Page 12 of The Last Kiss

“Tuppence for them, then,” Dalton said when Harry didn’t answer, lips lifting into a smile.

Harry’s stomach pinched — damn him for being a fool — and he looked away, back to the pond. “Just thinking, the last time you and I shared a meal was in the support line, that night when Taff was trying to teach us his Welsh song. Remember? How did it go? My hair n’ wool...”

Dalton laughed. “Mae hen wlad fy… and then something. I don’t recall it all.”

“Aye, you got it right. Course you did.” Quick as a flash was Captain Dalton — spoke French, German and Spanish. Welsh too, apparently. “You and Taff were singing so loud we thought bloody Fritz would come over and tell you to give it a rest.”

“Taff has a fine voice,” Dalton said. “Have you heard from him?”

“Only that he’s got another nipper on the way. Doing his patriotic duty to restock the population, he says.”

Dalton smiled, although it was a melancholy expression. “Sounds like Taff. I’m glad he made it. He was so fond of his wife, kept all her letters. Carried them everywhere, remember?”

“Aye.” Harry glanced back over the water, thinking of his own letters kept neatly in the captain’s book. “Lucky blighter to have her.”

Silence fell save the hush of the wind through the leaves, the chirping of moorhens. Dalton shifted his leg and sat up a little straighter. “How about you, West? Do you have someone? A…a girl, I mean.”

“Me? Nah.” He’d said that too fast. “I mean, I ain’t really in a position to go courting.”

“But if you were? Is there someone on the horizon?”

Harry daren’t look at him, afraid he might see the truth. “Not likely.” With the airless dread he’d feel approaching a live shell, he added, “And yourself?”

“Well…” Dalton sighed and Harry felt a ridiculous clench in the pit of his stomach. “My parents would like me to marry Olive Allen — the young lady you saw earlier — but, frankly, it’s the last thing I want to do.”

Which wasn’t, Harry noted, the same as saying it was the last thing hewoulddo. He knew what these toffs were like, marrying for money and family connections, and felt a flare of anger. It was that kind of nonsense that had got them into the bloody war in the first place, toffs and their family ties and disastrous alliances. He might have said as much once, and the words were on the tip of his tongue, but then he remembered that Dalton was his employer now and he’d better keep his trap shut. Irritated by the thought, he said, “Perhaps you could show me the stables.” It came out sharper than he’d have liked, and Dalton turned a quizzical eye on him. “I mean, if it’s convenient. Sir.”

“Well you can cut that out, for a start.”

“Cut what out?”

“That ‘sir’ business. I’m not your commanding officer now, West. In case you hadn’t noticed.”

Harry lifted an eyebrow. “Youaremy employer, though.”

“Well, bugger that too.” Irritably, Dalton began packing their cups back into his knapsack. “We’re friends before anything else.”

“Yeah, but — No wait.” Dalton was already trying to interject. “You have to admit things are different now we’re home. Well,notdifferent. That’s the point. Things are the same as they were before the war and we can’t — ”

“No they b-b-bloody well aren’t!” Dalton glared at him, dark eyes snapping. “Do you really think so, West? D-do you think anything can ever b-be the same as it was before the war? Because I bloody well don’t. I c-c-can’t stand all this nonsense. Why can’t we be friends? Who says we c-can’t be friends, for Christ’s sake?”

“Your father and mother. There’s two for starters.”

Dalton’s lips pressed together. “And what d-do they know about anything? What d-do any of themknow? Christ.” His hand, holding the strap of the knapsack, was rigid, white knuckles clenching around the canvas. His whole body had tensed, face white bar a spot of furious pink on each cheek.

“You’re right,” Harry said evenly, feeling his earlier irritation fade, replaced by a pulse of concern. Dalton had always been on the nervy side, but Harry had never seen him angry. “I mean,Ithink you’re right. We who were there, we know, don’t we?”

“Yes,” Dalton said thinly. “Christ, they were happy enough for us to die together b-but God forbid wedinetogether.”

Harry smiled, reached out slowly, as if toward a spitting cat, and took Dalton’s hand. His fingers felt cold and stiff. Harry squeezed them. “You’re right. Wearefriends. I didn’t mean to say we weren’t, it’s just… I dunno. It’s different, back home. People don’t understand. It’s like we don’t fit no more.”

Dalton nodded and beneath Harry’s hand he turned his own over, threading their fingers together. “We d-don’t fit. That’s it exactly.” He hesitated, then in a lower voice said, “B-but we fit together, you and I.”

Harry swallowed. He’d never been quite sure about the captain, never dared push his luck in that direction. It hadn’t been worth the risk in the army, but now he saw a question in Dalton’s eyes and couldn’t look away. “Aye, we do,” he said, voice rasping across the edges of things unsaid. “We’ve seen the world through different lenses. We’ve seen what men really are, underneath all this, and it’s changed us.”

Dalton’s eyes widened and then he relaxed, his colour improving. “God, I’m glad you’re here. It’s been b-bloody awful, these last months.”

“Funny, isn’t it?” Harry squeezed his hand. “Sometimes I feel like coming home’s been harder than the sodding war.”

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