CHAPTER 46

How Life Changes: Part B

Sunday September 21st 1947 - Wednesday September 8th 1948


Of course, I had to ring the doorbell of the darkened house as I hadn't taken my front door key to Switzerland.  After a wait, my finger poised to give another ring, Pa cautiously opened the door clad in pyjamas and dressing-gown.  The next thing I knew I was being enveloped in a great bear-hug.

     “Thought you were coming home tomorrow.  But it is tomorrow I suppose,” Pa said when he let me go and I struggled to get my breath back.

     “Couldn't stay away, but I'll tell you everything in the morning.  I need my bed,” I said.

     He looked a bit concerned.  I'd been leaning on my walking stick and almost dropped it when he clutched hold of me.  “Are you OK?” he asked, “Is your leg alright?”

     I assured him it was, I was just tired.

     He laughed.  “You can sleep in and I'll tell your mother not to disturb you in the morning.”

     Between us we just put all my belongings, which the cab driver, noticing my stick, had kindly helped to pile up on the doorstep, into the hallway.  I crept up the stairs thinking I hadn't better wake Ma up.  No way.  Ma was standing on the landing and I was hugged again.

     “In the morning,” I whispered and made my way to bed.

     I didn't know why I was so tired.  Relief after a long journey, perhaps.  The boat trip had been a bit rough and wasn't helped by Tony, who, noticing I was a bit green around the gills, announced the best cure for sea-sickness was to suck on a large lump of fatty bacon while looking at a jar of bull's eyes pickled in formaldehyde.  The sight of those objects in the Biology lab had set off a slight case of retching in poor old Danny Ross even though he was a 'great lummox' and, at the time, was very bravely military in his Cadet uniform.  I threatened Tony with all sorts of testicular retribution once I was on terra firma but he sat serenely puffing on one of the stinking French cigarettes he'd bought on the station.

     I'd asked him why he'd bought them and he said he needed a trademark when in Cambridge so he was going to practice smoking on the boat first.  If fat bacon and bull's eyes didn't quite make me heave the stink of Gauloise certainly gave me the pukes.  I slunk off to the back of the boat but was assailed there by the fumes from the funnels.  Shit!  Merde!  Scheisse!  Schyss!

     I was glad when that particular bit of the journey was over.  I had found that not looking seawards seemed best and slowly my queasiness subsided.  Tony did look a bit green himself which was probably more due to the cigarette than the rolling of the boat.  We then crawled up from Dover to London by train.  The guard came along and apologised for the slowness caused by work on the line.  I was starved by then and only managed to scrape together enough of my English money to buy a cup of weak tea and what seemed like a year-old sandwich on the station before we caught the last train stopping at Kerslake.  So, all in all, I was, to put it very mildly, tired!

     I stripped off and sunk into bed and emerged, somewhat refreshed, at ten o'clock the next morning.  Emerged to the smell of hot toast wafting up the stairs and to a bright sunny day.  Although nearly the end of September it still seemed quite warm so I just had a quick wash and slipped on an old rugger shirt and shorts and went downstairs to the kitchen.

     Both Pa and Ma were there.  Ma immediately burst into tears and I was hugged again.  All these histrionics!  Well, I had been away for two months.  She explained that she was really very happy.  She was so pleased I was back although she'd had two letters from her sister telling her all about her nephew and his friend.  I then presented her with the envelopes which held the copies of the photos of her family which Uncle Johann had given me for her.  This caused more weeping as she remembered back to being with her grandparents and parents.

     While I was eating a mound of toast after having been presented with two boiled eggs - with Pa staying silent, reading the Sunday newspaper and Ma looking at the photos again - I read the two letters.  The first must have been written soon after we arrived and was mainly chit chat.  The second was sent after Tony's first solo performance at the church so was full of praise for him.  What was evident from both letters was the confidence Aunt Lilian had in us in the way we had helped her son, Johann, to grow up.  She said it was amazing how different he was over the rather shy, hesitant lad before, even after such a short time and it was all down to us.

     Oh God!  If she only knew her 'little shy boy' all five feet ten inches, plus those other vital six inches, had wanked and sucked, had also been wanked and sucked, on a regular basis since that first memorable night.   And,  since that night, had, furthermore, willingly given his virginity to his cousin's friend and had been fucked, lovingly, ardently and soundly by both friend and cousin and then had fucked both cousin and friend, enthusiastically, passionately and affectionately, on succeeding days.  He had certainly emerged from whatever shell he was in and had most certainly become a quite different Johann from that quiet, reserved lad first met on Basel station, but showing overtly now his underlying good nature, kindness, tenderness and thoughtfulness, all combined in a most delightful character.  As Tony said, a boy he could fall in love with very easily!

     It was true.  But, it wasn't just from those important boyish sexual encounters he was experiencing.  Both Tony and I had remarked on how Johann was emerging, a bit like a butterfly from a chrysalis.  We had somehow unlatched the door hiding his inner self.  The strict life at school, especially, had closed the shutters to his true soul.  I think we had done a lot to help him find himself by the jokes, the way he saw our friendship and the way we had, in general, included both him and Pascal in our friendship as well.  Finally, there was that momentous occasion when the two bullies had revealed themselves as just vulnerable and I think this had helped both him and his friend Pascal to realise that such 'types' were inherently weak.  Yes, we had also helped Pascal as well and no doubt Johann would develop that close relationship, perhaps by teaching him at least one more delight, but if not, they were even better friends now anyway!

     I was then cross-questioned about my knee.  I held my leg out to show the much smaller crepe bandage on it now.  Aunt Lilian had mentioned I was seeing the Professor and having massage.  Both Pa and Ma were relieved when I said it felt so much better, I limped a bit and I was still wary of doing anything too violent in the exercise line.  Pa laughed and pushed another letter towards me.  It was a command to attend for a medical examination prior to possible call-up for the Forces.  Apparently even with the War over and demob taking place there was still the machinery in place for all eighteen-year-olds to be processed and there was the prospect of compulsory National Service coming in.  A letter had arrived the week after I went to Switzerland but Pa had opened it and had contacted Mr Foljambe's secretary who had arranged for him to collect my X-ray photos to show the medical panel and then Pa had written to the powers that be to rearrange the date.  I now had to attend the local Territorial Army Drill Hall at 10 o'clock on Friday  September the twenty-sixth.  I groaned.  Would this mean having to join-up before I went to Cambridge?  Pa said in any case he thought my knee injury would keep me out, but the wheels ground so slowly I would be at Cambridge anyway a fortnight after that.  

     There were other letters for me.  Firstly, from Dr Blake inviting me to come up two days early as he wanted to talk to me about certain arrangements which might be to my advantage.  Pa said he would drive me to Cambridge and, in any case, had already been granted extra petrol coupons for the journey and if Tony wanted to go the same day he might squeeze both of us in if there wasn't too much luggage!  That meant I would be installed on Monday October the sixth ready for term starting on the Thursday.

     The next letter was quite momentous.  It was from the Ministry of Education.  I had been awarded a State Scholarship on the results of my Higher School Certificate examinations!  So, no worries about fees.  There was also a cash payment to come.  A third letter was from the Director of Education of the County confirming the Scholarship and awarding me a further forty pounds a year towards living expenses, half paid on account.  Beer money, Pa said!  I had better open a proper bank account and deposit the cheque enclosed!

     Then there was one with an American stamp on it.  Uncle Alfred had sent colour photos of me attired in the Cameron kilt with a note that both Chuck and Sam were envious.  He said the Hamiltons were an old Scots family and someone had emigrated to the States in the early 1800's.  There was a letter for Ma from her sister and a general invite for us all to visit when we could.

     Finally, there was a note in quite familiar writing.  It was from Matt.  Ma had already said he'd come round to see me but, of course, I wasn't there.  She said he looked so happy and he'd been promised further training after Easter.  In the note he said he had finished his training at the Naval College and he had been commended by the Commandant.  He had missed seeing me as I was in Switzerland and was now off for a six-month stint on a frigate and would be home for Easter.  He hoped to see me then.  It was signed 'Matthew Ward  Sub-Lieutenant RN'.  My, my!  Matt had succeeded in his major ambition.  To follow in his father's, grandfather's and great-grandfather's footsteps!

     The next thing was to tell them about my new suit and other clothes.  Ma said her sister was very naughty, 'mechant', for buying such things for us.  She had another weep when I paraded in my finery.  Pa was most complimentary about the tailoring and said he wished he had such a good suit.  Cheeky me said he could borrow it as long as he didn't spill any food on it.  Actually we were now exactly the same height and looked very much alike in build.

     Pa asked had I had a letter from Mike?  I said I hadn't.  He then said that Mike was now in Rome.  He had passed all the tests at the seminary after his two years there and was now starting further study in Rome before he would be ordained in some years time.  The O'Brien family, father, mother and his two sisters still at home, Maureen and Anne, had gone to London to see him as he crossed London to catch the boat-train from Waterloo station.  Pa said he was in a group of about ten under the eagle-eye of a priest and had sent good wishes to all his friends.  He had said now he was out of the seminary he would be able to write but Pa said he was no doubt very busy.  I wondered what Mike would be like now.  Gosh, he was twenty.  I missed Mike in many ways.  And now the O'Brien family were moving to Liverpool where Dr O'Brien was going to be a Professor.  Pa said Maureen was off to the Chelsea School of Art and so that would only leave Anne at home.   I also heard that Kathleen and Bridget were both expecting; Kathleen would be having a second child and Bridget her first.

     Just before lunch a very excited Tony appeared, hot foot from church and wearing his suit as well.  He wanted to find out how I was but he also had the good news that he'd been awarded a State Scholarship as well.  The Head Beak will be chuffed.  Two, at least, State Scholarships in one year for his school!  He also had the news as he'd bumped into Mrs Clarke on the way over.  Nobbo, Cleggy and Benno had all passed Higher School Cert with exemption from First MB and all three were already in London.

     We were standing at the gate when Tony was just going home when Mr and Mrs Buchanan came along also from being at church.  I had to display my healed knee and we heard that Tom had completed his training and was now with a Signals unit and loving every moment.  All the kerfuffle brought Mrs Tring across and Tony and I had to tell her about his singing triumphs.  Pa came out and told her to go and fetch her husband and everyone was invited in for a glass, or two, of sherry.  Good old Pa!

     So I had plenty to think about.  Tony's final words were for me to come round for tea on Wednesday afternoon, come early as Kats was home for her afternoon off and wanted to hear all about Switzerland.

     The rest of the day was completely in French or German.  Both Ma and Pa were amazed at the progress I'd made.  But, I had been immersed in one or other of the languages for two months.  In fact, I was now at the stage when I sometimes thought in French, forgetting I was in England.  I didn't realise how fluent Pa was in German, but he had spent four months in Heidelberg two years after I was born, with Ma and me shipped off up to Chester to stay with Grandma and Grandpa Thomson.

                              *
     Monday, with Ma and Pa at work, I lazed around.  I was at rather a loose end.  I missed the companionship of Johann and Tony very much.  I tossed myself off three times during the day, mainly from boredom but also because I had an almost permanent hardon thinking of all our marvellous times together.  I kept grinning to myself, reliving those moments seeing Heinrich and Hubert sucking and wanking and then falling into a fight.  But, I hoped it would work out for them.  They had obviously learned a lesson and from Johann's report back from school they were still friends.

                              *
     Of course, I had to try out my bicycle.  Was I safe on it?  Pa said he had got Sean to come along and check it out and other than a bent spoke all was well.  I rode into Kerslake on Tuesday, firstly to open a bank account and secondly, to see Sean to thank him.  I actually saw Sean first and he was cock-a-hoop as he had been chosen for a County boxing tournament, unfortunately after I would have left for Cambridge.  I then went along to the local branch of the Westminster Bank and who should be behind the counter but John McDonald who had left when he finished his fifth year in 5S.  We had a little chat before he ushered me into the manager's office where I was received like royalty.  My twenty pound cheque from the County and another for fifty pounds from Pa were accepted and I was told that a cheque book would be forthcoming in a day or so, Sir!  Sir!  Me not quite eighteen, being called sir by a bank manager.  When I told Pa he said he thought bank managers only called you sir when you had an overdraft and they wanted some blood out of the stone!

                              *
     Wednesday afternoon I arrived at Tony's soon after two o'clock.  Both he and Kats were there and true, she was all over me.  How was my leg?  Where did I want to sit?  Was I comfortable?  What about here on the sofa?  With a pillow?  Tony winked at me behind her back and said he had to go into Kerslake for about an hour on an errand for his father.  Could we cope? From what happened next the crafty toads had set me up.  He was no sooner out of the door when Kats was sitting next to me, stroking my leg, luckily trousered, and saying she had been so worried when I'd had my accident.  She wished she could have come to Switzerland with us because we could have had such good times together.  It wasn't long before we were in a hearty snog, with her whispering all sorts of endearments as she smothered my face with kisses.  Oh Hell!  She was as randy as her brother but with a softer body.  She was wearing a light, thin blouse with buttons down the front and my hand soon found a very soft, round breast in a rather loose bra, and when I touched her nipple she groaned and moaned in the same way that her brother did when his sensitive areas were touched.

     I was on my back along the length of the sofa with Kats sprawled on top of me.  I had a hardon by now and she kept grinding her pelvis into me.  She didn't quite ask if I was packing a pistol but she certainly knew she had me in a state of high excitement.  I rolled over until we were more or less side by side.  Luckily the sofa was fairly wide or I would have landed on the floor.  In fact, she gave me a slight shove and the pair of us landed on the rug in front of the fireplace.  Next thing I knew she had grabbed my hand and put it on the front of her rather scanty knickers as her dress had rolled itself well up her thighs.  Mindlessly, as I was still being kissed into oblivion, I pushed the panties aside and my fingers were exploring inside her.  Wow!  Wet and warm and most inviting.  I must have located the magic button very quickly as she was soon arching her back with our mouths open and her tongue just about licking my tonsils.  I think we orgasmed together - a feat I have been told rarely occurs - I shot a load in my clean Swiss undies just as she lurched and gave out a sound unlike any I had ever heard before.  She jerked herself against me, trapping my hand between her legs with a force from what must have been good hockey-player's muscular thighs, and I kept my finger well inside her until she calmed down.  Calmed down?  We were both in the aftermath of an unbridled frenzy.  Well, Kats, you certainly had shown me I liked my pleasures more ways than one!

     We clutched at each other and, truth to tell, expressed undying love for each other.  Was I being a stupid boy?  Does one say such things on the first encounter with a soft, yielding, willing, female body?  I had entered her, albeit only with fingers.  She had caused me to shoot a load of my ever abundant youthful spunk.  Was this love?

     We untangled and my greatest worry was whether my outflow would show itself .  Kats knew exactly what had happened.  She obviously knew about boys - a lot more than I did about girls.  She had felt my hard prick against her.  A much more lengthy and mighty object than the snail she'd inspected so many years before.  I was also aware of the changes in her, the abundant patch of hair which I brushed with my palm as my fingers explored and the new size of that previous small slit.  I grinned at her and said I would have to visit the bathroom.  She grinned knowingly back and said I'd also better wash my face as well if I didn't want Tony to think I'd been trying on her lipstick.

     Bloody hell.  I'd only come in my pants a couple of times before.  Oh, yes and also that time I'd shot my load in my jock strap when I scored a try!  Both the previous times had been through what I had learned from reading one of Cleggy's Dad's textbooks was called auto-stimulation, or autoerotic actions.  That is, feeling horny with a hand in my pocket and not being able to control myself.   I hadn't been able to control myself today and, in the bathroom, as I lowered trousers and pants was startled by the sight of the dripping mass of so much white gunge.  I mopped it up with a face-cloth - well rinsed out after - and dried off with a decorated edged towel.  Ow.  What was going to happen now?

     When I got downstairs Tony had, miraculously, just arrived.  He and Kats must have had some discussion as he had a mischievous grin on his face.  I had been set up and Tony was going to pay.  No!  Why?  I had thoroughly enjoyed myself and, I must admit, there was a lifting of my spirit as I looked at Kats.

     She was tall and stately.  A wonderful head of hair and an oval face with a most winning smile.  Stop, Jacko!  Are you succumbing?  Oh, yes!  Yes!!  Yes!!!

     Without thinking rationally I asked her, in the presence of her grinning brother, if she would like to go to the pictures on Friday evening!  The die was cast!!  Jacko was hooked!!!

     I can't remember what we had for tea.  I kept gazing on Kats' face.  Christ almighty!  She'd had an effect on me.  I left just after Mrs Marcham returned.  Tony saw me to the door.  I couldn't say anything.  He touched me on the arm as we said cheerio.

     “Go to the Odeon,” he instructed, “Bit more classy.”  He clicked his tongue.  “I'll come round to see you tomorrow.  Bit lonely on my own.”

     I was still a bit glassy-eyed when I got back home.  Ma looked me up and down.  I don't think I looked dishevelled but I suppose I had a bit of a goofy look on my face.  Luckily Ma didn't enquire other than did I want supper with them at seven.  I nodded offhandedly lost in my own thoughts.  Then, the mention of food must have struck a need, I snapped out of my doziness.  I was telling Ma, in French, although I had eaten at the Marcham's, of course I would be ravenous by seven.

     Ma response was that her son hadn't changed much over the past two months.  Oh, Ma but I had.  I had changed in some indefinable way this afternoon.  Wow!!

     Oh, fuck!  Fuck? Oh, it could have been!  That night in bed I was assailed with such a mixture of images I wasn't aware which set was the prime mover each time spunk gushed from my prick.  There were images of Kats and the warm body and the warm wetness of that newly explored channel.  There were images of that grinning brother of hers beneath me with my fully inserted prick in his own channel.  The images got mixed.  Which channel was I in?  My thighs began to jerk as the first wave passed though me and warm, wet spunk spurted from my tightly gripped rod.  I was panting quite heavily but flashes of all sorts of encounters raced through my feverish brain.  Matt's huge cock in my hand, in my mouth. Tom sucking and Lachs and Flea sharing their bodies with me and that warm, wet channel again and a second wave of pure ecstasy accompanied a frenzied beating of my turgid youthful meat.   I wasn't finished.  I tried shaking my head but the images multiplied.  They say a drowning man sees the whole of his life flash past.  Over the next half hour or so, I relived those first glorious young boy wanks with Alun, those encounters with my other cousins, then Mike....  Oh, Mike!  My prick went even harder as I thought of that morning I fucked him in this very room and how Roo and Matt and Tom and Tony had given me such pleasure in all the ways boys could.  My golden-haired new cousins and their trust and love, that absolute love we had pledged ourselves to.  I thought of Tony again.  The violence of those nights at Ulvescott.........

     By now I was absolutely pounding my aching, throbbing, excruciatingly sensitive shaft, yanking back my foreskin so hard on each stroke so that the back of my swollen knob was pulled violently by that thick string of skin.  My mind coalesced the image of me hammering that engorged clubbed knob of mine into Tony with a chaotic desire to fill that warm wet orifice of Kats I had felt for the first time today with those engorged, demanding to be satisfied, nigh on seven inches of mine.  I came.  A jet of spunk landed directly on my face, splashing into my open mouth and coating my chin, my neck and my chest.  I did truly pass out!  I came to, still clutching my still vibrating, hard cock.  I could hardly bear to touch it but I had to hold it tight.  My face had settled into such a grimace in those last moments it took me sometime to compose my features.  I had to keep my mouth open wide as my chest was heaving with the deep breaths I had to make.  I also had pain in my left leg.  When I shot my load my leg muscles also spasmed and pulled on my now almost healed knee.  I lay very still, willing my leg to relax.  Gradually all my muscles relaxed but I still had a bit of an ache both in my well-beaten cock and now around my knee.  I gradually bent my knee up and massaged the muscles before I could even contemplate mopping up that major outflow.

     I then lay still for the best part of an hour, still tortured by a kaleidoscope of images.  Not really tortured, but I was unsure of what I really wanted.  As I relaxed, although my poor cock remained fully erect through all this and my knee throbbed a bit, I thought of all my friendships and how much they meant to me.  Then, this single encounter had shed a new light on me.  Was I truly in love?  I shook my head.  I didn't know but I had to explore.  Was I having second thoughts about the trip to the pictures?  No!  I was a big boy now and I had to learn to control my emotions.  I admitted to myself, that like Tony, I liked boys, my age boys.  I had only had experiences with boys......   Slowly, with my drying cum mopped off me with my towel, I relaxed even further and fell into a deep, deep sleep.  I needed a resolution of my thoughts and feelings.  I knew time would tell.  Relax and let matters take their course.

                              *
     I must admit that Tony the next afternoon was a great help.  He didn't take the mickey, pull my leg or make crass jokes.   But, first he had to tell me that he'd been to have his own medical that morning.  A little fact he hadn't told me about!  He was all smiles when I opened the door to him and he informed me that he had been exempted from military service of any sort.   We went into the kitchen as he then said he wouldn't mind a cup of tea.  When I asked why he was exempt he laughed again and said he'd told the first old medic who had examined him that he was looking forward to being called up and he didn't mind Army, Navy or Air Force as there would be plenty of erks, oiks and young squaddies who would be clamouring to avail themselves of his ever rampant ten inch penis.  I recoiled when he said this as a) he was lying about his attributes and b) he said it so convincingly.  I stared in disbelief.  Thoughts of him being arrested and up before the Bench for incitement to buggery and all sorts of other heinous crimes flashed through my mind.  He must have sensed my unease.

     “It's OK Jacko, old Winston said the Navy existed on rum, sodomy and the lash!  And I'm sure the Air Force lads like to do the loop-the-loop!”  He laughed.  “Oh, come on, Jacko!  That old boy took one look and said I have a medical condition.  He sent me off to some tubby guy in a side room and he had another look and said something like Pes Planus, I think.”  I must have looked puzzled now.  “I've got flat feet,” he roared, “Big flat plates of meat.  Bloody fool said by the time I'm forty I would probably walk like a duck!  Still no military service for me.  Cambridge here I come!”

     I congratulated him on his good fortune even if it was at the expense of his future gait.  He must then have realised I was in a rather sombre mood.  I really opened my heart to him.  I knew I could.  We had developed such a close friendship over the past two months.  He knew I was troubled and listened to me very attentively as I explained that his talk to me on the train had made me think about myself.  But my time with Kats on Wednesday had confused me even further.

     “I don't know what you and Kats did,” he said when I had finished my saga, “I shan't ask but I don't think you went all the way.”

     I shook my head.

     “But whatever happened was something which you liked and it's made you think.”

     I nodded this time.

     “I think I've made my choice,” he said, “Or, I think the choice has been made for me.  You haven't.  I know you like boys.  I've sensed that.  No, I've known that for a long time.  But, you've also realised there are girls as well.  Perhaps you can deal with both.  I wouldn't worry.  You'll have to see what Cambridge offers.”  He laughed.  “Not many girls there though, there's only Girton and Newnham and I'm told they only take them if they have buck teeth and a hockey stick permanently sticking out of their blue serge drawers!   But, there's always Kats.”  He grinned.  “She's put a big note on her bedroom mirror about Friday night!”

     Sensing that I was in no mood for any sexual release we spent a very pleasant time recalling our visit to Switzerland.  Tony was now quite efficient in spoken French and said he would like to continue otherwise he was going to get rusty.  We were still sitting in the kitchen and laughing about Hubert and Heinrich's little contretemps when Ma came home as Pa was working late because the statisticians were reporting on some new results.  So, the three of us chatted in French and Ma said in no way was Tony to give up the expertise he'd acquired.

     Ma did remark after he'd gone that I seemed more relaxed today.  I said I would see what happened tomorrow.  I had my medical in the morning and I was taking Kats to the pictures in the evening.  Ma didn't quite have a fainting fit but did ask if Tony was going.  I said as far as I knew he wasn't.  Ma nodded sagely.

     That night in bed things were a bit calmer.  Calmer in that the images were not so chaotic.  I tossed myself off three times just like the night before, I made sure my leg didn't go into spasms.  Twice I came to sweet thoughts of the recent holiday.  Of my young cousin, Johann, and my friend Tony.  My third climax happened to the combined image of Tony and his sister and the feeling that my cock was somehow pleasuring all three of us at the same time.  I smiled as I wiped the third load from my chest and stomach and fell into an encouragingly relieved deep sleep.

                              *
     Ma banged on the bedroom door as she left for work just after eight.  I got up leisurely and had a bath as I didn't know what this medical examination entailed.  They obviously looked at your feet but what else?

     After breakfast of toast and honey and two cups of tea I gathered the big envelope of X-ray photos and my walking-stick and cycled off in good time for the Drill Hall.  I knew where it was as a couple of the non-Catholic boxing matches had been held there.  I remembered a large, open space with the boxing ring set up in the middle.  As I pushed open the heavy door I found myself in the dusty space now partitioned off with rows of hessian curtains about five feet high.  A desk was just inside the door and a young Corporal was sitting at it surrounded by a pile of boxes and wire baskets of papers on top of it.

     “Name?” he asked briskly as I stood taking in the rather bizarre surroundings.

     “Thomson,” I said, rather more loudly than I had intended.

     He scrabbled through a pile of papers in one of the wire baskets.

     “Jack Peter Frank,” he announced.

     I shook my head.  “No, Jacques, Pierre, Francis,” I said much more quietly, and using the French pronunciation.

     “Foreign National?” he inquired.  “Got a passport or alien's certificate?”

     “No,” I said as evenly as I could.  This was getting ridiculous.  “I'm English, born here in Kerslake.”

     He peered up at me as if I was the man from Mars.  “Kerslake,” he repeated, “Ah, yes, this place.”  He looked at the paper in front of hm.  “Sorry, mate, I only come here to do the registration.  Is this you?”

     He thrust the paper in front of me.  In a neat, clerkly hand some Civil Servant had got me down, quite correctly, as Thomson, Jacques Pierre Francis, date of birth September 30th 1929.  I saw the address was correct as well.  “Yes that's me,” I said.  I thought I would play my trump card.  “Do you think I could sit down somewhere, my leg's troubling me.”

     He took a look at me leaning on my stick clutching the large brown envelope.  He smiled.

     “Over there,” he said, pointing to two rows of brown wooden chairs on which three other lads of my age or thereabouts were already sitting.  “What you got?” he enquired rather nastily, “Bone in your leg?”

     I ignored that and walked to the chairs and sat.  Of course, I suppose I wasn't the only one who had appeared with a walkingstick.  Others had probably tried it on.  The Corporal had seen it all before.  As time passed so about twenty or so others joined the rows.    I sat and stared fixedly into space.  The others as they joined looked slightly dazed, tired, miserable, or glanced furtively up and down the rows looking rather scared.  I didn't recognise any of the names until the last lad came in dead on time.  Chater, Joshua Philip.  Oh, Big Jim's brother and Sam Catt's cousin!

     After what seemed an interminable wait, a large, corpulent, khaki-clad figure loomed.  Three stripes.  A Sergeant.  We were told to stand and progress in an orderly manner into an adjoining room.  Another Sergeant, much younger than the first, was standing there looking bored.  He waved us to chairs behind desks on which were several sheets of paper.  All he said was fill them in and you have half an hour.  He then sat down and picked up a book and began to read, opening it at a page where a piece of paper was sticking out. Silence reigned as twenty or so rather startled individuals picked up the pencils on the desks and started to scratch away.

     The first sheet had to be filled in with personal details.   Name, date of birth, schools and colleges attended, examinations taken, results.  I filled it in as rapidly as I could then picked up the second piece which was actually a small booklet with a sequence of questions of various sorts.  Some sort of intelligence test.  There were some easy arithmetic sums, then a number of items where you had to choose the right answer and finally what looked like picture puzzles.  I was finished well before the half hour was up and idly glanced on either side of me.  Neither lad had got very far.  One was just starting on the booklet and the other looked as if he was stuck on the problem dealing with opening and closing lock gates to let a boat through.  In the end he grunted, closed his eyes and sat still for the rest of the time.  I just sat and wondered about what I had just done.  If I'd left out my academic scholastic career putting down I'd been to the local Elementary School and been unemployed since, other than a stint as a trainee stoker at the gas-works, and then put all wrong answers to the mental test questions, what would have happened?  Get a call-up into some regiment for real thickees, or, did they take real thickees?  The lad who was still staring at the questions in the booklet sighed and put his pencil down and started muttering to himself.  Was he a thickee?

     At the end the Sergeant stood up, closed his book and put it on his desk and told us to stop writing, stand up and go and sit outside again.  We shuffled out.  I deliberately walked past the desk where he had been sitting, using my stick as an excuse for needing extra space, and peered at the title of the book.  Oh, it seemed to be 'An Introduction to Symbolic Logic'.  I wondered who the Sergeant was and what was he doing here.  I noticed he had Education Corps on his shoulder flashes so perhaps he was one of the Sergeant Testers that Billy Clarke had said he was going to be.

     No sooner were we outside and sitting again on the hard wooden chairs than the first Sergeant came rampaging along.

     “Right, stand up,”  he ordered, eying up and down the lines of rather hesitant figures.  “Get a move on, we ain't got all day!”  He fixed his eye on a short lad nearly opposite me.  “You lad, you're a bit too slow!  Stand up!”   He walked back two paces and pointed across the room behind the hessian dividing line.  “Now listen carefully.  You will go across there and you will strip down to your underpants and you will stand in a line until you are wanted.  Is that clear?”  No one moved or said anything. He sneered at us.  “Right, then!  Move!  left, right, left, right, come on, get a move on!”  

     There was no left, right, left, right, from this sorry band of pilgrims or whatever.  We shuffled round the hessian trail until we were confronted with a long, single row of the same type of wooden chairs.  The Sergeant was right behind us, muttering under his breath.

     He banged his swagger stick on the first chair.  “You will place your clothing on a chair and you will stand in front of that chair.  Is that clear?”  Not a sound.  “Get moving, then, get yourselves undressed!”

     I turned to my chair and began to put things on it.  My walkingstick fell to the floor.  The Sergeant loomed over me.

     “You lad!” he roared, meaning me I assumed, “Pick that up and place it on the chair.”

     OK, OK, you khaki-clad goon.  I couldn't help it, you puffed-up barrel of lard!  Compared with you, Sergeant Henry Gale would have been like an angel with silver wings!  I didn't look at him but folded my jacket neatly before I took my tie off and rolled that and placed it on the jacket.  I deliberately went as slow as possible and was undoing my shoelaces when the Sergeant let out another roar.  I looked round, scanning the row.  A rather husky-looking lad was just putting his wire-framed spectacles on, but being quicker than me had divested himself sooner and, lo and behold, was displaying his all to the angels.  No undies!
     “That lad there!” bellowed our mentor, “You lad!”

     As we were all “Lad” everyone looked round in some bewilderment at the source of the horrendous sound.  Then realising the noise was pointing its stick at someone else everyone turned to see who.  The husky lad, realising he was the centre of attention, went a shade of pink.  I didn't concentrate on his face but glanced down.   Well, well, from where I was standing he had a fine set of tackle, drooping low and large.  

     “You lad!  Come here!  Cover your hairy nakedness with this!”

     The Sergeant hurled these commands, together with a particularly off-white towel, just as the unclothed lad advanced up the row.  The towel landed some four or five from him.  It was my first experience today, other than that encounter with Sergeant Higgs at Ulvescott when he reprimanded me for fraternising with the enemy, with the Army manner of speaking.  Here it was designed to blast the lad and his hairy nakedness to Kingdom Come.  The lad came forward.  At least he sauntered over to where the towel had landed and, before the Sergeant could unleash another fortissimo bellow, said, in a very cultured, Public School accent.

     “I'm so sorry, Sergeant, but I was in rather a hurry this morning and quite forgot that I would be required to undress.”

     We all turned to look at the Sergeant.  His face was a picture.  If the bare-arse lad was a bit pink around the gills then Sergeant beat him hands down.  The colour rose in his cheeks, his chest heaved, but then he realised we were not yet fully in his clutches.  He turned sharply on his heel and marched off, head held high.  The husky lad shrugged his shoulders, bent down, giving the lads behind him a good view, no doubt, of his hairy hole, picked up the towel and very delicately tied it around his waist.

     We stood and shivered as there was a howling draught through the ill-fitting doors and it wasn't too warm on this late September day.  But then degrading horror was then piled on degrading horror.

     In the order we were standing in, each successive shiverer was summoned by a beckoning hand of an orderly behind a makeshift screen of not quite opaque hessian.  Here we were to be examined.  The whole procedure started with a request from a Corporal in a white coat to provide a sample 'in one of those, ducky!'.  

     As I was in the second row I had to wait while about ten youths were asked their names and were then heard piddling into jars with remonstrations of 'Enough!', 'Stop!', 'Come on, lad, you can do better than that!' and similar exhortations.

     The husky lad was now a couple of lads in front of me and the exchange between him and the orderly could be heard by all still waiting.

     “I'm very sorry, but I don't seem to be able to provide you with a specimen.”

     “Sample, luvvy, it's a sample.  When we take some of your sputum or your stools that's a specimen.  Now, lets give it a squeeze while I pour this water, dearie.”

     The sound of rushing water cascading from a jug into a basin ensued, then a plaintive squeak from the orderly.

     “Watch it, luv, you're pissing on my coat!  Keep that thing straight in!”

     “I'm most awfully sorry,” came a contrite voice, “I seem to have missed the bottle.  There's not much.   Still, there's a drop in the tray for you!”

     “Go and wait at the back,” the orderly ordered him peevishly, “If it's not enough I'll call you later.”

     The lad crashed his way through a couple of chairs and bumped a table, all the time peering myopically through his thick glasses.  By this time the rest of the line was in quiet hysterics and the lad in front of me made a most peculiar sound when the orderly handed him his receptacle.  From the shadow through the hessian I was sure the orderly manually assisted him with placing his cock to the bottle.

     It was my turn next.  There was I in my undies, walkingstick at the ready.  The skinny orderly was getting a little annoyed.

     “I'll hold that while you're doing it,” he said very waspishly, after checking my name on his list and scribbling it on the label on a bottle.

     Hold what?  Oh, my walkingstick.  He took it from me but put it behind him on a chair before thrusting a glass container at me.  I hoicked my floppy cock out of the leg of my pants and held my end over the bottle.

     “Oh God,” he breathed as it was evident that I was also having difficulty in producing anything.  The more I strained the more my waterworks seized up and my poor cock seemed to shrivel.  I just could not pee!

     “Come on!  Let's get something in that bottle!”

     He was almost flailing his arms and knocked my stick off the chair in his exasperation.   At that moment my floodgates opened and a great stream of yellow piss squirted into the bottle and, before I could stop, overflowed the top.  Unluckily the impatient orderly chose that moment to take the bottle, probably not realising I had started and was nowhere near finished, so received an extra bonus of a handful of hot Thomson water.  He went bananas.  My stick had fallen at his feet and as he moved he trod on it and it twisted and whacked the leg of the table with a resounding bang and clatter.  He was almost dancing with rage and was holding the bottle away from himself and was waving it around with pee dripping from his fingers into the tray out of which he had plucked it.  He was swearing and getting very hot under the collar.  Hearing the clatter and the hullabaloo the demon in khaki materialised.
     “What's the matter, Corporal?” he barked.

     “This soldier has pissed on my hand, Sergeant!!”

     “If you kept your hands off their cocks a bit more it wouldn't happen, Corporal!”

     With that he turned and stamped off again.

     “Bitch!” came the peevish response, “Khaki arsehole, I'll get the bastard.  He'd better not come to me complaining he thinks he's got the pox again, fuck him!”  The last imprecation came through clenched teeth while the Corporal was soaking his hands in the basin of water and then drying them on an equally dingy towel to the one the husky lad was wearing.  I stood still, not knowing if there was some dire military punishment for pissing on a Corporal's hand and bursting into laughter at the same time.  I heaved with laughter internally, at least reducing the level of retribution by fifty per cent.  He wrinkled his nose at me.  “Go on, move on, over there!”

     The last of the throng behind me were obviously very intrigued by all of this and I noticed as I waited in line for the next onslaught on my person that, being over six feet I was able to peer over the hessian barrier, and saw him definitely finger two of the flaccid organs as he reached for the bottles.  It was also interesting that no protest came from the owners, especially the one who had his foreskin retracted for him so that he would have a more straightforward flow.  It seemed that the orderly knew how to judge his customers!  Had he tried to finger mine and got a wetting as well?

     I had reclaimed my stick and then asked the lad behind me to keep my place.  I went back to my very tidy heap of clothes and retrieved the large brown envelope of X-ray photos.  It was a diversion as we then had to wait ages until I saw two elderly officer-type medics reappear from a side room.  They had either been out for a cuppa or a slash.  They settled at two desks behind a further on set of hessian curtains.  We were ushered in, one by one, names were checked and the order came from another Corporal orderly, “Remove underpants”.   I then had to stand under some gallows-type equipment and a jutting-out piece of wood was dropped on my head.  To do this the very short orderly had to stand on a stool.  From the look on his face he didn't like anyone over five feet six inches which I judged to be his height.  He sneered as he read off my height of six feet two inches and entered it against my name.  He poked me in the side and indicated I should stand between the two desks.

      Of these two medical gentlemen sitting at the desks, one was a front man, the other a back man.  That is, medic numero uno glanced casually from top of head to tip of toes, pausing briefly to gaze at the configuration below the navel.  He then signalled to the attendant orderly who had finished measuring the height of the lad behind me.  He advanced nonchalantly on me and parted my pubic hair with a flat piece of wood.

     “Clean, Sir,” he drawled as he dug the wooden spatula into the base of my dick.  I looked down at him.  A ghost of a smile played on his lips.

     “Bloody little sadist,” I thought, “I'll....”, but, before I could formulate my own sadistic remedies, the ancient medic had stood up, approached me, grabbed my nuts and demanded, “Cough!”.

     All I could say was “Ouch!”, whereupon he unclenched his hand and growled at the orderly, “You didn't check his armpits!”

     The orderly moved forward again, a really sour look on his face.

     “Put you arms up above your head,” he snarled.

     Oh God, he was not pleased.  He had to stretch up to part the hairy tufts under my arms.

     “Axillae clean, Sir,” he announced and flicked the spatula into the bin by the desk.

     “Right,” said the medic, “But hurry up with the others as we've still got a lot to see.  There's another batch after lunch.”  He looked at his watch and sniffed.  

     The other medic was writing something on a pad and stubbing out a cigarette end with the other hand as I approached his desk and waited.   I heard quite a clunk as the wood dropped onto the lad who had been behind me in the queue.  The orderly  obviously didn't like anyone taller than him even when the measured one was about five feet eight.  What's two inches between friends?  Some hope he'd ever be a friend of mine after scratching my cock with that stick!

     The medic looked up.  “Name?”  I gave it.  He twisted his fingers which I took to be a signal to turn round.  This I did in time to witness the sadist almost shearing off the next lad's tool with the spatula.  The lad gave a sharp intake of breath and I saw his fists clench.  “Clean, Sir” came the drawl, nearly making me miss the unwanted attentions of the second ancient medic who was standing behind me and at that moment took it into his head to run a cold finger down my spine.  I jumped.

     “Keep still, soldier!” he rasped.  Years of cigarette smoking had done nothing for his throat.

     Before I could interject that I wasn't yet a soldier he rasped again, “Bend over!”, at the same time giving me a shove in the back.  I leant on my stick and bent.

     “With your legs open!” came a third rasp.

     I gingerly moved one leg apart from the other.

     “Further!”

     I complied and then felt a gloved hand probing my ring.  I tensed up.  This certainly wasn't my cousin Johann's nice young prick!

     “Keep bloody still!” he rasped once again, “I can't see anything if you move around!”

     He probed again.  “All right, stand up, go over there.”
     Another orderly, in charge of an ancient weighing machine, was over there.  I was weighed and then he had to measure my chest.  As he was another thin, weedy, short character, putting a measuring tape round my chest entailed a lot of huffing and puffing and rubbing his body against mine which was more pleasure for him than for me.  Luckily I had my underpants on by then but I don't think his ministrations would have had any effect as I was too pissed off with the whole enterprise to even think of a hardon.

     “Why do they all seem so big around here?” he muttered as he drew the tape tight round my chest at nipple level.

     “Breathe out,” he muttered in the same undertone.  I did do.  “Forty inches,” he intoned.  He adjusted the tape a bit.  “Breathe in deep,” he commanded.

     I did as requested, taking in as deep a breath as I could.  He had to loosen the tape as quickly as he could.

     “Christ!” he hissed, “Forty-four and a half inches!!  How the hell did you get an expansion like that?”

     “Pure living,” I said with no more than a hint of sarcasm.

     “You've got nice muscles, too,” he whispered, “Do you do body-building?”

     “Just weights,” I said.

     He nodded and his eyes strayed slowly downwards, past my clothed equipment because I wondered what remark he might have said about my pride and joy.  His eyes rested on my hairy, still quite muscled thighs.  I tensed my thigh muscles so they stood out a bit more.

     “Oh, I wish I was bigger,” he whispered, “It's not fair.”

     I shrugged my shoulders wondering if it was just bits, or all of him, he wanted enlarging and realised I was still encircled by the tape he was holding.

     “You're holding up the queue,” I said and made to move away.

     “Don't worry,” he whispered again, “Let the buggers wait.  I like someone to talk to.  This is so bloody boring but you'd better go before Sergeant Grimes comes snooping around.”

     He unloosened the tape and entered some figures besides my name on his pad.  I picked up my stick and went back to the chair where I had left my envelope of photos.  Another poor lad was getting the spatula chopping off cock treatment and smiled wanly as I passed him.  When I got back to the chest-measuring orderly he eyed the stick then the envelope.

     “X-rays?” he asked.

     I nodded.

     “Why the fuck didn't you say, you fool, “ he said, not unkindly, and shook his head.  “If you have a medical condition you see Major Phibbs in the side room there.  Bloody Grimes should have asked everyone at the start.  Did he?”

     I shook my head.

     “Oh God,” he said, then laughed, “I'll get the bastard for that.”  He pointed to a door on the other side of the room.  “Just knock on the door.”

     I had to return past the two desks and the height measuring orderly.  I slowed up as I got near as the husky lad was under the gallows.  I listened

     “Five feet, eleven inches,” came the orderly's tones.  He pushed at the lad to get him away from the measuring apparatus.  “At least you're not as tall as that lanky bastard just now.”  He must have realised that lanky bastard was very near him.  He moved so the husky lad was between us.  I stood for a moment as if unsure of where to go.  Still with the fleshy barrier between us he went on.  “The Colonel's busy here and Corporal Talbot's got a problem down there  so I'll measure your chest.”

     As I slowly made my way to the side room door I paused again and heard the orderly.  “Breathe out  - forty-two inches, breathe in, forty-five inches.  My, you do have quite a barrel of a chest.  Do you do body-building?”  I didn't catch any reply but I wondered about medical orderlies!

     So, there I was, just in underpants, stick in one hand and photos in the other with a 'medical condition'.  I rapped on the door.  A tired sounding voice called out “Come in”.

     The room was bare except for a table, a chair and a tubby youngish man in a white coat sitting with his feet on the table reading a copy of the Times.

     “First one today,” he said, “Thank God for small mercies.  And what have you got? Syph, clap, or ingrowing toenails?”   He gave a laugh and smiled.  “Have to say that, it scares the malingerers off!”  He held out a hand.  I gave him the envelope.  He spread the photos on the table and then held each in turn up to the light from a rather grubby window.  There was a letter which fluttered out.  He picked it up and read it.  He looked at me and smiled.

     “Mr Foljambe is of the opinion that Jacques Thomson would not be fit for military service of any kind.  Very complimentary about you as well.  So, as the old bugger was my Surgery tutor at Guys I'd better take heed.  You can put your clothes on and go home.  Nice to have met you.  Not going to be a medic yourself?”

     I said I was going to Cambridge to read Modern Languages in just over a week's time.

       He laughed . “Did my pre-clinical training there.  Played a bit too much rugger though and almost got the push.  You won't be playing anything much with that knee.  Take care of it and best of luck.”

     He got up, shook me by the hand, opened the door and ushered me out.  Here I was rejected for military service and he didn't even see if my knee fitted the photos.  As I sorted out my clothes and dressed I heard Sergeant Grimes and the orderly having a real shouting match.   I was just finishing dressing when the husky lad came past me and started to put his clothes on as well.

     We looked at each other and grinned.

     “Bloody hell,” he said.  “I could have told them from the start I couldn't see the letters.  That oculist took one look at my lenses and told me to scarper.   At least I won't be called up.”

     Another 'medical condition'.  I thought I had better introduce myself.

     “You're Big Jim's brother and Sam Catt's cousin, aren't you?”  I said.

     He peered at me hard and I saw his lenses were quite thick.

     “Yes, that's right, I am, I'm Jim's little brother Josh” he said.

     “Big Jim was at my school and I met Sam at Ulvescott.  I'm Jacko Thomson,” I explained.

     He peered at me again.  “Fuck me,” he said and chortled, “That little bastard said he'd met you because you're related to Mrs Crossley, right?”

     “You've a memory for detail,” I said, “That's right”

     He laughed again.  “That little bastard should be locked up.  Gets me into fucking trouble whenever I see him!  What about coming for a drink, pubs'll be open, it's gone twelve.”

     I said I wasn't eighteen until next week and anyway I had never drunk beer.  He laughed again.

     “Eighteen three weeks ago.  Anyway can't abide the stuff myself.  Can't drag you into bad habits.  We can try that twee little Lyons tea-house instead.  Toast and beans as well, eh?”  He was in a cheery mood.  “Sorry about the display in there.  I couldn't find anything clean so didn't bother.  Gave that Sergeant something to shout about though, eh?”

     We had both finished dressing by then and went off round the back where he's also parked a bike.  A truly decrepit old thing.  He looked admiringly at my drop-handled racer.

     “Jim's just got a motor-bike so he's going to teach me.”

     As we cycled off down the road he whipped off the specs and thrust them into his jacket pocket.  He turned to me with a grin.

     “Shan't need those anymore,” he said and laughed again, “Been practising with them for a fortnight.  God don't they make your eyes ache.”

     He looked at the stick balanced on my handlebars.

     “And did they believe your tale?”

     Oh, what!  He'd fooled them into thinking he was so short-sighted he could hardly see and he was wanting to know how I had bamboozled the medics!

     “I actually broke my knee-cap falling off my bicycle and I have the X-rays to prove it!” I said rather haughtily.

     “Good for you, so you're not for enlistment, either?”

     I shook my head.

     He laughed.  “Well I had to find something.  It was either the glasses or a drop of glucose up the old wee-wee pipe and Jim said that was a bit dangerous as you just had to have the right amount for the widdle test.”

     I laughed and said I'd peed on the orderly's hand.  But what was the glucose for?  Oh, yes, they tested the pee for sugar to see if you had diabetes.  Mr Coles had explained about that when we were doing foodstuffs and digestion.  But how would you get it up the inside of your shaft?  Who knows?  He might say.

     He giggled.  “Good for you.  I heard him squawking to that old Sergeant after you did it.   Even brought a smile to the face of that crusty old sod behind the desk.   Christ!  I couldn't hear what he was saying when he was holding on to my knackers.  I didn't hear him say 'Cough' and thought he said 'Off' and I was just about to make a run for it when I realised he was still gripping my family jewels!”  He laughed.  “What a performance.   When I had my turn with the bottle that screaming idiot held my end as he didn't think I could see the bottle.  Gave me a right squeeze, too.  Gave him more of a thrill than it did me, I bet!  I was trying to get my todger out of his grip so missed the bottle and peed on his coat!  What a bloody laugh!”

     We were at the Lyons teashop by then and parked our bikes outside and found a quiet corner.   The Nippy took our order and we settled down for what turned out to be a long and very informative chat.

     He stretched his legs out under the table and sat back.  “Glad that's all over!” he said with a smile.  “Bet you're glad too, eh?”

     I nodded.  He grinned back.

     “So what did the little sod tell you about me?” he whispered across the table.

     He could only mean Sam.  What should I say?  What could I say?  He was such a consummate fraud himself.  He'd managed to have a non-existent 'medical condition' and he'd got away with it.  I had a real 'medical condition' but had been subjected to at least three snide remarks.  But, mine was true.  And I had been turned down quite legitimately.  Bugger him!  I would be honest.  Or, at least, I would dangle him on a string for a bit to begin with.  I knew, if Sam was truthful, he had taught Sam to suck cock and if that was true his instruction had led to great mastery of the art!  And there was the ban!  And the school!

     “Oh, Sam told me you went to some God-awful school,” I began.

     “Too right!” he interrupted, “What they couldn't teach you by clouting your head they shoved up your arse with a stick.”  He laughed, “But they didn't teach us much anyway except to march up and down in straight lines!  Big on discipline, though!”

     “Sam said...”  Gosh, I was beginning to sound like Flea and his 'Potty says...'    “....it was a school for difficult boys.”   A bit of a euphemism I felt.

     He laughed again.  “Yeah, we'd all been in a spot of bother or something.”  He leaned further over the table.  “I can tell you the truth, in my case it was a mistake.”

     Oh, yeah, I thought.  I raised my eyebrows.  Just then the Nippy brought our order and fussed round the table getting very close as she laid the plates out, followed by the cups, saucers, pot of tea, etc.  No sugar.  She wrinkled her nose when she said that.  Of course, rationed!  She sidled away having managed to bump into both of us and walked off with her bum, supposedly provocatively, swinging from side to side.  Two rabbits in a sack I thought.  I suppose she thought two virile young men needed a show of femininity.  Josh waited until she was well out of earshot and in the meantime we both had a mouthful of the hot toast and beans.  He swallowed.

     “Yes, as I was saying, before Miss Borgia there interrupted me, it was all a mistake.”  He chomped through another mouthful.  “Christ, I was only seven.  I was in one of Dad's barns with a friend and we were flicking matches.  You know, hold the box with a match resting on the striker and then flick it away with the other hand.”

     He looked at me for confirmation.  Yes, I knew.  At about the same age I had wasted at least half a box of matches doing the same thing in the back garden until Ma banged on the kitchen window.

     “Of course, my so-called friend flicked one match too far and it went into a pile of hay.  That caught alight and he scarpered and one of Dad's hands came in and put it out and dragged me off to Dad.  The bastard didn't like me anyway 'cause I'd filled his rubber boots with water one day.”  He shrugged his shoulders.  “C'est la vie, as they say in Frog land.”  He grimaced.  “Next thing I knew I was bundled off to Cartlands and it's reputation for knocking sense into naughty boys.  Stayed there until this year.  Learned bugger all!”

     'Learned bugger all'.   I thought from what Sam had told me that was correct, perhaps with a 'to' between 'learned ' and 'bugger'!
     I was eating steadily through my plate of grub and waited while he took a gulp of his tea.

     “Oh, yes,” I said, “Didn't you have Colonel Osbourne's grandson there?”

     Josh looked up and eyed me very keenly.

     “Yeah, Ozzy was there.  What do you know about him?”

     “Nothing really,” I said, knowing full well from Sam's story he liked his cock sucked nightly.  “Sam did say he was always in trouble.”

     Josh sniffed and took another swig at his cup of tea.  “Poor bastard,” he said slowly, “None too bright.  He was our cubby boss for four years 'till he left.” He looked at me as I, too, took a swig from my cup.  “That's our room prefect.  He's in the Army now.  He's just a squaddie  - and his father's an officer.  Suits him though.”  He sniggered.  “Brains are all in his bollocks and he's not too well-hung at that!”

     I laughed in concert with him.  Josh shook his head, then looked at me with a bit of a smile on his face..

     “You know, really if there was justice it should be Sam at that school.”

     I stared at him across the table.  He'd said that with such sincerity.  “But he said you were banned from staying at your Aunt's with him because you were a bad influence on him.”

     He looked truly disheartened.  “I loved staying there but Aunt Mattie won't have me at all.”

     “Potting shed?”  I said quietly.

     He nodded.  “Let's finish this and I'll tell you outside.”  He looked at me and gave a ghost of a grin.  “He told you?”    I nodded.  “...And he tried it on you?”  I nodded again.

     We finished our lunch with a change of subject.  I did tell him I was off to Cambridge and he said he was starting at an Agricultural College next week.

     “Dad's bought the farm next to ours and he says I can manage it when I've done the course.  Jim doesn't want to farm, he'll go into partnership with Uncle Lawrence when he's finished his course.  I love being on the farm.”

     “I don't know what I'll do when I finish at Cambridge,” I said, “Teach probably.”  I finished my cup of tea.  “I've just been to Switzerland for a couple of months.  Tony Marcham came with me.  He was in the Scouts with Jim and Sam's been to camp with them.”

     He grinned.  “And I've heard the tales,” he said.  “Marcham's a pal of yours.  Is he?”

     I nodded.  “Yeah, we go back to Junior School days.  In fact I'm taking his sister out to the flicks tonight.”

     He gurgled.  “Well, well, the famous Kats, eh?  She's a pal of my cousin Bella.”

     I peered at him.  “You do have an extended family, don't you?”

     He laughed.  “Yeah, all live in the area.  Farming, vets, seed merchants, agricultural machinery, you name it, our family's there somewhere.  Anyway, Bella's mum is my mum's sister.  She's quite a girl and so's Kats!  Best of luck there, mate!”

     I didn't enquire further as we had both finished.  The rather more than curvaceous Nippy came and cleared the table and left the bill.  We divided it in two and both left a tip for the waitress.

     As we exited the door Josh turned to me and whispered very confidentially “Bet she'd like a bigger tip than that!  On the end of a long thick rod, eh?  Practically stuck her bosom in my face when she cleared the table.  Must be thirty though.  Bit old for me.  But if it's on offer, who cares.”

     Oh, true, she had also brushed my shoulder with her rather well-padded frontage.

     “Women like that can't get enough of it,” he continued, “Not that I would know.  What about you?”

     I shrugged my shoulders.  Was he fishing?  The shrug could be interpreted as positive or negative I supposed.  Josh wasn't finished.  He was clenching his buttocks.

     “Bloody hell!” he said with some emphasis, “That old geezer this morning had his finger up my ring.   Bloody itches now.  Do the same to you?”

     I nodded and laughed.

     “God!” he went on, “What with that other one grabbing me balls and that  fey little creature holding on to me todger it was a fair old pantomime, eh?”

     All I could do was grin at him.  We had reached our bikes.  He looked at me craftily.

     “Jim told me about some big black lad who went for his medical.  You know what they say about them?”   No reply was necessary.  “He undressed and there it was, all hanging out nearly down to his knees.  The first quack took one look, reached down and pulled back his skin, then pulled it back down again.  He shook his head in wonderment.  Then he called over a second quack who did the same.  Neither had seen anything so big before so they called over all the medics.  They all reached down and pulled his skin back and then pulled it forward again.  'If you're doing that for science, it's OK' the lad drawled, 'But if it's for my pleasure do you mind doing it a bit faster!'.”

     I laughed dutifully.  I'd heard it before.  Several times.  It was one in Prosser's extensive repertoire, together with about six or seven verses of the Good Ship Venus which I'd also heard from Rhys.  Oh God!  I'd found in Switzerland that jokes were universal - almost.  After the monkey and the plums Johann was regaled with
           'The cabin boy's name was Kipper,
           He was a little ripper,
           He filled his arse with broken glass,
           And circumcised the skipper!'
     At least he hadn't heard that one and Tony and I spent a happy half hour providing a commentary on it.

     Ice was broken.  Potting sheds had been mentioned, now a good, ripe joke.  I was ready for any more revelations.  We straddled our bikes and cycled slowly up the main street towards the market square.  He stopped and pointed to a vacant seat at the side.

     “Let's sit there and have a chat.  I've got to go to Woolworths for Mum but there's plenty of time, eh?”

     We leaned our bikes against the back of the wooden seat.  He drew out a packet of cigarettes and offered me one.  I shook my head.  He jiggled one out and lit up, drawing on it greedily and then let out a long stream of smoke.

     “One thing Ozzy taught me,” he said contentedly, “How to enjoy a smoke.  Bastard could blow smoke rings and I can't.”

     I waited.  He took a couple more drags.

     “What did young Sam tell you about the potting shed?” he asked.

     “Oh, he said your Aunt found you and him indulging in a bit of activity.”

     “Christ!” he laughed, “The little sod only had his mouth clamped round my dick.”   He shook his head and raised his hands.  “Not guilty.  I didn't teach him that.”

     “But he said Ozzy....”  I trailed off.

     “Fuck me!” he said, “He did spill the beans a bit.”

     I was enjoying myself.  “Yeah, he was rather explicit but I knew about him being at Scout camp with your brother and Tony and the others so I suppose he thought he could tell me anything.”

     He looked at me with a quizzical air.  “Anyone else there when he told you?”

     I wasn't going to say Tom's name so I just nodded.  “No names,” I said.

     “OK, OK,” he said.  “But then I did go to an all boys' school and there wasn't much else to do.”  He grinned.  “Passes the time for horny youths, eh?”

     I think he'd guessed I wasn't inexperienced, either.

     “Jim and that Marcham boy are very pally,” he said, I think, testing the water.

     “Yeah, I know.  What with Scout camps and last summer.”

     “Yeah.  I was stuck on the farm and Jim was at Aunt Mattie's.  I think they're pretty close.”

     He clammed up after that.  We had a further conversation about the farm.  Apparently, Mr Marcham had been the agent dealing with the sale and had negotiated a good price.   He was full of praise for him.  I told him Kats was now working for her father.  He laughed and said I was on to a good thing there.  Good thing.  Poor confused me!   I wondered if I should invite him home for a cup of tea.  I decided against it.  I didn't really want to get into another entanglement at the moment.  I wouldn't have minded holding his rather substantial looking 'todger' and I would certainly drag his foreskin back and forth a bit quicker than the medics in the story and I don't think he would have been averse to handling another youthful rod to add to the, no doubt, considerable total already manipulated - and here I was getting a twitching in the nether regions already!  I would have liked to know more about the adventures in the cubbies, but no!  He finished a second cigarette and conversation lapsed.  We both recognised that was the end - for the moment.  We cycled off together, then parted with cheery waves at the top of the main street as he turned into the shopping area.

     As I cycled the rest of the way home I thought that, although he was a bit of a rogue, there was something very likeable about Josh.  The absolute effrontery of appearing in front of the panel of medics and pulling off the deception needed a good deal of guts.  He was quite open about it.  And that other thing wasn't entirely his fault.   I thought he'd been rather manipulated by the younger lad.  He obviously enjoyed what the kid had done to him but I didn't think he had started that particular episode.  Tom had judged Sam as dangerous.  I valued Tom's judgements and, again, although both Tom and I enjoyed immensely Sam's blatant approach he was someone to keep at a distance.

     I wasn't picking Kats up until six-thirty so I had plenty of time.  As soon as I got home I went up to my bedroom and thought about the afternoon with Kats and the results of our little tussle on the carpet.  Two things happened.  I got a hardon.  I also thought that if I didn't want to have an explosion in my undies tonight I 'd better do something about it now.  What if matters got out of hand, or, in hand, whatever the case might be?  Perhaps having a wank might delay any urges I might have later.  So, I stripped off, as I was going to have a second bath today any way, and had a leisurely wank watching myself in the mirror.  I noticed I had a most self-satisfied grin on my face as I held my deflating prick at the end.  Self-satisfaction at what I had just done or, perhaps, contemplating that I was well-equipped for anything that might occur!  Bighead!  Bighead somewhere else, too!

     I had a leisurely bath, too, and thought to myself I'd never had two baths in one day before.  Must be clean, though.   So, I was all dressed up in my new suit, hair combed, teeth cleaned, shoes polished, and eating the second of the two sandwiches I'd prepared when Ma and Pa came home just on six o'clock.  Neither commented on my appearance although Pa did have a slight smirk on his face which he erased as soon as he caught me looking at him.  Ma wanted to know how I'd got on at the medical.  I said I was being exempted and so was Tony who had flat feet.  Pa made some remark that we were a pair of old crocks and what would the country do if there was another war.  Ma gave him such a sharp look he said no more.

     I cycled round to the Marcham's and Kats was all ready and waiting.  Luckily, Tony was not in the offing.  Mrs M was full of smiles and said she hoped we would have a good evening as she'd heard the film was quite exciting.  We walked down to the town passing no one I knew.  Kats was asking about the medical as Tony was laughing the night before about the absurdity of it all.  I could hardly tell her I'd pissed on the orderly's hand or that Josh Chater had done the same to his coat.  I said I'd met Josh and she laughed and said her friend Bella said he was great fun but she had only met him a couple of times and he seemed the life and soul of the party.

     We arrived just as the adverts before the second feature were finishing and were directed, without asking, to the back row of the circle.  It was almost deserted up there.  The second feature started - a comedy of some sorts so we giggled in all the right spots.  Our shoulders touched as I leaned towards her and I realised that even with the earlier release I was responding in a most definite way.

     The lights went up before the main feature and quite a few other couples wended their way up the steps to the haven of the back row.  I scanned the couples quickly but, again, I didn't recognise anyone other than a lad who must have left school about five years ago.  He was too busily engrossed in holding the girl he was with round the waist to notice any other extraneous bodies.  Then the lights went down and almost immediately Kats reached over and put her hand just above my knee which had an even bigger effect on my half hard shaft.  I put my hand on top of hers and rubbed my palm over the back of her hand.  She turned her hand over and gripped my fingers and started to rub her thumb up and down mine.  Wow.  I never knew I had a spot like that on my thumb.  My cock was fully rampant by now and I had to shuffle a bit in the seat to ease the pressure on it.  I took my hand away slowly and exchanged it for the other one as I then put my arm round her shoulders.  She leaned against me and gripped my hand again.  No more rubbing though.  In fact, however much I wriggled, or moved my arm round her shoulders, or tried to engage my hand in hers, she refused to cooperate.  Of course, my hardon was continuous but I couldn't get her to move her hand up my thigh or do anything.  Each time I tried to extricate my hand to explore even her leg she gripped it tighter.  My left arm over her shoulder should have given me some leverage on placing my hand on somewhere soft but the movement of her own shoulders were a signal to desist.

     With all this I saw little of the main attraction - the main attraction next to me seemed unwilling to participate in anything - the main attraction on the screen passed in a haze of cigarette smoke wafting up and frustrated feelings on my part.  I was glad when the credits rolled and the National Anthem was played.  I did have to stand up then and I made pretty sure she knew what effect she'd had on me, in fact she brushed her hand down the front of my trousers and must have felt the iron rod within!

     Walking home we did hold hands but she was quite determined that she wasn't going to be manoeuvred into a darkened shop doorway at one point.  As we approached her road she did put her arm round my waist and it wasn't until we were on  her driveway I was allowed any further liberties.  We stopped and kissed and she forced her tongue into my mouth as I clutched at her somewhere in the breast region.  She responded by pressing herself against me and rubbing her body against mine.  It was a good job she was tall and I was able to hold her tight against me.  Again, she must have been fully aware of my arousal as she pushed her stomach against me.  I suppose we kissed for about five minutes or so until she unclamped herself and whispered she'd better get in or Dad would be out to see where she was.  I was breathing mighty deeply by then.  She kissed me lightly again and said I'd better see her to the door and to mind I wiped my face before I went home.

     As we got near the front door she squeezed my hand.

     “I've had a lovely time, Jacko, have you?”

     I mumbled that of course I had.

     “Would you like to come to tea on Sunday?”

     I said I would be there.

     She kissed me quickly and then fumbled for her door key.  As she opened the door the soft light from the hallway illuminated her face.  She gave me such a lovely smile.

     “Thanks, again.”

     As she closed the door I turned and walked away.  Those last few moments I felt something different.  I was puzzled.  I felt calmer.  My erection had gone down and I walked home pushing my bicycle with a lighter step.  In fact, I hadn't taken my stick with me and I hardly had a limp at all.

     There was a light on in Pa's study when I got home.  I poked my head round the door as it was slightly ajar.  The usual haze of pipe smoke was there.

     “All OK?” Pa asked.

     I nodded and grinned and went to bed.

     I needed three, long, slow wanks before I was fully satiated and could stop thinking about the evening.  Ohhhhhhhhhh!

                              *
     I was in a real daze in the morning.  I couldn't get her smile out of my mind.  I played Brahms, Haydn, Bach and Beethoven with such concentration, each piece had a nimbus of pure sound of some sort about it.  When I finished I went through to the kitchen where Ma was baking.  She said, in French, that my playing was very good now.  I knew it was.   I felt relaxed and ready and couldn't wait until Sunday tea!

     Ma and Pa were going out to a dinner of some sorts that evening so I was at a loose end.  All my pals were gone, then I remembered there was concert on in the Cathedral and they always had St John's on duty.  I 'phoned Mr Halloran and he said I should go round to his as I could borrow a black uniform jacket and trousers as no doubt my old uniform wouldn't fit me.  He said he was on duty with two of the lady members but I could go with Pat if I liked as, no doubt, Pat would volunteer his services.   When I arrived at their house Pat said he would come as well even though it was a black Protestant place.  I pointed out that Canon Tilson had told me that  it was originally a Benedictine Abbey.  Stolen from us by that arch-fiend Henry was his response.  I said did it really matter, the building was there and tonight it would be full of wonderful music.  It was, it was nothing less than Bach's Mass in B minor.  I sat entranced as the music rolled around us.  I saw Pat with such a smile on his face at one point. Credo in Unum Deo, with those vast treading octaves in the bass and the choir soaring above them.  I wondered what it was like to believe.  Bach was a believer, just like Pat, his father and Mike.  Another puzzle for me.  Still, as I immersed myself in the glorious music I could only agree with young Georgie, “Thass auld Bach, he's the best!” as those final cadences of Dona Nobis Pacem filled the vast space.

     As we waited in the porch of the cathedral until everyone was out, members of the choir came to the exit.  Amongst them were Superintendent Buchanan and Mrs Buchanan, plus Mr and Mrs Tring, and who should be talking to them but the portly man, the Town Clerk.  All the men were in black tie and dinner jackets as were all the other men in the choir.  The Town Clerk immediately recognised me and stuck out a hand.

     “Hear you're going to that other place,” he said, “Can't be too bad if Newton and Milton went there, though it's probably gone downhill since then.”   He laughed.  “M'son's starting at Balliol  week after next.  Reading Greats like me; what good that'll do him!  Have a good time and don't work too hard.”

     With that he gave me another gripping handshake and as he went off with the others Mrs Buchanan said that Tom was coming home on a weekend pass next week..

     As I cycled home later having said my farewells to Pat and his father, after I'd changed back into my ordinary clothes, I thought how  lucky I was.  I had talent.  I was having a great opportunity having been selected to study at Cambridge.  I had lovely parents.  I had good friends.  Dear, dear friends.  And now I had met Kats in a different way than being a small kid.

     Ma and Pa were still out when I got home.  I made myself a sandwich and a mug of cocoa and went to bed.  Two wanks later I fell asleep and had a most peaceful night.

                         *
     I said what a wonderful experience I'd had in the Cathedral the night before as I sat down for breakfast and Ma had asked me how had I got on.  I said I envied people like the Parker brothers who were going to be professional musicians if they were surrounded by music like that all the time.  Ma said she expected it was hard work like any other job but she could see it was probably enjoyable.  When Pa came in from a stroll round his vegetable garden he just heard the tail end of me telling Ma I had been invited to tea at the Marcham's that afternoon.  'Feet under the table' was his muttered comment.  I just wrinkled my nose at him and Ma said she was putting on a dinner party the next Saturday evening and who would I like to come to it.  I said our neighbours, the Buchanans and Tom would be home.  As I'd seen Mr and Mrs Tring at the cathedral I put those on the list, too.  Mr Tring had been demobbed while I was in Switzerland and was now back teaching Music at my old school having been in charge of musical entertainments somewhere hot and dusty as he put it.  All four Marchams and Roo and his girlfriend from the estate agency.  That was a total of fourteen, including us.  Could Ma do it?  She said it was a squeeze and as long as Mr Gale had plenty of chickens off ration it would be OK.  She said she would get Mrs Pritchard, who came and cleaned the house, to help in the kitchen.  All would be perfect.  Pa did a grumble about his vastly depleted cellar but I pointed out there were four bottles of Swiss wine in the bundle of goodies I'd brought home which was twenty-four glasses for a start.  He raised his eyebrows and I said I had been educated in 'haute cuisine et le bon vin' courtesy of Uncle Johann and Aunt Lilian.  He said if I thought that would be a good introduction to college food I had another think coming!

     Tea at the Marchams was a quiet affair.  Quiet at least in arousal terms.  Kats kept a discreet distance from me and I didn't get a hardon especially as I was busy eating.  Roo and the girl from the office were there too.  She, Audrey Bellingham, was very nice.  Tony had answered the door when I rang the bell and, as I walked down the hallway, patted me on the back, “Don't weaken,” he whispered.

     I didn't weaken.  All was most sedate.  I regaled them with part of the story of what went on at my medical.  Roo moaned because he was passed A1 but had heard nothing further.  Mr Marcham was saying that with everyone now being demobbed there was a great rush on for housing and the office was very busy.  He said he was too busy even to get out to Ulvescott to take a bunch of documents and bring a load back as well.  Tony looked at me and winked.

     “Jacko and I are at a loose end this week,” he said, “We could go over on Wednesday and come back Friday.  Would that be OK?”

     I expected Kats to object as Wednesday afternoons were her time off and I thought she might have wanted to hook up with me.  But no, she said nothing.  Later she said she'd arranged to go riding with Bella who had also left school and was setting up a riding stable with her mother and elder sister.  As Bella and she had been riding for years she was probably going to have a horse of her own, if Daddy would buy her one.  She wasn't quite as blatant as that but the implication was there.

     I helped Tony clear some of the things off the table and when we got to the kitchen he was laughing.

     “You know, Jacko, why girls have this thing about riding,” he said, giving a very lascivious cackle.  “It's 'cause they like something big, strong and made of  hard flesh between their legs.  That wouldn't beat you, though, eh?”  He nudged me in the back.  “Get anywhere Friday?”

     I put on a very hurt look.  “I got raped on the back row,” I said slowly, “Yeah, when your sister's got her head down she's just like a front row forward!”

     He guffawed.  “Liar.  I bet you got nothing.  I know Kats.  She's got you dangling, hasn't she?”

     I must admit even over tea I kept looking at her.  Yeah.  I was being dangled.  But who cares!  That conversation couldn't go on as Tony's Mum came through bearing a tray of leftovers.  We were ushered back in and Kats sat next to me on one of the sofas.  I did get a hardon then and wondered if I might be a willing steed.  Anyway, I announced that Ma was putting on a dinner party on Saturday and they were all invited.  It was, I said, a combined eighteenth birthday and a beginning college party and, no presents, just themselves.

                              *
     Monday afternoon I had to see Mr Foljambe for a check-up.  I had his X-rays as well as a set from Switzerland to give him.  He asked me how it felt.  I could hardly tell him I had nearly undone all his good work while in the midst of sexual frenzy due to autoeroticism.  I said that most of the time my leg felt OK but I still felt uneasy about over-doing things.  He said from his knowledge of such things I might have a slight limp for some time but to use the stick whenever I had a long walk to do or when I was in one position for a long time.  But, to make sure I exercised in some way every day.  I thanked him for all he'd done and for the letter to Dr Phibbs at the medical.

     “Phibbs, Phibbs?” he mused, “I know him well.  Short and tubby.  He's actually got the makings of a good surgeon if he didn't spend his time reading the racing pages!”

     He laughed, we shook hands and I went home.

     I exercised my third leg when I got home.  That spasmed and throbbed in a most pleasant way.  It did it twice more just like that in bed that night.  My knee remained tranquil.

                         *
     Oh, God!  Tuesday the thirtieth of September.  My eighteenth birthday.  Vital statistics day!  First,  presents at breakfast.  There was a card from Ma and Pa with the promise of driving lessons as soon as I wanted them.  There was a p.s. from Pa pointing out that I was not allowed any form of mechanical conveyance, other than a bicycle, while in residence as an undergraduate at Cambridge, so perhaps his money was safe for three years.  There was a cheque for fifty pounds in the card, too, not for driving lessons.

     There were a number of birthday cards.  One from Flea saying he had been accepted for the RAF Flying School for January so this would be his last term at school.  Titty  was down for the Military Academy with Bastable next autumn entry and Antony Milverton had left as he was to appear in a film.  Flea wrote very clearly and it was a good story.  Antony's older sister, Audrey, was twenty-two and had been to drama school and was at the film studios where she was to appear in quite a big part in a romantic film.  Antony had gone to the studios to see his sister on the set and had been spotted as ideal for a part in a film about a boy who was mistaken for royalty.  So, on the strength of that he hadn't come back to school and was going to try and follow in his sister's footsteps.  In the card from Lachlan there was a picture of him and Sayed flanking a now five feet five Flea, all three identical in height and in swimming costumes.  On the back it said 'Pin Mill House August 1947 taken by George Henry Catchpole, photographer to the High and Mighty'.
     Surprise, surprise, there was a card from Mike from Rome!  There was a very chatty letter inside and the news he was at the Gregorian University and because there were students from different countries his lectures were in Latin!  He was to be ordained deacon at Easter but he would have to wait at least three more years for full ordination as he had to finish his studies, or at least the first part of them.   He wished me well at Cambridge and hoped to see me sometime.

     Measurements were taken once Pa and Ma went off to work.  I knew I was six feet two inches and my chest had a pretty good expansion from the pawings I had endure at the medical.  I found a tape measure of Ma's and found my waist was exactly thirty-two inches.  Then came the interesting bit.  Glory be!  I had reached that goal of seven inches.  I think I now was level with my cousins.  I was a true Thomson in that respect!  Of course, having got a hardon I couldn't let it go to waste and my first load of the day was of the usual quantity and shot out a good three to four feet even with my cock at an angle of about sixty degrees.  I thought of Flea and Lachs and their arguments about angle of firing and trajectory.  Golly, that's it!  No need to waste good ammunition.  The Cadets could practise all they needed with self and friends!

     So, I must assume I'm now fully grown.  I was more than hairy, too, now.  My legs were covered in a dense tangle of black hairs and my tan was very good under the mat.  I had a profuse bush above my cock which trailed up and around my navel.  There was a light dusting of silky hairs over my stomach and my nipples were ringed by small outgrowths.  My only deficiency seemed to be any great appearance of hair actually on my chest.  Again, like my stomach, there were fine hairs noticeable but that was that.  I had noticed that in the photo Sayed had a thick mat of hair all over his chest and stomach but he was at least two years older than me and, because he was so fair, I couldn't discern anything above his swimsuit on Lachs.  Huh, boys are curious creatures, they like to know how they compare with their fellow beings and I knew that although I was about nine inches taller than Lachs there was little difference in size of our vital bit.  Odd that.  One would imagine the taller you were the bigger the prick.  Not true, even when going the rounds so long ago, I had noticed that there were shorties with long 'uns as well as tall lads with not a great deal.  The one thing in common was the desire and the performance!

                         *
     I met up with Tony at the bus station on Wednesday morning.  He not only had a haversack but a heavy document case as well.  He did not look pleased.  Anyway we had a good journey out to Ulvescott and there, at the gate, were both Bran and Finbar.  We were greeted as always by shaking paws with Bran.  Finbar watched as we went through the routine and then repeated Bran's actions exactly.  We both hugged them.  Finbar was growing fast and tended to want to rush along ahead but came back and walked almost sedately beside me while Bran was on Tony's right hand side.

     I hadn't seen Mrs Crossley and Miss P since the half-term before going to Switzerland and they wanted to hear all about it.  Both had visited the country before the war and both had stayed in Neuchatel.  Then after lunch we went for a walk with the dogs and saw the small saw-mill that Mrs Crossley had bought to cut logs to supply herself and neighbours.  Poor old Hans and all that muscle work he'd put in!   She'd said that with the two farm hands she had now she had to find indoor jobs for them when the weather was bad and this was ideal.  There was plenty of wood on the estate and they were actually felling a couple of overgrown trees that afternoon.
     After dinner that evening Tony said he'd better start checking the copies of documents and the lists he'd brought with the originals in the safe.  While he was doing this I wrote several letters to friends and relations who had sent me birthday cards.  To Flea I said I hoped to see him and the other two at Christmas and to give my congratulations to Titty on his promotion to Sergeant - a fact Flea had included in my birthday letter.  I said my last encounter with a Sergeant wasn't too happy and put in a bit about the medical - including the bit where the orderly got a wet hand.  To Lachs I said more or less the same about the medical and my interaction with the military.  I thanked him for the card and photo and said the trio looked like the rough, the smooth and the absolutely angelic and he could take his pick of the descriptions.  Other letters were for Alun and Rhys telling them to remind Gareth his little cousin was now as tall as him and that he had just had a birthday and to Johann in Switzerland telling him to practice “These thick thistles thrive thoroughly, thinks Thora” and “Hubert helps Heinrich hum heavenly hymns harmoniously”.  I thought he would like the second one, specially designed to help him not to drop his aitches!  So with thankyous to Grandpa and Grandma I was getting things in hand.

     Things were definitely in hand when we went to bed.  Both Tony and I were in particularly horny moods.  We had only been lying side by side discussing things, but holding each others erect shafts and feeling the hardness within, when we both erupted within a couple of minutes.  Tony asked whether I thought what we had just produced should be called 'Creme Passionelle'.  I laughed and said perhaps we should publish the recipe and anyway how long had he been making jokes in French?   After that we were tracing random patterns idly on each other's chests and thinking up the major ingredients, one or more randy boys, strong right arms, good sense of rhythm and made in just a few more than two shakes, were just some of the suggestions.  We were still talking and giggling when Tony said he wanted me to fuck him.  He clasped me round the shoulders and said he needed me to fuck him slowly but hard.

     He was all prepared and by that time I was hard again.  I had confessed to him during our chitchat that I had thought I'd done some injury to my knee after one of my convulsive wanks.  I stroked his back as I said it was all his sister's fault as she had got me all razzed up.  His reply was to the effect that he would have reduced my tensions just as he was intending to do this evening.  Actually, he was most considerate in that he said although he wanted to be fucked face to face if I couldn't kneel then we could try some other way but he wanted to look at me.

     He must have wanted my cock very badly as I pushed almost straight into him.  I then started up a slow but relentless thrust and release, my cock embedded as far as possible in him on each inward stroke.  My knee bent and braced as I moved and all was well.  I quickened up as I felt the spunk begin to rise and my last half-dozen thrusts were very powerful indeed.  He had a look of extreme rapture on his face and as I shot my load in him he wanked himself quickly and shot his second load between us.

     I flopped on top of him and ground myself into him and we played this very sensuous game until I fired a third volley somewhere deep within him.  We rolled apart and this time I gripped his cock and wanked him furiously with him attempting to stop me by grasping my hand.  I was either stronger than him or he was only half-hearted about it because I pulled back hard on each downstroke and his third cannonade sprayed both of us liberally.  Two spunk-filled eighteen-year-olds were now emptied of all their creme!  I really slept the sleep of the just-after that night!
                              *
     I played the piano quite a bit in the morning and wrote a couple more letters while Tony continued checking off things.  After lunch the ladies said they were going to Mrs Fry's to play Bridge with her and her husband.  Tony said he hadn't got much more checking to do but he would finish that and I said I would take the dogs for a walk, first of all to the village to get stamps and post my letters, and then meander down the lane and along the bridle way.

     I had just posted my letters when it started to drizzle and not wanting to slip on any mud I apologised - daft me - to the dogs and led them home.  I suppose I'd been out for just over half an hour as the lady in the Post Office had wanted to hear all about my accident - as it were from the horse's mouth - and what I had been doing in foreign parts.  I didn't enlighten her that more than once one of the foreign parts had been in me, but I did say that I had had a most enjoyable time.  I arrived back just as the rain started in earnest.  As I turned the corner of the house to go to the kitchen door I noticed a parked motor-bike.  I wondered whose and then remembered Josh had said his brother Jim now had one.

     I was curious because when I went through into the hall and looked in the study neither were there.  Being a crafty sod I took the back stairs up to the bedroom floor.  These came out near the Horsebox and I noticed that door was ajar.  I crept in, just like the cat in the crypt - but I did not crap, but crept through the slightly open door into the bathroom.  I slipped off my shoes and walked silently to the half-open door into Piers' room, where Tony and I had indulged and slept the night before, as there were unmistakable noises emanating from there.

     I stood transfixed and gazed at the sight.  Both figures on the bed were in the nude.  Tony was on his back, eyes tightly shut, mouth gaping, while Big Jim was fucking him steadily with a prick which looked twice as thick as mine.  Big Jim's balls were slapping down on each powerful down thrust and Tony gave more than a little grunt each time Jim reached rock bottom .  Rock bottom?  Big Jim's buttocks were like marble.  Very heavily muscled and he was using them to great effect.  Suddenly he collapsed over Tony with a tremendous exhalation of breath and, given the number of tremors of those great globes of muscle, he must have shot squirt after squirt of cum through that thick tube of flesh.

     I was still standing there as Jim withdrew.  I could see why he was called Big.  His back was muscled and he had broad shoulders and as he stood back off the bed I could see a side view of his still erect prick.  I don't think it was quite as long as mine but it was certainly thick.  Also he wasn't quite as tall as me, but what he had was all body.  All in all he deserved his soubriquet.

     I slipped back stealthily through the bathroom, gathering up my shoes, and went back down the servants' stairs and sat at the piano in the drawing room.  Amongst the sheet music in the piano stool I had discovered the music of Four Indian Love Lyrics by Amy Woodforde-Finden.  I played 'Pale Hands I Loved beside the Shalimar' just to let Tony know I was home.  Sure enough, soon afterwards two sets of  footsteps entered the room.  I turned as I finished playing the piece for the third time.  Both had silly grins on their faces.  Tony came over and said if I played it again he would sing it.  Being just fucked by a six foot muscled twenty-two year old, with a dick like a pint milk bottle, must do wonders for the voice as Tony sounded superb.  He sang it with such commitment I still wondered why he didn't, perhaps, become a professional singer.  Big Jim clapped when he finished.  I thought of those last two lines 'I would have rather felt you round my throat, crushing out life than waving me farewell!'.

     I was then introduced.  Jim said he remembered me from school.  I didn't let on that I was the kid who had caught him and Whacker in the bogs.  I wondered if he remembered that incident?

     He said he was spending a fortnight's placement with his Uncle seeing how a country practice worked.  I said I thought vets were people who had their arms permanently up the inside of cows - a description I had got from Rhys, of course, when we'd seen a whole herd of them down in Suffolk.  He laughed and said that was something they often had to do.  I didn't go on to say, 'and also have their cocks up my friend's arse where mine had been the night before'.  No wonder Tony volunteered his services to come to Ulvescott.  He probably knew Big Jim would be here.  And, that long summer he was here, too.  I expect Jim had ploughed a lonely, but very willing, furrow then as well.  Why was I getting rather uptight?  What Tony did was his business.  When we had been here with Roo and Matt we had fucked, sucked and wanked each other with no constraints.  But why couldn't he have told me he was going to have this...., this what?  Tryst!  Oh!  fuck him!  But I did last night and he had been comprehensively fucked again this afternoon, too.  Right!  I won't say anything, but if you complain you have a headache tonight, or your arsehole is sore, too bad, Jacko is going have his evil way!!  Much more to the point, your evil way!!!

     I wasn't really angry.  I was amused.  I suppose the best word to describe Tony was 'slut'.  I knew he'd had plenty of experience.  But so had I, so I couldn't be censorious, was I 'sluttish' as well?  With that, as I was still sitting at the piano, I played a Barcarolle, which I had assumed was a gondolier's song which he sang when a couple were fucking under the awning on his boat.  At least, I assumed that, as the wireless announcer had said it was a love song directed at courting couples being ferried across the Grand Canal.  As I played I imagined Tony tonight with his Grand Canal being navigated with deep strokes of a lusty gondolier's oar!

     But first, I didn't know until I finished playing that Mrs C was putting on a dinner tonight for us and that Mr and Mrs Fry and Jim were invited as well.  Also, that tempting aroma I had noted at lunchtime, and even more this afternoon, was another venison casserole.  The three of us then went down to the cellar to chose the wine, or wines, as Tony insisted.  Two clarets and a sauternes.

     Dinner was superb.  The two ladies from the village served us and I had plenty to eat.  Mr Fry was tall and angular but was very funny.  He told us all sorts of tales about experiences he'd had being a vet and about his time during the war looking after mules in India where they were still used as beasts of burden, especially in the mountainous areas.  I knew who was going to be beast-like tonight and who was going to bear a burden!

     Tony had had five glasses of wine to my three so was a bit, nay, more than a bit, light-headed when I rolled him onto the bed and stripped him.  I had already taken off my things while he was farting around in the bathroom humming tunelessly to himself.  He wasn't unwilling to be stripped and I made sure I tickled him as well so he was giggling and squirming with his legs up round my waist as I positioned my seven inches of not-as-thick-as-Big-Jim's cock against his rosebud.  I pushed and I was in full length.  Wow!  Well stretched.  I didn't let up and fucked him as hard as I could.  Tony was actually whimpering as I shot my load.  I looked down at him and he was crying.  I stopped.  He looked really contrite.

     “Oh, Jacko,” he said, “I've let you down!”  He burst fully into tears.  “I never told you.  Jim and I fucked this afternoon and I should have told you.”

     I leaned right over him and put my arms round his shoulders.  I could tell he was very upset.  What could I do but tell him the truth?

     “I know,” I said, as softly as I could, stroking his back at the same time.  “I watched you.  I should have said tonight before this that I'd seen you.  I've let you down, too.”  But, I couldn't resist it.  “He's big isn't he?”

     Poor Tony.  He snuffled in my ear.  “You saw us.  Why didn't you say?”  He shook his head.  “I have to tell you.  He fucked me every day we were here last year and I couldn't have it enough.”  He moved his head against mine.  “It's the same with us.  I want that great big prick of yours in me as much as possible......”  He paused.  “....I think of you and Jim every night and that immense joy you both give me.” I felt his face muscles twitch against me.  “I think of Johann as well, now.”   He put his arms round me as well.  “I want to find someone like you three all rolled into one.  I would truly be in love then!”

     We rocked together arms round each other and I slowly and quietly fucked him again.  My climax was even more tremendous than before.

     As we lay entwined, both recovering, as he had coated us with his own Creme Passionelle to match my own somewhere within, he whispered “I'm forgiven, aren't I?  And it was really wonderful just now”.

     I hugged him tight.  It was his body to share with whomsoever he wished.  But to be fucked by two such great friends of his in one day and feeling it was more than just a boyish experiment, as I think our experiences with Roo and Matt here were so long ago, was something for him to savour and cherish.

     “Tony,” I said softly, “I am a friend and I wish you the best.  You'll find someone one day to love and be loved back in the same way.  Don't get hurt, though.  Would Jim be that person?”

     Tony shook his head.  “No,” he said, “We did discuss it but both of us know we're not made to be together.  We like each other and Jim's a very good friend and, I expect, we'll get together at times.”  He squeezed my back.  “Many times, I hope, just like us.  He's big but he's very gentle.”

                              *
     We took the dogs for a walk on Friday morning and I thought Finbar looked quite downcast, as if a dog could, when we walked to the gates to catch the bus back to Kerslake in the afternoon.  If Tony had a heavy portfolio of documents to lug home I had four bottles of very choice wine for the dinner party.
     In bed that night I thought about watching Tony and Big Jim and then my later entry and realised that Tony would probably have to search a good deal before he found his ideal person.  Our joint encounters were more than just pleasant.  There was a mutual respect between us.  It was a kind of love, I suppose, but not one of commitment.  I grinned to myself as the first of my two portions of Creme Passionelle pooled, creamy and frothy, on my chest and stomach.  I tasted it.  Yes, there wasn't much wrong with my recipe!

                              *
     The dinner party was a great success.  How Ma prepared for fourteen was quite incredible.  Mrs Pritchard and she were in the kitchen all morning and what a spread they prepared.  We had soup, roast capons with roast potatoes, carrots, cauliflower and tender cabbage done with onion.  All this followed by apple and blackberry crumble with custard.  The eight bottles of wine went and Pa come up with a bottle of port when we settled down to chat afterwards.  Tony and I were given everyone's best wishes and I did get cornered in the hall at one point and was given a great kiss and cuddle by Kats who was quite giggly after the wine she'd consumed.


                         *
               Monday 6th October 1947  -  Cambridge

     I had been on edge all day Sunday.  I had packed and re-packed several times.  I had my clothes.  I decided against taking my running gear.  I couldn't risk doing anything to my knee and I certainly couldn't pack any rugger kit other than an old shirt and shorts.  I had my big French and German dictionaries as well as an English one.  Van had kindly given me half a dozen each of French and German classics which he said he was sure I would have to read.  I'd had a look at a couple and saw meticulous notes he must have made when he was an undergraduate.  Then there were my precious photos and the drawing Mike had done of me.  The head and shoulders one - the other more revealing one was still tucked away in my secret hidey-hole.   Piers and Miles were going with me and the one of the three lads at Pin Mill House.  So I was rather lightly burdened.

     Pa said the car had been serviced by Sean who had said it was in very good condition and he hoped Tony wasn't going to overload it.  We set off and picked up Tony, who also had surprisingly little luggage, just after nine o'clock.  About fifty miles or so to Cambridge.  Pa was a careful driver and we certainly didn't hurry and drove up King's Parade around eleven o'clock and deposited Tony with his clobber at the Porter's Lodge with strict instructions to be at Clare by half past twelve to go to lunch.

     Pa drove down the narrow road and parked outside Clare.  I said I would go and announce my arrival and, because my leg was a bit stiff through sitting hunched up I took my stick and made my way up the path to the doorway and entered the Porter's Lodge.

     Behind the desk was a young man, black jacket, waistcoat and tie, with a black bowler hat on the desk in front of him.  On my entry he looked up.  I thought to myself that he looked familiar.  I must have seen him before.  Of course!

     “Willy Roberts!” I said, “Fancy seeing you here!”
     Of course.  It was the young driver who had ferried Pa and Mike's dad at the firing range.  Yes.  I remembered, he'd said something about working at a college when he got demobbed from the Army.

     “Mr Thomson, Sir,” he said, very formally, “Welcome to Clare.”  His face then creased in a great smile and he hurried round the desk and shook my hand very vigorously.  “I guessed it was you when Doctor Blake said your name and you were coming up early.  I knew it when he said Kerslake.”  He was grinning, then became very serious.  “Doctor Blake said you'd had an accident and we were to make sure your rooms were convenient.  I hope not too serious?”

     I waved the stick at him.  “My left knee.  I broke the kneecap falling off my bike.  I have to be careful, though.”

     He smiled.  “I've taken it on myself to give you a set on the Ground Floor.  Mr Mason isn't here today.  Sorry, he's the Head Porter and he's suffering from a surfeit of the Chateau Lafite at the moment.”

     I raised my eyebrows.  Chateau Lafite.  I'd had some from a bottle which Uncle Johann had produced one evening.

     He explained, “It was the Head Porters' dinner last night.  They all get together before the year starts and it gets rather bibulous and as it was Trinity's turn to host ....  Well I hear the wine flowed freely.  Anyway, we'd better get your stuff in.”

     He picked up the bowler hat and clapped it on his head as he went to the door.  “Jem!  Sam!” he called and two young lads came round the corner and stood side by side in front of him.  They were both dressed as Willy was in black suits, but both had short black aprons on as well.  Willy turned to me.  “Have you come by taxi or car?”

     I explained that my father was waiting.

     “Colonel Thomson?”

     I nodded.  He signalled to the boys - both aged about sixteen or so - and off they went.  We went back into the lodge.

     “As long as they go to the right car,” I said, “There was an old Rolls Royce backing down the road and nearly hit us.”

     “Oh,” said Willy, “The Abominable Arseholes.   I'd forgotten he was coming back today, too.”  He shook his head.  “Got ploughed by his tutor last term so he's back for a viva tomorrow.  Fool watered his tutor's oak and got caught.”

     What the hell was he talking about.  That name?  Had I heard it correctly?  Willy smiled.  I must have looked puzzled.  Viva I knew was an oral exam and then it dawned.  I had been told all rooms at Cambridge had two doors and if the outer one was closed you had 'sported your oak' and did not want to be disturbed.  But 'watered'?

     “The Honourable Charles Lascelles, known to all and sundry as AA, short for Abominable you know what!”  He smile broadened.  “He was failed last term because he was rather inebriated at the May Ball and unfortunately Mr Phelips was looking through his keyhole and was not pleased.”  He almost sniggered.  “He complained to the Dean and asked what should be done and the Dean, being reasonable, said a little dilute Jeyes Fluid always worked wonders on doors and stairways, but Mr Phelips was rather angry and demanded he should be rusticated, sent down permanently.  The Dean said he would arrange for a viva on his return this term and that was that.”

     Obviously Willy approved of the Dean.  At that moment a thin young man with surprisingly broad shoulders, appeared at the door, also leaning on a stick, and peered in.

     “Hi there, Willy, you old rascal, how're the gee-gees?  I've had a bloody awful summer.  Blown all my allowance and the Pater says I can starve this term if they let me back.”

     He had a very aristocratic voice.  Then he noticed me, also with a stick.

     “Snap!” he said raising his.  I did the same.   “Charley Lascelles' the name!”

     He stuck out a hand and I shook it.

     “Jacko Thomson,” I said, “I'm a new boy!”

     He laughed.  “Pleased to meet you!  I've been here one year and I might not be here much longer if I say the wrong things tomorrow, eh Willy?”  This last directed at Willy.

     I didn't enquire further but as he walked to the desk to say something to Willy, who had retreated behind it and removed his bowler hat, I noticed his right foot was encased in a very heavy boot and turned inwards.  It looked more than a broken kneecap like my injury.

     “Pater's out there chinwagging to some boffin chap he knows from the Ministry.  Be there hours.  Be a good chap and see if those lads can get my baggage off the old motor.”

     Willy was not to be moved.  “Jem and Sam are moving Mr Thomson's belongings and  I will show Mr Thomson to his set.  You may accompany us as Mr Thomson will be having the set opposite you and  I am sure you will wish to examine the repairs which your father authorised us to complete on your behalf.”

     Charley, AA, or whatever, let out an anguished moan.

     “Oh, shit!” he said vehemently, “I'd completely forgotten about that.  Christ!  The old boy'll go bananas when he gets the bill!  Can't you get the Bursar to delay sending it?  Say I'll sign the pledge or something!”

     At that moment who should appear but Pa and a military-looking gentleman with a most luxuriant moustache.  Charley visibly wilted and mouthed something silently at Willy.

     Willy stood to attention behind the desk.  The military gentleman came straight up to me.

     “Met your father out there.  Didn't know you were coming up.  Pleased to meet you.  I'm Harford for what it's worth.”  He also stuck out a hand I shook it.  I replied in kind.   He nodded and went on. “You've met that scoundrel there, my youngest.  Cost me more than the other three put together!  Wretched boy!”  He turned to Pa, after looking me up and down.  “Can see he's yours, Thomson.  I keep telling Felicity this one doesn't look a bit like me.  She just says he's a throwback.”  He turned to Willy.  “Mr Roberts, please to tell the Blue Boar it'll be five for luncheon, one o'clock sharp and none of that cottage pie this time.”

     “Yes, my Lord,” said Willy and disappeared into some cubby-hole and I heard him telephoning.

     Charley was turned on again by this father.  “Go and see those boys aren't scratching the Rolls and tell Michaeljohn not to have more than two pints for lunch.”  He tossed what looked like a half-crown to him.  “Let's check on your rooms and we'll be off.  Brisk walk'll do you good.”  He then saw I also had a walking stick.  “You up to it, young Thomson?”

     I nodded.  If poor Charley had to walk briskly I would too.

     Willy had finished telephoning and grabbed his bowler hat and led the way from the Porter's Lodge.  I was rather impressed when he unlocked the first, then the second door, to my rooms.  I had a study room, a small bedroom and a partitioned off lav and washbasin.  The furniture was ancient but serviceable.  A table, two chairs and an easy chair in the study.  A bed, chest of drawers and not much else in the bedroom.  It all smelt a bit musty.  My suitcase and haversack were on the floor of the study.  Willy handed me the keys and I had to sign a receipt.

     Charley had returned by then and we paraded to the set opposite mine.  His furniture was even more decrepit than mine.  There was more of it and before I could comment he whispered “Family heirlooms”.  I wouldn't have given them houseroom.  His father surveyed the room, grunted and remarked that it looked just the same when he had it.

     Neither Pa nor I had said much to each other.  He did indicate we were meeting Tony at the top of the lane by Gonville and then walking along to the Blue Boar.  He and Lord Harford walked on while Charley and I followed.

     “Don't worry,” he said laughing, “The old boy always treats me like that.  Got to butter him up, though, 'cause I'm really skint.  You keep him happy and I'll make it up to you, eh?”

     We met Tony who was waiting.  He and Lord Harford got on well as the old boy was a Trollope fan.  Luncheon was more than adequate.  I had steamed fish in a white sauce with potatoes and carrots julienne.  It was good.  I noticed Tony and Charley had the cottage pie.  Lord Harford remarked that the topping covered a multitude of sins and the aged waiter sniffed and managed to slop the wine he was pouring.  I wondered who was paying.  Lord Harford signed a chit at the end and said to me that if I won wars like my father I would be an asset.  He also said, in a loud voice, that he relied on me to keep an eye on the rapscallion for him.  Me?  Charley was well over a year older!  We walked back, slowly, to the college.  Tony kept with us as he said he'd show us his rooms later but he'd been told to get to Ede's to kit himself out with gown and square.  Charley said I'd better do the same and he'd come and supervise and we'd better get to the tailors for DJ's and other essential clothing and kit.

     Tony and I said cheerio to Pa who, I had found out, was a great friend of Lord Harford who was chairman of one of the Ministry of Defence committees.  He drove off, most sedately.  I saw Lord Harford, on bidding his youngest farewell before getting into the ancient Rolls beside an equally ancient driver, pass over several crisp white five pound notes.  There was much wagging of fingers and Charley looked sufficiently cowed to be rewarded with at least two more notes.  His Lordship then scribbled something on a couple of visiting cards and waved goodbye and they disappeared in rather a cloud of exhaust fumes.

     Charley was smiling as he hobbled up to us and handed us each one of the visiting cards.

     “The pair of you sweetened the old boy up, thanks!” he said most cheerfully.  “One each for you.  If you want a meal any time at the Boar just wave this at old Bert, he'll see you're OK.”

     We then wandered, quite replete, up to King's and saw Tony's rooms on the first floor to the right of the dining hall.  Then we walked down to the bridge over the Cam.  Charley was in rather an ebullient mood.  The old boy, as he kept referring to his father, had come up trumps and he had money in his pocket, so he was flush.  I said what did I have to do to keep an eye on him.  He grinned and said I'd better keep his money so he didn't waste it on the gee-gees.  He said he'd spent quite a bit of the summer at Newmarket where a friend of his father had a stud and he'd bet a lot and had managed to lose all.  He wanted to know why I had a stick and I said it was a bike accident.  His was much more serious.  He'd come off a horse while jumping a fence when he was twelve and he'd got caught and was suspended by his ankle for several hours until someone came looking for him.  His broken ankle hadn't been set properly and he was left with a badly deformed foot.  Still, he loved horses and wanted to run a stud when he was older.  Up till then he was at sodding Cambridge and he'd better do well.

     We found out that because he couldn't do any other games he did rowing and had been quite good at his Public School.  This explained his upper torso development.  He said he rowed in the College boat so was considered thick.  I got the impression he acted thick but wasn't.  I said I had run a lot and played rugger before my accident and he suggested that I could do some training on the weights in the boathouse.  Tony said he'd put his name down for rugger at King's and this caused much merriment from Charley who said the King's rugger team were all thugs and drunkards.  I wondered about rowers, or 'boaties' as he called them, as his trouble with his tutor had been caused by a bit too much to drink!

     By this time we had reached the bridge and stood looking down at he flowing water.  There was one solitary punt being propelled languidly further along.  Charley said it was a very popular pastime in the summer to take a punt up to Grantchester and picnic.  He nudged Tony in the ribs.

     “Very popular, punting, you know,” he said, “Especially if you can get someone's sister to join you.”  He stood up straight and looked around.  We were the only ones anywhere around.  “There was an old Bishop of Buckingham,”
      he began, and nudged Tony again,
           “Who stood on the bridge at Rockingham,”
      He looked at me and winked.
            “Watchin' the stunts of the cunts in the punts,
             And the tricks of the pricks,
            Who were fuckin' 'em!”

     Oh!  I shall have to remember that one!

     That over we went back out of the college along King's Parade to Edes.  Here Charley took over and Tony and I were supplied with the correct undergraduate gowns and our squares or mortar-boards, stiff collars and white ties and were measured for dinner jackets and trousers.  We found we had a special allowance of clothing coupons so all was well.  All went in a ledger and no one mentioned payment!
     Tony said he was going to unpack and had been promised some supper from the buttery so we would probably meet up next day.  I said I had an appointment with Dr Blake at ten and Charley grimaced and said he had his viva at Corpus Christi at the same time.

     Willy was still on duty when we arrived back at the college.  He handed me a sheaf of papers, mainly rules and regulations but also lecture lists.  I scanned the first page and, yes, Pa was correct, no mechanical conveyances allowed except bicycles.  I then saw that no cats, dogs or like animals were allowed in college.

     “What about Peter,” I said to Willy, who was busy with paperwork behind his desk, “Dr Blake's got a dog.”

     Willy shook his head.  “No, Dr Blake has a canary,” he said ponderously, “Birds is allowed.” He grinned.  “The Dean said Peter sang sweetly so was a canary.”

     So that was that.  On further questioning I found Willy had been given early demob in January through 'College connections' as there were great problems with the bad weather and illness.  His father was Head Porter at another college and Jem, really James, was a cousin and being groomed for a porter's job in the future.  He advised that I should have Jem as my scout, or gyp.  Rather like a fag in a Public School.  He would come each day to clear up any mess in my room and keep it tidy.  Willy said for an extra shilling a week he could be my bedder.   I found out there was a great tribe of ladies who came round each day to make beds but Jem could do that for me instead.  In fact, his mother would have been my bedder.  I was glad I had Willy as my mentor I would have been lost otherwise.  He also told me as well as the usual influx of undergraduates just leaving school there were a large number of older men either coming back to complete their degrees, as they had been called up while still at college, or were starting degrees as part of government schemes.  This meant the college was overfull.

     I was directed to the buttery for supper where I and about six others were issued with bread, cheese and slabs of cake.  I found these others, three youngsters like me and three older ones, were just as bemused as me.  Still, I suppose all would be revealed.

     I spent the evening unpacking my meagre belongings.  Luckily Pa had suggested I brought my wireless and I had an adaptor which went into the light fitting for the current and I had just fixed it when Charley came knocking.  I had remembered and left my outer door ajar.  I found he was doing Geography as his degree subject with something called Land Economy.  He said it was useful for people with estates and as his Pater had a few thousand acres tucked away he might come in for a bit.  He was very anxious about the viva the next day and was going to be questioned on Jurassic geology or something like that.  I said I'd never heard of it and he said he'd read quite a bit over the summer so he hoped he could remember something.

     So, my first night in Cambridge.  A rather hard and narrow bed.  Two most satisfying wanks before sleeping and a rap on the door at seven thirty by an ever vigilant Willy.  Breakfast in the dining hall was a perfunctory affair.  Luckily Sam recognised me - the sixpence tip yesterday must have stuck in his mind - and I was given an extra helping of gooey reconstituted egg on toast to fill an ever-hungry lad.  I mooched around, exploring the very beautiful chapel was one thing, and then, precisely at ten, knocked on Dr Blake's door.

     For two hours I was bombarded with questions in French and German.  I was corrected on small errors and given lengthy reasons why some of my German constructions were inadequate.  He was most interested in, and rather amused by, my description of the visit to Johann's grandfather.  I mentioned the Manet picture and he immediately said he was a friend of Emile Zola and then pointed to one of the many small paintings and drawings on the walls of his study, a small landscape, and said that was done by Manet's teacher, Thomas Couture.  After he had cross-questioned me further about my stay in Switzerland, rather cheekily, I asked if he'd had a good summer.  He said he had, he'd stayed with his sister in Suffolk and had done a tour of the wool churches, built by the very rich wool merchants in the fourteenth century, with magnificent windows and often 'un toit de marteau-faisceau'.  He smiled as he said it and translated before I could ask - 'a hammer-beam roof'.

     Precisely on twelve he stopped.  I was sweating.  He'd really given my poor brain a grilling.

     “Well, my lad,” he said, in English.  I had to mentally readjust to hearing my native language again.  “You have the makings of a fine linguist and I won't tell you that again.  What we've got to find out is whether you can study in the languages.  I think you can.  At least you know the plots of all those Simenon books you've read even if you haven't got to grips with the nineteenth century literature yet.  I have a proposition to make.”   I wondered what was coming next.  I knew I had done reasonably well.  He had stretched my vocabulary in both languages to its limits and even extended it.

     He then explained that the college was taking in a substantial number of men just demobbed.  Several of these were either finishing degrees already started before the war, as Willy had said, or were taking up offered places.  He thought my French was good enough to carry on conversations with three of that group and to discuss lectures we had attended.   In any case I would be visiting a Mrs O'Hagen, a French lady, married to one of the staff at another college, for my own oral development and a Frau Metzner for German.  But, if I was willing to act as a mentor, he thought it would help my own studies and the college would also give me a little extra on my stipend for the Exhibition.  I agreed.  He then said he would be my tutor and the two lads who had been interviewed with me would also be his tutees as well.  So, all was settled.  He gave me a lecture list, marked with the sections of the syllabus he wanted me and the others to follow.  He said one piece of advice was never get in an argument with a philosopher.  With that he grinned and said I should go to a few philosophy lectures, though, as it was useful to find out how other people's minds work.  It was exactly twelve fifteen then and there was a knock on the door.  It was Sam from the buttery with two plates of cold meat, pickles, hunks of bread and a bottle of beer apiece.  So, this was my first experience of a tutorial, plus a luncheon in college!  Good, solid English food!

     Well, the rest of the term went so quickly it just felt as if it flashed by.  The first few days were so hectic, sherry with the Dean, again with the Chaplain, Freshers meetings, clubs to join.   I actually signed up for the Boat Club but explained I only wanted to use the equipment in the boathouse because of my knee.  As there were several ex-servicemen with injuries this was not a problem and Charley acted as my sponsor.  Charley passed his viva and was reinstated.  He gave me his money to look after and I doled it out weekly.  I think he was much chastened by his experience and the threats of his father.

     Tony was in the thick of things and seemed to have been assimilated into the rugger-hearties fraternity.  We met up almost daily for chats and he, like me, seemed to be working steadily.   At the beginning of the second week I had a note in the mail.  'Mr Ludovic Wilkinson requests the pleasure of Mr Jacques Thomson to tea'.  It was Lachs and Flea's old schoolmate Wilkie!   He was at Pembroke College reading Anglo-Saxon.  Actually, he became a very firm friend and was a very steady influence when I got uptight about anything.  He and Tony got on well as Tony had opted for a section on Old English in his English Tripos.

     Willy Roberts was a mine of information and a great help.  I learned very early on, from hearing the experiences of others, that you never got on the wrong side of a Porter if you wanted to survive!   In the hearing of others I always addressed Willy as Mr Roberts.  Anyone who took liberties, even Charley at times, was ignored or, perhaps, was left off a vital list, or mail was late, or found themselves on some don's breakfast list especially when the don was scratchy or didn't like the chap's tutor.

     Young Jem, my scout and bedder, was a treasure.  Each morning he was there at seven, pot of tea ready and waiting.  On cold mornings my fire would be laid and lit.  He would then sit on the end of my bed and relay the latest scandalous gossip which his cousin, Willy, had threatened him with castration if he ever divulged any of it.  I found out which undergraduates had other undergraduates (male of course) to stay the night, which of the dons had interesting books in their studies, Charley's latest escapade, and so on.  Charley and I were his favourites.  Most mornings there would be a frantic cry of 'Jem!' as Charley needed help in putting on his boot and calliper.  Jem was very upset one morning as Charley had collapsed drunkenly on the floor of his room where he'd slept all night with vomit and other bodily fluids in evidence.  I helped him clean him up and promised to keep an eye on him when I knew he was carousing.  I think Willy must have told him something about Mike and me and had obviously shown him the drawing Mike did of him as he asked me one morning if I minded if Sam came and helped him clean my room on afternoons when I was at lectures or tutorials.  I said of course he could but I wanted my sheets changed regularly.  He did have the grace to blush and I gave him an extra shilling that week and told him to treat Sam to a couple of buns from Fitzbillies to keep his strength up.  The blush was even deeper.

     I survived my first term very well.  Dr Blake was an excellent tutor.  He was a specialist in medieval French and we started off by delving back into French literature and poetry of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries.  I found it all fascinating and my two co-tutees, Donald MacFee and Francis Thornley, were very pleasant and bright and we sparked each other off.  I think Dr Blake had a soft spot for the three of us as we often had a 'cold collation', if our tutorial went over twelve noon, delivered by Sam from the buttery.  He always got teased in some way and usually had to take the 'canary' out into the Fellows Garden to pee behind a tree.  I had relayed the fact that giving the 'canary' a charcoal biscuit or two every day - something Jim Chater had told me after I'd related the way I'd been accepted at Cambridge - would probably help with its digestive processes.  Anyway, Peter didn't fart so much after that!

     My little group were very pleasant.  Two had been in the Air Force and the other had been captured by the Germans, escaped and joined up with the French Resistance.  His French was excellent, better than mine, very colloquial at times, and he helped the rest of us a great deal.  Mrs O'Hagen was an elderly Parisian lady and we read through all the set books together and she was great company, too.  Frau Metzner was from the German-Polish border and I learned a lot of Middle European history from her.  So, all in all, when the eight week term was over, I was ready for the Christmas vacation.

                              *
                    Christmas 1947 - New Year 1948

     When I got home Flea, Lachs and Sayed were already ensconced.  They were going to stay a week before going on up to Chester.  Flea had now left school and was raring to go to the RAF Training School in January.  It was his turn to be teased.  With both Lachs and Sayed he didn't have a chance.  Every time he appeared they made 'zoom zoom' noises and Pa was no better, calling him Pilot Officer Prune.  I think he looked to me for moral support.  Unfortunately I joined in the teasing.  I asked him how good he was at Maths as pilots had to make sure they kept the number of landings equal to the number of take-offs.  He said as soon as he could fly I was going to be first to be taken out over the Atlantic and dropped from a great height.

     He had decorated my, or our, bedroom with two large recruiting posters and a whole load of RAF memorabilia he'd cadged or bought in junk shops.  There were various badges and insignia flashes and a couple of caps and a flying helmet.  He was keen and no doubt about it.  But, pride of place on my chest of drawers was the dirk in its leather sheath he had been presented with on his last parade with the School Cadet Force.  He also had a large photograph of his Company but signed on the back by at least a hundred of his schoolmates.  I felt very proud for him as well and when we were in bed that night I told him so.  He shut me up the easiest way and I had to say that for eight weeks I'd had to comfort myself.  He said it was his turn now and he would be in the same boat - or barracks - for who knows how long after the New Year.  He said he didn't know whether to ask Sayed if he knew why camels were called ships of the desert.  I asked why?  He giggled and said they were always full of Arab seamen.  I said from what I had judged about Sayed he would appreciate that.  He did and said it was a good thing Flea was joining the Air Force as he would be able to pull on his joystick whenever he was up.

     Actually, I also came in for plenty of banter.  The three of them were all the same size - five feet five inches within a smidgen's difference - I was six feet two inches so I was the human bean-pole, Lofty, Lanky, Sky-scraper, whatever.  Sayed had made some remark that he thought the Yeti lived on the slopes of the Himalayas and I probably had one nesting.  I picked him up and threatened to put him in the dustbin but was attacked on all sides by the other two.  What I didn't realise was that I had picked up a Prince who giggled and wriggled just like anyone else, especially when he received a smart smack on his backside.

     Pa and Ma coped very well having four loony, laughing young men around the house.  Pa kept up his barrage of teasing, especially with Flea.  At dinner one evening he said that three officers were discussing wonderful inventions.  The Naval officer said he thought the compass was wonderful, using the earth's magnetic field to give the direction one was sailing in.  The Army officer thought that the Chinese invention of gunpowder had been marvellous.  The chemical reaction in a confined space could propel very heavy cannon balls a long way.  The Air Force officer said he thought the thermos was even more extraordinary.  The other two looked puzzled and asked, 'Why?'.  Oh, said the Airman, if you want hot things kept hot you put hot things in it and if you wanted cold things kept cold you put cold things in it.  'Yes' queried the others, 'What about it?'  'Ah, how does it know?' said the Airman.

     All too soon they were off and I had strict instructions not to miss the final parade in June when Lachs and Sayed would be commissioned.  Flea, although excited about the prospects, was rather uneasy about what he might be letting himself in for.  Pa didn't help by saying he's heard that the final assessment for Air Force personnel often included the statement “This man is depriving some village of its idiot!” but Flea shouldn't worry as there was always plenty of space at Clare College for a few more.

     I had loads of work to do so had a few days respite before Tom Buchanan arrived home on leave.  He was now a proper Corporal and was doing some specialised work with a couple of boffins putting together their designs for some new communications device which had a new sort of valve.  I had no idea what he was talking about but he and Pa had quite long conversations about it.  He like me had been quite celibate since I'd seen him last.  He said he was taking Betty Briggs to the pictures and, not to be outdone, I asked Kats if she would like to go too!  Nothing happened for either Tom or I.  A quick cuddle and a goodnight kiss.  We compared notes the next day and it had been two wanks apiece to reduce our swellings!

     Duncan was home for Christmas.  He was rather torn because he was due for demob but his Colonel had recommended him for a permanent commission if he signed on.  He really wanted to go to university and the Colonel said he could sign on until late summer and should apply to Edinburgh University to take his degree but maintain a link with the regiment.  His father advised him to take the university course and if he wanted he could sign on afterwards.

     Christmas was quite hectic.  Christmas Eve we all went to the Marchams.  Christmas Day we went to the Trings with the Buchanans as well and on Boxing Day everyone seemed to congregate at ours.  We then recuperated on Saturday and Sunday because on Monday I was going to Ulvescott for the New Year with Ma and Pa going up to Chester to see Grandma and Grandpa.  They were staying at the old house with Uncle Edward and Aunt Della and would have another dose of the three lads.

     I met up with Tony and Kats at the bus station.  She had decided she wanted to stay at Ulvescott as well and Mrs Fry had arranged for her to borrow a horse from a neighbouring farmer who was a keen rider.  Borrow a horse?  I said I'd heard of neighbours borrowing cups of sugar but I had never heard of borrowing a horse.  She said I was daft and if I was a bit braver I could learn to ride anyway.  I said my bicycle was my steed and it didn't need feeding.

     Bran and Finbar were waiting at the gate and Finbar was now almost fully grown.  He was now as adept as Bran in shaking paws and waited while Bran was hugged before it was his turn.  I seemed to get a special lick when I put my arms around his neck.

     As usual, Tony and I were sharing and Kats had one of the large rooms which had been cleaned and re-decorated and looked very smart indeed.  She had three suitcases which we gallant young men had lugged off the bus for her.  I still had my stick but was getting more used to putting weight on my leg so I carried her lightest case as well as mine.  Of course, both Tony and I grumbled the whole time just to show we weren't intimidated by the female presence.

     Mrs Crossley was obviously very fond of her niece and I realised more and more what a nice person she was.  She was used to having her leg pulled by her brother and she gave back as good as she got, but always without being nasty.  She had wanted to know all the things I was doing at college and seemed genuinely interested in all the goings on.  I had plenty to tell about Charley Lascelles who, though working quite steadily, managed to go to parties and dinners almost every night.  That was at least for the first half of term before I had to tell him his allowance was going to run out if he didn't moderate his spending.  I didn't have the money to indulge in bottles of good wine and four course dinners with the Eton set and nor did he, so I managed to get him down to the boathouse most afternoons to do some serious training for the Bumps races coming up in February.

     I'd been to a couple of rowdy parties with Tony's college rugger-buggers.  They were mainly harmless, brainless, clueless and docile unless they had three or four pints of good English ale in them, then they rampaged.  Charley had come in for a couple of brushes with one college team as he made his way back to Clare all togged up in white tie and tails.  It was only because a couple of the team had been at school with him that he escaped unscathed.  Generally, if you were labelled an 'aesthete' or were 'arty' then debagging was the usual fate.  The damage which Charley had been billed for was the result of a rather boisterous evening in which the study room I was now in had been trashed because of some misunderstanding.  It had actually belonged to one of the 'boaties', who were another set of muscular, dim, gormless, but, when sober, affable youths.  This one had gone to the local hospital with some injury and the others, too drunk to notice their error, had thought it belonged to the editor of the student magazine.   He had printed a few choice little jokes like 'What do you call a boatie with half a brain?'   'Gifted';  'What's the difference between a pair of clogs and a French letter?'; 'You can hear a boatie coming in a pair of clogs' and 'What's big and hairy and sticks out of a boatie's pyjamas?'  'His head'.

     So, next thing we knew was Kats all togged up in jodhpurs and riding jacket rushing off to try out her borrowed mount.  Naturally, we asked her how 'Sugar' was when she returned looking windswept and ruddy-faced.

     New Year's Eve Mrs Crossley put on a party for quite a few of her relations, friends and neighbours - about forty or so in all.  The Frys were there with Big Jim Chater plus numerous farmers and contingents of their sons and daughters.  Even the ninety-plus Lady Bing was there.  Some rapprochement was evident in that Josh was there with his brother but no Sam Catt, although his mother and father were introduced to me.  I met Isabella.  She was a stunning redhead and was there with a tall, flaxen-haired youth, who was all teeth and receding chin.  I hoped he'd got something in his undies to compensate for that rather gormless look, which, given the way she clung to him most of the evening, was a most probable certainty.

     There was a little band, a quintet of piano, saxophone, trumpet, double-bass and drums and they played  very sedate waltzes and quicksteps with a couple of country dances added in for good measure.  I knew nothing about dancing but was expertly handled by Kats.  I mean handled.  She was much in demand all evening by the horny-handed sons of toil - some of them real toughies and bruisers from life on the farm.  But I had the last waltz of the evening which was a real smooching close-up hug with quite lascivious movements of pelvises.  She must have known that I wasn't carrying a small cucumber in my pants but smiled as we parted and said she'd had a marvellous time.  Tony had been acting as barman during the evening in tandem with a farmer's son who had broken an ankle playing rugby so couldn't dance.  Both had worked on the principle of one drink for a customer and one for them so when the witching hour of midnight came and the toast to the New Year was drunk both were pretty well plastered.  I helped Tony upstairs and put him to bed where he snored stertorously until I threatened to put a pillow over his head.

     New Year's morning was clear-up time after the party and getting rid of hangovers time.  Lunch was getting rid of 'rests', the left-overs from the party.  After lunch Kats was going riding on 'Sugar' or Morning Glory to give it its proper name.  'It' was the operative, or operated, word.  Morning Glory was a gelding.  All cock and no balls.  Tony and I crossed our legs when the very handsome horse was displayed to us the first afternoon.  In fact he said it was a good job we'd christened it Sugar and not Sugar Lumps as the poor thing had no lumps!  Whether it sensed some competition in the length of cock stakes we didn't know but as Kats was patting its head and remarking on the fineness of its fetlocks a long dangling snake appeared and a torrent of evil-smelling, yellow piss squirted from the well over a foot-long dark, thick appendage.  “Beat that, Sugar Lumps Thomson” was Tony's comment as he nudged me in the side.  That night I stretched his cock as much as I could and squeezed his lumps before he cried out for mercy and said his glory was about a quarter of Morning Glory's but at least he could produce more from his lumps than the poor beast could.  He did in abundance!

     Anyway, New Year's afternoon turned out cold and a bit slippery so I said I would retire to the bedroom and read while Kats was going off riding and Tony, Josh and Jim were taking the dogs for a long ramble to work off some of the alcohol deposits.  Mrs Crossley and Miss P were spending the afternoon at the Fry's playing Bridge.
     I took my trousers off as I wanted to massage my knee muscles as the Swiss masseuse had shown me.  So, I was lying under the covers like that when I heard a stomping and swearing coming up the stairs.  It was Kats.  She was in a mood.  Morning Glory had refused a fence or something and had thrown a tantrum at something else so Kats had brought him (it) back to the barn.  She looked at me in bed and started to divest herself of her riding boots and take off her riding jacket.  Before I knew anything else she was unbuttoning her jodhpurs and next thing she was nude and in bed on top of me.  My books went flying as she roughly unbuttoned my shirt with one hand and thrust her hand down the waistband of my underpants and grabbed my still quiescent prick.  

     She was rubbing herself up and down me and that did it.  I was hard in an instant.

     “God!  I love you, Jacko?” he breathed in my ear as she nibbled at it.  “Do you love me?”

     I must say I was in a turmoil.  I knew I loved her.  I loved Lachs and Flea.  I loved her brother.  I loved her.  I loved her deeply, madly, passionately.....   Somehow my shirt and underpants came off.

     “I want you to fuck me,” she said, “You fuck Tony so I want you to fuck me!  I know you do, I've read his diaries!”

     I was a bit gobsmacked.  I knew I fucked Tony.  Whenever possible.  In his diaries?  Kats had read them?  We were too far gone to have more conversation.  I was kissing her.  My hand was between her legs.  My fingers were in her.  I was touching her magic button.  She was gripping my rampant prick.  We stroked each other and worked each other up to such a frenzy the next thing I knew I was lying on top of her with her knees up either side of me and I was ready to enter her.

     “I want you now!” she panted.  “I want all of you, please Jacko.  Love me!”

     My cock was aimed and entered.  I had been told that the first time a girl bled as you had to break something.  This was so easy.  My full seven inches was buried deep in her and without any further movement it was as if my spunk was sucked out of me.  I shot a terrific load, rested about a minute and then began to fuck in earnest.  Kats was babbling sweet words of encouragement and clawing at my arms and back urging me on.  At some point she gave great gasps as she must have had her own orgasm.  I filled her with a second load of semen and collapsed.  We lay side by side cuddling each other, my cock still hard inside her.  We murmured words of love for each other until she moved away from me.

     “Oh, Jacko,” she said, kissing me on the nose, “That was even better than I could ever have imagined.”

     It was too.  I could equate it with the most intense feelings I had ever felt.  I knew I loved Flea and Lachs and Tony.  And now I loved her.  I was all confusion.  I wanted to fuck and fuck and fuck.  She rolled away from me and kissed me very tenderly on the lips.

     “Don't worry Jacko,” she whispered, “I'm due in a couple of days.  It'll be OK.”
     With that she gathered up her clothes and disappeared out of the room.

     Don't worry?  Oh, my God!  We had been so carried away.  But then, I didn't have anything.  But then, she had been determined to be fucked.  Oh my God!  But then, she was due in a couple of days.  Oh my God!  And was I the first?  She had been so easy to enter and all the stories I'd heard.  Oh my God!

     I got up and went and washed.  I dressed and did the only thing I knew to lessen the tension I felt.  I went down and played the piano.  I was still playing as people straggled back.  Two damp dogs came and sat by me.  Tony brought me a cup of tea.  I had fucked him two nights ago.  I had fucked his sister this afternoon.  What could I say to him?  I played the introduction to 'Pale Hands'.  He sang it and I knew we both relived our time in Switzerland and the enjoyable experiences especially with Johann.  I was a bit distracted the rest of the day.

     Tony must have sensed this because no sooner we were in bed that night he asked me.

     “Tell me what happened,” was all he said.

     I hugged him and told him all, even the bit about Kats having read his diaries and said how sorry I was to have let him down.  Actually I was a bit miffed about him writing about me in his diaries.  However, he kissed me very tenderly.

     “Sorry about Kats and the diary.  I've got my own code but she's worked it out - just like bloody Nobbo and his brother.  But, I know Kats loves you and I think you can love her too.  Think about it.  I'm still your friend and I'm so grateful you're my friend - and a bit of a lover,” he added with a bite at my ear lobe.  He licked my ear.  “Got a confession to make to you, too.  Know Percy Magill?”

     Of course I knew Percy Magill.  A brawny second row forward in the King's team.  Big, brown-haired, always a broad grin on his face and the most massive feet one's ever seen.

     “He's fucked me quite a few times over the last few weeks.  Cock doesn't match his feet though.  Apologised the first time.  We got a bit drunk and he ended up in my bed.   He's got the hots for Phil Laker, though.”

     Phil Laker was even bigger and was the most masculine looking lad in their team.  Burly, black-haired and beetle-browed and played at full-back.  He liked a drink or two, too.

     Tony chuckled. “Perce keeps asking me what he should do.  Thinks I've got all the answers.  Phil's not overhung either from the looks in the bath but he's got a nice body and Perce wants a taste of it.  He's always with Cas though.”

     Caswell March was their scrum-half.  A small, dark-haired Welsh lad with a good tenor voice which, combined with Tony's, always led the sing-songs after matches.

     “Suggest a threesome, or, even better, a foursome, get 'em pissed first,” I said.
     Tony giggled.  “Good idea, I wouldn't mind having a go at Cas myself.”

     “You be careful,” I said, “They probably haven't worked out your preferences and if you get the wrong one you'll be right in the shit!”

     Tony stroked my back.  “I've been observing things a good deal over the past few years and I don't think there are many lads, when shove comes to push, who won't try anything once and most have by now.  It's right time and right place!”

     Right time and right place?  Kats had made sure of that.  I was hooked.  But, I wasn't going to learn to ride a bloody horse!  We did have a little heart to heart talk before we left for home.  She said I was definitely the first.  I was about to ask about how girls were constructed when she said she and Bella had  practised extensively with each other and it was true about girls and candles.  Oh crikey, the rugger song, 'All the nice girls love a candle', so it was true!

     I did see her a couple of times before Tony and I made our way back to Cambridge.  One night at the pictures I did manage to fondle a breast and her tongue was very active when we kissed goodnight on the doorstep.   The work during the term was interesting and I was feeling I was doing very well.  Tony was very chirpy.  In the cold spell there was no rugger and I think he and Perce spent a good deal of time together.  I know Jem and Sam did.  I was out one afternoon seeing Frau Metzler and cycled back on my second- or even fifth-hand old bike Willy had procured for me for ten bob, when I noticed the light was on in my study room as I passed.  That was odd.  I knew I had switched off the light in the morning and Jem wasn't due to clear up that day.  But, the light was shining on this dark afternoon.

     I let myself in as quietly as possible.  My bedroom door was ajar and I could see by the light on in the study room that the bed was occupied.  I crept to the door and peeked in.  Two black-haired heads, close together, sound asleep - Jem and Sam.  They looked so peaceful and content.  There were two neat piles of clothes on the chair and dressing table.  Jem's and Sam's.  I, as silently as possible, slipped a shilling onto each pile and slipped out myself as silently as possible.  I did rattle my outer door and went to Charley's rooms opposite mine.  He was trying to write an essay so I made us both a cup of tea and watched out of his window as, first, one black-suited youngster appeared, bold as brass, and walked off towards the buttery.  A couple of minutes later a second figure appeared, head in the air, and walked towards the Porter's Lodge.  Teatime over I went to my rooms.  There was a piece of paper on my desk - just a scrap of paper, but in a neat hand was 'Thanks' and a 'J' and an 'S' in a different hand.

                              *
     The next morning I was wakened by a discreet cough and a cup of hot tea was handed to me.  Nothing was said and although my bed must have been used many times after that no more sleeping beauties were discovered.  I did get a shy smile from Sam when I went into dinner that next night as he was on duty in Hall.  I closed one eye, very slowly, and was rewarded with a slight blush.

                              **
     On Wednesday the third of March I'd had a tutorial from nine o'clock to ten o'clock in the morning with Dr Blake.  I had read through an essay, with comments from Donald and Francis and a summing-up from Dr Blake, and I think I did pretty well, so I was pleased with myself.  I sauntered into the Porter's Lodge where Willy was in sole command.

     “Any mail, Mr Roberts?” I asked, very formally.  Willy turned round from the notice board where he'd been pinning a piece of paper.

     He grinned at me and produced a small batch of correspondence from a pigeon-hole.  I scanned the first billet-doux.  It was from the Chaplain reminding me it was my turn to read the Lesson in Chapel on Friday week.  There was a note from Wilkie inviting me to a recital in their Chapel on the Thursday and a couple of flyers from clubs soliciting membership.  There was also a letter with a Kerslake postmark with my address in familiar handwriting.

     “By the way, Jacko,” Willy was saying, as I slit the letter open with the paper-knife conveniently placed on the desk between us., “Your friend, Mr Marcham, is cutting a swathe through the undergraduate population of King's.”

     “Un-huh” I said, as I unfolded the two sheets of paper in the envelope.  I had half an ear to what Willy was saying as I guessed it might be a bit of juicy gossip.  I looked up at him.

     “Yes,” he said, “There is talk of him being pursued by four members of the rugger team, three boaties and three members of the choir.”

     “Not the boys, I hope,” I said.

     “No, two tenors and a bass,” said Willy, “Very popular is your friend.”  I had just read the first two paragraphs of the letter and was staring at it.  “Talk of the devil,” says Willy, “He's here!”

     Willy clapped his bowler hat on his head as a scurrying figure, undergraduate gown flying behind him, bounced into the Lodge.  He had a letter in his hand, too.

     “Hello, Mr Roberts,” he said, “Must fly.  Come on Jacko, to your room!”

     I was still trying to digest the news but was almost dragged to my room where I sat down heavily by the table.

     “Kats' pregnant,” I gasped.

     “I know,” said Tony, “I've had a letter this morning, too!”

     “I've got to go home,” I said, “I'd better pack.  I'll get a job!”

     “You'll do no such thing!” said Tony very firmly.  “Have you read the second letter?”

     I hadn't realised the second page was in a different handwriting.  It was from Tony and Kats' mum.  I scanned it.  She said Kats had told her.  I was to do nothing foolish, that word underlined.  All would be well.  Kats wanted the baby.

     Oh God!  Girls having babies and not being married were the end for families.  Perhaps in a village like Pinmill, girls like Peggy Finch would be accepted, but in a town like Kerslake the gossip and the pointing fingers would be overwhelming.  I had to marry Kats.  I had to leave college and get a job.  What job?  I was eighteen.  I had no training.  I was in turmoil.  Tony sensed this and put his hands out and grasped mine.

     He spoke slowly.  He must have read my mind.  “If you marry her you will not leave college.  Mum says in the letter to me that is an order...”

     “......I'll marry her!” I expostulated, “I want to!  She's having my baby!”

     Tony smiled at me.  “If the baby is as nice and good as you I'll be proud to be it's Uncle.”  We sat silently a moment or two.  I was still digesting the news.  “I'll go and see Willy,” he said, “I'll get him to cover for us.  His Dad's best friend is our Head Porter.  If we catch the midday train we can get to Kerslake this afternoon.  You can talk to Mum and Kats and see your Mum and Dad and then we can come back tomorrow morning.  All settled!”

     I don't know what Tony told Willy but a taxi was called and we were at the station in good time and actually caught the eleven o'clock train.  I was very tense but Tony managed to lighten the atmosphere by telling me about an invite he'd had at the weekend.  Luckily we were the only ones in the compartment.

     “I haven't told you, Jacko, about going up to London for the weekend, have I?”

     I knew there had been something on as I had seen nothing of him from Friday evening when he, I and Charley had taken advantage of Charley's father's invitation to have dinner at the Blue Boar anytime on him.   We had said that Charley wasn't really invited and if old Bert didn't honour the signature for three he'd have to wash-up afterwards in the kitchen.  Old Bert was most affable and didn't even present a bill and made some remarks that young gentlemen these days were much better behaved.

     Tony grinned.  “What I tell you goes no further, eh?”

     Surely, Tony must know me by now!  I nodded.

     “Yes, it will, or yes, it won't?” he persisted

     “Get on with it,” I said.

     He settled back in his seat.  “You know I'm friendly with Perce don't you?”

     As he'd told me that Perce fucked him regularly of course I knew.  I nodded again.

     “Well, Perce has this cousin in Town, who's....”  Tony made a sign which I interpreted as meaning he had much the same inclinations as Tony - and I assumed, Perce.  “....Well he had this dinner at his flat in Mayfair on Saturday and Perce was asked if he had a friend he could ask and we caught the train up after the game in the afternoon.  Very select - had to change when we got there, black tie - but as we went in to dinner we were given a mask to wear.  Just over eyes and nose.  When I saw him I only knew it was Perce 'cause he'd got a great bruise on his chin so I didn't know who else was there.  There were ten of us.  Most of them seemed older than us, mainly in the City from the conversations going on.  Bloody good meal, but wait for it - it was served by four young men with nothing on but black leather jockstraps.  Big lads.  Might have been padded a bit but they were all pretty muscular with it.”  He leaned forward in his seat.  “Recognised one of them.  It was Nobbo's brother, Billy!”

     He waited while I assimilated that information.  Billy, I knew, was now reading English at University College London.  As far as I knew, his fellow ex-Sergeant Tester was there as well.  Was he another of the hunks there?  I'd seen Billy in the nude and knew he was quite a muscular young man.  I also knew, from Nobbo's worries, that Billy had a nefarious past.  Nobbo was convinced that Billy had made lots of money by 'selling his arse' as he had put it.  I wondered if this new venture was how Billy was earning his pocket-money now?  Funny, as jockstraps, leather or not, had no pockets!

     As Tony had been so forthcoming I felt I had no reason not to tell him what I knew.

     “I'm not surprised,” I said, “Nobbo was always worried about how Billy earned his money in Kerslake.  Moved up a notch or two, has he?”

     Tony laughed and said Nobbo had also confided in him so that was why he wasn't so surprised at seeing Billy at the rather louche dinner.

     “Anything happen?”  I asked.

     Tony shook his head.  “It was obviously keep your hands off the servants, though I did notice a few admiring looks when plates were handed round.”   He smiled.  “Billy knows how to show himself off.  I wondered what it was and Perce told me afterwards he and the other three were all covered in oil to make them shine and to show off their muscles.”

     “Something to get your rugger crowd to do.  You'd slip out of the clutches of the other sides then.”

     “Daft fool you are.  Why d'you think most of them play rugger but to be clutched at every opportunity.  You should have seen Cas and Phil Laker hanging on to each other in the baths warbling out that one about the bastard Stephen.”

     I remembered that song I'd heard several times about the young lady who had pleasured herself with a fountain pen which, unfortunately, like Peggy's Naval amour's French letter, had leaked, 'And they called the bastard, Stephen, because that was the name of the ink'.

     Apparently he and Perce were being put up in the spare bedroom while Perce's cousin and 'friend' retired to the main bedroom.  Tony hadn't told Perce he'd recognised one of the young 'Adonises' as Perce called them but he said the sight of them, plus the excitements of the afternoon game, had made Perce extra horny.

     So, there was Tony getting his oats regularly.  I was too, by exercising the muscles in my right arm in solitary splendour.  Even Jem and Sam were getting more than I was.  But then, what was destined for me in the future?

     We were very flush that day and also took a taxi up to Tony's.  He had 'phoned home as soon as we arrived at Kerslake Station.  Mrs Marcham met us at the door and hugged me tightly and whispered that all was well.  We went into the drawing-room where Kats was sitting and she burst into tears immediately.  I rushed over to her and knelt by where she was sitting.

     “Please, Kats,” I said quietly but very firmly, “Will you marry me?”

     The floods of tears increased but she leaned forward and grasped me round the shoulders.

     “I didn't want it this way,” she said very hesitantly.  “Are you sure?  I could go away.”

     “I'm sure,” I said, quietly.  “We'll have to work it all out, though.”

     Mrs Marcham came across and also knelt.

     “Is it what you really want, Jacko?” she asked.

     I nodded.  “It's my baby as well as hers,” I said, “I want to share everything with Kats.  But I haven't got anything.”

     She also put her arms round me.  “It'll all be all right,” she said softly.  “You've got a future and one thing is you mustn't leave college.  Katherine will be all right, too.  We'll look after you both and the baby, don't worry.  I want grandchildren and I know that Tony won't be having any.”

     There was a gasp from across the room.

     Mrs Marcham stood up and went over to where a transfixed Tony stood.  “It's all right, darling, I've known for a long time.” She laughed and put her arms round her immobile son.  She let go and stood back.  “You didn't know your Uncle Robert, my young brother.  He died when he was twenty-one, burst appendix.  His friend went to America.  You're so like him - I could read you both like a book.  You're my son and I only want you to be happy.”

     There was a questioning look in Tony's eyes.  His mother took the cue.

     “Your father knows.  He was Robert's best friend's younger brother.  That's how we met.”

     Tony gaped.  “Uncle Lester?”

     His mother nodded.  “Now you know.  That's how we knew about you.”

     “You and Dad both knew?”

     “Yes.  But that's enough of you for the moment.”  She turned and came over to two other equally transfixed young people.

     I stood up and Mrs Marcham motioned me towards the sofa.  She beckoned Tony over and he sat by me.

     “If you really want to get married, the sooner the better,” she said.  “I suggest the Saturday after Easter.”  She turned to me.  “At Ulvescott Church.  You'll have to arrange a special licence but Gerald will take care of it.  I'll come with you tonight to see your mother and father.  You'd better talk to them first.   Don't worry, these things happen in the best regulated families.  Even Tony was a bit premature!”

     “Mother!” came a rather strangulated cry from the figure next to me.

     Mrs Marcham was nothing if not well organised.  I knew she was chairman of some women's organisation in Kerslake and she was in full swing now.  No airs and graces!  Just plain straightforward talk and kindness.  I felt better already.  But what was I to tell Ma and Pa.  Tony volunteered to come with me.  I shook my head.  This was my problem.  I knew Ma and Pa loved me.  I knew Pa and Ma were very proud of me.  Had I let them down getting Kats pregnant and jeopardising my future?  How was I going to support Kats if I still had more than two more years at Cambridge?  Mrs Marcham had said very firmly that I was not to worry about finance.  Kats could live at home, or Mr Marcham would find us a flat or small house.  I think Mrs Marcham was excited about having a grandchild even though her daughter would just be eighteen when the baby was born.  Oh my God, I would still be eighteen when the baby was born as it was due, all being well, in September!

     We had tea.  I wasn't very hungry, for once, and, just before six o'clock, set out with a heavy heart for home.

     Ma and Pa had just arrived home when I appeared on the back doorstep.  Ma went white and Pa looked really shaken.  I assured them I was OK but I had some very important news for them.  We sat round the kitchen table and I poured out my story.  I finished and all Pa did was laugh softly, get up and fling his arms round me.

     “Congratulations, son!” he said, “You're only keeping up the Thomson tradition!”

     Ma was sniffing a bit and was about to burst into tears, but said softly, “C'est vrai!”

     I, like Tony earlier, was rather gobsmacked.  “It's true!” Ma had said.

     “I'm glad it's Kats,” he said, leaving go of me and straightening up.  “She's a very nice girl.  I hope you'll be happy together.”  He wagged his finger at me.  “But no thought of leaving Cambridge.

     “Mrs Marcham said that,” I said, “Can I?  How will we manage?”

     “You're not the first pair,” Pa said, grinning, “We'll help you manage.”

     We were interrupted by a ring at the front door bell.  Ma hurried out, still looking a bit shaken.  Mrs Marcham came in, accompanied by Tony.  The kitchen was getting crowded so we all went into the drawing room.

     I was surprised.  All was affability.  Ma visibly brightened up as my parents talked with Mrs Marcham.  She apologised and said her husband was away until Friday but she had broken the news to him and, although rather taken aback, was most happy I had offered to marry Kats.  If possible the wedding would be arranged for Saturday April the Third.  I said I wanted a quiet wedding.  Tony looked at me with an evil look.  Ma and Pa looked askance.  Mrs Marcham laughed and said they hadn't had a wedding on the Marcham side for ages so it was going to be as many friends and relations as possible.  She was the mother of the bride - she winked at Ma - and she would arrange all with my mother!  Tony laughed and said he would see no one was missed out as far as friends were concerned.

     I was in too much of a state to argue.  All this was arranged in about half an hour.  I had a hurried supper and cycled round to Tony's to talk to Kats.  We were left alone in the drawing room and we hugged and cuddled each other and expressed our undying love.  I hadn't got a ring to give her, I said.  She smiled and said I had given her something much, much better.  She was going to have my baby!  She said she had spoken to her father on the telephone and he had said whatever we wanted we could have.  I said, when I could, I would provide and pay back anything and everything.  I felt so much more relieved as we kissed goodnight and Mrs Marcham and Tony said goodnight, too.  Tony said we would be catching the ten o'clock train in the morning and not to be late.

     I sat with Ma and Pa until almost midnight and heard much more about the family than I had ever guessed or known.  Pa said that he and Ma were so much in love that they had  anticipated their wedding at least a month before, hence the tale that I was premature.  The same was true, so Pa asserted as far as Uncle Dick and Auntie Faye were concerned and he was sure it was more than a month with them!  And then, what about Uncle Edward and Aunt Della?  I was much more relaxed by now and thought back to what Uncle Edward had said about that first Jacques Fontane and Charlotte Crossley.  They had beaten the starting pistol with a vengeance!   It must run in the family.  Or, I was getting the feeling, in most families.

     Ma asked if I was happy getting married.  I said I was anxious but, I smiled, I felt so happy that Kats was having our baby.  That made me happy.  I went over to her and knelt and hugged her.

     “I want to be as happy as you have been with me, I hope,” I said.  “I'm sorry I wasn't very much of a good son when I was a bit younger, but you're the best mother anyone could have and I am sure you'll be the best grandmother!”
     After that we went to bed.  I was so weary I just slept.

     On the train journey back Tony was busy making notes in an exercise book.  I asked him what he was doing.

     “Making out the guest list,” he said.  He waved the book at me.  There was already at least a page of names.  “You've got to have a best man.  That'll be Matt.  I'll be in charge of ushers and I'll sing.  We'll have Tim play the organ.  Nobbo, Cleggy and Roo will be ushers.  Then there's Tom and your new cousins.  We'll have them as a guard of honour in their uniforms.  And Matt can wear his Naval uniform as well as your best man.”  He paused to consult the list.  “You've got three cousins in Wales, haven't you?  They'll have to be there and your aunts and uncles and your grandparents.   Mum's going to arrange with Aunt Mary to use Ulvescott for the reception.....”

     I held up a hand.  “....Hold it, hold it, hold it,” I said.  “All those people won't want to come to my wedding.  They'll only laugh and know I'm having to get married.....”

     Tony held up his hand, too.  “.....”They'll all come because they're your friends.  They won't care.  You're the first of our lot to get married.  They'll all be envious.”  He giggled.  “Shouldn't be surprised if you don't set a fashion  - there'll be plenty of young ladies in an interesting condition once your news gets around.... ....Julia Ward's going to be livid and what about Lizzie Tilson?”

     “Shut up,” I said, half jokingly, but rather unsettled at the same time.  “I suppose I'd better write some letters before long to forewarn them all.”

     “The young ladies?”

     “No, you fool, my so-called friends and relations!”

     “Well, you and I had better coordinate our lists because Mum will want to know to send out the invitations.  We haven't got long.  She said this morning she was planning to go to the printers this afternoon!”

     I said we could do it this evening.  I wanted to change the subject.  I had remembered what Willy Roberts had been saying when I received the letter.

     “Willy was telling me you are having an interesting time in any case at King's,” I said.

     Tony looked questioningly at me.  I thought I would lead him on a bit.

     “Something about three boaties, two tenors and a bass!”

     The toad smirked.  “Lies, lies and more lies,” he said, “Its four boaties.  Can't help it if I have sexual magnetism, can I?”

     “What do you mean?” I asked.

     He laughed.  “It's nothing.  It's just that Perce is having a birthday party and said I can choose the guest list.”  He raised his eyebrows.  “You're on the list and so's Charley.  That is, unless you have to mind your P's and Q's when you're a married man.  It's the beginning of next term and, as his parties are a bit special and word's got out,  there's a bit of competition to see who's invited.  As I hold the list I'm very popular.”  He grinned lasciviously.  “Could have a different shag every night.   Yeah, I'll see about that.  A couple of those boaties are quite well-hung!  And I'm sure that Gethyn Williams in the choir has something down below to match his deep bass voice.”

     “Tony!”  I said, my prim side emerging.  Oh hell.  Here am I, prime shagger myself.  Brother and sister both submitting more than willingly to my.....  Oh, my God! and I'm taken aback by his outspokenness.  I laughed.  “I suppose you've got to play the field and what Willy said is you're cutting a swathe.  Very pastoral, eh?”

     “And how the hell does Willy know?” queried Tony.  “Those Porters are real gossip-mongers.  I bet my gyp's been looking at my notebooks.  He's that little lad Graham....  He's a pal of your lad Jem....   So, I want to know.”

     I grinned at him.  “I'll ask Jem.  He owes me a favour.”  I wasn't going to let on about Jem and Sam.  “He'll tell me, even if it costs me a couple of buns from Fitzbillies!”

     Tony was silent for a moment or two.

     “There's something else,” he said, slowly.

     I looked at him.  His face was quite solemn.  I wondered what was coming next.

     He shook his head.  “It's just information but I think you should know.”  He shut the exercise book.  “I thought I knew the name and I asked Mum.  Charley Lascelles, I mean.”

     What was this?  What name?

     “It's just that Piers' sister Anne - you know the one who was killed in Kenya - was married to Gerald Lascelles.  I remembered the name from something Mum had said years ago.  Anyway, when I asked her last night she wouldn't say anything else but that it was correct.   And I wonder if he was related to Charley?  She wouldn't say any more and said it was all in the past.  I know there was something fishy about her death.  It was supposed to be an accident, but I found a cutting from an old newspaper a couple of years ago in a box in a wardrobe and there was something about wild parties and other goings-on in the article.”

     Yes, the stone in the churchyard at Ulvescott commemorated the General, plus Piers and Anne, but I couldn't remember if there was a surname.  Wow, I was going to ask Charley to be a guest, so I'd better find out somehow.

     I reported back to Willy to let him know I was back in College.  Mr Mason was more and more absent with Willy more and more in charge.  I told Willy that I respected his confidence and he said there were some things even a Porter did not share.  He had guessed from what Tony had said that it was something very important and his eyebrows also were raised when I told him the reason.  He said I had his most sincere congratulations on the impending marriage and also on the impending expectation.  There was a hint of a smile.  I knew why!

     “Mr O'Brien's drawing of you showed you in a good light even at the age of fourteen,” he said.  “A little bird has confirmed to me that the drawing was no exaggeration and would need not a little enhancement if repeated now...”

     “...I'll murder that little bird when I see him in the morning.  The little hound stands and waits until I get out of bed.  I've seen him looking!” I said, bursting into laughter.  “And you, Willy, I guess you've told the little wretch about that drawing!”

     “Bird, hound, wretch!  I agree,” said Willy with as straight a face as one could get, “But most complimentary.”  He pursed his lips.  “I think I did mention I had seen a depiction of yourself at some time.  The little wretch had been rummaging through my chest of drawers at home one day looking for socks to borrow and found my own likeness.  He said whomsoever had drawn it was kind to me.  I boxed his ears and told him to keep his mouth shut.  I had to give him the socks!”

     We laughed together.  Jem was going to get his backside smacked next morning if I had anything to do with it.

     I went to my rooms and no sooner had I got in and unpacked the various goodies both Ma and Mrs Marcham had given me then Charley came stamping in in high dudgeon.

     “Where the hell have you been?” he almost shouted, “You were missing last night in my hour of need..  Bloody Phelips ranted at me and said I was a worthless good-for-nothing nincompoop without a brain in my head and gave me until Friday to write this bloody essay.  I needed a friendly shoulder to weep on and, much more importantly, someone to help me write the bloody thing.” He thrust about four pages of rather untidy looking foolscap at me.  “Where have you been?” he demanded again.

     “I'm getting married,” I stated, as quietly as I could.

     The storm abated.  He sunk onto the nearest chair by my table.  “What?”

     “I'm getting married, third of April and you're invited,” I said.

     “You've got a girl up the d...”  He started quietly, with a gleam in his eye.

     Before he could say “duff” I interrupted.  “My girl friend, soon to be my wife, is pregnant and the marriage is arranged.”

     He jumped up and hobbled round to me and hugged me.   “Sorry, old mate,” he said and I knew he was sincere, “Shouldn't have said that.”  He let go and stood back a great grin on his face.   “Who is she?”

     “Tony's sister,” I said, “Known her for years.  But.....  New Year.”

     He nodded.  “And....   ...You staying here?”

     I said both sides of the family had insisted I stayed.  Kats wanted the baby and I wanted to marry her.  I then said the wedding was going to be at Ulvescott.  His brow wrinkled.

     “Know that name,” he said, “Uncle of mine married someone from there.”

     Mystery solved.  Over the next five minutes I found out the Honourable Gerald Lascelles had been the younger brother of Charley's Pater.  He'd gone out to Kenya to farm and had married Anne Crossley who was visiting an old school friend out there.  The Kenya mob were a fast-living, hell-raising bunch.  Charley's side of the story was that Gerald's wife, Anne, was high on drugs and alcohol one night and had gone out riding and had had a fall but everyone else was so sozzled or drugged she wasn't missed until the servants got worried.  She was found a couple of days later.  Or the remains were found and then Gerald died in the early days of the War from cirrhosis of the liver.

     Of course, Charley was then informed that Tony's father  was Anne's cousin and that I was related to the Crossleys by descent.  He wondered if he would be welcome as his father had had little to do with the Crossleys after Anne's death.  He said his father knew his brother was a rakehell and one of the reasons he'd gone to Kenya was that he'd got a housemaid pregnant so there was an illegitimate Lascelles as well working in the City.  I said we can't help the past and he was invited!

     We then sat down and I worked through the essay with him.  At least, I put an analysis of factors behind the agrarian revolution 1750 to 1850 into reasonable English.  I knew none of the facts but they were now presented without spelling errors and without lapses of grammar and syntax.  We were working on it when Tony came to see how I was.  After the Crossley connections were aired again, he improved on the presentation.  Charley said he didn't know what he'd do without us and he was sorry what his family had done to the Crossleys.

     After they went I wrote several letters.  I wrote first to Ma and Pa just saying how I valued them.  Then to Mr and Mrs Marcham thanking them and saying how much help Tony had been to me.  I wrote to Kats and to Matt and to Tom and to Lachs and to Flea.  I still had many letters to write but I was exhausted and went to bed and slept.

     I woke suddenly.  It was still dark.  It was just after six.  I got up, washed and dressed and had made a pot of tea and was writing even more letters when Jem sidled in.  He must have seen my light was on.

     I stood up.  “Come here, young man,” I said, sternly.

     He looked a bit perplexed.   Here I was, up, dressed, writing and drinking my morning tea, long before he usually came in.

     “What have you been saying to your cousin Mr Roberts about me?”
     He went bright red and stammered something.  I reached out and grabbed him.  I bent his five feet eight inches over the table edge and administered a sharp slap to his black-clad backside.  He said 'Ouch' and, as I let him go, he turned, rubbing his hands across his sore buttock.

     “That's for telling your cousin I am quite well-endowed,” I said, as sternly as before.  “Little boys shouldn't tell tales.”

     He stood back a pace.  “I'm sorry, Mr Thomson,” he said, then smiled.  “Actually, I told him you were very well-endowed!”  He jumped back two paces as I lunged towards him.

     I laughed.  “Thank you,” I said, “Willy said you were complimentary.  But I've news for you.  Just for you and Sam and no one else, understand?”  He nodded.  “I'm getting married.  Usual reason.  My girl-friend's pregnant.  So I've told you before any rumours get round.....   ...And I know who has been told so if you and Sam want sore backsides I will know where the rumours will come from.  Understand?”

     He smiled.  “Yes, I understand.”  He giggled.  “You're the first this year so far.  We had two last year by this time.”

     I had to laugh.  There was I thinking I was the only one in the world, or Kerslake, or Cambridge.  It happened all the time.

     Jem thrust out a hand.  “Congratulations, Mr Thomson....” he paused, “....I suppose I mustn't call you Jacko now.”

     “You're too cheeky,” I said, “You've always called me that when we're in here so....  Just get in there and make my bed!  And... in future, you keep your eyes to yourself!”

     I heard him mutter something like 'couldn't miss something like that staring you in the face' and sat down and got on with my correspondence.

     I told Dr Blake later that morning.  He just smiled and said he hoped it would not interfere with my thought processes as he found married colleagues sometimes were too preoccupied with domestic matters to pay sufficient attention to their academic standing.  Actually, he congratulated me and hoped I would have a happy marriage.  The Dean and Chaplain said exactly the same.

     Of course, the news got out and I had several rude encounters, especially with the rugger-buggers and the boaties, who, virgins no doubt to a man, were more than a little envious.  Three, quite independently, asked very confidentially how I'd gone about it.  I had to admit that I had done little in the initiation of the process.  They all went away with glints in their eyes.  Two of my mentor group were married.  Both were twenty-three and both had wives who were pregnant.  They were highly amused.

     So the end of term approached and all was fixed for my nuptials.  I had to get through Easter first.  Flea came and stayed for a couple of days en route for Chester.  He was full of the joys of spring.  He'd had several solo flights and was loving every minute of his training.  He was a temporary Flight Sergeant and, if he passed the next hurdle, he would be commissioned in June.  Matt had replied that he was honoured to be my Best Man.  He was home on Maundy Thursday for three weeks leave after his stint on the frigate.  He was so suave and poised now.  Naval life really suited him.  He had asked if a friend, Capitain Julien LaRiviere, could be invited.  He was the young French Naval officer who had been with the French Admiral when Matt had demonstrated his prowess at French.  I said of course he could.  Full uniform, please.  Matt grinned.  He also had the news he was being sent on a French language course next and perhaps we could practice!  We did practice and I thought after one session that young Jem would have whistled if he'd seen how well-hung Matt was in comparison with me now!  Another Dicksie Ward, no doubt!!

     On the Thursday being the wedding I and a motley crowd of about a dozen of my pals went for a meal at the big hotel in Kerslake.  Kats and some of her friends had a similar do at some secret location which Bella had organised.  It was the first time I had more than enough to drink and ended up in a taxi with the equally inebriated Matt, Julien and Tony and slept, somehow, four to a bed, in my room at home.  Bloody hell, how Frenchmen snore!!

     Actually, Julien was great fun.  He spoke perfect English, but put on a most atrocious accent when he told us a whole load of jokes.  'Four nuns were going to confession.  The first confessed she'd thought about a man's dick the night before so the priest told her to say one Hail Mary and anoint her forehead with holy water from the font.  The second said she'd dreamed she'd held a man's prick the night before.  The priest said “Say two Hail Marys and wash your hands in the holy water”.  The third nun turned to the one behind her and said “You'd better go next.  You won't want to gargle in that font water after what I'll have to wash in there!”'    Then there was 'A young Red Indian boy who asked his mother how he got his name.  She explained that as soon as a Red Indian baby was born the father picked it up, rushed outside and named it after the first thing he saw.  “That's why your brother is called Tall Fir Tree and your lovely sisters are Sparkling Water and Flying Clouds.  Why do you ask, Two Dogs Fucking?”'

     After we all groaned he said he'd heard them all from British officers in the Mess.  There were renewed groans and cries of 'What a mess!'.  That set the rest of them off so there was much competition to see who could tell the direst - not necessarily the dirtiest - joke.  We decided it was Cleggy who asked if we'd heard about the biologist who had crossed a pear tree with a couple of blue tits - and ended up with an enormous pair of blue trees!  So that was a very happy, if hardly memorable, for more reasons than one, evening.

     Mrs Crossley was most enthusiastic when asked if she would allow the reception to be held at Ulvescott Manor.  I don't know how it was arranged but caterers were going to provide a meal in the great drawing-room.  All in all, there were about sixty guests.  Several of us went over to Ulvescott on Friday to get things organised but the main party of guests, including Grandpa and Grandma, the Cardiff lot and, of course, Uncle Edward, Aunt Della, Flea and Lachs with Julia, trundled along on Saturday morning.   Lady Bing and the Duchess were much in evidence and caused amusement as Lady Bing insisted on sitting on the bridegroom's side while Stella was directed to sit  across the chancel on the bride's side so there was no favouritism.

     The service was arranged for twelve noon.  We'd had a little rehearsal on Friday and Mrs Crossley had a small dinner party on Friday evening.  I was staying at the Manor and Kats at Mrs Fry's as protocol had it we mustn't meet on the morning until we were in church.  Kats had Bella and two other friends from school as bridesmaids and there was much surmise among the lads who would be the spare pricks at the wedding.  Too bad, as both girls had boy friends as guests and Bella had the chinless wonder with the two-foot dick.  At least, that was the rumour which spread!
     So all went well.  Tim Parker played the organ, his brother, John, the cello and Tony sang as we signed the register.  It was quite a military affair with Matt resplendent in full dress Naval uniform by my side and Flea, Lachs and Sayed with Tom and Dunc acting as a Guard of Honour on the door as we came out.  Julien was there in his full dress French Naval uniform and we used his sword to cut the cake after a very good meal.  I also met, for the first time, Captain the Honourable James Pike, his wife and twin fifteen-year-old sons.  Miss Pike's brother was just an older version of the boy in the photos.  His sons looked just like him and were also destined for the Navy.  He had heard about my relationship to the Crossleys and he smiled when I said I felt very close to Piers.  He said he had been a very good friend and he had been devastated when he and Miles had been killed at the Somme.  He'd been a Midshipman at the time and was on a battleship.  He and Matt chatted for ages and I saw the boys descend on Charley as he had been at their school.

     Charley had enjoyed himself greatly and had, with charm and tact, made peace between the Lascelles family and the Crossleys.  In fact, Kats had handed her wedding bouquet to him and he had placed it on the memorial stone.  He told me later, when back at college, that the rumour about the chinless wonder was untrue.  The rumour was scotched later that evening, he averred, as said lad was plied with drink, much to Bella's annoyance, and had to be helped to a convenient bed where an inspection ensued by a committee of four inquisitive male souls, led by Roo and his brother Kanga, who confirmed he was hung normally for a nineteen-year-old, even though he had balls of quite disparate sizes.   Charley said he wasn't one of the inspectors, but had gallantly taken said lad's place by Bella's side, while the scrutiny took place.  He said it was a good job the lad didn't come from Devizes.  I fell for it.
          “There was a young lad from Devizes,
          Whose balls were quite different sizes.
          The right one was small
          And no good at all,
          But the left had won numerous prizes.”

     Two guests, whose presence was commented on by everyone, even though they sat on either side of the church porch throughout the ceremony, were Bran and Finbar.  No way were they going to miss the occasion.  They had accompanied me and Matt as we walked to the church beforehand and it was Matt's idea to place them.  They greeted all and sundry and squatted, either side of Kats and me, in the main photograph.
     Ma and Pa had given us tickets for Switzerland for our honeymoon so you can imagine the great welcome we got.  We stayed at Pascal's father's hotel but spent a great deal of time during the week with Johann and my uncle and aunt who took us around.  We had to visit Johann's grandfather who was now living in a beautiful chalet on the other side of Neuchatel.  I had to play to him and on our leaving he gave me an envelope with a smile.  The first according to Johann.  In it was a bank pass book with a deposit of a goodly sum in Swiss francs.  Johann had a smile as well as his grandfather had also given him an envelope and in it was an identical pass book.
     However, I still had to digest other news.  On our return from Switzerland we moved into my parents' house until just before I went back to Cambridge.  Pa then told us he had accepted a very high-powered job with the Ministry of Defence Scientific Branch, but it meant he and Ma would be leaving Kerslake to live in London.  The house was going to be let to Mr Phelps the Maths teacher and his wife, and Pa and Ma would be living in a flat in Kensington Gore, just behind the Royal Albert Hall.  Wow, a very posh area.  How on earth could they afford it?  I knew Pa would be earning a good salary and Ma was now publishing her fourth book and they seemed to be selling well.  All was revealed.  The flat was owned by Lady Bing.  She hadn't visited it for years and Mr Marcham, who was handling all her properties, had suggested it.  Not only that, she was so pleased as Tim Parker could have one of the five bedrooms and travel across to the Royal Academy easily.  It was a pity he wasn't at the Royal College of Music which was across the road.  But, his brother was going there for a year in September, so he would have a room as well.

     So, I said farewell to Kats, who was more than satisfied with her man during our time together, and went back to Cambridge for the third term of my first year.  I was greeted with all sorts of ribaldries and even more envious comments.  We'd had some very good presents, not only from family and Kerslake friends, but my tutor group had bought us matching sets of fountain pens and propelling pencils, engraved as well.  Dr Blake's present was very valuable.  It was a first edition, before it was banned, of Baudelaire's 'Les Fleurs du Mal' and had a note on the flyleaf as Verlaine had given it to someone as a present.  Dr Blake said he'd found it in a second-hand bookshop in Paris in the early years of the century.  I knew we would value that.  One present which amused us greatly was a frying pan and a rolling-pin from - who else - but the six rugger lads, now in the Sixth Form.  There was a cryptic note with instructions on how not to jump from said pan into the fire and an injunction to Kats to use the rolling-pin if I stayed out too late.

     Charley was overwhelmed by the friendliness of all my pals.  He'd had long talks with Nobbo and Cleggy who told me they were convinced he could have his foot operated on even now.  They would enquire of their Professor of Anatomy.  I got the feeling they probably knew just about as much as any Professor from the way they discussed things.  All very amusing until they started to discuss all the problems of childbirth!  In their opinion - probably heard from some female - that if males had to give birth, things would have been arranged differently.  I think it was Nobbo's contribution to the joke festival which said that boys spend nine months struggling to get out of a woman and then spend most of the rest of their life struggling to get back in!

     However life at college took a turn against Charley soon after term started.  I was working quite late one evening when I heard a noise outside.  I went quickly to see what it was as I guessed it might be something to do with Charley and I didn't want any of the others on our stair to come rushing.  It certainly was Charley!  He'd gone out dressed to the nines, white tie, tails, top hat and overcoat.  The figure hunched on my doorstep was almost naked.  He'd been stripped of everything except his trousers, pants and the heavy shoe and calliper on his bad foot.  His trousers were gaping and around his thighs.  I hauled him into the room and, somehow got him onto my bed in the bedroom.  He was shivering violently as, to add to everything, it was pouring with rain and he was absolutely soaked.  I got a couple of towels and rubbed his chest and back and dried him somewhat.  I undid his boot and managed to get that off together with the calliper.  I pulled off his trousers and pants and, by this time, he was a bit more coherent and helpful, he dried his own legs and feet.  I covered him with my blankets and counterpane and got the story from him what had happened.

     He had gone to a small dinner party given by one of his old school friends and on the way back had come up King's Passage and had been set upon by four youths.  He said they must have been townees, who were renowned for their harassment of anyone to do with the university.  They were intent on stripping him but gave up when they found he'd got a bad leg.  One had booted him, intending to kick him in the goolies, but Charley had managed to roll and now sported a growing bruise on his thigh.  What really worried him was that he had a valuable gold watch on a chain which he wore with his white waistcoat.  Where was that?

     Blast, damn and fuck!  Charley was vulnerable and to be attacked like that was too outrageous.  It was now past locking-up time and College gates would be bolted and barred.  He'd managed, somehow, to get back in just before the gates were shut without being spotted by a Porter on duty.  His possessions were strewn, we assumed in King's Passage.  I said I would go and look.  This was dangerous.  If I was found by the University Proctors out of College I could be sent down.  Also, the only way in and out of College after hours was a well-known but rather circuitous route involving a couple of walls.  I stripped off and donned an old rugger shirt and shorts and put plimsolls on.  Charley tried to dissuade me because of my knee.  I had discarded the bandage for that for some time and I was pretty confident it would be OK.  I stuck a couple of small logs on the fire to keep the place warm and, against Charley's protestations, I scurried out and, for the first time, tried out the illegal path.  All went well.  The rain poured down and I had to be careful but the Proctors were snug in their kennels - they were colloquially know as Bulldogs and always went around in pairs.  I found all Charley's clothing scattered.  It was quite an armful and I don't suppose anyone in rugger kit had appeared with a top hat on as well before.  What I couldn't find was his gold watch.  I managed to get back unseen and laid out his wet clothes on the chairs by the fire and stripped off completely as I was saturated as well.  I had to go into the bedroom to retrieve my towels and Charley was full of thanks for my efforts.

     We were both shivering.  I said I'd kip down in my armchair, but Charley said we could warm each other up under the covers.  I was too cold, and miserable for him, to argue the toss and slipped into bed.  We clung to each other like the drowned rats we'd been.  He whispered his thanks again in my ear and we clutched each other until our combined body heat relaxed us.  We both fell asleep and were still well away when a discreet tap on my shoulder woke me.  It was Jem.  He had a tray and there were two mugs of steaming tea.  Oh, Christ!  Would we be in his litany of liaisons I'd heard recited?  Me, a married man, child on the way, in bed with a fully-accredited member of the aristocracy!  No Jem, it's not what it looks like!  We hadn't sampled each others substantial weapons.  Yes, substantial, as even in the cold state I noticed Charley matched my own length.

     Jem whispered.  “He was attacked?”

     I nodded.
     “Where?”

     I explained, quietly and succinctly, the events as I knew them, as Charley slept on.
     “And you went and got his things?” he asked.

     I nodded again.  I said his watch was missing.

     “You said there were four of them?”

     “So he said and he was certain they weren't gowns.”      [The division is town and gown.]

     Jem stood as I drank my tea.  I said we'd wake Charley later.  I then got out of bed.  In the nude, no morning hardon, just my drooping shaft.

     “It's all right, Jem,” I whispered, as I followed him into my study room where the fire was blazing up, “He hasn't lost his virginity!  It's just that two bodies are better than one when you're cold and wet!”

     The lad snickered.  “I know that, even when it's dry and warm!”

     He went over to Charley's clothes.  He turned and looked at me and grinned his amiable grin.  “I know he isn't,” he said confidentially, “His brother had that when he was fourteen...”

     “Jem!” I said severely, “If you want more than one good smack carry on.  What you know about Charley and his brother keep to yourself.....”  Curiosity got the better of me.  “....Anyway how do you know?”

     The toad, hound, wretch, little bird, put a finger along the side of his nose. He giggled.  Was I a trusted confidant?  Were any of my secrets safe?  Good, I hadn't got any.....  Except what could be embroidered about today.  I thought once again, never get on the wrong side of a Porter!

      “His brother Gussie came here to see him last year several times and they always shared his bed, drunk or sober, usually drunk.” He giggled again.  “Charley says Gussie never thinks before he says anything and I was in here and they were in there when Gussie asked him if he was getting it regular as he'd liked it so much as a boy.  I heard Charley say he was only fourteen then and he'd had to do what Gussie wanted.  They went quiet after that 'cause I think they realised I was still here.”  He wrinkled his nose.  “Did get a quid note when Gussie went that time.”

     “Didn't keep your mouth shut did it?” I said, “I think I'll tell Charley you've broken your silence......”  

     Poor lad, he looked most chastened.  “...But you and him?” he queried.

     I smiled and shook my head.  “No,” I said, “I like Charley very much.  But, no!”

     He came over to me.  “I'm very sorry,” he said, “You always seem so close.  We thought....  Maltravers and Pearson do most evenings....”

     I shook my head again.   I grinned to myself.  A new liaison not mentioned before.  Maltravers was a big brawny boatie and Pearson had the biggest ears sticking out and a frightful lisp, and I'd heard the conjecture about  boys with big ears and noses!    And here we were, Charley and I, tarred with the same brush as a regular boatie and his paramour!  And Jem had used the inclusive 'we'!

      “Jem!” I said sharply, “I suppose these are the things you and Sam discuss on your afternoon trysts.  Before or after?”

     The poor lad blushed so deeply.  His head dropped.  He wasn't beaten though.  He looked up again, still red.  “Both!” he said.  He looked me straight in the eyes.  “Nobody could have a better friend than you,” he said with feeling, “Not many would have done what you did last night.  You could have damaged your knee again, or got caught.  It's quite a drop, isn't it?”

     I knew he was referring to one particular wall.  Getting back over wasn't too bad as some aspiring mountaineer had conveniently cut some inconspicuous toe and hand holds.  I had chucked Charley's clothes over first and had managed the ascent easily.

     “I'd better be off.  I should let him sleep a bit longer.  I'll come back later, ” he said, “I've got the others to get up and I think Pongo's got someone staying.  There's a hankie on his handle.”

     Oh God!  Pongo Parkinson was one I'd heard about before.  His rooms were on the next staircase so I didn't know him very well, but I knew his signal to Jem to be wary about entering was the renowned handkerchief.  It was known to be removed by mean-minded others sometimes and I'd heard that on two occasions members of other Colleges, having shared his bed, were disturbed, in flagrante delicto, as it were, with Jem appearing quite unaware that Pongo's needs and theirs had been satisfied overnight.  Faithful Jem.  He'd be back.

     He came back with Sam who took away the damp evening clothes and said he'd get them cleaned.  We woke Charley after Jem had got his day clothes from his room and he was all apologetic.  I left Jem with him and I heard Jem cross-questioning him about the incident.  Jem, although only sixteen and a college servant, was nothing if not forthright and was well in command.  He had a satisfied smile on his face as he came through to me.

     “I think, Mr Thomson, sir,” he said, very formally, “I think I can resolve any remaining problems.”  He came over to me, “Thanks for all you did last night.  I'm very fond of him as well.”  He smiled.  “And you, even if you are a married man....,  .....Jacko!” he added mischievously.

     Two days later Jem woke me as usual.  He had a broad grin on his face as he handed me my mug of tea with one hand and displayed a gold watch on its chain in the other.

     “Jem!” I said, astounded, “How?  And, who?”

     He laughed.  “There's two young gentlemen'll be wearing trusses no doubt for a while 'cause last time they were seen they were walking bent double and there's another two who have the biggest and brightest of black eyes as well as aches in other delicate places.”  He slipped the watch into his pocket.  “I guessed who they were when Charley described them.”  He nodded.  “My pals have been waiting for satisfaction for ages.  That lot'll keep their distance now, no doubt.”

     Charley was overjoyed at receiving his watch back.  Jem told me, in confidence, of course, he'd been clutched and kissed on both cheeks and his lips most heartedly and offered a whole five pounds which he'd refused.  I snidely asked 'which cheeks?' to which he grinned and said that was his secret!  Toad!

     My next excursion was to the big parade.  Unfortunately it was the weekend of the May Ball - held, of course, as things happen in Cambridge, in June!  Two of Charley's older brothers, Augustus and Bertram, camped out in my rooms.  Charley's later description of the young ladies, imported from all directions and of all shapes and sizes, was summed up as 'a right collection of tarts and floosies who danced with their legs crossed all night'.

     My parade experience was superb.  I met up with my parents, Uncle Edward and Aunt Della and an exuberant Flea and watched, spell-bound, as our two bantam-cocks were rewarded for their efforts with a sword of honour each.  Aunt Della looked so proud and it was pride for both as Sayed was almost a third son for her.  Oh, my God!  In the programme was Sayed's full title.  And to think, I'd smacked his bum, tickled him unmercifully on several occasions and also threatened to put him in the dustbin as well.  I wondered what other things he and Lachs had got up to in the past as they stood side by side receiving congratulations from all and sundry.  Sayed looked at me with his smouldering dark brown eyes as I complimented him on his achievements.  'I won't ever forget you and your family' he said and smiled that wonderful smile of his.  I shook hands with the royal duke who was overseeing the parade on behalf of His Majesty.  He talked with Aunt Della and the boys for a long time as he had known Angus Cameron.  Lachs had taken a commission in his father's old regiment, the Royal Scots Greys.  This caused a bit of amusement as it was originally a mounted regiment on grey horses.  Of course, Flea said it was good job they used tanks now as Lachs would have to have a Shetland pony, or practise on the old rocking-horse at Pin Mill House.  It was the first time either brother had commented on the others' lack of inches other than that first occasion when I was told what I wasn't to call Lachs!  Sayed said he would willingly find a camel for him.  I heard Flea whisper 'ship of the desert' and Sayed pursed his lips.  I think Flea would be getting a little come back of a princely nature in due course.  As I shook Lachs' hand and said how proud I was to have him as my cousin and blood-brother he smiled and showed me that he was holding in his other hand that Lieutenant's pip I had given him as a sign of our love and devotion.

     So term ended, I handed in my last essays and  went back to Kerslake.  Kats and I moved into the old house, Pa and Ma now in London, and remained there until the last week of August.  Kats was now pretty huge and I enjoyed doing things in the house, clearing unwanted things into the loft, cooking and cleaning with Mrs Pritchard's help.  When Ma had gone to see Mr Blane, her publisher, with her latest effort he was in a quandary.  One of his translators had died suddenly and there was a book to be finished from French into English.  I was entrusted with it and followed the style as far as possible of the previous translator.  Mr Blane was very pleased so that was the start of a secondary and quite lucrative career for me.

     The last thing I did before we moved out to go and stay with Kats' parents was to retrieve my various treasures from my hidey-hole.  There was a rather decayed handkerchief, still stained but precious and, of course, Mike's drawing of me.

     I had finished the translation the night before and was just reading through my final draft in the morning when Kats called out something was happening.  The ambulance arrived and at eight thirty that evening, Wednesday, September the Eighth, 1948, our son, Francis Peter Thomson, was born.  Weight, seven and a half pounds.  Mother and baby doing well.