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the journey had begun. With an explosion that shook the air, the train’s engine began to work up steam into white clouds, forcing smart ladies on the platform to turn their faces away from the blasts of grit. A conductor in a blue uniform and cap paced up and down the platform and then, at some signal that I did not see, began to blow hard on his whistle to get all of the excited soldiers on to the train in time.
    ‘Darling,’ Madam hugged Master Phil who towered over her from all the growing he had done, ‘come back soon!’ She stepped away from him and clasped her fingers together.
    ‘Philip.’ Master offered his hand, although some of the other fathers were hugging their boys. ‘Keep your head down, son. Rosemary,’ he turned quickly to gather Miss Rose who was making eyes at a young man nearby, ‘come now, say your goodbyes.’
    Miss Rose flung herself at young Master Phil and then raced off to be with her school friends. I waited a little way behind Master. I was the only black person standing with a white family.
    The station entrance was behind me, I could slip out, no one would know. I could say that I went back to help my mother Miriam with tea. Yet it felt good to be part of such a crowd, even though I was an outsider. There was laughter and crying all about, and children waving little flags. I wondered what it was about war that made people laugh and cry at the same time. Perhaps crying always lies behind laughter but only shows its face when we say goodbye.
    Three soldiers with bugles lined up in front of a carriage and began to play a short tune – Madam told me later it was called a fanfare – that made the crowd cheer. ‘Ada?’ Young Master Phil was looking for me, and I went and stood in front of him.
    ‘I will miss you, sir,’ I said, raising my voice over the noise, and offering him my hand. ‘Good luck to you, sir.’
    And then young Master Phil did a strange thing. He opened his arms and he leant down and hugged me. For a moment I felt his cheek against mine and the prickle of his beard where he had forgotten to shave, and then he was gone, shouldering his bag and leaping up the steps to the carriage.
    I felt Madam’s hand on my shoulder. I stole a look at Master. He was staring at Master Phil on the train, and frowning.
    ‘All aboard,’ shouted the conductor and blew a further blast.
    The buglers tucked their bugles under their arms, grabbed their bags and rushed on board as the train began to edge forward under a balloon of smoke. All around us, people on the platform called out to their boys who leant out of the windows and sang and banged the sides of the carriages in time to a song I had heard on the radiogram at Cradock House. ‘ We’ll meet again, don’t know where, don’t know when …’
    Ladies who had turned their faces away from the smoke now looked back, and wiped their eyes with lace handkerchiefs and waved gloved hands. The train blew its own whistle in a high screech, higher pitched than the conductor’s whistle. A group of children nearby squealed and clapped their hands over their ears. Dark blue pigeons took off from the beams under the station roof.
    I turned to look at Master again, to see if he was sad he had not hugged his son like the other fathers had, and found that instead of watching the packed train carry Master Phil to where Mr Churchill was sending him, Master was staring at me.
    * * *
    I have no father.
    Well, perhaps that is not right. I have no father that I have ever seen. He must be somewhere, living at his home or with the ancestors, but I have never known him. Mama does not talk about him, and he has no face for me. Madam and Master don’t talk about him and young Master Phil and Miss Rose have their own father and do not seem to think it strange that I can’t show them a father of my own.
    The day that young Master Phil left made me think of my father again. Madam was a second mother to me, but Master was too busy to notice me enough to be a