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    Friend or Foe
    Friend or Foe
    Friend or Foe
    Ebook85 pages1 hour

    Friend or Foe

    By Michael Morpurgo

    4/5

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    About this ebook

    Friend or Foe is a gripping World War II story from War Horse author and former Children's Laureate Michael Morpurgo.

    Evacuated from London, David and Tucky feel like the war is a long way away from their new life in the countryside. Then one night the skyline of the moor is lit up with gun flashes, and the distant crump of bombing miles away brings the war back to them and shatters their new-found peace. When a German bomber crashes, the boys feel they should hate the airmen inside. But one of them saves David's life …

    In the tradition of Goodnight Mr Tom, Carrie's War, and The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas, Friend or Foe is a novel that takes children to the heart of a tumultuous period in history.

    From the author of War Horse (now a major motion picture directed by Steven Spielberg) comes a stunning children’s story loved by kids, teachers and parents alike. Michael Morpurgo has written more than forty books and won the Whitbread Award, the Smarties Award, the Circle of Gold Award, the Children’s Book Award and has been shortlisted for the Carnegie Medal four times.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherHarperCollins UK
    Release dateOct 3, 2011
    ISBN9781780310619
    Author

    Michael Morpurgo

    Michael Morpurgo is one of Britain’s best-loved writers for children. He has written over 130 books including War Horse, which was adapted for a hugely successful stage production by the National Theatre and then, in 2011, for a film directed by Steven Spielberg. Michael was Children’s Laureate from 2003 to 2005. The charity Farms for City Children, which he founded thirty years ago with his wife Clare, has now enabled over 70,000 children to spend a week living and working down on the farm. His enormous success has continued with his most recent novels Flamingo Boy and The Snowman, inspired by the classic story by Raymond Briggs. He was knighted in 2018 for services to literature and charity.

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    4/5

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    • 4/5
      David and Tucky are two small boys from London who get evacuated to Devon along with the rest of their school during WWII. Both get taken in by a kindly farmer and his wife and quickly make friends with the resident sheepdog, Jip. At the village school the boys remain outsiders, and when they spot a German bomber about to crash on the moor, nobody but their hosts believes them. Eventually the search is called off, and David and Tucky decide to look for it off their own bat. Just as the boys are crossing a stream on their way back to the farm, David loses his footing and one of the German airmen, in hiding up until then, saves his life.

      I love Michael Morpurgo's writing, it is so understated yet manages to convey so much with only a few words: the deprivation faced by the people in London, especially David and his widowed mother; the love for her son that is apparent (to another mother) in the ritual of a daily early-morning apple; the heartache caused by the impending separation; the strong bond that develops between the two children as they struggle to make friends in the village school, being regarded as 'townies' and outsiders; and the inner conflict taking place inside the boys, especially David, as they deceive their hosts and help the two German airmen. In all his books I've come across so far, Morpurgo speaks to the child (irrelevant if the child is the actual reader or if it's read by an adult), and he always treats them as grown-ups, as someone who has opinions that are worth hearing, challenging their emotional involvement in the process of reading. Unfortunately the last chapter felt a bit rushed in my opinion, and the thoughts of the adults remained largely unexplored; with such a thought-provoking subject matter I would have welcomed a little more discussion of the story's morality as seen by the farmer, his French wife or the Home Guard officer, for instance.

      A tale for children about ambivalence created by conflict, and how important it is to see the human being underneath the enemy's uniform, it manages to be thought-provoking without being too moralistic.

    Book preview

    Friend or Foe - Michael Morpurgo

    CHAPTER 1

    HIS MOTHER WOKE HIM AS USUAL THAT morning, shaking his shoulder and then kissing him gently as he rolled over. It was pitch black around him, but then he was used to that by now. For months they had slept down in the cellar on the bunks his father had made the last time he was home on leave.

    ‘Here’s your apple, dear,’ his mother said. ‘Sit up and have your apple now.’ And she patted the pillow behind him as he pushed himself up on to his elbows. He felt the saucer come into his hand. His early morning apple was the only thing that had not changed since the war started. Every morning as far back as he could remember his mother has woken him this way – with an apple peeled, cored and quartered lying opened up on a white saucer.

    He felt his mother shifting off the bed and watched for the flare of yellow light as she struck the match for the oil lamp. The cellar walls flickered and then settled in the new light, and the boy saw his mother was dressed to go out. She had her coat on and her hat with the brown feather at the back. It was only then that he remembered. His stomach turned over inside him and tears choked at his throat. The morning he had thought would never come, had come. Every night since he’d first heard about it, he prayed it might not happen to him; and the night before, he had prayed he would die in his sleep rather than wake up and have to go.

    ‘You were restless again last night, dear. Did you sleep?’ He nodded, not trusting himself to speak. ‘Come on now. Eat your apple and get dressed. Quick as you can, dear. It’s six o’clock by the station, they said. It’s a quarter-to now. I left you as long as I could.’

    Fifteen minutes left. Fifteen minutes and he’d be gone. Thirty minutes and she would be back in this house without him. She was bending over him, shaking his shoulder. ‘Please, dear. We must hurry. Eat it down, quickly now. Miss Roberts said you’d be having a roll and jam on the train, but you must have something before you go.’

    ‘Don’t want it, Mum.’ He handed the saucer back to her. Only moments before he had been savouring that first bite of his apple. They were always crisp, always juicy, like nothing else. But now he felt sick at the sight of it.

    ‘You must, David. You always have your apple. You know you do.’

    He had upset her and ate it to make her happy, swallowing it like medicine, trying not to taste it. Each bite reminded him that this was the last apple.

    Once out of bed he dressed to keep the cold out. His mother was packing his suitcase and he watched everything going in and wondered where he’d be when he took it all out again.

    ‘They said only one case, so there’s only room for one change of clothes. All the things you wanted, they’re at the bottom. I’ll send on the rest as soon as I know where you’ll be.’ She smoothed down his coat collar and brushed through his hair with her fingers. ‘You’ll do,’ she said, smiling softly.

    ‘Do I have to, Mum? Do I have to go?’ Even as he asked he knew it was useless. Everyone was going from school – no one was staying behind. He was ashamed of himself now. He’d promised himself he’d be brave when he said goodbye. He clung to his mother, pressing his face into her coat, fighting his tears.

    She crouched down in front of him, holding him by the the shoulders. ‘You remember what I said, David, when I told you your father had been killed? Do you?’ David nodded. ‘I said you’d have to be the man in the house, remember?’ He took the handkerchief she was offering. ‘You never saw your father crying, did you?’

    ‘No, Mum.’

    ‘Men don’t cry, see? Try to be a man, David, like your father was, eh?’ She chucked him under the chin, and straightened the cap on to the front of his head. ‘Come on now. We’ll be late.’

    It was still dark up in the street, and a fine drizzle sprayed their faces as they walked away from the house. David looked back over his shoulder as they came to the postbox at the corner and caught a last glimpse of the front steps. He felt his mother’s hand on his elbow, and then they were round the corner.

    Ahead of them there was a glow of fire in the sky. ‘South of the river,’ his mother said. ‘Battersea, I should say. Poor devils. At least you’ll be away from all that, David, away from the bombs, away from the war. At least they won’t get you as well.’ He was surprised by the grim tone in her voice.

    ‘Where will you go, Mum?’

    ‘Wherever they send me. Probably to the coast – Kent or somewhere like that. Somewhere where there’s anti-aircraft guns, that’s all I know. Don’t worry, I’ll write.’

    Their footsteps sounded hollow in the empty street. They had to step off the pavement to pick their way round the edge of a pile of rubble that was still scattered halfway across the street. That was where the Perkins family had lived. They had been bombed out only a week before; they were all killed. Special prayers were said at school assembly for Brian and Garry Perkins, but no one ever mentioned them after that. They were dead, after all.

    In the gloom outside Highbury and Islington Underground Station there was already a crowd of people. Miss Evers’ voice rang out above the hubbub and the crying. She was calling out names. His mother pulled at his hand and they ran the last few yards.

    ‘Tony Tucker. Tony Tucker.’ Miss Evers’ voice rose to a shriek. ‘Where’s Tucky. Has anyone seen Tucky?’

    ‘He’s coming, miss. I saw him.’

    ‘And what about David Carey? Is he here yet?’

    ‘Yes, miss. I’m here, miss.’ David spoke out, pleased at the strength in his voice.

    ‘Here’s Tucky, miss. He’s just coming.’

    ‘Right then.’ Miss Evers folded her piece of paper. ‘We’re all here, and it’s time to go. Say goodbye as quick as ever you can. The train leaves Paddington at

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