Free We Five by Mark Dunn

respect, they do. But there are also conchies who are conchies for one reason only: cowardice. They won’t take up arms because they’re frightened witless by the possibility of getting themselves killed. They think they have a better chance of surviving this war if they can keep themselves off the battlefield and out of the Navy and R.A.F. altogether. These men I do not respect.”
    Jane tried not to laugh, but she simply couldn’t help herself. “Of course, Ruth, any one of these conchie cowards could get hisself gassed to death or blown to bits in his very own bed by the Luftwaffe on any night of the week. They’re dropping the most insidious bombs now. Some are timed not to go off until after the firemen and rescuers arrive! You can be just as dead here on the home front as you are in the trenches fighting for a cause. And then there’s this, lovie: the fact of what it is that you and I and Maggie and Carrie and Molly do sixty hours a week: we help make the instruments of war. In the end, any of these five conchies might woo—and who knows?—perhaps even win the hand of a girl what helps Britain do that very thing he’s supposed to be against!”
    â€œLife is full of ironies,” Ruth sighed. “ And delusions. We could all be dead tomorrow, you know. And yet we go to bed each night expecting that fate will be kind to us for one night more—that we’ll rise the next morning to gather ourselves together to take the six-thirty to the Filling Factory. Your brother passes out after his binges, assuming that he too will rise to drink another day. Life goes on—life beautiful, life ugly and unseemly, and most people can only follow the pattern of life most familiar to them and act upon the instincts that go along with it. But I am not ‘most people.’ I am not the instinctive creature you are, Jane. I fancy something different from my life, something that has nothing to do with the men I’ve told you about—something which I cannot put into words. There is something missing inside me, but I don’t know how to fill the void.”
    â€œFriendship with the four of us ain’t enough for you, Ruth—at least for now?”
    Ruth patted the top of Jane’s hand—sweetly, not condescendingly. “For the present, you’re all more than enough, but it can’t be that way forever.”
    â€œI understand. I do, Ruth. I understand because sometimes I feel the same way—about the five of us, that is. That we’re all just circling and circling and waiting to land. But whilst I’m circling I can’t help wondering if there just might be some fine-looking bloke inside the Fatted Pig Tavern what might like to get to know me a little better, seeing’s how we’re all just passing the time.”
    Ruth frowned. “Oh, I’m sure there is. I’m sure those five have already divided us all up like Christmas crackers.”
    â€œDon’t talk about Christmas. It’s just going to make me hungry. I scrambled some powdered eggs this morning, but I couldn’t eat a bite. I detest powdered eggs, Ruth, I do.” Jane sighed. She looked out the show window past the items Lyle had hung there, which seemed to make sense only to him: a small (and broken) Wilkinson Sword lawn mower, several rusty tools and other largely unidentifiable metallic oddments, and a broken pushchair without tyres. “It would be just our luck if we all ended up missing the six-thirty by only a minute or two. Then We Five would have to wait a full hour until the straggler bus comes along. Of course, I know a good place to spend that hour.” Jane raised an eyebrow impishly.
    â€œJane Higgins, sometimes I think you’re no better than your ne’er-do-well brother.”
    â€œThat is absolutely the worst thing you’ve ever said about me!”
    At that moment said brother rose, with a stretch and a groan, from his