Based on the novel of the same name: The story of a de Havilland Vampire pilot returning home on Christmas Eve 1957, after his plane suffers a complete electrical failure en route from RAF Sailer in northern Germany to Lakenheath in Suffolk. Lost in fog and low on fuel, he is picked up and taken (or escorted) to an abandoned RAF dispersal field by the pilot of a WWII-era de Havilland Mosquito fighter-bomber, who has apparently been sent to guide him. His attempts to come up with a plausible explanation for his eventual rescue are as troublesome as his experiences. However, soon after he lands at the airfield, the fictional RAF Minton, he learns that his savior is Johnny Kavanagh, a wartime RAF pilot who was stationed at Minton and had guided the crippled bomber home before. The Vampire pilot also learns that Kavanagh had disappeared over the North Sea during his last mission, on Christmas Eve 1943, exactly 14 years earlier.