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The aftermath of a second’s warning lay in pulverised heaps alongside the road. Another raid, only the night before and the streets Bim walked along were now full of debris, tumbling and spilling, entire buildings tipped across from pavement to pavement, meeting in the middle like mountains of a child’s building blocks. Except it lacked the smooth homogeneous comfort of a child’s toy, there was plaster and paper and gore and dirt and from it all smoke still puffing up in pretty, acrid clouds.Here and there a twist of blackened metal arched out of a mountain of rubble like a broken arm. People were already standing on the heaps of brick, pulling and throwing, stoic and ineffectual. It was everywhere, on every street, especially by the docks. Here, someone had spent the night in hope and mid-way through been blasted to oblivion. And it could happen now, as Bim walked by. They were all touched by it, it spared no one. He could be there breathing, and a moment later, buried. Well, it was too light, the bombers would have to wait for night time for a chance. And later, as the dusk fell, he too would climb in, as he had every time, and know that he would be doing the very same to someone else.It was still summer. Every morning as the dawn broke there was a moment of amnesia, filling the line between sleep and wakefulness. You could perhaps forget, in the warmth of the heat and the morning’s rosy light, only for a second of course, because then life started as the dawn broke and those left behind got on with everything. For Bim, who spent half the nights in the sky, he had barely slept a full night for months, the line had long since been blurred. He’d just got back from a sortie, they’d lost two of the group and instead of finding a bed, he’d walked out of the base and through the town.The sweet early morning air blew across the harbour, the ground was still wet with the vanishing dew and for a few moments it could be any day, any day before. But the air was as sweet as the stench of corpses and the ground as wet as blood. Bim had long since lost the ability to forget, he could see death in the shape of a cloud or the glint of the sun on a dusty window.He walked towards the harbour wall and saw him in the distance by the bridge. He had seen Ralph Lanyon many times, at small gatherings, always in someone or other’s pokey flat. And they’d met at parties, both playing their parts, fuelled by alcohol and the aphrodisiac of close proximity within a public place. Yet they’d always been too many people around and they had never once been alone together. He had his back turned, yet Bim could recognise the set of his shoulders and knew.“Ralph,” he was beside him as the other swung round.“Bim.” For a moment Bim was sure that he caught an unguarded look in Ralph’s eye. He was used to the appraising eye of another but recognised this for what it was, not interest but a raw sorrow and exhaustion, quickly suppressed.But Ralph smiled at him as Bim came to stand by his side and settled for platitudes, “Shame it’s too early for one,” he said and tipped his head back. “Should’ve brought a flask.”“Dear God, how vulgar,” Bim settled too, it was always easier this way. “You’ve come from the station? What are they thinking letting you stroll about at this hour? They must be terribly at a loose end.” He shot his cuffs and looked at Ralph questioningly.“I’ve had my watch, I was on my way back. Shouldn’t you be somewhere else?”“Oh, do you think we’re being naughty? I do hope so.”Ralph ignored him and said, “You must be tired?”Bim sensed pity and he drew his head back a little. “Goodness, no, they see to that. I’ve forgotten what tired feels like.” He sighed, “though it does have the most excruciating effect on one’s libido, my dear.” He extracted a small bottle and shook it, “care for one?”“I don’t need that to keep me awake these days,” Ralph looked down at the bottle.“Ah, well, one of these,” Bim smiled, a curiously unaffected grin and seemed for a moment just a young boy, but quickly, resuming his usual voice he added, “and you’d be flying without wings.” He tapped one into his palm and threw it back.“Careful,” Ralph caught his eye.“Don’t be boring. What do you care, anyway?”“Oh, I don’t. I just don’t want to be the one to have to drag you back to base in some godawful state.”“You needn’t worry, I’m terribly discreet.” He caught Ralph’s eye again, “or so I’ve often been told.”“Discreet?” Ralph had to smile.“Yes, back home they were always saying, is he so? I can’t believe it!”“Funny,”“Oh, I had them eating out of the palm of my hand last year at the Savoy,” Ralph looked uncertain. “Yes, I had to fight them off. I’d say, come now, I won’t have a scene. Oh, when this war’s over, remind me to take you there.” He stopped and looked over at Ralph, “Much as I adore talking about me, let’s talk about you.” He put his head on one side.“What?” Ralph’s mouth turned up a little, “Say it.”“Oh, I was just thinking how that white cap does simply nothing for you,” he gave him a bright look, “and that you look dreadfully washed out.”“Look around you, can you see better?”Bim leant back against the wall, watching the stretcher bearers in the distance standing around solemnly and a woman and a child embracing in silence. “Well, perhaps not, but what I want to know, is what you were like before. Tell.”“Why should you want to know about me? It can’t make the slightest difference.”“Don’t tell me then, I’ll guess. Head of school, flying colours, Cambridge, the bloody war got in the way of it all.”“If you like.” Ralph tipped his cap and pushed his hair back.“That’s better,” Bim flicked his hand across Ralph’s temple and let it drop. The sun caught the glint of platinum on his identity bracelet.Ralph touched it briefly, “B T Taylor 187289 R.A.F,” he read, looking down.Bim turned his wrist upwards and pulled at the bracelet, casting an admiring eye, “Well, it may as well be pretty, assuming they’d be anything left of it when I go down.”“Better not to think like that.” Ralph felt in his pocket for his cigarettes. “Here, have one.”Bim took one, raising his eyes theatrically, “Oh, but what a mad waste of a good piece that would be!”“Oh stop,” said Ralph, his voice suddenly weary.“Dearest,” Bim lit his cigarette, then he said abruptly with a different voice, “you mustn’t take it to heart so. We’re all buggered, whether it’s today or tomorrow.”Ralph placed a hand on his arm. Bim looked down at the hand, still in its glove, “Well, don’t lead me on, dear,” he said gaily as Ralph removed it swiftly, “unless you intend to follow through.” He added more quietly, “You always wear it?”“Oh, well, I suppose so.”“To spare others or yourself?” Bim caught his eye.Ralph looked away towards the bridge, “Well, it shouldn’t matter but it does.”“I’ve seen worse, men with their faces positively melted off.”“I know.” They stood in silence for a while. Ralph shifted his weight and leant against the wall, forearms bent, hands clasped, “Was it a bad one last night?” He didn’t look round.“Oh, they’re dropping like flies.” Bim kept his face immobile, there was little left in him to sustain his nonchalance, but he tried for it every time. He thought of Craven and Richards, the trail of flame as it descended, soundless until the thud, and the soft bloom of fire like a flower unfurling. “Two down last night,” Bim hadn’t meant to talk but when it came to it there was nothing to stop him, “and they’re the lucky boys.”“I’m sorry,” Ralph held his gaze for a moment.“Well, all the more benny for me.” Bim looked away and took a drag of his cigarette. “And I’m whole, look, not a graze on me. Inside though, you wouldn’t want to see. It’s truly hideous, my dear,” he threw back his head, but his laugh came out a little awkwardly. “A scrambled mess,” he shook his head, “to think what I was like before.”They smoked in silence for a while and across the harbour the sun rose.Bim took another drag of his cigarette and then ground it underfoot, “You’re quite the shy boy, aren’t you?” He turned back towards Ralph, arm propped on the harbour wall as if they had just met at the counter of a local.“Christ, no!” Ralph looked at him and smiled, not entirely forced, “anyway, I’m older than you, I’d bet, ’14?”“Oh, must you always compete?” said Bim, but he smiled back.“What is it then?“I shouldn’t think that you like being alone with people much, do you?” He leaned in conspiratorially, “I’m not going to make a pass at you,” he said as Ralph looked amused, “though we could just pop off behind the bridge and…”Ralph laughed, an unusually harsh sound and Bim watched him, “I’m sure we’d all kill for a quick fuck, dear. No strings. You’d be mad to turn it down, but oh, love, now that’s another thing.”“Oh, I’m over all that. There’s nothing that I want.” Ralph examined his cigarette carefully and added, “and nobody.”“Really?” Bim thought back to Bunny’s feverish confidences. He opened his mouth but changed his mind, “I’d expect not, there’s no point wanting with such stakes against us each night. There’s a war on, don’t you know?” He tried to sound flippant, elevating his voice to its more customary tone, but it came out flat. He felt that his nerves were being pulled about under his skin. He would go down, like Craven and Richards and the others, and turn from flesh to ash. And now there was so little in between.“Can we ever forget it?” Ralph looked at him for a moment.Bim didn’t have to answer and the silence sat between them. “D’you know,” he said finally, “this is the absolute first time we’ve met when you haven’t been up to your eyeballs in it.”“I’ll have a few later.” Ralph said stiffly.“Yes, do. I‘d hate to think that you were never really enjoying yourself. Or giving happiness a stab.”Ralph was very still. Eventually he lifted his cigarette to his mouth, “I’d better go,” he said, “It’s my watch later. I’ve things to see to first.”“Yes. There’s so little time, isn’t there?”Ralph seemed to understand. “You know it.”Bim took in Ralph’s eyes, still squinting a little into the sun, the clear brown skin, the pale white line above his brow. He leant forward slightly, there was nobody around, and pressed his mouth to Ralph’s cheek. The cheek was warm and his skin felt soft against Bim’s lips. They stood still for a second and neither said a word, it was only the fleeting contact of two people on the borders of life.But Bim moved away as if the touch would burn them up, “Well my dear,” he said, “I’d better be off before you ask to make an honest woman of me.” He turned away.“God bless,” said Ralph although it didn’t seem enough.