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morning’s briefing conference. If they want me, I had reasoned arrogantly, they know where to find me. Consequently, I missed hearing the news that the “front” was to be visited by a Very Important Personage.
    My first intimation of anything unusual came when a column of plummy staff cars appeared on the road below, ambling along nose-to-tail in defiance of the strict dispersal rules governing vehicular traffic in front-line areas. I watched incredulously as the column came to a halt in a large, untidy clump at a crossroads. Through my binoculars I could see crisply uniformed staff officers casually descending to wander about with lordly sang-froid while lesser bods began unpacking hampers and setting out food and bottles on folding tables. It was an absolute dream target and within moments I had dispatched a Most Urgent radio message, and had received confirmation that the entire squadron of Spits was scrambling.
    The picnickers were just beginning their lunch when out of the south appeared twelve Spitfires in line astern, the thunderous cacophony of their Merlin engines reverberating from the surrounding hills. Down—down—they swooped, and as they roared over the gaggle of cars at three hundred miles an hour and nought feet altitude, red-tabbed officers dived headlong for the ditches with the alacrity of mice fleeing a swooping falcon. I was enthralled by the spectacle, and so was the Spitfire squadron leader. His voice squawked triumphantly out of my loudspeaker:
    “Perfectly smashing, chaps! Absolutely top hole! Break starboard now and we’ll go round and give it ’em again.”
    But as the Spits circled wide over the valley to line up for another attack, little puffs of black smoke began to blossom all about them in the clear air. Over the blare of twelve Merlins at full throttle, I heard the unmistakable BOP-BOP-BOP-BOP of Bofors anti-aircraft guns.
    “Red leader! Red leader!” The voice over the speaker was suddenly urgent and outraged. “That’s flak! The bloody Pongos’ve gone crackers! I say, chaps, that’s not on! Break port! Break port!”
    At deck level the Spits swung sharply away and in seconds were out of sight. Peace returned to the valley but it held an ominous quality.
    Twenty-four hours later I stood stiffly at attention in a wing commander’s office. The much-beribboned Winco stared owlishly at me for a time, as if unsure what manner of beast I was. When he finally spoke he sounded bemused.
    “Cawn’t quite believe it, y’know. No one would, actually. A mere twit of an infantry subaltern... responsible for a full-scale beat-up of Himself? Simply too bloody much!”
    The VIP who had come to watch the progress of the scheme, accompanied by the cream of the British general staff, had been no other than the titular commander of us all—His Majesty King George VI.
    When the King visited troops in the field, routine orders forbade overflights of any kind in case the Germans might attempt to assassinate him using captured British aircraft. Furthermore, anti-aircraft units were posted about those places where he and his entourage were scheduled to halt, and the gunners were ordered to engage any aircraft that came within range.
    These were things I had not learned during my freshman weeks as an air liaison officer. I would have learned about them if I had attended the morning briefing on that fatal day. I did learn about them in the Winco’s office, and wondered numbly if this was how a condemned man felt as the judge pronounced sentence of death upon him.
    However, the Winco’s assessment must have been correct for apparently nobody in authority believed that anything as lowly as myself could have been responsible for such a horrendous blooper. Consequently, my scalp was saved, but nothing could save my future as an air liaison officer.
    “You’re keen enough, old boy,” the pommaded squadron leader explained at my departure. “But we daren’t risk keeping you about. Next time you