Free A Song At Twilight by Lilian Harry

Andrew repeated quietly.
    ‘Yes. All right.’ She looked at him, trying to gauge the depth of his own distress. ‘Oh, Andrew, it’s awful. Poor Tubby. He was your best friend.’
    ‘I know.’ But he was still taut, his sorrow held like a tightly wound ball of elastic deep inside him. She knew that he would not let go easily. He was too used to this, too used to keeping his emotions under control when pilots were killed. It happened too often.
    But this was Tubby. This was the man he had started his RAF career with, the man he had stayed with all these years, the man who was as close to him as a brother.
    She made up her mind. He would have to hear her own news sometime, and perhaps it would help him to hear it now. She wound her arms loosely about his neck and smiled at him a little tremulously. ‘Well, perhaps I won’t wait till then to tell you who our visitor is. I’ll tell you now. Although I’m not sure we can really call him a visitor. Or her.’
    ‘You mean there are two of them?’ He seemed relieved to have the subject changed. ‘Why can’t we call them visitors, then? How long are they staying?’ A sudden thought struck him. ‘We’re not getting evacuees, are we?’
    ‘No – and there aren’t two of them, either. Not as far as I know, anyway.’ Her lips twitched. ‘It’s just that I don’t know yet whether it will be a him or a her.’
    ‘You don’t know?’ He stared at her. ‘What on earth are you talking about? For heaven’s sake, you must know who it is!’ He gave her a suspicious look. ‘Come on, out with it. What are you laughing at?’
    ‘Can’t you guess?’ she asked, her joy bubbling up even through the sorrow she felt for Tubby. ‘Someone coming to stay – not a visitor but someone coming to live with us – and I don’t know whether it’s going to be a him or her?’ She laid some extra emphasis on the words. ‘I don’t know if it will be a boy or a girl .’
    There was a brief silence. Then Andrew said, ‘Are you telling me that we’re – we’re having another baby?’
    ‘ Yes !’ Her smile spread over her face. ‘Yes, we’re having another baby, Andrew! It’s due next May. Or early June.’ Her smile turned to laughter. ‘What do you think? Isn’t it wonderful?’
    ‘Wonderful,’ he said. ‘Yes, it is. It’s wonderful.’ He kissed her and rested his cheek against her head. ‘Another baby. Another little boy or girl that we’ve made … it’s terrific news, darling. And an even better reason for having our party.’

Chapter Five
    Alison wasn’t the only one to wonder if they ought to be having a party so soon after Tubby’s death.
    Ben and Tony discussed it as they sat in the mess over a pint of beer. Neither had been in the air at the time, but they’d known as soon as the squadron came back that they’d lost someone. Often, when this happened, the missing pilot telephoned from somewhere else in the country where he’d been forced to land, and returned – with or without his aircraft – to jeers and catcalls. But this time, everyone knew that Tubby would not be coming back.
    ‘He was Andrew’s best friend,’ Tony said. ‘I don’t know how he can still laugh and joke with the others. I don’t know how anyone can.’
    ‘No, but we’ve got to do it just the same,’ Ben replied. ‘You know that as well as I do. We’ve seen it so many times already. There’s no time to sit around weeping and wailing. We have to get up there and fight, and thinking about what happened to Tubby – and what might happen to us – isn’t going to help.’
    ‘I know.’ They were silent for a moment or two, then Tony asked, ‘Have you lost anyone yet, Ben? Friends, or anyone in your family, I mean?’
    Ben shook his head. ‘We’ve been lucky so far. But there are four of us in it now …’ His voice faded slightly as he thought of the odds against all four of them coming through the war unscathed, then he said, ‘What about you?’
    ‘I had a