‘It’s how it is, Lil,’ said Reg plainly. ‘There’s plenty of blokes fighting this war that have never seen their kids.’
‘I know, I know.’
The tip of Reg’s cigarette glowed in the dusk. Lily wondered if he was going to tell her, or if she’d have to ask. That was the trouble with Reg. He was such an oyster. You had to prise things out of him.
‘Reg …’
But for once, Reg saved her the trouble.
‘I know what you’re going to say, Sis. And yes, it’s why I’m home. This leave isn’t just in place of Christmas.’
‘Oh, Reg! You’ve got your posting! Where? Tell me! Where are they sending you?’
Jim had finished his henhouse duties now, and he joined them, cradling two brown eggs in his hand. He could tell from Lily’s face that something was up.
‘Sorry,’ he said. ‘Am I interrupting?’
Though they’d been putting him up for six months now – or putting up with him, as he joked – Jim was always sensitive about not intruding into family matters.
‘He’s got his posting,’ Lily said. ‘That’s it, isn’t it, Reg?’
Red took a final long drag on his cigarette and pinched it out between his thumb and first finger. His hands were so worn and calloused after years of grappling with the insides of engines he could crush a wasp the same way and not feel the pain, he’d told them.
‘Where are you going?’ asked Jim.
The Army didn’t send you abroad till you were twenty – or tried not to; Reg’s last birthday had been a turning point, they all knew.
‘I’ll tell you two,’ said Reg slowly. ‘And I’ve told Sid. But not a word to Mum, not yet. I’ll tell her tomorrow – and in good time, not just before I leave, so she’s got the chance to take it in. But I don’t want her brooding on it longer than she has to.’
‘For goodness’ sake Reg, tell us!’ Lily had trouble keeping her voice down. ‘Where?’
‘They haven’t told us officially,’ said Reg. ‘We’re not allowed to know – and nor are you. But we all do know.’
Jim and Lily looked at him, waiting.
‘Africa,’ said Reg quietly. Walls, even those between their house and their next-door neighbours, were reputed to have ears, after all. ‘North Africa. This bit of leave’s my pre-embarkation. We sail next week.’
Africa! In the wintry dusk of a Midlands’ backyard, Lily closed her eyes and she was there.
Africa! Heat, dust, the spice smell of the bazaars; snowy-robed Arabs haggling over brass coffee pots; captive cobras swaying to snake charmers’ fluting; tall, half-naked Nubians in marble halls, waving ostrich-feather fans over doe-eyed women reclining on cushions …
But before her fantasy could get any more, well, fantastic, Lily pulled herself up. Stupid! Africa, North Africa at least, was nothing like that. Her dimly-remembered geography lessons had taught her that. Most of it was desert, unpopulated because it was uninhabitable, and the vast sand dunes and midnight oases she might have gone on to imagine were only a tiny part of that. The rest was stony desert scrub, more like the surface of the moon than the setting for a romantic encounter with a real-life Rudolph Valentino. And now, the desert meant other things too. It was The Western Desert – those capital letters said it all – it was—
‘The Desert War, then?’
Thank goodness Jim was there. The words had formed in her mind, but she hadn’t seemed able to organise her lips, tongue and teeth to get them out. Maybe it was the cold. Or maybe it was because she couldn’t bear to hear herself say them out loud.
Reg pulled a face.
‘Sounds romantic put like that, doesn’t it? Well, I’m about to find out.’
Lily swallowed hard.
‘But Reg, you’re a mechanic, you’re not a … a sapper or a gunner or anything. You said yourself the drivers can do most of their own maintenance. You’re going to be well back behind the lines. Aren’t you?’
She saw Reg and Jim exchange another of those looks. But it wasn’t the same man-of-the-world look they’d exchanged before, a look that Lily had felt was to shut her out. This was a look of recognition, and of resignation. She needed to know.
‘What do you want me to say, Lil?’ said Reg. ‘Tell you we should all believe in the Tooth Fairy, and Father Christmas is real?’
‘You mean he isn’t?’
She was trying to make light of things, but she knew in her heart of hearts it was hopeless.
‘I’m not going to lie to you,’ said Reg. ‘You’re a bright girl, so think about it. If a jeep or a truck breaks down on ops, or takes a proper pounding, it’s stuck where it is, isn’t it? If you leave it there, the Jerries or the Eyeties’ll have it, you’re better off torching it.’ He gave her a kind smile. ‘But we can’t afford to waste kit like that, can we? So they need blokes like me out with the fighting units, of course they do.’
‘Yes, they do. But equally,’ said Jim quickly, seeing the dismay in Lily’s face, ‘it’s all the luck of the draw. You might be in the thick of things. Or …’
He looked at Reg again, a look that this time said, ‘Help! You’re the mechanic!’
Reg got the message.
‘Or … I might be in a cosy billet in Alexandria, changing the spark plugs on the brigadier’s car and come night-time quaffing beer in a nice little bar while a belly dancer whirls her tassels at me. OK?’
They were doing their best, Lily knew. Jim was kindly trying to reassure her in the same way he had before, over the puppy being a rescue dog and not a bomb-detector. Lily knew the chance of Reg being assigned to such light duties was probably about as likely as Hitler shaving off his moustache and joining the Mothers’ Union. But they were doing their best. She’d better do hers and make it as easy for Reg as she could. She took a deep breath.
‘Well, make sure you are,’ she said firmly. ‘Make sure when you put your hand in that bran tub, you pull out a lucky ticket.’
Reg put his arm round her shoulder and gave her a hug.
‘I’ll make sure it’s got my name on it.’
Lily leant her head against his. She hadn’t taken that much interest in The Desert War till now – what had been happening in Europe, in Norway, even in Russia, seemed that much closer and more real, somehow. Africa was – well, stupid to say it, but it was a foreign country – a foreign continent. She could see the shape of it … almost a heart-shape, ironically – with Egypt, held by the British, in the top right-hand corner, and next to it Libya, which had become the rope in a tug-of-war first between the British and the Italians, and now between the British and the Italians and Germans together. She wasn’t entirely sure how or why it had all started in that part of the world, or why getting hold of Libya and holding on to it was quite so vital. All that mattered now was that Reg was going out there, and soon.
‘What are you three up to?’ It was Dora, calling from the doorway. A thin beam of light lay like a bright bar on the blue bricks of the yard. ‘Come inside. I’m letting the cold in and the light out! I don’t know how you can see your hands in front of your faces! And you must be frozen!’
Lily suddenly realised that she was. Her teeth would have been chattering if her jaw hadn’t been clamped tightly shut for fear of saying –