Page 51 of Strangers in Time

F OR K ING & C OUNTRY

H OW OLD DID YOU say you were again, lad?”

The rigid man in the military uniform looked up at Lonzo, who stood before him with his soiled cap clutched in nervous fingers, but his expression resolute. He had washed up with a stolen bar of soap, and water from a public fountain, and then nicked a set of secondhand clothes from the back of a shop. His worn-out brogues had been replaced by a pair of shoes he’d found after the most recent bombing. The owner had apparently been blown right out of them, leaving the shoes a bit singed but still far better than what Lonzo had.

“Eighteen,” answered Lonzo promptly.

“You don’t look it,” said the sergeant major in His Majesty’s Army. He was missing his left arm below the elbow, and his right eye where a black patch now lay. They were the reasons he was sitting here recruiting others to fight a war he no longer could. His trim mustache ran straight as a ruler over his firm upper lip.

Lonzo stood as tall as he could manage. “Just need me some proper food and a uniform and I’ll look my age all right. Fill out, I will.”

“And your address?”

Lonzo said immediately, “Flat Four-a, Thirteen Dapleton Terrace, Bethnal Green, guv.”

“East Ender, eh? You blokes make good fighters. And you may call me sir .”

“Been fightin’ for a while now, sir . On the streets, I’m meanin’.” Lonzo grinned.

“Fighting in a war is a very different thing, young man.”

“Right, guv, er, sir.”

“Parents?”

“Dead, sir,” replied Lonzo.

“How?”

“Me dad in the war. Somewhere’s in France, least I think. Mum in a bombin’ near the docks. She did the charrin’. The Jerries got ’er then.”

“And you live with whom?”

“Me gran. But I don’t need ’er to say it’s okay, ’cause I’m of age.”

“You have papers to prove that? Birth certificate? Registry card?”

“Got lost in a fire.” He wiped his runny nose and wouldn’t look at the sergeant major. “But it was a B card, sir, 262 was my number, I swear it.”

This indicated Lonzo was born in the second quarter of 1926 and was thus eighteen. The B card was issued to those between the ages of sixteen and twenty-one.

“Full name?”

He stood up straight and recited, “Alonzo Sylvester Rossi. Folks call me Lonzo.”

The mustache dipped a bit. “Rossi? You foreign?”

“Me dad was from Italy and me mum got some Spanish blood in ’er.”

“So, Benito Mussolini and Francisco Franco foreign, then.”

Lonzo eyed the man steadily. “Me mum were born in Stepney, same as me. Me dad come over ’ere when he was young. And ’e joined up and died fightin’ for the English, sir, so’s ’e weren’t foreign when it come to pickin’ sides. I ain’t know nothin’ ’bout them other blokes you spoke of.”

The sergeant major cleared his throat. “You’ll need to pass a physical, have the doctors look you over, eyes, ears, feet, chest.”

“I’m ’ealthy as a ’orse.”

“Can you read?”

Lonzo didn’t miss a beat. “Nuns taught me.”

“Nuns?”

“At the school where I went.”

“You Catholic?” The sergeant major said this as though that also might be a problem.

“Just smells and bells to me, sir,” said Lonzo offhandedly.

“Let’s fill out the papers, shall we? And then you can take a seat over there.”

“Right you are, sir.”

Lonzo, with the sergeant major’s assistance, did the necessary paperwork, and the soldier instructed Lonzo to wait. As he was reviewing some documents the man looked over a list that had been provided to him, along with a description of someone. He ran his eye down it and then glanced up at Lonzo, who appeared to be dozing in his chair.

The sergeant major quietly stepped away and made a phone call from another room.

Fifteen minutes passed and then someone tapped Lonzo on the shoulder, waking him.

He saw the official warrant card and the stern-looking man holding it.

“Detective Inspector Willoughby. You’ll need to come with me, boy.”

Lonzo looked wildly around, but two burly constables with their shiny buttons and tall helmets barred any escape.

“I ain’t done nothin’.”

“No one said you had, son,” replied Willoughby. “Did they?”

With a constable on either side of him, Lonzo was marched out as the sergeant major watched for a moment before ripping up Lonzo’s papers and tossing them in the dustbin.

“Next,” he called out to an assistant waiting at the door.