Home is the Hunter

He heard the roar of aircraft passing overhead and said, "I didn't hear the siren go, my God, there must be swarms of them."

"It's all right darling," Caroline said, "it's the American bombers on their way to Germany, we often hear them."

Over breakfast they listened to a news bulletin that announced almost casually that there had been another heavy raid on London and that the RAF had mounted another thousand bomber attack over Germany.

On Lester and Caroline the odour of their night of lovemaking hung heavy upon them, and it reminded Lester that they had broken one of society's strictest taboos. But what did it matter when thousands, no millions, had, or were due to die?

After showering they retired again to bed, and as Lester licked and sucked Caroline's clitoris she cried out, "I love you...I love you..."

It was then that Lester knew that for all the hatred and violence, in the end only love would last.

Liverpool Street Station. 3rd February. 10-25 am. 1944.

Caroline had traveled as far as Liverpool Street Station with Lester. As they kissed each other goodbye they were surrounded by many other servicemen saying their goodbyes.

Caroline watched Lester as he entered the underground station. He turned as he entered and raised his hand. Caroline raised hers.

She wondered if this would be the last time she would see him, and touched her stomach. It was only her instinct at that moment, but she believed that their love making had born fruit.

She turned and made her way to the train waiting to bear her back to the suburb.

The escalator was working and so Lester stepped on to it, to be born down to the underground train that would carry him to the next terminus, and from there to the camp he was due to arrive at; he was still not sure what his task was to be.

* * * * * * * *

Lester had one more leave, in April. It was for seven days, and Caroline was showing the early signs of her pregnancy.

That Lester was so shocked at this was surprising because they had used no mean of contraception. Perhaps he had thought that Caroline was no longer fertile.

She reassured him that she did not mind, and after all, he had said that many men would come home and find a child they had not fathered, so who was to know that he, Lester, had fathered her child.

What she did not say was, that as Charles had left her Lester, and so this child would leave something of Lester with her if he too should not return.

Rather than deter Lester, Caroline's pregnancy seemed to make her even more desirable.

There was something frenetic about their love making over those seven days and like Caroline, Lester had in mind that this might be the last time they would make love.

A Beach in Normandy. 7th June. 1944. D-Day Plus One

The first wave had gone in the previous day, and as Lester and his unit waded ashore he could see the results on the shell and mortar pitted beach and bodies still lying there.

They had trained and trained for this moment and the allied toe hold was still tenuous and would remain so for some time.

The main weight of the German panzers were focused on the sector where they landed. As they moved inland he saw burned out tanks, one of which had a soldier hanging half way out of an escape hatch, his body burned and blackened.

It seemed strange. Lester had expected that the battle would rage constantly, but it was not like that; it seemed to flare up here and there. For a while they continued to move forward, the sector was ominously quiet.

Not until the 10th of June did Lester's unit move into action during the bloody battle for Caen. This was followed by the carnage of the Falaise Gap.

News that the first of Hitler's "secret weapons" the V1, which had in fact been no secret from the allies, had been launched on the 13th of June, did not reach the troops in Normandy for some time after this first attack.

The German propaganda news broadcast to the troops told that the whole of southern England was on fire, without saying what had cause this in fact non-existent fire. It was only as troop reinforcements arrived from England that a picture of what was happening was made clearer.

The second terror weapon, the V2, a rocket against which there was no defence, fell on London the 8th September, but until 10th November when it was announced by Winston Churchill that London was under rocket attack, no one except the inner sanctum of the government had known what the mysterious and appalling explosions were.

The war raged on and Lester, anxious about Caroline and their baby daughter, hardly knew where he was. On the 7th of May 1945 when the guns fell silent Lester was in Flensburg.

A London Suburb. 1st June. 1945

Lester alighted from the bus and made his way to the house, eager to be with Caroline and their baby.

A jeep stood outside the house, and puzzled Lester made his way up the path to the front door.

He had almost reached the door when an American serviceman came out, still buttoning up his tunic. For a moment the American seemed surprised to see Lester, then he grinned and said, "Hi buddy, you been here before?"

Bewildered Lester said, "Yes, this is where..."

"She's a great fuck, good luck," the American chuckled, and passed on to his jeep.

She was still naked lying on the bed with her eyes closed, the baby asleep beside the bed in a cot. On a table beside the bed were some bars of chocolate, packets of chewing gum and some nylon stockings.

"Thought you'd had enough, baby," Caroline said in a phony American accent.

When she got no response she opened her eyes, which shot open even wider when she saw Lester standing beside the bed.

"Lester...I...I was just resting...I..."

He turned and left the room.

She heard the noise and when she found him the Walther automatic he had taken from a German officer was still in his hand.

"And this be the verse that you 'grave for me:

Here is the rest where he wanted to be,

Home is the sailor home from the sea, and the hunter home from the hill."