The shots never came.

When Gwen finally got together enough courage to look around there was no sign of the enemy - they had vanished as rapidly and efficiently as they had appeared.

Suddenly feeling an intense need to get home she pushed her nose sharply forwards and dived below the low cloud, which had been thickening steadily as she headed south. She came out a scant thousand feet above the ground and searched for familiar landmarks, immediately finding Canterbury Cathedral off her right wing, six or seven miles away. That meant she had been heading in the wrong direction; she must have been far closer to Margate than she had realised when she’d lost the MU9’s and needed to head almost directly west to get to Badger base. She pushed the throttle to the stop and turned onto her new course, not bothering to check the map on her thigh for a more precise direction.

She flew just below the clouds, needing the illusion of safety that it provided her, hiding under it for comfort like a giant blanket and in minutes she left behind all signs of civilisation to enter the downs. She found one of Jimmy’s fields almost immediately and adjusted her heading to follow its directions.

She had her spring at full unwind still, but that wasn’t enough for her and she was almost rocking in her seat, willing more speed out her aircraft, so desperate was she to get on the ground.

Less than ten minutes after her fright she was on final approach to Badger base and she recklessly dropped out of the sky, almost in a panic.

It was the roughest landing of her life and she bounced twice before Wasp stuck to the ground, not complaining at Gwen’s treatment of her. The aircraft continued to behave well as she taxied far faster than she should have done towards the hangar, then applied far too much brake, bringing the tail wheel briefly off the ground and scattering the fitters who were waiting for her.

Gwen had thrown back the canopy as soon as she had landed, was fumbling with her straps while the fitters grabbed her wings and was clambering out of the cockpit even before Wasp was in place in the hangar. She jumped to the ground, ignoring Sergeant Jenkins’ enquiries about her and her aircraft and only just had the presence of mind to scramble to a sand bucket before she emptied her guts.

After a few concerned looks, the fitters left her alone and went to work rewinding Wasp and seeing to the damaged wing.

It was Jimmy who finally knelt down at her side and rubbed her back with his hand.

‘Gwen. I brought you some water. Um... why don’t you come outside and get some fresh air?’

Gwen gulped down a mugful of water, then let the boy help her up and staggered out into the weak sunlight coming through the clouds. He supported her as she stumbled to one side and sat down against the cold metal of the hangar and wrapped her arms around her legs. She was shaking uncontrollably and something over her head, a latch or a chain, was rattling in time with the chattering of her teeth.

She had no idea how long she sat there for, but it seemed like only seconds before she felt a hand on her shoulder, shaking her gently and she lifted her head to find Abby leaning over her, frowning, the rest of the pilots standing behind her. Somehow they were all there - she hadn’t heard them land or seen them taxi past her.

‘Gwen? What’s wrong? Are you ill?’

The words barely got through to her and she could only stare up at the woman and shake her head mutely.

‘Then what is it? Was it the fight? B squadron said you got all four of the double-aitches with no trouble but that you got bounced by some 9’s afterwards. I saw the damage to Wasp - is that it? The close shave?’

Again, Gwen could only shake her head and she squeezed her eyes shut, but waiting for her in the darkness was a wide smile on a handsome face and red, so much red that she quickly opened them again.

‘What is it, Gwen? Please. Talk to me.’

Gwen wet her lips, swallowing, trying to find her voice. Eventually she managed to force out a single word.

‘Barons.’

A shock ran through the pilots and a couple of them took a step back as if the word had a physical force.

‘Are you sure?’

The question made Gwen inordinately angry for some reason and brought her roaring out of her stupor. ‘Of course I’m bloody sure! Bloody Hans Gruber bloody popped out of nowhere onto my wing with fifteen of his bloody aces and bloody saluted me!’

The vehemence in her voice sent Abby stumbling back and Gwen pushed herself away from the wall and lurched to her feet, glaring at the pilots. ‘He was as close to me now as you are. The Barons surrounded me, had me in their sights and I thought that was it, I thought I was going to be with my husband at last, but all he did was take a good look at Wasp, salute me and disappear!’

Gwen’s anger vanished as she looked around the pilots and saw the shock and the sympathy on their faces. She fought to relax, hating herself for having lashed out at her friends and colleagues. There was no recrimination on any of their faces, though, just understanding, which just made her feel worse and she turned her head away.

‘I’m sorry, I’m just... I’m sorry.’ She frowned as she took another look at the group. ‘Where’s Bruce?’

Abby grimaced. ‘He was shot down. After we took care of the fighters we engaged the bombers. He spent too long flying in a straight line trying to take one of them down and got caught in the crossfire from two others. He bailed out alright, though; Monty saw his glidewing deploy, but obviously we’re an aircraft down and at exactly the wrong time if the Barons have shown up at last.’ She shrugged. ‘These things happen, though.’ She turned to address the whole group. ‘Right, I have to get on the blower, find out if HQ know about the Barons. You lot get to the mess, have some food and write up your reports. I’ll meet you there when I know something.’ She turned back to Gwen. ‘Good job on those double-aitches, by the way.’

Gwen managed to smile. ‘Thank you, but I only got three of them; the fourth tore himself apart trying to get away. I didn’t get a single shot on him.’

Abby chuckled. ‘You could have claimed him anyway, but I’m glad you’re honest. Three or four it’s still a damn good haul and not a bad morning’s work!’

‘Just out of curiosity... How many did you get?’

Abby gave her a crooked smile. ‘Only eight.’

The mood was fairly solemn in the mess, despite the fact that between them they had shot down more than twenty enemy aircraft that morning. It wasn’t so much the loss of Bruce that was weighing on their minds, especially seeing as they had received word that he had been picked up just off the coast, wet and shivering, but unharmed, it was more the prospect of facing the Barons again; they had too many memories of engagements that had only barely gone their way in France.

Gwen was still a bit shaky, in spite of the three cups of heavily-sugared tea she’d drunk, and didn’t particularly want to relive her experience, but she knew she had to and she forced herself to tell the assembled pilots about her encounter with them. She expressed her surprise that they had let her live, but the other pilots just nodded, telling her that if the Barons were anything it was that they were chivalrous - they wouldn’t have used their superior numbers to kill her, or take her by surprise, especially after they had identified her as one of the Misfits. They also were of the opinion that Gruber had recognised Wasp, but had wanted to investigate her new colouring and modifications - it had been him that had almost killed Cece, but because she had made it back to base then technically he hadn’t shot her down so they hadn’t notified him of her death or sent him a piece of her aircraft as their mutual tradition dictated, although she had lost her tail somewhere over enemy territory so they probably had it anyway.

When she had finished, the pilots then told her some of the stories of the skirmishes that they’d had with the Barons. There had never been a decisive battle with them; the pilots of both sides were too good to allow themselves to be shot down easily and while the Misfits had been able to claim a few victories, the Barons were always back to full strength by the next time they had encountered them; they seemed to have an unlimited supply of Blutsaugers to replace any losses. Unlike the Misfits the Barons’ aircraft were painstakingly hand-crafted to exacting specifications set down by top Prussian scientists and not by each pilot. They were consequently superior to regular RAC aircraft and only slightly inferior to the Misfits’ machines, but were so expensive and slow to make that they couldn’t possibly be supplied to the entire Fliegertruppe and instead every single one produced was kept in reserve for the Barons.

Eventually, the conversation petered out and the Misfits began to drift away to armchairs around the room to write their reports of the morning’s engagement, but Kitty stayed with Gwen. She waited until the last pilot had gone then pulled her to one side of the room, out of earshot of the others and spoke to her quietly, urgently, giving her a stern look. ‘I’ve seen the photo in your cockpit and out on the airfield just now you said that you thought you were going to join your husband... Do you have a death wish, Gwen? Because that’s the kind of thing we have to know. As much for our safety as yours.’

Gwen shook her head. ‘No, it’s not like that. I don’t want to die and I’m not doing anything to bring it on any quicker, I just know that pilots don’t tend to live long.’

Kitty stared at her for a few seconds then nodded, apparently satisfied. ‘Good, because I like you. A lot. And I’d hate to lose you.’

Abby came into the mess fully an hour after the Misfits had landed. She brought with her a bedraggled and downcast Bruce who was greeted with thundering backslaps from the male pilots and hugs from the female ones, which he seemed to enjoy far more. The jubilation at his safe return didn’t last long, though, and the pilots quickly subsided back into silence, settling back into their armchairs and looking at their leader expectantly.

‘Whitehall confirms. The Barons have been spotted by various squadrons over Southern England. They haven’t engaged anyone, though, which has them rather puzzled and Whitehall’s thinking is that they were saving their ammunition and waiting for us to appear.’

Owen snorted in amusement. ‘Doesn’t Gwen’s encounter throw that theory out of the window?’

Abby shook her head. ‘Not necessarily; you all know there is a big difference between coming across a single damaged aircraft and finding the squadron prepared for a fight - none of us or them would even consider destroying that aircraft, would we?’

There were several nods at this and Gwen wondered just how well the Misfits knew their enemy, after all it was entirely possible that they had met at least a few of them before the war; the aviation community, and especially the one that constructed their own machines, was a select circle and everybody tended to know everybody else, if not in person, then at least by reputation. The same was probably true of the military aviation community in peacetime.

‘Having said that, I agree with you lot; I think that something else is going on, but the bigwigs are sticking with their theory for now, so...’ She grimaced, knowing what was coming. ‘Effective immediately Misfit Squadron are grounded.’

The pilots all but leapt out of their seats, their protests bombarding Abby, coming thick and fast.

The wing commander held her hands up and the pilots gradually subsided into silence, although not a single one of them sat down again. ‘None of you can deny that we need a rest; we’ve been working damn hard the last few weeks. We’re tired, we’re jittery and it’s affecting our flying and our judgement...’ She looked pointedly at Bruce, but didn’t say anything else about the error which could have gotten both him and his wingman killed; he was already suffering enough with the loss of his beloved aircraft. ‘And while we’ve been flying all day every day the Barons have been swanning around Europe, sleeping in the best hotels and eating the best food. We need to be in tiptop condition when we face them and we’re not. Right now they’re fresh and rested and would probably wipe the floor with us and Britain can’t afford that. We’re also an aircraft down and this will give us time to build one.’ She looked at Gwen. ‘On top of that, this gives us a golden opportunity to put the talents of our newest member to work. I have decided to allow Aviator Sergeant Stone to construct her own aircraft, meaning Wasp will pass into Bruce’s hands.’

Bruce brightened up slightly at that. ‘Bonza idea, boss! Wasp is a fine machine, I’ll take care of her, I promise.’

Gwen’s heart leapt at the chance of being able to build her own aircraft, but there was something nagging at the back of her mind, preventing her from leaping immediately to her feet and rushing out to begin the design process. It took only a few seconds to figure out what it was and she sighed and shook her head.

Abby had been watching Gwen, to see her reaction and as soon as she shook her head the woman smiled and nodded her understanding and approval; Gwen had made Wasp her own and she could no more give her up, than she could a machine that she had built herself. The wing commander shrugged and looked at the Australian. ‘Sorry, Bruce, it looks like you’re going to have to build your own aircraft.’

Gwen saw his face fall and remembered him telling her that he hadn’t actually built Bandicoot himself - he had won her in a card game, then completely renovated her. She waved to catch Abby’s attention. ‘Uh, if you don’t mind, even though I’m keeping Wasp, I’d like to offer my services to help Bruce design his new machine. It will do me good to get back to the drawing board for a while.’

Abby opened her mouth to give her approval, but was cut off by a whoop from Bruce, who leapt across the room, lifted Gwen off the ground and jumped up and down with her in his arms.

The pilots laughed and cheered him on.

When Bruce finally put Gwen down, Abby continued. ‘We’re also going to rotate leave. Starting tomorrow morning one pilot from each flight will get three days. I was going to send our most junior pilots, Gwen, Ophelia and Kitty, away first, but if Gwen is helping Bruce I’ll have to change those plans; it would be good to have a design ready before she went away so construction won’t be delayed any more than it has to be.’

‘Actually, I already have a few good ideas and if we’re stood down and I’m free to work, then I’ll start right away. I should have the first drafts ready in a couple of hours for you and Bruce to approve, then, once I have that, I should have the blueprints ready by, I don’t know... midnight, maybe? That way you won’t have to change your plans.’

The pilots went very still and stared at Gwen with open mouths, all except Abby, who just watched their reactions with a grin, having already seen what she was capable of.

‘No way! That’s impossible!’ Mad Mac’s thick accent finally broke the silence.

‘Wanna bet?’ drawled Bruce, who had suddenly become Gwen’s staunchest supporter. He stood by her side with his hands on his hips, glaring at the rest of the pilots as if daring them to say anything else.

‘As a matter of fact, yes!’

Gwen slipped out of the mess while the pilots were busy furiously placing bets and drawing up odds on whether she could accomplish what they saw as an impossible undertaking, but was just a mild challenge and an interesting exercise to her.

While she walked over the airstrip towards hut two, the workshop where she had repaired Wasp, she thought back to the moment when Abby had told her she could have her own aircraft. She still couldn’t quite believe that she had turned her down, but it had felt like the right thing to do at the time and it still did; she had developed a connection with Wasp over the weeks that they had flown together, it felt like they understood each other and it would have been a betrayal to abandon her.

The office hadn’t been used since she’d last been in there and everything she needed was in place waiting for her.

It had been several years since she had designed an aircraft from scratch; the last one she’d worked on had actually been the Harridan and that had been mostly her parents’ project, she had merely offered suggestions and made adjustments to it after each test flight. However, while she hadn’t physically gone through the process since she’d made her last personal aircraft in her teens, she had designed and built hundreds in her mind since then and those designs came pouring from her now.

She started with Bandicoot, sketching it in detail from memory. It had been ahead of its time when it had been built, but that time had been almost ten years ago and it had only really remained as effective as it had thanks to the brilliance of its pilot. Once she had that clear, she began elaborating on its basic design, much as she had with Wasp. However, because there was no already-built machine out in the main workshop area, this time she could start from scratch and she pulled every idea she’d ever had out of where she’d stored them for just such an eventuality. In successive sketches she added a third wing, then reduced it to just one, changed the airscrew position to behind the cockpit, played around with the gun positions to alter weight distribution and concentrate firepower, attached the wings to the back of the fuselage and swept them forwards, then swept them back again. Each design was more unconventional and complex than the next, but she instinctively knew that each and every one of them would work.

In minutes the first large sheet of paper was covered with concept drawings, but instead of changing it she just moved to the next drawing board. Then the next a few minutes later. Then the next.

Once she ran out of basic concepts she returned to some of the best ones and began to refine them, building on them and taking them further.

By the time the other pilots wandered in, having made their bets and finally noticed she was missing, she had covered six sheets with dozens of designs and had begun to slow down. She didn’t look up at them, though, she just continued with her work and they remained as quiet as they could while staring in wonder at her designs.

About twenty minutes later, after she had been working for a little over an hour, she put down her pencil, having covered eight sheets of paper and turned to smile at the pilots.

‘Well?’

She invited them to comment; interested to see how many of them would agree with her own assessments of them, whether they would be able to differentiate between which were serious contenders and which had just been her letting her imagination run wild.

Predictably, Abby stepped forward, but it was a surprise when the other pilots also looked to Kitty.

The two of them began a discussion of the designs on offer and quickly counted out most of the ones that Gwen had already discarded, but also did the same to a few of the others, citing reasons that Gwen herself hadn’t even considered and found that she readily agreed with after only a moment’s thought. Some of the more outlandish designs were rejected as well with some reluctance, not because they didn’t think they would perform well, but more for the difficulty they would pose for the fitters to service and maintain.

Eventually they narrowed the field until they had two options: a monoplane with swept-forward wings attached to the rear of the fuselage and a biplane with short thin boomerang-shaped wings. Both designs had much greater firepower than Bandicoot with two of Wendy’s cannon already incorporated into them.

The two women called on Bruce to make the final decision and he stepped forward to look at the chosen designs.

‘Well, I like them both, but I’ve become quite partial to a nice biplane so I’m going to have to go with this one.’ He tapped the biplane design.

It wasn’t Gwen’s favourite of the designs and, like Wasp, it wasn’t what she would have made for herself, but it was a good choice for the Australian and she nodded her approval. ‘I’ll get to work on some blueprints. I’ll have them ready in a couple of hours.’

There were groans from a few of the pilots at the news, but grins from others and she smiled at the clear demonstration of who had bet against her and who had put their belief, and their money, in her.

When Gwen finished her blueprints she rolled them up and took them to the mess where the other pilots were waiting for her. Every eye turned to the clock. It was only just gone eleven.

‘Pay up!’ Lady Penelope crowed ecstatically.

Mad Mac grumbled in reply. ‘Now wait just one god-darned minute! The designs need approval first, she might have to make changes!’

Someone ran for tacks and the blueprints were pinned to the wall in between a photo of the squadron gathered in front of a chateau in France and a piece of an HO111’s rudder.

The pilots gathered around, watching expectantly as Abby inspected them, half of them hoping that she found some mistake while the other half prayed that she wouldn’t.

The wing commander stood in front of the paper and bent forward to peer almost myopically at the bold pencil strokes.

‘Hmmm...’

Her doubtful noise combined with her frown provoked excited comments among the pilots and some concern in Gwen, who immediately went to Abby’s side to find out what the woman had seen. She bent forward to peer at the paper with her, but had to fight to keep a straight face when Abby whispered out of the corner of her mouth. ‘I’m just teasing them. Play along.’

The wing commander stretched out a hand to point at a section of the fuselage and Gwen nodded vigorously. ‘Hmmm!’

‘Tone it down! You’ll give the game away!’

The two of them ummed and ahhed for a minute or so before they realised that the room had gone completely silent and looked over their shoulders to see the Misfits staring at them, fully aware of what they were doing.

Abby winked at Gwen, then turned around to face her pilots. ‘They’re perfect! Mac, gimme my money!’

There were cheers and Gwen was glad to see that none of the Misfits was particularly unhappy about losing, especially because the victors immediately set about spending their winnings on drinks for them.

With no flying to be done the day after there was nothing to stop the Misfits from partying the night away and that was what they determined to do. However, because the blueprints had been finished so quickly, Abby had no reason not to grant Gwen, Scarlett and Kitty their leave and the three women decided to get a fairly early start the next morning, so they left the party just before one and staggered to the barracks together.

Despite making a good try of it, Gwen wasn’t quite as drunk as she had been the night of her ceremonial acceptance into the squadron, but she was certainly just as happy and she fell asleep with a huge smile on her face, never realising that her distress at her encounter with the Barons had vanished the moment the possibility of designing a new aircraft had arisen and hadn’t resurfaced even once.

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 Eleven by clicking the right-arrow down there on the right. If you missed out on Chapter Nine 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.