A Childs War by Richard Ballard Page A

at any given time. He had been shown Germany on the map in John’s school atlas and was worried because, instead of being on the other side of the world as he had supposed since they had to use aeroplanes to bring bombs from it, it was not very far away after all. His gloomy thought was interrupted as the lighted match set off the blue flame of the burning brandy and a general cheerfulness broke out.
    After dinner, everyone went to the front room where there was a good fire and the blackout was already up at half past three. Alex’s present from George and Edna turned out to be better than any toy he had had before. He watched his father assemble it for him on the floor, for which transaction a fairly large space had to be cleared. None of the presents given and received that year in that house had wrapping paper on account of the war effort but the store still had a toy department with a good deal of stock in it and a long cardboard box from which all labels had been removed was duly opened for the components of Alex’s present to emerge one by one. George had been through the box before and arranged its contents so that they would come out in an order that would heighten the sense of wonder. First there was a circular piece of metal with a central socket which was put down as a base, then an upright, nine or ten inches high, with a bracket at the top of it. Next a longer metal bar was produced, with a bracket two-thirds along its length to be fixed horizontally so that it swivelled round on the upright. A weight was attached to the shorter end.
    â€œThis is the tricky bit,” said George, as he connected a wire with a small screwdriver from the still vacant end of the horizontal bar through the swivel where the two bars met, to run down to the floor inside the upright, whence it was led away to a large battery at a distance. Alex was attentive to every move and he could not guess in advance what would happen next.
    â€œNow for the thing itself!” said George, and he produced from the bottom of the box something carefully concealed in a piece of cloth. He took the cloth off as if he were a magician and revealed a model aeroplane made of light metal. George explained that it was a fixed wing monoplane and he rapidly attached it to the vacant end of the horizontal bar by means of two nuts and bolts with the aid of a diminutive spanner beside which his engineer’s fingers seemed gigantic. The last job was to connect everything to a switch that he had fixed to a small piece of wood to keep it steady.
    â€œThere,” he said. “Now all keep back and we’ll see if it works.”
    Alex was told to come over to where the switch was and to take hold of the small knob in one hand and steady the piece of wood with the other.
    â€œThat’s right. Now switch on!”
    Alex did, and squealed delightedly as the propeller on the little aeroplane began to rotate and take it round the central pillar in a circle until it was going fast enough to leave the ground and fly, balanced by its counterweight.
    The flying hours of that monoplane were countless. It flew for the best part of the next hour and it was brought out at least once a day well into 1941, still making appearances when anyone remembered to obtain a new battery for it for several years after that.
    However, George had not finished. At five o’clock he asked Alex to turn the aeroplane off and gently dismantled it, putting it in its box and explaining to Alex how he would be able to get it out for himself on subsequent occasions. Then he, Graham and John moved all the chairs to the side of the room opposite the front window. The table had been brought in from the living room after the washing-up had been completed and was now moved forward to allow George to stand behind it in front of the curtains. Then he asked everybody to close their eyes and not to open them until he said so. All obeyed, including Alex, and they waited while they