Blue Skies and Gunfire
Josie has led a life poised on the edge of what she perceives as the excitement of the Second World War – toying with an unreliable but attractive young man, surrounded by the detritus of war, waiting to fulfil her dreams of going to Art school. When she is evacuated from London to her aunt and uncle’s farm, the boredom she anticipates never materialises.
Instead, she is plunged first into a companionable and affectionate relationship with Jumbo, the youngest son of a local and distinguished family, whose attempts to follow his brother Chris into the RAF have been thwarted by the loss of a leg in a motorcycle accident from which Chris emerged apparently unscathed.
This ability to appear unmoved by traumatic experiences becomes a façade as Chris endures the stress and exhaustion of war and his subsequent affair with Josie gives him temporary solace from his anguish but deep shame at the impact he has had on her relationship with his brother.
As all three characters struggle with the strength of their feelings and the wounds of betrayal and loss, Peyton conveys with frantic clarity the hothouse of emotion generated by the immediacy of war. When both soldiers and civilians alike are on a taut wire stretched thinly between life and death, the rules of emotional engagement are, of necessity, distorted. The dichotomy within the title perfectly represents the tensions of this novel – a disturbing but richly evocative narrative which illustrates the human cost of war.