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from now on he does call you Boss and this makes the others do the same until, by the end of the week, it’s your name. Silly one to pick when you’ve never been a boss of anything.
    When you bring him Pluckrose, again there’s a shake of the hand and you notice how the skipper moves: that he’s gentle, precise, and you might mistake him for being not much of a man, but really there is just no waste about him. He puts himself exactly where he chooses and is still. If he hit you, he would do it very quickly and very well.
    No bomb aimer, yet. ‘Sorry, Boss.’ Skip shrugs at you, enjoying that he’s rueful. ‘Couldn’t find anybody quite right. Who’s this?’
    Pluckrose in and explaining, before you can answer, which isn’t a shock.
    â€˜Pluckrose. From a long line of Pluckroses: my father, and my grandfather and my so forth, all of them Pluckroses to a man and my mother, of course, picked it – plucked it – although possibly under the influence of drink – and so, having put up with it themselves, they were delighted they could pass it on to me.’ He doesn’t appear to breathe, ‘Those of them still living. The others might well have been less enthusiastic, although who knows – once a Pluckrose, I’d suppose always a Pluckrose.’ And the skipper watches him, unreadable and still, and you wonder if you’ve made a terrible mistake in bringing him a Pluckrose. ‘You can imagine how much I look forward to meeting strangers – especially popsies – and, my, how I liked my schools – all eight of them. I have really no education to speak of, can barely add up, so I wouldn’t rely on my calculations at any point – geometry is a foreign land to me – and foreign lands, of course: they’re a foreign land to me, too. Struan Macallum Pluckrose, that’s the complete set of luggage – the very tiniest touch of Scotland there on my mother’s side.’ Pluckrose blinks down at the skipper, allows a moment of remarkable silence, ‘Would you like to see my logbook?’
    Offering this before he’s asked, his face fighting between resignation and a peculiar kind of glee, and the skipper studying each page very calmly, closing it, softly handing it back. ‘Well, nobody’s said you’re dangerous.’
    â€˜I can be very plausible, if I have to.’
    â€˜Which might come in handy.’
    Pluckrose exhaling, seeming to lower by half an inch and no longer close to bellowing. ‘I’d hoped it might.’
    â€˜Peter Gibbs. Sandy.’ The skipper rubs his neck, glances at his navigator – which is Pluckrose – and then at his tail gunner – which is you – and then the hangar where more knots are forming, pairs and teams of men gaining definition. ‘This is only a guess, you know . . .’ he murmurs just loud enough for the pair of you, his crew, ‘but I think we might take a bit of getting used to. So perhaps from now on, we should travel en masse, formate in a nice little vic and introduce ourselves together. Then they can take us or leave us in one go.’
    * * *
    Vasyl had declared lunch on the grass, unpacking half a decent loaf, cheese in a greaseproof wrapper, three boiled eggs. Awkward that – you can’t share three between two people.
    â€˜Is fine. I have my knife.’ Vasyl seeming a touch shy, smoothing his hand into his trouser pocket and bringing out a clasp knife, a small thing. It could still do you harm, but was nothing to fuss about. ‘My famous knife, yes?’ Letting it lie on his palm for a moment until it became all innocence, cutlery, an object with no sense of purpose. Then he cut the egg lengthwise through its shell, very earnest, and making a good job of it, the blade plainly very sharp. ‘There, you see? Fair is fair.’ Holding out Alfred’s half in a wide, reddish hand.
    So they had one thing