by Peter Albano
For a moment only the sounds of the Carlin clock could be heard. Then Walter’s next question jarred Brenda. “The front—what’s that lot like?”
While everyone watched, Lloyd toyed with his glass, swirling the amber liquid around until it spilled over. Walter recharged it although it was only half-empty and looked at his son expectantly. “Muddy,” Lloyd said.
“Don’t,” Bernice said, staring at her husband fearfully.
Walter shot a hard glance at his daughter-in-law, then turned back to Lloyd. “Muddy?” he said, leaning forward eagerly. “Is that all?”
The colonel shook his head. Blinking furiously and unable to focus his eyes, he stared at a painting of a German short-haired pointer on a shelf behind his father. He spoke in a monotone. “There are trenches, barbed wire, and we live in dugouts. The Jerries fire seven-sevens, three-nines, five-nines, whiz-bangs, crumps, woolly bears, daisy-cutters, and sometimes bigger stuff—Maxims, rifles, gas, and they throw grenades at us. We attack. They attack. The dead are everywhere—in heaps on the parapets, on the wire, in shell holes. Sometimes they choke the trenches and there are so many we can’t even count them—bury them. Sometimes, the smell is so thick we’ve got to put on our masks. . .”
“My God,” Rebecca said. “Enough! Enough!” Brenda could hear Bernice sobbing into the palm of her hand.
Lloyd looked at his mother with a sick grin creasing his face and sipped his whiskey. “Sorry, Mother.”
“See here, woman,” Walter began.
Randolph interrupted him. “I’m tired,” he said, rising. “I think I’ll retire. I’ve got to return to London tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow? A day early?” Rebecca managed.
“I have business, Mother—RFC business.” And then smiling and nodding assuredly, he said, “I still have my place in Kensington.”
“Bully idea. Time for bed,” Lloyd said, coming to his feet and supporting himself on a side table.
Slowly the women and Randolph stood and filed through the door, Randolph and Bernice supporting Lloyd. Walter remained at his desk, glaring.
As Brenda walked down the hall, she realized she could not remain in the same house with Walter. He was unbelievable, an unfeeling animal. Although he had lost one son, he seemed to enjoy his secondhand view of the war. He would sacrifice them all if a new honor could be added to the field of the family’s escutcheon or for a chance to be presented at court.
Mounting the staircase, Brenda’s mind whirled with thoughts of home, her mother, father, her sister Betty, and her strong, handsome brother Hugh. Lord, she missed them. The warmth and love of home. Holidays together. Growing up together. Playing in the garden. The theaters and restaurants of Manhattan. Shopping with her mother. She would return. Must return. Escape from Walter and his arrogant pomposity. Escape from this cold, dismal island of death that had taken her husband and was squandering the lives of hundreds of thousands of others. But when? How? She was still weak. And there were U-boats. Could she risk Rodney and Nathan? She shuddered as she reached her door. Suddenly, she envied Randolph. He was leaving tomorrow. Would be in Victoria Station by nightfall. RFC business in London, he had said.
Victoria Station was a sea of uniformed men with waves of women surging around them; mothers, wives, and lovers of departing soldiers and sailors with faces veils of anguish while others welcomed returning men with fierce embraces, tears of happiness, and little joyful sounds like starved birds. Randolph felt relief as he shouldered his way along the platform toward the taxi stand. The ride from Faversham had been interminable, the carriage crowded with officers smoking cheap cigarettes; the usual Player’s and Goldflakes. Eight men had crowded into a single compartment in the first-class carriage. Three of them had worn shoulder patches emblazoned with New Zealand, South Africa, and Canada. The others were of old-line British regiments. They had all seen the front. He saw it in their old, stained trench coats, battered caps, worn leather. He saw it in their brown faces like stone Buddhas, forced half smiles. And he saw it in their dead eyes—eyes that had seen death; eyes that could only see the past, never the future.
The talk had been of Gallipoli, the Somme, Flanders, Ypres, Jutland, and comrades—living and dead. But Randolph never joined in. Instead, he sat back puffing on a Havana his father had forced on him. He disliked the hand-rolled cigar, but it was his only defense against the clouds of fetid smoke filling the small compartment.
His mind was filled with thoughts of Fenwyck; his father, mother, brother, Bernice, Nicole, and Brenda. His mother’s appearance had been shocking. She was skeleton-thin and her skin had the pallor of death. Walter had been unbearable, especially when he had bored in on poor Lloyd on conditions in the trenches. He had never seen his brother drink so much. Lloyd had seen more than he could bear. Perhaps he had used up his ration of courage. Every man was given a finite amount. Once used, all that remained was a stripped shell of a man, useless and a menace to his comrades. They were beginning to use the expression shell shock.
And why had he refused Nicole? In France he had dreamed of her a hundred hot restless nights. A hundred times he had thrashed and turned in his bed, tortured by memories of the hot wet depths of her, the way she enfolded him in the crucifix of her limbs, moaning, meeting and riding his thrusts in perfect rhythm until final convulsions left them both weak.
It had been Brenda. He was sure of it. Since Geoffry’s death, there had been a change. She had seen through him all the way to his soul the very first time he saw her in her sickbed. She knew about the killing, how it was part of his life. She knew he wanted her—had hungered for her for years. She knew about Nicole.
That was it. Sleeping with Nicole would have been an obscenity. The beautiful French girl loved him while she was only a receptacle for him; a convenient vessel to receive the explosive convulsions of his frustrations and suppressions. It would have been worse than killing a helpless man. Worse than having blood and brains splattered on his plane. He had never had a whore, but war was a whore and that was what he needed.
After a frustrating ten minutes of waving, shouting, and cursing, he finally managed to catch a taxicab. His flat in Kensington was not on his mind. “The Empire,” he said, as the cabby, a huge, round old man with white handlebar mustaches, pushed the flag on the meter down.
“Right-oh, your lordship. Leicester Square,” the old man said, jamming the rickety machine into first with a clash of worn gears.
Before the war Randolph had always enjoyed the Empire. The largest dance hall in London, the vast and plushly ornate ballroom operated on four levels centering around the magnificent dance floor. In addition, there was always a good show and six bars for the thirsty and those searching for romance in exchange for a fiver. The main lounge was crowded with uniformed men and attractive women—powdered, perfumed, elaborately dressed women, nocturnal creatures ready to follow the first male for a price. A true flesh market in a palace of red plush furniture, gilded decor, and soft amber lights.
Randolph elbowed his way to the bar, bought a double Scotch with a dash of seltzer, and then weaved his way through the crowd to the gallery where one could lean on an upholstered rail to watch the show below. The best in vaudeville. Better than the Palladium. Jugglers. Magicians. Dancers. Harry Tate with his worn-out jokes that still convulsed the crowd. The usual songs with the crowd joining in: “Mary,” “Tipperary,” “Oh, You Beautiful Doll,” “Little Gray Home,” “Alexander’s Ragtime Band.” Randolph remained silent, downed his double, and returned to the bar with a warm, happy glow spreading from the pit of his stomach. Buying a refill, he returned to the plush rail just in time for a new song that had caught on with the RFC and was sung by every man in Number Five Squadron. Waving his hands and rocking from side to side, Harry Tate led the singers in his rasping, whiskey-addled baritone. Randolph downed half his drink and basking in the heat of the spreading alcohol, joined in:
“The young
aviator went stunting,
And as ‘neath the wreckage he lay—he lay,
To the mechanics assembled around him,
These last parting words did he say—did say.
Take the cylinders out of my kidneys,
The connecting rod out of my brain—my brain
From the small of my back take the crankshaft,
And assemble the engine again.”
“You like that song, Major?” a soft, husky voice said in his ear. Turning, Randolph stared down into the smiling face of a blonde of perhaps twenty-five years. Even in the dim light, her features were too severe to be beautiful. Her forehead was deep, and she had dark thin brows over wide-set piercing blue eyes that reminded Randolph of medieval stained glass. Her cheeks were rouged and her chiseled lips drew his eyes. Painted a bright red, they were full and sensuous under the lipstick and her long neck was slender and graceful like that of a gazelle or a swan. Her full body was expensively draped for a prostitute—her sheer silk chiffon fringed with metallic lace and slashed neckline outlined with gold threaded arabesques showed the style and characteristic robin’s-egg blue of the Lanvin touch. No, indeed. She was not beautiful, but very, very sexy and, no doubt, expensive.
Moving his eyes over her body with unabashed candor, he sipped his drink, and said, “I helped write it.”
“You like what you see, Major?”
“I would have to be blind.”
She laughed, surprisingly not the hard, forced sound of the experienced prostitute, but the music of a brook over pebbles or trickling champagne. There was a young girl somewhere under all that powder, paint, and perfume. “Buy me a tot?” the woman said.
“Of course.”
“Barsac, please.”
In a moment, Randolph returned with a glass filled with Barsac and another double Scotch for himself. While at the bar cursing the slow service, he had wondered if the maddeningly desirable creature would be waiting when he returned, or would some fat general wave a fist full of pound notes in her face and vanish with her. But she was there, leaning over the rail, her gown outlining her tiny waist and perfect buttocks. Randolph caught his breath. She was not the ordinary whore. No, indeed. “Your drink,” he announced with barely concealed excitement.
She brought the long-stemmed wineglass to her lips and stared up at him as she drank. “Oh, sorry,” she said, suddenly extending the glass. “The RFC.”
“The RFC. Cheers.”
They drank. “I’m Cynthia Boswell, Major,” she said, refusing to release his eyes.
“Randolph Higgins,” he said, touching her glass with his. They drank, never breaking their locked eyes.
“You’re a flyer,” she said, nodding at the wings on his tunic.
“Number Five Squadron, scout planes.”
“Where?”
“Sorry. Top secret,” he hissed in a burlesque of a conspiratorial voice.
Again the fresh sounds of the brook and Randolph felt an overwhelming compulsion to wrap his arms around this voluptuous child-woman. He felt strangely disturbed and nervous. “Dance?” he asked suddenly, like a young boy asking for his first date. Smiling, she nodded and after downing their drinks, they descended the wide mahogany staircase to the dance floor just as the orchestra began the “Blue Danube,” which was still popular despite the war against the Central Powers.
His arms circled a cloud, a gull planing on stiff pinions, whirling and turning in sweeps that sent her skirts swirling out and as high as her knees. And they were much too close to each other for polite company. But this was not polite company. The cream of England’s manhood on the brink of death and the finest of the Empire’s harlots all gathered in a temple of love negotiating for one last night of frantic passion. Hot, wet kisses, round, taut breasts, soft stomachs, and firm thighs ready to part and yield their treasure for a price. It was all for sale. A Harrods of the flesh.
They were cheek to cheek and his lips were against her ear. “My place?” he said.
“Why not?”
Randolph disliked his father’s passion for antiques; his flat was expensively and tastefully furnished in contemporary style. His one concession to his father’s taste was an Odilon Redon landscape hanging on the wall of the large living room, which opened onto a hall leading to a study, bedroom, and bath. The kitchen was in an alcove off the livingroom.
Smiling, Cynthia sank on a plump green velvet sofa. “You’re an excellent dancer,” she said.
“Thank you. Would you like a drink? I have Barsac. Sorry I can’t offer you a bite, but I haven’t been here in months. The pantry’s empty.”
“A drink is fine. I’m not hungry, thank you.”
Randolph moved to a small cherry-wood sideboard stacked with bottles and returned to the sofa, handing Cynthia her wine while sipping his Scotch. He sat beside her.
“You’re a marvelous dancer,” he said.
“Thank you.” She took his hand in hers and brought it to her lap. He could feel a firm thigh through the dress.
“Dance for me, Cynthia.”
The line of her mouth altered, eyes chilled to the hardness of pale sapphires. He felt she was staring right through him at another place. He squirmed uneasily, coughed into his palm, and abruptly she was back, smiling into his eyes. “You would like that, Major?”
“Very much, indeed.”
She set her drink on the table and ran a single finger down his cheek. “You’re very handsome,” she said, searching his eyes with hers.
“We haven’t talked price.”
She moved closer, brushed his cheek with her lips. “You can afford me,” she assured him, rising. “I’ll dance for my major.” Slowly, she began to sway and glide about the room provocatively while loosening her hair and shaking her head, blond tresses tumbling and flowing like sheets of gold fleece to her shoulders. She unsnapped her honeycomb quilted belt and languorously dropped it to the floor, her eyes flashing blue light as if they were backlighted. Randolph felt a familiar heat spread from his groin and screw his guts into a ball, a rush of quick blood charging his veins.
She kicked off her patent leather court slippers, then her dress fell in a heap at her feet like a crashing curtain at a music hall. It was kicked into a corner with her shoes and she stood in front of him dressed only in black—a crepe de chine chemise and black silk stockings with black inched satin garters circling her perfect thighs.
Randolph had never been with a prostitute—had never in his wildest fantasies expected this. The power of her sexuality was a palpable force that pulled him to his feet, a million hot needles pressing against his face and neck, his heart a trip-hammer pounding his ribs. Unable to catch his breath, he watched as the garters were thumbed and pulled down her legs and the silk stockings rolled into tight bands and thrown away. Then the black lace-trimmed chemise was pulled from her shoulders and allowed to tumble down to her hips and she moved her shoulders from side to side, her large, silky white breasts tipped with ruby aureoles swaying with the movement. Only the flimsy chemise dangling at her waist remained.
“My major likes me?” she asked with the coy little girl’s voice. Wordlessly, he pulled her to him, crashing his lips down on her open, wet mouth, his tongue finding hers. Then he moved down her neck, her shoulders, cupping her breasts, kissing the nipples frantically. She moaned and twisted, her body hot satin under his hands, malleable, molding itself to his so that he could feel her against him from knees to firm young bosom, the heat of her soaking through his uniform, hips pushing hard against his arousal, her hands exploring his neck, shoulders, muscles of his arms, back. Randolph’s mind was almost wiped clean by desire, yet he wondered about her passion. A whore was supposed to act—feign desire and pleasure. Yet she appeared to be aflame, aching for him. Her next words closed his mind and he became an animal reacting to instinct. “Your clothes—your clothes,” she hissed, pulling at
the buttons of his tunic.
Randolph stepped back and with fingers of clay fumbled with his belt, tie, and buttons. Laughing, Cynthia helped him undress until he finally stood nude in the middle of the room, his fine tailored uniform scattered across the floor like discarded rags. She eyed his broad shoulders, muscular arms, narrow waist, his manhood. “You’re magnificent,” she said, and in one quick movement of her hands and hips she pulled off the chemise and threw it aside.
For a long moment they stood silently and eyed each other. Then, without a word, Randolph picked her up and carried her into his bedroom.
Dawn’s light awakened him. For a moment he listened for the coughing bark of cold Le Rhones coming to life for the dawn patrol. Then the soft fold of silken tresses against his cheek and shoulder brought him back and he sighed happily. It had actually happened. Cynthia was next to him, her nude body against his, her arm thrown across his chest. It had been a fierce—at times savage—night. Gently, he fingered his ear where she had bitten him and three small scratches on his shoulder where fingernails had left their traces. She had been insatiable, or, at least, appeared to be insatiable. Again and again he had taken her until at last he had lain fatigued, trapped by her limbs in a position as old as man, as unchanging as the constellations. Locked together, they had slept the deep sleep of exhaustion.
He kissed her cheek, her lips. She stirred. “I love you, Sean,” she said dreamily, eyes closed.
He shook her shoulder. “I’m Randolph—Randolph Higgins. Remember?” he said testily.
She blinked her eyes and came awake. “Darling Randolph,” she said, running her hand through his tousled hair and kissing him gently.
Randolph was confused and angry. How could he be jealous of a whore? Lord, no doubt she could not count the men—could quite easily confuse one for another; especially when awakening from the deep sleep of lovemaking. Still, he asked the question his better judgment rejected as childish and foolish. “Who’s Sean?”
