It was too bad she wanted him so much. That made it harder to ignore. If she’d really been a man…well, there were things men got up to here, in the dark, that no one talked about.
Southey didn’t notice her reaction as he righted himself, this time managing to get his rifle slung properly. He had no idea Hailey was female. No-one at the Front did, save Meyer and Daglish, and her former captain, Ashby. She wanted to keep it that way; she’d hardly be allowed to stay in the army, even as an officer’s batman, if anyone knew she was a woman. As for Meyer and Daglish, their secret was even more imperative to keep: sodomy was a crime.
A shot thumped into the parados. A breathless moment, then sand ran out in a stream. Southey stumbled; she grabbed his arm, tugging him until he regained his balance on the thin path of splintered duckboards. They found the correct communication trench and began wending their way towards Z3, trudging single-file, Hailey leading. There weren’t any duckboards here yet, nor any parapet, so it was hard going. They had to both keep their heads down and watch their feet.
It was growing darker. Soon men would crawl out of their trenches and swarm about like ants, replacing and repairing the day’s destruction, and praying the nightly bombardment wouldn’t obliterate them.
Southey said, out of nowhere, “Mason’s got himself a girl.”
Hailey stumbled. “Where—”
“Girl from Amiens.” He pronounced it like a Frenchman; he had told her that his mother was French. “She never saw a colored man before. Mason’s eye-deep in romance.”
Mason was their best sniper, and Southey’s closest friend in the regiment. “He’s not going to desert, is he?”
“Mason? Never! But his mind’s on her. And mine’s on him. Worried, you know. What if he’s dreaming on her rosy nipples and gets his bloody head blown off? Where’d we get another sniper, then?”
“Do you want me to tell Captain Meyer to have a word with him?”
“Won’t do a damned bit of good, will it?” A few more steps. Southey said, “Just wanted to tell someone. That’s all.”
Hailey wasn’t used to receiving confidences. She was a little surprised to get this one from him, because so far as she knew, he only confided in Mason. Though of course, in this case, he couldn’t tell Mason. She grunted and kept walking. Maybe it was because of when they’d thought Captain Ashby was dead, all those months ago.
Southey had been kind to her then, as she’d been distressed and unable to entirely hide it. They’d spent several evenings playing cards and talking, mostly about their families. She’d told him about her mother and sister, confessed how she felt caring for them was a burden sometimes because her sister could work, too, but would not. He’d described all his brothers, and his gentle father, and his mother who could have been a drill sergeant if she’d been a man. He’d given hilarious imitations of her French-laced directives to her children.
Hailey hadn’t thought about any of that much, since. It wasn’t smart for her to be too close to anyone. It was too dangerous for her disguise. But…it was there, between them. Those long nights, quiet and intimate.
A few minutes later, he said, “Word is, you keep secrets like a tomb. Besides, I know you wouldn’t tell anyone. You’re a good fellow, Hailey.”
There wasn’t any answer to be made to that, but she could tell there was more coming. She stopped and leaned against the trench’s slanted wall, removing her cap and wiping her forehead. Now would be a good time for a drink of water.
Southey leaned next to her and held out his canteen. “I’ve tea in mine.”
It wasn’t the least like the tea she fantasized about. The tea was stone cold and tasted nastily of metal. All her limbs perked up and saluted as the liquid rushed down her throat. Hailey sighed and handed back the canteen. “That puts life in you,” she said.
Southey drank, too. “Used to like mine with sugar and milk, warm the pot beforehand, all that rot.”
Hailey dug into her tunic pocket. “Nut-milk choc?”
“Hell, yes!” Around a mouthful of partially-melted chocolate, Southey said, “Thanks.”
She waited. He said nothing else, and she couldn’t read his expression. Whatever he had to say, it looked like it could wait. “We’d better get going,” Hailey said.
By the time they reached Z3, it was full dark. Captain Meyer had told Hailey to hole up there with Southey if necessary, because it was one thing to be out at night with a work detail, but quite another to be out in the dark, in the midst of the nightly bombardment, alone.
Early spring in France was chilly. At night, it was cold. She and Southey both carried blankets, but didn’t have groundsheets, which were more difficult to carry in the narrow confines of the trenches. That turned out to be a mistake, when the rain started.
“Bloody. Fucking. Hell,” Southey said, each word shaken loose with a new shiver.
He and Hailey had been dozing back to back, both blankets thrown atop for more warmth. The rain wasn’t so bad at first; the tightly-woven wool of their blankets protected their bodies, and both had long ago learned how to use their caps to keep the rain off their faces. They’d scrambled to sheathe their rifles in oilcloth covers, then once again attempted to sleep.
An unfinished support trench was not a comfortable billet at the best of times. There were no duckboards as yet, nor wooden revetments to keep the sides from collapse, should the miserable rain turn into something worse. Steady streams of cold water flowed down the sides of the trench and pooled in the bottom where they lay, making puddles of sticky mud in all the worst places.
Hailey shook so hard she could barely keep a grip on the blankets. Cursing steadily, Southey lifted the soggy blankets, turned over and gathered her into his arms. Which were also cold and soggy. He flung one leg over both of hers and dragged her even closer. “Might as well share the wet,” he said.
His breath felt hot on the back of her head, where her hair was clipped close; she shivered harder, wishing she could spread his heat all the way down to her toes. His arms were comforting, holding her tightly enough that she could feel the movement of his breathing against her aching back muscles. Slowly, some of his warmth soaked through all their layers of wet cloth. The weight of his leg across hers carried all sorts of pleasant memories of lying in bed after a fuck.
She ought to have been reminded of being in bed with Daglish and Meyer, on her most recent leave. Instead, she remembered being in Rob’s arms, in the rooming house where they’d stayed before he shipped out to India that last time, before he’d been killed. He’d been so warm. She’d felt so safe. He’d known her in a way no one could know her now. He’d loved the person she was, the woman she was, no matter what she wore.
The shelling stopped. She held her breath, waiting for it to start again. That was always the worst, waiting for the crash, maybe on your head. The silence was shocking, even to her slightly numbed ears; she could hear men’s voices, far away and indistinct, a lorry’s engine, very faint, and the shimmery rattle of a dropped roll of wire out in No Man’s Land. She shuddered with cold, tried to hold still, shuddered again.
“All right?” Southey said, softly.
“Yeah.”
“Sure?”
Rob had been able to tell, when she was angry or upset but trying not to show it. And why did she keep thinking of him? He was dead. Nothing to be done about it. Southey didn’t know her like that. He didn’t even know she was a woman, nor did he know she wanted him. He had no idea his arm wa
s squashed against her breasts. He wouldn’t think it meant anything in particular that she could feel, through several layers of clothes, just a hint of his cock on the back of her thigh. Except she was probably imagining that part.
She wished they were naked. Not here, and naked, and pressed tightly together just because they wanted to be.
Southey said, still in a voice that would not carry, “You can tell me to let go.”
“No!”
“I don’t want you to think—”
She broke in. “We’re just cold, is all.”
“I won’t tell anyone.”
Her blood froze. “What?”
“About you and the Lieutenant. It’s all right. I won’t tell.”
She felt even colder than before. “What about me and Daglish?”
“Nothing. Never mind.” She was shaking again. Southey clutched her more tightly. “I won’t tell anyone. I truly won’t. My uncle is like that, and one of my brothers, and two of my cousins. Daglish is a good honest fellow, and I know what it’s like for them. I would never—”
“Why are you—”
“I wanted you to know. I’m sorry, but I’m not like that. That time with Mason, it was just once, you know? We needed…I mean, if you really wanted to, to warm up, we could, but…I didn’t want you to think I was like that. It wouldn’t last. Couldn’t last.”
She wasn’t sure whether to laugh or cry. She struggled free of his grip, turned over and cuddled her face into his neck, working her leg in between his, sliding her icy hands underneath his arms. “Go to sleep,” she said.
* * *
A week later, Hailey, Meyer and Daglish were all on leave. Hailey determined to stop thinking about Southey. It was hopeless to dream about what they might have had together, if her life had been different. She needed to pay attention to the birds she had in her hand.
The concierge of the posh Paris hotel sniffed a little at three British soldiers, straight from the Front and smelling like it, but thawed rapidly once Captain Meyer brought out hard currency. Loitering in the shiny lobby with Lieutenant Daglish, Hailey suppressed a smirk at the byplay; how much snobbier would the concierge be if he knew one of the three soldiers was a woman in disguise!
Then the words sank in. Meyer was getting them a suite, at the top of the hotel. Though the three of them had been on leave together before, they’d never had such fancy accommodations, with a shower-bath actually in with the bedrooms, instead of a shared one down the hall.
Daglish cast a glance at Meyer, and they exchanged silent communication. Hailey wasn’t sure what that was about, but didn’t get a chance to ask. Daglish nudged their foul rucksacks toward the uniformed boy to carry, and before Hailey could speak, Meyer had joined them and they were all in the gold-leaf-encrusted lift, heading up and up.
In the lift, no one spoke, but Meyer and Daglish looked at each other, smiles showing in their eyes. Hailey looked down at the floor of the lift. It was marble. Marble!
Meyer gave the luggage boy a large tip, and then the door—white paint trimmed in more gold—closed and the three of them stood in a sort of sitting room. It connected two bedrooms with the biggest bath Hailey had ever seen, with a shower-bath and a huge tub and a thronelike toilet and a bidet and a double sink with gold fixtures. The furniture out here was all old-fashioned French style, white and gold with lots of curlicues and satiny seat cushions, like nothing she’d ever seen before. There was a chaise with striped cushions, electric lamps with fringed shades, and a fireplace, even though the hotel clearly had steam heat as well. A vase of fresh flowers stood on a gilt table by the window, hothouse flowers, some of which she didn’t even recognize.
Slender, elegant Meyer, with his golden hair, finely-drawn features and beautifully tailored uniform, looked as if he belonged here, even though he was just as filthy as the rest of them. Their mucky boots sank into carpet as deep as Hailey’s fingers were long.
“Boots,” she said. There didn’t seem to be anywhere to sit down, not without leaving smears of spring mud on the upholstery. “I’m for the bath.”
Daglish grinned at her, broad and white in his round, cheerful face. He was broad-shouldered and muscular, with a crop of dark curls that made him look boyish. “Not alone, you’re not!”
Hailey dodged, but she wasn’t quick enough. He seized her around the middle and swept her into the air. She grabbed for his neck in self-defense and gasped out, “Careful! We can’t go rolling on the carpet in all our dirt!”
Daglish grinned and kissed her, dirt and all.
“Then we’ll get shed of our dirt,” Meyer said. He removed his specs, started to polish them on his sleeve, then decided against it. “I’ll wash your hair for you, Isobel.”
Relaxing into Daglish’s strong arms, she said, “You don’t have to.”
“I want to.”
Hailey wasn’t sure what to make of all this focus on her. True, the three of them had been lovers, and were about to be lovers again. But she knew it was different for Meyer and Daglish, and usually that showed when they were together. Daglish, especially, didn’t have much sexual interest in women, while she was sure his feelings for Meyer were deeper than even Meyer suspected. Meyer liked women as well as men; but while she and Meyer shared a healthy sexual attraction, she didn’t have the feelings for him she’d shared with Rob.
Beautiful as Meyer was, he wasn’t her sort. Not because he was a Jew, but because he’d been raised in a house that likely could have held a dozen of the bedsit Hailey’s family lived in, and been educated at a foreign conservatory, and didn’t depend on his army salary for living expenses. Daglish’s family wasn’t as posh, but he and his sister both had been to university, something Hailey could never hope for, even if she’d been a man.
The one thing they did have in common was they all knew what it was to hide. Meyer and Daglish concealed their sexual desires. Hailey sometimes wondered if she was luckier just to be hiding her sex. She could always, after all, put on women’s garb and vanish from the war. Except she’d likely have to work herself to death on a woman’s salary, if she didn’t go demented, now she’d got used to being a man with a man’s freedoms.
She shoved all those thoughts aside when Daglish set her gently on her feet in the bathroom. If she’d learned one thing from the war, it was to take your pleasure where you found it, and not to let worries distract you from the opportunity.
The room didn’t seem so large with all three of them in it. Meyer sat on the edge of the big lion-footed tub and started yanking at his tall officer’s boots. “Let me,” Hailey said. She dropped to her knees on the thick rug. Back at the Front, she served as Meyer’s batman, and was accustomed to taking care of his clothing, but on their secret leaves, she got a bit of a thrill from doing the same things.
Daglish took Meyer’s sidearm and his own, slipping out to put them away. Hailey ran her hand over Meyer’s calf before she worked his boot off. She sat back on her heels, looking up at him. “I reckon this place has its own bootboy,” she said.
“We’ll put them outside the door and they’ll be polished up in the morning, like magic,” he said. “You’re on leave, too.”
She bent to his other boot. “I like the boots,” she said, then cast a wicked glance up at him. “I want to take off Daglish’s boots, too.”
“Who’s going to take off your boots, Isobel?” His expression was much more serious than the question warranted.
A little alarmed, she removed her
cap, tossing it towards the laundry hamper to give herself time to think. Her hair felt stiff when she ran her hand through it, but less itchy without the wool cap. “You can flip for it,” she said, at last. “But you don’t have to take special care of me, either of you. I can take care of myself.” If she repeated that enough times, perhaps he would one day believe her.
By the time Daglish came back, she and Meyer were both down to their wool underthings. She took care of Daglish’s boots; Meyer finished stripping and put his specs back on to peer at the bath oils lined up on a shelf. “What shall we have, Crispin? Isobel? We’ve lavender, rose, iris, mentholated—”
“Lavender,” Hailey said. “It’s a nice clean smell. We none of us are the sort for roses.”
Meyer started the bath and a fresh scent billowed up. “Hurry up,” Hailey said to Daglish, grabbing for the fall of his uniform trousers while he got his tunic off. “We can fit at least two of us in that shower-bath before we have a soak.”
“Forgot the cresol-soap,” Meyer said. He ducked out to get it from Hailey’s rucksack. The cresol would kill any lice they might be harboring from the trenches.
Daglish tossed his drawers into the hamper. He had a strong frame and a solid arse that Hailey loved to look at, though her usual taste ran more to slender blonds like Meyer and Southey. And…she shouldn’t be thinking of him right now.
Reveling in her freedom to touch, she stroked her fingers through the curly dark hair on Daglish’s chest while he set to unwinding the bindings over her breasts. He said, questioning, “Meyer likes to do this.”
“Your hands are nice, too,” she replied. Soothing, if truth be told. She covered his hands with her own, her breath easing out as his cool palms pressed into her warm flesh. Her nipples prickled and came alive. “You don’t mind, do you?”
Daglish bit his lip. He was looking into her face, not down at their hands. “It’s you, Bob. Isobel. I don’t know that I’d do this for any other woman, but—”
Under Her Uniform Page 2