Authors note:
This is not a TG story even though there is a scene where it is suggested that the main character does pose as a woman. I wrote it as a backstory to the Vivienne/Delphine character in ‘Sixty is not that old’ story. Vivienne changes her name to Delphine. This is the story of how Vivienne’s grandmother met her future husband.

The steady drone of the RAF Lancaster's four Rolls Royce Merlin engines kept Sgt Harry Wells company as he peered out of his 'Tail-end Charlie's turret into the almost pitch-black sky.

Occasionally the moon would breakthrough, and he’d see a few of the several hundred other Lancaster Bombers making the long slow journey from their bases in eastern England to tonight’s target, the munitions and vehicle factories in Munich.

Tonight was Harry’s 21st mission. Tomorrow, he'd be off on leave for a whole month. Then it was back again for a tour of duty at a training Squadron. This was his reward for lasting twice as long as was reasonably expected for Aircrew in Bomber Command and four times as long as Rear Gunners are expected to last on Lancaster’s.

It was January 1944. The Allies were now giving the Germans a dose of their own medicine, day and night. Everyone, knew that every ton of bombs dropped on the enemy could mean one less casualty when finally, the Allies invaded France, Belgium or wherever.

Because this was his last sortie before his leave, Harry was particularly nervous. It was regarded as ‘bad form’ to even mention the ‘last sortie’ in the Sergeants Mess. Far too many of those who did that failed to return. This made it a real ‘last sortie’ often ending in death for the entire crew of that plane. No one wanted to risk triggering the hoodoo.

In addition to this being his last sortie, the last time they'd ventured this far into Germany the FW190's had a field day. That night, six of the Lancaster’s that took off from RAF Bruntingthorpe[1] had bought it on the return trip.

Harry had played his part in defending the squadron. He’d shot down two FW190’s and had been put up for a gong[2] for just doing his job. He just felt happy, to still be alive. They could keep his gong just let him see out the war in one piece. Then he could return to his peacetime trade, the making hats in Luton.

Harry was a master milliner. He’d make many of the hats that women wore for events like Royal Ascot, Henley and the Derby as well as investitures at the Palace. He was the sixth generation milliner in his family but had joined up the day war broke out in 1939.

His little night-dream was then rudely interrupted by the intercom burst.

“Pilot to crew. Five minutes to target. Stand-by. Acknowledge.”

When this command was sent out, every member of the crew had to report their readiness back to the skipper. As was the custom in Lt Parsons crew was that the rear gunner was first to respond. It was all part of making him feel a bit more important in the crew. There was no ‘tail-end Charlie’ syndrome in this crew.

“Rear Gunner ready”, said Harry.
He listened as the rest of the crew called in their status. The last one to reply was the bomb aimer. His work would be to direct the pilot when they came over the target.

When everyone had reported in, Lt Parsons came back on the horn.
“Good luck everyone. The Pathfinders have lit up the target. We are in the first wave tonight.”

That bit of news cheered Harry up no end. The FW190's that roamed the skies, targeted the last wave of bombers, as well as the aircraft that had taken flak hits over the target.

Speaking of ‘flak’, there were now shells bursting all around the aircraft but thankfully about a thousand feet below their current height.

A minute or so later Lt Parsons came on the horn again.
“Bomb doors open. Jimmo it’s all yours, do your job. Hit them right on the nose.”

Jimmo was Flight Sergeant Jimmy James. He was the real comic in 143 Squadron.

Harry's heart sped up. They'd be some 5 tons lighter once the bombs had been dropped. The lumbering giant of a plane, would be a lot faster and far less prone to blowing up when attacked by the inevitable FW190 or the occasional ME110.

He listened in to the instructions being given to the pilot by the bomb aimer.
“Left a bit.”
“Right a bit.”
“Right a bit more’”
“Steady.”
“Steady.”

Not a second too soon in Harry’s opinion, he heard the words.
“Bombs away.”

He heard the rattle from the release machinery as the bombs left the plane and headed earthwards.

The bomb release mechanism soon fell silent. The noise level in the rear turret decreased as the bomb bay doors were closed.

“All gone skipper. Lets’ go home,” said the bomb aimer,
"Our work for the night is done."

The bright glow from below told him that something was taking a pasting. He didn’t feel sorry for those below. He’d lost two of his three sisters in September 1940 when the Germans had bombed the Vauxhall car plant in Luton.

“We are on our way home chaps. Gunners, keep your eyes peeled for those fighters. The clouds are clearing and the Moon is going to be a problem on our trip home,” said Lt Parsons a he felt the aircraft, “PB105, Nellie M” banking to port.

Harry sharpened his lookout. This was the time that the danger of being downed by flak reduced but the danger from night-fighters increased exponentially.

Nearly 40 minutes later the first attack came in. Harry saw a flash out of the corner of one eye.
Less than a second later, Lt Parsons alerted the crew.
“Fighters about. Tango Juliet reports at least five FW190's and a couple of Messerschmidt 110's stooging around at Angels 18.”

Harry peered upwards and towards the brightening moon.

Before he’d even focussed his eyes, he felt the whole airframe shudder. He knew the feeling only too well. They’d been hit. He had no idea how bad it was, but he knew that Lancasters were sturdy old beasts.

“FW190’s 10 o’clock high coming past you, Harry," buzzed a voice in his intercom.

That was Charlie Smith in the front turret.

Harry swivelled the turret to the right and raised the guns.

Less than two seconds later, he caught the outline of an aircraft silhouetted against the moonlight that was being diffused by some thin cloud. As the shape had less than four Engines, he pressed the firing button.

The airframe shuddered once more. This time due to the firing of the upper mid and rear turret quadruple Browning Machine Guns.

Flames appeared from the fighter, and it started to fall from the sky.

There was a lull in the fighter activity for nearly an hour. The heavy bomber continued upon its course back to Blighty.

Their route home had been planned to avoid flying northwest from Munch as this would take them over Frankfurt plus Koln or the Rhur. They were not nice places for any Allied aircraft to fly. Their path took them much further south. They skirted north of Stuttgart. That was another flak hot-spot and headed towards the French border. Strasbourg was a major target. They'd attacked the city twice before Christmas as it was a major crossing point of the Rhine.

The crew believed a sigh of relief when they saw the mighty river Rhine reflecting in the moonlight. All the major flak zones were now behind them apart from Hitler’s ring of steel along the English Channel.

Their joy was short-lived. Very short-lived indeed.

Without any warning, a blast of gunfire strafed the length of the fuselage. Harry felt the nose of the Lancaster start to drop. He smelt burning.

A weak voice came over the intercom.
“Bale out. Bale out. We’re done for”.

Harry didn't wait to be told. He rotated the turret to allow him to exit the aircraft. Halfway through the rotation, the turret stopped rotating.
Harry knew in an instant that the hydraulic pressure had gone.

Harry quickly grabbed the twin handles of the manual turret rotator and started to frantically turn them.
Inch by inch, the turret turned to expose the escape panel.

By now, the plane was descending quite rapidly.
As he opened the hatch, he briefly wondered if anyone else had already baled out.

Harry undid his harness and rolled out of the now stricken bomber.
As he tumbled earthwards, he saw the former “Nellie M" explode.

With a slightly sad heart, he pulled the ripcord and prayed that his parachute would open.

Harry felt hugely relieved as the white silk canopy billowed out above him and slowed his descent towards the solid earth.

Getting out of the aircraft was the easy part. Like most aircrew, he’d never baled out or used a parachute before. He’d heard many, many horror stories about the broken legs, arms and other frankly horrendous injuries that many aircrew sustained when making parachute landings in the dark.

Harry searched below for any sign that the ground was close.
It was but he didn’t know it. The moonlight of earlier was long gone. The ground below him was obscured by a layer of mist and fog.

With only a moment's warning, he hit the ground. Well, not quite the ground but the roof of a building. It collapsed under his weight, and Harry fell inside.

The cords on the parachute did nothing to stop his fall. He hit something that was both soft and hard at the same time. Then, he passed out.

[three days later]

Harry began to regain consciousness. The first thing he felt was the warm bed that he was lying in. He gradually opened his eyes fearing the worst, that he was in a French Hospital with a German guard at his bedside.

He breathed a sigh of relief when he realised that he was in a bedroom and not a Hospital Ward.

Harry tried to sit up. The sharp pain coming from his right leg told him that it was a very bad idea.

As he lay there in bed staring at the ceiling, he started to gently examine his body.
Both of his arms seemed to be working.
His left leg worked.
The problem seemed to be with his right leg.
He gently explored it with his hands. He soon found the cause of the pain. His leg was encased in plaster.
He sank back into the soft feather bed. He had broken his leg in at least one place. The presence of the plaster case showed that he had been treated by a doctor.

The downside was that any hopes he had of escaping back to England were in tatters at least for the foreseeable future.

Harry dozed off again.

When Harry opened his eyes again, it was nearly dark

He tried to hear any sounds of life in the house or farm or wherever he was. He heard nothing.

Harry shifted around in the bed as best he could with his leg immobilised.
Then he got a fright. A soft French voice said.
“Bonjour Monsieur, je m'appelle Delphine”

A very startled Harry looked around, and in the gathering gloom, he saw a young woman sitting patiently beside his bed.
"Hello. My name is Harry. I'm sorry, I don't speak French."

The young woman smiled.
"Hello, Monsieur Harry. I am Delphine” she replied in broken English.
“Where am I?” asked Harry.
"In my bed," came the giggled reply.
Harry was not in the mood to joke.

“What happened?”

Delphine giggled.
“You landed on the… how you say it, the pigsty.”

“Oh.”

“Two pigs are no more. Merde.”

"I am so sorry."

“Do not worry. We, are how you say, Pig Farmers.”
Harry smiled back and closed his eyes.

When he woke up again, it was dark outside. The full moon was shining brightly.

He heard a vehicle of some sort drive up outside. He thought nothing of it for a few seconds until he heard shouting in German.

Harry sat up in bed. Then he tried to get out. In the moonlight, he saw the makeshift plaster, and splint on his leg. His previous attempts at moving came back to him.

He sank back into the softness of the bed and closed his eyes again.

Sometime later, the sound of loud voices outside brought his thoughts back to the predicament he was in. It was common knowledge that the Germans took a dim view of any French they caught helping Allied Air-Crew to escape their clutches. Harry, was determined to get away from the house before he was discovered by the Germans.

Harry slid out of the bed, and crawled over the floor, his broken right leg sending shards of pain through his body.

He had just about reached the door when Delphine hurried in.

She put a finger over his mouth.
“The Boche will be gone in a minute. They have come for some Pork for their
Obersturmbannführer's Schnitzel", she whispered.

Harry relaxed in Delphine’s arms.

True to her promise, the ‘Boche’ left the farm less than 10 minutes later.

When the sound of their vehicle faded into the distance, Delphine helped him back into bed.
“They will not return for one or two weeks.”

Harry looked puzzled.

Delphine smiled.
“They leave us alone if we give them pork when they need it. Your bombing has disrupted many of their supply lines especially, food. The German Obersturmbannführer takes food from the farms in the region for him and his officers. Before the war, he was a pig farmer from Schleswig-Holstein. His orders are for all farmers in the area to be left alone as long as his troops are well fed. He knows that if they take everything then when it is gone, his troops are going to get restless on Army Rations. Plus, the chance of retaliation from the Resistance, would grow every day. We live in an uneasy truce. They take just enough so we don't starve, and they get left alone.”

“Aren’t you collaborating with the enemy?”

"We could be seen that way, but we have the blessing of all parts of the resistance. As long as his Panzer Grenadier Batallion is stationed here, they can't be killing our Allies on the Eastern Front or in Italy. It is only a matter of time before they are sent back to the front line, and we might well get an SS Battalion assigned to the area. That is far worse than playing ball with the regular Wehrmacht troops. You English have a saying, 'count your blessings. That is what we are doing each and every day here."

Harry felt relieved and sank back into the bed. It was then that he noticed another bed and some children’s toys.

“Who is the other bed for?” asked Harry and immediately regretted it.

“That is for my daughter Yvette,” replied Delphine.

"Where is she sleeping? I don't want to put either of you out."

“Yvette is with her Grandmother in the village.”

Harry sank back once more.

Delphine came and sat on the edge of the bed.

"Don't worry about us. We will manage, and your job is to get better."

"Then you can have your bed back?"

“You English are so… so funny.”

Harry didn’t know what to make of her reply. Then he saw her wedding ring.

"What about your husband? I don't want to deprive a working man of their bed."

The smile that had been on Delphine’s face disappeared in a flash.

“I’m sorry. I have a big mouth.”

“No. It is just that, my husband Henri died in June 1940. He was the local ambulance driver and a Messerschmitt shot it up during the retreat of our army. He died when it crashed into the river."

“I’m so sorry.”

"It is all right. We have to accept whatever God decides for us."

Harry knew what Delphine meant. His mother was very religious. Years of being forced to go to both Church and Sunday School out of fear of getting beaten had turned Harry off of God for good.

---

As Harry recovered from his wounds, he learned to speak a passable French thanks to Delphine’s patience. Her daughter Yvette helped in return for learning English.

Harry learned that the rest of his crew had more than likely perished during the attack by the FW-190 and its subsequent explosion. The tangled remains of the Lancaster were in a field a few kilometres from the farm.

The Germans had salvaged every scrap of metal from the crash site in less than a week. It was all shipped back to Germany to help their war effort. Aircraft-grade Aluminium was known to be hard to come by inside Germany.

Once Harry was able to walk again, Delphine took him to the site just before dawn. It saddened him to see all that remained at the site was a few bits of small debris and a large impact crater. He said a little prayer to his comrades just as the sun rose above the horizon. They’d never see another sunrise warming their backs as they flew home over the North Sea.

---

As winter turned into spring and with Harry now able to walk again, conversation in the evenings at the farm turned to the subject of getting Harry back to England so that he could continue the fight against the Germans.

Delphine knew a few people who knew people who were in the Resistance. One night in late March 1944 they had a visit from 'Claude'. He was supposedly a member of the Resistance in Rheims. He had come to see Harry and discuss Harry's escape options.

When Claude met Harry, he said,
"Monsieur, the Germans are very nervous. Their leaders think that the invasion is going to come tomorrow. We have heard on the BBC, that the Allies have broken through from their landings at Anzio in Italy, and the Russians are likely to enter Poland any day now. The Russians are pressing from the East and have marched into Poland. Every night on the BBC, we hear London telling us to be ready to fight. Getting you out of France before the invasion will be difficult."

This news made Harry sad.
"What do you suggest?" he asked this mysterious leather-jacketed Claude.
“Monsieur, I suggest you remain here.”

Delphine was alarmed at this.
“But the Boche? They come to the farm for Pork. Monsieur Harry cannot remain hidden for very long. If they find him then it is the firing squad for all of us. Monsieur Killie and his family in St Jacques were all shot only last month for helping a Pilot to escape to Spain.”

“The SS and Gestapo have been rounding up many young men in Normandy and Pas De Calais and sending them to Germany to work in factories. Generale De Gaulle has said on the BBC that those men are being held in camps and made to work until they drop dead. They fear that those young men will turn against them when the Invasion comes. It is only a matter of time before that is extended to all of France. The last thing Monsieur Harry wants is to be rounded up and shipped to Germany.”

Claude returned a toothy grin aimed at Harry.

"Monsieur, we have discussed the option of trying to get you to Spain and the recent changes in the south makes it almost impossible. If a young man appears in the area, suspicions will be raised which will be dangerous to everyone who has helped you since you landed on our farm. The only solution other than keeping you completely hidden from the Germans which will be next to impossible is that you will have to become Mademoiselle".

Both Harry and Delphine could not help themselves. They both burst out laughing. Delphine’s father Georges, a man of few words nodded his agreement.
“Bon. It is done,” said Claude as he stood up and left them alone.

[to be continued]
[1] RAF Bruntingthorpe was a real RAF base. Several squadrons of Lancasters operated from there during WW2.
[2] a ‘gong’ is slang for a Medal.