For King and Country

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‘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 was a fine spring morning, with fluffy white clouds sailing happily across a blue sky. In his home town, five hundred miles to the north, it would probably still be snowing, but it was harder to think of anywhere in the British Isles less like Inverness than Pinner. There was something so indelibly English about London’s Metroland.