Shrapnel

Contents

Cover

About the Book

Title Page

Dedication

Spivs

One: If

Two: Storm Troopers

Three: Six Thousand Million Oranges

Four: DSO

Five: A Shower of Soot

Six: Tom Mix and Hopalong Cassidy

Seven: Dance

Eight: So What's New?

Nine: Eyes Everywhere

Spivs

Ten: Semolina with Prunes

Eleven: Blast

Twelve: Duties to Perform

Thirteen: Spitfire Parked Outside

Fourteen: Sweetheart

Fifteen: Creepy Little Swot

Sixteen: OHMS

Seventeen: A Maid, for Pete's Sake

Eighteen: Relocated

Nineteen: Two Half-Crowns

Twenty: Cabbage Casserole

Twenty-One: All Spuds and No Meat

Twenty-Two: Blithering Nincompoop

Twenty-Three: Tin Lizzie

Twenty-Four: Professional Performance

Twenty-Five: Wibbly Wobbly

Twenty-Six: Better Not To Ask

Twenty-Seven: Bad Manners

Twenty-Eight: A Fish in the Sahara

Twenty-Nine: Sherlock Holmes Himself

Thirty: Bodywork

Thirty-One: Not Expecting Jerry

Thirty-Two: Just Boys

Thirty-Three: Sorry

Thirty-Four: Like a Bird

Thirty-Five: Lucky Girl

Thirty-Six: Knights on a Raft

Spivs

Thirty-Seven: Eggless Cake, Watery Smiles

Thirty-Eight: No Guy Fawkes Night

Thirty-Nine: If Wishes Were Horses

Forty: Two or Sommink

Forty-One: Cars in Heaven

Forty-Two: Sell his Mother

Forty-Three: Job on ITMA

Forty-Four: Wish I Hadn't

Forty-Five: Zombies

Forty-Six: Blue Funk

Forty-Seven: Ruminating

Forty-Eight: Linton Barker's Lungs

Forty-Nine: It Wasn't Exactly a Lie

Fifty: Balls of Fragrant Smoke

Fifty-One: Two Policemen

Fifty-Two: The Dock

Fifty-Three: Not the Gestapo

Fifty-Four: Rhinoceros

Fifty-Five: Kitten

Fifty-Six: Shrapnel

Fifty-Seven: Auld Lang Syne

Fifty-Eight: Heinkel

Fifty-Nine: What Was Left of it

Sixty: Chop Some Bits Off

Sixty-One: A Gong

Sixty-Two: What Happened Afterwards

About the Author

Also by Robert Swindells

Copyright

World War Two is raging, bombs rain down on Britain and brave young men fly their fighter planes against enormous odds. Gordon wishes he was one of them – not like his cowardly elder brother Raymond, who has left home and his job to do who knows what.

When Gordon finds a revolver hidden in his parent's house, he decides to track his brother down. But finding Raymond leads to much more than Gordon had bargained for. His brother claims to be a secret governmental agent, and enlists Gordon's help in a mysterious enterprise. Gordon is keen to do his bit for the war effort, but is Raymond luring him into danger . . . ?

A gripping wartime drama from master storyteller and multi award-winner Robert Swindells.

For Jennifer Alice

THE YOUTH IN
the natty suit rose, scooping up his companion's empty tankard. ‘Same again, is it?' The other boy frowned, shook his head. ‘It's my . . . you got that one. I can't let you . . .'

‘Relax, chum. I told you, lolly's not a worry. Back in a sec.'

He watched the suit swerve through knots of young men in uniform, heading for the bar. Must be nice, he thought, enough of the readies to stand a total stranger two rounds in a row, and on a Thursday night. His own wage never stretched past Monday.

‘There y'are.' The youth banged two fresh pints on the table. ‘Get that down the inside of your neck.' He sat down, sketched a toast with his tankard and took a long pull.

His companion sipped, studying his generous acquaintance over the rim of the glass. ‘So,' he said, ‘what line are you in, if it's not a rude question?' He smiled in case it was. ‘It obviously pays well.'

The youth shrugged. ‘I manage.' He grinned. ‘Better than slaving in some factory at any rate: beats me how you stick it, mate.'

The boy pulled a face. ‘It's a reserved occupation for one thing – I won't be called up.' He sighed. ‘Tedious though, day in day out since I was fourteen. I've a good mind to enlist, if only for the chance of a bit of excitement.'

The smart youth shook his head. ‘No need for that, chum. If it's excitement you're after, you can find it without getting your head blown off, and have cash in your pocket.'

‘How?'

‘Easy. Join me. Us. We can always use another bright lad who thrives on excitement.' He smiled. ‘Have to leave Mummy and Daddy though, or the Army'll get you.'

The boy smiled. ‘That'll be no hardship, I'm cheesed off being treated like a kid. What d'I have to do?'

The youth winked. ‘Nothing you'd need a university education for, chum. Drink up.'

‘
IF WE HAD
some bacon,' said Dad, ‘we could have bacon and eggs, if we had some eggs.'

Mum smiled at this well-worn wartime joke. ‘If we had eggs, Frank, we'd be tucking in to one of those rich cakes I used to bake for Sunday tea before the war, instead of this eggless so-called sponge.'

‘If I was eighteen instead of thirteen,' I put in, hoovering up dry crumbs with a fingertip, ‘I'd be bringing my Spitfire in to land at this very moment, after bagging two Messerschmitts over Kent.'

‘If you'd the sense you were born with, Gordon,' snapped Mum, ‘you'd thank your lucky stars you're
not
eighteen. Many a lad will have died today, and more'll die tomorrow. I hope it's all over before you're old enough to go.'

‘He won't go anyway, Ethel,' said Dad. ‘Minute he turns fourteen, he starts with me at Beresford's.'

Hang Beresford's
, I thought but didn't say. Beresford's is where Dad works. It's a light engineering factory. In peacetime they make bicycle parts. Now it's shell cases, same as in the Great War. Dad's worked there since he was a boy. He missed the Great War, because engineering was a reserved occupation. It's a reserved occupation this time as well. My brother went there straight from school, but he packed it in a few weeks ago, when he turned twenty-one. You can do what you like when you're twenty-one. He left home at the same time, but he's been seen about so he's not in the Army. Raymond, his name is. I wish he'd taken me with him.

Well, I get picked on, see?

‘What colour's Price's dad?' yells Dicky Deadman, and his three chums shout, ‘Yellow.'
Their
dads served in the Great War.
The last lot
, as it's called now. Deadman senior was in the Navy. Charlie Williams and Bobby Shawcross's dads survived the trenches, and Victor Platt's old man drove an ambulance. Victor's got a sister in the WAAF as well.

Fellows in reserved occupations are doing their bit, but chumps like Deadman don't see it. If you're not in uniform you must be a coward, that's what they reckon.

Proves something I'm about to learn – that war brings out the best in some people, and the worst in others.

ANYWAY, THAT WAS
Sunday. Eggless sponge and an evening round the wireless, with boards over the windows so enemy planes won't see our lights.

Monday, back to school. On aerodromes up and down the country, chaps were strapping themselves into Spitfires and Hurricanes, the lucky blighters. No double maths for them. As we shuffled into Foundry Street School, they'd ease back their joysticks and lift clear of the dewy grass, heading for the clouds. While old Whitfield called the register and we said, ‘
Present, sir
',
wishing we weren't, they'd spot twenty-plus Heinkels and dive on them, machine guns chattering. And by the time we'd copied twelve dreary sums off the board and done them, they'd have landed and be laughing and joking in the mess, while airframe mechanics patched up the bullet holes in their kites. It'd be five years before any of us was old enough to join in, and the fun was bound to be over by then.

‘You won't find the answers out there, Price,' snapped Whitfield. I'd been miles away, gazing out of the window.

‘No, sir,' I mumbled. ‘Sorry. I was just . . .'