had to borrow a ladder from a nearby window cleaner to coax his grandfather to the ground.
When the pair eventually passed through the school gates, Jack looked at his RAF-issue watch and realised his history lesson had started ten minutes ago! If there was one thing Miss Verity could not abide, it was lateness. All eyes turned to the boy as he entered the classroom. Jack went bright red with embarrassment. He hated being the centre of attention.
“Why are you late, boy?” barked Miss Verity, spinning around from her blackboard.
Before Jack could reply, Grandpa stepped into the classroom.
“Wing Commander Bunting at your service, madam,” he said with a salute, before bowing his head and kissing the teacher’s hand.
“Miss Verity,” she replied, giggling and covering her mouth nervously. The teacher was obviously flattered by Grandpa’s gallantry. It might have been some time since a gentleman had made a fuss of her in this way. That the teacher giggled made the class giggle too. To silence them, Miss Verity gave the children one of her famous death stares. These were so chilling that they always worked in an instant.
“Please take a seat, Mr Bunting. I had absolutely no idea you were coming today!” She glared at Jack. The boy offered his teacher a warm smile. “But you are here, so let’s make the best of it. I believe you are going to tell us all about your life as a World War II fighter pilot?”
“Roger!” replied Grandpa.
The teacher checked behind her, in case someone called Roger had entered the room. “Who’s Roger?”
“It means yes, Miss,” called out Jack.
“Pop your hand in the air if you have something to say, boy,” she snapped, before turning back to Jack’s grandpa. “We have just begun studying the Battle of Britain. Please can you tell us something of your personal experience of this?”
Grandpa nodded and twizzled the ends of his magnificent moustache. “Certainly, madam. The first day of the Battle of Britain we all knew the enemy had planned something huge.
Total obliteration, that’s what Mr Hitler wanted. Radar picked up a huge squadron of Luftwaffe Junkers over the coast. With Messerschmitt fighter planes acting as guard. There were so many that day the sky was black with them.”
From the back of the classroom, Jack beamed with pride. The entire class was hanging on the old man’s every word. For a moment he felt like the coolest kid in school.
“We had no time to lose. The enemy was coming in fast. If we didn’t take to the air immediately, we would have been knocked out on the ground.”
“Oh no,” said an enraptured girl at the front.
“Oh yes!” continued Grandpa. “The whole airfield would have gone up in flames. My squadron was the first to be scrambled, and as Wing Commander I was to lead the charge. Within seconds we were all in the air. Up, up and away. I pushed my Spitfire to 300 miles an hour…”
“Wow!” said a boy at the back, looking up from his football magazine. “300 miles an hour!”
“The Air Chief Marshal radioed me to tell me we would be outnumbered. He said four to one. So I had to think fast. We needed an element of surprise. I ordered my squadron to hide up above the clouds. The plan was we would wait until the enemy were so close we could smell them, and then ATTACK!”
“So what date was this exactly, Mr Bunting?” interrupted the teacher. “I need to put it up on the blackboard in red chalk. Red chalk is for dates only.”
Miss Verity used strict colour-coding on her blackboard –
Grandpa thought for a moment. Jack’s tummy twisted. He knew dates were not the old man’s strong suit.
But eventually Grandpa replied confidently, “July the third, eleven hundred hours. I remember it well!”
The teacher wrote these facts, facts, facts up on the blackboard, the red chalk squeaking as Grandpa continued.
“So I waited until the very last moment. As soon as I saw the first Messerschmitt emerge from under the clouds, I gave the order.
“What year was this?”
“Pardon me, madam?”
“What year was this?” Miss Verity pressed.
Then disaster. The old man’s face went blanker than blank.
10
Facts Facts Facts
From the back of the classroom, Jack dived in to defend his grandfather. “Miss, it’s best you don’t keep on interrupting by asking questions…”
“But this is a history lesson! We need facts! facts! facts!” replied Miss Verity.
“Just please let the Wing Commander finish his story, Miss, and we can get to all those later.”
“Very well,” muttered the history teacher, grasping her red chalk in readiness. “Please carry on, Mr Bunting.”
“Thank you, madam,” said Grandpa. “Now, where was I?”
It was clear the poor old man had lost his thread. It was a good job that his grandson knew this story so well. He had heard this particular tale of derring-do hundreds of times but never tired of it. Jack prompted his grandfather. “You saw the first Messerschmitt, and gave the order to—”
“DIVE! That’s right, man! As soon as my squadron of Spitfires descended through the clouds, we realised that this would be the fight of our lives.” Grandpa’s eyes lit up. He was back in the moment as if it was yesterday. “The radar had estimated a hundred planes in total. This looked more like two hundred! One hundred Junkers, and as many Messerschmitts. As for us, we had just twenty-seven Spitfires.”
The children were enraptured. Miss Verity was busy scribbling up her precious facts facts facts on the blackboard – like how many aircraft on each side – in an array of multicoloured chalks. As soon as she had finished, she switched back to red chalk (for dates only) and opened her mouth as if she were about to speak. But before she could say a word, the entire class went, “SHUSH!”
Grandpa was on a roll now. All the children were eating out of his hand. “I pressed on my machine guns and the battle commenced. It was thrilling and terrifying in equal measure. The sky was filled with bullets, smoke and fire.
Bang!
I hit my first Messerschmitt. The Luftwaffe pilot parachuted out.
Bang!
And another!