The days turned into weeks and the Misfits were again worked hard, flying at least three sorties a day and sometimes up to six or seven as summer reached its height and daylight lasted longer.

Every single one of the pilots of A and B flights added more kills to their personal tallies - Abby bagged another fourteen, but she wasn’t the most successful; it was Bruce who put Devil’s cannon to good use and took that honour, outshooting his commander for the first time ever and getting fifteen, both making Gwen’s more than creditable six seem almost humble.

However, no matter how many Prussians the Misfits shot down, there were always more to take their place and it never seemed like they were making any headway against the horde that was coming from across the channel. That in itself was disheartening enough, but there was also news every day of mounting civilian casualties from the bombing raids on the cities. The two things combined to make some of the pilots think that perhaps they weren’t doing all that they could and they began to take unnecessary risks in the hopes of making more kills. It worked quite spectacularly a few times, but it was bound to catch up with them sooner or later and there were a couple of very near misses - Lady Penelope came back from one mission with gaping holes in both her fuselage and canopy and glass in her cheek and Monty had half of his bottom wing blown off when he broke away from Bruce and dived into a group of eight MU9’s who were fighting a single Spitsteam. They both made it back to base safely enough, but their machines were out of commission for days, which just made matters worse in the long run and had each pilot blaming themselves even more. In the end Abby was forced to threaten the next person who did anything stupid with being grounded to put an end to it.

The summer continued to be perfect, every day bright and clear and lovely, but that did absolutely nothing to lift their spirits, in fact it had the opposite effect because it meant that the Fleas had perfect visibility of their targets and the destruction was much higher than it might have been. However, September dawned misty and grey and flight operations were called off as the Prussians stayed at home, giving the beleaguered British forces a well-needed day of rest.

With no flying to be done, rather than feeling relaxed the pilots felt restless and they hung around the mess, drinking tea and talking in hushed tones. Every so often someone would stand up and go to the windows and look up at the clouds and a silence would fall as everybody watched them, waiting for the pronouncement on the weather. It was always the same, though - a brief shake of the head that brought a groan from the audience.

Finally, Abby had had enough. ‘Right then you lot, I want everybody in flight gear, minus helmets. Parade in front of the main hangar in ten minutes.’

Owen frowned at her and opened his mouth to state the obvious, that they were grounded, but she cut him off before he could say anything. ‘Come on, chop chop, no arguments! Go! Now! Last one on parade has to run a lap of the airfield in their flightsuit.’

The pilots were fairly sure that Abby would never carry out her threat, but there was a general rush for the door anyway; she had been in a particularly vindictive mood and not her usual laid-back self since Lady Penelope and Monty had put themselves out of action and had punished every infraction, no matter how slight and they didn’t want to test her (she had made Bruce serve as a waiter during dinner one night for making too many sarcastic comments during a briefing and had banned Mac from drinking for a whole week when he overslept one morning after a particularly heavy night).

In less than ten minutes the pilots were lined up in front of the hangar in rank order at parade rest.

Abby had been watching from the windows of the mess and wandered over to them only after everybody else was there, deliberately making herself the last one so that she didn’t have to carry out her threat if anybody had been late.

She came to a halt in front of them and scowled. ‘Atten.... Shun!’

She barely managed to keep a straight face as eleven pilots, who hadn’t been under proper discipline for months, came to attention in a manner that would have given a parade sergeant a fit.

She took a deep breath, then raised her voice to bellow at them. ‘Right then, you sorry lot! It has come to my attention that certain basic training has been neglected recently and this just won’t do in my Squadron!’

The volume she was using was completely unnecessarily at the distance she was from them, but she kept her voice raised nonetheless, maintaining her angry glare as she stared at them one by one. ‘And I’m not talking about the decidedly shoddy way in which you just came to attention, you sorry excuse for a bunch of soldiers!’

There were titters from the audience which had slowly been gathering behind her as she began to walk back and forth in front of the pilots, imitating a drill sergeant’s strut as best she could in her tight flightsuit as she inspected them, stopping every so often to bawl at them. ‘Stand straight, Squadron Leader MacShane! You need a haircut, Aviator Lieutenant Fletcher! Get that stupid grin off your face, Aviator Lieutenant Walker! Try not to be so damn Welsh, Squadron Leader Llewellyn!’ Many of the pilots, the ones who had known her for longest or that were more experienced (or more jaded), had realised what she was doing and were now desperately trying to stay serious as they played along with her, thrusting their chins high into the air and standing with their backs as rigid as possible, but some of the others, especially the younger pilots, looked genuinely surprised and nervous, not having cottoned on to the joke, which just made her own fight to keep a straight face that much more difficult.

Her pretend inspection done, she returned to her place in front of the pilots and deflated, shaking her head with a sigh. She tried hard to actually seem genuinely upset and reinforced that impression by lowering her voice so that the watching men and women couldn’t hear her. ‘I’m disappointed in you all, very disappointed. Discipline is far too lax and the way you’ve been acting recently is a complete disgrace. This squadron needs to buck its ideas up and start working together fast, so, as a team-building exercise you’re all going to go for that little run around the airfield while I time you.’

Even the more experienced pilots gave her a look of genuine shock at that and it gratified her no end to see that she could still unsettle them, even after more than a year together.

She lifted her right arm and pointedly looked down at the chronograph on her sleeve. ‘Go on, off you go!’

The pilots shifted uneasily and she watched as they reacted in various ways. Some were just staring at her, waiting for the rest to make a move. Others were dying to argue, but the fact that they were supposed to be at attention had invoked what little discipline they had and they were holding their tongues. She almost smiled when, predictably, as one of the youngest and the one who had most been under RAC discipline, Gwen was the first to cave in - she gave Kitty a look and a shrug of resignation and they both made to start running, but immediately stopped when they saw that none of the others were moving from their places.

Abby tried to hold on to her serious expression, but failed dismally and after only a few seconds a snigger escaped her, snot threatening to bubble out of her nose. ‘You should see your faces!’

Her laughter only increased when the pilots scowled, but before any of them could recriminate with her for the dirty trick she raised her voice again and called out over their heads. ‘Sergeant Potter! Bring that gear out here!’

Her chief fitter came out of the darkness of the hangar along with the chief fitters from every other crew, bringing with them the glidewings from the aircraft.

By now the pilots had completely broken discipline and turned to see what was happening behind them, but she didn’t reprimand them or bring them back to attention; the charade had served its purpose, setting the mood for the morning and gathered the audience that she wanted.

She waved at the pilots to gather around and spoke to them in a more normal voice, although she made sure that it would carry to most of the watchers as well. ‘Regulations state that glidewings should be tested on a monthly basis and to my knowledge we have not been doing that. We are going to rectify that situation this morning and have a bit of fun while we do it. I hope none of you are afraid of heights?’

There was laughter at that from both the pilots and the gathered men and women.

‘So, ladies and gentlemen, what we are going to do is make sure they work by jumping off the top of the hangar.’ Abby pointed to the building behind them, the roof of which was about a hundred feet off the ground.

She looked around the group, searching each of them for signs of fear or doubt, and smiled when she found nothing except excitement and anticipation - exactly what she had expected from her Misfits. ‘To make things a bit more interesting we’re going to have a little wager - whoever lands the closest to the mess wins the grand prize!’

The grins widened considerably at the thought of a competition; pilots were often the most egotistical of people and loved the chance to show their superiority over others in any way possible.

‘And what, pray tell, is the grand prize?’ It was Lady Penelope who asked the question that was on all of their minds and there was an eager, almost greedy look in her eyes that was completely at odds with her normal laid-back attitude.

‘The winner of the First Misfit Squadron Glidewing Challenge will receive a trophy engraved with their name and a week’s free drinks. So I really hope that Mac doesn’t win, otherwise I might go bankrupt.’

When the laughter at that had died down, Abby continued. ‘The rules are as follows. Each pilot will get only one attempt. He or she cannot use any means of propulsion other than their own legs.’

‘Dammit.’ Bruce swore, obviously having been planning some kind of cheat.

Abby thumbed her nose at him to more laughter. ‘And the winner will be judged by popular consent. Which means that everybody here decides.’ She jerked her thumb over her shoulder at the crowd, which now included nearly all of the base personnel. The ones that weren’t on duty anyway. ‘So I would recommend you be nice. But any attempts to buy votes will be frowned upon and bear in mind that the free drinks are individual and non-transferable, so you can’t use them as bribes!’

‘Dammit!’ Bruce swore again, bringing even more laughter.

Abby grinned, loving the chance to keep morale as high as possible. ‘Right! Well, we’re going to do this in order of superiority, so I get to have first crack! It also means that it’s my legs that’ll get broken if this is as stupid an idea as it seems.’

Gwen watched the wing commander slip on her glidewing and strap it onto her back with help from her fitter before going to the side of the hangar, where there were handrails up to the roof of the building for maintenance purposes. She climbed rapidly, quickly reaching the roof, then disappeared.

Everybody craned their necks, trying to see what was happening, but for long seconds there was no sign of her.

There was a shout, a continuous “aaah” that rose steadily in volume, then suddenly the wing commander appeared on top of the hangar. Her glidewings were fully extended and as she reached the end of the roof she dived forwards as if into a swimming pool.

The entire crowd of watchers held their breath as she plummeted, dropping almost fifty feet before her wings caught enough air to lift her and she pulled up. A few people in the crowd gasped, thinking that she was still going to hit the ground, but she didn’t, managing to level off with five feet to spare - a decent margin as far as a pilot, especially one of her calibre, was concerned. She skimmed across the ground, keeping the same height, and made it more than half way across the airstrip before she lost so much speed that she had to pull up and put her feet down.

Her effort was greeted with thunderous applause and Jimmy, who had been armed with a bucket of white paint, ran to mark where she had landed with her initials.

Abby tugged on the lever to retract the wings and they heard the whir of springs as the huge, bat-like wings were swiftly and powerfully folded back into the surprisingly small package on her back.

She turned and began to walk back, grinning widely. When she was within easy earshot she called out. ‘Owen! Your turn, up you go!’

Owen made a show of reluctance. ‘I’m not sure this is a good idea; I mean, you almost nosedived into the ground and, you must admit, you were rather undignified about the whole thing, all that “aarghing”... It might be bad for discipline.’

The wing commander came to a halt in front of him. ‘What discipline?’ She grinned, then reached out and grabbed his arms, spinning him in place and giving him a good kick in the arse to get him moving. ‘Go on! Get up there!’

Owen continued to pretend not to want to do it, trudging to his fitter and accepting his glidewings, but then when it came time to climb the ladder he ran up it with enthusiasm and leapt onto the roof.

He disappeared out of sight, but not nearly as long as Abby had, appearing again after only a few seconds, his legs and arms pumping and his body tilted forward as he fought against the drag of his extended wings.

‘Geronimoooo...oooh, fu....!’ He leapt out, dropping like a stone, his greater weight counting against him and he struggled to pull up, only just managing in time and swearing profusely as his toes dragged in the grass. He had overcooked it, though, tilting himself too far up and rising a good twenty feet into the air. He fought desperately with the controls and was able to level himself out again, but it was too late; he had used up too much of his airspeed and all he could do was glide a short distance before landing well short of Abby’s mark.

He retracted his wings and stomped back to them, angry with himself. He was still greeted with applause, though, and slapped on the shoulders by many of the men as he passed, which improved his mood quite a lot.

Abby gave him a smile and shook her head. ‘Squadron Leader your Ladyship Penny Bagshot! You’re up!’

One by one the pilots took their turns. There were no other near-mishaps like Owen’s, but none of them could quite beat Abby’s mark and it looked more and more likely that the squadron’s best pilot was going to win. Nobody cared, though, and Bruce and Mad Mac even came up with their own “competition” instead, namely to see which of the two could give the most bloodcurdling yell as they leapt from the roof.

Abby’s record stood, therefore, until it came to Scarlet’s turn.

The tiny woman looked smaller yet when she appeared at the edge of the roof high above them and her dive was elegant, serenity itself. The crowed oohed almost as one as she pulled up easily and glided gracefully along the ground at more than twice head height. She easily surpassed Abby’s mark and was three-quarters of the way across the runway before she dived, swooping down to gain speed, then pulled herself vertical to almost hover in the air, spinning to face them and retracting her wings even as she settled softly to the ground.

Everybody was so stunned by the beauty of what she had done that it was a good few seconds before the applause started and when it did it was far louder and more enthusiastic than it had been for anyone else. She gave them a small bow, then gestured to Jimmy, who had completely forgotten that he had to mark her landing place and had been staring at her in wonder with his mouth gaping.

It was the general consensus of the crowd that nobody would be able to beat Scarlet’s mark, but Kitty’s effort was very nearly as good and Gwen remembered that the American had spoken about the times that she and the younger members of the family had played with gliders while they had been growing up, flying similar things to the glidewings off specially constructed towers and into the lake on the Wright Estate. She wasn’t quite as dignified about it as Scarlet had been, though, and she fought for every inch, skidding to a halt on her belly in an effort to gain just a little bit more distance, but even so she came up several yards short of the Irishwoman.

Somewhat disappointed, but still smiling, Kitty made her long walk back and all eyes turned to Gwen, who was the last to go.

Without a word, she walked over to Sergeant Jenkins, who helped her to put her glidewings to her back, then bent forward to whisper in her ear while he tightened the straps. ‘You can do it, ma’am. Show them what the pilot of Wasp can do.’

She gave him a smile and a nod, then went to the ladder up to the top of the hangar.

Glidewings were surprisingly light and incredibly resilient, constructed with Duralumin, the same as the skin of the aircraft, but much thinner, over a frame composed of mildly flexible steel tubes that were only slightly larger than fishing rods. They were delicately balanced and all a pilot had to do to control his direction was tilt his upper body from the waist, the design so brilliant that it felt like they were part of the pilot. Their opening and closing was controlled by a lever on the left side of the thick strap that came around the waist and had four positions, which determined how many of the four panels on each side were opened by the internal springs - the first setting opened only one panel and its purpose was to provide control and allow a pilot to stop his tumbling, the second panel came out to slow him down by giving him enough lift to start to pull up before deploying a third panel to give better gliding distance, then finally opening the wings fully to settle to a gentle landing, as had been perfectly demonstrated by Scarlet (but not by most of the other pilots).

Gwen had been watching closely as the other pilots had taken their turns and had noted that every one of them had logically chosen to fully extend the wings before jumping, wanting the maximum lift possible, which allowed them to pull up before hitting the ground. However, the drag also stopped them from getting as much speed from their runs as they could and she wondered if that were the best tactic to employ under these highly unusual circumstances.

With nothing to lose she chuckled to herself and decided that she would try something different.

After all, what was the worst that could happen?

She walked towards the back of the hangar along the flat metal roof. It was painted green and lightly corrugated for strength, providing a good grip for her flight boots.

She wanted a good run up, but not so long as to be tired when she got to the edge and decided that ten yards was more than enough. Once in place she faced the airfield and pulled the lever, testing the mechanism. She opened the wings wide, then retracted them again, watching carefully to make sure that they moved at the same rate - if one opened quicker than the other then the lift they provided would be momentarily uneven and send her out of control.

Satisfied, she took a last deep breath, then burst into motion, sprinting as hard as she could, her eyes focussed firmly on the mess building across the airfield. It was slightly blurry through the mist and despite the fact that she knew it couldn’t possibly have moved, it looked much further away than it should have.

The crowd below gasped when they saw her appear without wings, but she didn’t hear them; she was too focussed on what she was doing.

She leapt out, head first and simultaneously pulled the lever to its second position.

Because she hadn’t been fighting against wind resistance on her run up her speed was far higher than anything the other pilots had been able to manage and she had just enough lift already to prevent the same almost vertical plunge that every other pilot had taken. Also, opening only to the second position meant that she could control her direction without as much drag slowing her down so she built speed quickly, flying, rather than falling along a forty-five degree flight path. Once she judged she had enough speed she opened the wings to their third position and ever so slowly pulled up from the dive, then, when she was almost level she snapped the wings open fully.

Now that she was committed to the glide, she finally had time to take in her surroundings and with some shock she saw that she was already passing the first white marks on the airfield, but was still more than twenty feet in the air. She realised that she could afford to push her nose down, so to speak, and keep her airspeed up by slowly sacrificing height; it was far more efficient to glide that way.

She closed her eyes and focussed on the feeling of the air across the wings as she played with her pitch. It was a very delicate balance that she was looking for; she wanted to keep enough speed for the wings to act efficiently, but at the same time not dive so much that she was losing height unnecessarily. She found the place where the glidewings seemed happiest and smiled; they were so intuitive for anyone with even the slightest understanding of flight and such a pleasure to fly. Instinctively knowing that she still had plenty of height to spare, she enjoyed the sensation for a few moments more before reluctantly opened her eyes to check her surroundings.

The wall of the mess was only thirty feet away and approaching very rapidly.

She squealed in alarm and immediately dipped towards the ground, losing as much altitude as she could as quickly as possible, before gradually pulling up again, desperately trying to bleed away as much speed as she could while not regaining too much height, slowly tilting herself further and further backwards until finally she managed to reach a vertical position, completely arresting her forward motion. She hung in the air for a heartbeat, then dropped, falling rather heavily to the ground, her nose just inches away from the door to the officer’s mess.

Not quite believing exactly how successful her flight had been, she stared at the door for long seconds, then grinned and started to turn, but cringed as her still-extended wings scraped green paint from the walls with a loud squeal. She hastily flicked the lever to retract them, but the damage was done - there was a six inch long white scar of exposed stone in the otherwise perfect green of the mess hall.

The door opened to reveal one of the waiters, come to investigate the noise. He looked at her, then at the crowd of people over her shoulder, then just tutted and rolled his eyes before closing the door again.

Gwen blushed and turned to make her way back to the other pilots, but found a wave of cheering people running towards her. She barely had time to shrug out of the glidewings before she was grabbed from all sides and lifted up into the air, borne aloft by twenty or more hands. They jumped up and down, chanting both her name and the name of her aircraft, as if they were one and the same, which she supposed they almost were in the eyes of people who didn’t know her personally and she idly wondered how many of the men and women on the airbase actually believed the embellishments made by the British press of her, or rather of Wasp’s exploits.

Eventually, she was deposited carefully to the ground in front of Abby and the other pilots.

The wing commander held her hands up for silence and an expectant hush fell over the airfield. ‘I declare Aerial Officer Stone the winner of the First Misfit Squadron Glidewing Challenge!’ There were cheers and Abby let them go on for a while before again holding up her hands. When silence had fallen she was handed something by an airwoman who Gwen didn’t recognise, but who was liberally covered in fresh wood chips - she had evidently been working while the competition had been going on.

Abby held the object up over her head. ‘The trophy for our glorious victor!’

The trophy turned out to be a replica of an early model propeller - a nose cone with two propeller blades. It was fully four feet long and the whole thing was lovingly carved from a single piece of dark wood.

‘Step forwards, Aerial Officer Stone.’

Gwen went to stand in front of Abby and held out her hands to receive the trophy, but Abby shook her head with a grin before raising her voice once more. ‘So that the glory of your victory will live on in the minds of all who witnessed it, you will spend the rest of the day crowned as the champion of the glidewing, while you enjoy your spoils!’ She turned the trophy to reveal that the nosecone was hollow, lined with felt and had a chin strap.

Gwen stared at it in not a little horror. ‘Now wait a minute!’

The hands that had only a short while ago borne her aloft in celebration now kept her in place as she tried to get away and she had no choice but to face Abby as the trophy was lifted up and placed firmly on her head.

Gwen reached up, intending to remove it, but was stopped when a full pint of Best Bitter was placed in her hand and chants of “drink!” began.

She looked around at the men and women surrounding her, seeing pilots, fitters, airmen and women. Seeing her friends and colleagues. Seeing the squadron that had made her one of their own so quickly. She realised that she could take a little light humiliation if it was the price to pay for the smiles that each and every one of them wore, the grim faces of before banished.

She raised the glass to them. ‘The Misfits!’

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 Fifteen by clicking the right-arrow down there on the right. If you missed out on Chapter Thirteen 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.