This demonstration of transatlantic origins seemed to satisfy the small boy. He threw another stone at the tin can.

‘Our mam said I’ve got to stop along of Mrs Density’s and the food’s all rubbish,’ said the boy. ‘You know what, she makes me drinks milk! I dint mind the proper milk at home but round here, you know what, it comes out of a cow’s bum. I seen it. They took us to a farm with all muck all over the place and, you know what, you know how eggs come out? Urrr! And she makes us go to bed at seven o’clock and I miss our mam and I’m going home. I’ve had enough of being ’vacuated!’

‘It can really make your arm ache,’ said Wobbler. ‘I had it done for tetanus.’

‘Our Ron says it’s good fun, going down the Underground station when the siren goes off,’ the boy went on. ‘Our Ron says the school got hit an’ none of the kids has to go any more.’

It seemed to Wobbler that it didn’t matter what he said. The boy was really talking to himself. Another stone turned the can upside down.

‘Huh,’ said the boy. ‘Like to see ’em hit the school here. They just pick on us just ’cos we’re from London and, you know what, that Atterbury kid pinched my piece of shrapnel! Our Ron give it me. Our Ron’s a copper, he gets a chance to pick up really good stuff for me. You don’t get shrapnel round here, huh!’

‘What’s shrapnel?’ said Wobbler.

‘Are you a loony? It’s bits of bomb! Our Ron says Alf Harvey got a whole collection an’ a bit off’f a Heinkel. Our Ron said Alf Harvey found a real Nazi ring with an actual finger still in it.’ The boy looked wistful, as though unfairly shut off from untold treasures. ‘Huh! Our Ron says other kids down our street have gone back home and I reckon I’m old enough, too, so I’m goin’.’

Wobbler had never bothered much with history. As far as he was concerned it was something that had happened to other people.

He vaguely remembered a TV programme with some film shot back in the days when people were so poor they could only afford to be in black and white.

Kids with labels round their necks, waiting at railway stations. Every single adult wearing a hat …

Evacuees, that was it. Sent out from the big cities so’s they wouldn’t get bombed, it said.

‘What year’s this?’ he said.

The boy looked at him sideways.

‘You’re a spy, incha,’ he said, standing up. ‘You don’t know anyfink about nuffink. You ain’t American ’cos I seen ’em on the pictures. If you’re’n American, where’s your gun?’

‘Don’t be daft, Americans don’t all have guns.’ said Wobbler. ‘Lots of them don’t have guns. Well … some don’t, anyway.’

‘Our Ron said there was something in the paper about German parachuters landing disguised as nuns,’ said the boy, backing away. ‘Seems to me you could’ve been a parachuter, if it was a big parachute.’