CHAPTER 46

How Life Changes: Part B

Sunday September 21st 1947 - Wednesday September 8th 1948


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

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

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

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

     I assured him it was, I was just tired.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

     I shook my head.

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

     I nodded this time.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

     “Jack Peter Frank,” he announced.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

     With that he turned and stamped off again.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

     I gingerly moved one leg apart from the other.

     “Further!”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

     “Just weights,” I said.

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

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

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

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

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

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

     “X-rays?” he asked.

     I nodded.

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

     I shook my head.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

     We looked at each other and grinned.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

     He looked at the stick balanced on my handlebars.

     “And did they believe your tale?”

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

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

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

     I shook my head.

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

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

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

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

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

     I nodded.  He grinned back.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

     Josh looked up and eyed me very keenly.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

     “Potting shed?”  I said quietly.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

     I nodded and laughed.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

     I waited.  He took a couple more drags.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

     I mumbled that of course I had.

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

     I said I would be there.

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

     “Thanks, again.”

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

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

     “All OK?” Pa asked.

     I nodded and grinned and went to bed.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

     He laughed, we shook hands and I went home.

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

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

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

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

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

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