The Home Front (standard:Ghost stories, 2309 words)
Author: Ian Hobson	Added: Mar 11 2006	Views/Reads: 4172/2564	Story vote: 0.00 (0 votes)
'That should keep the bastards out.' The boards were all an inch thick and the nails all four inches long…

The Home Front 

©2006 Ian Hobson 

'Are you sure we're doing the right thing, Harry?'  Frank nailed the
last of the boards across the back door and stood looking at his 
handiwork. The front door and the three downstairs windows were 
similarly boarded up; it had taken the brothers most of the afternoon 
to complete the job.  Leaving the hammer on the draining board, Frank 
began to wash his hands at the kitchen sink. 

'I'm dammed sure,' replied Harry.  He finished sweeping sawdust into a
pile and then reached for the hammer and, with a grunt, he picked up a 
dropped nail and hammered it through one of the boards and into the 
doorframe.  It felt good to be using tools again; even if only a saw 
and a hammer.  'That should keep the bastards out.'  The boards were 
all an inch thick and the nails all four inches long. 

'What about the upstairs windows?'  Frank dried his hands on a grubby
towel that hung from a hook beside the sink then reached for the apron 
that hung beside it. 

'Good point.' Sam remarked, as he reached the top of the stone steps and
came through the cellar door. 

'They'd need a ladder,' Harry replied.  'I doubt if they'd bring one;
not to start with, anyway.  If they do, well, we'll have to cross that 
bridge when we come to it; there's no more boards left.'  He walked 
over to the fridge, opened the door, and stooped to look inside.  'So 
what's for tea, then?' The old fridge was crammed full of food and a 
pack of sausages fell from the top shelf, but Harry caught it before it 
hit the floor. 

'How about sausages?' suggested Sam.  'It would save squashing them back
in.' 

'Them'll do me.'  Frank opened the cupboard door beneath the sink and
reached into a large paper sack.  'Bangers and Mash, eh?  Just like Mum 
used to make 'em.'  He spoke as though he hadn't cooked a sausage or a 
potato for years, but he had cooked bangers and mash at least once a 
week for longer than he could remember.  'I'll not do too many though; 
we don't know how long they'll have to last.' 

'Wartime rations and blackouts,' remarked Sam, as he examined the
boarded-up widow and doorway.  'Now that brings back memories.' 

*** 

Frank peeled the potatoes and cut them into cubes and dropped them into
a pan of water.  Then he lit one of the gas rings and put them on to 
boil before reaching for the frying pan and the sausages.  Frank liked 
cooking, and had occasionally wondered if perhaps he should have been a 
chef.  He certainly looked the part with his ruddy complexion and old 
blue and white striped apron wrapped around his wide girth.  Not that 
he liked to do anything too fancy; just plain English cooking.  The 
sort of thing his mother had always cooked before she passed away at 
the infirmary. Sometimes, as Frank worked in the kitchen, he imagined 
that she was standing there beside him, nodding her approval at his 
culinary skills. 'I wonder what Mum would say about all this,' he said. 


Harry was sitting at the kitchen table, grimly rereading a local
newspaper article about the council's redevelopment plan.  Sam was 
leaning over Harry's shoulder and reading the same article. 

'She'd tell us to stay put and fight,' said Harry, remembering how his
mother had sent them off to live in the country during the war but 
steadfastly refused to move out herself, despite the bomb damage that 
the house had suffered. 

'That's right,' agreed Sam, suddenly enthusiastic at the prospect of a
battle.  'Stay put and fight.' 

*** 



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