Jasper was laying in his bed in the billet tent reading an air navigation manual that he had already read cover to cover on several occasions. Compass drift, speed to distance calculations and the vector triangle felt like it had been branded permanently onto his brain but he was still dutifully trying to keep that knowledge topped up. Like most of the recruits on station, Jasper Roach had joined the Royal Air Force in the August of 1939 in the hopes of becoming a pilot. After basic training and the declaration of war however, he was press-ganged into service as a navigator and sent across the channel to France to join his squadron, No.114 in January of 1940.

The squadron were in the light bomber and ground attack role and equipped accordingly with sixteen twin-engined Bristol Blenheim 's organised into two flight of eight. Designed in the nineteen-thirties, the Blenheim had at one time been one of the fastest combat aircraft in the world but technology, particularly in the field of military aviation, had been evolving rapidly over the last ten years or so and ultimately, though none of his fellow Squadron members wanted to admit it, experience from raids elsewhere was showing that it had become woefully inadequate against both German BF109 and BF110 fighters.

Fortunately for everyone on the Western front however, everything was considerably quiet. The term 'Phoney War' had been heard bandied around quite a bit back home and to be honest it felt that way for most of those stationed in France too. With the exception of the Poles, life in Europe seemed absolutely as it was before. Well aside from the rise in commodity prices. Jasper had flown around twenty reconnaissance sorties and as many top-up training flights with his crew and in all that time had only experienced a shooting war on one occasion. Their time at the airfield in Vraux so far had felt like a holiday, each day brought new chances for practical jokes and laughs. The realities of war were yet to be learned by these young men and the ignorance was bliss.

Sitting up another bed beside him was twenty-eight year old wireless operator John Briggs or 'Brum' as he was warmly known. Nineteen year old Jasper absolutely idolised 'Brum' and with the age difference, he quickly became a big brother figure. He possessed a strong Birmingham accent but more importantly, a flawless sense of humour, razorsharp wit and confidence which to Jasper seemed endless. Anyone would agree that he was a handsome chap but what made it all the dangerous was that he knew how to use it. He was a relentless womaniser and intelligent to boot, which he needed to be given his job role.

The wireless operator had the unenviable task of tuning, transmitting and receiving messages entirely in morse code whilst in flight. It was an incredibly difficult skill to master, arguably harder than piloting. He sat in the ball turret in the rear which he was also required to operate when the need arose. In addition this this, the job of reconnaissance photographer could be shared between either Jasper or Brum, depending on who was more likely to have a free hand over the target.

"What you reading Jaz" asked Brum quizzicly.

"Just these manuals again. I don't want us getting lost on the way to Berlin." Brum exhaled a large puff of tobacco from his pipe that seemed to engulf the entire tent and laughed. "At this rate we'll get French citizenship, I'm not sure we'll ever get a chance to do anything besides being glorified postmen!"

Brum had arrived in Vraux when the sqaudron had first deployed back in the December of 1939. He had told the story on a number of occasions of having a close call with flak whilst on a daft mission to drop propaganda leaflets over Frankfurt.

"Speaking of the post, got one back from me babby this morning." Brum said as he excitedly waved a handwritten note in Jasper's face.

"Your what?" asked Jasper. He often had to ask for clarification on slang from other parts of the country as he'd never been outside of London save for the odd daytrip to Southend.

"Me wench. Me sweetheart!" explained Brum.

"Oh right. She write anything raunchy? Any tales to tell about the milkman?"

Brum gave Jasper's bedframe a violent kick that almost made Jasper fall out. "None of that now!" he warned jokingly.

As two of them sat together reading and quietly chatting about nothing inparticular, they had unknowingly become acclimatised to the rising chorus of radial engines orbiting the airfield above but at some undefinible point the volume had just reached the point where it was now impossible to ignore.

"What's all that din out there?" demanded Brum as he rose to his feet to look.

As he looked out the open door he saw a telegraph pole had been erected in the centre of the airfield and at least a dozen men dolled up in French dresses, were merily dancing about it as they wrapped the maypole in ribbon. To top things off, four of their Squadron's Blenheims were flying around above in a tight pattern to mimick the dance below. The French girls who had offered up their clothing were also having a good laugh as they stood about in just their underwear whilst giggling as they resisted some of the men's playful advances.

Brum and Jasper howled with laughter. "Of course!" explained Brum. "It's a May Pole! First of May today isn't it!" Jasper was certain that this would end badly but for now he stood laughing at the pandemonium unfolding in front of him. Brum did what was expected ran straight over to the women, clearly taking an interest in one of them in particular. Jet black shoulder length hair, pretty brown eyes and dressed in nothing but a bra and garter. Her ample bosom made her small frame delectably top heavy as she heaved and bounced as she laughed along with the merry making. All of the boys couldn't help but gawp at her like a bunch of school boys but it was Brum who had his arm round her in a matter of a few minutes. Jasper shook his head in mild disapproval. Or perhaps jealousy. Only fifteen minutes ago he had been writing a swooning love poem for the girl back home and here he was trying his luck with a woman he couldn't even have a conversation with.

"Your mate's got the gift of the gab ain't he" observed one of the lads from the other Squadron. "Yep" replied Jasper chuckling, "He's a right sly dog that one."

As you might expect, the top brass often suffered from an accute sense of humour failure and it wasn't long before Squadron Leader Davis who had become the defacto station commander, was waving his arms about in protest and screaming blue murder. There were clearly going to be consequences to this ad hoc party but nobody could shift their smirking faces no matter how much the superiors bleeted.

Later that afternoon Jasper's pilot, Flying Officer Charles Potton visited Brum and Jasper to deliver some bad news.

Potton was unequivavly cut from a different cloth than Jasper and Brum. The other two had grown up on the terraces in London and Birmingham, they were salt-of-the earth sorts but Potton, although friendly enough, spoke like he had been born with a silver spoon surgically grafted to his tonsils. He often gloated about his well-to-do family back in Buckinghamshire and how his father owned a joinery factory. He took great joy in reciting the work the factory was doing since it had been contracted by the War Ministery to produce Anson aircraft fuselages. Frankly most of the other lads couldn't stand him. His twenty-four years of life had been one of utmost privilege and if he had had any sense at all, he would have spent the war working alongside his father, rather than trying to prove himself.

"Bad news boys," Potton began, "Davis is putting the whole squadron on exercise tomorrow. He's not too happy with our little stunt earlier." Potton sniggered in an irritatingly nasal way.

"That so?" replied Brum without even looking up from his book. "Whats the exercise?"

"He wants us up at the crack of dawn to practice loading and unloading the bombs. Early night tonight I think chaps!"

Most of the young lads assumed that this was a gruelling punishment dolled out by their infuriated commanding officers. In truth, behind closed doors their superiors had found the whole thing hilarious but had known for weeks that the men were becoming lax. This was simply a good chance to reinstill some dicipline and get some training in. There was a single tractor on the airfield but otherwise they'd be pulling the bomb trolleys by hand. It wasn't usually a problem per se, but when the commanding officer was stood around timing them it was obviously going to be a strenuous day of physical labour.

"Oh joy!" said Jasper sarcastically.

The heavens opened up around three in the morning and most of the lower ranks who were pitched under canvas had been woken up at least half a dozen times by the tremendous noise. When the light finally began to cut through the dank mist and drizzle, most of the men had already been up for hours. Not one face in the crowd looked in a particularly jolly mood, least of all Jasper, who had found the damp canvas had soaked his PT kit which he now had to wear dripping wet.

After a quick breakfast the rain had finally subsided and the sun was beginning to burn through. Patches of blue were visible only occasionally through the lifting veil of cloud when the lower ranks were brought out for two hours of drill. Most of them hated drill and there was a lot of tutting and sighing when it was announced. It wasn't difficult but it was mind-numbingly boring and most of them felt they had better things to do. After drill they were then run around the perimetre of the airfield as a horse might be lunged around a menage. Many of the men hadn't done any physical exercise in weeks and the heavy smokers spluttered as they were dragged along with the pack.

"What's getting on my wick" moaned Brum between gasps of air "is that half of lads being punished didn't do anything wrong, yet some of the officers who did are still eating breakfast in the mess. Jack bastards!" He was of course refering to Potton and some of the other pilots he hung around with that had formed a bit of a cliche. They had a reputation for being what you might call jobsworths. It was something you expected in the armed services but it certainly didn't help group cohesion, particularly aircrew who had to work together the next day.

After a brief rest and a cup of tea, the Squadron Leader assembled all of the crews to begin the process of timing each aircrew, each paired off with a few members of groundcrew, to see how quickly they could load their own aircraft. That meant a full bomb load and both the front and rear machine guns loaded and ready for action.

Jasper watched the first two lots of three crews get their planes loaded and then unloaded again (it was a bad idea to leave aircraft parked with full payloads in wartime) and then it was his crew's turn. As you might expect, when in full view of an audience it tended to lead to the problem of more haste and less speed. Mistakes were made by all, much to the enjoyment of those watching the drama unfold, but the biggest drama was yet to come.

After the bomb trolley was loaded and was in the process of being slowly pulled to the aircraft by some of the older and stronger groundcrew, Jasper found himself standing about for a moment with not a lot to do. He became accutely aware that he was being scrutinised from afar and that his commanding officer's eyes were burning holes in the back of his head, so he hopped up onto the port wing and began fiddling with the turret to give the illusion that he was doing something constructive, at least from afar.

Not long after a voice called up from under the aircraft asking for help. Roach walked to the very front of the wing to see who it was that was calling him, and keeping one hand on the engine cowling to steady himself, peered over the leading edge. Stood below him were three of the groundcrew staff along with the bomb trolley, but before Jasper could give any kind affirmative answer his hand slipped off the cowling's surface, with it still being dripping wet from the morning's rain. As he slipped he spun one-eighty and fell down backwards landing on the bomb trolley below. It wasn't a particularly high fall, but it was one of the least pleasant objects to land on.

His first thought was to try and save face, so with no real regard for his wellbeing he tried to stand up and brush it off but was immediately aware of a severe sharp stabbing pain in his lower back and a shooting, almost burning sensation running down his right leg. He fell back again, screaming in agony and as he lay there, staring at the cloud above, some tears began to well up in his eyes. All he could think of right then and there was how embarassed he might feel if he were to be sent home from a war paralysed, not from some boyish heroics but due to some clumsy accident.

The other men wasted no time in bundling him up into the meat wagon and he spent the next few days in a field hospital bed. Despite the viscious stabbing pains everytime he moved he felt lucky to have a few nights sleeping on a sprung mattress. Luckily, after x-rays and some strong painkillers, the diagnosis was that it was nothing more than bruised muscle and trapped nerves. He was sent back to Vraux and assigned to light admin work in the CO's office until he made a recovery, but he would have preferred to have been on normal duties. There's only so many times you can hobble about shuffling paperwork and teapots around like an invalid but he could have scarcely twisted round to secure his harnesses let alone climb into the nose of his airplane at this point.

One week later to the day, everything would change but it started like any other. The sun rose in the clear French sky producing vivid orange streaks across an otherwise pallid blue. Skylarks and Blackbirds sung glory to this new day from nearby treetops as snails and other beasties made good use of the morning's dew. It was a veritable utopia tucked away in the French countryside and though the day was young, the men of 114 Squadron were already labouring away, readying their aircraft for yet another training exercise. Today was a photo reconssance exercise to the French seaside town of Perpignan on the Balearic Sea. As he was unable to take part, Jasper was busy helping his temporary replacement plot a course.

"To be honest" Jasper explained, "so long as your initial heading is right, the coastline's going to so easy to recognise that you'll be able to adjust without looking at the map". Jasper pointed to three huge lagoons that would be due north of Perpignan. The other man nodded, he was an unusual man and hardly said a word. Jasper was trying to suppress his jealousy for this usurper, and half-hoped the lad would get them lost. As he was left alone in the office again he felt gutted. A view of the Pyranese seemed a world away beyond the squadron's office's walls. The last week of paper shuffling under the watchful eye of Squadron Leader Davis was beginning to give him cabin fever.

He stood out on the grass to wave the boys off as one by one they leapt up into the air and ascended into a beckoning sky. It was unusual to have all sixteen aircraft going out at once, usually each assignment was broken down into two component 'flights' of between six and eight. Usually six since the higher-ups seldom flew alongside the others. It was only half six in the morning and Jasper's only thought was how he was going to survive the whole day without any of his friends for company, but as events transpired there wasn't all that much time to worry about such trivial matters.

Around nine in the morning, tea break was interrupted by Squadron Leader Davis. He looked more serious than he had ever looked before and as he waited for the conversations to taper off he scowled menacingly at those who hadn't immediately shut-up.

"I've have word from Command this morning" he began, "that at around 0430 hours this morning, the Luftwaffe began heavy bombing of Belgian airfields and communication hubs. We've also received reports of German parachutists landing behind friendly lines and signs that they're moving their tanks up for a full assault. This looks like it's the big one gentlemen. God damn them for choosing the one day when all our planes are all off out."

The rest of the day was spent getting the three unserviceable aircraft with the Squadron airworthy. What would have usually taken a week had taken the groundcrews all of eight hours.

By the time the squadrons planes arrived back on the field the news had already reached them by wireless. They were all agitated, but excited. Finally something was happening but there was an awkward nervousness that evidently showed through their excessive talking and unrealistic gloating.

Brum sat beside Jasper who was wistfully gazing off into evening haze. "That bellend thinks this is all a game" said Brum, nodding towards Potton who had been ignoring Jasper since his little accident. Across the field Potton and some of the other pilots who still put themselves above the non-commissioned folk were kicking a football about in the shade.

"Hmm, why's that?" asked Jasper, though he could have guessed why.

"Oh you know. The usual bollocks. Talking about taking on Messerschmitts and blowing up Hitler. Blokes a twat, he's going to get you and I killed you know" he answered as he dug a fork into an opened but very cold can of beans.

Jasper sat thinking for a bit, he'd had a lot of time to think over the past week and he was beginning to wonder why he ever signed up to start with. He began to despise not just Germany but also his own government for declaring war in the first place. Suddenly fighting for Poland's freedom didn't seem such the valiant cause he'd once thought. He was also beginning to get awfully homesick. He missed his mother back home, his Plaistow terrace. Although come to think of it Potton now reminded him of some of the gobshites that were always kicking footballs through people's windows.

"Must be bad" contined Brum with a mouthful of beans, "they're dusting off Davis' hack, look." Lo and behold Davis' personal Blenheim was being pulled out a left alongside the others. Some of the mechanics were giving it a quick look over under the light of their oil lamps.

"Oh well nevermind" said Jasper, finally adding something to the conversation. "I guess it's not a Phoney War afterall."

That following morning was a frantic rush to get the aircraft up and ready for bombing sorties on the advancing German army. It was only six-thirty in the morning and a heavy dew still clung to the grass and soaked the feet of the crews as they rushed to arm and fuel their machines. Some of the Blenheim's engines were already started and getting warmed up when they were interupted by the drone of approaching aircraft.

Someone sounded the alarm - coming in at low level just above the trees were nine enemy Dornier bombers heading straight for their airfield. After a few seconds of disbelief the alert was finally heeded and the men ran haphazardly in every direction, taking cover wherever they could find it. Four men ran to man the Bofors anti-aircraft gun but the attack was over so quickly that the weapon was never fired. As the Germans passed overhead low enough to see the pinks of their faces, all they could do was stand and watch. What felt like hundreds of small 50kg bombs rained down from these mean looking machines, a series of shockwaves ripped through much of the station's equipment. The fuel silos went up in an awesome looking mushroom cloud, most of the aircraft were left nothing more than burning husks and some of the makeshift buildings and billet tents were shredded or on fire.

Some of the men stood agape, shocked by the suddenness of the attack whilst others impotently shook their fists in fury. Jasper just watched, hands clasped behind his head as the aggressors gently climbed away and turned for home. It had taken maybe thirty seconds, fifty tops – to almost completely destroy a squadron and there was nothing any one of them could have done about it. On the other hand there were no doubt twenty-odd Germans, with the same hopes, fears and aspirations as Jasper's colleagues, returning to their base absolutely ecstatic about their success.

Fortunately the 'Maison Rouge' survived the ordeal with nothing more than some broken windows but dotted around the airfield was the grim wreckage of young men torn asunder by the brutality of war. Former friends who just five minutes prior had been in their prime now lay unrecognisable in heaps on the ground. As Jasper investigated the damage he was overcome with two conflicted thoughts and emotions, revenge came quickly to him followed by the feeling of dread – this was real now. Quantifiable. War was no longer a fun jingoistic adventure, he felt betrayed by the books he had read in youth about heroic calvary charges against rebellious Mughals. He now understood it for what it was - the wholesale industrial murder of other human beings.

With almost all of the squadron's aircraft eviscerated, the few remaining airworthy machines were sent north to join 139 Squadron at Epernay-Plivot who also operated the same aircraft type. The crews there would share the other squadron's aircraft on rotation and provide a near constant air cover for the French army to the north east of Reims, or so that was initial idea. Jasper on the other hand was kept at Vraux on light duties, which further alienated him from his usual crew but at least gave him a chance to fully recover from his injury. The damage inflicted on Vraux took the best part of a week to clear, mostly because they had to wait for a small detachment of Royal Engineers to help defuse undetonated bombs. By the time the airfield was cleared and ready however, both 114 and 139 Squadron were called back to Manston airfield in Kent to merge and reinforce the British Expeditionary Force Air Component's reconnaissance squadron .

Jasper was standing idly outside the Maison Rouge when two Dragon Rapide biplanes arrived to charter the remaining men from 114 Squadron back to Britain. He felt conflicted. This small corner in the French countryside had been their home, so many happy memories had been made here and he wondered if they could have done more. At the same point however he was relieved to be going home.

Squadron Leader Davis came outside carrying some files and paperwork and shut the door behind him for the last time. "Oh Jasper, before we go I need to tell you something". He spoke more naturally when speaking with Jasper now, they had spent so many days together in the office that they had developed a more friendly relationship and were on first name terms when alone.

"Two days ago your plane and crew went out and never came back. A few of our boys were brought down by enemy fighters so just be prepared for the bad news if it comes. Nobody verified it, but right now they're listed as MIA."

Jasper felt gutted. Memories of his good friend Brum came flooding back to him but he couldn't help shake the selfish feeling that he'd been lucky to avoid death. "Thank you for the heads up, sir. Hopefully they turn up" he replied. Davis gestured to enter the planes who had now turned around and were ready to depart. "So do I old friend, we've lost enough men to this war already."