Chapter Three

The fog was even more dense by now and it was hard to make anything out in detail as I emerged back into the hazy glow of Piccadilly once more.

But even as the fog swirled around, I recognised him straight away, unmistakable as we walked towards each other.

Tall, fair haired and with that distinguished soft blonde moustache that had always been so attractive to me, it was the Young Master, Captain Kenilworth Hardy as he had been the last time I saw him on the fateful night when I both lost and gained so much.

I might have tried to walk on past him had he not brought me to a halt with a cry of: “Good God! It can’t really be Sergeant Fitzgerald?”

“Captain!” I replied, only just stopping myself from saluting, remembering that we were in Civvie Street now.

“No Captain any more, no more respect due to senior officers,” he laughed as he took in every detail, no doubt observing the shabby jacket, too thin for the time of year, and the failing attempt to maintain some sort of standards.

“We’re not in the army any more Fitzgerald. It’s just plain Kenilworth Hardy now – Alex to my friends.”

I didn’t reply – whatever we had been it certainly wasn’t friends, though in one moment of fear and danger we had perhaps become something more than comrades.

Ignoring the frayed cuffs and the scuffed shoes he suggested I join him for a drink and pointed out that the Ritz was just a few yards along Piccadilly.

As we walked along through the fog my mind went back to those early days of the war, the patriotic fervor of the young estate lads like Eddie and myself joining the Young Master in our own regiment, heading off for training and then for the adventure of France.

The adventure, of course, quickly proved to be a vermin and flea infested hellhole, muddy trenches that were like drowning pools in the soaking wet of autumn and winter and then baking, uncomfortable furnaces when spring became summer.

Yet there was often a strangely heady atmosphere in that warren of passages carved out of the farmland of the Somme.

Young men who had arrived on a cloud of patriotic euphoria very quickly became homesick and lonely and although you’ll never read about in the official reports, some of those lads turned to each other in their fear and loneliness.

Furtive kisses might be exchanged in the darkness, a quick fumble in the shadows, perhaps even more when healthy young men who had returned from a few days leave in the brothels of Amiens realised they still had needs that hadn’t been completely satisfied on a French whore’s mattress.

If you saw something you shouldn’t see, you turned a blind eye and hoped that next time you’d be the lucky one taking a chance on a quick fuck while nobody was looking – because it might be your last.

Then came the day we went over the top, the day that Eddie –still laughing, still teasing me with that beautiful smile even though we had never touched each other in an intimate way since leaving the Great House – lost his life.

In the confusion, the shouting, the smoke, the bullets, the deafening explosions, I saw him fall as I went on, knowing that I too was unlikely to reach our objective.

And then the world seemed to stop, the sky filled with a blinding flash, following by a deafening roar and then an avalanche of mud, stones, debris – and still the endless enemy gunfire.

The explosion knocked me off my feet but as I fell I saw the Young Master slump to his knees and then onto his face in the mud.

Somehow, despite a searing pain in my own leg – a shrapnel wound I guessed – I crawled towards him, keeping as low as possible to avoid enemy bullets.

When I reached him I gathered him up in my arms and, regardless of the danger, staggered on with him until I saw the potential protection of a bomb crater and jumped in.

Around us the noise of battle continued, the screams of men in agony, the constant whistling of bullets, the explosions of heavy artillery and the subsequent showers of mud and debris that would fall on us in our unlikely sanctuary.

Not knowing whether the Young Master was alive or dead, I opened the top buttons of his tunic and slipped my hand beneath his undershirt, feeling for a heartbeat, which thankfully seemed regular and not too faint then.

At the same time, though, I could not help but feel the downy fur that covered his slender chest, as blonde no doubt as the neatly trimmed moustache and the wavy hair that now fell over his eyes.

Without even really thinking, I kept running my fingers through the chest hair, finding comfort in the unexpected intimacy and for one brief moment I even dared to slip a hand down to his groin, where I felt sure there really was the faint stirring of life as my fingers brushed over the outline of his penis.

Darkness had fallen and still the nightmare continued, the Young Master resting in my arms like a sleeping boy, unaware I was sure of the intimate pleasure of my fingers on his chest.

But then he started to stir, his eyes flickering open and I withdrew my hand quickly.

“Don’t do that,” he murmured. “I’ve felt your hand on my body – it gave me the strength to come back.”

In the darkness I hardly knew what to say but words seemed meaningless as he found the strength to cling to me, his strong arms encircling me as he leaned upwards and his lips brushed against mine for a kiss that was more about companionship and fear than lust.

Then he guided my hand between his legs and he whispered: “Touch me Bertie. This might be the last pleasure I ever experience.”

I fumbled with his flies and my hand reached within his trousers, fingers grasping the cock, which, much to my surprise, was already hard.

With just a few swift gestures I brought him to a silent climax – no more than a slight murmur of satisfaction - his warm cum trickling over my fingers as once more he slipped back into unconsciousness in my arms.

Then the cold and the noise and the increasing pain in my leg started to take their effect on me too and I also began to lose all sense of time and place.

I still don’t recall much about the next few hours, the rescue, the return to safety of the trenches, but I do remember being loaded onto a cart with the Young Master - perhaps there were no ambulances available for I was to learn later that casualties ran into thousands that night.

The one thing I do recall is that somewhere on the journey to safety, the medics decided that their priority was the Young Master – the Captain as they knew him – and that Private Fitzgerald should be left at a farmhouse far enough from the Front Line to be considered safe.

That was the last I saw of the Young Master, his lifeless body being loaded into a military ambulance as I was carried into the farmhouse where I saw a young woman with a baby in her arms looking at me with concern and compassion.

For the next couple of nights I was delirious, mainly unconscious, unaware of whether I was alive or dead, caught in a fever that burnt my body as the wound in my leg spread its searing pain through every fibre of my being.

But then, thanks perhaps to the almost constant care and attention of the young woman whose name I didn’t even know, the crisis was passed and I started to sleep more peacefully.

I may have slumbered for two here days but I remember that it was dusk when I finally awoke in that soft bed and looked around to see the girl sitting on a rocking chair in the corner, her blouse undone as she fed her baby.

I watched for several minutes as the baby suckled greedily at the large round left breast, its little hand grasping at the right nipple.

The girl looked up and saw me watching but instead of being embarrassed she simply smiled at me and continued to rock until the infant had taken enough.

She put the now sleepy baby in its crib but, instead of covering her beautiful heavy breasts – pure snowy white with a trace of pale blue vein just beneath the skin and with the large nipples and areola of the feeding mother - she walked over to the bed and lay down beside me.

Then she supported my head, took her right breast in her hand and directed my mouth to the nipple where I started to suck just as her child had done.

I felt the warmth of the girl’s milk, giving me renewed strength as I continued to suckle at the right teat until, a few minutes later, my nurse moved around to let me suck on the left.

And so we continued for several days, the baby getting its evening meal first and then it would be my turn, my chance to enjoy the comforting warmth of those beautiful breasts which, on the fourth evening maybe, I too dared to reach out and touch, stroking a nipple between finger and thumb as I sucked on the other.

The girl simply sighed and smiled and then, a couple of nights later, she must have noticed the strength returning to my groin for her hand went under my night shirt and touched my unexpectedly engorged cock.

I never stopped sucking but as I took my sustenance from her, she grasped my rod and started to pump gently but skillfully so that I shot my load in minutes, falling back onto the pillows and into an instant and very happy sleep.

The next night, after feeding the baby she approached the bed again, as usual, but this time she removed her blouse, her skirts and drawers and, wearing nothing but her corset and her black stockings, she straddled my body and guided my hard boner into her warm, moist cunt, giggling with delighted as I pierced her with my fully loaded weapon.

I drew myself up to take first one tit and then the other in my greedy mouth, the milk dribbling down my chin as I thrust harder and harder into her welcoming vagina, enjoying the sensation of life returning to me, recognising that the crisis was over when, with the roar of a deeply satisfied man and a lusty cry of: “Fucking hell!” I released a stream of jizz that continued to spurt out for several seconds, then, with the spasms subsiding, I enjoyed one last deep suck on both tits, my fingers finally reaching out to rub those deliciously milky nipples as I sank back, both refreshed and exhausted.

That’s how my lovely French nurse saved my life – with daily ministrations of mother’s milk and lover’s cunt.

When the medics finally re-appeared a few weeks later, they found me more or less restored to health, though the wound in my leg was considered severe enough for me to be sent back to England by the last summer of the war and I never saw my French beauty again, though I remain forever grateful for her generosity in sharing her bountiful, abundant breasts with me.