Tonight was one of those nights that in the past few months Second Lieutenant Theodore Stevenson had come to describe as quiet: although when was it ever truly quiet on the Western Front? He could still hear the spasmodic rat-a-tat of distant machine gun fire; the occasional whoosh of a sniper’s bullet; and the muffled screams of agony and despair from a lone brave soldier lost in No-Man’s Land. But mostly what the lieutenant heard as he strode along the trenches at night was the gentle rhythm of a soldier’s snore or the paper-rustle of a letter either being read (and re-read) or being written.

But as the lieutenant turned the sharp bend into the next trench, what he now could hear was both unexpected and rather unfamiliar.

At first, the officer was unsure of the source of what he could hear. Was it the scurry of rats? Was it coming from a brave wounded soldier determined to smother his moans? Was it perhaps the slap of a domino onto a flat board? For these were what it sounded most like.

But it was none of these things. As the lieutenant could tell as his eyes adjusted to the gloom, the slatted walls of the trench he’d entered were lined with the shadows of squatting soldiers in the midst of which and for their fellows’ entertainment were two men actively indulging in horseplay—and such queer horseplay at that!

One man had pressed himself against the trench wall, his britches about his ankles and an arse that would be brazenly on parade to any man that wished to admire it, except that it was immediately obscured by another man’s arse, also bare, that was jerking back and forth upon it with an urgent machine-gun rhythm.

And the lieutenant was as sure as he could be that the man whose arse was most on display was giving the other (hidden) arse a right old imperial buggering.

Theo wasn’t at all sure what he should do. He’d always been aware that such horsing around went on, of course, as it had at his old public school; although not between him and his school-chums. Theo had heard tell of how a senior boy or prefect might use his prerogative to take advantage of the prettiest fags. However much Theo might have been tempted by the pleasures of such horse-play, the opportunity had never come his way before and, in any case, he was betrothed to darling Susanne: a bonny lass from Kincardineshire whose family was both well-connected and long-acquainted with his own. Although she was as prim and matronly in her youth as a woman of more senior years might be and possessed of a laugh more like that of a horse than a demure young lady, she was the lass to whom he was content to one day be able to call his own.

“Would you like a ride, sir?” asked one of the soldiers crouched in the shadow of the trench, his face lit up by the smouldering embers of his hand-rolled cigarette. His East London consonants were like gravel in the lieutenant’s ears. “I’m sure Dobby won’t mind. He’s a champion for a buggering, sir.”

“I’m not sure if I should…” Theo protested, mostly with respect to his elevated rank and class. Was it right for a man of his status to sully his member in the darker confines of an artisan’s most private orifice?

“You don’t have to worry about the rest of us, sir,” continued the soldier, gesturing towards his grinning comrades. “We none of us mind, sir. Not one bit of it. We’ve all had our turn at Dobby’s arse. And he’s had a good rogering in all of ours. We’ve all been pals a long time, so we know what’s what…”

“We do that, sir,” said another soldier squatting beside the first, face shadowed by a steel helmet and fist gripping his erect penis. “We all come from the Brickworks Lane down in Bethnal Green. When Kitchener came a-calling we all signed up together, we did. We’re the Brickworks Lane Pals and together we’re thicker than thieves …”

“…Not that any one of us is less than honest, you understand, sir,” said a third soldier whose voice grated equally as much the first two soldiers. “We all love an ale in the New Inn, followed by jellied eel and mash, and then a bit of rough and tumble afore heading back to the missis…”

“…Or the sweetheart, sir,” chimed in a fourth soldier.

“But we all relish a sausage between the cheeks or prime brown sauce on the purple crown…”

“Don’t you do also, sir?” asked the first soldier.

“Well, of course, private,” Theo said to emphasise his superior rank. “What man wouldn’t? But this is a war. We’ve got Huns to kill. Fritz could catch us all with our pants down.”

“Not before we’ve got Fritz’s bollocks between our teeth and given him the most brutal buggering a Hun could ever suffer.”

“Come on, sir,” said the first soldier. “Breezy’s just about shed his load—look at all that fertile seed he’s shed on the muddy Flemish soil!—and knowing Dobby: after only two cocks in the arse and one knob in the mouth, he’ll still be begging for a buggering.”

“Please, sir,” said Private Dobson himself who was standing to attention in front of the lieutenant with his britches removed and his penis proud and erect and bent slightly to the left. “I ain’t never had quality up my jacksie. Officer spunk is all a man needs before he clambers over the top.”

“It’d be the sending off that Dobby needs,” said the soldier known as Breezy who was now wiping a pale trail of semen off the tip of his flaccid penis. “It won’t be many more days till the next push, sir. You can’t deny Dobby a shot of best quality gentlemen’s cream.”

From the way Breezy was describing it, Theo felt that it would indeed be churlish to deny a soldier what he desired: especially when the throbbing of his erect penis was telling him that this pleasure would be shared at least equally between them. But Theo had never fucked a man before. He’d dallied with doxies and strumpets, but what man hadn’t? A few shillings was all it cost to relieve his inner tubes of the seed that the Holy Bible forbid a man from wasting on barren soil. But a man’s arse was a different matter. Even dallying with a trollop’s buttocks with whip and cane and a satisfying release between battered and blue-striped cheeks was a lesser pleasure than that of a man’s brawny arse.

“For King and Country, then,” said Theo.

“For the Empire where the Sun never sets,” echoed Breezy who handed the lieutenant a flask of rum from which to sip.

“For God and England’s Glory,” said another soldier.

“For Pete’s sake, sir,” gasped Private Dobson. “Give an honest soldier the honest-to-God buggering his arse deserves!”

“Gladly!” said the lieutenant as he pulled down his britches and button-front shorts to reveal a penis of average size but with an above-average appetite for a willing soldier’s arse-hole.

Although this wasn’t to be Theo’s last or even most enjoyable buggery of a serving soldier, it was surely the one whose memory would be etched the most deeply. The other soldiers had prepared Dobby’s arse well for Theo’s ingress, as a fine sliver of moist semen coated the puckered anal lips, but just to be sure Private Briggs, the first soldier who’d spoken to him, moistened the officer’s penis with his saliva applied by tongue and mouth, but expertly enough that the lieutenant didn’t prematurely let loose his seed between the gaps in the private’s rotting teeth. And then the lieutenant delved straight and true into Dobby’s arsehole with the supportive cheers of his new East London chums.

There was at first more resistance than Theo had anticipated. The trollops on which he’d practised his anal incursions had tricks of the trade that better facilitated smooth entry and indeed theirs were arses between wider thighs than that of an honest Englishman. But the earlier struggle when his penis ventured in inch by inch was worth the reward of a man’s cheeks brushing against the verdant brush of his pubic hairs as he gained total penetration and Dobby grunted in gratitude at the lieutenant’s every thrust. And when Theo finally burst forth his semen deep inside Dobby’s rectum (and perhaps even his colon), the soldier obligingly responded with a spurt of thick satisfying manly goo onto the wooden slats that reinforced the trench wall.

“Well done, sir!” said Private Briggs who patted the lieutenant on the back.

“I’ll lick you clean, Dobby!” volunteered another soldier who knelt between Private Dobson’s hairy legs and applied his tongue to the puckered hole which a moment before had wholly accommodated Theo’s erect penis.

“Would you like to bugger another of the Brickworks Lane Pals, sir?” asked the soldier known as Breezy. “We’d all of us consider it an honour, sir.”

“I don’t think I have the get-up-and-go,” admitted Lieutenant Stevenson. “I’m well and truly fagged.”

“If you’d like a buggering, sir,” said the indefatigable Private Dobson, whose penis was once more erect and willing, “then there’s not a man amongst us who wouldn’t be willing to offer you friendly satisfaction.”

“We’ve all seen your arse, sir,” proffered another soldier. “I’ve not seen a more comely pair of cheeks since I was first apprenticed at the steelworks. And there are a lot of fine bare-arsed men at the furnace, sir, I can tell you!”

“They ain’t no good at decorum at the factory, sir” echoed another. “It’s fearful hot near them flames. And the sight of all them muscles and swinging cocks give many a youngster his first yearning for fulsome comradely affection.”

The lieutenant gazed affectionately at the soldiers who were so desirous to bugger him, but although at the time there was nothing he wanted more, he was conscious that rank and class dictated otherwise. It was one thing for an officer to fuck his men. It was another thing altogether for the officer to let an enlisted man fuck him. Theo resolved at that moment to wait until he found another commissioned officer or a non-military man of his class for the enactment of that pleasure. Perhaps a major or colonel would be willing to plough his furrow and scatter seed on his ornamental bush.

This wasn’t to be the last time that Lieutenant Stevenson tarried in the company of the Brickworks Lane Pals. Indeed, there was little much else to look forward to as he toured the trenches and sheltered from the occasional pounding of German shells. Only inclement weather or his officer’s duties could keep Theo away from the delights on offer that heralded from the mysterious Dark Continent known as East London where the cockney accent and accompanying customs were, in truth, more exotic to him than those offered by any Indian wallah or African kaffir.

In the weekly letter Theo scribbled to darling Susanne, in which he repeated his desire for swift matrimony once the Boche was bloodied and beaten, Theo let slip no hint that he found more pleasure in the almost daily buggering of enlisted men than in the thought of carnal knowledge with his future wife. Indeed, he was already plotting how he might continue to enjoy the pleasures of male company while Susanne diverted herself with the mysterious pleasures of crochet and reading passages from the Holy Bible. If he served his duty by providing his wife with children, surely her only objection would be whether such extramarital activity was consonant with a dignified and respectable life.

The men that Theo buggered were each as grateful as Dobson for a good pounding. And where they were less willing to bend over and take an officer’s cock up the arse, they made sure that their superior officer’s penis was dripping with enlisted men’s saliva and as big and bulging as any cock should be after a fellating. Theo was aware that he was given special privileges denied the rest of the Brickworks Lane Pals. The camaraderie that bonded them included a sense of fairness where every arse buggered belonged to a man who would bugger his pal’s arse with exactly the same enthusiasm. And every cock sucked belonged to a man whose lips would suck his fellows’: however rank and filthy and often not especially big. But Lieutenant Stevenson was bound by no such convention. He could fuck who he wanted for as long as he chose to and be fellated by one, two or ever three enlisted men before his cock thrust once again into a private’s arse.

The men were all grateful for the privilege of having been buggered by a gentleman of worth: as indeed they ought to be. Only in the public lavatories of London or in the dark alleys about the Railway Stations of a great metropolis would a man of Theo’s quality ever consider the option of fucking a man of such low rank and estimation. And Theo was conscious that his arse was reserved only for a man of greater estimation than himself. He would gladly surrender his arse to General Haig or General Rawlinson if either fine gentleman should so desire.

Nevertheless, there were other matters which added urgency to Theo’s daily buggering and made the pleasure of releasing his semen on an enlisted man’s buttocks the more sweet: and this was the creeping deadline towards the Big Push that the generals Theo admired so much were planning. And, patriotic Englishman that he was, Theo never doubted for one moment that the Chiefs of Staff knew exactly what was needed and were mindful to the minutest detail of the cost that would be inflicted on the nation’s finest if all did not go well.

The Boche were nervous too: Theo was sure of it. Private Breezy got a bullet which ripped off his ear and jaw and coated the trench walls with moist chunks of his brain. Another trench of soldiers, known as the Lime Street Pals and all from the North-West city of Liverpool, were victim to a well-aimed or just lucky shell that killed five of them and left the survivors in such a state that even if they were willing to be buggered, a chap would have to close his eyes to not feel nausea at the sight of their injuries. No man wants to fuck a man whose face has been blown half away however cherubic the proffered arse.

“It’s going to happen, old chap!” said Major ‘Blinky’ Armistead. “First we bomb the Boche to buggery. Then we’ll saunter across No-Man’s Land, arm-in-arm and singing hymns to the Almighty, to pick up the pieces. They tell me that all we’ll find will be a few knee-caps and tin helmets…”

“All with a spike in the middle of them…” echoed Lieutenant Baggins.

“…And if there’s any still alive we’ll spike them with our bayonets!” agreed Captain Boswell.

The officers chuckled. It was indeed going to be a moment to relish. The Western Front would be breached. The Hun would be humiliated. And the war would be over without ever needing help at all from the Yanks from the other side of the Atlantic Ocean, who couldn’t even make shells that fit the required specifications.

Before the Push, there was the Bombardment. Five days of it! Shell after shell after shell. As Theo pumped into the Brickworks Lane Pals’ bums, he could imagine, with the ear-shattering explosion of each shell, that a Fritz or a Hans or a Wilhelm was being scattered to the winds just as his sperm splattered over the private’s backside and trickled down his hairy legs. But even Dobby’s arse served as only momentary respite from the anxiety that even the most patriotic soul would feel as he wondered how much the armed might of the Second Reich was being reduced by British gunners using American shells and relying on aerial reconnaissance by pilots who rarely completed more than one tour of duty.

But the days passed by even though sleep had become fleeting and superficial after the reciprocal pounding of Allied Artillery on English, British and Imperial ear-drums.

And then, at long last, it was time for the final tipple of rum before Second Lieutenant Stevenson assumed his duty as an officer and blew the fateful whistle that signalled his men and, of course, himself, that it was time to go over the top. Already the lieutenant was speculating how he might earn a Victoria Cross or at least an Honorary Mention. And then promotion and an armful of stripes was surely all to come his way. His fear was that the push would be so much more of a push-over now that the Hun had been blown to smithereens that few medals and fewer citations would be awarded for what would surely be a glorious day in the history of the British Empire.

However, what happened next resembled Theo’s imagining in no particular at all. There was no medal to be won and certainly no easy victory. The lieutenant’s experience of the great battle which would humble the Hun and bring an early victory was over well within a hundred feet of the British trenches and not near enough at all to the still-intact barbed wire of the German lines. It was Fritz who was laughing the loudest as his machine guns harvested the brave British soldiers in their orderly lines as they stumbled across in broad daylight into the hail of deadly gunfire that within minutes consigned to the field hospital or, for the lucky ones, the grave the entire male population of many English towns and villages. Instead of harvesting wheat, the Blists Hill Pals had themselves become the harvest of future farmers. Instead of digging coal, the Cwmbach Boys were blown to mere ashes on the battlefield.

And so too were the Brickworks Lane Pals.

Second Lieutenant Stevenson received a bullet in the shoulder that a less brave man than he would have considered enough to retire from the battlefield if retreat were not exactly as hazardous as pushing forward. Another that shattered his knee-cap and would leave a permanent memory of this day for the rest of his life was enough to ensure that all hopes for heroism and medals for Distinguished Service would never be fulfilled. He fell down in the mud, churned up by many days of British Bombardment and German Retaliation, and was literally unable to move forward, backward or in any direction whatsoever.

And all around him, the bullets were whistling about: any one of which would absolve sweetest Susanna of her obligations. And not just machine gun fire, but shells which landed in larger numbers than Theo was aware a humbled German Army could launch. Although the shells were landing several tens of yards away from where the lieutenant had fallen into the mud, the impact was enough to shake the ground around him and jar the nerves in his fresh bloody wounds.

And then a shell fell just within ten yards of Theo. The blast threw him back and this wasn’t a recoil from his body, but one from the elements that lifted and threw back his body as if it was a mere child’s doll.

Theo’s wasn’t the only body thrown rudely about. Theo’s eyes—now soaked with blood from collision with a tin helmet that had glanced across his brow—could just about make out the remains of a soldier who’d been at the heart of the shell’s impact. His clothes had been torn from him as had his limbs from his body, his head from his neck and his organs from his ribs. A metal dog tag fell within a foot of Theo: close enough that he could reach out despite the agony such a seemingly natural motion wrought on his damaged shoulder and pick it up.

The dog tag had survived the impact far better than its owner and the printed name was clear even to Theo as he struggled to keep his eyes open against the blood flowing down his forehead.

M. Dobson it read. And together with this information was the Service Number and poor old Dobby’s religion. Like any decent man, Dobby recognised the King as being the Head of the Church.

And there was more.

Amongst the bits and pieces thrown asunder was a hand cut off from the arm, a boot with the bloody stub of an ankle and several bits and pieces of a person’s guts, such as the unravelling intestines and a clump of foul-smelling offal.

But not every part of Dobby’s remains was so undistinguishable. There, just a yard from him and destined to remain for the day or so until Quaker stretcher-bearers would take him to refuge was the part of Private Dobson that the lieutenant would normally have remembered the most fondly but in this case was the reason why Theo would be known as a very queer fellow when it came to respecting the need a fellow’s cock had for a sucking.

And this, of course, was Dobby’s penis: incongruously erect in the excitement of battle and disembodied as it lay within close reach.

A long thick penis, two bulging balls and no one at either end of its length to enjoy it ever again. And a puddle of semen intermingled with blood was to be the last ever outpouring from the now thoroughly exterminated Brickworks Lane Pals.