A Life Apart

By Roger Kean

1884—Deep in the Sudanese deserts a crazed religious fanatic spawns violent bloodshed.

In Victorian England Edward and Richard enjoy a blessed life at home and at their elite private school for boys, and with prospects of army commissions ahead.

But then a dreadful secret and a woman’s greed tears them apart and destroys their comfortable world. Even though their love is forbidden, for Edward there is no other in his life but Richard, and for Richard a life without Edward is unbearable.
Has fate determined that they must lead their lives apart?

As members of the British force engaged in a doomed bid to save heroic Gordon of Khartoum, besieged by the frenzied armies of the Mahdi, Edward and Richard, cruelly separated by events, and ignorant of the other’s presence, are thrown into their own desperate adventures as the conflict rages on around them...

One an officer, the other a lowly cavalry trumpeter, both find Muslim allies willing to risk all to see them through... Two lovers far from each other in a hostile world of enervating heat, unforgiving sand, rocky wastes, but also burning passions—will the young men overcome the ordeal of a life apart to achieve their dream of a destiny together?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Roger Kean
• Release date: Jan 10, 2013
• ISBN: 9781301915545

Roger Kean

Roger Michael Kean spent his childhood in Nigeria, West Africa then survived (just) a British boarding school. He studied fine art and film technique (he edited TV sports films for a decade) before accidentally dropping into magazine and, eventually, book publishing. After the African experience, he has travelled widely for exploration as well as relaxation. In the mid-1980s, he was co-founder of a magazine publishing company which launched some of Britain’s most successful computer games periodicals, including CRASH and ZZAP!64. Since then he has edited books on subjects ranging from computer games, popular music, sports and history, including "The Complete Chronicle of the Emperors of Rome", with links to the original illustrations at the Recklessbooks.co.uk website. In addition to the titles shown here, Kean has also written, under the name of Zack, his artist-partner, the paperback "Boys of Vice City" and "Boys of Disco City", available in paperback and Kindle from Amazon. The third in the series, "Boys of Two Cities" is out in November 2012.

Book preview

CHAPTER 1

To and fro between 1868 and 1882

Edward Rainbow loved Richard and basked in Richard’s love for him. All their friends at school regarded the boys as inseparable. Like limpets, Winner used to say with a shake of the head. His choice of word was apt since both owned one half of a bivalve mollusc shell, the one mirroring the other. Those brothers are closer to themselves than to anyone else. It had always been that way for Edward, and he had never needed to ask if Richard reciprocated the feeling because their communication came at such a deep, instinctive level that words were only required for the banal exchange of information. Not that they didn’t chatter away to each other. It constantly amazed, not to say amused, their acquaintances at exclusive Benthenham College at how much they did have to say to each other. From his earliest memories, Richard had been at Edward’s side, burbling in cot and perambulator, toddling about the large mansion that they soon learned to call home, in the same bed together for comfort at night, glued to their little chairs in the nursery when the tutor called to teach them their alphabet and numbers. They quarreled and fought as well, and then made up with hugs.

But the twins barely resembled each other.

Not every pair is identical, Winner often said when the subject came up, but you might expect a closer resemblance between the ‘colorful’ Rainbows than is visible to the discerning eye.

Winner may have thought his observation hidden from the Rainbows, but very little escaped Richard’s sharp ears. Edward sometimes thought his brother could summon the ghosts of words from the walls of the senior boys’ study room. Questions among their fellows at their dissimilarity puzzled Edward and Richard. They had lived with how they looked and the way they behaved from the first moments of cognition, not much less than sixteen years ago. Besides, we’re hardly the only twins in College, Richard protested. The Thompson twins don’t look very alike, at least to me.

Edward thought about this for a few moments as they strolled casually along a pathway in the free half hour before lunch in the school dining hall. He rubbed the forefinger of his left hand back and forth over his eyebrows, which he often did when mulling over problems. Do you think the same thing has exercised Mother and Father?

What makes you say that?

Edward lowered his hand and coughed politely into his fist. They used to ask visitors how much they thought we looked alike. You know, Father often remarked on it to other officers when they came for reunions after he retired.

Richard’s slight frown faded. You’re right, Ed, so he did. Perhaps we did look more alike when we were children. And apropos the Army, I’m not sure you can ever retire from the institution. Think of all those official letters from the War Office addressed to ‘Colonel Sir James Rainbow,’ the ones he disappears with into his study to read.

Edward stretched languorously and sucked up the June sunshine. Many trees surrounding the green acres of the Benthenham College grounds still sported late blossoms in creams, startling white, mauves, pinks, and blues, a result of the seemingly unending rain of spring. I am looking forward to the end of term and the vacation.

You’re looking forward to France, Richard said in faint disapproval.

And you’re not? Edward looked scandalized, but only to tease back. Think how you will be able to put to good use your extra French lessons.

Taller of the two by a margin, Richard exploded into action, grabbed Edward in a stifling head lock in the crook of his left arm, and knuckled the top of his brother’s head.

Dick…!

Edward broke free, giggling, and ran off along the curving path toward the dining hall, with Richard charging after him. The sound of their gleeful laughter bounced off the tree trunks lining the pathway.

* * *

As children before their earliest teenage years, Edward and Richard customarily bathed together in the big tub that dominated the nursery bathroom. Passing eight, Lizzie Bedell, their nurse (simply known to the boys as Nursie), left them to their own washing and drying. Neither Richard nor Edward knew whether this was to preserve their modesty or hers. However, as this coincided with their being sent to a boarding preparatory school, their thrice yearly absences from home created a natural break to the previous closeness the boys had enjoyed with her. Nursie treated them as though they had suddenly grown up in the three months of their first term, and of course, in a way, they had. The rough and tumble existence in a boy’s boarding school came as a shock after the calm schooling at home under the watchful but tolerant eye of the hired tutor. Daily school life and immersion in a society of many boys aged between eight and thirteen inevitably separated them physically for a lot of the time. It taught them some independence from each other but never severed the knot that tied them invisibly. Apart from a mutual love of star gazing, for twins they had quite separate interests and yet they delighted in explaining and understanding the other’s compulsions. Within the space of that first term, each twin learned for the first time to shift for himself (including washing instead of having Nursie do it). That first Christmas school vacation returned two quite changed boys to the Rainbows’ large Cotswold manor house.

The funny thing is, I sort of know we’re different now, Edward mused, but kept the thought to himself. But he listened out for how Richard spoke and noted the new formality. Neither of them would ever refer to their parents as Mater and Pater as many of their fellow pupils did (or even worse, the Agéds), but there were certain expressions which would have once sounded alien that now spilled unthinkingly out into conversation. In a family which, unusually for its position in rural and London society, enjoyed a warm and close relationship between the elders and children, the boys had always been used to calling their parents Mummy and Daddy. But school had whipped those appellations away in an instant. Yet it still felt stilted to Edward when he now said Mother and Father, which nevertheless he was quite unable to avoid doing.

And Nursie left them to bathe themselves.

So the years passed, Edward and Richard each with a nucleus of their own school friends but the one always tethered to the other by the imperceptible ties of love. Like the time they spent the summer vacation in far off Cornwall, down by the sea. It was Richard who found the cutthroat razor-blade sea shell in a shallow tidal pool, vacated by its former inhabitant. Look, Ed, isn’t it beautiful! Later in the Penzance Library where they went in search of a book that might identify the elegant mollusc shell, the woman behind the desk pronounced surprise at seeing it when they asked her advice. It seemed they didn’t need a book.

"Why, it’s a Petricola pholadiformis, a type of cuttlefish, but I have never seen one so narrow and dark in color. It’s almost black."

The boys exchanged glances. You’re an expert, Richard said tentatively.

The librarian smiled modestly. I have made a study of the local Cornish calcareous exoskeletons.

As they walked away down the steps onto Morrab Road, Richard carefully split apart the two halves of the black shell and in the sunlight rainbows shot through the nacreous inner surface. Each part was smooth along its length but with a short, curved length of indentations on the upper outer edge. He held out both halves to Edward. They paused and stared long into each other’s eyes. With solemnity, Richard placed one half into his brother’s hand. Keep it close to your heart Ed, as I shall keep mine there. These are the tokens that bind us.

Edward slowly polished the outer skin of the shell on his palm. It was his shy smile that made Richard laugh suddenly, and then with arm punches, they ran off back toward the hotel where they were staying.

By the time they passed their eleventh birthday, at home between school terms, by an entirely mutual if mute consensus, they started to bath alone. Edward rarely dwelt on this change, but when he did he put it down to a growing embarrassment at their nudity. He recognized how odd someone might think that when they both lived in a boarding school which meant being unclothed in the presence of other boys every day. But that promiscuity afforded its own normality. The sight of an unclothed Richard in the school context hardly registered—alone on their own at home it was… disturbing.

From the earliest days, Nursie had always called the things between their legs their bitties, and so until the information deluge at school, that’s how they had known the appendage they wee-ed with. Prep school changed that. They learned that they possessed a penis—which Edward thought a silly word. Prick, cock, knob, plonker, or the newly coined dick, all sounded better than penis. The gym teacher, checking that the boys washed well in the showers, always asked if they had cleaned their John Thomas properly. Little cliques gathered around the preferred description and Edward found himself drawn to the cock club.

There was also an all-important sub-division, which both twins soon discovered. They had a mutual admiration for Frederick Marryat’s The Children of the New Forest, that stirring adventure of the British Civil War and the fights between the brave Cavalier loyalists to the king and the dastardly Roundheads of Cromwell. So given Richard and Edward’s adherence to the king, they were relieved to be told on inspection of their bitties by the other boys that they belonged to the Cavalier club in opposition to the circumcised Roundheads. Organized fights in free time were frequent between these two clans, which often led to sore balls (or nuts, or pillocks, or bollix). While all this anatomical detail proved enlightening, it also formalized a part of their bodies taken for granted previously. It made Edward and Richard self-conscious in each other’s naked presence, when not surrounded by other rowdy boys.

Edward knew intuitively that to think of Richard in a sexual context was to touch a taboo. He preferred his brother on a pedestal of purity, even though that condemned himself to the slough of dirtiness (a very exciting kind of dirty, though). It seemed inconceivable that Richard could ever wish to indulge in the exuberant feeling of freedom Edward enjoyed when a few of his circle-club got each other on jack. He never even wasted time wondering whether Richard would loosen up enough to join in. Quite simply, Richard wouldn’t do anything dirty—even if it were fun.

As he grew up in the confines of the preparatory school, Edward developed a crush over two terms on a young master, as teachers at the school were called in imitation of the senior school to come. He wasn’t the only one enamored of the appropriately named Mr. Cox. To a lad of almost twelve, the juices running in his body kept him in a state of almost perpetual erection, a confusing but guiltily enjoyable state he shared with a few of those he called friends and rather more among those categorized as acquaintance or even barely tolerated. So he knew of at least three other boys of his acquaintance who shared Mr. Cox’s favors. Mr. Cox even encouraged the use of his Christian name when they were alone.

Anthony Cox taught English, geography, and carpentry, and did so to fill in the year between leaving his exclusive public school and going up to Cambridge University. This put him at only some six to seven years in advance of his eldest charges. When he reached nineteen and looked back, Edward could admit that it had been a moot point as to who had seduced who, the master or the boys? Anthony had seemed like a grown-up in Edward’s eyes, even though he sensed his immaturity, but as he later admitted to himself, the master was vulnerable to the remarkably intuitive powers of seduction a few determined and sex-obsessed twelve-year-olds could muster.

I like to lapse, now and again, he told Edward on the first occasion when, to Edward’s amazed delight, the master slipped a hand up his short corduroy pants. It worried Edward to an extent that Richard might find out about his fooling around with other pupils, but much more so that his brother might discover his liaisons in quiet, dark corners of the school with Anthony. Not that anything more serious than hands-down-pants fumbling occurred, what Anthony called having a quick screw. He acknowledged this meant he felt guilty about it and would hate to be put in a position of having to defend his enjoyable lapses to his brother.

However, the solus bathing during vacations—another form of physical separation—had absolutely no effect on the mysterious bond that joined him to Richard nor, he felt, Richard to him. That just didn’t involve sex at all. As they approached twelve, it still never occurred to Edward that his brother might, at the very least, be doing something similar with boys in his own separate circle and, who knew, with another of the several young temporary masters. He wondered, a few terms into their new public-school life at Benthenham, why he had thought Richard so… pure. But then, that was after the Bath Night Incident, which occurred during their last vacation before promotion from prep to senior school.

Are you boys getting ready? Edward looked up at his mother’s shout.

Damn, we’d better move it, Richard said, glancing at the clock on the nursery mantel shelf. The space no longer resembled the playroom of their childhood. As Madge always complained, it looked more like a battlefield than a place for the children to relax. A year the twins’ junior, their sister had just entered a phase of disparaging her brothers from a lofty plane of adulthood she believed boys did not possess. Madge now preferred her own bedroom to the chaos of toy armies laid out all over the floorboards of the nursery.

Edward heard Nursie call out, I’ve run the bath. Who goes first? Hurry now. Your mother and father will be waiting for you otherwise, and you know the colonel hates to be late.

I wish we didn’t have to go, Ed. I’d far rather be upstairs with our telescope. It’s a nice clear night and I bet Saturn is visible. I do so dislike these danged balls. Social bollix. There’s never anyone decent to talk to like at school and it will be full of over-dressed girls with their mothers pressing us to dance with them.

Did you hear the one that goes, ‘What’s a ballroom dance?’

Richard smirked at Edward’s sprightly expression. No, tell me, what is a ballroom dance?

A naval battle without loss of seamen.

Richard gazed with a blank expression for a moment before the homonyms hit home. That’s disgusting. But he laughed. I still don’t want to attend.

Edward blew out a sharp huff of agreement. Well, we have to, Dick. Father wishes to show us off, and it’s Madge’s first ball, so we can’t disappoint her. You go and bathe first.

Richard glanced again at the clock. Merde, as they say in France, there isn’t the time. Come on, like old times, we’ll get in together.

Edward wasn’t at all sure why this raised a lump in his throat, but he followed Richard to the bathroom, where Nursie had laid out towels before scooting back to her room on the upper floor. Richard threw off his casual clothes in a flurry and, with his back to Edward, stepped into the bath and turned as he sat down, knees raised, at the tap end. Shyness suddenly overcame Edward. There were no other baths in a line along the wall, no other boys splashing, toweling dry in the thick, curling steam, nothing to relieve the rising embarrassment. These days Edward only found himself completely alone with another boy when they were about to do it. He quickly stripped and stepped over the rim to sink down in the hot water. He felt happier with his nether regions under the steamy surface. With both of them immersed, the water almost reached the rim of the bath. Their knees touched. Richard was grinning, but with his head bowed so hair fell in damp strands across his eyes.

What?

Why, what?

You’re smiling at something. What?

Richard looked part way up. Nothing.

Edward shoved forward and banged his knees into Richard’s. You don’t usually grin in that wicked way unless you’ve got a secret to tell.

Oh, you know so much—

I know you, Dick.

At that, Richard snorted through his screwed up nose. He looked straight at Edward in a familiar expression, one that said Richard had something he needed to share, something to be a bit proud of. I don’t know.

Edward knew the come-on for what it was and repeated the demand. What?

And then Richard stood up. Hot water streamed down his lean, boyish torso and spouted suggestively off the end of his bold erection. It waved at Edward a few inches away. To emphasize the point, Richard twisted his waist left and right and his stiff, sticky-out-straight penis, prick, cock, dick above decidedly solid looking balls, nuts, pills, bollix, bobbed to and fro with the movement.

The sight paralyzed Edward. Were it another boy than his brother, he knew he would reach out to stroke the offered erection. The overwhelming flood of desire to do precisely that made his throat go dry, but he knew with certainty that Richard’s exhibitionist antics were in naughty fun.

Edward saw no offer in it.

* * *

Even as he did it, Richard didn’t completely understand why he had. After all, they were in a rush to get ready for the damned navel battle, hardly the best time to try and seduce your brother. He did know that a strange feeling came over him when Nursie called out that the bath was ready. He knew that he’d been in the mood, as they said at school, for most of the vacation, and rubbing himself up wasn’t as much fun as having someone else doing it. He knew Edward was no innocent at the sex thing because one boy Richard had played around with confessed he’d also diddled with Edward, and seemed inordinately proud of the fact that he’d done it with both twins. Happenstance he’d fallen on Richard second, otherwise the news would no doubt have gone the other way. And by similar means, Richard knew of Edward’s dalliances with Mr. Cox. Truth be told, Richard felt deeply envious of his brother for being a favorite of a grown up.

Over many months a low level of irritation had swelled that the one person in the world he adored above all others never made a move to initiate something more physical. Of course, as brothers they shouldn’t, although it didn’t stop several other siblings fooling with each other, but none were twins. Richard soon understood that Edward treated him as if he were sacrosanct, some pure soul whose classically inclined mind was unable to stoop low enough to think of anything below the waistline. His irritation swelled to annoyance and then a need for defiance.

The mood took over, the hot bath water helped (or not, depending on how he looked at it), he’d gotten stiff, and some devilish element in his make-up, a deliciously wicked sense of pride and a desire to shock Edward, made him stand up to show his brother his hardness. And what did Edward do? Look vacant for a moment, then frightened before he broke into a conspiratorial grin, quickly hidden under a flurry of busy soaping and scrubbing with a face cloth. Deflated in more than one sense of the word, Richard subsided into the water and washed himself as speedily.

As they made final checks, side by side, to their dress in the hallway mirror—especially the new suits with long pants—neither looked the other in the eye. A degree of uncharacteristic silence even roused Colonel Rainbow to remark on it as the family rode in the large family carriage to the ball. I hope you’re not worrying about going to Benthenham, Richard, Edward?

No, sir, they replied in unison.

I’m sure you will find it altogether a lot more relaxed than when I was there. They seem to want to mollycoddle you boys these days, which is no preparation for an army career or a way of producing men who can stand on their own feet.

I’m sure the boys will be fine, James, their mother soothed.

I wish I had the chance to go, Madge said.

Richard mixed tolerant amusement with a tinge of pride at his sister’s trying to act a lot older than her eleven years. His mother beat him to say something.

It’s a boys’ school, dear.

I’m sure she knows that, Lucy, James Rainbow said. You, young lady, will have your own establishment to attend when the time comes.

The ball passed much as Richard had anticipated: rather dully. He and Edward did their chivalrous duty on the floor and danced waltzes, military two-steps, an eightsome reel, and the ever popular Gay Gordons, which Richard loathed. Back in their shared bedroom (which, being L-shaped, gave each a degree of privacy) Richard pronounced himself ready for bed and pleased that tomorrow, being a Vespers Sunday, heralded a lie-in. He was certain that Ed felt the same as him, that it was high time they each had their own room, but that equally neither wished to be the first to bring up the subject. Edward was still very quiet. Richard regretted his silly exhibition, although tempered by some irritation at his brother’s prudishness. It was only meant as fun.

He had just slipped under the sheet and blankets when he felt the mattress dip as Edward sat down on the edge of the bed. You’ll get cold and catch a chill, sitting around only in your skivvies, Richard chided, noting that Edward hadn’t yet put on his jimjams.

Lips pressed into a firm line, fine brow furrowed, which crowded his eyebrows toward the bridge of his nose, Edward eyed Richard steadily.

Richard propped himself up on his elbows and gazed back, uncertainly, disturbed at his brother’s odd behavior. Disturbing, too, that he couldn’t read anything from the expression. What? he asked softly, sensing his twin’s troubled mind but nervously aware his actions had provoked this. If you’re het up over that business in the bathroom—

Why did you do it?

I was being silly, I just… I don’t know why.

Edward suddenly shivered. Can I get in?

Richard hesitated, and then eased himself sideways to make room and Edward slipped under the covers. They lay pressed together, shoulder and hip, the way they had done as young children, for long minutes, in silence. And then the bond took over. Even as his brother began to roll over into him, Richard turned onto his side and wrapped his arms under and over Edward’s waist and chest, trapping Edward’s hands between them. Edward squirmed enough to work his arms free and around Richard’s neck. Almost thirteen, the power of sexual attraction among school fellows, their own rising inner desires, the tight skein of twin-love they felt, all of this went into that first kiss and the extraordinary delight of hands on bare skin, the hardness and the exquisite release.

CHAPTER 2

September 1882

There were days when Colonel James Rainbow paraded with a stern mien, but rarely on the day when his sons were due back at school for a new term. As they came clattering down the wide staircase and across the hall to the drawing room, he eyed them fondly as they pulled up to a militaristic halt at the sight of him standing a few feet inside the opened double doors. Seeing them neatly attired in the long dark and pale gray pin-stripe trousers, black open jackets which reached only down to the waist, smart cream vests, and Eton-style wing collars crimping in cravats in Benthenham’s indigo and silver colors, reminded him of his own school days.

Everything packed and ready, boys?

Richard squared his shoulders and got in first. Yes, sir… I think so.

I don’t want you missing the train because you forgot something at the last minute.

The twins nodded heads firmly.

Well, did you enjoy your vacation?

Oh, yes, Father, Edward answered, ever ready to please.

Definitely, Richard echoed. Most definitely.

Edward’s enthusiasm lit up his earnest face. Brittany was the best, though we’ve always enjoyed our vacations, he added hurriedly. Of course Switzerland last year was exciting—

But?

Edward ran fingers over his eyebrows. Looking for the right words, James Rainbow thought wryly. He didn’t let a smile show on his face, interested to see how Edward would get himself out of the hole he’d just dug. Richard looked on with less well disguised amusement at his brother’s discomfort.

Well, it was such a great big place, the hotel. And it might have been Switzerland but could as well have been England. Everyone staying there was English, and the food was all English—or what they thought of as English—and you had to eat at set times and fight to get anything. It was much more fun this year, staying in out-of-the-way places and stopping at little old inns without the crowd and fuss, and the fresh cheeses with lovely bread, and….

Edward petered out with an anxious glance at James, whose inner smile widened when Richard leaped to his brother’s rescue. I like your idea, father, of visiting Norway next year. Different scenery, different people. He turned to his sister, who had just come into the drawing room. Madge, you’ll have to learn Viking so you can interpret for us.

Madge pursed her lips and looked down her nose at her elder brother. You’re lazy, you are. I did all the talking in Brittany, and you have been doing French longer than me.

Edward gave a scandalized gasp. That’s not fair! I spoke French the most—

"No one cares about French, Rainbow Junior, Richard broke in, confirming James’ conviction that the boy would never be a linguist like Edward. At least Latin and classical Greek are dead languages, so you never have to use them. Talking foreign makes no difference to your standing at school. That’s why no one bothers with it. No one sensible, anyway."

In the convention of army and British public school, only surnames were used, and where brothers attended the same institution, Junior was appended to the younger and "Senior’ to the elder. Twins like Edward and Richard posed a problem in this respect, but in recognition of his extra inch over Edward, Benthenham awarded Richard the seniority. With his easy going nature, Edward had accepted his demotion with good grace, but it didn’t stop the teasing.

Edward seemed to find Richard’s little diatribe funny and he chuckled at his twin’s lofty disdain. He leaned back against the door frame. "You never know, Rainbow Senior, when the facility to learn a new language will come in handy… Dick."

Richard gave a faint snort. It’s all right for you, Ed. You’re just a dandy natural with languages. Makes me sick at how quickly you pick up the local lingo, like the Brittany dialect. I couldn’t even tell if it was French. He glanced quickly at the pocket watch James and Lucy had given him on his birthday, identical in design to the one they had presented to Edward on the same day. And talking of French, the fenêtre de Française is open, the September sun is still warm, and we’ve about an hour before we have to leave. Might we take a walk in the garden please, Father?

Colonel Rainbow stood aside with a wave of his outstretched arm. As long as you promise your packing is done.

We’ve only to get Atkins to bring down the cases, Father, Edward assured. And that should have been fenêtre Françaises, he said to Richard as the three children crossed the drawing room and left through the much-translated window.

Oh, dang it for the French… came Richard’s fading reply as they ran onto the lawn.

He watched through the window. They were sons any father with a distinguished service in the British Army of India might be proud of—well-built, handsome lads of sixteen. Both boys had pleasant open faces and a ready sense of fun which he knew made them popular among their fellow pupils at Benthenham College, even though neither owned to any close friendships. But in no other respect could he discern any marked likeness between them: Edward, with hair that needed a deal of taming to make it look tidy, a much darker brown than Richard’s, and always curiously gazing eyes of a deep hazel, while Richard’s pale gray irises lent him the greater distinction, peering from under a naturally neat sweep of straight hair. If Richard had the edge in height, Edward beat him in the breadth of his shoulders. And they shared little in temperament, from Edward’s serious countenance and natural reserve to Richard’s outward cheeriness, often disguised by a developed sense of irony. In conversation Richard was the more outgoing, always with something to say on most subjects, whereas Edward preferred to keep silent until sure of his facts. But once warmed up, and in attractive contrast to his studiousness, he had the livelier sense of humor, and some quiet remark of his now caused a burst of collective laughter from the lawn.

Apart from a natural and light-hearted sibling rivalry, the Colonel sensed the two boys were their own closest friends. To avoid the unpleasant arguments that happen sometimes when two brothers go to the same school, James Rainbow had organized for Edward to study modern subjects and languages, which suited him, and Richard classics. This arrangement dampened down any heated debates as to who might be the cleverer. Ultimately it would matter little, since both boys were destined for an army career.

He turned around on hearing a quiet sigh from his wife. She walked up and stood beside him, gazing out at her boys and daughter larking about on the grass.

Lucy, he murmured, placing a hand on her shoulder. I know what you’re thinking—another summer vacation over, and we’re no nearer to the truth. I have to admit—our plan has failed so far.

* * *

If Father only knew… Edward often wondered. Since the Bath Night Incident he and Richard had admitted their feelings for each other and had on a few occasions given way to their desires; usually only on breaks away from College. But both knew how wrong it was for them to feel more than natural brotherly love, and surely disgraceful to give vent to those stirrings that emanated from between the legs. Crushes on other boys in The Lodge, Edward and Richard’s boarding house, had to be conducted in furtive sneaking about to find a secluded spot—a cubby hole behind the changing room, or a disused room in the Music School building on a free period.

In the last days at their prep school, the leavers had been lectured on the basics about the birds and the bees by an obviously embarrassed but nevertheless determined headmaster, who also pointed out that at their senior schools there would be no more of the unnatural fooling about he knew they got up to when they thought he wasn’t looking. Edward found out within two days that either his former headmaster had forgotten what it was to be young (surely he’d attended a similar institution?) or his embarrassment over the taboo subject of sex had led to his completely blanking out his schooldays past.

All the boys knew it to be wrong, the unnatural abomination. It was drummed in often enough that to have those kind of feelings for another boy was as wrong as anything could be. The only allowance made came in the form of shaken heads and the admonition that it might be a phase some sorry souls went through before recognizing the delights of the fairer sex. It never is fair, though, is it, one fellow in fumbled cubby-hole love grumbled. "Girls—even if there were any around here—are untouchable, so how one is supposed to recognize anything is beyond me. Other boys are so much easier when you need some relief."

Edward was already aware, albeit in an unformed way, that he might never pass that magical threshold from his current phase to the next. And he sensed it in Richard—after all, we are twins, so I suppose it’s quite likely. They hadn’t, of course, discussed the matter in any detail, as if bringing it out into the open between themselves might cause a dam of convention to burst, and where would they be then? He fingered the sharp edge of his half cuttlefish shell where it sat at the bottom of his coat’s inner pocket, which always made him sense the beating of his brother’s heart. If a crush on another boy was an abomination, how much worse was an unnatural love for your own brother, flesh and blood of the same womb? Edward thought the words in parenthesis, because that’s how they were emphasized in the College lectures on spiritual and physical cleanliness.

In that mutual yet unspoken way they had, Edward and Richard had understood that their feelings for each other were to be suppressed as much as possible. A love that could never happen, never be expressed more fully than what those around them expected of twins. It troubled Edward, but he would not let it overwhelm him or spoil his enjoyment of the school year. Besides for a sixteen-year-old, there were other things than sex, like the serious problem now facing him, Richard, and several others.

Edward grinned secretly at his brother. They were lounging in The Lodge’s senior boys’ study room, enrolled in a discussion about weight—or, rather, the lack of it. Winner, captain of the house rugby football team was speaking in a typically heated tone of indignation that seemed to imply the fault for anything lay with other people or institutions.

Wade is a great loss because his weight and strength told in the scrum. Hart was a great half-back too, and there wasn’t a better half-back in the whole college than Wilson. Three gone to varsity and we’ve no one to take their places. Wade— He flung his arms wide. Strong as a bull—a dreadful loss. Why don’t some of you grow up like him? He looked around reproachfully at his listeners. Well over a hundred and eighty pounds Wade weighed in at, and there’s not one of you above one-sixty.

So set us an example. Edward avoided Richard’s warning glance. He couldn’t help taunting Winner, who due to his whirlwind character had somewhat predictably earned the nickname Spinner—Winner the Spinner.

The others guffawed readily: Winner, all wire and muscle—as Edward knew from some earlier tumbles before Winner phase-progressed—and well under a hundred and forty pounds. I’m not built like that, he said, apparently unruffled at Edward’s jibe. What about you, Hammy?

I can run, Harmondsworth said defensively, who was also known to the boys as Smeg, for reasons most preferred not to dwell on.

"Oh, sure, you can run all right, but if someone half your height tackles you, over you go like a ninepin. No wonder. You’re like a jointed walking stick. What we want is heaviness, and the sooner you put weight on the better—go for more puddings and eat your food more slowly."

Harmondsworth grumbled something about his having done his share last year, but Winner ignored him. He produced a fob watch and glanced irritably at the face. Where the hell’s Smarmy?

He usually gets the evening train, Richard said. Something to do with the connections not matching up earlier in the day.

Really? Winner’s expression made him resemble a snappy terrier. It takes Smarmy an age to fold his clothes without a crease, to scent his hankie, and coif his hair… no wonder he never manages to get going early. Well, at least, since he’s not here, we can talk about him. I didn’t like having him on the team last season. What do you fellows reckon?

As the others began sniping, Edward reflected on Vane; homonym to vain, so nicknamed Smarmy, Smarmy Vane. In fact, the boy’s family name sounded worse still—Smythe-Vane, but he had insisted on dropping the first part of the double-barrel. Most boys earned a nickname, like it or not, some bearable, others derogatory, but once given, they stuck. Like in the Army, the use of Christian names was frowned on at College and, but for close friends, few boys knew any. It was different for brothers who naturally used their first names with each other and so advertised them. As a result he and Richard had been given a collective nickname, the obvious but unflattering Dick-Ed. Smarmy wasn’t so bad… it could easily have been Slimy. Edward often wondered what his father’s school fellows had called him when he boarded here years ago. He had never dared ask.

I don’t really like him either, said Skiddy Scudamore. But once he’s got his shirt on he drops the poncy nonsense and plays a good, hard game.

He doesn’t seem to mind how muddy he gets either, in spite of moaning about it after, Richard put in. Edward was not surprised to hear Richard offering support to the absent Vane. He knew his brother quietly admired Smarmy. He must do because Richard never employed the nickname, as he did most of the others’. I’d put him in again, Spinner, if I were you.

"I’m not you! It gets my goat when he saunters up as if it were an honor he’s turned up, and speaks in that d-r-a-w-l-i-n-g way."

Does it matter if he makes an asshole of himself so long as he plays well in the team? Harmondsworth muttered.

Winner looked incredulous. "The words team and Vane don’t go together—there’s nothing sociable about him."

Edward suppressed a sudden wash of fairness and kept quiet, but he remembered the time when Smarmy used to go up and read to young Jackson for an hour at a time pretty much every day after the lad twisted his ankle badly last term at the high jump. Edward didn’t much like Vane’s swanky fashions nor his droning way of talking, but he thought him good-natured in spite of his silly airs.

Just then, the subject of their discussion appeared in the doorway, leaned elegantly against the door frame, and regarded the study’s inmates languidly. If he’d overheard their conversation, he did not let on. Smarmy Vane puzzled Edward. He was a College prefect, which put him in the top-drawer, yet he seldom asserted his authority or put himself out in any way to perform the duties of the office. But the juniors obeyed his every command, always voiced as quiet suggestions. He dressed with scrupulous