The Last Letter from Juliet - Melanie Hudson Page 0,91

a terrible flight.

The slight rise in the cloud layer at Hamble had been no more than a sucker’s gap and by the time I hit Devon, the low cloud, mist and rain hit me. But where was Anna? Which way had she turned?

I considered my options. In an ideal world I would keep clear of the high ground of Dartmoor and skim over the sea towards Cornwall, with the hope of the promised weather clearance hitting me sooner rather than later. But the south Devon coast was heavily defended against attack from the Luftwaffe and it would be too risky to head towards the coastal defences at Plymouth.

For the first time in my entire flying career I had absolutely no idea what to do for the best. I descended lower and lower, trying to stay below the cloud, skimming church steeples and looking out in desperation for a decent navigable landmark, such as a river or a train line. If forced to climb into the cloud, goodness only knew if I would ever find a gap to descend through and without instruments, or a radio or any kind of training of flying blind, I would either run out of fuel or fly straight into the cloud-covered ground. Either way, I would crash.

My worst nightmare soon became a reality when the visibility became so poor I had no option but to climb into cloud. It was like playing blind man’s bluff, but with the added pressure of certain death if I walked in the wrong direction. I checked my fuel gauge over and over again. With my detour away from Dartmoor well under way to the north, I realised that I no longer had sufficient fuel to make it to Predannack. I looked at my father’s compass and checked my general direction of flight. I was heading north west. And then I remembered the lesson that the RAF pilot had given me in the ill-fated dance hall that time, a lesson in instrument flying. I recalled his instructions, to straighten the aircraft using the artificial horizon and mark my last known point before becoming disorientated. RAF Chivenor was in North Devon, I knew, and if I continued to head in a north-north-westerly direction, I would hopefully come across some better weather and either head to Chivenor or find a suitable field to land in. If I didn’t, my fuel would run low and I would be forced to descend through cloud.

I flew on for another fifteen minutes watching the fuel gauge as it slowly wound down. For a moment I began to shake so violently that I was hardly able to keep my hands steady on the controls. I looked out of the canopy at the pillow of cloud engulfing the aircraft and wondered if this was what drowning felt like. But then, the most calming sensation of peace came over me, as if the Spitfire was under the control of another force altogether and the clouds that had acted to suffocate now seemed to swaddled me into a safe embrace.

With absolutely nothing left to lose, I closed my eyes for a moment, took a deep breath and allowed my hands to lift from the steering column and for a few seconds, handed my fate to nothing more than chance – but it was more than that. I had the feeling I was no longer alone – that another presence was in the cockpit with me. I felt such an overwhelming feeling of being flooded with love that I would not have cared right at that moment if I’d crashed and died. I was already in heaven.

The moment of peace didn’t last for long. Suddenly shaken awake as if from a wonderful dream, I regained control of the aircraft and allowed my beautiful Spitfire to fly in the direction she had settled of her own accord, the direction I’d been gifted when I had simply sat back, believed and let go.

Less than five minutes later, the blanket of grey began to disperse and gave way to whiter, wispy clouds. I banked hard to the left and to my absolute relief saw land, roughly two thousand feet beneath me, and ahead of that, the North Devon coastline. RAF Chivenor, my chosen diversion airfield, would now not be difficult to find.

From that moment on, although I’ll never know who or what flew with me, I never in my life felt completely alone again.

The ground crew at RAF Chivenor were surprised when a Spitfire