He settled down at once and was perfectly content: he was obviously willing to cooperate to the full. Noel, Peter, and I, less mature and more assertive, looked for trouble and found it. It came in the form of the Chief Ground Instructor, who took to his task of settling our hash with enthusiasm; but our innate laziness added to a certain low cunning proved equal to the situation, and we managed to skip quite a number of morning parades and lectures. There admittedly can be no excuse for our behaviour, but there is, I think, an explanation, to be found in the fact that Dunkirk had not come: the war was still one of tin soldiers and not yet of reality. Nevertheless, thanks to the fact that we got on well with our co-pilots, and to Noel’s infectious good-humour and lack of affectation, we gradually settled down to a harmonious relationship with our instructors, who were willing enough to help as soon as we showed signs of cooperation. Our lives quickly became a regular routine of flying and lectures. Dick Holdsworth started in on bombing training, but through making a nuisance of ourselves we three managed to fly Harvards, American fighter trainers.

In our flying instructors Noel and I were very lucky. Noel was handed over to Sergeant Robinson, I to Sergeant White. They were great friends, and a rivalry immediately began to see who could first make a pilot out of the unpromising material that we represented. White was a dour, taciturn little Scot with a dry sense of humour. I liked him at once.

Noel’s flying was typical of the man: rough, slap-dash, and with touches of brilliance. Owing to the complete blank in my mind on the subject of anything mechanical, I was at first bewildered by the complicated array of knobs and buttons confronting me in the cockpit. I was convinced that I might at any moment haul up the undercarriage while still on the ground, or switch off the engine in the air, out of pure confusion of mind. However, thanks to the patience and consideration of Sergeant White, I developed gradually from a mediocre performer to a quite moderate pilot. For weeks he sat behind me in the rear cockpit muttering, just loud enough for me to hear, about the bad luck of getting such a bum for a pupil. Then one day he called down the Inter-Comm., ‘Man, you can fly at last. Now I want you to dust the pants of Agazarian and show our friend, Sergeant Robinson, that he’s not the only one with a pupil that’s not a half-wit.’

My recollection of our Scottish training is a confusion of, in the main, pleasant memories: Of my first solo cross-country flight, when I nearly made a forced landing down-wind in a field with a large white house at the far end. A little red light inside the cockpit started winking at me, and then the engine cut. The red light continued to shine like a brothel invitation while I racked my brain to think what was wrong. I was down to 500 feet, and more frightened of making a fool of myself than of crashing, when I remembered. It was the warning signal for no petrol. I quickly changed tanks, grateful that there were no spectators of my stupidity, and flew back, determined to learn my cockpit drill thoroughly before taking to the air again.

Of my second solo cross-country flight when the engine cut again, this time due to no fault of mine. Both the magnetos were burned out. I was on my way back from Wick and flying at about 2000 feet when the engine spluttered twice and stopped. By the grace of God I was near a small aerodrome backed by a purple range of mountains and opening on to the sea. There was no time to make a circuit, so I banked and, feeling decidedly queasy, put down right across two incoming machines to pull up six yards from the sea.

Of cloud and formation flying. I shall never forget the first time that I flew really high, and, looking down, saw wave after wave of white undulating cloud that stretched for miles in every direction like some fairy city. I dived along a great canyon; the sun threw the reddish shadow of the plane on to the cotton-wool walls of white cliff that towered up on either side. It was intoxicating. I flew on.