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of some use, remembered they never disconnected the old runway lights when they dismantled the station, so I ran down to the control tower and switched them on."
    "I see, I said, but I didn't. But there had to be an explanation.
    "That was why I was so late coming out to pick you up. I had to go back to the mess to get the car out, once I'd heard you land out there. Then I had to find you. Bloody foggy night."
    You can say that again, I thought. The mystery puzzled me for another few minutes. Then I hit on the explanation.
    "Where is R. A. F Minton, exactly? I asked him.
    "Five miles in from the coast, inland from Cromer.
    That's where we are, he said.
    "And where's the nearest operational R. A. F station with all the radio aids including G CA?"
    He thought for a minute.
    "Must be Merriam Saint George, he said. They must have all those things. Mind you, I'm just a stores Johnny."
    That was the explanation. My unknown friend in the weather plane had been taking me straight from the coast for Merriam Saint George. By chance Minton, abandoned old stores depot Minton, with its cobwebbed runway lights and drunken commanding officer, lay right along the in-flight path to Merriam's runway. Merriam controller had asked us to circle twice while he switched on his runway lights ten miles ahead, and this old fool had switched on his lights as well. Result: coming in on the last ten-mile stretch, I had plonked my Vampire down on the wrong airfield. I was about to tell him not to interfere with modern procedures that he couldn't understand when I choked the words back. My fuel had run out halfway down the runway. I'd never have made Merriam, ten miles away. I'd have crashed in the fields short of touchdown. By an amazing fluke I had been, as he said, damned lucky.
    By the time I had worked out the rational explanation for my presence at this nearly abandoned airfield, we had reached the officers mess. My host parked his car in front of the door and we climbed out. Above the entrance hall a light was burning, dispelling the fog and illuminating the carved but chipped crest of the Royal Air Force above the doorway. To one side was a board screwed to the wall. It said R. A. F Station Minton'. To the other side was another board announcing Officers Mess'. We walked inside.
    The front hall was large and spacious, but evidently built in the pre-war years when metal window-frames, service issue, were in the fashion. The place reeked of the expression it had seen better days'. It had indeed. Only two cracked leather club chairs occupied the ante room, which could have taken twenty. The cloakroom to the right contained a long empty rail for non-existent coats. My host, who told me he was Flight Lieutenant Marks, shrugged off his sheepskin coat and threw it over a chair. He was wearing his uniform trousers, but with a chunky blue pullover for a jacket. It must be miserable to spend your Christmas on duty in a dump like this.
    He told me he was the second-in-command, the CO being a squadron leader now on Christmas leave. Apart from him and his CO. the station boasted a sergeant, three corporals, one of whom was on Christmas duty and presumably in the corporals mess also on his own, and twenty stores clerks, all away on leave. When not on leave, they spent their days classifying tons of surplus clothing, parachutes, boots, and other impedimenta that goes to make up a fighting service.
    There was no fire in the vestibule, though there was a large brick fireplace, nor any in the bar either. Both rooms were freezing cold, and I was beginning to shiver again after recovering in the car. Marks was putting his head through the various doors leading off the hall, shouting for someone called Joe. By looking through after him, I took in at a glance the spacious but deserted dining room, also fireless and cold, and the twin passages, one leading to the officers private rooms, the other to the staff quarters. R. A. F messes do not vary much in architecture; once