Come on you two.’ He pushed the grotesque, bottle-waving and blustering barrier to one side and the three of them left the place.

1947

…unto a land flowing with milk and honey…

(Exodus 3:8)

I

The train stopped. The guard bustled along the aisle of the near-empty carriage, tapped the boy on the shoulder and said, ‘Come on lad, we’re here. This is it, so get a move on. Haven’t got all day.’

‘I must get my suitcase,’ said the boy.

‘It’s with the luggage in the guard’s van. Come on, now. You hop out and I’ll get it for you.’ A not unkindly voice. ‘Be careful getting out, lad. It’s quite a step. Hope for your sake someone turns up to meet you before too long.’ The man looked from the carriage window. ‘Don’t like the look of this weather and you’ll find next to no shelter here.’ He looked down into the boy’s pinched, pale and worried face. ‘Don’t you fret yourself, now. Reckon someone will be along in a minute, if they’re not already here. Come on now, let’s be having you.’

The guard was wrong. There was no one waiting for him. The place was deserted. He was right, however, about the weather. He was right, too, about the lack of shelter. There wasn’t much to the station. The structure was minimal—just about big enough to carry the name of the place—a name the boy couldn’t pronounce. The ‘station’ was just a rail-siding, with little more than a sealed strip and a bench propping up the name-bearing sign. Soon the boy was soaked. He took his reading glasses out of his pocket and put them on in the hope of seeing better and peered into the persistent rain.

Time passed. He didn’t know how long he’d been waiting. An hour? Maybe more. He waited. There was nothing else he could do. On one side of the make-shift platform the railway line ran off into the rain as far as his eyes could see in either direction. On the other side of the platform a gravel road ran parallel to the rail track. There was no traffic on either rail or road. No sign of life whatsoever.