George, thank goodness, is like a cat with nine lives it seems, after he escaped another close-call just yesterday when he crashed his Hurricane at the forward station of Hawkinge, which is now being described by the pilots as ‘hellfire corner.’ On the 11^th, he’d shot down a Bf 109 over the sea near the Thames estuary, but then the following day he was hit by an enemy fighter with quite a few rounds of both cannon and machine gun fire over land near Folkestone at such a low altitude that his best option was to try to put the plane down. He circled back to Hawkinge and with the undercarriage failing, flopped the plane down onto the airfield at such a low speed I’m amazed he didn’t stall. He clambered out of the wreck with a few bruises and walked over to the dispersal hut to call back to Biggin Hill with, according to the stories I’ve heard,a completely casual manner, as though crash-landing Hurricanes was as natural to him as putting margarine on toast. Then, just an hour or so later, German bombers steamed in over Hawkinge and blew up two hangars and four operational aircraft as well as finishing off George’s already battered Hurricane.

I’m now resigned to fitting new planes on a regular basis as it seems the idea that one plane will last for long in this battle is stupid. Even when their planes are hit, most of the pilots still survive, but I wonder how long that can go on. At some point the likelihood seems to be that George will get it in some way, either killed or badly injured.

That’s what happened to George’s friend Henry, who baled out over the sea with awful burns around the same time that George was crashing his plane at Hawkinge. I heard one pilot saying that you had at most eight seconds to get out of a plane when it was on fire. That way, he said, you might fly again, even though you would also be terribly burned and scarred for life. A second longer and you would never fly again. A further second and you were dead. Henry got out in time to save his life but nobody yet knows whether he will ever fly again.

George was grim-faced when he heard the news and he told me to check before every flight that his cockpit cover was well-oiled so that it could be opened cleanly and easily. But that’s all he said. He didn’t express any sadness about his friend or that he had any fear of burning himself, though I expect it’s the thing that all the pilots must fear the most. To explode in the air or plunge into the sea, to be shot in the heart or collide with an enemy plane are all things that a pilot might reasonably think about; but the mind must rebel against the thought of being burned alive.

I’ve been so busy that I’ve barely had time to pick up my violin, let alone see anything of Joyce or complete my clockwork Hurricane. Instead, I’ve been drinking as much tea as I can get my hands on, working my way through bread and jam sandwiches, and spending the rest of the time hard at work on engines. It feels like what I was born to do to be honest, and I’d be enjoying it if it wasn’t for the fact that I worry about whether the pilots are going to come back or not.