The proprietor came hurrying, flexing every crease in his blue suit. The business of paying went more smoothly than I; had expected. It appeared that Jock had some money, after all. As he settled up, the manager called a boy to run round to the brothel and announce our coming.

'Come on round with us, man - n.o.body will pocket the silver!'

'No, no, I must decline. You go and enjoy the girls.'

The girls? No' a one under fifty! I'll watch it I don't get stuck into your daughter or the teeth will be rotting out of my head in a week!' With such pleasantries, we staggered down the stairs and into the street.

'You friend very funny man!' the proprietor said, flashing a golden smile on Di and me. He ducked back into the hotel and closed the door.

We were surrounded by touts and ponces, all calling to us. The urchin dispatched to the brothel had undoubtedly called our business loudly down the street, and now every pimp in town was out to waylay us.

'Dear Lord, but it's a terrible depraved country!' Di exclaimed, making a lot of his clicking noises, as bargain bunk-ups were pressed on us from all sides. 'If my poor missus could see me now, she'd throw herself down the nearest well!'

'If mine were here, we could all have a free bash!' Jock roared, striking out at the nearest ponces.

The brothel was only a few houses down from the hotel. Full of excitement and anxiety, I followed the other two in through its battered double doors. A mournful old man sitting in a dim vestibule pointed upstairs. Up we went, Jock first, then Di, then I, our boots clumping on the bare stairway. With my face almost in Di's a.r.s.e, I nevertheless saw visions of l.u.s.trous naked maidens.

Dim lighting revealed a landing with a corridor off it. The landing had been converted into a sort of two-woman laundry. Cramped into small s.p.a.ce, two old crones sat on the floor repairing sheets. Most of the illumination came from a street-light hanging outside the window. Another old crone appeared and nodded at us.

'h.e.l.lo there, gran! What do you do? Gobble? Where are the birds? We want three as are fit enough to stand a gude shafting.'

We became involved in a haggle. The rules of the house seemed to dictate that we did not even see the girls until we had paid something. Then it would be ten rupees each, short time. Jock argued fiercely against this arrangement; I grew impatient with him, and would have paid; but eventually he won the day, and we pushed forward to the corridor. Jock flung open the first door.

I pressed for a look in over his shoulder.

'Christ, you randy b.u.g.g.e.r! Don't crowd me! This is my choice - try your luck in one of the other doors!'

As I pa.s.sed on, he cried, 'Come out, you bag, and let Jock have a shufti at you!'

As my eyes grew used to the gloom, I saw that the other doors were all open, or at least ajar. Eyes were watching us. At the end of the corridor, a man was lurking. Of course, he could have been another customer. A fear of being knifed rose in me. I remembered - now of all times - that there had been riots in Indore only the month before.

Still, here we were. My visions had yielded to a sordid and ill-smelling reality, but here we were, and Di was pushing into another door, so I also went forward.

It was extremely dark. The first thing I made out was that all the corridor doors opened into the same long room, which was divided by curtains. Standing up, I could see over the top of the curtains. The only light came from outside, a yellow light sliding obliquely through filthy panes. Ahead of me was a bed covered by dark bedding. Joss sticks were burning, filling the air with drowsy smoke. A girl stood by the door, and thus almost against me.

'h.e.l.lo, sweetheart!' she said.

'h.e.l.lo! What's your name?'

'h.e.l.lo, sweetheart. You like jig-jig?'

'That's the idea. Let's look at you first.' I took hold of her shoulder and tried to lead her over to the ray of light. She said something - she spoke almost no English. All we had in common was the word, the call-sign, 'jig-jig'. Di and Jock were going through the same routine close by on either side of me.

I heard Jock's voice roaring away. 'Qch, girl, let's have a f.u.c.king dekko at your clock. Stand b.l.o.o.d.y still, will you? I'm no' going to hurt you, not unless you keep wriggling about.' He struck a match. Good idea, I thought.

When I struck a match, I saw that one of the old crones from the landing had followed me in and now stood close behind me, waiting. I took in the filth on the ceiling, the tears in the part.i.tion-curtaining, and then I turned to my beauty. She put her hand up to her face. The match, being an Indian one, failed and went out.

Jock was still audible. 'Away with you, you old bag of bones, I'm no going to grind my pizzle to a point in ye! Away and fetch your grand-daughter! ... Oh, that's better... ah ... yon's no' a bad body ye have there, considering it's been around since Maf ekin...'

'How're you doing, Jock?' I called, striking another match.

'You've led me into temptation, sonny! She's an ugly old nelly, but she loves me. Besides, you don't look at the mantle-piece while you're poking the fire...'

My bibi pushed my matches away and began to cling to me. The old crone behind me was muttering advice or encouragement. The girl started to feel my b.a.l.l.s, trying at the same time to get me down on the bed. I imagined it swarming with bedbugs and resisted, angry but at the same time increasingly excited.

She had my flies open and was now tugging at my tool in a fairly urgent way. This had no effect, since I could feel how gnarled her hand was. I was convinced she was a century old. Disgust and l.u.s.t struggled in me. l.u.s.t was winning by a short head, my tool was stirring in blind response to treatment, when the old crone by the door misjudged her moment and came forward to sell me a French letter for two rupees.

'f.u.c.k off, you ancient wh.o.r.e!' I roared and she retreated without argument. I stood there unresisting, letting the bibi try to rouse my reluctant member, and listening to what Di . was doing.

It sounded to me as if he was already on the job, having his bunk-up, as he called it. He was making clicking noises with his tongue, as if disapproving of his own activities. What a man! It was hard to visualize that inch of candle -now no doubt stretched to three inches - working away in some greasy groove; equally, it was difficult to imagine the quiet G.o.d-fearing Di Jones in a posture so different from the one he a.s.sumed in Bethesda every Sunday at home. s.e.x was the most amazing activity!

Unlikely though it seemed, I now had a hard-on: seven-and-a-half inches of broad-minded gristle. I sat on the fearful bed. The woman started to fawn over me. There was no question of being able to establish any sort of communication with her. We should never discover twin souls in each other's eyes. Stiff as my p.r.i.c.k was, the rest of my flesh crawled with disgust at her touch.

I was still resolved to see her. I struck another match and grabbed her wrist before she could put her hand to her face -in a gesture of shame?

'Look at me, you b.i.t.c.h!' She turned her head away. I twisted her wrist. With a silent cry, she looked cringingly at me, over the flame of the match.

She was not young. Nor was she ancient. She was not pretty. Her face was puffy and shapeless, appearing yellow in the light of the flame. Her hair was done into pigtails. Her teeth looked good. On her upper lip were the first lashes of a putative moustache. She stared at me with an unfathomable expression, and then the match went out.

What had I been expecting a moment before? Horror or beauty? Only half-aware of what was happening, I let her press me back on to the bed: it was the best way to avoid being kissed by her, something I very much wanted to avoid. The sounds of Di, the roar of Jock, came to me, as I submitted to this treatment. The crone was standing closer, sod her guts, still b.l.o.o.d.y muttering instructions.

My bibi - my bibi, already worn and degraded by hundreds of foul drink-and pox-ridden sods! - swarmed over me, reaching up to stroke my hair and undo my shirt b.u.t.tons, to stroke my chest and feel into my armpit.

'There's no f.u.c.king money up there,' I told her. 'Get on with it, d.a.m.n you!'

My c.o.c.k was in no state of indecision. It gave a throb as it felt her breath, her poisonous breath, on it.

Its k.n.o.b swelled, and it was engulfed by her lips, raked deliciously along the rough palate of her mouth and brought to rest luxuriously against her epiglottis* Her teeth and her tongue teased it. You had to say that for the b.l.o.o.d.y woman: she was practised at her trade. I sprawled there, staring down at her dark anonymous head as she worked the trick.

A little later, we were staggering back down the street, singing loudly, and laughing to think of the bollicking we were going to give Ali b.u.g.g.e.r-Off when we got back to Jock's truck.

We did an hour's square-bashing after parade next morning. My years at public school had taught me quick responses and slavish obedience, if nothing else, so that I usually avoided trouble. This morning, I was in trouble all the time, constantly being bawled out by Sergeant Meadows.

On the one hand, I was vexed and disappointed that the contact with the bibi had been so commercial, so perfunctory - why, I had not even seen or touched her s.n.a.t.c.h; on the other hand, I had been gobbled for the first time in my life, an undoubted step towards maturity. On the one hand, that gobble had been so debasing: the hunching of her body over my belly had expressed degradation in every line, and so I also had been degraded; on the other hand, wow, the sheer sensation of it as her tongue had teased the last jolt of power from my nerves - hadn't I been so abandoned that I had buried my face in the stinking blanket?

It had all been so killingly mercenary! I was still groaning when the old hag was demanding paisa from me. Jock had a haggle over money, claiming he was being charged too much. And as I emerged on to the landing, four drunken British squaddies - not from the Mendips - were getting ready to take our places, as if it was a fish-and-chip queue.

What could have been more squalid? And yet part of me was thrilled, privileged, to be part of such degradation. For wasn't this what went on over most of the globe - not in England, maybe, but almost everywhere else? As Di Jones put it, 'You couldn't explain to anyone at home what conditions is like out here.'

Squalid as it had been, it had been something else besides. A vile disappointment, yes - yet I was moved by the memory of that plain face lit by match-flame, so close to me, so defenceless! It plagued me that I could never know anything more about her, how she lived, how she suffered, where she had been born, how she had come to this dreary pa.s.s, shut in a stuffy room, sucking as many stinking yards of c.o.c.k as came her way.

No wonder I was never in step on the parade ground that morning! I was thinking of my father, looking up at me as I jumped on to the bus platform. 'Be a good boy and don't go into any brothels' - had he really said that? And his face receding, anxious, ever anxious, as the bus rolled away down the road. Or perhaps he had said, 'Don't go emptying too many bottles.'

After parade, and one last bollicking from Charley Meadows, we were detailed for fatigues. I went over to where No. 1 Platoon, its heels up against a wall, was fallen out for a smoke, and looked out Di.

As we hung about, smoking an inch of f.a.g, he asked me quietly, 'How you doing this morning ?'

'Great! I've got a bit of a hangover and my k.n.o.b's sore, otherwise I'm smashing.'

'Be serious, Horry! You're not sorry I took you along last night?'

So his Welsh conscience was playing him up!

'Di, just between you and me, how was your bibi ?'

'How was yours?'

'Oh, okay.'

'Not a raddled old hag?'

'No - no, nothing like that. Proper little beauty, really. It was hard to be sure, but I'd say she was about eighteen or nineteen. I didn't half give her a bashing! She loved it!' I groaned to convey what rapture I had experienced. 'I'd have had another go if I'd got the cash. You got on okay, did you?'

He looked cautious. 'You got a better deal than what I did. Just my b.l.o.o.d.y luck to go through the wrong door ...' He hesitated. 'She was a bit of a raddled old hag, you'd have to say it... I was afraid of getting a dose off her. So I just -well, I sat on the edge of the bed like and just let her toss me off. It seemed safest. Don't tell old Jock, will you? He'd only laugh! And she'd got hands like sandpaper, honest she had.'

Feeling shamed by his honesty, I clapped him on the back. 'Better luck next time, Di!'

'They ought to have proper government brothels, that's what, same as the Italian Army.'

'Do the Italians have government wh.o.r.e-houses then?'

'Pukka clean places, inspected every week. Nice girls too, so I hear. Jack Aylmer was saying as Italian officers and men all go to the same brothel. Of course, they're Roman Catholic.

This fascinating conversation was brought to an end by Corporals Warren and Dutt descending on us.

Di went off on rations and I was given the job of refilling the buckets at the various fire-points round the camp.

While I was on this absorbing task, and taking as long as possible over it, I heard a piercing whistle.

Jock McGuffie was leaning out of a cookhouse window. I waved and indicated that I had a job to do.

After a while, I saw that he was coming over towards me, his face more colourless than ever in the bright sunlight. Jock began talking while he was still several yards from me.

'What, are you after promotion or something, Stubbs, bulls.h.i.tting away here in the heat? You must be kind of eager or why didn't you come on over to the cookhouse when I gave you the sign? I was scrounging a mug of char off the f.u.c.king cooks, seeing as how them wh.o.r.es robbed me of my last anna last night - not that it's what you might call anything better than dishwater, that stuff they dole out-'

'What do you expect with that sod Rusk f.u.c.king about in there?'

'Och, old Rusty's no' sae bad, considering he comes from Carlisle, of all mankey f.u.c.kin' places. At least he'll slip you an egg-b.u.t.ty now and again, which is more than you can say for yon big fat sergeant-cook. I had a mate from Paisley as had slipped his wife a length or two in his time, and he reckoned she was as fat and greasy as what n.o.bby is.'

Two minutes later, we were relaxing in the canteen over two gla.s.ses of beer, while Jock told me about a long-past feud between Sergeants Gowland and Meadows in which he had been involved.

'So b.l.o.o.d.y Gowland says, "You know you can get a long stretch in the gla.s.shouse for falling asleep on guard duty?", he says, so I says to him, "I was resting my eyes, sar'nt," I says, "and your torch dazzled me. You ask my mate Morris and he'll tell you." So he bellows for my mate Morris-'

They never put one over on you, Jock, do they?'

He stopped in mid-spate and eyed me suspiciously. 'Do you want to borrow some cash, is it? I told you, you're paying for this beer and I'll owe it to you. They're always putting it over on me - it's f.u.c.king victimization, that's what it is. If your face doesn't fit, you're in the s.h.i.t all the time, and you've got to fight back as best you can.'

'Last night was okay, wasn't it?'

'Same as any other f.u.c.king night!' He was still suspicious, and pinched one of my f.a.gs and lit it up. It was cool arid quiet in the canteen, with a buzzing fly to emphasize the silence. The sound of a squad being drilled came distantly to us.

'What was that bibi like you had ?'

'What like was she? How d'you mean, What like was she? She was good enough for a blow-through.

One woman's just the same as the f.u.c.king next as far as I'm concerned.'

He was always reticent about s.e.x. Removing his f.a.g from his mouth with a quick gesture, he changed the subject.

'Look, Stubby, lad, you know that this f.u.c.king brigade won't be in the land of the blow-through much longer.'

'How's that?'

'Christ-on-f.u.c.king-crutches! You're a bit dim this morning, aren't you? You b.l.o.o.d.y English, you live so soft your wits congeal in your thick heads! We'll be moving into action soon - straight into the f.u.c.king jungle, tangling it with the j.a.ps!'

'Sure, we came out here to fight a war, didn't we?'

He dragged despairingly on his cigarette. 'You may have done, mate - I f.u.c.king didn't!'

I gave him a laugh. 'Gome on, Jock, serving King and Country and all that!'

'Och, what's the f.u.c.king king ever done for me? I'm no' planning to stick my f.u.c.king neck out for him, I'll tell you that for free.'

'You know the rumours - since the Arakan's out, 2 Div will probably be going to a.s.sam. We've got no option.'

'Ah, b.a.l.l.s! It's a case of exercising the prerogatives. Listen to me!' He leaned forward, fixing his little sharp gaze on me. 'I'm telling you, within a week of now, this f.u.c.king shower is going to be moving east at a rate of knots, right? All except some. And who will that some be?'

'Baggage party?'

'Too f.u.c.king true! Rear baggage party. If you play your cards right, you can get on to rear baggage party.'

I looked doubtful. 'I suppose you could get on the sick list and be in hospital when the unit moved out.'

'Hospital? Hospital? Are you out of your f.u.c.king head? They'll bounce you straight into Field Ambulance. I know some of those b.l.o.o.d.y MOs in Field Ambulance - they aren't fit to be in charge of pigs. They'd bounce you right into the front line if you were dying of dysentery! No, you got to work a flanker. Och, I'll no' pretend it's easy, but there are ways. And the first thing to do is to pick your officer.'

Jock lived on a different wavelength from me. He grabbed my arm. 'You think I'm pulling your p.i.s.ser, man? Listen, pick your officer! They're f.u.c.king human, same as you, you know!'

This was rank heresy in the Army. I had it drummed into me continuously that officers were a different species, and had never had grounds for doubting it.

'I tell you they're f.u.c.king human, no matter what like the c.u.n.ts may act when we're around. Some of them wants to go to death and glory, some of them are s.h.i.tting themselves at the thought of a shot fired in anger - same as anyone. You're under s.p.u.n.k Bucket, aren't you ?'

'Who?'

'Gor-Blimey. Captain Eric Gore-Blakeley. He's one of the b.u.g.g.e.rs who doesn't mind if he boozes his whole life away miles behind the lines.' All the time we were sitting in the canteen, Jock's little ferretty eyes were rarely on me, always elsewhere - particularly on the doorway.

'How do you know all this, Jock?'

'Och, I'm a student of f.u.c.king psychology! You have to keep your eyes and ears open in this world or you get a knife in the ribs.'