All through my life I have suffered these night fears. I know I am not alone, that psychological experts have described the pre-dawn period as the time when the intellect and emotions are at their lowest ebb. Fears and regrets come easily and quickly, seem real and immediate and awful. They retreat somewhat when the new day dawns, becoming easier to bear, but all that changes is the context. Fears in the night are not imaginary or exaggerated, they are merely at the forefront of your mind.

There I was in rural northern France, alone in a mean room, lying on a bed with inadequate covers, in the dark, a war in progress a few miles away. I remembered what Simeon Bartlett had said about the giant Krupp cannon. Was it real? Would they really target bases like this one before turning it on Paris? I also remembered what H. G. Wells had prophetically written about the power and influence of the Krupp company. I was wide awake and completely at the mercy of my fears. I turned over twice, trying to relax, trying to slip back into that blissful sleep, but it proved impossible.

I sat up, plumped the pillow, lay down again. Many thoughts were circling, all of them painful. My conversation with H. G. Wells I realized that he must have found me dull and politically naive, and had only spoken to me at all because there was no one else around. I recalled the haste with which he was so keen to leave me at Bethune station. I should have talked more intently to the famous author about his books. I should have shown some interest in the subjects which were his pa.s.sion. Instead, I showed this brilliant man, a confidant of people like Winston Churchill, how to shuffle a deck of cards and make a cigarette disappear. What a fool he must have thought me. Then there was the lance-corporal I had taken his good nature for granted, but said nothing as a compliment, or thanks. And how seriously I had taken Lieutenant Bartlett's little joke about the road of beasts!

Worst of all, there was his misunderstanding about what my supposed magical powers were.

I concealed my young niece by the use of conjuring techniques, but Lieutenant Bartlett thought I could make her actually and really invisible. Would that I had that or any other power! My niece does not become invisible to think otherwise is madness, yet at every performance, with a planned use of well-positioned lights, a strategically placed sheet of gla.s.s, a bang from a gun that fires blanks, and general hocus-pocus, I can make it seem that way.

I mislead and deceive. That is what I do.

Squatting uncomfortably in the cold and narrow bunk I remembered the wave of spurious patriotism and gallantry that swept over me that evening at the theatre in Hammersmith, when Lieutenant Bartlett found his way backstage. I suddenly saw myself as making a contribution to the struggle against Germany, using my skills to amaze and encourage the brave young men who were doing the fighting.

That was my misunderstanding, perhaps the lesser of the two. The reality of the war was becoming all too clear. My misunderstanding ended there, in that bed, while I tossed and turned, waiting for the day to start.

But then there was the larger misconception. I was going to have to do something!

Surely Lieutenant Bartlett must have understood the true nature of my work? A concealment from the audience was relatively easy to contrive in the controlled circ.u.mstances of a theatre stage, where the performer knows how to dazzle or confuse or obstruct. The sordid reality of war, with real aircraft, real guns, real sh.e.l.lfire, young men risking their lives every day an impossible challenge.

I tried to be calm. The room was bare, cold, inhospitable. It had the feeling of a barrack room, of temporary occupation by others who had used it before me. What had become of them? In the return to darkness I could at least put those unwelcome thoughts aside. I saw at the small window that there was now a faint greyness in the sky as dawn approached. I made myself breathe calmly, a relaxation technique I sometimes employed before going on stage. Still my mind turned restlessly.

I remembered HG's stories about his Kipps-style experiences when he was a youth. Years afterwards, when he was no longer a disaffected sales clerk on starvation wages, he had seen the potential, writ large, of the telpherage system that was still in use in many British emporia. As an author, H. G. Wells had always inspired me could my meeting with him now prompt me to conceive of thrilling new possibilities?

I began to wonder if there was something I might know about magic that could provide Lieutenant Bartlett with the camouflage he wanted. I forced myself to think practically about the techniques I took for granted.

Many times in my stage career I have had to think up some new trick for my act. I sit at home, sometimes in a semi-darkened room, planning how to pull it off, thinking about how I want it to appear when on stage, and working out what material or apparatus I might need. Sometimes I would chat obliquely to other magicians never was anything directly said, because in my profession secrecy is everything, as is respect for the secrets of others. But it always helped to talk over the general principles, without giving away too much about what I was planning. The principles of magic are much simpler than most people think concealment, production, and so on. They apply to every illusion ever performed. What often looks like a new trick to the audience is a variation on one of these principles: a new way of performing a familiar card trick, a surprise production of a dove or a rabbit, a modified cabinet inside which my compliant niece would seem to be transformed.

Here in France they wanted me to make an entire aircraft invisible, to try to protect the young airmen flying it, to help them elude the enemy, to make the prosecution of the war more effective. Was that possible?

Fighting back my fears of inadequacy, I went through the possibilities. The most obvious, and probably the cheapest and simplest, would be to change the colour or appearance of the aircraft so that it merged with the sky in some way. Paint it silver or pale blue?

Would it work? My experience suggested it probably would not. A few years earlier I had tried to design a new and, I thought, clever way of creating a disappearance on stage. I persuaded my then a.s.sistant to wear a costume that was made in the same colour, and of the same material, as the curtain backdrop. It turned out to be one of those ideas that are better in theory than practice. No matter what I tried, with movements or lights, she remained as visible to the audience as she would have been dressed all in white, or black, or indeed normally.

What if it was applied to an aircraft, though? I tried to imagine how a camouflaged plane might look while it was overhead. Like most people I had not seen many aircraft close to, although I did go to an exhibition flight by the famous French aviator, Louis Bleriot. At one point in his display he zoomed slowly and blackly over the heads of the spectators. Blackly that is the key word. On that sunny day on the South Downs near Brighton, his fragile little machine looked from our position below like a dark bird of prey. But if it had been painted the same colour as the sky? Would we have seen it then?

a.s.suming it was possible to find the right shade or tone of a silvery blue, and a.s.suming the sky was bright, with high cloud coverage . . . what then? I closed my eyes, trying to visualize the result.

Doubts arose almost at once. An aircraft is not a smoothly contoured object. It has wings and an engine and struts and wires and wheels below and a pilot and observer sitting in their c.o.c.kpits above. It also carries identifying marks.

Under certain highly controlled circ.u.mstances, and with ideal sky conditions, it might be possible to contrive that a warplane was less noticeable. It would only work if the plane remained in the right environment: it might become indistinct when crossing the glowing sky, but how would it look from the side, or from above? How would it blend in against a background of trees, gra.s.s, concrete, mud?

Flying in the air was a far from ideal circ.u.mstance. The aircraft would dodge and weave, its propeller would spin, the engine would make a racket and, no doubt, a trail of exhaust smoke would follow it.

Skies are bright. Paint is a medium that reflects light the sky is a source of illumination. If my camouflaged plane were to fly between the enemy and a brilliant sky, the aircraft would show up as a black silhouette, just as Monsieur Bleriot's had. It was an object that would block light, not reflect it. And, as contrary case, what if the sky were not bright, but a lowering cloud base presaging rain? What if my pilot, departing on a daytime sortie in a bright blue-and-silver craft, was forced to return in a gathering dusk?

My mind first shied away from these thoughts, then re-circled around them.

I knew only a little about the science of camouflage and wished I had had the wit to learn more about it before I left London. I did know why the British Army clad its soldiers in khaki that was an inheritance from the Mutiny in India. Then the troops' fighting gear had been dyed a dull yellow-brown colour, so that their uniforms would tend to merge with the dusty landscape. Until then it was the custom of armies to kit out their soldiers in bright primary colours, reds and blues and whites this was partly to impress and intimidate the foe, but also to allow easy recognition for troops on the same side. That had to change in the Indian campaign. It was a mobile, unstructured war that put a formal army at a disadvantage. There the British had an enemy who ran and hid, and laid traps, who melted into the back streets when chased, who knew the terrain intimately and used it unscrupulously. The khaki fatigues were an attempt to fight back on something like the same terms.

I had heard that a new kind of camouflage was being used experimentally on ships: it was a painted design that did not attempt to hide the ship, or make it blend into the background, but which used dazzle techniques. This made it difficult for an enemy to determine in which direction the target might be heading. British merchantmen had been attacked by German submarines from almost the first days of the war. The U-boats scanned their targets and took aim from beneath the surface, using the periscope. When the bulky optical gear broke the surface, a sharp-eyed lookout on a British escort warship might quickly spot the presence of a submarine, so the German raiders could only raise it for a few seconds at a time. The idea of the dazzle was that the asymmetrical outline would confuse the U-boat captain when aiming his torpedoes.

It appeared to be a successful tactic, because the tonnage of lost ships had been significantly reduced since the dazzle paint was introduced. It gave me a few thoughts, a few ideas, a possible way of trying that technique with the British observer aircraft.

One of the cla.s.sic disappearance techniques used by illusionists is placing a carefully angled mirror between the object that is to vanish and the audience looking at it. For example, a mirror placed beneath a four-legged table along the cross diagonal will not only give the illusion that the table is just like every other table (that is, supported on all four legs, one in each corner), but will create a s.p.a.ce behind it within which something, or someone, may easily be concealed.

More can be done with half-silvered mirrors, and even more with plain gla.s.s. This, lit appropriately with a dark s.p.a.ce behind, will make a completely convincing mirror when the lights are shining from one direction, and become transparent if the lights are suddenly, or even gradually, made to shine from another.

It was difficult to imagine how mirrors might be used to hide an aircraft, though. The problems appeared insurmountable. Gla.s.s is heavy and to try to conceal an airplane with a mirror would require one as big as the craft itself. I had no idea of the lifting strength of modern warplanes, but I seriously doubted if Lieutenant Bartlett and his fellow airmen would want to go to war lugging a huge mirror beneath them, even if they were able in the first place to take off with one.

And of course this did nothing to address the essential question of the disguising angle, how to calculate it and how to achieve the desired effect. A mirror carried horizontally beneath the aircraft, a.s.suming it could be done at all, would merely reflect the ground back to itself.

I wondered briefly if there were some other reflective material available, a lightweight fabric perhaps, the sort of thin outer skin used on gas-filled dirigibles. If something like that could be coated with a silver reflecting paint, then held tautly enough to create a true and steady reflection . . . ?

Perhaps if two airplanes were to fly side by side, navigating carefully to maintain a steady distance between them, and stretching the silvered cloth between them. How might that disguise their presence?

I tossed. I turned. I was getting nowhere.

I looked towards the small, unwashed window, where the faint glow of pre-dawn showed. I desperately wanted this long and painful night to end. Lying still, trying to control my breathing, I listened for the dreadful but strangely hypnotic sound of the distant war, but either I was now too far away or the guns had at last fallen silent. It was a moment of peace, or at least of a temporary cessation of violence. I could imagine those wretched men in the front line, huddling in their earth trenches, deep in mud and filth, able at last to s.n.a.t.c.h a little sleep.

I knew that this small sign of quietude meant I should try to catch a couple more hours of sleep before having to rise, but there was another thought nagging at me.

There is one more method magicians use to make something seem to disappear. It is in fact one of the main techniques of stage magic and is employed in almost every trick you ever see performed. It is the art of misdirecting the audience.

Misdirection can take two forms. The first is to manipulate the audience's expectations, to allow them to recognize their own knowledge of the world of normality, and from there allow them to a.s.sume that those rules will still apply to what they are watching when a trick is in progress.

Let us say that the magician begins to do something with a hen's egg. Most people will a.s.sume that the egg they are seeing is entirely normal, not 'prepared' in any special way. A good magician will reinforce the a.s.sumption by, for example, handling the egg gently so as not to crack or break it, or will make a little joke about what would happen if he were clumsy enough to drop it. This helps allay private suspicions about any possible preparation, and will increase the audience's instinctive belief in the normality of what they are seeing. The illusionist does not have to state explicitly what he is doing, nor should he try to tell the audience anything about the egg. The simple, familiar appearance of it is his subterfuge. Having established and reinforced the a.s.sumption he may then proceed to do something unexpected with the object he is holding. It looks like an egg, it is shaped like an egg, everyone thinks it is an egg, but then he makes the seeming egg perform in some way that would be impossible.

No doubt at the end of the trick he will deftly make a quick subst.i.tution and crack a genuine egg into a bowl, to suggest to the audience they were right all along. It really was a normal egg! The trick he just performed looks even more mysterious.

The other way to misdirect is to play against the audience's expectations. In other words, to distract them momentarily, to disarm them with an unexpected pleasantry, to make them look at the wrong object on a table, or to watch an unimportant movement of a hand, or to look in the wrong direction all of these create brief instances when the illusionist may quickly do something to another object, or move his other hand, or place something in view that won't be noticed immediately.

Audiences who go to magic shows often see themselves as engaging in a kind of undeclared contest with the performer, constantly seeking to spot what he is 'really' doing. These audiences are, paradoxically, amongst the easiest to misdirect because in their eagerness to catch the magician out they concentrate on all the wrong actions.

Distraction can be achieved in many ways. A surprising costume change, a sudden bang or a flash of light, an alteration to the lighting or the backdrop, a witty remark, something that buzzes or vibrates unexpectedly, an apparent mistake by the conjuror. All of these are in the standard repertoire of magic.

I realized that there was potential in this, as an approach to Lieutenant Bartlett's problem. When I had a little more experience of how the aircraft operated from this base, what they looked like and what size they were, and if I was able to find out exactly what they do and how they fly when on an operation, then I might well be able to think up some misdirection that would be useful in the heat of battle.

Another kind of misdirection is in the use of adjacency. The magician places two objects close together, or connects them in some way, but one is made to be more interesting (or intriguing, or amusing) to the audience. It might have an odd or suggestive shape, or it appears to have something inside it, or it suddenly starts doing something the magician seems not to have noticed. The actual set-up is unimportant what matters is that the audience, however briefly, should become interested and look away in the wrong direction.

An adept conjuror knows exactly how to create an adjacent distraction, and also knows when to make use of the invisibility it temporarily creates. An old colleague of mine used to perform a routine in which he spun a china plate on the end of a cane, then mounted the cane upright on his table and left the plate to spin there. As it slowed down and began to wobble increasingly, threatening to fall off and smash at any moment, hardly anyone in the audience was looking at anything else. For several seconds my friend was in effect invisible on the stage and he made good use of those seconds.

Then I had it! Simeon Bartlett's problem, and potentially a solution to it, fell into place.

One aircraft, two aircraft. One adjacent to the other. Or maybe a third: two aircraft, apparently in formation together, while the third is adjacent to the other two. If I could make the extra aircraft interesting in some unexpected way the Germans would be distracted by it they would fire their guns in the wrong direction. If the distraction were somehow illusory they would be shooting at something that did not matter, or at something that only looked as if it were there. It would be the wrong aircraft, or even not an aircraft at all. They would not be able tear their gaze away from it, but at the same time they would not be able to see it properly.

It was not going to be easy arranging that sort of misdirection, but it was in fact just a larger version of the kind of thing I did every time I went on stage. I could make it work, but I realized that Lieutenant Bartlett and his fellow pilots would have to put in training. That was something I would have no say about. Would the Royal Navy be willing to divert warplane pilots to extra training in the middle of a war?

Well, the best I could do would be to present my solution, and it would be up to them to implement it. In the meantime, I felt I needed to learn more about the actual aircraft and try to find out what resources would be available to me to build the necessary kit.

I was excited by these thoughts, but I was no longer churning mentally. I felt calm because I believed I had thought up an effective way of deceiving the German enemy, saving British lives and helping the progress of the war.

I turned over, punched the hard and horrible pillow a few times, and moments later I drifted back to sleep.

8.

I awoke to the sound of an engine, repeatedly speeding up and slowing down, something that I had learned from Lieutenant Bartlett the night before was called revving. I had heard it several times in the streets of London, made by automobiles. I often felt annoyed by it, but had never known what it was called. This particular revving engine sounded to me unhealthy, because it was coughing and stuttering and the noise it made was erratic. When a second motor started up a minute or two later, closer to my window, I pulled myself from the bed and went to have a look.

It was a bright, sunny morning, the sky white and dazzling with a high layer of light cloud. At first I had to narrow my eyes protectively against the glare. There was a large area of gra.s.s spreading out and away from my window, a whole field, leading to some leafless trees so distant they looked tiny and half shrouded in the early haze. Five aircraft were parked directly in my view. They must have stood there all night as I slept, but now there were many men in service fatigues working around the little craft. A miasma of smoke drifted in front of my window but the blast of air from the speeding propeller of one of the machines soon swept it away.

I stared in fascination at these small but deadly-looking craft so close to me. I had seen Monsieur Bleriot's frail little plane as it flew over, and pictures of others in magazines and newspapers. Once, at my local picture house, I had seen moving film of an aeroplane flying along a stretch of coastline. But suddenly to be so close to these warplanes, with five of them immediately in front of me, was an astonishing experience. I felt I was being allowed a glimpse into some terrible future, the sort of thing H. G. Wells wrote about, in which everyone would be flying in all directions, in constant peril of falling, being held aloft by these a.s.semblages of wire and canvas and wood. It was a frightening thought, but to be candid it was one I also found enthralling.

In the closer of the two planes which had their engines running, the man I knew would be the pilot was already sitting in the forward of the two c.o.c.kpits. Most of his body was out of sight inside the plane, but his head and shoulders were above the rim. He was wearing a leather helmet with gla.s.s goggles resting on his brow. In the c.o.c.kpit behind him was an enormous box device, unfamiliar to me.

The other aircraft had a man in each seat, with the second crewman lowering himself into his c.o.c.kpit. While the engine roared with increasing energy, and at last started to sound smoother and more powerful, two of the men in fatigues carried over and mounted a large gun on a rack at his side. When they had backed away the observer practised rotating the gun, up and down and from side to side. He sighted it through a cross-hatched circle made of wire, mounted vertically above the barrel.

Wanting to watch these two warplanes take off on their mission, I dressed hurriedly and went outside. As soon as I appeared several of the men stood up from their tasks and saluted me. I was still not sure of my status on this operational base so I smiled and nodded, half raising my hand to my brow in an awkward response. The two aircraft were already moving away towards the centre of the field, their wings dipping and rocking alarmingly as they traversed the uneven gra.s.s.

One of the pilots signalled to the other plane with a wave of his gloved hand. All three of the men now pulled their goggles down to protect their eyes, and hunched themselves inside the c.o.c.kpits. The two aircraft, running abreast of each other, accelerated away in the direction of the still-low sun. After a remarkably short run on the gra.s.s they lifted away. With their wings still rocking uncertainly they climbed slowly, leaving two faint trails of grey-blue exhaust smoke in the clear air behind them.

The ground crew had already moved away towards the other standing aircraft, but I remained where I was, wanting to watch the two aircraft until they were out of sight. I heard someone walking up behind me. It was Lieutenant Bartlett, with a leather helmet and darkened goggles dangling from his hand.

He greeted me with a salute, which I returned.

'Good morning, sir. I haven't had breakfast yet. I was wondering if you would care to join me? Breakfast here isn't quite the same as dinner, but it's still not too bad.'

We walked together to the wardroom in reality it was a part.i.tioned area of the aircraft shed, with a handwritten sign on the door: Officers Only where a welcome breakfast was available. It was scrambled eggs ('yet again,' said Simeon Bartlett with a groan, but they tasted good to me) and unlimited supplies of toast, with a large mug of tea. He asked me what I thought of la rue des betes, but I said I had only been up a few minutes before he found me and had not yet had a look around the airfield.

'I'll give you a tour later,' he said. 'There are some good people here you will be working with.'

As we finished our tea, Simeon Bartlett told me a little about himself. He had joined the Royal Navy before the war began it was a manly family tradition, and love of the sea and sailing were part of his nature. He served on a minesweeper as a junior officer, then a destroyer, but after that he had been posted to a land-based establishment in Portsmouth. When the war broke out in the summer of 1914 he was still there. It soon became clear that the Germans were using aeroplanes to threaten our army. A naval air wing was promptly set up. Frustrated by not being at sea and not receiving a posting to a ship of the line, Bartlett volunteered for the new service, learnt to fly and after a few adventures he did not describe in detail ended up here on the Western Front, keen to shoot down as many Huns as possible. He said he had been married for a year and that his wife had recently given birth to twin baby girls. He told me how fearful he was of being killed or seriously injured, but that because of his young family he was now ever more committed to the struggle. He found the consequences of a possible German victory unimaginable.

As we left the wardroom, Lieutenant Bartlett introduced me to three of the other pilot officers, but their aura of easy camaraderie and flyers' slang, their familiar joshing with each other and a kind of reckless acknowledgement of the dangers of their job, made me feel more than ever an interloper. The four young men chatted together for a few minutes, discussing the weather report for the day, including the wind direction. Everyone always paid attention to the forecasts, because of the risk that the Germans might release poison gas. Under suitable wind circ.u.mstances, tendrils of the gas could reach even as far as this airfield. In fact the forecast for later that day was a light south-westerly breeze, so those fears at least were allayed for a while.

Lieutenant Bartlett led me back out to the field and across to where one of the warplanes was waiting. Most of the other aircraft were gone I had heard planes taking off while we were eating breakfast. As we approached the aircraft, an airman standing beside it, who had been leaning over to speak to one of the mechanics working on the underside of the wing, spotted us and immediately straightened. He stiffened to attention, then saluted us both. Bartlett responded automatically I saluted a second or two later.

'This is my crewman,' Bartlett said, as we all relaxed our manner. 'Observer Sub-Lieutenant Astrum. Astrum, this is Lieutenant-Commander Trent, who has come to work with the squadron as an adviser on camouflage.'

'Good morning, sir,' Astrum said, showing no apparent surprise at my appearance. He had a pleasant West Country accent. I was at least twice the age of everyone I had so far seen on the base, adding to my sense of being an outsider. But Sub-Lieutenant Astrum was smiling and he extended his hand in a friendly way. 'Welcome aboard.'

'Mr Astrum flies with me as observer and gunner,' Lieutenant Bartlett said. 'This morning we plan to carry out one of our regular recces of the German lines, which are to the north-east of here. It's a particular area called Bois Bailleu. No trees there now, unfortunately. It's a sector where the archie is usually pretty fierce. We think there might be something going on there they don't want us to know about, because they make it so hot for us. Of course, that makes it all the more interesting, so we keep having to go back for another look and each time the ack-ack is a bit worse.'

Sub-Lieutenant Astrum pointed out an area of the tailplane, near to where he was standing. I could see that the fabric had been patched in several places, then roughly repainted.

'That happened two days ago, sir,' he said. 'Right over where Bailleu Wood used to be. It wasn't too serious not the closest they've come to shooting us down, but pretty bad.'

'You came back all right?'

'We made it home,' said Bartlett, and he glanced at his wrist.w.a.tch. 'We're going to have to take off in a few minutes for a proving flight, but before we do I want to show you the problem we need you to work on. Let's take a look at the underside.'

He threw aside his flying jacket and indicated I should remove my tunic too. He lay down on his back in the long gra.s.s and signalled me to join him. Together we wriggled until we were beneath the lower of the two wing planes. It was of course the closest I had ever been to an aircraft of any kind, let alone a fully armed and fuelled warplane. With the wing surface just a few inches above my face, I suddenly felt terrified of the machine. The pungent smell from the varnish they had used to tighten the wing fabric, obviously high in ether or alcohol, wafted around us. Lieutenant Bartlett must have detected my reaction.

'You'll get used to the smell in a day or two, sir,' he said. 'Try not to inhale it directly. But these kites wouldn't stay in the air without it.'

I made no reply. I used a similar-smelling liquid in one of my illusions, in which a spectacular burst of flame appeared (or seemed to appear) from nowhere. I was always nervous of the volatile, highly inflammable liquid, treating it with respect, yet these aircraft were coated in it or something very like it. It was all too easy to imagine what would happen if an ack-ack sh.e.l.l were to explode close to the aircraft, or even if a hot bullet were to pa.s.s through the fabric.

Bartlett was indicating the canvas under the wing, drumming his fingertips on it to show how tautly it was stretched. It was painted silvery blue. They had clearly been thinking about the same camouflage ideas as me.

'You see what we're trying?'

'Yes, I do. Does it help? Is the plane less easy to see?'

'Not that we would ever know. They still keep shooting at us. The problem is, we can't go on experimenting with different colours. Every coat of paint increases the weight of the plane, and it tends to soften the dope we've used on the canvas. Maybe one more coat would be possible. What do you think?'

'I'm not sure paint is the answer,' I said. 'It's a first step, but I think I might know a better way.'

'Can you tell me what it is?'

'Not yet. I need to carry out some research.'

'Every day counts, sir.'

'I know. I can work quickly.'

We pulled ourselves out from under the wing and stood up. The heady feeling induced by the dope fumes began to dispel. Bartlett scanned the sky and in a moment pointed out an aircraft flying low in the distance, away from the German lines.

'I think that might be Mr Jenkinson,' he said. 'Flight Lieutenant Jenkinson. He's been out on a gunnery test and will be pa.s.sing overhead in a minute. You can see for yourself the effect the silver paint has.'

Sure enough the aircraft tipped its wings and turned towards the airfield. We shaded our eyes with our hands as he flew towards us. He went into a shallow climb and pa.s.sed at some height above us. Even before he was directly overhead I could see for myself that the silver paint idea was never going to work. Irrespective of the underside colour, his aircraft was a black silhouette against the sky.

'The Germans don't even go to the trouble of camouflaging themselves any more,' Simeon Bartlett said, as Lieutenant Jenkinson went into a steep turn then lined up on the airfield to make a landing. 'They paint their crates every colour you can think of.'

'Presumably they're not trying to observe our lines without being noticed?'

'No, the ones I'm talking about are their fighters. They're the real danger to us. No one likes ack-ack but when the Hun sends up a school of fighters then it's every man for himself. We can cope with that. It's an equal fight. We give as good as we get, but unless we're on the ball they can come at us without warning. We usually get a hint that they're around if the guns on the ground stop firing at us. What we have to do then is stop looking down and start looking up.'

'Have you been in any battles yourself?'

The young officer looked uneasy, and glanced around to see if we were being overheard. 'That would be over-stating it a bit, you know. Not battles. If we were in the infantry we would describe what we get involved with as skirmishes. Here we call them dogfights, because that's what they are like. A lot of sc.r.a.pping, barging around, chasing our tails, trying to get off a squirt of ammo at them before they get one off at us. Camouflage doesn't matter a d.a.m.n then, because we're all up in the sky and the odds are the same for both sides.'

'So what am I to do?' I said.

'Surveying the German lines is our main job, the big effort. We're here in support of the ground troops, because in the end they are the ones who will have to win the war for us. But it's getting dangerous and we need effective camouflage.'