Page 91 of Crocodile Tears

He bought a juicy bone for Hattie on a raft so ramshackle it looked more like driftwood and found a book on Pre-R cars for Captain Hunt on a barge crammed full of old books.

As night fell, they stopped shopping and went looking for something else, ending up at the red barge with the loud music, as Hunt had predicted. Josiah peeked inside to see a gaudily decorated bar with men and women dancing, kissing, and pairing off in dark corners.

“This place isn’t for me,” he said as they jostled to join the queue at the entrance.

“Knew it! You owe me five hundred quid, Banksy,” Big Jen crowed. “You need that one, Sarge.” She jerked her head at a blue barge with a rooster painted on the side.

Josiah lined up at the blue barge, paid a handful of coins to get in, and entered a dimly lit bar. It was much like the other one, except that in here men were dancing with men. Josiah paused for a moment as he realised that Hunt knew he was gay. He’d always been very private about his personal life, but it seemed his captain knew him better than he’d have expected.

After ordering a drink, he stood at the bar, looking around. His gaze met that of a young man around twenty years old, with curly black hair and soulful dark eyes, dressed in tight jeans and a plain white tee-shirt. Josiah looked away and then looked back again to find the pretty boy still gazing at him. He smiled, and the boy came over.

“Hey, big blond boy. I am Yannis,” he said, in an accent Josiah couldn’t place. Yannis looked Mediterranean; his skin was goldenbrown and his dark hair was oiled so that it glistened in the orange glow from the barge lamps.

“Josiah,” he replied as they shook hands. He bought two more drinks, one for himself and one for Yannis. “You’re a long way from home, aren’t you?” he said, by way of conversation. It had been a long time since he’d last tried to pick up a man in a bar, and he’d never been good at it.

“Where is home these days?” Yannis shrugged. “We are all nomads now. You, also, are not from these parts. You are English, yes?”

“Yes.”

“A soldier with the aid convoy? I can always tell the soldier boys.”

“Yeah.”

“Have you visited Lastkahn Ghetto before?”

“No.”

“What do you think of it?” Yannis grinned at him over the top of his glass.

“I love it.” Josiah grinned back. “I’ve hardly seen any of it, though, just the market area. It goes on for miles.”

“It does.” Yannis nodded proudly. “I live right on the edge. I share a barge with my brother; we trade with the local farmers. Would you like to see?”

Josiah hesitated. LKG was notorious for crime; there was no police, no army, and no rule of law in this place. Every morning they stacked up the dead bodies on the shore to be claimed by anyone who knew them – the leftovers were burned at the end of the day. Yet he could handle himself in a fight, and he’d brought his knife with him, in case of trouble. Wasn’t there always a part of him hoping to walk into a fight anyway?

“Okay. Yes.” He grinned, feeling reckless. Yannis took his hand and led him back on deck.

If LKG was busy and colourful during the day, it was even more raucous at night. Music blared out, people lurched drunkenly from barge to barge, and everywhere Josiah looked people were laughing, drinking, getting high, and fucking.

Next to their barge was a green one with a big black cat on the side, its clientele made up entirely of women, smooching and dancingwith each other. A rooster and a cat. Josiah laughed; the citizens of LKG clearly had a sense of humour.

Yannis grinned at him, his white teeth gleaming in the moonlight, and Josiah leaned in for a sloppy, drunken kiss. It wasn’t the best he’d ever had, but it felt good to put his hands on a pair of firm hips, to feel a warm mouth under his, and the faint scratch of stubble against his cheek. Yannis might not be Peter Hunt, but Yannis was on offer.

His new friend jumped from boat to boat with the ease of one who lived in this insane place. He stopped on each boat to pull Josiah close and kiss him, both of them laughing as they touched, becoming more and more excited as they made their way to his boat. It took a long time to reach the darker end of LKG, where people were crowded onto sleeping barges, or living under tents on rafts. Yannis and his brother shared their small craft with a curtain separating their two bunks. But tonight his brother wasn’t there, so they had the place to themselves.

“He’s out, fucking girls.” Yannis grinned, pulling Josiah down onto the bunk, on top of him.

“Does he mind you fucking boys here?” Josiah asked.

“Why would he mind? We both enjoy fucking, and at least he knows I won’t steal any of his women.”

Yannis opened Josiah’s shirt and ran his fingers over his bare chest. Then his mouth roamed gently over his body, lips brushing his skin, pressing little kisses into his flesh.

He went lower, and Josiah threw back his head, gazing blankly at the roof of the barge.

How long had Hunt known he was gay? Was there a possibility that Hunt was gay, too? Not that it mattered. He was Josiah’s commanding officer, which was a big no-no as far as romance was concerned. Besides, why would someone as charismatic as Hunt look twice at someone like him? He was his sergeant, nothing more. Hunt certainly didn’t know that Josiah was in love with him. Josiah blinked. Love? Where had that come from?

“Hey, blond boy – where are you?” Yannis asked.

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