Darkest Hour

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A little after half past ten in the morning, Thursday, 9 May 1940. Already it was warm, with blue skies and large white cumulus clouds; a perfect early summer's day, in fact. It was also quite warm inside the tight confines of the Hurricane's cockpit, even fifteen thousand feet above the English Channel, and Squadron Leader Charlie Lyell was wishing he hadn't worn his thick sheepskin Irvin over his RAF tunic but the air had seemed fresh and crisp when he'd walked across the dew-sodden grass to his plane just over half an hour before. Now, as he led his flight of three in a wide arc to begin the return leg of their patrol line, the sun gleamed through the Perspex of his canopy, hot on his head. A line of sweat ran from his left temple and under the elastic at the edge of his flying goggles.

Nevertheless, it was the perfect day for flying, he thought. It was so clear that he could see for a hundred miles and more. As they completed the turn to head southwards again, there, stretching away from them, was the mouth of the Medway, shipping heading towards and out of London. Southern England - Kent and Sussex - lay unfolded like a rug from his starboard side, a soft, green, undulating patchwork, while away to his port was the Pas de Calais and the immensity of France. Somewhere down there were the massed French armies and the lads of the British Expeditionary Force. He smiled to himself. Rather you than me.

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