For King and Country. David Monnery

stumbled out into the sunshine.

      Ian Tobin walked through the door of the family shop in Landore, Swansea, soon after eleven, having spent half the night on the platform at Crewe and another frustrating couple of hours waiting for a replacement engine at Llandrindod Wells. In retrospect this journey would come to seem like practice for the week ahead, most of which he would spend hanging around waiting for people.

      He had known that his parents would be busy in the shop, but he had not expected to find Megan with a job, much less one in an engineering factory, and his disappointment at not having her to himself during the days was tinged with a disapproval which he did his best to keep to himself. They spent every evening together, sitting in the pub on Monday and Tuesday as the rain came down, then cycling out to Three Cliffs Bay on the Gower Peninsula when the weather cleared up on Wednesday. There they walked hand in hand on the empty beach, interrupting her stories of the working world every now and then for a lingering kiss. After an hour of this she seemed to suddenly notice that the beach and the grassy valley above were still too wet for lying down, and the disappointment in her voice made him feel hot all over.

      It seemed to him that she’d grown up a lot in the past few months. She was more assured, she dressed more daringly, she even argued with him. And her language had certainly grown more colourful. Her brother Barry, who had been in Ian’s class at school, had always sworn like a trooper, but Megan’s newly expanded vocabulary had more likely been learned from the women she now worked with.

      Tobin told himself that he liked the changes, that she had always been a bit too worried about what other people thought, but a feeling of ambivalence persisted. And when, on the following night, in the back row of the cinema, she not only let him put his hand up her skirt but also stroked his cock through his taut trousers, he was almost as surprised as he was excited. Back home he jerked himself off and lay there panting, wondering if she really wanted to go all the way.

      For his last night of leave they had planned another trip to the beach, but in her lunch-hour she called him and said they’d been invited to a party. He had been looking forward to having her to himself, but she was so obviously excited at the prospect that he found it impossible to object. ‘It’s in Danygraig,’ she said. ‘Barry’ll take us in the car.’

      They arrived soon after eight, having driven through the blacked-out streets in Barry’s decrepit Austin Seven. She had told him not to wear his uniform – ‘Let’s pretend there isn’t a war on for a few hours’ – and he had been forced to wear a pre-war suit that still, despite his mother’s best attentions, smelt of mothballs.

      The party was being held in one of the few standing houses on a bombed-out street. Its owners had obviously long since vanished, taking their furniture with them, but the increase in dancing room more than made up for the lack of places to sit down. There were already about thirty people crammed into the two downstairs rooms, and more continued to arrive as the night wore on. There seemed no shortage of records to play on the precariously perched gramophone, but whoever was in control of the selection obviously liked Duke Ellington.

      In the kitchen there was more food and alcohol, both in quantity and variety, than Tobin had seen since the beginning of the war, and later, while he was waiting for Megan to return from the toilet, he saw fresh supplies arrive in a plain Morris van. The deliverers all seemed close friends of Barry’s, and Tobin thought he recognized a couple of them from schooldays. An hour or so later he found himself talking to one of them. ‘What’s your unit?’ he asked, just to make conversation. The man gave him a surprised look, then burst out laughing.

      Tobin watched him walk away, wondering what he’d said. He had to admit that he felt pretty drunk, but…

      ‘Why don’t we go outside for some fresh air?’ Megan suggested, appearing at his shoulder. Her face was flushed, and he thought she looked very lovely.

      They went out the back door, and she pulled him through the yard, where several couples were happily groping at each other, and into the alley which had once run along behind a lively street. Despite a clear, starry sky, the night seemed warm, and they walked arm in arm past the strange wilderness of broken houses to the edge of the docks. In the distance the black shapes of ships and the angular silhouettes of the serried cranes were clearly visible in the darkness.

      Megan turned with her back to the wall, pulling him to her, and they kissed for a while, tongues entwining. He cupped her right breast and gently kneaded it, and after a while she undid the front buttons of her blouse, deftly loosened her bra, and let him get his hand inside. Her nipple grew nearly as hard as his cock, which she was rubbing up against as they kissed.

      ‘I can take my knickers down,’ she said breathlessly.

      A sliver of panic cut through his drunken desire, and he searched for its source. He hadn’t got a johnny, and in any case she was drunk. This was Megan – he shouldn’t be taking advantage of her. ‘I haven’t got any protection,’ he heard a voice say, and it was his own.

      ‘Oh shit,’ she said softly, and the delicious grinding of her stomach against his cock came to an end. ‘You’re right,’ she said, ‘but you do want me, don’t you?’

      ‘Oh God, yes,’ he murmured. ‘It’s just…’

      ‘That’s why I love you,’ she said, ‘because you take care of me.’ She kissed him lightly on the lips. ‘I think we should be getting back. I don’t want Barry to think we’ve left and go without us.’

      They walked back to the party, which was now pumping Glenn Miller into the air. Quite a few people had left though, and Barry, who now had a redhead in tow, announced himself almost ready to join them. First though, he had some settling up to do, and Tobin saw a large wad of notes change hands.

      Early the following morning, lying in bed and thinking about the long trip back to Ayrshire, his sober brain started making the connections his drunken one had missed. The booze and food had been black market – that went without saying – but Megan’s brother was obviously one of the local kingpins. Tobin had always rather liked Barry, and had felt really sorry for him when he failed his physical back in 1940, but this was something else. And the man who had laughed when asked about his unit – he had to be a deserter. Which explained the ‘no uniform’ thing – probably half the men there had been deserters. Having a good time and making money while others died for them.

      That made Tobin angry. Deserters were worse than conchies, who at least were willing to do dangerous jobs which didn’t involve fighting.

      But what could he do? He felt like reporting the whole business, but he couldn’t do that without shopping Megan’s brother.

      He would talk to her about it, he decided, and later that morning, as they waited on the platform at Swansea Victoria for his train to be brought in from the sidings, he did.

      ‘I don’t like deserters, either,’ she said, ‘but Barry’s not a deserter – he just gets people stuff they want. Most of it comes in from Ireland, so nobody goes short. And he’s my brother.’

      ‘I know he is…’

      ‘So what can I do? If we report the deserters he’ll probably get into trouble, and that’ll break Mum’s heart.’ She looked up at him. ‘Maybe you could talk to him. He likes you.’

      ‘How can I? I’m leaving.’

      ‘Next time you come. And let’s stop talking about him. Let’s just pretend we’re the only two people in the world.’

      He smiled at her, and a pang of desire shot through his groin as he remembered the night before.

      Lieutenant-Colonel Hamish Donegan strolled down Pinner High Street towards the Metropolitan Line station, still savouring the breakfast which his landlady had miraculously put together. There was no doubting the woman could cook, and given the paucity of ingredients available these days, that was no small gift. Donegan could have had a much more sumptuous room at the SAS’s HQ at the Moor Park Golf Club, but Mrs Bickerstaff’s spam omelette was certainly worth a ten-minute train journey twice a day.

      It