Edward struggled through the dense growth of shrubs and bushes, with his older sister trudging along behind him. The lake was only a few meters away, and they were on time before sunset so they could skip rocks on the water’s surface. Reaching the lake, Edward picked up a nice, flat stone. “This should skip well,” he said. He tossed the rock with a gentle swing, and the downward fall of the rock let the flat side hit the water. The surface tension held, and it plopped onward for a few paces, until it finally sank.
“Nice toss,” his sister remarked, grinning.
10 Years Later
He pressed the trigger. The Supermarine Spitfile Mk IIb rocked around mid-air at 15,000 feet, unleashing a deadly hail of 20mm machine cannon ammunition, supplied by 7.7mm tracer rounds, lighting up the night sky like dozens of fireflies. Fireflies moving at 2,500 miles per hour, ripping apart metal pieces from German Bf 109 E-3s and E-4s.
“Tally-ho! You’ve got a bandit on your 6!” the intercom crackled.
Edward looked behind him and sure enough, an E-4 fighter plane was coming fast on his tail. “Pulling evasive maneuvers! Someone pull up on his 6 and scissor!” Edward yelled.
A friendly Spitfire did a scissor maneuver with him, and riddled the E-4 with cannon and machine gun bullets, until the tailing enemy aircraft exploded mid-air from an engine overheat.
“Kraut bombers overhead by a thousand angels!” the flight leader yelled. “Everyone got enough ammo and energy to take the vertical?” Most of the team replied with an affirmative, and they rose to catch the Heinkel He111s headed towards London to unleash their 250kg bombs from their hellish underbellies.
Sweat trickled down Edward’s eyebrow, and the putrid odor of gasoline filled the cockpit. His mouth tasted foul, but he disregarded all of these things. The only objective that mattered to him was defending his home country, whether he died or not. He would not let Hitler and the Third Reich take over Great Britain.
Edward pulled out of the vertical, and let loose his ammunition, unloading it into each German bomber he saw, watching them explode into fireballs fueled by their gasoline and undetonated bombs. He wanted them to regret destroying his home country, to feel the pain that he felt as he watched his house collapse over his parents and sister. He was no longer the playful, mischievous boy he used to be. He flew with stoic determination, his chiseled face solemn and unemotional as he unloaded his guns into the bellies of the German Reich.
Soon enough, the Germans outnumbered the British, and the sheer numbers of enemy fighters in the sky were taking their toll on the Spitfires. Edward fought on, even though he knew he would eventually die. Through the rising trails of black smoke, and the distant reports of shattering metal, he took German after German fighter down.
One Bf109 decided to go head-on with him, and Edward pressed the trigger. Each of his guns jammed, and the enemy stripped his aircraft from head to tail; the Spitfire now an incapacitated wreck of a plane. He tried to eject, but the canopy was frozen shut. He realized the mechanism must have been shot off during the head-on.
A bitter taste like pennies filled his mouth as the plane plummeted towards the Earth at 500 miles per hour. He closed his eyes, and remembered his sister smiling at him that day on the lake ten years before, as they watched his perfect toss across the water. He knew what was to come.
The lone British fighter smashed into the ground, completely deforming the metal shell, pieces flying off and bouncing across the field below like a skipping stone.