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resumed, I was hoisted to the top of one of the trailers to help load the sheaves as they were forked up.
    My memories are patchy. Little else of that afternoon remains. I think Barbara must have taken me back to the farmhouse when it was obvious that I was used up. She was certainly there at the end of the day, because she came into my bedroom and told me her father had said I could stay. She put out her hand and smoothed back my hair. I have a clear recollection of the touch of her fingertips.
    After that the days blur, subdued by the routine of farm and school. I’ll leave out my impressions of the Somerset education system. You want to know how I met Duke Donovan, and that’s what I’m coming to next.
    To compensate for my ignorance of country ways, I told a few tall tales to my classmates about life in wartime London, the unexploded bomb in our garden, the Messerschmitt that crashed into a barrage balloon, and the undertaker with the glass eye who was known to be a German spy. They hung on every word. The only enemy action they’d experienced was the distant thud of the bombs on Bath in the Baedeker Raids the year before. Otherwise, the best they could claim was an occasional glimpse of American forces driving through the village to their base at Shepton Mallet.
    A few passing GIs didn’t cut much ice with me. I was personally known to the U.S. Army. I’d been to a party— this part was true—at their base in Richmond Park. As the child of a war widow, I’d been invited there the previous Christmas for presents from a Santa with a Yankee accent, a film show, a singsong, and as much chewing gum and candy as I could stuff into my pockets.
    Puffed up with the response this had from my new schoolmates, I bragged that I had so many GI friends that I could get gum whenever I wanted.
    Fate has a way of dealing with braggers. My bluff was called sooner than any of us could have predicted. At lunch-time the next day we emerged from the schoolhouse and saw something that made my legs go weak. Across the village street, outside Miss Mumford’s general store, stood a jeep in the light khaki color of the U.S. Army. I dug my hands in my pockets, whistled a tune, and strolled on nonchalantly, but I knew my number was up. They challenged me to get some gum.
    Like the makeshift sheriff in a Western, told that Jesse James is holding up the bank, I crossed the dusty street, watched from a discreet distance by my schoolfellows. Someone shouted, “Through the door, Theodore!”
    Inside Miss Mumford’s, two GIs were buying drinks. The taller, who was Duke, was paying for a bottle of Tizer. His buddy, Harry, was eyeing the selection as if he didn’t care for the colors. He asked for milk and was told curtly that it was rationed, whether you had it fresh, evaporated, condensed, or dried. No one tangled with Miss Mumford. She offered apples, but anyone with half an eye could see that her eaters had gone soft, so Harry said he wouldn’t bother.
    That was my cue. They were leaving the shop. Miss Mumford was staring at me suspiciously. In London I’d have called, “Got any gum, chum?” without even thinking about it, but I hesitated now, standing like a dummy as they passed. I followed them out to the jeep, trying to find my voice. Then I had my brain wave. I touched Harry’s sleeve and told him confidentially that I could take him to a farm where there was fresh milk to be had. Harry glanced towards Duke, who gave a shrug and indicated with his thumb that I should climb into the jeep. I suppose you could say that with that trivial gesture Duke sealed his fate.
    For me it was the summit of my career as an evacuee. I stood in the back of the jeep and saluted the troops like Monty in the Western Desert. We made a sharp U-turn and roared away, with me moving my jaws in a chewing motion.
    The reckoning lay ahead. The wind in our ears was deafening, so I couldn’t do any explaining in advance. I could only point the direction when the