Did girls like pigs? he thought, and then he wondered what on earth he would say to her on the ride back from the station. A glance at the angle of the sun told him that it was later than he’d thought, and he clucked again at Zeus to hurry him up. Edwina would have his hide if he daydreamed along until he was late.
• • •
SHE STOOD ON THE PLATFORM BESIDE an enormous suitcase. Lewis looked up and down to be sure, but there was no one else, and he breathed an inward sigh of relief. The girl looked about his own age, and seemed quite ordinary and not as frightening as he’d expected. She wore a red and white gingham dress with socks and sandals, and had hair the color of old pennies pulled back in a neat plait, but the best thing was that when she saw him looking at her uncertainly, she smiled and waved.
“Are you Lewis?” she said when he reached her. “Aunt Edwina said you’d meet me. I’m Irene.”
“Sorry I’m late.” Lewis picked up her bulky suitcase and maneuvered it into the back of the trap. “What have you got in here? Stones?”
Irene gave him her warm smile again and jumped up into the trap unassisted. “Just about everything I own, or at least everything we could salvage from the wreckage. And I didn’t mind that you were late, except I was trying to think what I’d do if you didn’t come at all. I’ve never tried hitchhiking, and I didn’t know if anyone would be brave enough to pick me up with this monster of a suitcase.”
Lewis glanced at her, surprised. He and William had never quite got up the nerve to try hitchhiking. “You could have telephoned,” he pointed out. “There’s a call box just next to the platform. This isn’t exactly the wilds of Africa, you know.”
“How old are you?” Irene asked, apparently unperturbed by his sarcasm.
“Fourteen in January,” he answered, sitting up a bit straighter as he backed up Zeus and got them started in the opposite direction.
“I’ll be fourteen the week before Christmas. So I’m older than you.” Irene’s triumphant grin was so infectious he couldn’t help smiling back.
It was a perfect July evening, the air still soft and smelling of newly mown hay. The road ran through leafy, light-dappled tunnels, and there was little sound expect for birdsong and the soothing clip-clop of the horse’s hooves.
“How far is it to the house?” asked Irene when they’d ridden in silence for a bit.
“A couple of miles. It will take us about three-quarters of an hour.” Lewis suddenly remembered how great the distances had seemed to him when he’d first come to the country, and how he hadn’t been able to imagine a stretch of road without a house or shop in sight.
“It’s not at all like Kilburn,” Irene said, and some quality in her voice made him look more closely at her, wondering if underneath that cheerful exterior she might be just a little bit frightened.
“No, but you’ll like it,” he said. “I promise.”
LEWIS AND IRENE BECAME FAST FRIENDS so swiftly that the first few weeks after William’s return were a bit awkward. William had come back rather full of himself, having spent his holiday immersed in his family’s business. When Irene remained unimpressed with the importance of Hammond’s Teas, William very politely tried to make it clear to her that she wasn’t included in Lewis’s and his schemes. But Irene always affected not to notice: she tagged along anyway, and after a bit William gave up in exasperation. He soon seemed to forget that he’d ever tried to leave her out.
In August, Mr. Cuddy returned from his long holiday on the Cornish coast, and they were busy with schoolwork again. If Mr. Cuddy and the boys had got into a bit of a rut with their studies, Irene soon woke them up. She was fascinated by Mr. Cuddy’s geographical mapping of the war, and always had a question or an argument.
They had a special interest in the campaign in North Africa, and Irene followed the exploits of Montgomery’s 8th Army against Rommel with as much partisan fervor as the boys, even though she’d never met John Pebbles. As the days shortened into autumn, they spent long afternoons before the schoolroom fire with cups of cocoa, discussing the war and their futures.
“It’s going to be over before we’re old enough to join,” complained Lewis one day when the rain beating against the windows kept them from going outside. “North Africa’s only the beginning. With the Yanks in it now, Europe’s bound to be next. Old Hitler won’t be able to stand up to the combined forces.”
“Yes, but I remember when everyone said the war would be over in weeks.” William stretched out on the rug and propped his chin on his hands, staring into the fire, and Lewis thought that he couldn’t imagine William fighting anyone, even if things did stretch out that long.
“Do you ever think about losing?” asked Irene. With Edwina’s cooperation, she had taken happily to wearing trousers like the boys, and sat cross-legged on the floor with her back against the old armchair. “Everyone talks as though there’s no question we’ll win, eventually. But what if we don’t?”
“Don’t be silly,” retorted William. “Of course we’ll win, so there’s no point thinking about it.”
But Lewis had thought about it. Lots of things he’d thought could never happen—his house being bombed, his two brothers dying—had happened, so he had to consider the possibility that they could lose this war.
“Of course, I hope it will end soon,” said Irene, studying the flames. “But if it doesn’t, I’m going to join up when I’m old enough and I’m going to be a general.”
“You’re positively daft,” said William. “Girls can’t be generals.”
“I don’t see why not.” Irene’s chin went up the way it did when she was going to be stubborn. “I like planning maneuvers and things.”
“But that’s just playing at it,” Lewis said, trying to be reasonable. “If it was real, you’d have to deal with wounded, and intelligence reports, and oh, all sorts of things. And you’d have to tell
