Thomas and the Great War

Christopher

London, England was the home of a boy named Christopher. He was about thirteen years old with dark hair and a pluck of confidence in his personality, for it was no wonder that he liked trains. Especially when he would watch the express trains pull into King's Cross and the tank engines shunting trucks in the yard.

However, some of his schoolmates and his teachers thought he was going round-the-bend with this obsession that would have made him a railway enthusiast. Some would tease him about it and make engine noises that they thought would make him feel comfortable, but Christopher thought they were being rude and would turn them away. He also liked to draw steam engines and carriages down to the last detail he could find, some of them were dismissed as being crude and some of them were appreciated as being experimental and almost as realistic as Albert Speer of German architecture.

One day at the school he had gone to, his teacher, a woman of French descent gave a positive comment on his latest artwork of a LNER J50.

"Is that a tank engine?" she asked.

"Yes," replied Christopher.

"It's hard to believe you can ever draw so good," the teacher replied.

"It's more than that," explained Christopher. "I love railways."

The words brought an extra amount of silence and stares from the rest of his peers.

"Here we go again," one of them called out.

Christopher was dismayed. He felt like such a good artist, but he had to admit that not everyone in his class was a railway enthusiast. And so, feeling hurt, he left the school two hours early before the final bell rang, which meant that it would be time for everyone to go home.

So Christopher sat sideways on the wall by the railway tracks until all of the other students had gone home. As he watched the trains leaving and departing at King's Cross station, he thought to himself.

"I wouldn't mind being an engine. No feeling lonesome. No kids making you look bad. And no adults to make you look as though you were strange."

Indeed, Christopher was a little strange. So strange, he would consider himself as a male counterpart to Alice from Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass. But given his age, he wasn't as naïve like many other boys during this time of war, although he wanted to see the world beyond his horizons in a city torn by Nazi Germany, the most ruthless government in creation of all political matters.

When he saw his peers leaving the school from across the road, Christopher knew that it was his turn to go home as well. He lived in Stanley Crescent with his parents Margaret and Wilbert, now thirty-three years old into adulthood, not to mention a place in the Armed Forces as a navigator. Like several, Wilbert and Christopher had a close relationship as father and son, watching trains together, playing chess, racing each other through the park and playing cricket matches until the Invasion of Poland on September 1st, 1939 caused it all to go downhill. His leave for battle turned Christopher into a bitter boy, and his innocent world of childhood had shattered into the mature realm of becoming a preteen.

Christopher's mother, Margaret was no help either. Like his grandmother, she too was a stay-at-home who only left the house for volunteer work and to help the war effort by providing charity to the wounded since she was much too light-hearted to work with the other women who provided aeroplane parts for the RAF. Fortunately, her husband who often came for visits and Christmas holidays over the last three years, was not one of them. He had been attacked before, but only managed to get out with a few cuts and bruises.

So as soon as Christopher returned to the family townhouse near Stanley Crescent, he put down his notebook and removed his cap and jacket. He was going to show Margaret his picture of the J50.

"Mother, what do you think of this picture?"

"It looks nice," said Margaret. "Like a drawing done by your father when he was a child."

At that moment, Wilbert came in. His wife greeted him with a sad smile. Christopher gave him a glare. He hated to think that his father was treating him like he was invisible because he hardly had anytime for Christopher thanks to the war.

"Speaking of drawings," explained Wilbert. "I always seemed to draw some railway that existed in my mind when I was much younger than you, Christopher. But I never can remember that far."

"You probably don't even remember what it was like to my age," Christopher mumbled angrily.

Wilbert tried to cheer his son up.

"How can I fight in a war without your support?" he asked. "Sometimes, you have to accept that I can't be there all the time like in all the times before this war ever happened."

He checked his pocket watch, a memoir from Christopher's grandfather.

"Anyway, I should get going. I have to leave for York."

"Right now?" asked Margaret.

"If you know where to find me," answered Wilbert. "I'll just be outside of York."

Reluctantly, Christopher gave his father a great big hug. Christopher did not want him to leave, and secretly, so did Wilbert.

"You're my whole world," Christopher whispered into his ear.

After Wilbert left the house around 9:00 p.m., Christopher watched him go in the military lorry from his room and waved goodbye. Then he looked up at the night sky from his attic, wondering about his future. If a postman came to the house saying that Wilbert had been killed in action, he would never feel that warm love again.