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Their first mission together goes something like this:
Farrier’s on his third year year in the RAF, has already seen enough combat that he sometimes hears gunfire in his sleep. Collins is fresh out of flight school, red-cheeked and bright-eyed and still untouched by the evils of the world. Farrier takes one look at him and thinks, his plane’ll go down in minutes.
But Collins surprises him. He isn’t like the other rookies Farrier’s flown with—doesn’t hold himself with the same cockiness. He’s still over-eager, rocking up and down in his boots while their squadron commander doles out directions, but once he’s in his cockpit, his demeanor does a complete 180. He handles the spitfire like a pro, hangs steady onto Farrier’s tail and takes each turn and glide with the perfect balance of patience and urgency. His fire is precise when they catch up with the Luftwaffe over the Channel.
They’re back to the aerodrome before nightfall. Farrier’s never come down from the air so quick, not in the months since the war started. He watches Collins climb out of his cockpit, hair ruffled from his flight cap and eyes on fire, and this time he thinks, let’s go again.
Collins crosses the tarmac and offers his hand to shake. Farrier takes it.
“You’ve got a knack for this,” he says.
“You think so?” Collins laughs, the sound half-disbelief, half-exhaustion. “Bloody hell. Nothing really prepares you for all that smoke.”
“It’s something, innit?”
“Sure is,” says Collins. “You’ve been at this awhile?”
“Few years.”
“You’re good. If I’m flying like you by the end of the war, I’ll be lucky.”
He’s already halfway there, but Farrier doesn’t tell him that. “I’ll have to show you some tricks next time we’re out.”
Collins grins. “Looking forward to it.”
Farrier’s called up for another mission a few days later. The Germans are storming their way across France; the fight on the ground has been an absolute shit show, and holding onto the air is the only way to prevent a full occupation at this point. When their squadron commander pulls him aside to give him the assignment, Farrier says, “I want Collins.”
“The rookie?”
“He’s new, but he knows his stuff. I’ve never seen a bloke pick it up so easily.”
The commander's eyebrows go up, uncertain. “And you trust him with your life? This soon?”
“Yessir,” Farrier tells him.
He’s on the tarmac within an hour. Collins greets him with that same shameless grin and a clap on the shoulder, one that instantly melts the tension from Farrier’s limbs. “Back at it, eh?”
Farrier grins back and pulls on his flight cap. “Think you can keep up?”
“Sod off,” Collins says.
The skies above France become their home away from home. They’ve only been flying together for a few weeks, but it feels like ages—Farrier’s never had someone who could predict the way he flies like Collins can, who could, in a half-second, loop around and cover Farrier’s side before he’s even realized the enemy is present. It’s like they share the same mind, two halves of one whole. Every flight they take together leaves Farrier breathless and basking in victory, his spine tingling where Collins always leaps onto his back as soon as they land.
Things aren’t all rose-colored, of course; there’s a war going on, and there are still moments, small, terrifying moments, when a shot comes too close for comfort or Farrier’s radio goes silent for a half-second too long. The Nazis have pushed the Allied ground troops further and further north, and a retreat is looking more necessary as the days pass. The RAF is doing its best to keep the air clear, at least, but the Luftwaffe are vicious and unrelenting. Their raids are becoming more frequent and the size of the British and French armies keeps shrinking, shrinking, shrinking.
“Do you think we can do it?” Collins asks Farrier one day, while they’re eating lukewarm porridge in the mess hall. “Do you think we can push them out?”
They’ve started spending more and more time together outside of flying, the rest of their squadron little more than background noise at this point. Farrier might feel a bit guilty for that, if only he had the energy.
“I don’t know, mate,” he says honestly.
Collins nods. There’s a far-away look in his eyes, like he’s staring down a future that hasn’t happened yet. “I just can’t stop thinking about it, y’know? How this, the stuff we’re doing out in France, feels so detached from our real lives. I keep asking myself what will happen when the war finally comes to us— if I’ll be ready.”
Farrier takes in the frown on Collins’s mouth, so out-of-place on the unmarred planes of his face. He’s reminded, suddenly, of how young Collins is; he probably wouldn’t even be out of flight school yet, if it weren’t for the war. The only monsters he’s seen are the ones under his bed.
“We’ve got each other,” Farrier answers. “We’re as ready as we can be.”
By the end of May, the Germans have the Allies cornered on a beach in the north of France. Collins and Farrier haven’t had a mission in days. The base has grown quiet, stagnant, and the number of planes that leaves each day is dwindling. Farrier waits and waits, but nothing comes of it; instead, he finds himself restless and awake at night, plagued by thoughts of all the men who are now trapped, essentially abandoned just across the water.
“I’ve heard they’re trying to evacuate, but the bombs won’t stop coming. Can’t get a single ship out,” Collins says.
It’s an afternoon same as any other, with no assignments and no news. They’re out on the deserted landing strip because they’ve nothing better to do, hands in their pockets and elbows knocking as they walk.
“Then why the hell don’t they send us?”
“Preservation, I suppose,” Collins rubs a hand over his jaw. “We’ve only got so many planes, and they’ll have to abandon enough equipment over there as it is.”
They roll to a stop behind a parked spitfire. Not one of theirs, but might as well be, with the same sleek body and dark paint. Farrier trails his fingers along the wing.
“I joined the air force because I wanted to help,” he says, quiet. “But here we are, sitting on our sorry arses while men are dying. Makes me sick.”
“You have helped,” Collins tells him. “You’re a great pilot, Farrier.”
“I couldn’t stop them. We were over there every bloody day, and we still couldn’t stop them.”
Farrier learned a long time ago that the guilt, the crushing, unending weight of it, was just one more burden he’d have to carry f if he wanted to do this, that it was just another added side effect of war. There’s only one way to survive something like this: you learn to stare a dead man in the face and feel nothing. You never get too comfortable. When one of your squadron goes down, you blink and keep flying and don’t rest until you’ve shot down the Jerry that took your mate from you in the first place.
Lately, though—lately, it’s all become too heavy. Farrier thinks about the men in France and he thinks about Collins. Thinks about what it’d be like if Collins had become an army private instead of a pilot, if he’d never shown up on the tarmac that first day. Would he be over there right now? Would he still be breathing? Or would he be little more than a corpse in the sand, body loaded down with shrapnel?
“Oi, come back.” Collins settles a hand at the base of Farrier’s neck.
Their eyes meet. Farrier can see every bit of himself, all of his own fears reflected in Collins, like he’s staring into a mirror. The tarmac is quiet, so quiet; their breaths are the only sound to puncture the silence. For a moment, the war doesn’t seem to exist at all.
“If you ever go down, I go down with you,” Farrier says. “You know that, don’t you?”
Collins’s hand tightens around his nape. He opens his mouth like he wants to say something, but in the end, he stays mute.
I’d break every single rule for you, Farrier thinks.
They’re shielded by the bulk of the spitfire, a wall between them and all of the blood, the fire, the death that plagues the rest of the world. Collins walks them backwards until his shoulders hit the plane’s tail. He fists his hand in Farrier’s collar and lets out a breath, cornered, Farrier’s arms boxing him in.
“We probably shouldn’t,” Collins whispers.
Farrier leans in and kisses him quiet.
There’s nothing gentle about it. War is not the place for gentle, not even when it comes to this—this sacred, fragile moment. Their hands and mouths and bodies collide, Farrier’s weight pinning Collins to the side of the spitfire and Collins’s day-old stubble rasping against his jaw. Collins has got his hands all over Farrier’s shoulders, his chest. He touches like he’s memorizing. His fingers trace every bump and ridge of Farrier’s skin while Farrier’s tongue traces the ridges of Collins’s teeth.
They’re flying, then burning; they’re hurtling through the air with a busted engine and trailing smoke across the sky. It’ll only be a matter of time before they crash into the water in a blur of shrieking noise and glass.
They cling to one another, already having accepted their shared fate.
Afterwards—once the sun has dipped below the Channel and Farrier can breathe again, but just barely—they head back inside. Their squadron commander is already there, waiting.
They’re to fly to Dunkirk tomorrow at first light.
“This is it, I suppose,” says Collins, later. “Time to shine.”
Farrier stares at the ceiling above his barrack. “Are you ready?”
Collins rolls over and looks at him. The skin of his neck is red and splotchy, his eyes hooded. He reaches across the space between their beds and raps his knuckles once against Farrier’s pillow.
“I’ve got you, haven’t I?”
Farrier looks back. He tells himself, no harm could ever come to a boy whose eyes are on fire.