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    ‘I know you’ll be fine. You’re a sensible girl,’ Jean said. ‘But I wish you were a little older.’
    Kitty lifted her chin. ‘I’m almost twenty.’
    Jean smiled and lowered her voice so her children couldn’t hear her. ‘I’ll tell you one thing, Kitty Martin. You’re too pretty by half. Don’t go making eyes at those Americans, or you’ll be asking for trouble.’
    Kitty wrinkled her nose. ‘Now you’re talking like my grandfather. If I believe him, the Americans are a greater threat to Australian girls than the Japanese are.’
    ‘That’s a bit rich.’ Jean smiled ruefully, and she might have said more, but the guard was calling, ‘All aboard.’ It was time to settle her children.
    Almost immediately, a shrill whistle blew and Kitty and the others on the platform began to wave.
    From the carriage windows people called tearful farewells.
    ‘Goodbye!’
    ‘Stay safe!’
    Arms waved madly as the train pulled slowly out of the station.
    A hand tapped Kitty on the shoulder and she jumped.
    ‘Gosh, Andy!’
    Andy Mathieson lived in the street behind her and she’d known him for years, but it was a surprise to see him in uniform midweek. Like most of the boys his age, he’d joined the local militia, training on weekends down at the army reserve at Kissing Point, but here he was now, with his slouch hat turned up at the side and a stripe on his shoulder.
    ‘I’ve signed up with the regulars,’ he said with a shy smile. ‘I convinced my parents I have to do my bit.
    ‘Gosh,’ Kitty said again, softly. In all the confusion and tension of the past week she hadn’t heard the news.
    ‘Mum said I might find you here, Kit.’
    ‘Were you looking for me?’
    Andy nodded. ‘I’m heading off tomorrow morning.’ Now his Adam’s apple worked overtime. ‘I wanted to make sure I said goodbye.’
    ‘Oh, Andy.’ She tried, unsuccessfully, to smile. ‘The only thing I seem to say lately is goodbye.’
    ‘Well, I can’t miss out then.’ He squared his shoulders. He was a tall fellow, nice enough looking – lanky-limbed and sandy-haired, with friendly blue eyes. ‘Can I walk you home?’
    The earnest way he asked this was a surprise. They’d known each other for almost ten years, since she’d first come to live with her grandparents, and they’d walked home from the pictures once or twice, casually, as friends, but Kitty sensed this was different somehow.
    Of course it would be, wouldn’t it? Everything was different now. ‘That would be nice,’ she said cheerfully. ‘Thank you.’
    As they left through the station’s rather grand, white-tiled entrance, the warm tropical night pressed around them, close and humid. Outside, new rows of evacuees were lining up, ready for the next train in two hours’ time. They looked tired and nervous, as if they feared something might go wrong and stop them from leaving.
    Opposite the station, a slice of Castle Hill’s rusty-pink rock face was caught in the beam of a searchlight. Andy took Kitty’s hand and, because she couldn’t think of a good reason not to, she let him hold it. She was wearing lace cotton gloves, and she could feel an unsettling heat coming from him through the open-weave fabric.
    ‘So what happens after tomorrow?’ she asked. ‘Do you have to do more training?’
    ‘I go to Enoggera first. After that –’ Andy gave a carefully nonchalant shrug. ‘I’ll be a real digger. Who knows where I’ll end up?’
    Indeed. Who knew? There was talk of men being needed in Malaya. Kitty tried to put herself in her friend’s shoes and she felt a hot surge of fear. But then she couldn’t help wondering if staying at home and waiting to be invaded might be almost as bad as heading off to fight.
    ‘I’m planning to write to you, Kitty.’
    She struggled to hide her surprise. Quite good friends at times, she and Andy weren’t sweethearts. Recently they’d played tennis together, and once or twice Andy had taken her to the