It’s 1944, late in the war, and the Mustang fighters have stretched their escort all the way into Germany’s heart and back. Now, heading west for Englands’s home bases they, and the forts they’ve protected, share the glint of a setting sun and the serenity of a clear sky above. The planes are flying toward peace, toward home at last.

The bomber crews are used to long missions and have room to rise and inch around the cluttered interior of a B-17. But to a fighter jock, trussed like a duck in his tiny cockpit for hours, the flight can’t end too soon. He can’t wait to get his wheels on the ground, his canopy open; to stand up in his cockpit and rub blood back into his buttocks while he nudges his plane left and right, shoving the rudder pedals.

Below those clouds, darkness deepens, But every plane will find its way like a homing pigeon. They’ll be letting down soon now. The work is almost done.