5 comments/  83052 views/  26 favorites

Like Father Like Son Ch. 02

By: Robert_Furlong



===

I stood in front of them, my son grinning broadly at me while Marcus, still kneeling forwards with his hands prizing his arse-cheeks apart, peered over in wide-eyed horror.

"I just happened to see your light on and wondered what was keeping you two guys up," I said by way of flimsy explanation.

"Of course you did," Jake chuckled, and I was unable to stop myself from smiling back at my son in spite of his state of nudity. I made an effort to keep my eyes from making contact with his erection which he was brandishing flagrantly as if showing it off in some sort of macho display.

Marcus, meanwhile, struggled upright and away from him, and ended up crouching almost foetally against the headboard of the bed, trying to cover his genitals with both hands.

"I... er... I'm so sorry, Mr Furlong," he stammered, his face blushing a deep purple colour which nicely co-ordinated with that of the swollen head of his penis. "We were just messing around... and I... er... slipped... and Jake's tongue must have accidentally --"

He stopped when he saw that I was amused rather than angry and I did my best to reassure him, "It's okay, Marcus -- really. I think the point my son was trying to make was that there are two Furlong mouths in the household."

Marcus stared at me, wide-eyed and with face flushing so dark it looked like he had been slapped on both cheeks, seemingly still unable to understand the idea which Jake had been mooting.

"I hope you appreciate, dad," Jake cut in before Marcus could formulate a reply, "how good it is of me not to hold grudges. I could so easily have ticked you off for spying on us and then sent you away, just like you did when you were in my shoes."

"It is indeed very noble of you, Jake," I smiled. "I'm proud of you."

I realised that the front of my pyjama bottoms were still being pushed outwards by the semi-hard-on I'd developed before I'd entered the room but I made no attempt to hide my excitement. Marcus peered at my unconcealed bulge with continued bafflement at first, before it finally began to click with him what was going on. At that point his gaze shifted from my crotch upwards to my face and he stared at my expression as if trying to figure out what exactly my motives were.

Jake got up off the bed and walked over to the chair in front of his desk and sprawled himself out naked on it, adopting an especially indecorous posture given his lack of attire. He seemed totally unbothered by the fact he had a very large hard-on, the shaft of which still bore some of the remnants of where it had so recently been, nor that his large pair of bollocks hung down gracelessly between his wide open legs.

He was far more keen to underline his self-righteous sense of magnanimity. "I mean, when I was a kid, you always told me how important it was to share. And some of us are very willing to share, even though you were so blatantly uncaring and unsharing last week!"

"I get the point, Jake," I retorted. "It just felt wrong last week... what you were suggesting with Bradley. Now -- I dunno -- it feels somewhat different."

I smiled at Marcus, hoping my expression didn't look too lustful or predatory, but he continued to look wary and kept his genitals well-protected by cupping them in both hands.

"Yeah, I wonder what could have caused your sudden change of heart," Jake chuckled as he scratched his large, hairy scrotum, and glanced towards at his extremely attractive young friend.

"Would you be happy for me to take up Jake's offer, Marcus?" I asked, hoping to ease his discomfort with a more direct approach. "And offer you a second mouth for your... er... continued pleasures?"

"My dad is, like, the best rimmer ever," Jake bragged, apparently oblivious to his friend's feelings of awkwardness. "He can probably get his tongue all the way up to your liver!"

Marcus looked over at me with even more embarrassment. How did a person respond to such an accolade about your friend's father when he was standing half-aroused in front of you?

"You've really got to get rimmed by him, mate," Jake went on. "He's so much better at it than I am!"

Well, he was right on that point.

"How do you know that, Jake?" Marcus asked with the same obvious unease.

"I saw him rimming a bloke downstairs on the couch one night. His tongue was so far in there, you wouldn't believe it! It was like --"

"Alright, Jake! I think he gets it!"

"You actually rimmed another man in front of your son?" Marcus asked incredulously.

Jesus Christ, he was going to be calling Social Services next.

"Jake has a tendency to interrupt my... er... soirees," I explained. "It wasn't like it was a performance I'd arranged especially for him to see."

I threw a pointed glance at Jake to let him know I was aware that his game tonight had been precisely that.

"But you have sex with other guys?" Marcus attempted to clarify, distractedly taking his hands away from his crotch. His cock had completely withered from its earlier glory and was looking disappointingly shrunken as it flopped against the fair, downy fluff on his balls. It was still rather lovely, though.

"Would it be a problem if I did?" I asked.

"Of course not," Marcus said, with a half-hearted smile. I sat myself down on the bed next to him in the spot Jake had vacated. There was a wet patch on the duvet from where my son's stiffie must have been dribbling as he'd made a pigs-ear of rimming his friend.

"It's just that it came as a bit of a shock when you walked in," he went on. "I knew you were divorced but I didn't realise you were... how would you call it... bisexual?"

I smiled and nodded. "It's a little hobby I discovered about a year ago and which, it seems, Jake has picked up from me."

"So that bloke we were with tonight at the restaurant," Marcus persisted. "The big fella, Guy... you and he are... well...?"

"Like you and Jake," I said with a nod.

Marcus nodded back and spent a moment to think the admission through. His penis, I noticed, was starting to betray its own particular interest in the image that was no doubt flashing through its owner's brain. Without Marcus seeming to be aware of it, it slowly lengthened an inch so alongside his thigh and thickened to regain some of its earlier stature.

"You did make a joke that it was like I was his boyfriend," I reminded him. Once again, I felt the strange tingle at the suggestion that I might be romantically involved with Guy.

"Yeah, it seemed as if you were more than just friends," he observed. "A bit like... well..."

"You and Jake," I smiled, hiding whatever it was I was feeling about Guy.

Marcus smiled back at me and I saw his cock continuing to stiffen and starting its gradual rise upwards from where it had been flopping against his balls. Whatever thoughts he was having about Guy and me, however the two of us men were coupling up together in his clearly vivid imagination, the steady hardening of his organ suggested that he liked the idea.

"Do you actually, like, 'do it' together?" he asked, inattentive to the effect that simply asking the question was having on the size of his manhood.

"And some!" Jake laughed from where he was lounging in his chair. His own organ was still prominently aroused, undeterred by the earlier awkwardness after I'd entered the room, as it no doubt awaited further stimulation in whatever form that might take. "They're at it like a couple of stags all night, mate! When Guy's over, I might as well forget about sleep!"

"Is that right?" Marcus asked me, his face full of surprise.

"Not quite," I chuckled. "I think Jake's exaggerating somewhat."

"But you two guys are having sex together?" Marcus persisted.

"There's a woman called Debbie who I'm dating," I explained, "but I've found that I also enjoy being physical with other men. So, yes, Guy and I have a sexual component to our friendship."

I was fascinated to watch this young man's beautiful penis steadily rising upwards from the thoughts its owner was having about Guy and me. Was he imagining the two of us older men having anal intercourse -- Guy on top, or me on top -- or was he thinking of us working our cocks together, sucking each other off and shooting our semen all over each other's chests?

"That's amazing," he muttered. "It's great you're so open-minded."

"If you'd like me to show you some of the things I enjoy," I went on, "with Jake here, of course, I'd be more than happy to."

Marcus beamed at me and for the first time glanced down at the swelling of his cock, now well on the way to achieving its earlier grandeur.

"I suppose my dick's kind of answering that for me, Mr Furlong."

"Well you can drop the 'Mr Furlong' for a start," I quipped. "If we're going to be getting... er... more friendly, Marcus, I'd prefer it if it was just plain 'Rob'."

He chuckled and agreed to drop the formalities.

I stood up and started unbuttoning my pyjama top. I hoped my body would be appealing to him: in spite of me being a little chubby around the middle and bit hairy between my pecs and on my legs, the squash I played kept my physique reasonably attractive. Since he obviously liked what Jake's body had to offer, he might also enjoy the more mature and cuddlier, filled-out version.

"This is going to be so cool," Jake extolled, clearly relieved that I'd managed to surmount his friend's initial misgivings. He stood up and his erection rose upwards from between his legs as if hoping to get another turn on the tight, blond bum it had earlier enjoyed.

The front of my pyjama bottoms had also recovered their earlier promise and was being pushed upwards and outwards more than ever by what seemed like a third leg inside them. Marcus grinned over at me, apparently pleased that the elder of the Furlong males was apparently just as well-equipped as the younger.

"Are you sure you want to go ahead with this?" I checked before I exposed myself to him. I had a sudden vision of this being some sort of elaborate misunderstanding and having his infuriated father phone me up threatening to call the police.

"God, yeah!" Marcus laughed. "I can't believe you guys are both up for this together. This is, like, totally out of the ballpark!"

I unbuttoned the waistband of my pyjama bottoms and let them fall to the floor to expose my semi-aroused erection looming upright above my huge, pendulous balls. If I'd known I was going to be presented with such an opportunity this evening, I'd have trimmed my pubic bush: apart from that, though, I was very proud of the large set of genitals I was able to present to the astonished gaze of my son's friend.

"You might want to stand over here, Marcus," I suggested, gesturing to the one patch of uncluttered floor in my son's untidy room. "That way the two of us can... well... attend to both sides of you at the same time."

Marcus almost yelped with delight at the prospect of having the two of us, father and son, pleasuring him simultaneously.

He leapt off the bed, calling out, "Wow! You guys just get stuck in... whichever way you like!" Then he stood upright on the spot I'd recommended, as Jake moved forwards to take him up on his invitation, giving his own large erection a few preparatory tugs as if coaxing it back to its full, impressive size.

I kicked my pyjama bottoms to one side and stood before the two of them as naked as they were. Jake grinned over at me -- in all the years we'd lived together, this was the first time we had both been completely undressed and aroused in each other's company. I smiled back and, just as he had, gave my cock a few masturbatory jerks to help myself grow fully hard. He laughed at that -- he liked to see me do it -- and put his hand back on his own to do the same.

Now it was my turn to laugh and I wanked myself a little more for him, yanking my foreskin back and forth just as he was doing. Why did it feel so good to be masturbating with Jake? This was my son standing in front of me and yet -- while I wasn't in any way attracted to him -- it felt so exciting to be facing each other while we rubbed at our erections. Whatever was arousing me, Jake clearly felt it too because he kept leering at me as the gentle tugging which had so amused us at the beginning was cranked up rapidly by us both into a full-on wrist-pounding wank right there in front of each other.

Marcus laughed over at us, amazed by the sight we were making. Our legs were apart and our hips thrust forwards like a couple of cowboys, pointing our erections at each other as we beat them off as fast and as hard as we could.

"Wow!" he chortled. "Look at you guys go!"

Our foreskins were sliding frantically back and forth across our near-identical cock heads, and our scrotums were bobbing around between our legs with our similarly plump bollocks jiggling up and down inside them.

Jake laughed again as we grinned at each other, our hands trying to outdo each other as they pumped up and down our long, thick shafts as if this was a game. "I'll race you, dad!" he called out to me and I was hugely tempted to agree; the two of wanking ourselves off in some childish competition until we climaxed one after the other, right there in front of his friend.

However, I forced myself to stop and say, "Some other time, maybe, Jake," and then took my hand away from my now spectacularly aroused organ. Jake did the same and his stood upright in front of him, almost identical in appearance: it was like looking in the mirror we were so well-matched.

He looked at me, still grinning, and I could tell he was hoping that we would play around again like this sometime soon: not touching each other or getting weird at all; just masturbating together as it was, perhaps, natural for a father and son to occasionally do.

"You guys are funny together," Marcus chuckled. I didn't ask him which meaning of 'funny' he meant.

Jake glanced over at him, standing waiting for our attentions with his cock arching upwards and his arse-crack still wet from the tonguing it had received.

"You've got a very large penis, Mr Furlong," Marcus said brightly. And then corrected himself: "I mean... er... Rob!"

I beamed at him with pride. I always enjoyed it when other men complimented my organ: Debbie seemed to find my over-sized erection at best cumbersome and at worst repellent.

"Do you like it?" I asked, putting my hands on my hips and giving him a little wiggle of it from side to side.

"Very much so," Marcus grinned with a sly flick of his eyebrows. "I like it a lot."

His look told me that he wanted to have more to do with what was between my legs than we'd probably be able to with Jake in the room. He wanted to suck my organ and perhaps even have me fuck him with it, but with the action between us being overseen by his more regular fuck-buddy, for now, at least, he'd likely have to content himself with just looking at it.

For my part, as much as I would have liked nothing better than to have ushered this attractive young man over to the bed and to have penetrated him far more sensually and passionately than my son seemed capable of, I knew that I was very much the invited guest in Jake's bedroom and that I shouldn't to overstep the boundaries which my son imposed on me.

"You do his bum then," Jake ordered me with typical workmanlike brusqueness, "and I'll suck his knob."

I couldn't help but grin at what he'd said. What father hasn't dreamt of hearing is son utter those very words?

I moved around to get behind Marcus and, perhaps seeing my erection looming up on his friend's rounded buttocks, Jake felt it necessary to clarify: "Just... er... rimming, mind, dad. Nothing more."

I was only being allowed a few licks of the candy. Anything more worthwhile was clearly seen as being strictly my son's prerogative.

"I'll give you a few tips on how to rim a guy properly, Jake," I offered. I thought it was quite a nice gesture, offering to share my not inconsiderable skills with my nearest and dearest.

Jake, however, threw me an indifferent shrug, nonchalantly content that his own technique would suffice well enough, and then knelt down in front of Marcus, licking his lips at the erect organ that was almost crying out for a mouth to pleasure it.

After he'd slowly and sumptuously applied his mouth to the first few inches of his friend's organ, I had to admit that my son was indeed a very proficient cock-sucker. Whoever he'd learned the tricks of the trade from, it certainly hadn't been me: I had never come anywhere close to matching his oral artistry and most men I try to pleasure with my mouth soon get frustrated and end up just thrusting in and out, trying to make the best of it they can.

Jake confidently pumped the cock with his lips and tongue, developing a slow, steady rhythm up and down the shaft and focusing on the most sensitive parts of the head. When he saw that I was watching him, his mouth broke into a smile, and I could see he was enjoying showing off to me, working his friend's organ as deftly as he could and using the whole of his mouth to stimulate it fully.

"Oh, yeah," Marcus called out, "that's really nice, mate!"

Jake started using his head more roughly on his friend, taking longer, faster sweeps along the length of his organ and sucking it more forcefully with the back of his throat. He didn't seem tempted, as I would have been if I were in his place, to use his hands to help him service the excited organ more fully: he used all the muscles of his mouth and cheeks to pleasure the whole length of the cock, squeezing it with his lips while he teased the precum from its slit with the tip of his tongue.

Marcus' manhood responded by swelling appreciatively to its full stiffened girth. An entanglement of veins rose up along its impressively hardened shaft and the head of it, only occasionally visible when Jake pulled back from an especially thorough suck, pulsated with a deep purple opulence, the skin of it taut and shiny; slick and streaked with froth from my son's spit.

It suddenly dawned on me why Jake was able to perform such an accomplished blow-job: I had often suspected, from the length of his erection and the flexibility of his back, that my son might be able to reach his own cock with his mouth. Now, from his polished and confident technique, I could see that was very likely to be true: he'd probably been sucking himself off under his duvet for a good many years, honing his skills since his early teens and perfecting his oral mastery of the aroused male member.

Our eyes made contact again and he threw me a cheeky grin with the pounding shaft of his friend's fully charged hard-on between his lips. I smiled back at him, keen to show my admiration of his abilities, as he swept his mouth back and forth, gliding up and down the spit-soaked shaft with his cheeks straining inwards from the pressure he was exerting.

"You little bugger!" I thought. "All those mornings you spent lounging around in bed, telling me you were tired and needed extra sleep -- this was what was going on in your bedroom!"

If only we'd had the open door policy back then.

With an especially elaborate flourish of his tongue and lips, Jake withdrew his mouth from Marcus' cock out and we couldn't help but chuckle at each other. His eyes were full of naughtiness but there was also a flicker of pride thrown in: he'd just demonstrated to his father how to give a guy an exceedingly expert blow-job.

"Come on, then, dad," he said. "Show me what you've got!"

"Watch and learn, Jake. Watch and learn!"

He craned his head to observe me as I homed in on his friend's cute bubble butt.

I pressed my mouth against the crack of his backside -- low down where I guessed his hole would be lurking among the wispy hair between his cheeks -- and gently extended my tongue between his two firm, muscular buttocks. As soon as I eased it into him, I could taste quite strongly the gustatory version of the smell I had enjoyed out in the corridor: his butt-crack was rich with the same seasoned, pungent flavour that the pounding of my son's cock had managed to disperse into such an alluring vapour.


Like Father Like Son Ch. 02



I pulled back and said to Jake with a smile: "This is an especially nice bum for rimming. It needs to be savoured with the whole of your tongue, not just flicked at with its tip."

He smiled and nodded. "Come on, then. Show me how it's done."

I moved back in for a deeper taste and reapplied my mouth to Marcus' magnificent cheeks. This time, he bent forwards slightly to give me better access, no doubt delighting in the playful competition Jake and I were enjoying and eager to see which of us, out of the father and his son, could pleasure him more effectively.

I pushed my tongue more fully into him, impressed by how stretched and splayed his hole was from accommodating my son's erection, and feeling him shudder slightly at how sensitive his inflamed anus was from the rough and ready fucking he'd received. I worked my tongue around his ring, gently soothing it with its caresses and my warm saliva, and Marcus gasped with excitement at how tender and sensual it felt.

"Oh, that's really nice, Mr Furlong," he called down to me before correcting himself, again, to plain Rob.

I eased my tongue more fully into his arsehole, relishing the stronger tastes inside it which were a magnitude more powerful than those around his anus. This was rimming at its most delectable: almost electrifying in the intensity of its tastes and deeply satisfying in the effects my tongue was having on its squirming recipient.

I licked deeply into this young man's bowels, feeling my cock straining painfully at the sheer force of the arousal I was experiencing, with the downy hairs of his arse-crack tickling my nose and chin as my face pressed so firm against the splayed valley between his buttocks.

"I can see what you mean about your dad's tongue reaching up to my liver," Marcus laughed down to my son.

"Yeah, he's like the rim king," Jake laughed back. "He's even better than Nathan."

I kept working my tongue back and forth out of Marcus' arse, wondering who this Nathan guy was. It might be nice for Jake to invite him to stay over some time so we could exchange tips and ideas about our shared hobby. If he was anything like as easy on the eye as Marcus, he would prove a very welcome guest in the house.

As my mouth continued to pleasure Marcus in ways that my son had achieved on the organ around the front, his body suddenly started shuddering slightly and I realised that Jake had resumed giving his friend a blow-job.

The two of us worked together for a few minutes -- Jake out front and me taking up the rear -- as Marcus thrust his hips back and forth, eager to work with the two mouths that were so intimately attending to him. I rolled my tongue into a tube and gently fucked him with it as he bucked his backside against my mouth, aware that this might be the only chance I would get to work myself in and out of his arse; at least while Jake was in the room.

"Oh, God, this is so nice, you guys!" he called down to us.

I hoped Jake was feeling as thrilled as I was to be servicing this charming young man; the two of us working together as father and son to pleasure his cock and his rear at the same time.

I pulled off him and called up to him, "Are you getting near, Marcus?"

As if it was part of a universal language among post-pubescent males, I knew he would interpret my question as referring to the immanence of his climax. No matter where men come from or what age they happen to be, they always recognise a question about how close they are to releasing their semen. 

"Not too far off, Mr Furlong."

I felt irritated by his reluctance to drop the formal use of my name, but instead of correcting him, I started wanking my own painful erection as I crouched behind him. With my mouth clamped to such a delightful behind, I knew my release would quickly follow.

Before returning to rim him again, I glanced around his right hip at Jake. His blow-job had become far more assertive in its style: his mouth was being thrust up and down his friend's organ quite roughly with his expression almost hostile and verging on a snarl.

I wondered if this was how liked to use his mouth on himself when he knew his climax was nearing: forceful and insistent; stubbornly masturbatory.

Imagine him giving such an uncompromising blow-job to me!

Oh God, what was I thinking?! This was my son!

Then, to my surprise, Jake pulled away from sucking Marcus' highly appreciative erection and hurried over to grab the tube of lube which was on his bedside table. He squirted a gob of it onto his middle finger and applied it perfunctorily to his backside, and then, throwing us both a small smirk, turned around with his back to us and bent forwards to splay open his hairy arse crack. His large, puckered anus was clearly visible, extruding from the dark forest between his cheeks, looking as used and swollen as mine often does after an especially heavy session with other men. His large, hairy knackers hung down between his legs, pulling his scrotum downwards with their full, heavy load.

He turned to grin at me, clenching his well-worn ring a couple of times to show me his dexterity, and said, "Nice, huh?"

"Very nice," I agreed, surprised by how stretched and dilated his entrance was.

I assumed Marcus must have enjoyed his own turn on Jake before I'd started watching the favour being returned. Otherwise, perhaps in the restaurant, when they'd both headed off to use the bathroom grinning and giggling, they'd had a quick moment of togetherness in the quiet of the cubicle.

As I was about to make a quip about this making an ideal angle for a selfie, Jake surprised me by reversing his backside onto Marcus' erection with a couple of backward strides. The cock glided home, as it had presumably done many times in the past, and the two of them shuddered in involuntary gratification as their bodies became joined once again.

And then, in an action I'd never seen performed before, Jake started thrusting his hips rapidly backwards and forwards, wanking his friend's shaft with the tightened ring of his arsehole. He turned to me with a triumphant leer and, seeing my surprise at witnessing such a novel variant of anal penetration, cackled and called out, "Watch and learn, dad! Watch and learn!"

He put his hands on his knees and jerked his bum back and forth to rapidly masturbate the foreskin of Marcus' cock.

"Jesus Christ!" I was thinking. Where the hell had he learned such an innovative technique?

Marcus called out in pleasure and, grabbing Jake by the waist, worked his crotch rapidly against him, matching my son's frantic rhythm.

Although he was a guy who obviously enjoyed being fucked, he was perfectly happy to adopt the corresponding role.

I liked the fact that such a polite and articulate youth -- the very ideal of a good and proper young husband -- had such well-concealed depths to what one might imagine to be a rather boring sexuality. I sat back as I watched him, marvelling at the sight of his smooth, muscular body and his mop of fair hair, grabbing my son's hips as he so enthusiastically fucked him up the arse.

He turned and looked down at me, and flashed me that lovely, sweet smile of his.

Then he asked, with a delightful courtesy that I wished would rub off onto my son, "Would you mind putting your tongue up my bum again, Mr Furlong?"

I laughed and agreed whole-heartedly that I would like nothing more.

I plunged my face back in between his round, flexing buttocks, aware that if he wasn't able to call me Rob after making such a request, it was likely that he never would. I took up my own pounding rhythm on my desperate cock, wanking myself between Marcus' shins as I inhaled the delicious scent he'd no doubt left on the back of many a pair of discarded underpants.

As soon as my tongue lapped into his most sensitive spot, his sphincter started clamping tightly shut around it and I knew his balls were discharging their collected loads into my son. 

His backside started munching at my tongue like we were enjoying a most intimate kiss together as its owner gasped and panted and shot squirt after squirt of his hot, white semen into the bowels of his friend.

Whether it was fucking Jake that had brought him to his orgasm, or the sensation of having my tongue inside his bum again, I don't know: I'd like to think, though, that I played some significant part in it.

When his climax had subsided, I pulled away from him, masturbating myself as I still squatted behind him.

Jake pulled away from him too, his arse releasing one of its less rambunctious farts as he did so, and he breathlessly announced, "Right, now let's have my turn, mate."

He moved around to where I was crouching, his cock twitching upwards as it demanded release, and curtly told me, "Get out of the way, dad."

In his impatience I was nudged backwards, and I fell back against his bedroom wall, still mechanically wanking my shaft up and down as I watched my son claim his final prize.

He pushed himself into Marcus' slick entrance with a single impetuous thrust, muttering that he wouldn't take long as Marcus bent over to receive him. It seemed this was an established arrangement between the two of them: whoever climaxed first would allow his rear to be used to bring his companion to an equivalent state.

"You got it nice and wet dad," Jake told me, as he stood upright, roughly buggering his friend in front of me for the second time this evening.

"I'm so pleased," I managed to say, as I sat right behind him watching him indulge himself, his thrusting bum just inches from my bemused face.

His rhythm quickly increased to a frantic hammering action, his balls whacking against his friend's thighs and his hips making loud slapping sounds against his buttocks.

He kept turning to look back at me, wanking myself off so quickly as I sat where I'd fallen behind him, smiling down at me as he butt-fucked Marcus' bent-over body.

He kept pulling Marcus back with him and even muttered, at one point, "Move back a bit, mate!" all the time moving in towards to where I was as if intentionally trying to push his pummelling backside closer my face.

It was nice bum, I had to admit, and I liked the way the hair of his crack was splayed outwards and sticking to his buttocks from the lube he'd applied to himself. I reminded myself, though, that was my son's arse in front of me and, however attractive it looked, the words I'd said to Bradley came back to me: I'd had to wipe this bum when Jake had been a baby.

Jake, however, didn't seem to share my misgivings.

He kept working his body backwards towards me, fucking his friend faster and faster, until his heaving backside was right in front of my face. I could smell the odour from it as it flexed and thrust, driving his hips back and forth against Marcus' muscular cheeks, and I have to admit the smell was very intriguing: undeniably attractive in spite of who was producing it.

Jake turned to me again and, seeing his flexing backside so close to my face, called out, "Go on, dad -- do it!"

I stared at him and he grinned at me, egging me on to do the unthinkable: "Have a lick of my arse! Right in my crack!"

I looked back at his bum, his buttocks a rhythm of muscular movement, finding myself inexplicably tempted by what I knew was lurking between them.

The smell was quite fascinating: much harsher and more pungent than what Marcus had to offer and strangely reminiscent of my own anal whiff when I pull off an especially well-worn pair of underpants. I sniffed at it with mounting interest: at once appalled by the knowledge of whom this brash, musky smell belonged to but at the same time indisputably aroused by the sheer, unparalleled naughtiness of having such an out-of-bounds hole so close to my face.

This was my son's bare arse and he was asking me to lick it!

I looked back up at him, my hand now a blur up and down my cock, and he grinned at me more broadly.

"Go on, dad -- shove your face in! Rim my nice, juicy arsehole!"

I think Marcus might have said something to stop us -- something to remind Jake that this was his dad he was talking to -- but I was too overcome with excitement to take it in.

Perhaps mercifully, Jake and I started climaxing together -- him with his cock spurting deeply up into his friend's innards and me spraying my load all over the back of his legs as he loomed over me with his odorous, hairy crack right there in front of me.

I couldn't believe I was having an orgasm -- and an extremely copious one at that -- with my son's relentlessly heaving buttocks brushing against my face. My nose was poised on the brink of his freshly-fucked arse crack: another step backwards and my mouth would have been pressing between his thrusting cheeks.

I pulled away from him as my cock was still squirting, trying to catch what I could of my profuse outpouring with my other hand. Not that it really mattered, the mess Jake's bedroom floor was in.

I stood up, watching my son doubled up over Marcus' bent back, still driving the remnants of his seed upwards into his friend's body. Jake held onto him tightly as the spasms of his orgasm subsided, the two of them staring vacantly forwards as they had no doubt many times in the past.

After he'd finished, they stood up and disentangled themselves, Jake pulling his softening organ out of Marcus' bum with a quiet, sloppy fart.

Marcus felt it necessary to immediately apologise: "I'm sorry about that, Mr Furlong."

"For farting?" I laughed. "All things considered, that was very restrained."

He smiled and, as tissues were being passed around, Jake joined in with the apologies.

"I'm really sorry, dad," he said. "I shouldn't have said that stuff. I don't know where it came from."

I smiled to hide the discomfort I was feeling as I wiped the goo from my chest and pubic bush. Jesus, I really should have trimmed myself down there.

"Forget it, Jake," I said, like all this was perfectly normal. "We all say stuff like that when we're getting carried away. It doesn't mean either of us would have acted on it. Not in a million years."

Was that really true? I, for one, had been tantalisingly close to reaching forwards and licking my son's bum; Jake, in all probability, had been similarly close to making that extra step backwards and pushing his hairy arse-crack onto my nose and mouth.

"Yeah, I guess you're right," he said, smiling at me in spite the fact we were both naked and his cock was still angled half-upwards, looking as large as ever in spite of its softening state. "I suppose you might say it was just the spunk talking!"

"Of course it was," I laughed, but I knew it wasn't true. The spunk could say what it liked: I knew for a fact that, given just an extra couple of seconds, my son and I would now be having a far more embarrassing conversation.

We cleaned ourselves up -- for Jake and Marcus that proved to be a rather more involved affair -- and agreed that, from first thing the next day, we wouldn't discuss what we'd done any further. That's not to say we were denying that there might be a repeat -- we were just keen that whatever sex we enjoyed wouldn't impinge on the more 'conventional' activities we did at other times.

Before I went back to bed and while Marcus was carrying out his ablutions in the bathroom, Jake caught me outside my bedroom door and apologised again.

"There's really no need, Jake," I assured him. "We just got carried away. No harm was done."

"You won't, like, dwell on it and build it up into more than it was?" he asked.

"Of course not," I laughed. "I've said a few inappropriate things in the heat of the moment. Such things are best forgotten."

"Okay," he smiled. "Thanks."

As I turned to go to bed he had one last thing to say.

"In future, though, when you've got mates over to stay with you and I'm left in my room feeling like a spare prick..."

I smiled and nodded. "Of course you can come in."

"Really?" he grinned. Clearly he'd expected more resistance from me. "That's brilliant!"

"Just... er... be more careful what you say when you're getting a bit hot and bothered..."

He laughed. "'Course I will!"

"And, one more thing," I added. "Not when I'm with Guy."

"Why?"

I could tell from his disappointed expression that Guy's evenings at our house were probably near the top of his list of couplings he'd like to join in with.

"Guy's... er... special," was all I could manage by way of explanation.

"Okay," Jake said with a disappointed shrug. "Not when you're with Guy."

And with that I went to bed, wondering why it was so important for me to keep Guy to myself while, after what had just happened with Marcus, all of the rest of my occasional visitors would be fair game for Jake to join in with.

What was it about Guy that made him "special", I wondered.

What was it that kept making me feel so weird when I thought about the two of us?

Without being able to adequately formulate an answer to the question, I went back to bed; leaving my door slightly ajar, just like Jake's. 



Like Father Like Son Ch. 02



Phillip had noticed how physically haggard Peter had become but had been blissfully unaware of the same depredations that had assaulted him. The break at St Omer relaxed them both even though the awareness of an imminent return to the war was never far below the surface of conscious thought and a frequent visitor to their dreams. 

Number One Aircraft Depot was a constant hive of activity. Here, planes brought from England were assembled, engines rebuilt, severely damaged aeroplanes repaired or cannibalised for spares. Here also pilots and observers arrived en route to a squadron posting. Their days were busy and their nights became increasingly riotous following the arrival of a small contingent of Australians. Like Phillip and Peter, they had volunteered for a transfer from the Infantry and were intent on making the most of their short-lived reprieve from the fighting. One of them managed to ‘borrow’ a truck on the last evening of their stay and Phillip and Peter were invited to join them on a foray into the town of St Omer itself.

St Omer was neither particularly large nor distinguished. Before the war, it had existed as market town for the surrounding district and was consequently reasonably prosperous. Now it had changed and its citizens had turned from commerce of a more mundane nature to meeting the appetites of the khaki-clad hordes that descended upon it from the war. Bars, restaurants and ‘salles privée’ abounded. So it was that the group rattled into the town bellowing out a Flying Corps song, sung the tune of ‘The Dying Lancer.’

“Take the cylinder out of my kidneys,

The connecting rod out of my brain;

From out of my arse take the camshaft

And assemble the motor again.” 


The Aussies were imbued with a fierce determination to enjoy themselves and such spirits were highly infectious. 

“First we’re going to have a little drink. Then we’ll get a bite or two to eat and have another little drink. After that we’ll have a bloody great big drink and go and scare some Sheilas at Madame Rose’s. How’s that for a plan?”

“Sounds good to me, Sport. How about you Poms?”

“Sounds pretty good to me, how about you, Phillip?”

“Well, apart from the bit about the Sheilas, sounds fine to me.”

What’s wrong with your mate, don’t he like women?”

“Oh he likes ‘em all right. It’s just that the boy’s been smitten and fancies himself spoken for.”

“Streuth! Is she here then?”

“No, she’s back home.”

“Then she can’t do ‘im any bloody good then, can she?’

Phillip started to protest further but was howled down. He decided to let things ride. After all, he could always leave the party before they got to Madame Rose’s, couldn’t he? 

The evening swam by on a sea of wine and brandy. They ate steaks in one of the little restaurants near the square. Phillip had been horrified when the Aussies started jeering a group of Staff Officers, conspicuous by the red tabs on their lapels. They had bombarded the unfortunate Officers with insults and followed this up with a volley of well-aimed hunks of bread. For a little while, it looked as if the Staff Officers were going to get ugly but they obviously thought better of it and ate their meal hurriedly and left to a chorus of catcalls.

After crawling their way around a number of bars, at each of which the Australians spread their own particular brand of mirth and mayhem, the little group found themselves outside an imposing town house. Phillip would have never guessed the nature of the establishment from the outside. It appeared like any of the others in the street: a typical residence of a well-to-do merchant, doctor or lawyer. There was a neat little garden and even window boxes that sprouted a profusion of spring flowers. 

One of the others hammered on the door and after a brief muttered exchange, the group were admitted. Phillip found himself swept along by the tide. The drink he’d consumed had left him feeling mellow and somewhat disembodied. He wasn’t drunk, he told himself, merely pleasantly relaxed. And what was the harm of going in? It wasn’t as if he was going to do anything, was it?

They were shown into a large room with over-stuffed sofas and chairs that hunched in the velvety light of oil lamps. Mother-of-pearl lampshades gave the room a diffuse pinkish glow of welcome. They sat down at an unoccupied table, pulled up extra chairs and ordered champagne. Before long, Madame Rose herself sidled over to the group. She was a large woman and had poured her ample frame into a black cocktail dress whose seams were being severely tested. She wore her dyed black hair piled high and her face was caked in thick make-up that gave her skin an unnatural matte pallor. Such a creature could surely only exist by night.

Madame Rose clapped her hands and soon they were surrounded by a group of giggling young women whose clothing and deportment left no one in any doubt as to their profession. The champagne flowed and one by one the Aussies paired off with the girls. Dresses were unlaced, garters removed, nipples tweaked and shrieks of glee and feigned outrage filled the night. 


It wasn’t long before Phillip found himself alone at the table. The others had made their way upstairs in mutually supporting couples. He sipped the remains of his champagne. He wasn’t that fond of the drink; somehow it seemed to sour his stomach so he called for a brandy to settle his rebellious gut. A pretty young girl in a pale silk dress brought his drink to him. She sat beside him and smiled shyly. Phillip spoke above average French and he saw the relief in her face when he addressed her in that language. 

“What’s your name?”

“Yvette, Monsieur. Why do you not go with your friends?”

“I, uh, I have a girl at home.”

“So? My man is at the front. It does not mean that life must stop.”

“You wouldn’t understand. I wish to keep myself for her.”

He covered his embarrassment with a large mouthful of brandy that made him almost choke and caused his eyes to water. Yvette laughed joyously and clapped her hands.

“You are a virgin! Mother of God, you must be the only one left in France!”

Phillip flushed scarlet as Yvette announced his status to the entire salon. Madame Rose bore down on him like a man-o’-war. She instantly saw his discomfort and rounded on Yvette, scolding her and slapping her face. Yvette fled in tears and Phillip felt even more wretched. Madame Rose told him not to fret; that Yvette was an empty-head and that she had just the girl for him. He tried to protest but she brushed aside his arguments with a supreme disdain. 

“It is good for the bride to be virgin, monsieur, but for both – incredible! Impossible! If neither of you knows how to do it – what a disaster! Quel horreur!“ 

“I really don’t know what you mean, Madame. “

“I can see that, mon petit, but it is simple! If you have no experience and she has no experience, who will know what to do? You English, you think love is for the pleasure of men only. Let me tell you, there is an old French rhyme:

If the pleasure of the act of love were divided into ten,

Nine parts would go to women – and only one to men!

There! You see? If you love this woman then you must give her the greatest joy that is within your gift, n’est pas?”

“Well, certainly, I would wish to give her every joy I could.”

“Then you must first learn how. And not with one of these!” 

She gestured dismissively at the girls in the room. Phillip thought his trial was over when Madame rose turned her back and stalked away. He was mentally heaving a sigh of relief when she returned with another young girl in tow. This new girl was dressed demurely and kept her eyes on the floor as she approached. 

“This is Anne Marie. She does not work here but is the friend of a Colonel des Chasseurs. He is out of town tonight. When she leaves here you must follow her, but be discreet, monsieur.”

Madame Rose waved away any further protestations and ushered the girl towards the door. Anne Marie gave a shy smile as she glanced back at Phillip and then she was gone into the cool of the night. He found himself propelled through the door after her. His fuddled brain was in turmoil. Incipient lust mingled with curiosity drove his feet to follow the girl while some still sober part of him recoiled. 


It all seemed unreal, like a dream sequence from which he expected to wake at any moment. He felt he was watching the little drama play out: as if he were a spectator rather than a participant. Anne Marie led him through the dimly lit streets with never a backward glance. The brandy and the cold night air combined to undermine his resistance. Phillip giggled as he suddenly thought it was like a parody of Orpheus and Persephone with him cast as the reluctant hero. The laughter liberated him somehow; it was as if that single giggle had finally overpowered the censorious element within and he gave himself up to the game. 

Anne Marie turned up into a small courtyard and he followed. He heard a door open and, as he turned in, he saw a chink of light from one doorway in the yard where the door had been left ever so slightly ajar. He slipped inside and the door closed beside him. The next thing he knew, Anne Marie had her arms about his neck and was kissing him passionately. He struggled briefly, unable to breathe, as she crammed her tongue into his mouth but soon found himself responding to her and his head swam. She broke off and shot him another shy smile but this one seemed to hold a promise of something else; he felt a surge of desire stabbing in his groin. 

She took his hand and led him upstairs into a large, airy bedchamber. She paused to light an oil lamp and turned back to him, pushing him gently backwards into a chair. She slipped behind a Chinese screen and he heard the susurration of silk and the quick snap of hooks and fasteners. When she re-emerged she was wearing some sort of satin wrap that had an oriental look about it. She unpinned her thick, dark hair and it tumbled about her shoulders in a shining bacchanal. Phillip was entranced. She seemed to float towards him. The only sound was his own blood pounding in his ears. Her face held a dreamy expression; it was as if she was both there and not there at the same time. 

He stared at her unfocussed eyes and saw tigers crouching, waiting to spring; saw the terrified fawn and the wide night sky. All the while his heart hammered and his breathing grew more rapid. She leaned over and pulled lightly at his jacket. He leant forward and slipped his arms from the sleeves. She knelt and tugged off his boots. The kimono-like garment bellied open as she stooped and Phillip stared at her breasts. Anne Marie became aware of his gaze and, instead of covering herself, eased the robe off her shoulders and let if fall to her slender waist. Phillip goggled. He had never seen the glory of a naked woman. The smudged and blurry postcards that the soldiers bought were a travesty when compared with the reality he now beheld. 

His face was set somewhere between fear and wonder as she removed the remainder of his clothes. Then she stood, still silent, still, somehow, elsewhere, and shook the robe from her hips to pool in a swirl of black and crimson about her feet. Phillip felt faint. His pulse raced and pounded and he gasped in air like a drowning sailor. Anne Marie stood in front of him and swept her hair up in both hands, striking an attitude, one leg thrust forward, back slightly arched to emphasise the jut of her carmine-tipped breasts. Still neither of them spoke. Phillip’s mouth was dry and he was suddenly conscious of an unbearable tightness in his groin. She moved to the bed, stretched herself out and beckoned to him. He moved like a sleepwalker towards her. All his senses seemed heightened to unbearable intensity. He could feel each individual tuft of carpet against the soles of his feet. The air against his naked body seemed to caress him and the scent of her filled the night. 

She reached with arching arms and drew him down beside her. She raised one knee and let it fall to the side, exposing her sex. Phillip stared at her in awe and amazement. That which had appeared in the smudged photographs as a thick tangled bush was now revealed to him. He saw a deep mystery revealed; a fleshy pink orchid glistened in the lamplight. Anne Marie raised a languid arm and her breast lifted and flattened slightly. Her nipple crinkled and grew under his gaze and the pale silky skin took on a rosy blush. She drew his head down to her breast and arched her back to press the alluring nipple between his lips and he suckled gently. A dreamy sigh escaped her lips, the first sound he had heard her make. Her hand came up to stroke his head and he opened his mouth wide, trying to capture as much of that soft marvel in his mouth as he could. She wriggled slightly and gently directed his attention to the other breast. 

Phillip was overwhelmed. He felt a sweet pressure rising in his groin and then he was lost, pumping his milky seed across the girl’s stomach and thighs as ecstasy seized him. She stiffened monetarily and then pushed him onto his back. He gasped as he felt her soft lips upon him and he almost blacked-out as her warm mouth engulfed him, licking and sucking while she made throaty mewling noises. 


He felt himself stiffen again and cried out in wonder at the sensations that invaded his body. She rose above him, a picture of wild-haired abandon, and, seizing his now rigid member in one hand, drove her hips down upon it to impale herself. Phillip groaned at the intensity of the sensations that flowed through him. Anne Marie, her eyes still glazed and unseeing, began a slow undulation of her hips, grinding herself against his pubic bone. He reached up to cup her breasts and instinctively thumbed her nipples with a slow rotating motion that seemed to urge her on. She was crazy now, hissing like a feral cat and her face was drawn into a rictus. She rose and fell above him with a damp slapping noise. He caught the scent of her arousal and it drove him to greater efforts, thrusting up to meet her downward plunges. Her breathing was harsh and her motions became more frenzied. Phillip tried to match her, thrust for thrust, but she was too wild for him. She flung herself down one final time and then, with a harsh cry, she reached her climax, hips shuddering and twitching as she forced herself against him and he felt the rhythmic pulse of her orgasm as she continued to shiver and moan above him. Then she collapsed forward and buried her face at the junction of his neck and shoulder and gave a long, soft sigh. 

They lay together, interlocked for a while, then Anne Marie raised herself and looked at him properly for the first time. 

“Now we have each had our pleasure; I must teach how you how to please,” she said. 

She rolled off him and gazed at his hardness. 

“Ah, poor soldier, still standing to attention!”

She reached down for him and stroked him gently.

“Be patient, mon ami, your turn will come again.”

She rolled onto her back and spread her legs.

“Now, you are the pupil and I am the schoolmistress. I require diligence from my students so now, look here!”

Anne Marie pushed Phillip down until his head was level with her crotch. She gently parted the fleshy lips and spoke in a low, husky voice.

“Look well! This little button here is the heart of a woman’s pleasure. No, don’t touch, not yet. It is very, very sensitive. You must approach with caution, like you are stalking a boche aeroplane. You must creep up on her. The frontal attack will not work until you have broken down her defences. Everything must be done slowly, doucement, tres doucement, yes?”

Phillip put out a hand and began to trace the swirls and folds that surrounded the target. 

“Yes, that is good.”

He marvelled as he watched the little pink button slowly peep out from its protective hood. The smell of her sex was ripe and heady and he saw a pale moisture coating the engorged lips. He slipped a finger between them and was amazed by the slick smoothness he encountered. She lifted her hips slightly and his finger slipped into her and she gave a little gasp. 

“Gently, monsieur, always gently. Ah yes, there, rub there, oh, that’s good. You are a willing student, for sure!”

He leant forward and kissed her stomach and she giggled.

“That’s nice.”

His curiosity was aroused and he bent his head to kiss her again, but lower this time, burying his face in the profusion of brown curls. He blew gently on her clitoris and was rewarded with another gasp and a twitch. He reached out his tongue and tasted her. It was slightly salty but held a hint of sweetness and he stabbed his tongue into her and she bucked against him, seizing his head with her hands and directing his kisses. Again her breathing grew ragged and again she cried out. She forced her sex against his mouth and bucked and twisted as her orgasm transported her. She stilled him with her hands then drew him up, over her body.

Her legs parted as he entered again and he began to pump furiously. She caught him.

“No, no, little student, that is too harsh, too fast. You must go slowly. Do not withdraw so far. Keep close, let it build.”

He stopped and began again, a slow gentle rhythm that she matched with her upthrust hips. She raised her arms above her head and offered him her breasts and he hunched over her, taking first one and then the other into his willing mouth, sucking and nibbling at the delicious tips. She increased the pace and he matched her. He looked into her eyes and saw the joy that was shining in her. It tipped him over the edge and he began again to pump wildly. This time she didn’t stop him but rather rose to meet his thrusts and her fingers grabbed at his buttocks, pulling him in deeper on each downward plunge. 

Phillip felt white-hot bolts of pleasure rising like a tide within him. Electricity surged from the base of his spine and then he was past the point of no return. She arched her back and forced herself up with a great push from her thighs then pulled away quickly and grabbed his throbbing prick, pumping the seed from him with her hand so it spurted and spattered over her stomach and breasts. Phillip’s eyes rolled back in his head and he lapsed into semi-consciousness as she continued to milk him with one hand, the other kneading his balls until he collapsed on top of her. 

When he came to himself she was smiling at him.

“Was it true, I was the first?”

He nodded, too light headed to speak.

“And it was good, yes?”

“Yes. It was good; better than good, it was amazing.”

Anne Marie smiled. She gave a little self-satisfied nod. 

“And you will remember your lesson? Remember to stalk the little button, to go slowly?”

“Yes, thank you, I will. I mean, I never knew it was good for women too.”

She laughed out loud.

“Then your woman has much to thank me for, I think.”

Phillip wished she hadn’t mentioned his woman. It brought guilt and pain and longing back to him and she saw it in his face.

“Ah, don’t fret, mon ami. We will not meet again and I want nothing from you that is not already given. You love this woman, yes?”

“I don’t know, really, we’ve scarcely met but yes, I think so.”

“And she loves you?”

“I don’t know. Her letters are very affectionate but, well, we’re not that intimate yet.”

“And yet you feel guilty because you have been with a French whore.”

“No! I mean you’re not a whore. You’re beautiful and it was beautiful. It couldn’t have been like that with a whore!”

“Ah, monsieur, you are too kind but you still think me a whore. All men do. For soldiers, the world is divided into wives and whores. It is the way of things; it is the war. But pay no attention; I am always a little sad after making love. Go now, your friends will be waiting.”




Like Father Like Son Ch. 02



So Phillip dressed and, leaving, he found he had left a little piece of his heart with Anne Marie.

*******************************

Back at Bertangles, the squadron was kept busy learning the new techniques of the ‘Contact Patrol.’ As preparations for the planned great new offensive gathered pace, they spent each available day in the air. Photographic sorties doubled and then quadrupled as Head Quarters demanded more and more maps and more and more reconnaissance missions. The German air force seemed subdued at this time and enemy aircraft seldom troubled them. Only the infamous ‘archie’ was a threat. Even so casualties on the squadron were light and morale was high. 

On the days they were not out over the front, they were practicing new techniques of communication with ground forces. The plan was that the RFC could act as the ‘eyes’ of the battlefield commanders. Flying low over the lines, they would identify the positions of the troops on the ground. The troops were equipped with coloured flares and a signalling device that was like a large round Venetian blind. Shutters could be operated to show either black or white to a circling aircraft, allowing Morse signals to be flashed skywards. Messages would then be dropped on a white sheet at the appropriate headquarters. The airmen were given weighted message bags with streamers attached for this purpose.

The two aircraft with wireless equipment were much in demand for artillery spotting. Vast numbers of batteries were moved up behind the front under cover of darkness and put in camouflaged emplacements. One or two ranging shots would be fired and the RE8’s were on hand to report the fall of shot by Morse to the batteries. Phillip and Peter Riley flew sortie after sortie. Each night they collapsed on their beds utterly exhausted but rose each dawn to repeat the process. 

Then, towards the end of June, the greatest preparatory bombardment the world has ever seen began. Phillip and Pinky Harris were flying at ten thousand feet over the lines. The noise was indescribable, drowning out even the rattling roar of their engine. It was impossible to make out individual explosions. The whole fourteen-mile front was leaping and shuddering under the impact of a million shells. They stared in disbelief at what they saw. Phillip swore he could hear the earth groaning under the assault. A haze of pulverised chalk hung over the German trenches to a height of two thousand feet and the air was redolent with the smell of damp soil even at the altitude they flew.

Just then, he caught something out of the corner of his eye. A black dot appeared for a second and then vanished. He blinked and looked away, convinced he was imagining things. Then he saw it again. He realised with horror that he was seeing the howitzer shells at the top of their trajectory. He and Pinky were flying through the bombardment! Once he had the trick, he could pick up a shell just as it reached its zenith and then follow its tumbling plunge to burst in the madness below. Once, their aircraft was rocked by some giant unseen hand. A shell had passed within six feet of them and they had experienced the disturbance created by its passage.

Day after day the guns thundered on. The bombardment could be heard in far-away England. The area behind the British front line was packed with troops, wagons, limbers, horses, ammunition dumps and the grimmer reminders of huge new canvas hospitals. The weather turned wet and the assault was postponed for three days and still the guns roared on. 

On the morning of the 1st July, Phillip and Pinky were aloft over the Fricourt salient. The guns had risen to a new pitch of fury and the shock waves reverberated through the air like rolling thunder. Just when it seemed that the climax had been reached, two huge mines were detonated under the German positions. They watched awestruck as the earth beneath them opened up. Thousands of tons of TNT had been packed into the end of two deep tunnels dug out under no-man’s-land. The mines were set off to signal the start of the attack. 

It looked to Phillip like a huge earthen tree had suddenly sprouted. It grew and rose towards them. Pinky Harris turned the plane away from the explosion so Phillip was afforded the amazing sight of thousands of tons of earth hurtling skywards to a height of ten thousand feet before slowly collapsing back onto what remained of the shattered defences, leaving a huge white crater. It was as if Earth’s bones had been exposed where the fierce explosion had flensed her mantle of flesh. The RE8 was whirled upwards by the spreading blast and threatened to come apart as it was tossed like a leaf in a storm. Shaken, they flew home.

Later that day they flew their first ‘Contact Patrols’ with little success. Despite all the practice before the attack, the infantry were reluctant to fire their signal flares, as doing so would provoke a storm of German artillery on their revealed positions. It was apparent that the attack had not succeeded everywhere. The fortified village of Fricourt still stood. Its garrison had endured the storm of steel hidden in deep concrete bunkers; the mine designed to destroy this position had been dug too short and left the position untouched. 

Flying low over the battlefield, Phillip could see silent lines of khaki bundles lying where the machine guns had caught them. It brought to mind his own experiences at Loos and sadness mixed with a burning anger stabbed at him. Yet again, it seemed, the plans had been over optimistic. Tears prickled his eyes and he wept for the wastefulness of it all, for the carnage and the horror and the terrible, all-consuming fear. 

The battle rumbled on, a mad Moloch with an insatiable appetite for yet more death, more bodies. One morning Phillip was up on an artillery-spotting sortie when he saw a yellowish fog begin to form along the line and creep out across no-mans-land. He realised with horror that he was witnessing a gas attack and he was moved by the terrible pain of pity. Pity for the Germans who would soon be coughing their lives away as their lungs melted and corroded; Pity for the British gas platoons who had to release such a fearsome, inhuman weapon and, most of all, pity for humanity that could find no better way to settle their differences. 

By the 15th July, it was clear that the plan had failed. The British Line had pushed forward a couple of miles in places but there was no sign of the heralded break-through. The cavalry still waited, impotent and frustrated, to rush through a now-mythical gap and begin the process of rolling up the enemy rear. It wasn’t going to happen. Not this year. The War would roll on unabated. It was that morning that Phillip awoke with stinging eyes. He tried bathing them but he could see from the reddened image that stared back from his mirror that there was something wrong. He reported sick and the doctor diagnosed conjunctivitis. 

“You’ll be ‘napoo’ for at least two weeks, old son. I’m sending you home on sick-leave, no use moping here!”

So off he went to catch the leave boat to Folkestone. He waved an envious Peter goodbye, stopped off to tell Pinky Harris and scrounged a lift in an old BE2 that was being ferried back to the depot at St Omer to be broken up. By that evening he was in London and luxuriating in a bath prior to arranging a slap-up dinner and enjoying his first night in a proper bed for over three months. Since the beginning of April he had flown over one hundred and twenty sorties. His promotion to Lieutenant had been gazetted and he had two glorious weeks at home ahead of him – what more could a man want?