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Myself and Jessica were on our way over to Ireland for a few days to visit my mother. It���s a straightforward combination of three modes of transport: a car to Brighton train station; a train to Gatwick airport; a plane to Cork.

We got in the taxi to start the transport relay. ���Going anywhere nice?��� asked the taxi driver. ���Ireland”, I said. He mentioned that he had recently come back from a trip to Crete. ���Lovely place���, he said. ���Great food.��� That led to a discussion of travel destinations, food, and exchange rates. The usual taxi banter. We mentioned that we were in Iceland recently, where the exchange rate was eye-watering. ���Iceland?”, he said, ���Did you see the Northern Lights?��� We hadn���t, but we mentioned some friends of ours who travelled to Sweden recently just to see the Aurorae. That led to a discussion of the weirdness of the midnight sun. ���Yeah”, he said, ���I was in the Barents Sea once and it was like broad daylight in the middle of the night.��� We mentioned being in Alaska in Summer, and how odd the daylight at night was, but now my mind was preoccupied. As soon as there was a lull in the conversation I asked ���So ���what brought you to the Barents Sea?���

He paused. Then said, ���You wouldn���t believe me if I told you.���

Then he told us.

���We were on a secret mission. It was the ���80s, the Cold War. The Russians had a new submarine, the Typhoon. Massive, it was. Bigger than anything the Americans had. We were there with the Americans. They had a new camera that could see through smoke and cloud. The Russians wouldn���t know we were filming them. I was on a support ship. But one time, at four in the morning, the Russians shot at us���warning shots across the bow. I remember waking up and it was still so light, and there were this explosions of water right by the ship.���

���Wow!” was all I could say.

���It was so secret, that mission���, he said, ���that if you didn���t go on it, you���d have to spend the duration in prison.���

By this time we had reached the station. ���Do you believe me?��� he asked us. ���Yes”, we said. We paid him, and thanked him. Then I added, ���And thanks for the story.���