abby dropped back to bring Dragonfly alongside Wasp. Gwen saw her looking the machine over, doing a visual check, but then their eyes met and the woman grinned and gave her a thumbs up.

‘Well, she certainly looks good. Let’s see how she handles. I’m going to go through some manoeuvres, try to stay with me.’

‘Roger, Badger Leader.’

The woman touched her fingers to her helmet and Gwen returned the gesture before dropping back to her original position.

Abby flew straight and level for a few seconds and Gwen was about to ask if something was wrong, when suddenly Dragonfly rotated through ninety degrees, instantly standing on its wing before pulling into a sharp turn. She put Wasp into a similar position, marvelling at how easily and quickly the aircraft rolled, then followed Abby as she put her machine into a series of aerobatic manoeuvres, each more strenuous than the last. Gwen had no problem keeping up with her, though; Wasp was far more agile than both the Harridan and the Spitsteam (she’d had the chance to fly one a couple of times in training). The machine was actually very much like the aircraft she had built specifically to do aerobatics in when she was thirteen, only much more powerful because of the military-grade Ozzy, instead of the Pickering that she’d been limited to - one of the earliest commercially-available springs, at times it had seemed barely capable of getting her off the ground, let alone powering her into a loop.

After a couple of minutes Dragonfly levelled out again. ‘Still there, Two?’

‘Still here, Leader.’ Gwen found she was gently panting for breath; sustained aerobatics were physically demanding and she was slightly out of shape because she hadn’t flown in far too long.

‘Check in.’

Gwen gave her instrument panel a quick once over, but, as she had expected, all the readings were perfect. ‘Badger Two, Roger.’

‘I want to see how your modifications have affected Wasp’s turn rate. I’m going to fall back about twenty lengths behind you. When I say so I want you to put her into maximum turn and I’m going to follow you round, understood?’

‘Understood, Leader.’

Dragonfly decelerated as Abby throttled back, disappearing into the blind spot behind Wasp’s tail, then about twenty seconds later the wing commanders voice came over the radio. ‘Badger Leader to Two, go when ready.’

‘Roger.’

Gwen put Wasp on her wing and pulled back on the stick. Black started to close in around her vision, threatening to overwhelm her, but she continued to bring the stick further, using both hands, until it was almost in her lap, knowing that Wasp could take it and that she herself wasn’t yet at her limit.

Her weight increased and her head became so heavy it felt that her neck was going to collapse under the pressure, but she forced herself to look upwards through the canopy, searching out Dragonfly, curious as to how the two machines compared. She immediately found the yellow machine almost directly overhead, on the other side of the circle that the two aircraft were drawing in the sky, but it was only when the yellow machine perceptibly began to move backwards that she realised that Wasp was catching up. She slotted a magnification lens into place, sneaking a closer look at the wing commander’s face while she could, and was inordinately pleased to see surprise and shock to match her own evident in the woman’s expression.

Even though Wasp was already turning better than Dragonfly, Gwen was positive that it could turn even tighter; there were no signs whatsoever of the wings stalling, no buffeting or looseness in the stick due to the high angle of attack. However, the black encroaching on her vision was a warning that, if she tried, she might fall unconscious, which wasn’t exactly desirous in the air, and especially not in the middle of a fight. The story would have been much different if she’d had her own custom flight suit, like the other Misfits, instead of her standard issue RAC one; they were designed to slow the flow of blood from the head and keep pilots awake under much greater force. She just had to hope that the wing commander would allow her to make one or, even better, get her parents to send her own from home.

Wasp continued to gain steadily on Dragonfly and after less than half a minute the tailplane of the Wing Commander’s aircraft swam into Gwen’s sights. She smiled and made sure that her radio was off before murmuring softly, ‘ratatatata.’

‘I think that should do.’ Abby’s voice over the comms betrayed the strain she was feeling from maintaining the turn for so long and her lazy roll out spoke of a tiredness in her arms that matched that of Gwen’s.

Gwen followed her out of the turn and neatly slotted back into position behind her right wing and slightly below her.

‘Oof, that was hard work!’ The wing commander’s chuckle carried over the radio. ‘I think we’ll take a bit of a breather for a couple of minutes. Do something a bit less vigorous. Badger Base is under our left wings, follow me down and we’ll give them a bit of a show. Come on to my left wing as we turn, power dive together, pull up and run along the strip at zero altitude, buzz the mess, then into an Immelmann with opposite barrel rolls to finish at the top, you go clockwise so we cross with me in front. Got it?’

Gwen smiled; she loved aerobatics and it looked like she had found a kindred spirit. ‘Got it, Leader.’

‘Just make sure you’re far enough behind me to not chop my tail off on the barrel! Alright, on my mark... Three, two, one, mark!’

They peeled off and Gwen slotted Wasp neatly in behind Dragonfly’s wing as they dove towards the air base almost a mile below them.

Even thought they were heading almost directly towards it, Gwen still had to look twice before she was certain that what she was looking at was the airfield and she realised that if she hadn’t known it was there she probably wouldn’t have noticed it - it looked like nothing more than a clearing among the trees, just like so many others that were visible below, although it was maybe a tad more regular. There was certainly no sign of the well-camouflaged buildings that were tucked under the trees and only with her lenses at full magnification could she make out the colourful dots that betrayed the presence of the pilots in their deckchairs.

The air speed indicator needle crept towards and then past the marker for four hundred miles per hour as they screamed out of the sky at slightly more than a forty-five degree angle and Gwen nervously looked over at her wingman as they went below two thousand, then one thousand five hundred feet - even though what they were doing wasn’t anything at all special or dangerous, she wasn’t absolutely certain of Wasp’s capabilities yet and wanted more time in the air with the aircraft before pushing its limits.

The wing commander seemed to have taken her new pilot’s unfamiliarity with her machine into consideration, though, and no sooner had Gwen glanced across at her than she started to come out of the dive, rather more gently than she could have done.

Gwen was too busy flying to have another good look at the air speed indicator, but she thought she saw the needle hovering around the five hundred mark before they started to decelerate, rounding out of the dive and shooting along just above the trees.

Suddenly the trees disappeared from under them and they were above the narrow airstrip.

Gwen swallowed as Abby dipped her machine into the void, taking Dragonfly further down until grass clippings her wake, but she matched her and even edged Wasp into a closer formation that would have made Berty Withers proud.

The buildings flashed past them on both sides so quickly that they had gone the whole length of them and before Gwen knew it they were level with the officer’s mess, the pilots out of their chairs, jumping up and down, cheering and waving, then once again the blackness was closing in as the stick came back into her lap and she followed Abby as Dragonfly shot back up into the sky. The blackout didn’t last long, though, because they soon got to the top of their loop, where they remained inverted for a heartbeat before Abby initiated her barrel roll. Gwen followed suit and the two aircraft smartly came out of the inversion and were once again flying straight and level with Wasp tucked back under Dragonfly’s right wing.

Gwen couldn’t help herself this time and she whooped, adrenaline causing her heart to pump what felt like ten times its normal speed. She glanced across to Dragonfly and found the wing commander watching her, a broad grin on her face.

‘Not bad, Badger Two.’

‘Thank you, Leader. That was fun.’

‘Yes, it was, rather, wasn’t it?’ Abby chuckled before setting Dragonfly to climb again, turning in a wide circle around the airfield. When they were back up at six thousand feet she levelled out again.

‘Alright, last test. You break right, I’ll break left. Fly straight for a ten count then turn round. We’ll go head to head, then straight into a dogfight. Best of three wins, understood?’

‘Roger, Leader.’

‘Good! On my mark... Three, two, one, break!’

Gwen pulled into a swift ninety degree turn. Her face was really beginning to hurt now with the stress of maintaining her constant grin and the added strain of the G forces, but she didn’t care one bit; this was flying, this was what she had signed up for and she was looking forward to testing herself against her new squadron commander.

There was no trace of her smile when they landed ten minutes later.

The wing commander had absolutely thrashed her.

Twice.

Despite Wasp’s tighter turning circle she had never been close to getting onto Dragonfly’s tail. Every time she’d thought she had the upper hand, Abby had carried out some kind of impossible manoeuvre or other and taken away her advantage in an instant. Even going into the tightest turn she could, skirting the limits of her abilities to remain conscious, did her no good, as the wing commander would always find some way to cut her off and put her in the firing line.

They taxied to the hangar and as soon as they had shut down and jumped out the fitters grabbed the two aircraft and pushed them inside, hiding them from the possibility of chance discovery by passing enemy.

Gwen watched as the men and women wheeled low winding machines under each of the aircraft and jacked up what to Gwen’s eyes had always looked like an overgrown screwdriver, slotting it into the round opening on the bottom of both fuselages. The gentle chugging of the steam engines increased slightly in volume and the metal columns started to spin, gently and carefully rewinding the Ozzy’s.

Abby came out of the hangar where she had been speaking with her fitters and walked up to stand next to Gwen, beaming widely. ‘Excellent job on the repairs, Gwen and I’m really impressed with how you’ve improved her turn rate. But, as you know, just being able to turn tighter than your opponent won’t automatically win you a fight, experience will. Don’t worry, though, you’ll get that experience soon enough. Just stay on my wing like you did today, watch and learn and above all else, please try to stay alive. Got it?’

‘Yes, ma’am.’

‘Good.’ She looked at the chronograph on her right wrist. ‘Right, I’ll let Fighter Command know that I’m keeping you when I speak to them, but, as of this moment, you are back on active duty, Aviator Sergeant Stone. You’ll join us for the afternoon sortie, so if nobody tells you differently be in the briefing room at twelve-twenty, please. Rest, have a cup of tea and I’ll see you then.’ She gave Gwen a nod, then walked away, heading towards the mess and the pilots gathered on the other side of the strip.

Gwen barely saw her go; she was too busy staring at Wasp, wondering how she could make the machine better. She felt hurt and humiliated and angry tears of impotence were prickling at her eyes as she thought about the ease with which the wing commander had bested her, but she wiped them away when she heard someone coming up behind her.

She expected it to be Jimmy, coming to say something inappropriate, so she ignored him and continued to stare at Wasp, but after a few seconds there was a high-pitched chuckle and Kitty came around to stand in front of her, blocking her view of her aircraft. The American woman was wearing a dark blue helmet and a striking red flight suit with a single white stripe running vertically down the sides of her limbs and body, the tightness of which just served to highlight her lithe figure. She put her hands on her hips and stared at Gwen, appraising her, obviously seeing the reddened eyes and the pursed lips that Gwen knew were her tells for when she was upset.

‘She beat you.’

It was a statement, not a question, but Gwen nodded anyway.

‘And you’re pretty cut up about it, right?’

Again Gwen just nodded, not trusting her voice to stay steady.

Kitty sighed and shook her head. ‘Well, don’t be! She beats everyone in the squadron, most of them a hell of a lot easier than she did you.’

‘How do you know that?’

Kitty gestured to her helmet, with its array of lenses. ‘We were watching - why do you think she did it above the airfield? We run all our practice dogfights in sight, that way the rest of us can watch and learn. Plus it gives anyone who’s off duty a good show. And believe me, you gave them a much better show than most of the rest of us ever have.’ She pointed to the other side of the airstrip where men and women were folding away deckchairs outside both the NCO and enlisted men and women’s messes. Gwen had been so concerned about embarrassing herself in front of the pilots that she hadn’t noticed that there had been a whole other audience to worry about.

Kitty smiled as she continued. ‘As I said, there’s no reason to stress about losing to her, or read too much into it either; she’s been flying since she was tall enough to reach rudder pedals and is the best pilot any of us have ever seen, friend or foe. She has twenty-seven confirmed kills and at least double that in probables. So don’t let it get you down or make you resentful, just suck it up and learn from her. We all do.’

Gwen forced a smile. ‘I’ll try.’

‘It was very exciting by the way and everybody was damn impressed with how well you did. Oh, and I won the pool! So I have that to thank you for - I’ll buy you a drink tonight once we’re released!’

‘Pool? What pool?’

The American grinned. ‘Yeah, we were betting on how long you were going to last in the dogfights and none of us came close to guessing you would last as long as you did. So, what does that tell you?’

Kitty raised an eyebrow, but didn’t wait for an answer before striding off back to where the other pilots were still sunning themselves.

Gwen turned back to Wasp. Kitty’s words, especially her last ones, had lifted her mood considerably, but they had also opened her eyes to the fact that it wasn’t any fault with the aircraft that had made her lose, it had been a fault with herself - as Abby had said, she lacked experience.

Misfit Squadron had seen a hell of a lot of combat, if the trophies in the officer’s mess were anything to go on, whereas she had only been in real combat once and the practice dogfights she’d had at the RAC flight school training were nothing compared to that kind of experience.

She would improve as time went on, though. All she needed to do was follow her wingmate’s lead, learn, get to know her machine better... and survive.

She smiled at her garish pink aircraft. ‘Sorry I doubted you, girl. I’ll do better in the future.’

She gave Sergeant Jenkins and her fitters a wave, then turned on her heels and headed towards the mess; a cup of tea sounded pretty good all of a sudden and maybe they would have some crumpets left over from breakfast.

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. Next weekend we'll have Chapter Six. If you missed out on Chapter Four you can go back and read in 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.