Ursula went with him as he went upstairs to the operations room, where he moved his token on the status board from AWAY to ON STATION and learned from Amélie that there were no messages for him. Then, on the way down the hall to the living quarters, he asked,

"How's your colleague from Brandenburg settling in?"

"I haven't seen much of him since we got in," Ursula admitted. "I do hope he and Group Captain Whittle are getting on all right."

By an odd coincidence, the very next people Gryphon and Ursula saw were none other than Group Captain Frances Whittle and her Karlslandic opposite number, Professor Hans von Ohain. They were in the dining room, standing together by one side of the long table, on which a jumble of engineering drawing lay unrolled or partly so, held down with a scattering of heavy-bottomed whiskey tumblers from the nearby liquor cabinet.

"... and no sooner was I on my feet," the Britannian engineer was saying as Gryphon and Ursula came within earshot, "gathering up my 'chute, than there stood Flight Leftenant Raeburn, red-faced and screaming at me, 'Whittle, why don't you just take all my bloody aircraft, make a heap of them in the middle of the aerodrome, and set fire to them?! It's quicker!'"

Von Ohain roared with laughter, banging a hand on the table, at Whittle's arm-waving impression of her furious superior officer.

"Oh, she was cross," Whittle went on. Folding her arms with a sad shake of the head, she added thoughtfully, "We never really got on after that..."

"I can't imagine why not," von Ohain remarked, wiping tears of mirth from his eyes.

"Anyway," said Whittle offhandedly, "that's how I got sacked from the stunt squad. In retrospect, I'm lucky they didn't throw me clean out of the RAF. I'm sure anyone who pranged as many kites nowadays as I did back in the '30s would be shown the door forthwith." She sighed wistfully. "It was a simpler time."

In the corridor, Ursula and Gryphon glanced at each other, shrugged, and continued on their way.

"I guess I needn't have worried," Ursula remarked.

"I guess not," Gryphon agreed.

--G.
-><-
Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor-in-Chief, & Forum Mod
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/
zgryphon at that email service Google has
Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.

War stories is an excellent way to break the ice, yes.

Excited!

>War stories is an excellent way to break the ice, yes.

As an aside, Francie's war story is based on something that happened to the real Frank Whittle during his days as an RAF flying officer. In 1930 he was participating in a contest to select a stunt flying team an RAF air show, and in the process of rehearsing he managed to destroy two airplanes in one afternoon. After the second one, Flight Lt. Raeburn had had enough. :)

During his active service, Whittle was routinely written up as a superior pilot but an infuriating and incurable showoff, constantly doing unauthorized aerobatics in an unsafe and cavalier manner and needlessly writing off aircraft. I like to keep that in mind when I'm writing Francie, lest I fall into the trap of thinking that she's always been a superannuated engineering officer. :)

--G.
-><-
Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor-in-Chief, & Forum Mod
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/
zgryphon at that email service Google has
Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.

LAST EDITED ON Dec-06-21 AT 04:11 PM (EST)
 
Excellent. Whittle and von Ohain actually getting to collaborate is going to be a fun aspect of the continuance of OWaW; as much as the Scarlet Devil Mansion crew ending up stationed at Saint-Ulrich.

Man, this just keeps getting better and better.

Amusingly, I was only the other day reading Guards! Guards! by Pratchett.
In the book, there is a swamp dragon by the name of "Errol". The owner describes poor Errol as "a complete whittle".
Which comes back as Errol, who can't fly for the life of him, eats everything he can get his mouth on, breaks it down, and essentially creates an internal jet engine, complete with re-heat.

...!
Stoke Mandeville, Esq & The
Victorian Ballsmiths
"Nobody Want Verdigris-
Covered Balls!"

I wanted to have this out today (well, yesterday now), but my nervous system has had other ideas this week. :/

--G.
-><-
Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor-in-Chief, & Forum Mod
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/
zgryphon at that email service Google has
Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.

Stay well, Gryphon, and very much looking forward to this!

------
Authors of our fates
Orchestrate our fall from grace
Poorest players on the stage
Our defiance drives us straight to the edge