@defer directive not working

[ChrisExP]

I'm having trouble with the @defer directive.
I am using Laravel Lighthouse on the back end and Apollo JS on the front end.

The Apollo docs say to use @defer as an inline fragment:

query {
    me {
        id
        name
        ... @defer {
            email
        }
    }
}

When I do that Lighthouse returns an error saying "Directive "defer" may not be used on "INLINE_FRAGMENT"".
I think that is related to this definition in the DeferServiceProvider:

directive @defer(if: Boolean = true) on FIELD

Which says the defer directive can only be used on a GraphQL field.
When I do it that way Apollo doesn't seem to be able to parse the response.

query {
    me {
        id
        name
        email @defer
    }
}

The response looks good but Apollo tries to parse it like a regular request and decodes it as if it were JSON.

The response starts like this:
'\r\n---\r\nContent-Type: application/json\r\nContent-Length: 7236\r\n\r\n{"data":{...
And the error is this:
No number after minus sign in JSON at position 3 (line 2 column 2)

Is there something missing with my setup? Do I need a special ApolloLink to handle deferred requests?

[ChrisExP]

Ah I found the answer.
I was using the recommended upload link for handling file uploads which doesn't have support for deferred fields so I need to conditionally use the Apollo HTTP link.