Free A Soldier's Tale by M. K. Joseph

said. Hullo, miss. I won’t be long, the kettle’s singing and I see you got some dry bread in the bin there so I’ll make a nice bit of toast.
    And he stabbed a slice on to a long kitchen-fork and held it steadily to the flames. Belle sat down slowly at the table and pulled off her head-scarf, letting her thick red hair fall loose around her shoulders. Saul unclipped the magazine from the sten, checked it over and quietly set it down by the dresser. He looked at the woman, who sat silent and still, watching Charlie at his domestic work. The first slice of toast was turned and finished and set down golden-brown on a plate. The kettle boiled and tea was made in the enamel coffee-pot. A second slice began to toast and the kitchen filled with the good dry smell.
    Will you be mother, Corp? said Charlie. Sorry we ain’t got no fresh milk. ’Ave to use powdered. Don’t taste the same without fresh milk. S’pose all the cows must’ve died round ’ere.
    You wouldn’t chuckle, said Saul, the fields are full of ’em, legs stuck up in the air. You mightn’t believe it, but Charlie here is an expert on milk.
    As he handed her the tea and toast, Belle broke off her introspective stare at the firelight and asked, Are you a farmer, Charlie?
    Charlie laughed, a shy wheezy chuckle, at this small familiar joke.
    No, miss, I’m a milkman. Or used to be, in civvy street, like. Back in ’ighgate, that’s in London.
    Did you have to get up early, she asked, and bring milk for the small breakfast? Such a hard life.
    Oh, it’s not bad, not bad at all. ’cept in winter perhaps. Dark they are, those winter mornings. More toast now—’ere we are. Mind you, it used to be ’arder. When I was a nipper, I used to go round with my old man, ’e was a milkman too, on the old ’orsedrawn float. Going up the Archway Road in a winter fog, and the trams with their big ’eadlamps coming through the fog. Ladling out the milk from the big churns with the brass fittings. They stopped all that, said it was un’ygeenic. It’s all bottle stuff now.
    His pinched pale face became animated as he talked, but suddenly he stopped as if embarrassed and busied himself with the fire and the toast, holding and turning it so that it was an exact golden-brown before slipping it steaming on to Belle’s plate, to be eaten with margarine and plum jam from the ration-pack. As he crouched by the fire he glanced across shyly at Belle, at her long delicate fingers busy with knife and cup, at the rich red hair shaken out over her shoulders and catching highlights from the glow of the fire.
    Watching them both, Saul realized with amusement that the little man was innocently and worshipfully inlove with her. The tea and toast was a simple man’s offering. He watched her all the time as they had their tea and chatted on about life as they had known it during the last years. British meeting French had this great curiosity for all the missing details, for knitting up the wholeness of ordinary life again. At last, he stood up and said, Well, time to be off, I s’pose. Oh, ’ere, I thought you might like these, I got plenty.
    He took out three packets of Gold Flake and a bar of Cadbury’s milk chocolate and laid them carefully on the scrubbed table in front of her. She smiled up at him with real enjoyment.
    Thank you, Charlie— vous êtes bien gentil —you are very kind.
    You’re very welcome, I’m sure, he said, with a duck of the head, and bustled out of the door.
    Saul walked with him up the path to the gate.
    See you tomorrow, Corp, he said.
    That’s right, Charlie boy. And ta very much for every thing.
    Saul watched him as he trudged briskly up the hill, waving cheerfully as he passed the Brat, who was on watch under the big beech tree.
    Some time must have passed then. I can guess at some of the many things he didn’t tell me, butnot all of them.