Shark-nosed fighter plane with flag flames

The Bramleys came early this year, so Mr Hollis has had us up the ladders since half five, sacks dragging at our hips and the dew soaking through my stockings. Mother says I should write about something prettier than apples, but there is nothing pretty about waiting for the sky to go quiet. The wasps are drunk on the windfalls and the whole orchard already smells of cider, sweet and turning.

Your squadron came over on Tuesday, low enough that the long grass lay flat beneath them. I counted from the top of the third row: eleven, then a gap, then the one with the shark's mouth painted under its nose, teeth bared at the lane as if it meant to bite the hedgerow. Its streamers trailed out behind it, red and white and blue, and I thought of the striped boiled sweet you pressed on me at the station, and how I wanted to eat the whole tin at once.

The gap did not close again. Mr Hollis says the boys always make it back before the light fails, and most evenings I believe him. Tonight I put a Bramley in the tin with your sweets, the best I could find, unbruised, its cheek as red as a roundel.

If you come past the orchard gate on your way down, tap twice on the fence post so I know it is you and not some other tired pilot who has lost his way.

Yours, Nell