“Oh, I’ll carry on with what we have,” the younger man said breezily. Not that there’s any choice in the matter, Jager thought. Riecke’ went on, “Still, as you say, it would be nice to be better and bigger at the same time.”

“So it would.” Jager splashed a little water onto his mess tin from his water bottle, pulled out some fresh spring grass to wipe it more or less clean. Then he yawned. “I’m going to try to sleep till sunup. Don’t be afraid to wake me if there’s any sign of trouble.” He’d given Riecke that order at least a hundred times. As he always did, the captain nodded.

The drone of the four Merlins made every filling in Flight Lieutenant George Bagnall’s head feel as if it were shaking loose from its tooth. The Lancaster jounced in the air as 88mm flak burst all around it, filling the night with puffs of smoke that absurdly reminded the flight engineer of dumplings.

Searchlights stabbed up from the ground, seeking to impale a bomber like a bug on a collector’s pin. The Lancaster’s belly was a flat matte black, but not black enough to make it safe if one of those skewers of light happened to catch it. Fortunately, Bagnall was too busy monitoring engine temperature and revolutions, fuel consumption, oil pressure, hydraulic lines, and all the other complex systems that had to work if the Lancaster was to keep flying, to be as frightened as he would have been as a mere passenger.

But not even the most mechanically attentive man could have stared at his dials and meters to the exclusion of the spectacle outside the thick Perspex window. Even as Bagnall watched, more flames started in Cologne, some the almost blue-white glare of incendiaries, others spreading red blisters of ordinary fire.