by Katie King
Ted drew Barbara close to him, and with his mouth close to her ear said gently, ‘I think we ’ave to let ’em go. The talk in the Jolly was that it’s not goin’ to be a picnic ’ere, and we ’ave to remember that we’re right where those Germans are likely to want to bomb because the docks will be – as our Big Jessie says – “strategic”.’
They were quiet for a few moments while they thought about the implications of ‘strategic’.
‘I know,’ said Barbara eventually in a very small voice. ‘You’re right.’
Ted grasped her to him more tightly.
They listened to the tick-tocking of the old wooden kitchen clock on the mantelpiece for an age, each lost in their own thoughts.
And then Ted said resolutely, ‘We’ll tell our Connie and Jessie at breakfast in the mornin’. They need to hear it from us an’ not from their classmates, an’ so we’ll need to get ’em up a bit earlier. We must look on the bright side – to let them go will keep them safe, and with a bit of luck it’ll all be over by Christmas and we can ’ave them ’ome with us again. ’Ome in Jubilee Street, right beside us, where they belong.’
Barbara hugged Ted back and then pulled the top half of her body away a little so that she could look at her husband’s dear and familiar face. ‘There is one good thing, which is that as you work on the river, you’re not going to have to go away and leave me, although I daresay they’ll move you to working on the tugs seeing how much you know about the tides.’
There was another pause, and then Barbara leant against his chest once more, adding in a voice so faint that it was little more than the merest of murmurs, ‘I’m scared, Ted, I’m really scared.’
‘We all are, Barbara love, an’ anyone who says they ain’t is a damned liar,’ Ted said with conviction, as he drew her more tightly against him.
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