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Like Father Like Son Ch. 01

By: smilodonwriter



Prologue: April 2003 

My wife and I were walking our dogs on the hills above the village where we live. As we crested one brow, we could make out some wrought iron railings on the summit of the next ridge. Vanessa said: “That must be the airman’s grave. Let’s take a look.” So we did. Whoever chose this spot had chosen well. Below us the village slumbered in the afternoon sun. The land fell away on three sides, green and brown and golden. Sheep, like distant puffs of cotton wool in their winter fleece, dotted a distant hillside; a large buzzard circled a patch of woodland that topped one rise, reminiscent of a monk’s tonsure. 

We took in the view and congratulated ourselves once more on our decision to move to the country and then turned our attention to the grave itself. It was nothing fancy, a low rectangle of amber marble almost obscured by a riot of daffodils. Indeed, the flowers were so profuse that I couldn’t make out the black lettering of the inscription. The very last part only was discernible. It read: ‘…Barnes MC RFC.’ Well, as some of you may have gathered from reading one or two of my stories, I am something in the way of an amateur historian. Seeing those letters ‘RFC’ whetted my curiosity. The Royal Flying Corps! At once my mind started to race. I couldn’t wait to get back home and discover the identity of the mysterious airman whose grave lay in such elevated solitude.

I was babbling on like a schoolboy all the walk home. Vanessa, who fortunately has the patience, if not of a saint then at least of a minor candidate for canonisation, indulged me. “Off you go and research him then,” she said. It was about four hours later I returned from the depths of my office. I had been through all my source books to no avail. I turned to the Internet and logged on to the Commonwealth War Graves Commission website. No joy. Eventually I got my first clue on an amateur site dealing with the history of aviation in Dorset. God bless enthusiasts! I had a name. Captain Phillip Worrell Welford-Barnes, MC, RFC. Killed in Action, April 23rd 1917. Born London, 12th August 1894. That made him not quite 23 years old. 

The site added one further snippet. His son, also a pilot, Flying Officer Michael Jonathon Welford-Barnes, DFC, RAF, had been killed in action on 15th September 1940. Both father and son were buried in the same grave atop a hill in West Dorset. The land in which they were interred had once belonged to the family estate. The Welford-Barnes family died out with Michael; the estate was broken up to pay Death Duties. 

That was it. This little double tragedy, this piece of quintessentially English History of the Twentieth Century reduced to a few spare lines on an anorak’s website. It wasn’t good enough! I had to know more. First, I had to tell Vanessa the sad little story. When I finished she gave me one of her special little smiles.

“You ought to tell their story,” she said. “I’m sure there has to be something more to it.”

“Of course. There has to be, but where to start?”

“Well, there’s always the village museum.”

I blessed her then and made up my mind to start devilling right away. You see, the dates of their death were highly significant. Phillip had died during ‘Bloody April’ – the nadir of the Royal Flying Corps’ fortunes. Michael had been killed on ‘Adler Tag’ – Eagle Day, the bloody climax of the Battle of Britain. The link between them was incredible. Both had been flyers, that was obvious, both had been decorated with medals of high honour. Both had been just 22 years old.

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

Part One

September 1915 – ‘Somewhere in France’

Phillip could never quite get used to the transition from peace to war. One minute you were walking along a dusty lane with crops growing in the fields on either side, the next instant you entered the war. You turned a corner and there it was, waiting for you. The crops vanished, the earth turned from russet brown to grey. Artillery muttered personal threats and the stench rose from the fractured land. The placid scenes of threshing machines pulled by patient horses gave way to a vista of madness: of shell holes and smashed trenches, broken duck-boards and rusting wire. 

He had been in France for a whole year. The anniversary passed without notice. Everyone’s mind was on the ‘Big Push.’ The area around Loos had been selected. Confidence was high. Guns had been assembled in great artillery parks, brought there from all over the Western Front. The Newspapers from home were full of it. His father’s most recent letter had informed Phillip that this time “You’re going to push the Hun back where he belongs, my boy.” He even seemed to know the date of the offensive. Even a humble subaltern such as Second Lieutenant Phillip Worrell Welford-Barnes could work out that the element of surprise was somewhat lacking. 

It didn’t seem to bother the Top Brass, though. The two weeks spent in the Divisional Area training for the offensive had been punctuated by streams of visitors in immaculately cut uniforms with the red tabs of the General Staff prominent upon their lapels. They were full of jovial good humour, eyes twinkling and moustaches bristling with martial fervour. The Tommies were unimpressed. They sweated in the August sunshine and swore and cursed as they practised the advance over and over again. There was much talk about the preparatory barrage. Four hundred guns would be lined up wheel to wheel to pulverise the German positions and smash the dreaded entanglements of vicious wire. After such a pounding, the troops would walk over and ‘mop up.’

Not everyone was so sanguine though, it seemed. At the main camp at Etaples the soldiers had grown silent as they saw line after line of rough wooden coffins being moved up from the depot. Someone was hedging his bets. Phillip had long ceased to ponder the workings of the kind of mind that could allow the furnishing of such a reminder of one’s own mortality to men who were just about to go into the line. The men seemed inured to it after a time and it wasn’t long before macabre, rough jokes were being traded as the lorries bearing the coffins moved away.

“’ere, Jack, one of them ‘ad your fuckin’ name on it!”

“Yeah, well, they got a biscuit tin for you, you fuckin’ little runt.”

“They ain’t got one big enough to fit Geordie’s gut in.”

“They will once ‘e’s spilled ‘em!”

“Oh, right fuckin’ cheerful you are, Spud.”

Phillip hid a smile. The Tommies were in good heart. He was filled with admiration for these men, the last of the old, pre-war, Regular Army. Their ranks had been filled out now by Territorials and the arrival of the Foreign Service battalions that had been stationed overseas. He recalled the grim retreat from Mons the year before. The anger and bitterness of the men at having to move back. He remembered the frantic fighting at Le Cateau, where they had stood and checked the German advance in defiance of orders. That defiance had ultimately cost Smith-Dorien his job. Philip and his brother officers had been angered and saddened by that. They all considered Sir Horace Smith-Dorien the best General in the Army. 

Back, now, in the assault trenches, the first pre-battle nervousness had begun to tighten Phillip’s guts. He knew he’d be all right once it once started. The waiting was a torture, though. There were only so many letters home one could write, only so many times one could check equipment or study the trench maps. He went through the Orders Group notes he had taken at battalion HQ that morning. He checked his watch; the bombardment was due to commence in a few minutes’ time. 

A voice was counting down to the start of the bombardment. 

“Fifteen seconds…”

“For what they are about to receive…”

“…I ‘opes the fuckers is truly grateful!”

The air seemed to explode around them as the first massed salvo was hurled from the guns. They heard the passage of the projectiles overhead, a rasping, ripping sound that culminated in the brass bellow of the explosions as the shells poured down upon the German line. Phillip eased himself up on to the fire step and watched the fury engulfing the enemy trenches. The very earth bucked and heaved and the bass concussion of the shells could be felt through their own trench walls, which seemed to jump and tremble in sympathy. The noise was indescribable. The stink of lyddite was borne to them on the faint breeze, prickling the eyes and irritating the throat. 

After the initial shock, the barrage seemed to settle down and they could pick out the individual characteristic sounds of the various guns; the flat crack of the 18-pounders as counterpoint to the thunder of the 60-pounders. The tearing sound of the heavy shells and the higher scream of the howitzers rolled and blended into a Devil’s Symphony of pain. 

The fire that danced and played upon the German parapets was terrible but also strangely beautiful. Every colour of the visible spectrum was there in the flash of the explosions. There were some colours Phillip saw that he could not put a name to. It was, quite literally, awe-inspiring. Phillip felt his own humanity reaching out to those souls who suffered a scant five hundred yards away. He knew what it was like to be on the receiving end of such ferocity. One could do nothing but endure. The noise and concussive blasts stunned the senses. It seemed as if one’s life-flame waxed very small and sought to hide as deep within oneself as possible, away from the mechanical insanity that reigned around it. 

At such moments he would fix on a memory of home. It was always the same memory; he was looking down from the unnamed hill to the south of the village. Below him he could make out the Church and the little row of cottages that fronted the lych-gate. He could see the course of the river making its lazy meanders through the valley bottom and if he really strained, he could hear the hum of bees and the faint barking of a dog from the village below. It was thus he could insulate himself from the terror and madness around him. As he watched across the barren stretch of no-man’s-land, he wondered if there, some German boy was picturing his home in Saxony or Bavaria in a vain attempt to keep a grasp on his own sanity.

The guns snarled and thundered on and on. A quarter of a million shells fell on the German defences over four days. The barrage was less even now, the pace slackening and rising as the tired gunners served their steel masters. Phillip became aware of the first whooping noise of gas shells and he shuddered. Gas had first been used against them at Ypres that spring. He hated it. He could still picture the first gas casualties and groaned aloud at the vividness of the memory. Then it started to rain. He cursed. It wouldn’t take much for the pulverised earth to turn to the strength sapping mud that was perhaps the greatest horror of all. You couldn’t do anything about artillery; you either lived or died; or you were driven mad by the noise and pain and terror. The mud you had to live with. It drew your strength as though you were being bled. It rotted your feet and filled your soul with the deepest misery. He uttered a silent prayer: ‘Oh God, don’t let there be mud.’ 

A hand tapped his knee and he slid down off the fire step to face Captain Redbourne, his company commander. Redbourne’s face wore a fixed grin and he was clasping a football. 

“Here, young W-B, you’ve a healthy kick on you.” He was bellowing to make himself heard. “ I want you to boot this into no-man’s-land when the whistle blows. It’ll give the boys something to chase.”

Phillip stared at him uncomprehendingly. This had to be the final proof that Redbourne was Dhoolali. Nevertheless, he took the ball and placed it on the fire step. Redbourne grinned again, patted his shoulder and roared “ Good Man!” He hurried off down the trench. Phillip watched his retreating back and shook his head slowly.

The bombardment rumbled and churned on through the night unabated. Phillip stood on the fire step and watched the explosions, his head cradled on his forearm. He dozed occasionally but proper sleep eluded him. He could feel it now: the slow but steady tightening of every nerve fibre. He felt sick. His mouth felt dry yet was filled with saliva. He wanted to spit but forced himself to swallow. His head ached abominably from the pounding drumfire and his eyes felt raw and scratchy.

Soon after dawn, the barrage rose to a final crescendo and seemed to reach a new peak of intensity. It seemed impossible that anyone could have lived through the torment. Phillip could feel the explosions through the trench wall. It was as though someone was kicking him in the chest and stomach. It grew so violent he had to pull back and drop into the bottom of the trench. White-faced Tommies stood waiting the rum issue. Every tenth man clutched a scaling ladder of crude construction. He tried to give a reassuring smile but his facial muscles were frozen. He saw the same blank, rigid expression reflected back at him from a score of faces. He pulled out his watch, alarmed at how his hands were shaking. This was the worst time of all. 

Unexpectedly, the bellow of the artillery ceased. One final desultory crack echoed in the sudden calm then all was silence. Phillip heard Redbourne’s voice, a scream of fury:

“The bastards! Oh, the utter, stupid bastards! They’ve stopped too soon. There’s still ten minutes to go!”

It was true. The Tommies looked at each other with foreboding. The premature end would give the survivors time to recover. Time to get out of the surviving dugouts and man what was left of the parapets. Time to drag up the hated, deadly, machine guns. Time to call up support from the back areas, to arrange for a counter-bombardment. There was some tense muttering. Phillip sensed a crisis and called to Redbourne.

“Captain Redbourne, why shouldn’t we be early too? Early bird catcheth the worm and all that. Why don’t we go now?”

There was a rumble of assent but Phillip saw Redbourne hesitate. He understood the senior man’s predicament. To go early was to disobey orders, to depart from the ordained plan. The hesitation stretched out, one minute, two. Then they heard the shrill blast of whistles further down the trench system and shouts and distant cheering. Someone had decided to go. Phillip saw the relief wash over Redbourne like a breaking wave and he put his whistle to his lips and began to blow like Joshua. He paused for breath and to bellow at Phillip to kick the football. 

Phillip jammed his service cap firmly in place and pushed himself to the front of the queue for the ladder. He tucked the football under one arm and pulled himself over the top of the parapet with the other. He could hear sporadic firing from the German positions. At least one machine gun was still in action and was beating out its deadly tattoo. He paused for a second to collect himself and then, just as Redbourne emerged from the trench to his left, he tossed the ball into the air and gave it a massive punt towards the enemy lines. He heard the NCOs roaring orders to keep the dressing as the platoon formed up. Phillip took his place in front and waved the men forward. 

“Come on, Boys! Ten shillings for the next man to kick the ball!” 

They were cheering now and covering the ground at a shambling trot, weighed down as they were by rifle, haversack and gas mask holder. Steel helmets had not yet come into service and Phillip noticed one or two men had lost their forage caps or else had preferred to take them off. He was conscious of the leather band of his own cap biting into his forehead but he could do nothing about it. It was at that moment he realised that he had not yet drawn his revolver and he fumbled with the flap of the holster as he ran. 

Redbourne was capering like a maniac over to his left front, yelling encouragement and waving a black umbrella. He seemed otherwise unarmed. Somehow, this seemed to fit in the rest of the madness and Phillip heard a huge cheer as Lance Corporal Riley caught up with the football and gave it another healthy kick across the broken ground. 

Soon they came up to the first line of wire. It had been flattened and torn but still represented a serious obstacle and they dragged their way through it painfully, with much cursing as it ripped at cloth and flesh. The opposition was growing now and they were starting to take casualties. Riley was one of the first to fall. His body was spun around like a top as he took a burst of machine gun fire. The man next him stumbled to a halt and gaped at the bloody ruin of the Lance Corporal’s body. Phillip ran to him and shoved him on. 

“Get going, man, there’s nothing to be done.” 



They stumbled on. Now the ground was heavy, shattered by the shelling and slick from the rain. They slithered and fell, rose again and fell once more. Some could not get up.

Phillip slipped heavily and crashed into a shell hole. Water had begun to seep into the bottom of the depression and he could smell the taint of gas. He hauled himself out, eyes smarting and tears starting. He could now make out individual field-grey shapes on the parapet ahead of him and he roared his men on. To his right he saw some men of another platoon breaking into the German trenches and he angled towards them, pointing and yelling at the Tommies to follow. He was almost knocked to the ground by the burly figure of Geordie Watts who leapt the parapet, delivering a roundhouse kick to the head of a German soldier as he did so. 

Then they were into the trench and the mayhem truly began. It was the worst type of fighting with boot, bayonet and bomb. They worked their way systematically up the German line. At each re-entrant they hurled their homemade bombs into the next bay. These bombs, made from old jam tins packed with gun-cotton and scrap metal, were no match for the German ‘potato masher’ grenades that were hurled back at them but still they fought on. Gradually, the noise began to diminish and only the occasional shot could be heard as the Tommies ‘mopped up.’ It was then that Phillip realised he had never fired a single shot. 

The reserve company caught them up and they made ready to push on to their next objective – the German support line. It was easier climbing out the back of the German Trenches as there was no parapet and they moved off again. In the distance, Phillip could see the huge steel structure that the troops had christened ‘Tower Bridge.’ He could see the slag heaps of the mines and beyond them, the open green of a country untroubled by war. Someone had gathered up the football and kicked it ahead once more but it was sadly deflated, punctured by the barbed wire. 

The area between the German front and support lines was a nightmare wilderness of shell-holes that overlapped and sagged, one into another. It was like crossing a small outpost of hell. The land stank of high explosive and gas. There was another smell too – of viscera and blood. The tired troops clawed their way eastwards. The first rush of adrenalin was past. Now only discipline and will power kept them moving. Over to his right, Phillip could see flares go up. Two reds above green, the signal of success. He looked left and saw the signal repeated. His spirits rose. Perhaps this ‘Big Push’ would really end the war. 

The German supports were deserted. Either they had all been caught in the front line or else they had withdrawn. He halted the men and set them to digging in. Tired as they were, they responded immediately. Should a counter-attack come, the trenches would be useless. The parapets, what was left of them, faced the British Lines. New parapets had to be thrown up and a fire step cut. They set to with a will, dragging sandbags from the front to the rear of the trench and digging out the sections that had been blown in by the guns. This resulted in a number of grisly finds and more than one Tommy turned away retching. 


Like Father Like Son Ch. 01



===

The first time I felt like I might be developing feelings for another man was the night when we'd gone out for a meal, and Marcus – my son's friend from university – made a joke that it was like I was Guy's boyfriend.

We'd all laughed at the absurdity of the suggestion – after all, Guy and I are both divorced men, both outwardly straight for all intents and purposes – but I felt the twinge of a new and unfamiliar emotion – an odd combination of pride and excitement, perhaps – which made me wonder if, maybe, I would like there to be some truth in the observation.

Marcus had no doubt made the comment because of the way Guy and I were teasing each other over dinner.  I'd thought we were simply expressing the sort of typical, blokeish banter that men often indulge in to the amusement of others.  But perhaps there was more to it than that: perhaps we had an over-familiarity with one another that betrayed a more meaningful connection between us; perhaps, right there in front of my son and his friend, we were making it obvious that there was a much deeper intimacy between us beneath the playful sparring we were enjoying together.

Or more likely it was just because Guy, much to my embarrassment, would occasionally call me "Big Boy" and throw a salacious glance at my crotch beneath the table.

Marcus had, thankfully, been oblivious to the reaction his playful "boyfriend" comment had elicited in me.  We'd continued chatting and joking together over the meal but I'd been careful to keep whatever embryonic affections I might be feeling for Guy more discreetly to myself.

In other respects, Marcus had turned out to be a delightfully charming young man: a humorous but at times thoughtful friend for my son and a welcome guest to have in my home.  He was both confident and well-spoken, and exuded an easy-going manner that made him almost impossible not to like.  Apart from anything else, he was very pleasant to look at, being tall – similar in height to my son, Jake, as it happened – and athletic, with lovely mop of curly blond hair and a handsome smile that might melt even my ex-wife's frigid heart.

He'd arrived the day earlier after a dreadful train journey which had involved delays and cancellations at almost every stop.  He'd disappeared off to bed just after ten, leaving Jake and me to chat together for an hour so downstairs.

"He seems like a nice lad," I'd said to Jake, although I'd hardly had chance to talk to Marcus as he'd been so tired by the time he pitched up.

"He is a nice lad," Jake had agreed, sprawled across the armchair opposite, sipping from a can of beer rather than the coke he'd been more accustomed to before he'd left for university.

"How does your... er... girlfriend, Ellie, feel about Marcus coming to stay?" I'd asked, deliberately emphasising the word 'girlfriend' but maintaining an expression which was as innocent as I could muster.

Jake had chuckled and thrown me a knowing grin, understanding full well the concealed meaning behind my question.

"She's fine with it," he'd said.  "Why wouldn't she be?"

I'd shrugged, but we both knew what the score was.  The two lads, after all, were sharing Jake's cramped, single bed; the two of them were, by my son's own admission, "slightly more than just good mates".

Nothing much else had happened that first night: Jake had gone up to bed and presumably snuggled up alongside his friend, but Marcus had no doubt been too tired for anything further to have developed between them.

If things had gone on after lights-out in Jake's room, I would undoubtedly have been aware of it, as both our bedroom doors had been left slightly ajar.  My son had suggested some time ago that we should both leave our bedrooms open at night, on the excuse that he'd been awoken by our cat scratching at one or other of our doors.  He had really made the suggestion, I'm sure, because he wanted to get a better look at what I got up to with Guy, Bradley or any of my other male friends when I had them to stay over.  But now that the shoe was on the other foot, and it was he who had a male companion joining him in his bed, I'd been pleased to notice after brushing my teeth that he was following the same rule that he himself had requested and had left his own bedroom door ajar.

We'd all got up early the following morning to drive over to Buxton to visit a Neolithic stone circle which Marcus had wanted to see while he was in our area.  He was studying archaeology at the university and had spent a considerable time taking measurements of the way the stones were positioned.  Jake and I, meanwhile, sat and drank endless cups of tea in the nearby cafe, having grown bored of trying to think up things to say about the large, grey boulders after about three minutes.

Then, after spending the afternoon shopping in Sheffield, we'd picked up Guy from his house and had driven out to the Harvester in Braunstone where I'd had the foresight to book a table for the four of us.

And that's where the joke had been made that had prompted such an unexpected reaction in me.

I knew Marcus didn't have even the slightest inkling that there was more to my friendship with Guy than one might expect from a couple of ostensibly straight mates in their early forties.  After all, if he had, he was far too polite to have made such an obviously controversial remark.

In any case, Jake had told me while we'd been alone in the cafe at the stone circle that he hadn't told Marcus about the sexual versatility I'd been embracing for the past year or so.

"Why would I have even mentioned it?" he'd said when I'd asked him about it point-blank.

"I don't know," I admitted.  "I just thought with you guys being... you know... rather versatile yourselves."

"He just knows you've got a... er... girlfriend," Jake grinned, placing his own sarcastic emphasis on the same word that I had the previous evening.

"Okay... but what if I invite a bloke to stay over with me while he's visiting?" I'd asked.  "And what if... you know... things happen between the two of us after lights-out?"

"Then, I guess, he'll realise quite quickly that I'm not the only one in the family who's heteroflexible."

I'd chuckled at that: was that what the two of them were calling it?

Now, after we'd got home from the restaurant and I was lying alone in bed, I pondered again on Marcus' joke, not so much interested in what prompted it but rather my curious emotional reaction towards it.

It was one thing to play the field with other men from time to time, but did I really want to think of myself as being another bloke's 'boyfriend'?

Just the thought of the question made shivers course down my spine, startling me and making me wonder again whether my attachment to Guy – a purely physical and sexual arrangement, or so I had previously thought – was in reality nurturing something more significant.

Was it possible that somewhere, deep my subconscious, I might actually want to be Guy's boyfriend?

Again, that strange ripple of nervous excitement at the mere posing of the question.

I remembered how funny Jake had found Marcus' comment – Guy had too, of course – and how he and his friend had laughed too loudly and for too long at the suggestion that I might be in a loving and committed relationship with another man.

Which was ironic, really, given that it was the two of them right now who were in the throes of passion in the room next door to mine.

I could hear quite distinctly sounds of sex from Jake's bedroom: now that Marcus had recovered from his train journey, the two of them seemed to be making up for lost time with gusto.  Both of our bedroom doors were open, as per Jake's suggestion (although 'insistence' might be a more a more apt description), allowing the rhythmic noises from my son and his athletic friend to permeate through to me with surprising clarity.

And these weren't the sounds of two lads having a quiet wank together before turning over to sleep back-to-back.  The two of them were quite clearly enjoying something altogether more involved: I could hear panting and grunting; the sounds of flesh against flesh.

Not that I wanted to listen in on what the two of them were getting up to, of course.  But the open door policy made any attempt for me to try and ignore their private sounds of male intimacy near impossible.

I was fairly sure, from the slapping noises I could hear them making against each other and the beating of the headboard on the wall which separated our rooms, that the two of them were indulging in a fairly heavy-duty bout of anal sex.  I was surprised that they had wasted no time in getting down to the nitty-gritty together: there was to be no tender foreplay or the appreciation of a nice, cosy snuggle from Jake – he'd gone in straight for the grand slam, irrespective of his old dad having to listen to him in the room next door.

Once I'd realised the extent of the sex I was listening to, it felt odd to hear my son – my little Jakey who I'd brought up single-handedly from being a kid – so brazenly enjoying homosexual intercourse with a friend as I lay in my bed in the room next door.  I was listening to him engaging in buggery: an act which I had by now enjoyed countless times myself but which seemed a little precocious for my teenage son.

I wasn't in any way disgusted by what he was doing – after all, I was an ardent fan of the pleasures to be had from such intimate male company myself.  It just felt strange to hear my son – a boy who had once seemed so innocent and had been wary of anything which might be perceived as 'gay' – enjoying what sounded like quite a heated and passionate sexual encounter with a member of his own gender.

Perhaps I would have felt similarly disquieted if I'd heard him enjoying the company of his girlfriend Ellie so noisily in the room next to mine: I don't know.

I took a couple of sniffs of the air as their rhythm grew steadily faster and their noises more intense.  Yes, they were definitely enjoying a butt-fuck together – even though faint, I could easily recognise the distinctly anal whiff of a cock drilling in and out of another male's backside.  I was more than familiar with that unique scent and its murky origins, having paused to appreciate it on many, many occasions during my own similarly odorous encounters.

I felt my own manhood stirring among the folds of my pyjamas, perhaps keen to experience for itself the activity its owner could smell.  I gently kneaded it through the fabric: there was nothing similar on offer for it tonight, unfortunately.

I took another sniff, this time more deeply and allowed myself to savour the pungent, musky whiff that was wafting into my room from along the corridor.  I had to smile to myself: it was as clear as day!  My son might as well have announced to me at bedtime that he and his friend were going to end their evening with an impassioned bout of boy-on-boy buggery for all the subtlety he was employing.

I wondered if other dads whose sons had brought their university friends home for the holidays would recognise from that smell what the two young men were up to together; or whether, like me, one had to be a fellow enthusiast to appreciate why such a distinctive bouquet would accompany late-night rhythms from the shared bedroom.

I lay back, listening as the sounds the two of them were making together became steadily faster, squeezing my hardening organ as it responded to the proximity of the activity it had enjoyed so many times itself.

I was wishing, now, that I'd invited Guy back from the restaurant with us to stay over with me.  At least then I would have been able to join in with the fun my son was clearly having and to have contributed my own panting and gasping sounds to those that he was making.  We could have competed with one another, as father and son, as to whose exertions could produce the most vigorous tempo, and tried to outdo each other with the intensity of the crude, anal odour that was wafting from our rooms.

However, this being only the second night of Marcus staying with us, I'd taken, perhaps, an overly cautious approach and hadn't wanted to make him feel uncomfortable by brandishing my sexual dexterity too flagrantly.  Working against the demands of my sex drive, therefore, I'd suggested to Guy that we part company after our meal instead of him coming back to my place as was more usual when we'd spent an evening together.

So now I was lying here, bored and alone, while my son was making no bones about the fact that he did not share my sense of polite restraint.  It seemed that the friend he had brought to stay with him was being treated almost like a trophy: their sexual energetics being broadcast to the whole quiet house; a way, perhaps, for Jake, to let me know – as if such a message were needed – that he, like me, could very physically enjoy the company of some of the other males in his acquaintance.

As it was becoming obvious that sleep was going to be impossible while the two of them were so boisterously enjoying the end of their evening, I got out of bed and padded quietly over to my open bedroom door to crane an ear around it and better listen to the noises of their clearly purposeful coupling.

My cock was half-erect and making my pyjama leg rise upwards from my thigh.  Was I really enjoying the sounds of my son revelling so unashamedly in his moment of homosexual passion with his friend?  Was I really growing aroused by the intensifying odour being produced by the illicit union between cock and arse?

I'd never deliberately listened in on the sounds of Jake masturbating from along the hallway, a gentle percussion which had followed bedtime – as one might expect with a teenaged son – on many, many occasions.  I would never have pried on him when he was enjoying such private ministrations in his room and had always tried to ignore the tell-tale complaints from his long-suffering mattress.  But now, as I suspected I was the intended recipient of Jake's overt display of virility, it didn't seem so wrong for me to purposefully eavesdrop on his sexual escapades.

I decided, after standing at my bedroom door for a minute or so and trying to interpret the rhythmic, pounding sounds from my son's room, that Marcus was probably the one who was in the receiving position.  For one thing, Jake's breathing sounded more laboured and he was more vocal in his appreciation of what his friend was allowing him to do, but I also felt that Marcus' contributions had a muffled quality about them, as if his face was directed downwards into a pillow.

I was listening to my nineteen-year-old son ending his evening by butt-fucking another young lad!  While that knowledge still made me feel a little peculiar, it didn't affect me as much as I thought it would.

Then I heard Jake whisper, distinctly, through the rhythm of all the other sounds that were spilling from the room, "God!  Your arse is so fucking tight, mate!"

Yes, my son was buggering his university friend.  Of that I was quite sure.

For some reason I now felt more surprise at the thought of gently-refined Marcus – the sort of wholesome boy-next-door type you'd love your daughter to bring home – bending over to have another lad fuck him up the bum.  It was this charismatic and rather dapper young man that I could smell, betraying to the whole upper floor of the house, it seemed, that it was being eagerly penetrated by my son.

Marcus would be horrified, I was sure, if he knew that such a frank and unambiguous anal fug was betraying his sexual indiscretions so explicitly.  He was such a courteous young man, and yet here he was filling half the house he was a guest in with the crude evidence that his backside was being remorselessly stoked by his friend's large erection.

Unlike Jake, who was clearly out to engage my attention and would regard whatever smells they were producing as an additional means in achieving that, Marcus would probably be unaware of how pervasive such indelicate odours can be.  The poor lad would no doubt blush a deep crimson if he realised that the particular variant of sex he thought he was so discreetly enjoying was being so unequivocally publicised to all in the vicinity by its cloyingly pungent trademark.

And, yet, here I was standing in my bedroom door sniffing eagerly at it with my prick at half-mast while I craned my neck to hear more clearly what they were doing.

For shame, Mr Furlong, for shame!

I reminded myself that Jake had been in my position countless times over the past year or so: listening to my sexual exploits while in the adjoining room and probably having a few appreciative sniffs of his own once the open door policy had been introduced.

Just last week, after he'd returned home from university, I'd had my friend Bradley over for an evening of football and pizza and Jake had had to listen to us ending the night in similar high spirits to those he was expressing right now with Marcus.

On that occasion, while my cock was driving in and out of Bradley's enticingly hairy arse as he bent on my bed on all fours to receive me, I had become aware of a figure moving around in the darkened doorway of my bedroom.

"I know you're there, Jake," I'd called out, maintaining my pounding rhythm on my young friend's rump regardless of my son's sneaky voyeurism.

At first he'd tried to shrink back into the shadows, as if he hadn't just been watching his father anally pleasuring another man, but I'd called out again, "Come on, there's no use pretending, Jake."

Then he'd appeared in the door of my bedroom, grinning at us and appearing cheerfully unconcerned that the loose grey shorts he was wearing for bed were being prominently lifted upwards by the thickened rod of his flagrant hard-on.

"I was just... er... heading downstairs for a drink," he lied, as I noticed a wet patch on the material of his shorts up near the pocket; a large dark circle at the tip of his hugely excited organ.  It was obvious that he'd been rubbing himself as he'd watched us having sex: his precum must have been seeping from his erection as he'd massaged the swollen shaft of it through his shorts.

I was damned if I was going to let my son's unwelcome appearance spoil the enjoyment I was having with Bradley.  Still holding onto his hips and without missing a beat as my crotch slapped back and forth against his arse, I said, "Of course you were, Jake," who grinned back at us broadly.

I kept up my exertions, wondering what my son would do next, and he just kept smirking at the two of us, the patch of wetness on his shorts growing steadily larger.  He seemed especially interested in seeing Bradley as he bent forwards to be fucked, and my friend chuckled back at him with obvious amusement at having an unexpected audience.  Jake even peered forwards so he could better see the size of Bradley's erection bobbing stiffly beneath his stomach as I maintained my constant rhythm in and out of his butt-cheeks.

"So, Jake, if there's nothing else," I said, feeling a touch self-conscious to have my son standing in front of me, gawping over as I buggered this younger man's arse.  "I'd appreciate a bit of privacy, please."

He laughed to himself and licked his lips slowly: he was making it quite evident that he liked the look of Bradley's large cock.

I wanted to get up and see him out of the room but I was determined that he wasn't going to put me off: why should I stop what I was doing just because my son wanted to ogle us?

Eventually – after Jake and Bradley had grinned at each other a good deal more; Jake leering pointedly over at Bradley's bobbing hard-on and Bradley making it abundantly clear that he liked the look of Jake's inside his shorts – Jake said, "Can I offer either of you anything?"

"Offer us anything?" I asked with a pointed scowl.

"Yeah, to drink, I mean," Jake clarified, grinning again at Bradley while he rubbed up and down the thickened shaft which was lifting the front of his shorts.  The gesture was flamboyantly masturbatory and Bradley chuckled at its unmistakeable intent.




Like Father Like Son Ch. 01



"I mean, I don't want to interrupt you guys," Jake went on with continued amusement, "but it seems, dad, while you're doing what you're doing, Bradley here might be getting a bit thirsty."

Bradley laughed more loudly and thrust him bum more forcefully against the hammering of my cock, as if in excitement at what he was being offered.

Jake grabbed the front of his shorts and directed his cock forwards and outwards inside the material, making it abundantly clear – as if clarification was necessary – that he was rampantly excited and hoping to join in with us.  The large helmet-shaped head of my son's erection was thrust upwards against the grey material, looking surprisingly similar in size and shape to that of my own.

"I wouldn't say no to having a slurp on something," Bradley confessed, before adding, "that is, if your dad's okay with it."

Jake was already yanking his cock out through his fly before I cut in, curtly, "Your dad's definitely not okay with it, Jake!  Put it away!"

"Aw, come on dad!" Jake called out petulantly, holding the about half of what looked like a very large and impressive erection through the button fly of his shorts.  His tone reminded me of when he was a little kid and was refused chocolate bars at the supermarket checkout.  "He's only going to have a suck, and it's not like I'm disturbing what you're doing!"

He directed the large, wet head of his cock towards Bradley's face who licked his lips hungrily before turning to peer up at me over his shoulder.  "What's the harm?" he asked.

I finally stopped my rhythm in and out of his cheeks: Jake had won – he had managed to interrupt my enjoyment.

"It'll just be a quick blowjob," Bradley persisted, as Jake yanked another few inches of his erection out through his fly.  It looked enormous – far bigger than I might have expected – though I knew from experience that Bradley would have little difficulty in taking it into his mouth.

"Not necessarily quick," Jake cut in with a grin.  "And not necessarily just a blowjob," he added mischievously, turning slightly and yanking his shorts down at the back enough to let Bradley know that the hairy crack of his arse was also available for his tongue to work on.

That only served to make Bradley even more insistent.

"Oh, come on, Rob!" he said, apparently unfazed by the fact we were having this discussion with my cock lodged halfway up his bum.  "What harm can there be in me having a quick lick of... er... one or two things?  It's not like you and him are going to do anything with each other!"

"That's not the point," I argued, feeling annoyed that Jake had put me in this position.  "I don't want to be having sex while watching you orally pleasure my son, thank you very much!"

"I'm in the room, guys," Jake reminded us but I was in no mood for his frivolity.

"Put your dick away, Jake, and leave us to it!" I snapped, my voice making it clear this was not up for debate.  "I'm not messing about – we don't want drinks and we don't want your cheap innuendos.  Just go back to bed, please."

Jake stuffed his erection back into his shorts, muttering to himself like we were back at the supermarket till.

"You always do this," he complained, and stomped out of the room with an irritated snort.  Having never been in the situation of being interrupted by him while I was in the middle of shafting another man's butt, I wasn't sure quite what he meant.

He clattered along the hallway and stormed back into his room.  I expected his bedroom door to slam shut just like it had so many times in the past, but when it didn't I realised he was hoping his fun wasn't quite over yet.

"I'm sorry, mate," I said to Bradley a few minutes later, as we lay back against the headboard of the bed with our cocks looking as floppy as if we'd climaxed.  "I know you were up for it, but I just couldn't – he's my son!"

"I know that, Rob, but you're always saying you'd like a threesome with me and my brother.  Having Jake come in with us would be no different from that."

He was right on one point – I did often suggest that we got together for a session with his brother Garth.  The guy supposedly had a cock that was long and flexible enough to work it into his own arsehole.  I was even more fascinated to see how the two brothers would express their affection towards one another and was hoping something could be arranged for the three of us relatively soon.

"With Jake it would seem different," I said, struggling to think of why that was so.  "I've brought him up from being a baby.  When you two guys were joking around about you rimming him, you've got to remember that I used to wipe that bum when Jake was in nappies.  It'd feel totally wrong for me to have him join in with our sex."

Bradley nodded.  "Okay, I guess I never really thought of that way.  So I accept that a threesome is out of the question.  But let's say Jake and I were to get it together on our own.  Would you object to that?"

"I don't know," I said, thinking the idea through.  "I suppose not.  As long as you were... you know... careful with him.  He's only nineteen."

"He's a big boy, mate," Bradley laughed, "I think he can look after himself."

"I'm not so sure about that," I hit back.  "He's just a kid, really."

It had taken us quite a while to get back into each other and resume our sex – ironically, given the supposed cause of the interruption, we'd needed a refill on our drinks to get things back on track – but once we were back into the rhythm, a secondary thumping sound from the open door along the hallway let us both know that our exertions were being enjoyed elsewhere.

Now that I was standing behind my bedroom door listening to other people's noises of sex, largely in the position Jake had found himself in a week earlier, I found myself tempted, just as he had been, to take a walk along the corridor to observe first-hand the activity which was keeping me awake.

I eased myself out through the door, taking care not to allow the hinges to creak even though I was aware that Jake was probably expecting me to follow in his footsteps and appear in the shadows of his bedroom door.

What would I say if I was seen by the two of them?  I couldn't claim, as Jake had, to be en route to getting a drink from the kitchen – his bedroom was at the back of the house and in the opposite direction from the stairs.  I couldn't even say I'd been popping to the toilet as that was closer to my room than it was to Jake's.  I'd just have to use the trusted excuse of hearing noises and being worried that we had intruders at the rear.  In some respects that was true.

I crept out into the hallway, the sounds that Jake and Marcus were making becoming clearer and louder.  Jake's bedside lamp was on and a wedge of its light spilled out onto the carpet in front of his room.  This was going to be more interesting than I'd hoped: I'd assumed they would be having sex in darkness and that I would see only the indistinct outlines of their bodies writhing and contorting on the bed in the faint glow from Jake's computer monitor.  It seemed, though, I was in for a more explicit performance, as Jake's bed was directly opposite the door of his room and I would be able to see what they were doing in near full illumination.

I edged cautiously along the corridor between our rooms, the rhythmic sounds from Jake's bedroom becoming more distinct.  The bed was creaking tortuously and the two of them were panting and gasping together.

I smiled at the sound of them.  Many other men would have been mortified to have heard their son enjoying a moment of passion with one of his male friends, but I was by now feeling mostly flattered that Jake was – quite deliberately, I was sure – allowing me to witness such an intimate act.  And the parts of me that weren't feeling flattered were, I have to admit, becoming increasingly turned-on.  My pyjama bottoms were by now tenting upwards quite obscenely with my gathering excitement.

As I slowly inched my way down the hallway, the smell of their sex grew progressively stronger.  It was a wonderfully rich aroma – laced with sweat and testosterone, but buzzing with much heavier essences straight from the hole that was being so noisily plundered.  It was even more intoxicating than the scent I enjoyed when I was with a man myself: the youthful vigour of these two fit lads was enriching the far stronger smell of their sex with its own acrid kick.

It reminded me of the times I'd sniffed the back of a man's underpants after he had worn them for a whole day: earthy and pungent; bitter and effluvious.  I assumed the back of Marcus' underwear packed the same acerbic punch when he pulled them off each evening: how interesting it would be to borrow a couple of discarded pairs from his rucksack and find out what secrets such a well-mannered young man was concealing in the back of his trousers.

As I paused to appreciate the gathering anal musk in the air, Jake seemed to crank up the action of his hips against his friend's buttocks and the noise from his room grew a good few decibels louder.  He was desperate to be heard, of that I was sure, and he was making it as irrefutably clear as he could that the back bedroom of the house was playing host to some serious male-to-male bonding.

The smell from their activities grew, in turn, significantly stronger: whatever Jake was doing to his friend was releasing an especially piquant redolence for their solitary audience to enjoy.  Perhaps his cock had started drilling even more deeply up into Marcus' bowels; or perhaps the two of them were now dripping with sweat, adding a fresh dose of male pheromones to the already potent mix that was assailing my nostrils.

I inhaled deeply, savouring the deliciously carnal bite of the air in the hallway.  Surely by now, even the naive dad I had imagined while I'd been lying in my bed would be able to identify the source of the odour that was wafting from his son's room.  I chuckled at the thought: what a surprise that might be for him!

I pressed on along the corridor, lowering each foot down onto the carpet as silently as I could, musing on how lucky Jake was to have found a like-minded friend as energetic as Marcus.  He had a freshness about him, or so I'd thought while I'd watched him smiling politely at Guy's bawdy humour during our meal earlier that evening, which had made me suspect he'd be as horny as a buck rabbit once you got him in the mood.  And it seemed that my son was more than capable of doing just that.

I had to admit, though, that even though he was my son and I was all too aware of his many shortcomings, Jake was very attractive young lad too.  He had an especially masculine face – quite angular and already with a tendency to show stubble if he didn't shave daily – and his mother's dark brown eyes which expressed very vividly the emotions he would otherwise prefer to conceal.  His body was more lithe than his friend's but I'd noticed on many occasions that he had a nice, firm backside which was pleasantly rounded and not entirely dissimilar from my own.

The two of them would make a stunning male couple, I speculated, as I edged along the corridor.  Seeing them in flagrante was going to present a most enjoyable sight, and I homed in on the open doorway while adjusting the front of my pyjama bottoms to accommodate what must be the least wholesome aspect of my fatherly interest in my son.

Their noises continued, seeming to growing even faster and more forceful, as my toes first breached the shaft of light shining out of Jake's bedroom.  Was their homosexual coupling getting still livelier, or was I just hearing their activities more clearly as I neared the doorway?

I had a sudden misgiving about proceeding further and found myself hesitating at the threshold of the illuminated doorway.  My son was right there in front of me, enjoying what should be a private sexual moment with his friend, and here I was about to spy on him doing it.  Was this acceptable behaviour for a middle-aged father?

Before I had time to address my unease, the sounds from Jake's room abruptly stopped.  Fearing they'd heard me, I froze still outside of the doorway, hardly daring to breathe in case I revealed what I had been about to do.  I wasn't too bothered about Jake knowing I was there – he, after all, had done exactly the same thing to me on many, many occasions before I'd caught him last week – but I didn't want Marcus, who was a guest in my house after all, getting the impression that I habitually sneaked around perving on what my son was getting up to in the middle of the night.

As I stood statue still in the corridor, the arch of my foot starting to cramp up from the tensed position I was holding myself in, I heard noises of the two of them repositioning themselves on the bed, mattress springs creaking as knees were pressed down into them, and then my son asked his friend in a low voice if he was okay.

"Yeah, you were just hurting a bit," Marcus replied and I heard a rasping farting noise which I realised was coming from a tube of something wet being squirted.

As whatever it was – lube, I assume – was applied to various patches of male anatomy, I heard Marcus whisper, "Are you sure this is okay, Jake?  My dad would have a fit if we did this at my place."

"Don't worry," my son chuckled, "my dad is definitely no angel!"

I couldn't help but smile to myself.  He was right there.

"Has he heard you having sex before?" Marcus asked quietly.

"Not like this," Jake admitted.  "He saw me having a wank when we were sharing a room a few years ago, but he hasn't heard me doing stuff with someone else."

"Won't he be freaked out?" Marcus persisted.  In spite of the joke Marcus had made about me acting like Guy's boyfriend, Jake hadn't been lying when he'd told me that his friend didn't know about the new-found diversity of my sexual interests.

I heard Jake laugh to himself.  "Believe me, mate, he doesn't blush very easily these days."

I smiled again.  Like father like son, I thought.

"But won't he think you're gay?  My dad would keel over if he knew I was doing this."

"My old man knows the score, mate," Jake snorted impatiently.  "Now come on, shove your arse back towards me and open your legs wider.  I'm getting blue balls back here!"

"Oh, Jake, what a sensual lover you make," I thought to myself.  "You're a modern-day Casanova."

There was a wet slurp as my son reoccupied the hole he'd vacated, and then the creaking of the bed started up again and the headboard resumed its beating against the wall.

Feeling relieved that I was free to move again, the sounds of my progress being masked by the rhythmic cacophony that was ensuing from my son's mattress and the two bodies on it, I allowed myself to relax and stretched my tensed-up foot against carpet beneath me.  The joints inside it clicked and sounded unfeasibly loud.

I returned to the question that had occurred to me before their brief interruption: was it wrong of me to be observing my son and his young friend while they were enjoying what should be a private act together?  Did the fact this was a homosexual rather than heterosexual coupling make it more or less wrong that I might be about to spy on them?  On the one hand, I might take the view that what they were doing was the sexual equivalent of a pair of lads messing around together and therefore perfectly reasonable for me to glance in on with an almost amused detachment.  On the other, it could be argued that the fact they were both young men made it even more inappropriate for me to watch them experiencing pleasure together: such a profound moment of intimacy was supposed to be conducted in secret and I had no place to be peering in on them like some old, salivating anorak-wearer.

Perhaps, I mused, if I were to see what they were actually doing, I would in a better position to formulate an option.

Yes, that was a very sensible approach to take.

I crept forwards along the last foot or so of the corridor until I was level with Jake's door and, staying back in the shadows of the hallway as much as I could, peered around the open doorway, squinting to allow my eyes to become accustomed to the relative brightness of the bedside lamp.

As soon as I saw them, it felt indecently wrong for me to be spying on them.  They were both naked – that might sound obvious, but for some reason I'd expected their sex to be so casual that they'd be doing it in their t-shirts with their underwear hitched down – and, in spite of the open door and my suspicion that Jake was deliberately putting on a show, it suddenly seemed like I really was not intended to be looking at this.  Here was my son, upright on his knees, making love to another boy who was on all fours in front of him: how utterly contemptible must I be for peeping on the two of them like some squalid pervert?

I almost pulled away in disgust at myself, but there was something about Jake – something about his face – that made me hesitate.  I stared at him for several seconds, wondering what was keeping me from shuffling back to bed, when I realised what it was that was out of place.

As he stared ahead of Marcus' bent body, as he looked forwards at the posters of indie bands above the headboard of his bed, his expression didn't fit with what he was doing.  He wasn't gasping in pleasure or grunting with enjoyment: he was broadly smirking and his eyes were full of mischief.

He knew his dad was watching him and he was delighting in the fact.

I had come to his doorway and taken up the position he had always intended for me.

He didn't turn to face me, nor give any discernible sign of acknowledgement.  But he knew full well I was there and was in no need of confirmation.

"Ah, this feels so good, mate," my son called out as his friend grunted his agreement.  He continued thrusting his hips back and forth as the long, thick shaft of his cock drove in and out of Marcus' outstretched buttocks, all the time staring ahead of himself with that deliberate smirk on his devious face.

He wanted me to see him enjoying a late night butt-fuck with his mate from university: that much was abundantly clear.

And, for all I was feeling suckered into doing what had been expected of me, I had to admit they looked spectacular together: Marcus bending forward with his fair, curly hair flopping onto the pillow, giving himself so spiritedly to my son who was kneeling upright behind him.

My son's friend looked magnificent naked: his body was beautifully sculpted and swathed with taut, naturally well-built muscles which bulged as he tensed and flexed against Jake's relentless thrusts.  This was a handsome, strapping lad bent over on all fours on Jake's bed and, while my son was undeniably something of a looker himself, he should count himself very fortunate to have such an attractive friend who seemed so grateful to receive his attentions.

Such musings were interrupted by the realisation Jake wasn't wearing a condom: he and his friend obviously trusted each other completely, the way Guy and I now did and the way I was trying to persuade Bradley we should.

"How's my big cock feel screwing your arse, mate?" Jake asked, his voice slightly louder than it needed to be, suggesting the question had been posed primarily for my benefit.

Was this why he had wanted me to see him like this?  To prove to me that he was a big boy now and more than capable of using adult language?

"Amazing," Marcus gasped in a more muted whisper.  

My son's manhood did indeed look very large, hammering in and out from between his friend's round bum-cheeks.  It had all the girth of my own and, from what I could see each time he pulled back to withdraw it, matched very closely my length.  Seeing it from the side, however, made it obvious that Jake's cock had a much more conspicuous upward curve to it than mine did, a fact he exploited with the technique he was employing.  His arching, sweeping motion used the full curvature of his shaft to repeatedly skewer the orifice in front of him, giving his plump cock-head a smooth, circular trajectory with every powerful thrust.




Like Father Like Son Ch. 01



"Shoot your load up inside me, Jake," Marcus called out, breathlessly.  "Go for it, mate!"

Jake looked like he was about to comply with his friend's request, and I must say I would have been very pleased to have seen him depositing his semen in a series of grunting spasms deep up inside the rump he was being so enthusiastically offered, but it seemed he had rather different ideas.

After a few further – and to my eyes, overly brash – lunges, he pulled out of Marcus and paused for a moment with his cock arching upwards at the threshold of what it had just so brusquely enjoyed.

He sniffed the air and took a moment to savour the sordid bouquet of the hole he had just plundered, before declaring: "Your butt smells so hot, dude!"

Again I wondered if this was an attempt by Jake to prove to me that the son I'd brought up had become a man.  After all, this was very much the sort of thing I would enjoy doing in his position and he may well have picked up the habit from watching me over countless nights.

"It doesn't smell as hot as it did in that tent, mate," Marcus reminded him and the two of them giggled.  This must be a reference to when they had camped out a couple of nights at a music festival in October.

Oh, to have had a sniff of that hot fug after the two of them had been at it!  The front of my pyjama bottoms took a sudden lurch upwards at the mere idea of them stinking out Jake's two-man tent with their lewd exertions.  I seemed to remember Jake had taken his girlfriend and mate of hers along on that trip, complete with their own, more extravagant sleeping arrangements.  I wondered what dear, sweet Ellie had made of the indecorous smell in the boys' cramped tent first thing in the morning; that unique combination of bum and cum.

Jake shuffled down the bed, away from Marcus' bent body, and announced that he had something else in mind which his friend, he was sure, would greatly enjoy.

Putting his hands back on his friend's hips and making just the slightest and almost imperceptible glance in my direction, he pressed his face towards the splayed buttocks in front of him, reaching forwards to rim the splayed and gaping arsehole his cock had just vacated.

A post-fuck rim: "You lucky sod, Jake", I thought again.  It had taken me ages to discover that the most rewarding rim-jobs were the ones administered to a freshly-ploughed hole, but it seemed Jake had made such a fortuitous discovery relatively soon after taking up the same hobby.

Again, I strongly suspected what he was doing was on account of the audience he knew he had.  He was well aware that I regard rimming as being the most rewarding and sophisticated of the activities I indulge in with my own gender, and he was trying to prove to me that he was himself a connoisseur of such an elegant art-form.

Perhaps he was right, I mused: perhaps my little boy really was 'all growed up'.

He pressed his face to Marcus' rump and extended his tongue forwards to where he must be able to see the other boy's swollen hole was dilated outwards.  For a second time, he couldn't help but smirk: he was aware I was standing watching him, no doubt suspecting – quite rightly – that I had a growing hard-on, and he was revelling in the performance he was giving me.

But then, when he actually pushed forwards and went in for the bullseye, I found myself feeling shocked and appalled to see what Jake was doing.

It wasn't the sight of my son with his mouth on another lad's bum that was so offending me: it was the fact he was administering the most inept rim-job I'd ever seen in the flesh.  He was flicking his tongue back and forth against Marcus' hole like they do for dramatic effect in porn films; dabbing at it with the tip like he was afraid to actually taste what was being presented to him; wiggling his tongue up and down as if intentionally making a silly face.

"You're doing it all wrong, son," I was almost compelled to call out.  I wanted to march in and take over from him, to show him how such a delicate act should really be performed by one man on another.  But obviously I didn't interrupt their moment together and risk upsetting Marcus who seemed oblivious to my presence, and held back in the doorway, exasperated by the mess Jake was making of what should have been an intensely erotic and sensual moment of intimacy.

I remembered he'd walked in on me rimming another man in our lounge quite a few months earlier.  While at the time I'd been annoyed with him for quite deliberately interrupting us, now I was more annoyed that he hadn't learned anything from what he'd seen me doing.

"You don't lap at it like a fucking saucer of milk," I was thinking, with growing frustration.  "You should be caressing his entrance with your tongue, not teasing it like that; you should be massaging his passage and making him gasp with excitement, not just fannying around like it's a lollipop."

Marcus, however, seemed to be enjoying what my son was doing to his bum.  He raised himself upwards and prized his buttocks apart with both hands to give his friend better access, smiling over his shoulder at Jake as his cock poked upwards in its unabated arousal.

It seemed that my son's lover was easy to please. 

I noticed, then, that Marcus' erection had its own captivating beauty, arching so gracefully upwards from between his rounded, muscular thighs.  The head of it was a handsome shiny purple – almost metallic in its lustre – and the size of its shaft was slightly larger than average, making it very pleasingly proportioned with respect to the rest of his athletic, toned body.

Jake emerged from between his buttocks and grinned back upwards at him.

"You like having a Furlong tongue lapping at your arse?" he asked before spitting out a stray anal hair that must have been tickling his tongue.

"You know I do," Marcus chuckled, apparently excited to have another boy licking his backside, regardless of the inelegance of the technique which had been employed.

Jake looked up at his friend and grinned naughtily.  "And I bet you'd like a Furlong mouth sucking your cock at the same time my tongue was rimming your arse!"

("Call that rimming?" I couldn't help but think.  "You really have no idea, Jake.")

Marcus chuckled hesitantly, confused about the point Jake was trying to make.  "If only that were possible," he suggested with his voice betraying his obvious uncertainty.

Jake leaned in to take another few clumsy licks of Marcus' delicious-looking bum and then grinned up at him again.  "You'd love it though, wouldn't you?  Having a Furlong mouth slobbering away on your horny cock and another rimming your cute arse!  You'd love that!"

Marcus smiled at Jake but, just like me, didn't see where this was headed.  "I guess I would," he offered with an uneasy shrug.

"You'd be well up for it wouldn't you?" Jake asked salaciously.

"You know I would," Marcus chuckled with obvious puzzlement before Jake turned towards the doorway and called out:

"You might as well come in, dad!  I know you're out there!"

I hesitated for a moment, caught off-guard by Jake's abrupt invitation.  In spite of what he'd said about the two Furlong tongues, I really had not expected him to ask me to join in the pair of them in the middle of what they were doing.

I held back for a moment, my mind reeling about what I should do, before Jake called out again, "Come on, dad!  I can see the stripes on your pyjamas!"

There was no point pretending I wasn't here: as I'd surmised all along, he had fully expected me to do what he himself had obviously done so many times before and position myself voyeuristically outside his bedroom door.

"Okay," I said, pushing my way into my son's bedroom.  "You win.  Now what were you saying about there being two Furlong mouths?"

===

To be concluded

===



Like Father Like Son Ch. 01



Redbourne appeared, hatless, red faced but still clutching that bloody stupid umbrella. 

Phillip called out: “Where’s the second wave?” 

Redbourne shrugged and glared back towards the British lines. Nothing moved. In the lull in the fighting they could hear birdsong. The Captain threw himself down on the makeshift fire step and pulled out his pipe and tobacco pouch. He filled the bowl with quick, practised movements of his stubby fingers and hummed a little tune to himself. He patted his battledress pockets for matches and finding none, called to a nearby soldier:

“Private Jenkins, might I trouble you for a lucifer?” 

The man grinned and tossed Redbourne a box of matches bearing the Union Flag and the legend ‘England’s Glory.’ With his pipe well alight and drawing nicely, Redbourne turned his attention back to Phillip.

“Well, young W-B, we got this far. Casualties?”

“Nine dead sir, four wounded. Chapman’s the worst but he should be all right, the medic says. I think we got off lightly. Half the bloody wire wasn’t cut.”

Redbourne nodded. When he replied, his voice was pitched low so that only Phillip could hear.

“Do you know tomorrow’s my birthday? 26th September. I shall be eight and twenty. Who’d ever have thought it? I can tell you now, old fellow, I never expected to see it. Not after Ypres. So! We must think of some way to celebrate.” 

He raised his voice so it carried to the platoon in the trench around him. “ Any of you chaps know how to bake a cake?”

He was rewarded with laughter. Redbourne was popular with his men. His cultivated madness reassured them as it was intended to. Some of the older men had seen it all before but recognised, despite their increased cynicism, that the newer hands needed the Captain’s antics. It helped to persuade them that things could not be all that bad. 

“No bakers, what? Damned shame! I was counting on you lot. Looks like it will just have to be jam roly-poly again, eh chaps?”

This too raised a laugh. The infamous tinned stodge that, along with ‘corned dog’ and the unidentifiable canned meat known as ‘dead baby,’ was the staple ration. 

“Maybe you’ll get a parcel from home,” Phillip said. 

Redbourne gave him a sharp look and then shook his head wearily.

“I don’t think so, W-B. No people at home to send one. What about you? Anyone waiting in Dorset with bated breath for the telegram boy?”

“Just my parents. I had a brother. He died when I was quite young. I don’t remember him at all.”

Redbourne looked uncomfortable and changed the subject.

“We ought to be pushing on now. The longer we delay, the more time we’ll give the Huns to organise their defences. What’s keeping them?” 

He leapt to his feet and strode off down the captured trench, stopping every now and then to crack a joke or pat a shoulder. Phillip heard his booming voice recede around the traverses and he felt again that wave of inadequacy. Redbourne was a true leader. He could fire the men or calm them as the situation required. He, Phillip, lacked that touch. He didn’t delude himself. He wasn’t the stuff of heroes – he just tried to do his duty. 

The sky darkened and a light rain began. Phillip stood on the fire step and watched the magical play of Very lights as they blazed and fell in the black bowl of night. The harsh white light flattened everything into a two-dimensional relief. The spectral glare compressed distances. He found it impossible to judge how far away the old front line was. He felt he could reach it in a couple of steps; yet, that morning, it had seemed as distant as Africa. From his left he heard the persistent crump of artillery and saw the distress flares lazily arcing upwards. Someone was catching it. The men were quiet in the trench beneath him. He understood. The fighting and the sudden relaxation of tension had drained them. He often found himself yawning prodigiously immediately after moments of high danger. At the same time, he would be too wound up to sleep. No doubt there was some physiological explanation for it.

It was past midnight when he eventually turned in after a final check on the sentries. He had been barely been asleep a few minutes before he was roused by a summons from Captain Redbourne.

“Another attack has been scheduled for eleven ack emma.” Redbourne used the phonetic version – ack emma for a.m., pip emma for p.m. 

“Why so late?”

“Delays in bringing up reserves, cavalry not in position to exploit any breakthrough, the usual. Ours not to reason why, young W-B.”

"Yes, sir. Still, it does seem like handing the advantage to the Hun.”

“Indeed. However, between thee and me, old fruit, I rather think we did that today when everyone pulled up a bit too sharpish. Some of the lads got clear into open country but had to come back for lack of ammunition. Anyway, Brigade says they were held up on the left and our flank was open. So we do it all over again.”

The dawn was chill and grey; a thick mist clung to the battered landscape and left pearly droplets of moisture on men and weapons. The mist cleared slowly as the morning wore on and soon they could make out the new German defences. Artillery preparation was to be minimal. Very few of the bigger guns had any shells left after the initial bombardment. A ten-minute barrage was all that could be managed. Phillip checked his watch for the twentieth time that morning. An overwhelming lethargy had seized him. His limbs felt leaden, detached from him in some inexplicable way. The men seemed to be feeling the same. They stood as patient as oxen, blank faced. It was as though they were all resigned to their fate. There was none of the nervous edge that had been present the previous morning and no rum ration to impart any cheer or ‘Dutch Courage.’

The guns began promptly at ten minutes before eleven. Phillip’s practised ear noted the lack of ‘heavies’ – the flatter crack of the 18-pounder field guns predominated. Time seemed to both stretch and compress. Each minute seemed interminable yet, when the guns ceased and the whistles blew, he could scarcely credit that ten minutes had passed so quickly. Heavy-footed, he stumbled out of the trench and began to advance.

Of course, it was a disaster. German reserves had been rushed to the fighting overnight. There were now seven times as many enemy troops as there had been twenty-four hours before. The German High Command had responded energetically. Phillip covered less than a hundred yards before being slammed to the ground. His first reaction was one of total wonder. He could not connect the smashing impact of the machinegun bullets across his thighs as having anything to do with himself. There was no pain. He dimly recognised that this was due to shock but still it seemed unreal. He tried to stand but his shattered legs would not obey him. He rolled slowly onto his back and gazed up at the blue, cloudless vault above him. 

The noise of the battle seemed to be coming from a great distance, like the tolling of a church bell on a summer Sunday morning. His attention wandered. High above him he saw a faint shape, delicate as a dragonfly. He thought he could hear the hornet hum of its engine as it made its stately progress across the heavens. It seemed to come to him like a revelation. That was where he wanted to be; flying in the clear air above where there was no gas, no lyddite fumes and, above all, no mud. 

The tumult was slackening now. The attack had failed. A handful of soldiers made their way back past him. He craned his neck to see where the rest were. The untidy hummocks of khaki littering the broken ground told their own story. There weren’t any others. Over half of the troops that had climbed from the trench scant minutes before were either dead or wounded like him. Rough hands seized his shoulders and he felt himself lifted onto a broad back. He was still in that strange dreamy state. He hardly felt the jolting as Geordie Watts carried him at a stumbling run back to their own lines.

He woke to darkness and pain and cried out. The memory of being hit returned slowly but this time he could connect with it. His legs were on fire. A haggard medical orderly loomed out of the darkness.

“All right, sir, all right. You’ve copped a Blighty one and no mistake.”

“Where am I?” His voice was hoarse and he cursed inwardly at the tremulous note he heard.

“Battalion aid post, sir. We’ll be taking you back when the ambulances get here.”

“What time is it? I mean, how long have I been here?”

“Just coming up eight O’clock, sir. You’ve been out for about six hours. The MO gave you something, sir. For the pain, like.”

Phillip nodded and asked for water. The Orderly shuffled off into the gloom before returning with a canteen. Phillip could taste the rum in it as he drank and was sincerely grateful. 

“How bad is it?” He hardly dared to ask. The Orderly grunted.

“I’ve seen plenty worse, sir. You’ll be fine once you get to the back area. Clean beds and proper nurses, they ‘ave. You’ll be dancing again in no time.”

Phillip gave a chuckle then gasped as the pain flared. He didn’t feel the needle slipping into his arm but relished the fuzziness that followed as he slipped from consciousness once more.



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

November 1915 The Home Front

He woke to the wan sunlight that insinuated itself through a gap in the curtains. His legs itched madly under their plaster sheaths and Phillip groaned aloud, then cursed himself. Others on this ward were far worse off than he. The officers’ hospital was a converted country house called Bentley Hall. Non-ambulatory cases such as Phillip were accommodated on the ground floor. He shared the former library with five other young men. Three had lost a leg, one both. Phillip thought his fifth companion the worst off of all of them – he had been gassed. 

All six had taken their wounds at what was now being called the Battle of Loos. Phillip had heard that the church bells had been rung for victory after the first day. Like the others, he dismissed this as incomprehensible madness. The veterans, those who had been out since ’14, no longer believed in victory in the conventional sense. Phillip had formed the view that the war would go on, consuming men and money until the Great Powers finally ran out of both. Yet already the newspaper talk was of another ‘Big Push’ next year when the New Armies recruited by Lord Kitchener would be ready for action. More madness. 

He had made his journey home by stages. From the battalion aid post he had been taken by solid-tyred ambulance over the jolting pavée to a casual clearing station in the rear. There he had been subjected to the routine triage and sorted as a potential survivor. After that he spent a week in a tented hospital near Boulogne before the hospital ship had brought him to Dover. His parents had met the ship and were allowed a brief reunion before Phillip was once more embarked on a hospital train and had completed his journey to the hospital by ambulance from London. Now, after six weeks of inertia, he felt ready to go completely insane.

A small cabinet stood beside his bed and from this, Phillip picked up the letter from Captain Redbourne and re-read it for perhaps the twentieth time. 

What Ho, W-B,

Thought you might like to hear how the workers at Mars’s Mill are faring while you take your ease in Blighty. The battalion were withdrawn on the 28th and we’re now in Divisional reserve awaiting our master’s pleasure. Censor won’t let me say where we are, of course, but you will remember that grubby little estaminet where Madame wore the most hideous shade of yellow! 

The boys are all in fine fettle and we have had a couple of drafts but are still a bit short of full establishment. A friend of yours has joined, by the way. St John Thomas by name, claims you were at school together and that you were always a frightful slacker even then! (Ha ha)

One bit of good news, Private Watts has been given a gong for pulling you out. The CO put him up for the VC but they settled on an MM. Our rotund rogue is delighted of course but overcome by martial modesty whenever it is mentioned. 

A little bird told me you’re in Hampshire. Can’t be too far from your home, can it? At least you’ll get lots of visitors. Find a pretty girl for me, won’t you old chap? Anyway, there isn’t too much more one can say. The front has quietened down after our last little effort to liven things up. The Hun is as beastly as always but not misbehaving too much at present. No doubt waiting for your return so he can have another crack at knocking you off for good!

Take your time and make sure the old pins are well and truly mended but do come back soon, you’re sorely missed.

Best wishes,

Brian Redbourne.

Phillip folded the letter again and felt guilty. As soon as he was fit enough he intended to transfer to the Royal Flying Corps. The thought of returning to the trenches horrified him. He didn’t consider himself a coward but felt sure that he would crack up completely if he ever had to go back to the front again. 

He tried to rationalise his fear but his mind always seemed to circle and evade the issue. Phillip had enjoyed the companionship of the army. He’d never dreamt of doing anything else. He joined the army in 1912 and had been gazetted as a second lieutenant at the end of the following year. He had imagined service overseas – India, perhaps – with the odd skirmish just to make life interesting. Then Arch-duke Ferdinand had been assassinated in Sarajevo and the world had progressed inexorably towards war like lemmings rushing at a cliff-top. Of course, Phillip had been swept in the excitement. Marching through the streets behind the regimental band through cheering crowds that thronged the street, he felt ten feet tall. The men had joked and sung as they made their way into Belgium, feted by the local populace wherever they went.

The reality of Mons and Le Cateau had brought them all down to earth. A year of trench fighting had squeezed all the military ardour out of his spirit. He felt drained before the fighting in front of Loos. He saw his wounding as a blessing. It had given him the separation he desired. He would not have to face Redbourne or Geordie Watts or any of the others. He could simply vanish into the RFC like a summer cloud.

“And how are we feeling this fine morning?”

Phillip’s reverie was interrupted by the fruity tones of Sister Hallam who ruled the ground floor wards with an iron will and unrelenting heartiness. She was what was termed a ‘handsome woman.’ Phillip supposed her to be in her forties. She was tall, carried herself erect and was preceded by a starched bosom that could best be described as stately. Her patients were a little in awe of her and she positively terrified the staff nurses. Yet she was not unkind and certainly not without feeling. Phillip had seen her weeping silently soon after he arrived. A young officer with terrible burns had died despite her best efforts. Now, as she approached, Phillip mustered a smile.

“Good morning, Sister. Can’t complain other than my legs itch like the very devil.”

“Language, Mr Worrell-Barnes, language. Need I remind you that the staff here are ladies?”

“Of course not, Sister, sorry. My legs do itch frightfully, though.”

“Hmm. Well, we’ll just have to see about that. Another two or three weeks and those casts will be coming off anyway. Nurse Meredith! Mr Worrell-Barnes needs a blanket bath. Attend to it directly, if you please.”

And with that she strode away. Phillip groaned inwardly. He hated the indignity of blanket baths almost as much as the routine of bedpans. His legs were encased in plaster from ankle to hip and the bulky casts prevented him from wearing pyjamas. Instead, he was clad in an old-fashioned nightshirt that he hated with a particular venom. 

Nurse Meredith was a sweet young F.A.N.Y. from West Wales who spoke with a soft singsong lilt. She was darkly pretty with large brown eyes and fair skin. The officers teased her whenever they got the opportunity just to see her blush. It was very easy to make Bethan Meredith blush. She wheeled her bathing trolley up to him and pulled the screens around Phillip’s bed. She approached him like some wild creature sensing a trap. Pulling back the covers, she helped Phillip into a semi sitting position and stripped off the hateful nightshirt. Averting her eyes, she began to wash his body.

As she moved the sponge over him, Phillip began to get aroused. His penis twitched and rolled slightly to one side as the blood engorged it. Nurse Meredith gave a little shriek and thrust the sponge into his hands. She turned her back on him and allowed him to wash his own genitals. Both were scarlet with embarrassment. He tried to mumble an apology but his mouth was dry. By now his erection was in full swing. He gritted his teeth, willing his unruly member to subside. It was so hard it hurt and this added to his mortification. 

Bethan Meredith was overcome with confusion. She was a recent volunteer to the F.A.N.Ys and had little experience. She liked Mr Worrell-Barnes. He didn’t tease her as much as the others and seemed a gentle sort of person. But then his thing had reared up like one of those snakes from India that she had seen in a picture book. She knew what it meant all right. She wasn’t a farmer’s daughter for nothing. She’d seen the old Tup doing his business with the ewes enough times. Now it seemed Mr Worrell-Barnes wanted to tup her!

She risked another quick peek between her fingers. It was huge! How did something like that ever fit in a woman? Then, catching herself even thinking about it, she grew even redder, gave a little cry and fled. Phillip lay back on the pillows and felt wretched. He hadn’t meant to get a bloody erection, it just happened. And it wouldn’t go away! His knowledge of sex was somewhat second hand. He had never been with a woman. Nice girls didn’t do that sort of thing and he had seen enough of the soldiers who had ‘caught a dose’ to be terrified by the very idea of going to a whore. His limited knowledge of female anatomy had been gleaned from late-night conversations and those ‘dirty postcards’ he had sometimes had to remove from the personal effects of a dead or wounded soldier. It wouldn’t do for their loved ones to receive that sort of thing among their beloved’s belongings!

The screens parted once more and Sister Hallam charged in. 

“What have you been…?” she started to say then spotted the root of the problem.

“Ah. I see. Well, we can soon deal with that.” 

She flicked the tip of his glans with a solid fingernail and looked up at him triumphantly. Phillip turned his face away, unable to meet her eyes. She looked back, sure that her sovereign remedy would have done the trick. Phillip’s erection stood firm. 

“I see this calls for somewhat sterner measures.” 

Phillip groaned aloud and coloured again. He dreaded to think what she might do next. He was taken by surprise when her hand curled about the base of his shaft and gently squeezed. He gasped. The sensation was nothing like he had ever felt before. He had masturbated, of course, but tried very hard to avoid doing so. After all, it could cause you to go mad. The feel of someone else’s hand on his prick was unbelievable but oh, the guilt! Sister Hallam hesitated for a moment. She had intended to give the young man a good hard squeeze and tell him to stop this nonsense but she sensed his vulnerability. Compassion flooded through her and she changed her mind.

Phillip became aware of the soft stroking and his eyes opened wide in utter amazement. What was she doing? Her other hand reached down and cupped his sac and she gently manipulated his balls as her finger tips ran up and down the length of his hardness. She looked into his eyes and this time he did not turn away. Her face was serious but spoke volumes of kindness. She raised a finger to her lips, warning him to make no sound. He nodded dumbly. She resumed her ministrations, firmer and swifter now. He gave himself up to the pleasure coursing through his body and lay quiescent in the narrow bed. Something urgent was happening. It seemed to begin near the base of his spine then spread through him, as pervasive as sleep. Electricity jolted through his prick and her hands became a blur as she pumped him. Her fingers kneaded his balls and he almost fainted with the unexpected pleasure. Then he was swooping towards orgasm.




Like Father Like Son Ch. 01



He felt himself contracting and ropes of thick, white semen spattered his chest and stomach as his entire being was concentrated for a few brief seconds in the bundle of supercharged nerves that appeared to have usurped all conscious thought. Her hand slowed and her touch became lighter as she pressed out the last few drops from his engorged member. Phillip came to himself to find his hand had clamped on that starched bosom and he felt the softness underlying the whalebone armour. Sister Hallam said not a word but simply removed his hand and placed it back on the bed beside him with a soft pat. She then completed his bath in her usual efficient and matter-of-fact fashion, wiping away the pooled semen with the sponge. 

“There! All clean.” 

She handed him a fresh nightshirt and bustled away with the bathing trolley as if nothing had happened. She seemed so completely normal that Phillip was forced to wonder if he had imagined the entire episode. 

It was never repeated and never mentioned but once or twice she visited him in dreams. He would wake just as he ejaculated, in fact as well as in dream. Perhaps that was why he never had another erection during his blanket baths. Maybe, he thought, Sister Hallam had known that. He wouldn’t put it past her. 

In December he was moved to a convalescent home. He could walk now, with the aid of crutches. His leg muscles had severely atrophied and he was told it would be a long while yet before he was fit again. His right thigh had taken two bullets, the left only one. They had left angry purple pits and the skin around the wounds seemed unusually thin and hot to the touch. But the bones had knitted well; the surgeon had been skilled. He was assured of a full recovery, given enough time. 

February - March 1916 The Student

Phillip worked hard through the winter to restore himself to full fitness. He was discharged from the convalescent home just in time for Christmas and spent the six weeks following driving himself remorselessly. At first with the help of a stick and later, unaided, he walked the Dorset hills from morning until night in every kind of weather. He was sustained through this self-inflicted ordeal by his deep and abiding love of the countryside he saw stretched out below him as he walked. This, he thought, this is worth fighting for. And as the grass cushioned his feet and the rain washed him, it seemed the land returned that love.

When he visited the hospital again for a final check-up, they were astounded at his progress. He had the merest trace of a limp and that only when tired. On the advice of his parents’ housekeeper he had rubbed his scarred flesh with goose-fat every day. The scars remained but the appearance of the wounds was much improved. He had no idea where the determination to drive himself so had come from. It had become an obsession. The months of inactivity had changed him. A restlessness had been born that would never subsequently leave him. He lost weight; the final softness of youth deserted his features. He was leaner and harder. The personal victory over his pain had left him altered in subtle but deep ways. 

Neither had he neglected his ambitions to fly during his convalescence. He had applied and been accepted for training as an observer in the Royal Flying Corps. Of course, he had had hopes of volunteering as a trainee pilot but had been persuaded that his chances of a successful transfer from the infantry would be greatly increased if he undertook a spell as an observer first and foremost. They had only just relaxed the rule that pilots had to be qualified before they applied. Phillip had heard of some officers taking private lessons to get their ‘ticket’ while awaiting posting or even when home on leave.

Thus, at the beginning of February, he had been passed fit by his final Medical Board and was sent to a training school near Oxford to begin his training. The duties of an observer were many and various. He had to learn navigation, gunnery, how to operate a camera and, in case of an emergency, the rudiments of how to pilot the aeroplane. Four weeks of ground school learning about vector triangles and magnetic variation dragged by. He wanted to be airborne. There he was, a member of the Army’s newest arm, and he had never been so much as an inch off the ground. Still, he willed himself to take in every pearl of wisdom the instructors tossed his way. 

To his fellow students he appeared aloof at first. He could not bring himself to join in with the wild games after dinner in the Officers’ Mess. The high spirits of the others eluded him. More than once he was taken aside by one of the staff and told not to be so serious, to relax a bit. He could not. He was haunted by the idea of failure, of having to return to the trenches. After a while the students accepted him as simply being reserved. Some put it down to the trauma of having been severely wounded. The staff were less sanguine. Phillip would have been alarmed to learn that more than one instructor had privately questioned his suitability to the RFC. 

Everything changed with his first flight. Even though the AIRCO De Havilland 1A was obsolete and took over eleven minutes to climb to just 3500 feet, Phillip was thrilled to the core. The 120 horsepower Beardmore engine blared and grumbled behind his head as the pilot played with the throttle. The wheel chocks were pulled away and the machine began slowly to move over the grass. As the aircraft was of the ‘pusher’ variety, that is to say, the propeller was at the rear of the fuselage, Phillip had an obstructed view in front of him. After a choppy run of about eighty yards, the tail lifted and the motion became easier. The pilot held the nose down for a few more seconds and then, as he eased back on the stick, the venerable old aeroplane gave a slight lurch and clawed its way into the air. 

The racket from the Beardmore was deafening. Communication of any sort was only possible if the pilot leaned forward with his mouth close to Phillip’s ear and shouted at the top of his voice. For this reason, most exchanges were made with standard hand-signals. Phillip turned in his seat as the pilot tapped his shoulder. The man then pointed upwards and circled his hand, indicating they were going to climb. Phillip nodded vigorously. He turned back and smoothed his maps out over his knee then hung over the cockpit coaming, attempting, without much success, to identify landmarks. The aircraft’s instruments were basic in the extreme. There was an oil pressure gauge, a bubble variometer, which indicated whether the machine was climbing or diving, and a rev counter. Phillip threw out one of his weighted streamers to judge the wind direction. There was no compass fitted so he made do with a hand-held model he’d purchased in a Boy Scout Shop in Oxford. 

He slowly began to make sense of the map and relate it to the landscape he could see below. He picked up the course of the main Oxford to London railway line, assisted in no small measure by the plume of smoke sent up by a speeding express. The forward nacelle rattled and shook as the pilot tried to squeeze every last ounce of power from the complaining Beardmore. Phillip found it almost impossible to focus and was relieved when at last the pilot eased back the throttle and the plane levelled out. 

They made their way across the clear sky at a stately sixty miles per hour. The De H 1A had an absolute top speed of a fraction less than 80 mph but even those modest speeds were now beyond this tired example of the breed. Phillip didn’t care. He was scarcely even aware now of the droning engine. He put up his head and was buffeted by the wind and laughed out loud in pure delight. This was how things should be, clean, pure, somehow. He was detached from the earth, hanging between the heavens and the baser elements like a cloud. The pilot was tapping his shoulder again and gave the signal for directions. Phillip hurriedly gathered his wits and indicated a quarter turn to the right. The plane banked into the turn and Phillip’s heart sang with the joy of it. 

An hour later, considerably sobered by the experience of having been ‘lost,’ Phillip stood in silence as the pilot debriefed him on his first flight.

“You have to pay more attention to drift, old chap. In France, the wind almost always is blowing towards Hunland. You didn’t notice that the wind got up once we hit 4000 feet. You only launched one streamer. You need to do it about every fifteen minutes or so. Look here!”

The pilot pointed upwards. 

“Can you see how fast that cloud is moving? Yet down here there isn’t enough breeze to ruffle a milkmaid’s apron. Don’t worry, though, you’ll get the hang of it. First time is always a little shaky. You did well enough for a new boy.”

With that he strode away leaving Phillip, a forlorn figure, to follow in his wake.

The next three weeks passed in a blur of activity. Phillip learned to strip and reassemble a Lewis gun blindfolded. He learned also to check each cartridge carefully before loading the drums. Lewis guns were temperamental, prone to jamming. As one of the instructors said:

“If you’re under the guns of a Hun when the bloody thing decides to call it a day, you are cold meat, old son.” 

They practiced firing at moving targets on the ground at first. An old truck had a De H 1 nacelle mounted on its back. They took turns firing at a square target towed by another truck that would weave and swerve around the airfield. Phillip took to gunnery far more easily than navigation. He had owned a shotgun since he was twelve and readily understood the need to lead a target. Changing ammunition drums on the Lewis required the use of both hands and he rapidly learned to wedge himself tightly up against the coaming and to brace himself against the bucketing movement of the truck. 

“Drop a drum over the side, old chap, and you’re cold meat.” 

Only a few of the instructors had actual combat experience. Phillip learned that many of them had been civilian instructors before the war and had been pressed into service to help meet the demand for extra aircrew. The Royal Flying Corps had entered the war less than two years before with only four squadrons of twelve aircraft each. Now, in early 1916, there were thirty-eight squadrons, eight on Home Defence and the rest in France. Still more were being formed. All of this expansion was additional to the replacement of the inevitable, and heavy, combat losses. The air war had started as a leisurely affair. It was some months before opposing aviators had seriously starting shooting at each other. Violence is insidious, though, and during 1915, aerial combat had become the rule, rather than the exception. Now the Hun had found a way to make a machine gun fire through the propeller. Early British experiments to fit steel deflector plates to the wooden airscrews had ended ignominiously but rumour had it that a new and effective solution had been found and would be available shortly. 

“Still, can’t beat the old ‘pushers.’ Much better all-round vision and the Scarff Ring allows you to fire through 270 degrees.”

It sounded convincing enough to Phillip’s inexperienced ears. 

He ‘graduated’ in the middle of March and was sent home on embarkation leave with orders to report to the Aircrew Pool at Number One Aircraft Depot, St Omer, on the 28th. Ten glorious days stretched out in front of him but he didn’t have a clue what to do. One of his fellow students, Peter Riley, mentioned he was going to Hampshire to visit a wounded comrade in hospital at Bentley Hall. For want of a better alternative, Phillip agreed to accompany him. Both now sported the winged ‘O’ badge of the RFC observer. 

Little had changed at the hospital in the four months since he left it. Patients had come and gone, of course; some had died and some, like Phillip, had recovered. Sister Hallam still ruled the ground floor. She greeted a furiously-blushing Phillip with a mere nod. Bethan Meredith, on the other hand, flushed an even brighter shade of scarlet than did he. He approached her diffidently, avoiding her eyes.

“Hello, Nurse Meredith.”

Her reply was barely audible, her face averted.

“I’ve been wanting to speak to you. To apologise for what happened. I know it was unforgivable of me but I am so sorry I offended you like that. I wouldn’t wish to distress you for the world.”

She turned towards him, still pink with embarrassment but smiling faintly.

“Please don’t think of it, sir. Sister Hallam explained it to me and I know you couldn’t help it.”

“Nurse Meredith? Oh, would you mind awfully if I called you Bethan? Look, the thing is, frankly, I am at a bit of a loose end. Would you do me the honour of having supper with me sometime? I mean, if we were in London, I’d invite you to the Theatre or something but, well, the ‘Bull’ in the village does have a passable table and I would consider it the utmost kindness if you’ll agree.”

Bethan tilted her head and raised her large dark brown eyes to meet his. She was confused. Her first instinct was to run but she knew that was silly. Apart from that incident, Mr Welford -Barnes had always been a perfect gentleman and he was quite good looking in a sort of pale English way. Even so, she was about to decline the invitation when Sister Hallam’s voice boomed in her ear.

“Of course she will! Pick her up at seven o’clock and make sure you have her back by ten. Don’t be late!“

Phillip nodded dumbly and whirled away, elation surging through every fibre. Sister Hallam glared shrewdly at Bethan.

“It’s just what you need, young lady. And just what that one needs. All work and no play, my girl, is no good for Jack - or Jill! Now go and change the sheets on number three, we’ve a new one arriving this evening.”

“Yes, Sister. And thank you.”

Sister Hallam smiled at Bethan’s retreating back. ‘Such a pretty girl,’ she thought, ‘and such a pleasant young man.’ In different times they might be made for each other but the War hung over everything, blighting the simplest of pleasures. She had noted the new RFC observer’s badge. Flying was, well, unnatural, somehow. She stalked off to chivvy up some other nurse, vaguely wondering why the young ex-patient had blushed so much on seeing her.

Phillip caught up with Peter Riley and explained his arrangements for the evening. Peter shot him an envious grin and they agreed to meet back at the ‘Bull’ for a last drink after Phillip’s date. They spent the rest of the afternoon chatting to Peter’s wounded friend and some of the other young officers on the ward but Phillip found himself increasingly distracted. His thoughts kept straying to the pretty Nurse and more than once Peter had to repeat himself to get Phillip’s attention.

“You’ve really got it bad, old chum,” he said.

Phillip smiled. “D’you know, Peter, I rather think I have.”

Phillip would always remember that night. They had both been shy at first and reacted in contrasting ways. He had babbled incessantly and she had barely spoken. The Bull Inn was typical of its type. A seventeenth century coaching Inn with a wealth of low, black oak beams and an inglenook fireplace in which logs popped and hissed and emitted as much smoke as heat. Another consequence of the war, Phillip mused. Coal was needed for the warships and difficult to get. Still, the food was good and plentiful and the Landlord kept a reasonable cellar. Bethan eschewed alcohol as a rule – a consequence of her Methodist upbringing – but she did agree to a glass of fine Burgundy with the excellent venison. She loved the deep ruby colour of the wine and held up her glass to swirl the heady vintage in the lamplight. 

They slowly relaxed. Phillip prattled less and Bethan emerged from her shell to talk about her home and her family. She made him laugh with stories of life on the farm and the characters that inhabited her native village. Most of them were in the army now, of course. She wondered aloud what it would be like when the war was over.

“I mean it must be different, see. Before the war, now, well, no one really travelled, did they? Now, when they come back, well, they’ll have seen things most wouldn’t care to, isn’t it? How will they settle then?”

“I know what you mean. I used to worry about what I’d do when it was all over. Now, well, it doesn’t look likely to end anytime soon. The ones I feel most sorry for are the Reserve Officers. I’m a Regular; there will always be a place for me in the Army even if it means I have to go back to the regiment when this lot’s over. The RO’s, though, some of them interrupted their education or had already embarked on a career. It will be far harder for them to settle again.”

“And what about all the volunteers? My Dad has to get women now to help run the farm and what about them? They aren’t going to be willing to run back into the kitchen just like that once they’ve been earning wages, are they?”

“Bethan, do you know you finish every sentence with a question?”

“A question, is it? I don’t know, it’s the way I talk, see? I didn’t speak any Sais until I was ten or so. We always speak Welsh at home.”

“Sais? What’s that?”

“It means Saxon, really, but it’s our word for you English. Like the Scots call you Sassenachs – Saxons again, see?”

“Could you really not speak English until you were ten?”

“My part of Wales is mainly Welsh-speaking. There was no call to speak English until I went to the Grammar School, was there now?”

The evening passed all to quickly and Phillip was horrified to find it was nearly ten o’clock when he settled the bill with a crisp white five-pound note. He pocketed the change and ushered Bethan from the dining room. They hurried back to Bentley Hall. Bethan had to take his arm in the darkness and the contact flared through him like fire. They arrived at the door to nurses’ quarters with barely a minute to spare. Both were flushed from the effects of the wine and the brisk walking. The door opened to reveal the ample figure of Sister Hallam. 

“ I trust you had a pleasant evening? Good. Two minutes, Nurse Meredith.” 

She closed the door again and Bethan was seized by a kind of panic. Suppose he wanted to kiss her? What would she do? Before she had formulated an appropriate response, Phillip took her hand and raised it to his lips.

“Thank you for a most wonderful evening, Bethan. I’m off to see my people in Dorset tomorrow and then it’s France, I’m afraid. I would dearly love to see you again but time isn’t on my side. Would you mind awfully if I wrote to you sometimes?”

She gathered her scattered thoughts. The gentle brush of his lips on her fingers has sent a thrill of electricity through her. She gazed at him for a moment, unsure of what he’d asked. Then she ducked her head and nodded as realisation dawned. Without thinking she leaned forward and kissed him softly on the cheek.

“Yes, please write, I’d like that very much.”



She spun on her heel and shot through the door without another word. Her heart was racing. Who would believe she could have been so bold! She danced a few steps along the empty corridor unaware that Sister Hallam was watching through the open doorway of her room. A smile passed briefly across the older nurse’s features and she nodded to herself. It was just what the pair of them needed.

Phillip stood outside, rooted to the spot. He stared blankly at the door for a full minute before turning slowly and walking away. His pace increased and there was a distinct spring in his step as he walked back to join Peter Riley in the ‘Bull’ for a nightcap. She had kissed him! And she said he could write! What a wonderful place the world had become! And its most magical creature gloried in the name of Bethan Meredith.

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



Like Father Like Son Ch. 02



April 1916 Bertangles

The freezing air stung Phillip’s face as the elderly BE2c clawed its way back towards the British Lines. He tried to duck down further behind the cockpit coaming and shuffled his feet to try and restore some feeling. He was feeling nauseous from the effects of the castor oil fumes and light-headed from cold and the after-effects of the adrenaline rush he experienced when the Hun ‘archie’ – anti-aircraft fire – erupted in the sky around him. At first he had watched in astonishment when the little brown and red puffballs had appeared ahead and above the labouring aircraft. Then the German gunners had found their range and the very air about him seemed to split and convulse.

The old plane staggered under the impact of the blast and the pilot, ‘Pinky’ Harris, had flung them into a series of violent manoeuvres to throw the gunners off the scent. It hadn’t lasted that long but, to Phillip, it had seemed an eternity. He had a clear vision of being killed on his very first mission. He could imagine the BE just coming apart at the seams and saw himself tumbling through the clear air for eight thousand feet. He fought back the images and concentrated on working the camera. 

They had been sent, together with an escort of the new DH2 fighters, to photograph the German Trench system north of Albert. Pinky Harris was Phillip’s Flight Commander and one of the most experienced pilots on 14 Squadron. 

“Might as well break your duck, Phillip!” Pinky had said that morning and once the escort from 24 Squadron arrived, they set off over the battlefield. Phillip was amazed at how contained the war was. The whole sordid area of the trenches seemed barely a hand’s span wide as he gazed down from nearly three miles up. The cold was numbing despite his thigh-length ‘fug boots’ and leather flying coat. He pulled the scarf up around his face more and wiped the smears of oil and lubricant from his goggles with one trailing end. Pinky Harris pounded on his shoulder and gestured for him to look out for enemy aircraft. He nodded dumbly; neither could make themselves heard above the racket of the Renault engine.

Apart from the sudden storm of anti-aircraft fire, the flight had been uneventful. They had descended to eight thousand feet and taken their photographs. There was so little room in the cockpit that the camera was strapped to the outside of the fuselage and operated by a lanyard. Now, having turned tail, they were battling back westwards against the prevailing wind. Phillip’s mind had gone numb. He gazed about apathetically, conscious only of the abiding misery. Suddenly, Pinky was pounding his shoulder again and pointing aft behind the port tail-plane. Phillip squinted and made out a cluster of black dots. Enemy fighters! The shock jerked him out of his dismal reverie and he stood to swing the rearward-facing Lewis gun round to track the oncoming aircraft. Pinky waggled the BE’s wings to attract the attention of the escorting British fighters then dropped the aircraft’s nose and opened the throttle to the stops.

A sudden steep turn caught Phillip off-balance and he crashed against the side of the cockpit. He managed to grab at one of the struts and barely prevented himself from being catapulted clean out of the plane. He could now identify the Germans as Fokker ‘eindekkers’. The 24 Squadron fighters howled down into their path and soon the sky was a confused melee of circling aeroplanes. The elderly reconnaissance BE2 had no place in a dogfight and Pinky continued to hold them in a shallow dive. The engine thundered and the wind screamed through the bracing wires. A piece of patched fabric on the lower main-plane ripped off with a snap and Pinky eased the nose up. The old crate would only take so much. 

A sudden gout of bright fire blossomed in the sky behind them and Phillip watched an aeroplane tumble, a blazing firefly vivid against the faded blue of the heavens. A black cruciform shape detached itself from the burning plane and spun and tumbled silently to earth. His mouth filled with bile and he vomited over the side. Although he had only been in France again for five days, he had already heard the discussions in the mess as to whether it was better to jump or burn.




The dogfight receded slowly and Phillip was overcome with a wave of relief when he saw they were crossing the British Lines. Pinky, too, had noticed, for he throttled back and the engine resumed its customary throaty snarl. They turned south towards Bertangles and the wheels touched just as the sun was setting. Mechanics ran to the aircraft and helped the two men out. Phillip’s legs gave way beneath him and he would have fallen had not a burly corporal grabbed his arm and pulled him upright. Phillip turned to see that Pinky was wiping stray globules of vomit from the front of his flying coat and, at first, Phillip thought that the pilot had been sick as well. Then it dawned on him that it was his own and he reddened with shame.

“Don’t worry, old fruit. Took me the same the first time I saw a flamer. Was it one of ours or theirs?” 

“I’m most awfully sorry, Pinky.”

“Nah, don’t mention it. Was it one of ours or theirs?”

“Oh, Gosh, Pinky, I really couldn’t tell. It was too far way and I couldn’t really make out anything very much, just the fire.”

“Poor bastard, whoever he was. I heard of a chap in 11 Squadron who sideslipped his machine all the way down. He stood on the main-plane and flew it from there. Kept the flames away from him.”

“Golly, did he get away with it?”

“Nah, the kite somersaulted on landing and the poor old sod got thrown back into the fire. Still, it might be worth a try. Anything’s better than burning and I don’t think I’d have the courage to jump. Let’s go get some tea. I heard the mess servant’s got some fresh eggs!”

Phillip stumbled after Pinky’s retreating back. The castor oil used to lubricate the Renault engine seemed to have seized his stomach and twisted it into a queasy knot and he had to detour to the latrines at a shambling run, fumbling with the fastenings of his coat as he ran. After what seemed like an eternity, he began to feel better and pausing only briefly at the bell tent that served as his home to strip off his flying clothes, he donned his ‘maternity jacket’ and made his way to the Officers’ Mess. As he approached the wooden hut that housed the Mess, he heard Pinky’s voice.

“He’ll be all right. Got the wind up a bit but didn’t shirk when the Huns appeared. Silly young sod spewed all over me, though. Sometimes I wish they would put observers in the back.” 

Another voice sounded in agreement.

“I say, Pinky, did you hear what happened over in 16 Squadron? Some poor bastard took up an air mechanic as gunner, got into a bit of a scrap with some Huns and the bloody ‘erk’ shot their own tail off in an excess of enthusiasm.”

“No! What happened then?”

“The entirely predictable, old chap, large smoking hole in the bosom of La Belle France.”

“Good God, what a way to ‘buy it.’ Still, he won’t do it again, what?”

A loud gust of laughter greeted Phillip as he walked through the door. Curious eyes turned towards him.

“Ah, it’s our very own former virgin. And how was it for you, young sir?”

Phillip recognised the squadron commander, Major Wigram. 

“It was, uh, educational, sir.”

“Bless my soul! Educational, eh? Where are the precious pictures, then?”

With a look of horror, Phillip realised that he had left the camera on the aircraft. He was about to explain when Pinky said:



“Gave ‘em to the adjutant, Wiggy. The adj had some hound from Corps HQ who was mad for them and couldn’t wait.” 

Phillip shot Pinky a grateful look and was rewarded by the pilot’s broad wink. The CO stood and warmed his backside by the fire. He nodded at Phillip and called for the mess servant to give him a brandy. 

“Better get Mr Welford-Barnes one too, Jenkins. Sovereign remedy for a gippy tummy.”

More officers came into the Mess and someone wound up the gramophone. Phillip was desperately trying to put names to faces as the gong sounded for dinner. He was struck again by the contrast with his experiences in the front line. If one had to go to war, he supposed, this was certainly the most civilised way of doing it. Good food and a clean, if not always totally dry, bed at the end of every day. After dinner and the Loyal Toast had been drunk, the port circulated and pipes and cigars were lit. No mention of the war or flying was permitted over dinner. Phillip had asked an innocent question on his first night and had been sternly reprimanded and told to ‘shut the hangar doors.’ Conversation instead turned to those staple subjects of Mess life, home and what they would do when ‘this lot’s over.’

“What about you, Phillip?” Pinky asked to bring him into the conversation, “Have you any plans?”

“I’m going to build a house. There’s this hill. It overlooks the village and isn’t much good for anything else. It’s part of my father’s land so there won’t be any problems. Anyway. I’m going to build my house up there.”

“Sounds idyllic. But won’t you be lonely?”

“I’ve rather a mind to ask someone to share it with me.”

“Anyone in particular or just someone in general?”

“Oh, one in very particular, Pinky. A nurse who looked after me when I was crocked…” 

He had been about to say ‘when I was crocked at Loos,’ but the stricture against mentioning the war prevented him. Instead he smiled and Pinky felt a pang of envy.

“Wish there was someone waiting for me,” he said. Phillip smiled again, a sort of self-deprecating smile.

“Truth is, Pinky, she’s not exactly waiting for me, not yet anyway. I hope to change that in the fullness of time. Just at the present, she’s, well, more of a dream than a reality.”

Pinky smiled and lurched uncertainly to his feet.

“Gentlemen, I give you a toast! To dreams of home and to the ladies who sustain them!”

There was a general shuffling of chairs and the young airmen stood and drank, solemnly repeating Pinky’s toast. 

“Now! Who’s for a game of Mess Rugby?”

They spilled out into the adjoining anteroom and someone seized an over-stuffed cushion from one of the armchairs and was immediately swamped by the rest. Major Wigram emerged from the pile up with the cushion and started off across the room. Three or four officers tackled him furiously and the pile up began again. Chairs and tables were overturned and jackets got ripped. More than one eye was blackened over the next half hour before Pinky, shrugging off a couple of bodies, finally won control of the now tattered cushion and crossed the length of the anteroom to score a ‘try.’ That signalled the end of the game and the participants righted the furniture and began bellowing for more drinks. 

Phillip weaved his unsteady way back to the bell tent he shared with another ‘new boy,’ an Irish lieutenant named Jamie Flanagan who was universally known as ‘Seamus.’ Seamus Flanagan had transferred to the RFC, like Philip, from the infantry. He was small and dark with a pencil moustache but, despite his size, seemed to have a limitless capacity for alcohol. He caught Phillip up as they approached the tent and clapped him on the back.

“So, Phillip, me boy. Tell us what it was like over the lines.” 

“I don’t think it was too bad, today, really, but I still had the wind up when the archie found us. It was a bit like lying there under the morning ‘hate.’ Bloody great bangs all round but not a thing you can do about it. It was strange at first. I mean, when I first saw the archie exploding, it was well away from us and it was sort of picturesque, like flowers in the sky. Then they found the range and I nearly wet myself.”

“And is it true what they’re saying – that you puked all over Pinky Harris?”

Phillip nodded, shamefaced.

“That was later, when I saw the flamer. I watched him jump, Seamus; I saw him fall all the way. It was horrible. No-one should die like that.”

Seamus was instantly sober. He grunted and turned away. When he turned back, Phillip saw his eyes were streaming tears.

“My brother died in a flamer last month, while I was still in training. His Flight commander said he thought Mick had been killed by the opening burst. He didn’t jump anyhow. We always said we would, if it happened to us.”

Phillip bowed his head and patted Seamus’s arm. He couldn’t think of anything to say. ‘I’m sorry’ seemed so inadequate.

They didn’t fly much that April. The weather closed in and the west wind brought stinging sheets of rain as one Atlantic depression after another flowed across the Western Front. Phillip sat in his dripping bell tent and wrote a series of long letters to Bethan. At first he was concerned that she would find them boring; that his talk of BE2’s and Martinsyde ‘Elephants’ was not the proper way to write to a woman – especially one you were determined to woo. The lack of operational flying also gave him a chance to become more familiar with the surrounding area and once, he ventured as far as Arras on a borrowed motorcycle. He had hoped to find his old regiment in reserve near the town but they had moved on to another part of the front. Rumour had them back in the Ypres salient and he felt a pang of guilt over his comfortable existence. 

If it hadn’t been for the muttering of the guns as both sides’ artillery indulged in the morning ‘hate,’ the war had almost receded below conscious thought. 14 Squadron had been invited to dine at 24 Squadron’s base at Courcelles. The Squadron Mess was a transportable hut on which the walls hinged. 14 Squadron found this out the hard way when their hosts manoeuvred the post-prandial Mess Rugby scrum against the wall and it swung outwards, depositing most of the visitors in the mud outside. Battle was then joined as two man crews rushed around in armchairs, one standing on the seat with a soda siphon while the other – the ‘engine’ - pushed. It was nearly dawn when the squadron returned to Bertangles, exceedingly drunk but in high spirits. 

The weather improved towards the end of the month and then they were flying almost non-stop. Phillip flew three, sometimes four, times a day. They bombed the German supply dumps behind Beaumont Hamel and took part in several photographic missions. The ‘brass’ seemed to want the entire enemy front photographed. Inevitably, there were casualties. ‘Seamus’ Flanagan failed to return from one such mission and Phillip went through the heart-breaking procedure of auctioning off his effects so the money could be sent home. The airmen bid silly prices for useless articles. Major Wigram paid £10 for a pair of silver-backed hairbrushes and another pilot gave £5 for Seamus’s collection of pornographic postcards. 

It was Phillip who gave the peculiar toast that night:

So stand by the table steady

And raise your glasses high:

Here’s a toast to the dead already

And a health to the next man to die.

The RFC policy was ‘no empty chairs’ so it was without surprise that Phillip found a new officer in his tent when he returned from another reconnaissance the following morning. Phillip flung himself down onto his cot and barely grunted a ‘Good morning’ at the newcomer.


“I see life at the sharp end hasn’t improved your manners,” the stranger said. Phillip sat up blinking and saw his old friend Peter Riley, with whom he had shared the monotony of training and the visit to Bentley Hall.

“Peter! By all that’s wonderful, what are you doing here?”

“Requested a transfer out of 16 Squadron. Our masters sent me to this God-forsaken hole.” 

Riley grinned and the two men shook hands warmly. 

“What’s the CO like?”

“Wiggy? Oh, he’s topping. Brilliant pilot and a thorough good egg.”

“Glad to hear it. ‘Stuffy’ Dowding wasn’t at all my cup of tea. Morale on 16 was awful. I was lucky to get out. It’s only because I’m an ‘O’ and not a pilot that they let me go.”

Phillip was shocked. Things must indeed have been bad on 16 Squadron for one of its former officers to criticise the squadron. No matter their private thoughts, convention dictated that a man defend his squadron’s honour without question. He was too pleased to see Peter to dwell long on the subject and before long they were both deep in conversation about conditions on that part of the front. Like Phillip, Peter had come against the ‘Albatros’ once or twice and both had learned a healthy respect for this latest German machine. 

“We got bounced by three ‘Albatrae’ a couple of weeks back. The Fees (FE’s) are no match for them even with the new Rolls Royce Engine. I just don’t think ‘pushers’ are the way forward, Phillip. I know all the arguments about unrestricted vision and movable guns but I know I’d rather have a ton of metal in front of me than a lot of fresh air when the bullets are flying.”

“Yes, old fruit. And I don’t see if it makes much difference whether one is crushed by the bloody engine from the front or the back if you spear in. Either way, you end up just as dead.”

“Have you come across a chap called Albert Ball? Feisty little so-and-so, by all accounts. He creeps underneath the buggers in his Nieuport and then lets ‘em have it from below. He’s got a Fletcher mounting for his Lewis and Lanoe Hawker’s lot have found a way of welding two drums together so he has borrowed that idea as well. He’s now got 94 rounds and he can pull the gun down to reload; none of that standing up and flying with your knees nonsense.”

“I have heard a little of him. Don’t they call him ‘Johnny Lonely’ or some such?”

“Yes, something like that. He’s always going up on his own looking for a scrap. Silly little bastard can’t count! Doesn’t matter how many of them there are, he takes ‘em on. I heard he took on six Rolands not long ago and got three of them. Would have had the rest but he’d run out of ammo!”

“Hmm. A short life but a happy one, what?”

“You said it, chum. There are old pilots and there are bold pilots. There are no old, bold pilots!”

Phillip took Peter to the Mess and introduced him around the squadron. Peter had an easy manner and was soon chatting happily with a group of pilots. There were only three fully trained observers on the squadron. As a result, they had plenty of work. The latest rumour was that 14 Squadron was going to receive two flights of RE8s to replace the superannuated BE2’s. They would keep one flight of Martinsyde ‘Elephants.’ Even though these big aircraft had failed as fighters, the Elephant was a successful ground attack machine and was popular with its pilots. It had the reputation of being warm, comfortable and hard to knock down. 

As Phillip and Peter walked back to their tent that night after dinner, the conversation turned again to the rumoured replacement aeroplanes.


“Harry Tates would be top-hole, Phillip. The ‘O’ goes in the back seat for a start so we’ll be able to see what’s going on for a change.”

“We’ll still be facing forward, though. I just don’t see why the ‘O’ doesn’t face aft like in the Hun two-seaters.”

“Oh, I agree it’s handy when it comes to a scrap but it’s difficult to navigate if you’re not looking where you’re going.”

“How much navigation do we actually do? I mean, it’s different on the long range bombing squadrons but we’re always over the front. Pinky hasn’t asked me for a steer once yet.”

“Are you still keen to train as a pilot, Phillip?”

“Absolutely. Keen as mustard, old chap. Wiggy says I can go home once I’ve completed fifty missions. Only another thirty-four to go!” 

Events, in the shape of the Battle of the Somme, were to intervene and it would be almost six months and over one hundred missions later before Phillip got his wish. 

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

Summer 1916 Into the Fire

The ‘Harry Tates’ – RE8’s - arrived towards the end of May and were greeted with much excitement. They could fly higher and faster than the old BE2’s and were altogether more comfortable to fly in. Two of the machines were also fitted with wireless transmitters for artillery-spotting purposes and Phillip and Peter were sent to the depot at St Omer to learn how to use the equipment. It was a welcome break from the intensive days of flying that eroded the nerves and wore out the spirit.