Bobby slipped her arm into her friend’s as they watched the children play.
‘Achtung!’ Charlie exclaimed in mock surprise as a sponge sailed past his face from the direction of the barricade. ‘Was ist das?I am under attack,schnell kartoffeln!’
There was more furious whispering behind the tin bath, followed shortly by another sponge missile. Charlie tried to dodge, but this one hit him square in the middle. He hammed appropriately, staggering backwards and clutching his chest.
‘Reichstag geschenk! I am hit! Ver are zose naughty Engländerin?’
‘That’s one point to us, Jess!’ Florence exclaimed gleefully. ‘If he don’t catch us before three, we win.’
‘Bobby, we need more grenades!’ Jessie called.
Bobby laughed. ‘Excuse me, Mary. I’m needed for the war effort.’
She picked up a basket containing more sponges and flew over, arms outstretched and humming in her best impression of a Lancaster bomber, to deliver them to the two brave soldiers behind the barricade.
‘That was a good shot, Florrie,’ she whispered, ducking down with the girls. ‘He’s getting closer though.’
‘We’ll get him,’ Florence said determinedly. ‘Bobby, you throw one. You can get them further than what we can.’
‘I think it might be against the rules for grown-ups to help.’ She grinned at Charlie over the tin bath. ‘But all right. Prepare yourself, Adolf.’
She picked up a sponge and lobbed it at Charlie’s head. It just missed, glancing off his ear. Only full hits were allowed according to the rules he’d made up when he had invented the game for them, so it didn’t earn the girls a point.
‘Ach! Now ze Russians haf joined ze var! Zis iss not fair!’ Charlie turned in the direction of the barricade and his eyes narrowed. ‘Aha! So zer ist mein enemy.’
‘He’s seen us!’ Jessie squealed. ‘Quick, Florrie! We have to grenade him now before he catches us.’
The air was filled with squeaks and giggles as a veritable hail of sponges were thrown in Charlie’s direction.
‘I am beaten!’ he groaned, falling to the floor in the barrage. ‘My var ist lost. Ze Engländerin haf defeated me.’
‘Again, again!’ two little voices demanded as they jumped to their feet. Bobby, laughing, got to her feet too and dusted herself down.
‘Well I must say, I didn’t expect to find you at war when I got here,’ said an amused voice behind her. Bobby turned to see a woman in a Wren’s uniform leaning on the garden gate grinning at her, a suitcase at her feet.
‘Oh my goodness! Lil!’ Bobby went to give her sister a hug over the gate. ‘Where did you spring from? I thought you weren’t arriving until this evening.’
‘I got an earlier train. Your friend the coal man brought me down from the bus stop in exchange for a shilling. I heard the noise and gathered this must be where you were.’
‘Bert’s put his fee up to a shilling, has he? It wasn’t so long ago it was eightpence. You can blame the rising cost of beer for the price hike.’ Bobby tapped her sister’s arm. ‘You ought to have sent word you were going to be early. Charlie could have fetched you down in his trap and saved you getting coal dust all over your uniform.’
‘But then I wouldn’t have been able to surprise you, would I?’
The Parry girls were staring wide-eyed at this interesting and glamorous new person in the smart, if slightly sooty, navy-blue uniform. Bobby took Lilian’s hand to guide her through the gate into the garden.
‘Come and meet everyone.’ Bobby nodded to the evacuees, who had crept closer to get a better look. ‘These are our new additions, Florence and Jessica Parry, who’ll be staying at Moorside until it’s safe to go back to London – whenever that might be. Girls, this is my twin sister, Lilian.’
Lilian smiled. ‘The Parry girls, eh? I heard all about you in Bobby’s last letter.’
‘What did she say about us?’ Florence asked. ‘Nice things?’
‘She said you were as bright as buttons and very brave, and that you don’t always do as you’re told the first time. Does that sound fair?’
Jessie put her head to one side. ‘That’s mostly nice things, ain’t it?’
‘I suppose it is,’ Lilian said, laughing.
‘You don’t look much like Bobby, Miss,’ Florence observed. ‘I thought twins had to look the same.’
