Free Out of the Blue by Val Rutt

gaze for the briefest of moments. His look told her that everything was and would be all right and she felt herself relax.
    Kitty rested her chin on Sammy’s shoulder and looked out of the back of the vehicle and watched the road fall away behind them. She watched the rows of houses and then, as they left the
town, the deepening blue V of sky between the hedges and trees. The light was fading fast as they approached the first village and the lorry pulled up beside the green. Kitty felt a twinge of
anxiety as she thought of Aunt Vi waiting up for them.
    ‘We don’t want to get out here, do we?’ Sammy asked quietly.
    There was a low murmuring from deep inside the transport and the sound of shifting feet.
    ‘It’s a long walk from here,’ Kitty whispered. ‘Are they going on to the next village?’
    A voice began to complain in the darkness and was met by a rally of protests.
    ‘Leave off, will you?’
    ‘Come on, Tucker – move it!’
    ‘Ahh – keep your hair on, Pop.’
    ‘We haven’t got all night, son – sort yourself out.’
    ‘There’s no budging her – what am I s’posed to do?’
    Kitty thought she had misheard but then there was another voice in the darkness – a woman’s, treacly and thick as if she were slowing down or just waking.
    ‘I’m happy where I am – I’m in heaven I am.’
    A man sniggered. The driver, impatient to be moving, revved the engine.
    ‘Come on, Tucker, get her out of here.’
    ‘Come on, girl, up you get – wakey wakey!’
    In the vying for space and shifting of bodies that followed, Kitty, Sammy and four soldiers climbed down from the lorry. Kitty stood on the road and noticed that her shoes were pinching her
toes, that she had a sore place on her back, between her shoulders, and that she was thirsty and getting a headache. She also felt a nagging anxiety and, even though she told herself that Aunt Vi
would understand, she couldn’t shrug the feeling off. She looked at Sammy, but he was staring up into the transport and frowning. As Kitty’s eyes moved from his face, she noticed that
one of the soldiers standing beside the truck was staring at her. The way he looked at her chilled her; it was not a look that required a response – she might as well have been an object in a
glass case. She wanted to walk away but instead moved closer to Sammy. He was watching the bustling movement inside the truck.
    The soldier called Tucker reached the tailgate. He had his arm around the waist of a woman who, though she was smiling, appeared to be asleep on her feet. Tucker let go of her and began to climb
out and the woman swayed until another man put his arm around her shoulders and steadied her.
    ‘Oooh!’ The woman giggled and swung round into the soldier, pressing herself against his body.
    ‘Come on – time to go home, love.’ The soldier pushed her away, then bent to lift her up and heave her out of the lorry and into Tucker’s arms. Kitty saw that her blouse
buttons were misaligned and that her lipstick was smudged.
    Tucker placed the woman on her feet, set his hands on her shoulders then took them away. He let his hands hover near her as if she were a house of cards he had just built and was willing not to
topple. She swayed, then staggered a few steps. A man yelled from the lorry and a handbag was thrown out. The soldier who had been staring at Kitty caught it.
    ‘Right then, love, you’ll be all right,’ Tucker said and turned away from her. He rubbed his palms together as he waited his turn to board the lorry behind the other men. Only
the staring soldier and Kitty and Sammy stayed put and made no move to return to the vehicle. Sammy touched Tucker’s shoulder.
    ‘Aren’t you going to see her home?’
    Tucker turned and pulled a face at Sammy.
    ‘She’s all right, bud – what’s it to you?’
    Kitty watched the woman walking slowly away in a meandering curve that would take her on to the green and towards a duck pond.
    ‘Leave her with me –