Being a unit that was off the beaten track, they had never been furnished with a grand arsenal. Between them, there was one rifle that was taken home each week on a rota basis and an assortment of broom handles and sticks that passed for guns. Instead of grenades, they had brown paper bags filled with flour; or at least they did have, until all the mams started complaining about the stuff going to waste. ‘What would you rather have?’ Mam asked Emrys. ‘Bread or bombs?’ And that put an end to that. One week, a man from Cardiff came with a Bren gun for them to have a go on, but he’d brought the wrong ammunition so they all just stood around staring at it. Not that anyone was that bothered; the likelihood of the Germans invading Treherbert was as slim a chance as any. Ade and I climbed onto the broken brick wall at the back of the Men’s Club to watch the platoon. The early evening sun was casting a golden swathe of light across our mountain. I stared up and watched the ridges shifting.
