Chapter Two

Jack

June 1939

‘Jack.’

The sudden weight of a hand on his shoulder startles Jack awake. His eyes flare as he recoils from the touch, his arm rising defensively, his boots scrabbling against the rough boards beneath him. He flails like an upturned beetle struggling to right itself.

‘Easy, lad, easy, you’re all right, now. You’re safe.’

The familiar voice penetrates Jack’s blind panic. The tightness in his chest eases and the blood coursing through his veins slows to a placid flow as his ragged breaths taper. He blinks. Striations of sunlight score his vision like lines in an exercise book. His fragmented memory pulls together until he is at last able to fix himself in time and place. Pain races up his stiff limbs as he shifts himself upright, his legs bent before him. He winces, licking his chapped lips.

‘Ben,’ he says at last, acknowledging the grinning face of the man squatting before him.

‘Aye, you daft beggar. Wakey, wakey, rise and shine.’

‘Jesus, but I hurt,’ he groans, stretching his cramped limbs.

‘Aye, well, it can’t be said that a coal wagon is the most deluxe of travelling compartments … but it is the most discreet.’ Ben bobs up to standing. His white collarless shirt is grubby and covered with smuts, while his trousers are as black as the coal he has spent the night shovelling into the train’s furnace.

‘And for that I’m grateful,’ Jack says, taking the hand offered him. He winces again as he is hauled to his feet. He tightens his grip. ‘For that I will always be grateful.’

Ben’s boyish grin fades. He nods, grave now. Jack releases him and, keen to alleviate their solemnity, he runs his palm over his stubbled jaw.

‘Do I look like shite?’

Ben snorts. ‘Jesus, man, you always look like shite.’

Jack smiles in spite of himself. As he lowers his hand, he catches sight of his swollen knuckles, red raw and ingrained now with the coal dust that coats the wagon’s floorboards and floats in the air around them, sparkling like black diamonds in the slanting beams of sunlight. He spots something else. His stomach clenches at the sight of a rusty blemish.

With trembling hands, he unties his neckerchief and pulls it free. He spits on its edge, then works at the coppery speckles until his skin is clean though bruised. When he finally stops, he realises Ben is studying him. Heat floods his cheeks as he stuffs the neckerchief into his trouser pocket.

‘What are you going to do, Jack?’

The quiet question unsettles him. He draws his hand over his mouth and turns towards the slumped heap of coal that occupies the end of the wagon.

‘I don’t know.’