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He’s not sent back out immediately. They give him two days – thirty-six hours, really – before a sheepish-looking Officer Cadet finds him at the barracks to summon him to Wing Commander Wilson.
So, some forty-nine hours after being hauled out of the sea and the wrecked cage of his Spitfire, he counts it very well done indeed that he doesn’t vomit the moment the canopy closes above him.
Even better done that this time he returns in his plane, not in a surf-torn pleasure boat tinged midnight with oil. The evening sun paints the Cliffs blood-stained pink as he flies back home to England.
Though he was due up for weekend leave, before this wretched rescue mission started, he’s surprised that Wilson honors it, now, handing him a three-day pass with a grim sort of smile. Three days isn’t enough to get up north, not with the trains running as they are, but he spends his first hour of leave writing his Mum a good, long letter.
The train to Dorset runs well enough, though, with supplies and able hands needed to help with the boats still coming back from the evacuation. From the main station, he finds a truck willing to let him ride to Swanage, dropping him off in the town square. He could ask where Mr. Dawson lives, make his way there first, but his feet instead take him down to the quays.
They’re smaller, in the bright light of day, and though people bustle this way and that, the quays seem almost empty without the scrambling wave of rescued soldiers covering every surface. He walks down the length of the westernmost quay, exchanging nods with folks along the way. Mostly men and women from town; with the last of the evacuation efforts redirected to the larger ports, the small towns are left to clean up. To mourn.
There, halfway down, he sees her: the Moonstone. She bobbles a little in the soft waves, and there’s still a layer of oily grime on the hull, half-scrubbed away. As he gets closer, he sees a glint of gold just visible above the edge of the quay, between the ground and the boat: the back of a head. Peter’s head, must be.
He’s talked to soldiers and fellow airmen about that moment, the one in which your imminent and certain death is forestalled, about the great, bewildering turmoil of the flash, too uncertain for relief or hope. Those who awaken in hospitals or medics’ tents are fond of waxing rhapsodically about the charms of their nurses, angels come to bring them back to life.
In his memory, the glaring brightness of the sun, the bursting air in his lungs, the moment his nerves, nearly ready to stop fighting, scrambled back and helped pull him from the wreckage, are tangled up tightly with the glint of gold in Peter’s hair.
Nothing had ever been so solid as this unknown boy’s arm, flung far off the side of an incongruous little boat, nothing ever so welcome as the wild, uncertain grin he gave Andrew as he hauled him in, soaking and breathless.
Andrew squats down at the side of the quay. “Hi there,” he says; Peter startles, nearly dropping the scrub brush in his hand, and looks up at him. He stands precariously on a rickety ladder hanging off the edge of the quay, one elbow looped around it for support, and has rigged up a bucket with soapy water, now glimmering with a sheen of oil.
“Hello,” he says, clearly surprised. “I – hello.” He’s blinking up at Andrew, not like he can’t place him, but like his mind can’t quite reconcile his presence.
“I’ve a few days’ leave,” Andrew says, as though that explains it. Peter tosses the scrub brush into the bucket and awkwardly turns around on the ladder, hauling himself up. When they both stand on solid ground, Andrew has a few inches on him. Peter’s wearing a green jumper today, not like the red he had worn. It had helped, the crimson of his jumper, had helped Andrew think of something other than blood.
“I’m glad you’re well,” Peter says. He holds his hand out to shake, then looks down at it, like he’s embarrassed; Andrew takes it firmly, just holds it for a moment before giving it a shake. His own hands are still scabbed across the knuckles and bruised in the meat of his palms; Peter’s feels soft against it, even with the rubbed-red rawness of his fingers.
“I’m glad of it myself,” Andrew says, watches the way Peter’s mouth ticks up, just a bit in the corner. Their hands still clasp together; he lets go. “And yourself?”
Peter ducks his head down. Andrew wonders if that’s a habit he’s developed, hiding his own pain. He’d seen it naked enough on the boy’s face when his friend died, like the world had shattered apart. “There’s a lot to do,” he says.
“Have you signed up yet?” Andrew asks. He realizes once the words emerge that it’s a cold question, personal and, depending on the answer, a little mean. Peter bobbles his head, not quite a yes, not a no.
“I’m eighteen next month,” he admits. He looks at Andrew, a bit sidelong, as if to see if this surprises him. It doesn’t, not really; he’d thought him young, so golden and sweet, and perhaps it makes more sense that he waits not out of uncertainty but simply age.
“Will it be the RAF?” Andrew wonders if Peter’s brother, the one who went down so early, if he had the same way of looking up at a person, easy and unabashed; he wonders if they ever met, in those early days.
Peter shakes his head. “I think the Navy,” he says, looking up at Andrew. Andrew makes a show of screwing up his face in distaste before giving the boy a smile.
“Good man,” he says, thinking of reaching out, clasping his shoulder. He waits a moment too long, then does anyway, thumbs the crease of Peter’s shoulder joint through his jumper, hopes it doesn’t seem patronizing. He’s seven years older, has been serving for three, and wishes quite suddenly to be as young as Peter again. To see things through eyes only just learning the pain of the world.
Perhaps that’s not fair, though; Peter has lost a brother, a friend, saw as well as Andrew did the men get caught up in flames in the middle of the Channel.
Peter looks at Andrew’s hand, then up at Andrew himself. Teeth worry at his lower lip.
“Will you come to the house with me?” he asks, finally. Andrew lets his hand fall away, feels his heart thud a bit too fast. “Dad will be happy to see you,” Peter adds, a bit hastily.
Andrew nods, says, “Yes,” hoarsely. Peter looks at him for a long moment before setting off, and under his gaze Andrew feels an unaccountable heat rise up his cheeks.
++
Peter pauses at the door of a neat brick house. “If Mum cries, it’s not your fault,” he says. “She cries at every RAF uniform.” Honestly, it seems a sensible enough response, Andrew thinks. There are days when the flash of the right colored hair above the edge of a collar or an almost-familiar grin tilted sideways under a cap sends his eyes stinging. He doesn’t tell Peter that his father, too, likely cries, that he’d noticed how little he could look at Andrew once he was on board.
They scuffle inside, scraping their boots, but Peter’s called-out greetings go unanswered. “They must be in town,” he says to Andrew, a little apologetically. “Everyone’s been helping with – with everything.” He supposes it must throw a town like this into a bit of upheaval, the tromping through of hundreds of worn-out soldiers and seamen, the loss of fishermen and schoolteachers – and schoolboys – out on the sea. “Will you have tea?”
Sitting in the Dawson’s cozy kitchen, at a table scarred by years of use, Andrew feels over-large and gangling. He’s not eaten anywhere but a crowded mess hall in what seems like years. He’s thankful, at least, that Peter pours him tea in a sturdy stoneware mug, not one of the delicate teacups lining the shelf behind his head. As he sits, Andrew removes his cap, sets it to the side, and brushes his hair back.
“Do you have family hereabouts?” Peter asks, and Andrew nearly laughs, stops himself. He does really take things in his stride, Peter does; how unaccountable, how unexpected.
“No,” Andrew shakes his head. “Home’s too far for a three-day pass. I thought I’d –” he pauses, bites his lip. “Pay my thanks, I suppose.”
“You don’t need to,” Peter says, very earnest. When Andrew pulls his gaze up, Peter’s brow furrows. His hair, more greasy and lank than it had been that night, falls against his forehead.
“No?” Andrew says. He curls his hands around the mug; the heat is good on his still-injured palms.
“I just mean –” Peter shakes his head. “I am glad you’re well, though,” he says. “Or – you are?” His eyes have dropped to Andrew’s hands, like he’s noticing them for the first time. He reaches one hand across the table, stops just short of touching.
Andrew smiles, stretches his fingers to show that they’re still working just fine, despite the ugliness. They bump against Peter’s outstretched hand, and he lets his fingertips just brush over the tender scabs on the back of Andrew’s knuckles. “Yes,” Andrew says. He’s alive, at least, and through another mission. They think Farrier might have been captured; Andrew missed his voice in the air. Missed him, all of him, on the ground. But he himself is alive, at least, and here in England, and Farrier might come home someday.
“I didn’t know if I’d ever hear anything about – any of you,” Peter says.
“I’m glad I came, then,” Andrew says. He is, he thinks: glad to sit in this sweetly domestic kitchen, to see the industrious bustle of the town, to sit across from this somber, pink-cheeked boy. He looks at him, for a long, steady moment, tea forgotten, and watches the way Peter’s eyes bravely hold his own, even as his mouth trembles a little.
“Would you –” Peter says, still looking at him – “would you like to see the house?”
It’s an unremarkable little house, very similar to his parents’ own except for the sea-salt smell in the air and the amount of well-thumbed books tossed on every surface. On the mantle in the parlor sits a pair of framed photographs, of Peter a year or two younger and of his brother, in RAF uniform. The brother has dark hair to Peter’s golden, but across the photographs they share a smile that reaches their eyes.
Upstairs, Peter awkwardly pushes open the door to his own bedroom, a cheery, garden-facing room with curtains pulled open to the afternoon sun. Books are stacked on the corner of his small desk, and his narrow bed is made with a plaid counterpane. Peter must see him notice the little pile of comic books on the side table, because he flushes crimson and moves as if to step in front of them. Andrew wonders if he was ever this young, really.
He stops looking around, looks square at Peter instead. Peter licks his mouth, looks up at him; he takes a long breath, like steadying himself. They’re standing close together, already; Andrew found himself following only a step behind as Peter showed him through the house. Yet, Peter takes one step closer, still looking at him.
He wonders if life will be this simple again; knows it cannot be. It isn’t even simple now, it only feels so with the afternoon sun lighting Peter golden, determination writ across his mouth like it was when he crashed through the canopy of Andrew’s plane and reached his arm down to a drowning man. Lifting one hand, Andrew cups his bruised palm around the warm, narrow rise of Peter’s neck, feels the startled breath he takes and the way he leans into his touch.
Peter thrusts his chin up first, bringing their mouths closer, and for a wild moment Andrew knows he’s the bravest boy he’s met. So he kisses him sweetly, not at all like warfare. At his hip, Peter’s hand clings tightly, twisting the fabric of his uniform tunic into his fist, but his mouth opens up like he’s tilting toward the sun.
Below them, a door slams shut. They break apart, Peter’s mouth panting and wet and Andrew’s hand still clinging to his neck. Mr. Dawson’s voice carries up the stairs, calling out for Peter. Under Andrew’s hand, Peter’s pulse jumps, wildly; he rubs his thumb across his flushed-red cheekbone and then drops his hand away. The sun will set soon; already it paints him rosy.
“Will you stay for supper?” Peter says, eyes still on Andrew’s, still determined. In that moment, he doesn’t care about won wars, but he thinks that with the resolution of sun-golden boys they might just survive.