Harry propped his bike up against the gate. Joyce laid her's beside his. Scrambling up onto the gate, they looked across the field to where Joyce’s father harvested hay.

‘I heard you crying in bed,’ Joyce said.

‘I wasn’t crying.’ Harry kept his eyes on a rabbit in the near distance, remembering last night’s delicious rabbit casserole Joyce’s mother had made.

‘You miss your Ma.’ Joyce cast a quick glance at the twelve year old boy who’d been evacuated to her family’s farm, three months ago. ‘I’d miss my Ma and Pa too,’ she went on to say. Harry nodded, a lump in his throat, choking off any reply. ‘Thanks for my birthday present,’ Joyce said.

Harry cleared his throat. ‘It wasn’t much.’

‘It’s lovely.’ She took out a hand crafted wooden doll from her dress pocket. ‘You’ll be a sculptor when you grow up.’

Harry grinned. ‘I want to be a farmer like your Dad.’

‘You can be whatever you want,’ Joyce said.

Harry looked at her, a ten year old child with an old head on young shoulders. Then above the lazy noise of the tractor an unfamiliar sound reached them. Looking up, Harry pointed to a plane closely followed by another. They heard gunfire. Saw spurts of yellow and smoke.

‘It’s a Messerschmitt. That’s a Spitfire,’ Harry said, watching both planes battle it out in a vicious dog fight.

The tractor came to a stop. Lark song died. The rabbit skittered into its burrow and Harry thought of his mother who endured nightly bombing, and his father fighting in some foreign land.

Suddenly, the Messerschmitt belched out black smoke and spiralled downwards to crash into a nearby hillside. Harry cheered. Joyce went quiet.

Looking at her, punching the air with his fist, he said, ‘Bastard German’s a goner.’ Joyce smiled a sad smile as the stench of burning fuel drifted to them on a southerly wind.

‘Come on. Let’s take your father his lunch.’ Harry jumped down into the field holding a brown paper bag containing Mr. Steven’s cheese and pickle sandwich and a beaker of wild strawberries.

Joyce, catching hold of Harry’s free hand, kept her gaze away from that pall of smoke.