Work Text:
Of course, David takes to army life like a duck to water. He and his friends from the association football club head off into Maidstone the day after war is declared to join the column of other hopeful young men. Laughing, joking, and singing patriotic songs, they impatiently stand in the queue that snakes round the corner of the street outside the working men’s club, which has been hastily commandeered by the Army Recruiting Officers. Things are so chaotic that first day that over half the waiting volunteers don’t even get seen, all that happens is that David loses a day’s pay and gets a reproachful look from his mother when he gets home.
The next attempt a couple of days later is more successful, although it is only David, John and Alfred that make the trip to Maidstone, the bravado of the rest of the football pals, having dissipated during the long trudge home two nights before. Not David though, he fancies himself in uniform, swaggering in front of his friends, dazzling the ladies. He can’t wait to get away from the farm, and see the sights of Paree, show off to the other Tommies in his perfect French, have a bit of a jolly and then be home for Christmas. Perhaps now he is fighting with his motherland to liberate his fatherland, his old man will give him some respect… and that callow sissy he has to call a brother too…
It doesn’t quite work out like David expects, yes, Papa is grudgingly impressed and pours him a glass of the old cognac he brought from France twenty years ago when he married Sarah Nelson. Ma is suitably distraught, as to be expected when your first born goes off to war. Only Nick sees through David’s façade, like he aways does, but when pressed by Papa, he goes to his older brother and congratulates him.
While David, used to manual labour on the farm, adapts to basic training without difficulty, he thinks the blue serge uniform makes him look like a convict, but it serves its purpose well when he and his fellow recruits go out for the evening. The grub is good, growing up on a farm means that David is relatively well fed compared with many of the young men who enlist with him, but even he is not used to meat at every meal. There are cigarettes, tea and rum, and good guaranteed pay not the pittance his papa used to begrudgingly spare him from the farm’s meagre profits. Respect too, he’s a man now, not a boy. He loves the camaraderie of his pals from the regiment, the high jinks in the billet, and the responsibility, and… though when he boasts about the life to his parents when he visits them the day before he leaves for the western front, he omits this one… the sexual freedom although he makes sure to tell Nick of his conquests.
The Nelsons don’t see David again until Christmas 1916.
******
War does change David, but unlike more sensitive souls, it hasn’t cowed him. He is still the brash, arrogant cretin that he always was… this is Nick’s considered opinion. Still boasting about the army life as if he hasn’t spent the past two years moving back and forth over the same muddy stretch of land somewhere in Belgium. Going on and on at Nick about when he is going to step up to the plate, daring him to show them what he is made of and take the King’s shilling.
Ma says he shouldn’t let David goad him; Nick is after all only sixteen and as a farmer’s son who works on the land, in a reserved occupation, but the words rankle. Nick isn’t home when David leaves to rejoin his battalion, he is out in the fields seeing to the livestock, but later that night he collapses exhausted into bed, only to discover one perfect white feather laid on his pillow. He knows where it has come from.
He is not a coward.
He is only sixteen.
He is needed on the farm.
The next day Nick is up early even earlier than usual, he dresses in the dark and walks to the end of the lane, where he stops the carrier as he goes by and gets him to drop him off at the local Halt. From there he catches the train to Canterbury and walks to the enlisting office. On the poster on the wall outside, Lord Kitchener points his finger directly at Nick. Nick squares his shoulders and straightens his spine so that he stands a little taller and pushes open the door.
At this stage in the proceedings, the recruiting officer is prepared to turn a blind eye to the fact that he is pretty certain that the young man stood before him ready to enlist is no more nineteen than he is. He is tall and broad enough to pass for an adult, but his face is rounded and makes him look younger than he probably is, sixteen at the most, the officer reckons, despite giving his date of birth as 4th September 1897.
“You didn’t join up in September then, when you got your papers?”
Conscription had been introduced by government order twelve months earlier, when the shortage of volunteers and the high number of casualties had deemed it necessary.
Nick has thought of this on the journey over. He has an answer ready.
“I’m a farmer’s son, I was reserved.”
“And now you’re not wanted on the farm?”
Nick thinks of his father’s general indifference and replies, “no, I’m not wanted.”
The officer looks at Nick sharply, then sighs, stamps the paper in front of him and gives it Nick.
“You’ll do, subject to medical. Take this and go through the double doors, and to the left, report to the MO.”
Nick strips quickly behind the screen, before the doctor listens to Nick chest, examines his nose and throat and the veins on his legs, his feet, cups his balls, and asks him to cough, all pretty basic. The examination of his parts seems quite intense and with sudden embarrassment Nick realises the doctor is looking for signs of venereal disease. The doctor finally satisfied allows Nick to dress before handing him over to another doctor who tests his vision and hearing. Nick passes these too, and his form is stamped again and marked A1.
Finally, Nick is led into a small room where he is handed a bible, he swears allegiance to the King and signs on the dotted line. He emerges Pvt. Nelson, N, 2nd Battalion, Royal East Kent Regiment. He is to report for duty to the Training Camp on the North Kent Downs at 0800 hours the next morning.
******
Like David, Nick slots easily into army life, it is hard, but no harder than life on the farm. The barrack yard training is tough, but Nick has always been an athletic type, at school until thirteen he’d excelled at PT, and he played rugby with the village lads on the rare Saturdays when he wasn’t working. He is certainly better equipped to deal with its rigours than some of the office clerks, and domestic staff that have been conscripted with his intake. Growing up on the farm, he has at least fired a gun before, although a shot gun rather than a rifle. He has mastered the art of the bayonet too, although whether he could stick it into a real live German as opposed to a sack of straw is another matter. Although Nick supposes there are a lot of things you can probably do if your life depends on it.
The company is mixed, while many of the new recruits are local lads who have reached conscription age, there are a number of older men, those from the territorial reserve, and others who have joined up now the age limit has been raised. They seem to see through Nick’s lies about his age and recognise his sensitive nature and desire always to please could result in him being led astray by some of the wilder elements in the battalion. They seem to make an unspoken collective decision to keep an eye on Nelson and take him under their wing a little.
This evening they are dragging him from public house to public house, those found in the side streets that run down to the docks at the Port of Dover. It is their last night of embarkation leave, tomorrow they sail on the His Majesty’s Troop Ship Esmerelda to join the rest of the regiment. Where? Nick assumes it is France, but he won’t know until he gets there. Nick has become quite used to alcohol in the weeks he has been on basic training, beer is tolerable although he is still unsure about the taste of spirits. He hopes that no one notices as he pours an unwanted gin into a potted aspidistra on the shelf behind him. His new friends, also well-oiled by now are getting rowdy, they have plans, plans that especially involve Nick.
“Come along now,” Robbie, a Dover lad, who grew up less than a mile from where they are sitting, says, pulling Nick from his chair, “The night is young, we’re off to Ma’s.”
“Ma’s?” Nick questions, rising from his seat unsteadily, “We’re going to visit your mum?”
Nick isn’t sure what time it is, but he thinks it might be a bit late to bringing strangers home to meet your family.
The other men laugh at this, and one raises an eyebrow and says to Robbie, “your mother?”
The joke passes Nick by, but he dutifully follows his friends out into the street. The cool night air hits him and he somehow sobers up and feels more inebriated at the same time. He feels a hand in the small of his back and he allows himself to be propelled a couple of blocks closer to the waterfront, until the party come to a halt in front of a tall, terraced building which has seen better days with shutters at all the windows apart from the small fan light above the door which shines red in the darkness.
Robbie knocks three times and when the door opens a crack, whispers, “It’s only me, Ma. Me and a few of the lads.”
The door opens more fully to reveal a middle aged woman with unnaturally red hair, who exclaims.
“Any friends of yours, Robbie, are friends of mine.”
Nick and the other soldiers traipse across the threshold into a wide hallway. There is music coming from one of the rooms on the ground floor, and in front of them a staircase.
“Welcome to Ma’s and take your pleasure. Its thruppence on the ground floor, or half a crown if you’ll be wanting to go upstairs.”
Robbie looks around and wiggles his eyebrows lasciviously. “Oh, we’ll be wanting to go upstairs, won’t we lads.”
There’s a resounding chorus of ‘aye’. Nick doesn’t quite follow but he begins to root around in his pocket for change.
“Put your money away,” Robbie insists, as Nick tries to hand over a couple of bob and a sixpence. “As this is your first time… at Ma’s… we’re going to treat you.”
There is a round of back slapping at this comment, which doesn’t help Nick feel any steadier on his feet. The light in the hallway isn’t very strong and he is afraid he will miss his footing as he tackles the stairs Ma talking as he tries to keep up. They reach the landing and Nick sees a long corridor with half a dozen doors off it and stairs to the next floor. Ma stops by one of the doors and knocks twice before turning to Nick,
“First time is it love… don’t worry Rosie here will look after you. In you go.”
She gives Nick a gentle shove then sends him into the room, as the door closes, he hears Ma say, “don’t worry lads, there’s plenty to go round”.
******
It takes a moment for Nick’s eyes to adjust, there is more light in this room than the hallway but that isn’t saying much, the lamp is subdued by the thin piece of gauzy stuff that is thrown over it. The curtains are closed, as to be expected, it is night after all, but the air in the room is hot and heavy and there is a strong smell of attar of roses, which doesn’t quite mask the smell of something altogether more unpleasant.
The woman is smiling at him, beckoning Nick to come closer. Like Ma she has bright red hair, and Nick reckons she could be any age between twenty and forty-five, in the light it is impossible to tell. She is dressed is some kind of flimsy peignoir, Nick is ridiculously and inappropriately pleased to remember the correct word, through which he can see her breasts, he looks away in embarrassment. It slowly dawns on Nick that the woman is a prostitute, that his friends have bought him a prostitute for… he has no idea what two and six buys with a lady of the night. He only knows that the transaction has been made and he is expected to perform.
The lady, as Nick still calls her in his head, is beckoning him again, patting the side of the bed next to her. Nick wills his legs to move his body forward, inch by inch until he reaches the place where the hand is patting.
“Come on big boy, you come and take a seat next to me. You and I are going to get along famously, and I’ll give you something to remember when you’re in your lonely dugout.”
The mention of his impending journey to the front, the alcohol, the stifling room, the cloying smell of roses causes Nick’s head to spin. His collar is too tight, he belches… loudly, and covers his mouth.
Rosie’s demeanour changes in an instant.
“Don’t you bloody well dare puke on my clean bed, I’ve got to work in here tonight!”
She throws open the bedroom door and sticking her head into the corridor yells, “Charlie!” She looks over at Nick who is still sitting on the bed swaying gently, looking green. She turns to the open door to call again but she can hear footsteps running, as Charlie arrives panting.
“What is it Rose?”
She gestures with the thumb of her right hand over her shoulder to where Nick is sat.
“Take this puppy outside, get him some water, and a bit of fresh air, if he’s all right in an hour you can bring him back up, seeing that he’s paid for the night. If not send him back to his billet. Try not to see Ma, or she’ll make me work another customer while you’re sobering him up.”
Charlie smiles at this. He steps into the room and pulls Nick up by one arm and when he is standing places that arm around his shoulder. Nick is heavy but Charlie despite his slight frame, is stronger than he looks, he manages to manoeuvre Nick along the corridor without making too much of a disturbance and down the backstairs, past the kitchen and out through the scullery into the alleyway behind. There are steps up to the backdoor and checking that they are reasonably clean, Charlie plonks Nick down on them and sits down beside him.
“Lean forward, put your head between your knees, deep breath. That’s it… how do you feel now.”
“Stupid.”
“I meant do you think you’re going to puke?”
Nick checks himself; he still feels mighty queasy but not like anything is going to come of it.
“No.”
“Good. You want to go back upstairs?”
“No!” Nick replies sharply, and then adds, “You must think I am so stupid…”
“Why would I think that?”
“Because I had no idea… No idea what this place is, what that lady is… none of it.”
Charlie is curious, “You do know what was expected of you, don’t you?”
Nick blushes furiously, “I’m not daft, I grew up on a farm. I’ve seen the bull service the cows.” He says defiantly, he doesn’t add that he always found it slightly distressing, as if the girls didn’t deserve such treatment.
“A bull heh?” Charlie laughs, “Sounds like our Rosie is missing out, sure you don’t want to go back up?”
Nick shakes his head. “No, can we just sit here for a bit.”
Charlie nods, “you got any smokes?”
Nick takes his cigarette case out of his pocket, hands it to Charlie who examines it before helping himself and giving the case back.
“NN, what does that stand for?”
“Nicholas Nelson.” Nick replies, taking a cigarette before closing the case and sliding it back inside his pocket. He takes his lighter and lights Charlie’s cigarette and then his own. In the brief flare of the flame Nick takes in the boy’s delicate features and his brilliant blue eyes, Nick thinks him mesmerising.
Both boys take a deep inhale, both boys cough a little.
“Has a nice ring to it.”
“What does?”
“Your name.” Charlie says, elongating the syllables. “Nich-o-las Nel-son.”
“Most people call me plain Nick.”
“There’s nothing plain about you Private Nelson. How are you feeling now?”
“A bit better now I am in the fresh air. It was so hot and stuffy in that room.”
As if on cue, Charlie shivers. Nick looks at his companion, he is just wearing a thin shirt and cord trousers and boots.
“Here.” Nick slips the jacket of his uniform off and places it around Charlie’s shoulders.
Charlie protests, “Won’t you get cold?”
“I tend to run hot anyway. Wear it for a bit. It suits you.”
They sit in silence for a while, listening to the sounds of the night. They can still hear music from the tap room, and the sound of laughter and more from other parts of the building.
“Why are you in uniform, then if you’re a farmer’s son? Shouldn’t you be exempt?”
“It’s a long story.”
“Got all night.”
So, Nick tells him, this strange, elfin boy with his dark curls and midnight eyes, about his French father and English mother, about Stéphane’s belligerence, and Sarah’s disappointment. About David and his noxious personality, and the merciless goading and about the white feather, how that was the last straw and the very next day he had got up and gone to Canterbury and signed on.
Throughout all this Charlie sits and listens patiently, very still, but radiating sympathy. He reaches for his own handkerchief and wipes Nick’s tears when he talks about his mother, with neither of them realising that at some point during the conversation they have clasped hands.
“Thank you for stopping with me.” Nick whispers.
“I told Rosie I would keep an eye on you, until you were ready to go back inside.”
“I don’t think… I don’t think I want to do that. I mean it was kind I suppose of my pals to do this for me, but I…”
“Is it maybe you don’t like girls… not all men do, you know.”
Nick does know. David used to say things about Mr Cooper, the schoolmaster, unkind things that Nick didn’t believe. Papa used to say the man should go and live in France where the law was more understanding of such temperament, but never elaborated further.
He also had a strange experience when he was eleven, the grandson the post mistress who came to stay in the village while his mother was in the infirmary, and had briefly attended the village school. Nick had worshipped the ground that George walked on but he hadn’t paid much attention to Nick a farm boy, and anyway had only stayed one term. Nick had almost forgotten about it, but not quite and it comes flooding back to him now. George had been slight, with dark curly hair too.
He says none of this to Charlie. Instead, he replies,
“I am keeping you from… your work.”
“Nick, what do you think I do here? This isn’t a Molly House.”
Nick stands up quickly, “Oh Fuck, I’m sorry… I shouldn’t have…”
Charlie stands up to, “Nick it is all good. Obviously, the way our conversation was going and the fact I do indeed work here, was bound to make you draw conclusions. But I am not that sort of thing. I do work here and live here too. Ma is my aunt. My father’s sister, my mother died eighteen months ago, and my father is at sea. I have a sister who is in service in a village about a mile and a half inland from here, and a brother who is two years younger than me. When mother died, I was thirteen and had no means to keep Olly and I together. We would have been split up, until Ma stepped in. Of course, dad had no idea how she earnt her living but as we haven’t seen him since the start of the war, it makes no difference. Ma keeps us well, and we do jobs around the place, cooking and cleaning, there’s a lot of that, for our bed and board, and Olly still gets to go to school.”
“That’s astonishing.”
“It’s war. Everyone has to do what they have to do to get by.”
Nick shivers at this and Charlie notices, “You’re getting cold. Are you sure you don’t want to go back to Rosie?”
“Quite sure. I’d rather stay here with you.”
“Well, no point in us freezing our bollocks off outside, come with me.”
Charlie leads Nick back inside and up three flights of stairs away from the main part of the house. When he reaches a door, he knocks three times and then whispers.
“Olly, open up, it’s me.”
After a second series of knocks, there is the sound of movement inside and of a bolt being drawn back and then another until the door opens revealing a slim dark haired boy of around thirteen, rubbing his eyes.
“Olly, will you do me the biggest favour, will you go downstairs and cover for me until I come back, or it is morning. I swear I will cover your next two shifts in recompense.”
The boy continues to rub his eyes.
“You’ve had a smoke.”
Charlie nods.
“Next three shifts and three smokes.”
“Fine.” Charlie agrees.
Olly is pulling on his trousers and a sweater and stuffing his feet into his boots. He looks long and hard at his brother, taking in the jacket he is wearing, and then at Nick in his military kit; Charlie reaches into the jacket pocket and takes out Nick’s cigarette case and removes three cigarettes. Olly puts one in his mouth, one behind his ear and the third one on the mantlepiece.
“Be good.” He says as his parting shot, “Don’t forget to bolt the door behind me.”
******
Once Olly has gone, a sense of awkwardness develops between the two boys, until first Charlie and then Nick shiver. Swiftly divesting themselves of their outer clothing Charlie slips into the big bed, still warm from where Olly has recently vacated it, and holds up the blankets until Nick does the same, giggling.
“What’s so funny.”
Nick wriggles to get comfortable, not near enough to Charlie to touch but close enough to hear a whisper.
“I was just thinking if my pals from the battalion could see me now, they would ask for their money back.”
“Good thing they won’t. They’ll be far too busy with Meg, Gracie, Sal, and Bertha to worry about you and Rosie won’t tell either, she’ll get a night off and still get paid, so it will pay her to keep stumm.”
“She should give the money to you, instead…”
As soon as the words leave Nick’s mouth he sits up, words falling over themselves in his haste to retract them.
“No, I didn’t… bloody hell, I didn’t mean… that came out all wrong…”
“Nick.” Charlie reaches out and caresses Nick’s face, “You wouldn’t have to pay me… Oh God, now I’m doing it… I mean I would give you my company for free… oh that sounds worse… argggh… You don’t know what it means to me to spend time with someone my own age.”
“Yeah, me too.”
Charlie laughs, “Caught you, I knew you weren’t nineteen, not if your gobshite of a brother was eighteen three years ago and there are four and a half years between you.”
Nick buries his head in the pillow. “I’m hopeless, I’d never make a spy.”
“How old are you then?”
“Sixteen and a half thereabouts. You?”
“Fourteen, but I will be fifteen, next month, on the 27th if that makes you feel better.”
“It does a bit.”
“Charlie…”
“Yeah.”
“Can we stay awake all night.”
“Yeah, if you like… then you can blame the bags under your eyes tomorrow on your strenuous performance.”
“You little…”
Nick grabs the pillow and takes a swipe at Charlie who retaliates with his own, a fight ensues in which neither is the victor, until they collapse giggling back onto the mattress. Closer now, close enough to cuddle, should they want to.
“Nick?”
“Yes.”
“You know that I am like that don’t you…”
“I do now.”
“And you don’t mind being here with me.”
“Charlie, I am having the best time. I think this is one of my best night’s ever and it is not over yet.”
Charlie shivers.
Nick opens his arms, and Charlie slides gratefully into them.”
They talk for a while, Nick sings the praises of his mum and describes her so well, that Charlie feels that he knows her. Charlie talks about his difficult relationship with his parents, but how he also misses them now they are absent. Nick tells Charlie a bit more about life on the farm, causing Charlie to sit up and exclaim,
“You have a dog?”
“Of course, we have a dog, it’s a farm.”
“All those animals… Olly would be in heaven.”
“Just Olly?”
“Well maybe not just Olly.”
Charlie talks about his sister Victoria, how she hates being in service but puts up with it to be close to her brothers, and how they try to see each other every Wednesday which is Tori’s half day but how Ma never lets her come to the house in case she is corrupted.
“Which is of course nonsense… but Ma won’t budge. We’re waiting until the war is over and then Tori, Olly and I will get our own house where we can all live together.”
Nick thinks of the farmhouse, with even more empty bedrooms now he and David are away but says nothing.
They settle down again and despite their resolution they do doze. Nick wakes with a start to find it is still dark, but he can sense Charlie watching him.
“What?”
“Nick, you know why your pals bought you the night with Rosie, don’t you?”
“Er… I suppose they thought they were being kind, as well as having a bit of a laugh at my expense, they must have known I was…” Nick searches around for a word, “pure.”
“Pure?” Nick can hear the smile in Charlie’s voice, but he doesn’t laugh, the subject is too serious.
“Nick, they bought you the night with Rosie in case you don’t come back. So that you wouldn’t die a virgin.”
“Oh.”
Charlie lets the significance of his words sink in.
“Do you regret it now?”
Nick is quiet, for so long that Charlie assumes he does, but when Nick speaks it is to reassure.
“No. I do want to do it, obviously, someday, but maybe I am old fashioned, but I want it to be with the person I love, my sweetheart.”
“Not your wife?”
Nick pauses, and then says, “Maybe, not necessarily.”
“Oh.”
“What about you? Have you ever… kissed anyone…” Nick tries to make his voice sound neutral, but he is curious, “A boy?”
Charlie is quiet and Nick thinks he won’t answer, but then he says. “There was a boy, at school. I really liked him, but he treated me as if he hated me, most of the time. I knew we had to keep it hidden but he was like that even when we were alone.
“I know it will be hard for me, I will most likely be alone for all my life.”
Nick is saddened by this and pulls Charlie closer, “You couldn’t try… find a sympathetic lady?”
“No, to thy own self be true, as Shakespeare would say.”
To thy own self be true. Nick rolls the words around his mouth and tries them for size.
“What about you? Have you ever had a sweetheart?”
Nick shakes his head, “I kissed a girl from school once, when I was thirteen, at the May Day dance. Her name was Tabitha Jones. I think she went to work in the dairy at Bridge Farm, over Tonbridge way but she could be anywhere now.”
“You’re not holding a candle for her then?”
“What, no, certainly not.”
“Oh… So, you don’t have a sweetheart then, at the moment?”
“No, that doesn’t mean I wouldn’t like one, that I am not thinking about one right now.”
“Oh. What is she like then?”
“You’re just going to assume that they’re a she?”
“Are they? Are they not a girl?”
Nick doesn’t answer, but Charlie presses on.
“Would you have a sweetheart that wasn’t a girl?”
Nick forces himself to answer. “I don’t know… Maybe.”
“Would you kiss someone who wasn’t a girl?”
“Maybe. If they'd let me.”
“Would you kiss… me?”
Nick hesitates, if he crosses this line, he doesn’t just become an outcast, but a criminal, and Charlie to… but in the end the longing is too strong.
“Yeah.”
******
They wake to the sound of knocking and Olly’s urgent voice outside.
“Charlie!”
Charlie slides out of Nick’s embrace and pads across the bedroom to the door and slides the bolts.
“What time is it?”
“Gone five by the clock in the hall. No one is stirring but I thought you’d want to be up and about before everyone else, you and your soldier.”
“He’s not my soldier.”
“You’re not fooling me Charles Francis Spring, and I was only in the room with you both for five minutes. Anyway, wake him up and get him out of here. I’ve brought us some tea to help.”
Reluctantly Charlie wakes the sleeping Nick. After their first kiss, they had spurned sleep in favour of more kisses although they hadn’t taken things any further, finally succumbing to sleep only about an hour ago.
Nick scowls bleary eyed but welcomes the tea and appreciates the good sense of Olly’s action. He begins to pull his clothes on, Charlie watches him, feeling the tears welling up and willing them not to spill. Nick owes him nothing, they have had their one special night. What happens in wartime doesn’t count in the real world.
“Do you have a piece of paper?” Nick asks, shocking Charlie out of his reverie.
“No, not here. Except…” Olly is gesturing to the shelf above the bed which holds the boys few possessions including the Spring family bible. Nick follows Olly’s finger and reaches to take the bible down from it’s place. He takes a pen from his jacket pocket and writes as neatly as he can in such a sacred place.
Mrs Sarah Nelson,
Hopwood Farm,
Shenstone,
Near Maidstone,
Kent.
“This is my mother’s address. If ever you need help, in any kind, go to her… and if you ever want to contact me you could try through her too.”
Nick hands Charlie the bible, it is an ancient book, and what Charlie is about to do feels like desecration, but he does it anyway. There is a blank leaf between the Old and New Testaments. Wordlessly he tears out the page, and then holds out his hand for the pen and begins to write.
“There’s no point in giving you this address, Ma could get done for running a disorderly house at any time, and we’d all be moved on. Write to me through Victoria, that’s her address, and remember to call me Charlotte, always call me Charlotte, the military police will open all your letters and read them.”
“Charlie… I don’t want to go; I don’t even know where I am going.”
“Salonika.” Charlie says without missing a beat, “All the Kent men go to the Balkans from here.”
Charlie throws his arms around Nick and kisses him, while Olly averts his eyes.
“Go well, my love, stay safe and never forget you have a sweetheart to come home to.”