Lost in the Flames by Chris Jory Page A

downstairs after a night of wakefulness beneath the creaking beams, they found their shoes in the hall, shone to a mirror shine by Norman during the night.
    Up the hill at Mill View Cottage, Jacob and William left together to walk into town to get the newspaper for Alfred.
    ‘What do you think of those two, then?’ asked Jacob as they walked. ‘Helen and Sarah – all right, aren’t they?’
    ‘Not bad. Can’t tell them apart, can you?’
    ‘Helen’s the prettier one,’ said Jacob. ‘She’s got that little mole on her top lip, just here.’
    He poked himself in the approximate position of Helen’s distinguishing feature.
    ‘I prefer the other one,’ said William unconvincingly.
    ‘That’s all right, then.’
    ‘Anyway,’ said William. ‘Rose is going to be the girl for you, isn’t she?’
    Jacob felt his cheeks redden. ‘Rose?’
    ‘Yes, dear brother, Rose. She’s always talking about you. Vera told me. And the way she looks at you, haven’t you noticed that, with her mouth nearly hanging open?’
    ‘Shut up, you clot. She’s old enough to be my mum.’
    ‘She’s only twenty-four.’
    ‘And I’m only sixteen.’
    ‘Don’t let that stop you, Jacob, it wouldn’t me. And anyway, when you’re old and grey, what difference will a few years make?’
    When they got home with the paper they were still debating therelative merits of Helen and Sarah, daring each other to attempt increasingly ludicrous means of familiarisation. They pushed noisily in through the door.
    ‘Shut your mouths and shut the door!’ said Alfred, slumped in his armchair with a hand to his brow, Elizabeth next to Vera and Helen and Sarah on the sofa, and Norman leaning against the frame of the kitchen door, their faces all hung with silence. As Jacob and William cut their noise they heard the radio in the background, Neville Chamberlain’s solemn dry voice already delivering dread words.
    ‘… speaking to you from the Cabinet Room at 10 Downing Street. This morning the British Ambassador in Berlin handed the German Government a final note stating that unless we heard from them by eleven o’clock that they were prepared at once to withdraw their troops from Poland a state of war would exist between us. I have to tell you now that no such undertaking has been received, and that consequently this country is at war with Germany …’
    Alfred said something unintelligible and Vera twisted her handkerchief around her fingers and bit her lip and when Jacob looked at Elizabeth he saw her gaze flitting between him and his brother.
    ‘… what a bitter blow it is to me that all my long struggle to win peace has failed … to the very last it would have been quite possible to have arranged a peaceful and honourable settlement between Germany and Poland. But Hitler would not have it …’
    When Jacob looked at Norman, Norman was looking at him too, unnerving him with his stare.
    ‘… we have a clear conscience. We have done all that any country could do to establish peace, but a situation in which no word given by Germany’s ruler could be trusted and no people or country could feel themselves safe had become intolerable. And now that we have resolved to finish it, I know that you will all play your part with calmness and courage.’
    And then silence, followed by a heavy animal sigh as Alfred looked at his sons, eighteen and sixteen, and Elizabeth stood up and hurried out of the room and into the garden with her hand at her mouth, gasping for air.
    ‘Here we go again,’ said Alfred. ‘Here we bloody go again.’
    That afternoon, air raid sirens brought Jacob and William out into the street to see what German planes really looked like and whetherthey would be dropping high explosive or poison gas or both, but it was a false alarm and the planes did not come and the sirens wailed down into silence and Jacob found himself wondering if this was what modern war would be like.
    That autumn, the Durham Light Infantry arrived,