May, The road shimmered under the heat of an afternoon sun and the ochre dust clouded and settled behind the rattling Commer [the Commer Q2 was a green, canvas covered, military truck used by the British]. On the North eastern horizon, the waters of the Solent [River, near Southampton] looked incredibly blue and cool through the haze and the balloons above it turned and winked indolently, it seemed, in the slight breeze.
Suddenly the truck left the curling lane and plunged through a farmyard gate to follow a track which wound again towards the east across wide fields and then through a little copse [a grove of small trees].
Suddenly, again, it debouched onto the side of a runway, a flying field set down among the trees. There was sat while a flight of Typhoons roared down the strip to fling themselves into the sky, leaving only a heaving dust cloud over the steel tracking [Sommerfeld tracking, which was a steel grid laid down on the grass to create a makeshift runway].
The airfield policeman, recognizable from the surrounding figures in blue battle dress only by the dingy white arm band he wore, waved us on and, crossing the track, we plunged again into a narrow lane through the trees. We stopped and the driver said, "there's the guard room, Sir. I had arrived on posting to Tactical Air Force. My journey had started some thirty six hours previous when I left St. Davids, an RAF station in the most south-westerly tip of South Wales to report on posting to my new unit.
I traveled on the night train feeling decidedly the worse for wear, due to a couple of inoculations; a feeling which was not really improved by swinging my newly acquired camp kit and Jane's luggage into and out of the van which conveyed us to the railhead. Jane was en route to London too so we traveled together and dozed and perspired through the long hot night as the train roared and jolted through the darkness.
