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‘So soon?’
His Captain is visibly wrong-footed by the news, but he rallies it well enough. Not quite with the same efficient brusqueness Havers has come to expect from his previous commanding officers, but still scaffolded with a respectable stiff upper lip. The news of his transfer is no surprise, after all. They both knew it was in the offing.
It isn’t soon, though; the official confirmation of his transfer came through four days ago. This is the latest he could reasonably leave it to inform his Captain without raising eyebrows. Havers does his best to not look too closely at why he didn’t tell him immediately, what exactly it is he’s been avoiding.
‘I shall miss you, Havers.’
The sense of loss is so plain in his Captain’s eyes. Even beneath the fondness of them, his words are heavy with regret, weighted enough to drag them both down.
And with them, Havers feels both his heart and his resolve stutter. A wave of dread and panic ripples across his skin, the new service revolver suddenly too cold and heavy at his hip. Surely not…
His expression must have shifted, his brave smile briefly dropping away, enough for his Captain to snatch back his sorrow and reshape it into the form of something more acceptable. A correction of a mere slip of the tongue. Nothing to see here.
Not that Havers takes much of it in, the realisation still echoing through his senses. It’s so clear now. So painfully evident. How had he missed it? That all this time, the man he has hopelessly, helplessly fallen in love with might love him too. What he had been certain were nothing more than flights of indulgent fantasy are now real and possible and within his grasp. He only has to reach for it.
But the pieces are already in place, his transfer long set in motion, and what little time they have left is now almost gone. There is nothing either of them can do to stop it. Nor should they. He chose to go to the front for a reason, Havers reminds himself and his galloping pulse. Not that such rationale does anything to lessen the brightened pain of his approaching departure and how his head and his heart are now trying to tear him in two.
Falling in love with one’s superior officer was all a rather wretched cliché, but there was nothing to be done. Havers had tried to bury his feelings but found they’d only taken root. The rising tide of his initial attraction to his Captain was swiftly followed by the sharp fish hook pull of desire, then overwhelmed with the urgent, all-consuming, besotted, grasping want of it.
It had taken Havers weeks of careful questions and quiet observation to unearth the soft, sweet, beautiful man hidden underneath the heavy layers of rank and routine and protocol. This man who goes through all the motions of proper order and rules—delights in them, even—but never holds onto them so tightly that his kindness fails to shine through. This man with his boundless enthusiasm for his work and the minutiae of the mechanisms they design, who never fails to find stories of bravery and brilliance amidst the black clatter of war. This man who conducts affectionate, albeit one-sided, chats with the ageing terrier that trots patiently at his heels. This man whose attention always makes Havers feel as though he’s the only other person in the room, whose smile sends a glowing burst of sparks spinning through his chest.
This man he’s never even touched.
Outwardly, their relationship, such as it is, is all courtly formality. Stand at least three feet apart at all times. Only refer to one other by surname and/or title. Remember your sense of decorum and hold your every movement and action in tight check lest there should be a scandal.
Though a mere scandal would be the least of Havers’s worries if anyone so much as suspected the nature of what flickers through his thoughts unbidden. That every minute he spends in his Captain’s presence is an exquisite torture, the singing pain of a pressed bruise, but one he returns to gladly, eagerly, day after day. How, despite all the practice he’s had, he has to constantly remind himself to push his feelings down, to resist the urges that well up within him with no release.
Don’t brush the stray thread from his lapel. Don’t wipe away the last smear of shaving foam lingering beneath his ear. Don’t reach for his hand and twine your fingers with his. Don’t cup his cheek and drag your thumb across his lower lip. Don’t cradle his hand in yours and press a kiss to the soft skin of his wrist. Don’t loosen his tie and trace your tongue up the line of his throat. Don’t push him up against his office door and tell him all the things you want to do to him in lurid detail, delighting in his blushes as you slowly work his buttons open one by one. Don’t kiss him. Don’t kiss him. Don’t kiss him.
Instead, Havers resorts to making a feast of gathered scraps of intimacy; his Captain’s joyful shouts of encouragement when Havers is up to bat, the rare sight of him bleary-eyed and charmingly dishevelled first thing in the morning, balmy summer evenings at the lake. The closest he allows himself to get is borrowing an occasional drag from his Captain’s cigarette, wrapping himself up in this surreptitious meeting of their mouths.
The giddy thrill of it never lasts long, though. In the end, the whole charade only serves to emphasise how insubstantial it all is. How badly he wants him. How much he shouldn’t. It’s surely only a matter of time before he oversteps himself. Before something slips, before he can’t resist any longer, before he shows himself up for what he really is.
Signing up for the front had seemed like the perfect act of self-preservation, perverse logic as that was. North Africa has the benefits of being both ripe for heroism and as far away as he can get. But now, now there is the very real possibility that his feelings are reciprocated of all things, Havers can’t shake the sense that he’s made the most appalling mistake.
‘I say, Havers,’ his Captain says to him at a little past 1300 hours as they’re standing out on the front lawn, only half watching the newer recruits stumble through a training exercise. ‘This whole North Africa business. I understand, naturally—I’d be off like a shot myself if only they’d have me—but I… I wouldn’t want you to think that you weren’t useful here.’
This is exactly what he was afraid of. The reason he waited to say anything. That fish hook pulling at him again, reeling him back in. Beneath the urgent need for his departure, he does want to go. Partly to fulfil an inescapable and ever-pressing sense of duty, partly to prove something if not to himself then to everyone else. But on another level, he very much doesn’t. And with that morning’s quiet revelations still fresh in his heart and the cracks in his already fragile conviction deepening, it wouldn’t take much to persuade him to change his mind.
‘Not at all. I simply wondered if perhaps I—’
‘Could be of even more use elsewhere? Yes. Of course.’ His Captain draws on his pipe before exhaling in a long sigh. ‘I’m just not sure what I’m going to do without you.’
Havers feels that one down to his bones.
‘In terms of completing the project, you understand,’ his Captain continues quickly. ‘Such blasted short notice.’
Ask me to stay, Havers wills silently for all the good it will do. Look me in the eyes and tell me you don’t want me to go. Tell me why. Promise me staying would be worth it.
And what if he does? What if he stays? What if something comes of this deep, aching want he carries after all? What if, one night poring over project schematics, the summer air gauzy with cigarette smoke and lamplight, working in their shirtsleeves, cuffs furled to the elbows, their fingers brushing as they pass documents, they lean in to study some new detail and the spark finds it doesn’t have quite so far to jump?
What comes after that initial glorious exhilaration; the vindication, the comfort, the warmth of his Captain’s hands on his body? Where does that road lead? There are many routes and Havers has spent untold hours trying to map them all. Try as he might, he can’t foresee a neat ending for any of them.
He has to remind himself every day that what he wants and what is practical are two very different things. Just once it would be so nice to drop his guard and give in. To have what everyone else gets without question. To indulge in a love that isn’t always coloured with fear.
Who would they be hurting? Only themselves. Each other.
His Captain doesn’t ask him to stay. He doesn’t so much as cast a single sideways glance at Havers. Apparently, the middle distance is of more interest.
Tie it into a tight parcel, Havers recites like a silent prayer, uncertain whether the emotion that floods through him is disappointment or relief. Not that it matters. Push it down and away. Carry on the best you can. Same as always.
There had been that conversation not long after he had first arrived at Button House. The two of them working through a stack of reports in his Captain’s office, fine threads of cold spring air creeping in at the windows, the steady hum of rain outside. Havers can’t now recall the meandering lines of their discussion and how exactly the topic came up, but such details are of little consequence. Some variation of it always comes around eventually.
‘I can’t make any guarantees it’ll be granted, but I’d put in for a spot of leave while you can if I were you,’ his Captain says as he busies himself with replacing his typewriter ribbon. ‘No doubt your wife will be missing you.’
Havers’s heart flinches in readiness. This dance again.
‘No wife I’m afraid, sir.’ He keeps his tone flat but makes sure to add some levity to it. If he treats it like it’s nothing, there’s the chance everyone else will, too. He had expected that the admission might get easier with practice, but, in reality, his unmarried state has only become more conspicuous and more fraught as time has marched on.
It’s a small mercy that his Captain doesn’t look in his direction and instead turns to rifling through a drawer for a new reel. ‘No? Well, your sweetheart, then,’ he says, the consonants now with slightly sharper corners.
Havers could lie. It would be easy enough to invent the vague outline of a jolly fine girl back home with a forgettable name and hope that was the end of it. Not that it would be. Someone would doubtless notice he didn’t own a single photograph of this phantom woman or that the only person who ever wrote to him was his sister. The fleeting cover wasn’t worth the potential ridicule and the slow unspooling of what sort of man he really was that would come following in its wake.
‘Unfortunately not, sir.’
His Captain’s head snaps up at this. Their eyes meet and Havers has the distinct sensation that his Captain is studying him, weighing his words against the physical fact of him.
‘No one at all?’ he asks in a bemused tone as if Havers has just told him the Germans had, on second thoughts, decided that this whole war business wasn’t for them. As if he must surely—but possibly might not—be making a joke. There is none of the sharp indignation Havers usually sees in response to this irregularity. Only a softness to his Captain’s confusion, carrying with it the suggestion of question formed but cast aside unasked.
‘I’m afraid not. I suppose I’m just unlucky.’ That’s one word for it. ‘But I understand your concern. I’m sure your own wife is uppermost in your thoughts these days.’
Havers, on the other hand, has given little thought to his Captain’s inevitable wife. The war is filled with so many bristly officers with no sense of emotion or humour that he could readily believe that they’d all popped out of the ground fully formed the instant Germany declared war, equipped with sprawling moustaches, shined boots, and an unshakable sense of their own natural superiority. It’s hard to imagine any of them capable of affection of any kind, let alone having a family. Nevertheless, the presence of a somewhat sturdy and dutiful wife and their small gaggle of children somewhere in the periphery went without question. That his current Captain is rather more handsome and in possession of more humanity than all the others doesn’t exclude him from adhering to the same rigid cultural standards. Havers only hopes that, whoever his Captain’s wife may be, she knows just how lucky she is.
The wince his Captain gives is small and restrained but doesn’t pass Havers’s notice. ‘Ah, well, no. I’m in a similar position, actually. Married to the cause, as it were.’ He clears his throat to firmly punctuate this remark and returns his attention to the typewriter. ‘Perhaps one day, though. Still time. You never know.’
The conversation stays with Havers for weeks afterwards; the rhythm of their words replaying endlessly through his thoughts, though he cannot quite pinpoint the continuing appeal of it. He’d initially put it down to his relief at escaping a more thorough interrogation, but it is only with the gift of hindsight that it all becomes clear. His Captain had navigated around the dreaded topic the same way he had; not with the simple embarrassment that most other unmarried men their age might show, but with a calm resignation and a careful sleight of hand so well-rehearsed it was almost second nature.
‘Indeed, sir.’
‘Though it’s a little tricky to attend to such things with a war on. We must have our priorities in order. Now, what was I saying?’
Both of them engaging in the usual glib patter but never pushing the issue, deftly answering questions before they’d even been asked, structuring their responses to gently deflect away from the crux of the matter, each offering the other the grace and room to manoeuvre that they themselves needed. Neither of them telling a single lie while never once touching on the whole truth.
Two men with the same secret. Circling one another in the same dance, running through the steps just so, an imperceptible half-beat ahead of everyone else. Always at least three feet apart.
He cannot stay, that much is clear, and there is nowhere else to go but under the churning wheels of the war. Besides, better a noble death as a hero fighting for King And Country on the front than a… it doesn’t bear thinking about.
The rest of the day idles along in fits and starts; whole hours vanish beneath him without notice interspersed with periods where each individual second drags by as if they were measured in drips of tar. One way or another, the time still slips away. Havers tries to keep himself busy, but nothing is enough to shake the ever-looming fact of his increasingly imminent departure. There are still plenty of duties to attend to, but he can find no satisfaction or purpose in any of them when he knows his work there will remain unfinished.
He vacillates endlessly between wanting to spend every second at his Captain’s side, soaking in his last memories of him, and trying to avoid him entirely. Always in the back of his mind is the hazy knowledge that it isn’t all settled yet, that there might still be room to back out at the last minute. That there is still time for some grand miracle to sweep down from the heavens and set him free from having to make any choice at all.
It seems, however, that miracles are in short supply. Not that he deserves one.
Five minutes before he’s due to depart—bag packed, coat buttoned, hat in hand—he knocks at his Captain’s office door.
Upon seeing who it is, his Captain drops his pen and rises from his desk, offering a brittle smile. ‘That’s you off then, is it?’ His tone is clipped, his jaw all tension. If Havers didn’t know him better, he might mistake it for standard military stoicism rather than the same brave mask he is putting on himself. The emotion is there, just perceptible; a trembling, shadowy shape lurking beneath the surface.
Don’t.
‘Yes, sir.’ The thought of shortly having to call another man ‘sir’, to not see the same warmth and charm in his commanding officer’s eyes every time they meet, sets him a little unsteady. ‘I thought it best to say a proper goodbye and to thank you for all your good work during my time here.’
He’d considered doing nothing of the sort, wondering instead if it would be best to slip away into the settling evening without a word. Make a good clean exit. He’d already informed his Captain of the transfer and the hour of his departure; there’s no need to drag it out. The war won’t thank him for his sentimentality. But one final farewell is the decent thing to do. The kind thing to do. The thing he finds he can’t stop himself from doing.
‘Well, godspeed and the very best of luck to you.’ His Captain makes a short, sudden movement as if he were about to embrace Havers before he remembers himself. ‘If I may say so, it’s… it’s been an honour having you at Button House, Havers. I have no doubt that you’ll distinguish yourself out at the front; you’ve more than done so here. I only hope the commanders out there realise what a fine soldier they have in you. Jerry won’t stand a chance at this rate, not with chaps like you leading the charge.’
A sharp, dark ache has blossomed behind Havers’s ribs. The room is suddenly too hot, his limbs too heavy, the words he longs to say stuck fast behind the lump in his throat.
‘That’s very kind of you, sir. I’ll do my best,’ he manages.
Don’t kiss him.
The sound of a blackbird creeps in from somewhere outside. Not the sharp pip pip pip rallied at an approaching enemy, but the sweet, winding cascade of notes sung for the joy of it. Like England is already trying to call him home.
Were there blackbirds in North Africa, Havers finds himself wondering. Would there be any birdsong in the spaces between the roar of guns and the shrieking of tanks and the shouts of those who still had voices left to shout with?
How useful would he be, really, only one man, one more body, swept up in the fierce tides of the war? Like as not, his contribution would mean little of any measurable value. But if it kept his Captain safe, alive, then perhaps his sacrifice would all be worth it.
Don’t kiss him while you still can.
The ghost of what might have been hangs in the space between them. Dead before it even began. Maybe it would have been possible in another life. Maybe in a time after the war is over, if they’re lucky. The bloody war that has brought them together but also pulls them apart. We must have our priorities in order…
Too often, Havers wonders which god he offended. How it was that he became cursed with a life where the most sincere act of love he can offer is to leave.
But he can’t bear to. Not yet. Not while that thin sliver of possibility shines through the darkness. Not while they’re still standing here together, healthy and whole and shielded—however briefly—from the world’s cruel scrutiny. These last few minutes might be all they’ll ever have.
‘Forgive me,’ Havers says, his voice finding no strength above a whisper. It only takes him two steps to close the gap between them, to take his Captain’s face in his hands, to lean in.
And despite how unexpected this might be, how brazenly insubordinate, his Captain doesn’t try to stop him. Doesn’t recoil. Only a faint gasp of understanding escapes his mouth before Havers stops it.
The kiss is not the one Havers has dreamt of, has spent long nights refining in his imagination while awake and alone in his narrow bed. It is not deep and longing and lingering. It is not the whole-hearted kiss of a soldier about to leave for war.
It is brief and chaste but earnest; the soft press of one pair of lips on another. It is a promise, more than anything.
As he pulls away, he catches the faintest hint of his Captain responding in kind. A slight inclination of his head, a fractional increase in pressure, hoping for more.
They stand together, unmoving and unspeaking, the heat of their bodies bleeding through their uniforms. Havers drinks in the moment, the electricity of this contact. Breathes in his Captain’s warm, clean scent; his soap, the salt of his skin. Fingertips graze the fine stubble along his jaw, the soft, steady thud of his pulse at his neck.
His Captain looks deep into his eyes, takes a long shuddering breath, and doesn’t ask him to stay.
‘Just make sure you come back,’ he says at last, hands gripping Havers’s coat.
It is like seeing his own breaking heart reflected back at him.
The crisp rhythm of a clock striking the hour from somewhere unseen intrudes on the silence between them. Outside, the blackbird sings on.
‘Yes, sir.’
Somehow, he lets go and steps away, shoulders his pack, opens the door, and pushes down every impulse calling for him to look back one last time before it clicks shut behind him.