Meanwhile he made jokes about ‘the system’. He had no belief in it, that goes without saying, his mocking at it was genuine. But in his character of future lieutenant, he’d raise a clear blue gaze to Willi and drawl: ‘I’m using my time usefully, wouldn’t you say? By observing the comrades? I’ll have a flying start over my rival lieutenants, won’t I? Yes, I’ll understand the enemy. Probably you, dear Willi. Yes.’ At which Willi would give a small grudging appreciative smile. Once he even said: ‘It’s all very well for you, you’ve got something to go back to. I’m a refugee.’

They enjoyed each other’s company. Although Paul would have died rather than admit (in his role as future officer-in-industry) a serious interest in anything, he was fascinated by history, because of his intellectual pleasure in paradox — that is what history meant to him. And Willi shared this passion — for history, not for the paradoxical … I remember him saying to Paul: ‘It’s only a real dilettante who could see history as a series of improbabilities,’ and Paul, replying: ‘But my dear Willi, I’m a member of a dying class, and you’d be the first to appreciate that I can’t afford any other attitude?’ Paul, shut into the officers’ mess with men who for the most part he considered morons, missed serious conversation, though of course, he would never have said so; and I daresay the reason he attached himself to us in the first place was because we offered it. Another reason was that he was in love with me. But then we were all, at various times, in love with each other. It was, as Paul would explain, ‘obligatory in the times we live in to be in love with as many people as possible’. He did not say this because he felt he would be killed. He did not believe for a moment he would be killed. He had worked out his chances mathematically; they were much better now than earlier, during the Battle of Britain. He was going to fly bombers, less dangerous than fighter planes. And besides, some uncle of his attached to the senior levels of the Air Force had made enquiries and determined (or perhaps arranged) that Paul would be posted, not to England, but to India, where the casualties were comparatively light. I think that Paul was truly ‘without nerves’. In other words, his nerves, well cushioned since birth by security, were not in the habit of signalling messages of doom. They told me — the men who flew with him — that he was always cool, confident, accurate, a born pilot.