Suddenly, a deafening explosion slammed into the side of his plane, rocking and rolling it onto its side and he swore as it shook every bone in his body, jarring him practically out of his seat as he cracked his head on the far side window. Fighting to remain conscious, dazed and in shock, he clung on to his control stick more like a life raft than to steer. As his vision cleared he looked down at his control panel to get his bearings as smoke filled his cockpit, choking him, and out of the corner of his eye he could see a ball of fire was engulfing his wing. This was very bad. He thrust the plane into a steep dive, attempting to put out the fire with the updraught. Rubensdörffer felt frantic – he was still deep over British soil and wasn’t sure if he would make it back to the Channel where he could be picked up by a German rescue boat. As he tore towards the ground, his engine screaming its protest, the fire smouldered to a grey ugly cloud and Rubensdörffer heaved back on his control as the plane shook violently. It took all his strength to lift the nose as he skimmed high trees and desperately tried to keep it airborne. Beside him his only good engine whined and spluttered, the imbalance of the hole in his wing bouncing him around wildly as his controls jerked aggressively beneath his grip. As he tried to cling onto his life he prayed furiously, prayed he would make it, make it home to see his family again.
1
Twelve Weeks Earlier
Lizzie Mackenzie inhaled deeply and filled her lungs with the smell of the fresh damp grass and the icy scent of the mountain streams that rippled across the granite rocks. As she closed her eyes and exhaled, she realised this was what she would miss the most, just being out here in the Highlands in her very own world. As a sharp breeze blew across the loch, it swept up the hillside to find her, bringing with it the salty scent of the water; toying with her, it tugged at the mass of red curls piled up beneath her green knitted hat, which finally gave in and broke free to swirl around her face. Pulling wisps of copper strands from her lips and wrapping her arms around herself, Lizzie listened to the familiar sounds of the place she’d come to call home.
Out on the loch, geese were honking one to another, and below her, in the fields, she could hear horses whinnying as they stretched out their golden necks and shook out their shaggy manes. As the wind whistled through the trees and splayed the waving bracken, she relished in the complete peace and spaciousness it afforded her, a timeless tranquillity that she had known all of her life.
Lizzie couldn’t imagine what it was going to be like to live in a big city. She had never been to London. In fact, since arriving from the Isle of Barra five years before, she’d barely left her aunt and uncle’s farm, but when her papers had arrived, they had informed her that she would be at a training site just outside the capital. Her two younger cousins had protested, wanting to go with her, but as her aunt Marion had reminded them, she needed someone left at home and besides, thirteen and fourteen were far too young to join the Women’s Auxiliary Air Force, as Lizzie was doing.
Opening her eyes and looking out across the grey, rippling water, in the sky she spotted an osprey, its cream and brown striped wings extended as it wheeled in long, slow descending spirals searching the loch for prey. Lizzie watched the quiet and graceful way it moved through the sky and thought about her life over the last few years, in the heart of Scotland. She had been fortunate to be staying somewhere with a loving family in a place where she got plenty of fresh air, mountain water, and, of course, there was always food in the home of a farmer. It was a far cry from what she’d expected when her parents had sent her from the island to live with her relatives. But all the better for it.
Alerted by the raised sounds of bleating sheep drifting up from their flock below, her attention was drawn down the hillside. Her uncle had started to round