Times of War Collection by Michael Morpurgo

Molly said. I said I’d run away, that she couldn’t lock me up.
    â€œAnd who’ll be there to look after us if you both go?” Molly was pleading with me now.
    â€œWho would you rather I look after, Molly,” I replied. “All of you at home who can perfectly well look after yourselves? Or Charlie, who’s always getting himself into nasty scrapes, even at home?” When they had no answer to this, they knew I’d won, and I knew it too. I was going to fight in the war with Charlie. Nothing and no one could stop me now.
    I’ve had two long years to think on why I decided like that, on the spur of the moment, to go with Charlie. In the end I suppose it was because I couldn’t bear the thought of being apart from him. We’d lived our lives always together, shared everything, even our love for Molly. Maybe I just didn’t want him to have this adventure without me. And then there was that spark in me newly kindled by those scarlet soldiers marching bravely up the High Street in Hatherleigh, the steady march of their feet, the drums and bugles resounding through the town, the sergeant major’s stirring call to arms. Perhaps he had awoken in me feelings I never realised I’d had before, and that I had certainly never talked about. It was true that I did love all that was familiar to me. I loved what I knew, and what I knew was my family, and Molly, and the countryside I‘d grown up in. I did not want any enemy soldier ever setting foot on our soil, on my place. I would do all I could to stop him and to protect thepeople I loved. And I would be doing it with Charlie. Deep down though, I knew that, more than Charlie, more than my country or the band or the sergeant major, it was that toothless old woman taunting me in the square. “Y’ain’t a coward, are you? Y’ain’t a coward?”
    The truth was that I wasn’t sure I wasn’t, and I needed to find out.
    I had to prove myself. I had to prove myself to myself.
    Two days later, two days of parrying Mother’s many attempts to keep me from going, we all went off together to Eggesford Junction Station where Charlie and I were to catch the train to Exeter. Big Joe had not been told anything about us going off to war. We were going away for a while, and we’d be back soon. We didn’t tell him the truth, but we told him no lies either. Mother and Molly tried not to cry because of him. So did we.
    â€œLook after Charlie for me, Tommo,” Molly said. “And look after yourself too.” I could feel the swell of her belly against me as we hugged.
    Mother told me to promise to keep clean, to be good, to write home and to come home. Then Charlie and I were on the train — the first train we’d ever been on in our lives, and we were leaning out of the window and waving, only pulling back spluttering and coughing when we were engulfed suddenly in a cloud of sooty smoke. When itcleared and we looked out again, the station was already out of sight. We sat down opposite each other.
    â€œThanks, Tommo,” said Charlie.
    â€œFor what?” I said.
    â€œYou know,” he replied, and we both looked out of the window. There was no more to say about it. A heron lifted off the river and accompanied us for a while before veering away from us and landing high in the trees. A startled herd of Ruby Red cows scattered as we passed by, tails high as they ran. Then we were in a tunnel, a long dark tunnel filled with din and smoke and blackness. It seems like I’ve been in that tunnel every day since. So Charlie and I went rattling off to war. It all seems a very long time ago now, a lifetime.

FOURTEEN MINUTES PAST TWO
    I keep checking the time. I promised myself I wouldn’t, but I can’t seem to help myself. Each time I do it, I put the watch to my ear and listen for the tick. It’s still there, softly slicing away the seconds, then the minutes, then the hours. It