kitchen door flew open, spilling yellow lantern light into the yard, and Aunt Hilda bellowed at them. Food's up. Come along now, Fred, don't you keep that boy out there, teaching him your evil ways, and don't you bring that bottle into this house. You hear me! Fred grimaced, poured the last three inches of dark brown liquor into his tumbler and shook his head at the empty bottle. Farewell, old friend. He sent it sailing over the hedge, and drained the tumbler like medicine.
Mark was crowded into the bench against the kitchen wall with Mary on one side of him and another of the big buxom daughters on the other. Aunt Hilda sat directly opposite him, shovelling food on to his plate, and loudly berating him if his rate of ingestion faltered. Fred needs somebody here to help him now. He's getting old, though the old fool doesn't know it. Mark nodded, his mouth so full he was unable to reply, and Mary reached across him for another hunk of home-baked bread that was still warm from the oven. Her big loose breast pressed against Mark and he almost choked. The girls don't get much chance to meet nice boys stuck out here on the farm. Mary shifted in her seat, and her upper thigh came firmly against Mark's. Leave the lad alone, Hilda, you scheming old woman, Fred slurred amiably from the head of the table. Mary, give Mark some more gravy on those potatoes. The girl poured the gravy, steadying herself as she leaned over towards Mark by placing her free hand on Mark's leg above the knee. Eat -up! Mary's done you a special milk tart for afters. MarYs hand still rested on his leg, and now it moved slowly but purposefully upwards. Instantly Mark's entire attention focused on the hand and the food turned to hot ashes in his mouth. Some more pumpkin, Marky? Aunt Hilda asked with concern, and Mark shook his head weakly. He could not believe what was happening below the level of the table and directly in front of Mary's mother.
He felt a rising sense of panic.
As casually as he could in the circumstances, he dropped one hand into his lap, and without looking at the girl, gripped her wrist firmly. Have you had enough, Mark? Yes, oh yes, indeed, Mark agreed fervently, and tried to drag Mary's hand away, but she was a big powerful lass and not easily distracted. Clear Mark's plate, Mary love, and give him some of your lovely tart. Mary seemed not to hear. Her head was bowed demurely over her plate, her cheeks were flushed bright glowing pink, and her lips trembled slightly. Beside her, Mark writhed and squirmed in his seat. Mary, what's wrong with you, girl? Her mother frowned with irritation. Do you hear me, child? Yes, Mother, I hear you. At last she sighed and roused herself. She stood up slowly and reached for Mark's plate with both hands, while he sagged slightly on the bench, weak with relief.
Mark was exhausted from the long day's march and the subsequent excitement, but though he fell asleep almost instantly, it was a sleep troubled by dreams.
Through a ghostly, brooding landscape of swirling mist and weird unnatural light, he pursued a dark wraith, but his legs were slowed, as though he moved through a bath of treacle, and each pace was an enormous effort.
He knew the wraith that flitted through the mist ahead of him was the old man, and he tried to cry out, but though he strained with open mouth no sound came. Suddenly a small red hole appeared in the wraith's dark back and from it flowed a bright pulsing stream of blood, and the wraith turned to face him.
For a moment he looked into the old man's face, the intelligent yellow eyes smiled at him over the huge spiked mustache, and then the face melted like hot wax and the pale features of a beautiful marble statue came up like a face through water. The face of the young German, at last Mark cried out and fell to cover his face. in the darkness he sobbed softly, until another sensation came through to his tortured imagination.
He felt a slow cunning caress. The sobbing shrivelled in his throat, and gradually he abandoned himself to the wicked delight of his senses. He knew what was coming, it had happened so often in the lonely nights and he welcomed it now, drifting up slowly out of the depths of sleep, At the edge of his awareness there was a voice now, whispering, crooning gently. There now, don't fuss, there now, it's all right now, it's going to be all right. Don't make that terrible noise. He came awake gradually, for long moments not realizing that the warm firm flesh was reality. Above him were heavy white breasts, hanging big and heavy to sweep across his chest white bare skin shining in the moonlight that spilled through the window above his narrow steel bed. Mary will make it better, the voice whispered with husky intensity. Mary? he choked out the name, and tried to sit up, but she pushed him back gently with her full weight on his chest. You're mad.
He began to struggle, but her mouth came down over his, wet and warm and all engulfing, and his struggles abated at the shock of this new sensation. He felt his sense whirl giddily.
Against the rising turmoil within him, was balanced the terrible things that he knew about women. Those strange and awful things that the regimental chaplain had explained to him, the knowledge that had sustained him against all the blandishments of the bold little poules of France and the ladies who had beckoned to him from the dark doorways of London's back streets.
The chaplain had told them how two equally evil terrible consequences came from unlawful union with a woman.
Either there was a disease that was without cure, which ate away the flesh, left a rotting hole in a man's groin and finally drove him insane, or there was a child without a father, a bastard to darken a man's honour.
The threat was too much, and Mark tore his mouth free from the girl's sucking hungry lips and the thrusting, driving tongue. Oh God! he whispered. You'll have a baby. That's all right, silly, she whispered in a cheerful husky voice. We can get married.
She shifted suddenly as he lay stunned by this intelligence, and she swung one knee over his supine body, pinning him under the heavy soft cushion of her flesh, smothering him with the fall of bright clinging hair. No. He tried to wriggle out from under her. No, this is mad. I don't want to marry, Yes, there, oh yes. For another instant he was paralysed by the feeling of it, and then with a violent wrench he toppled her over. She fell sideways, her hands clutched wildly at his shoulders for an instant before she went over the side of the bed.
The washstand crashed over, and the thud of the girl's big body upon the floorboards echoed through the silent sleeping house.
For a moment afterwards the echoes died, the silence re turned and then was split by a chorus of screams from the bedroom of the younger girls across the passage.
What is it? bellowed Fred Black, from the big bedroom. There's somebody in the house. Get him, Fred, don't just lie thereWhere's my shotgun? Help, papa! Help! With a single bound, Mary leapt up from the bedroom floor, snatched her nightgown off the chair and swept it over her head. Mary! Mark sat up, he wanted to explain, to try and tell her about the chaplain. He leaned towards her and even in the faint moonlight he could see the fury that contorted her features.
mary! He did not have time to avoid the blow, it came full-armed and flat-handed, smashing into the side of his head with a force that rattled his teeth and starred his vision. She was a big strong girl. When his head cleared, she was gone, but his ear still sang with the sound of a thousand wild bees.
A dusty Daimler lorry pulled up beside Mark as he trudged along the side of the deeply rutted road with thick glass growing along the central hump.
