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That bastard David Stirling was correct. One of the irate Frenchmen does in fact visit Paddy Mayne’s tent that night in order to retaliate. He's expecting it, of course. Stayed up for it, he reasons, though he doesn't sleep much these days besides. No, Paddy’s days are spent shooting, daydreaming, and lying about in hammocks. Evenings are for insomnia and repeating poems that sound like “Eoin” in the haze of drunkenness or darkness.
Supper has long since passed; now Paddy's only companions are the breeze and the moonlight trailing through the tent flaps. The soldier doesn't even avoid those soft silver beams as he steps inside. Bare feet are indeed better for covert operations—better for sneaking in and cutting throats.
On his cot, Paddy braces himself for a fight. Even squinting, he can't make out any of the soldier's features besides his filthy feet and immense height. Not yet, at least. When the man is close enough to kill Paddy, that'll be a different story: of traitors and heroes, enemies and allies. Paddy wonders if Stirling can be compelled to add ‘Nazi turncoats’ to the blackboard categories.
The soldier hasn’t moved from the tent entrance. Paddy reaches for the revolver under his pillow, curling his fingers like claws over the warm metal frame. It feels solid and steady in his grip, unlike his mind, which ricochets violently against his skull when the French soldier finally speaks.
“I know what you want from me,” Augustin Jordan announces, in lieu of any sort of proper greeting.
But when has Paddy even been one for propriety? He scratches his beard with the revolver’s muzzle. He thinks of Augustin jumping off the scaffolding. “I’d wager you don’t.”
“What did you say this morning?” Some French mumbling, too quiet and complicated for Paddy to understand, then an overly satisfied—“Je me souviens. ‘Perhaps we should find out.’”
It’s like an onstage performance at the Empire Club. They know the lyrics and the choreography. They have to, in wartime, memorize a song and dance that starts in the eyes and hope to God they don’t mess up the words or misstep. Paddy kicks off his blanket. Augustin strips the top layer of his uniform.
Paddy spins the gun cylinder, snaps it shut, and says, “Best stop wasting both our time, then.”
Augustin is tall and thin, thinner than Eoin, but he has black hair and a beautiful smile. He’ll do in the dark , Paddy decides. He’ll do just fine .
Augustin walks forward until he’s standing at the edge of Paddy’s bed. Paddy, in turn, sits up and swings his legs over. He leaves the gun behind; Augustin leaves his shirt. They end up on the ground, and Paddy briefly complains that he isn’t able to tackle Augustin again. Augustin laughs. That laugh morphs into a strangled French curse when Paddy takes the soft skin of Augustin’s neck between his teeth and pulls.
Paddy doesn’t have a blade, except Augustin exposes his throat further as if accounting for one. Unleashed, Paddy bites him to bruise; Paddy mauls him like a rabid, wild thing. Undoubtedly, the other men will see the marks and wonder. It thrills Paddy, in no small way, that Augustin will have to lie to them.
But since I am a dog, beware my fangs.
Above Augustin, Paddy straddles him and hooks his ankles under the man’s bony knees. But where he’d raised his hips before on that rocky outcrop, he grinds down now against Augustin. Augustin gasps. He wrenches his wrists out of Paddy’s vice-like grip to hold him just under his jaw. Paddy feels the pulse in his throat jump against the one in Augustin’s palm.
Rearing back, Paddy warns, “Don't you dare fucking kiss me.”
He expects—perhaps desires—fear. Instead, he gets Augustin’s fearless smile. He gets the tip of his tongue between his teeth, glasses askew under raised eyebrows. “You’re a landmine,” Augustin notes. “I think, if I step here…” With this he manages to free one of his legs and hook it around Paddy’s waist. He draws him down, increasing the friction between their bodies until Paddy just about howls.
“Professor.” Paddy’s voice comes from deep in his belly. “I hope you brought a spare uniform to Africa, because you’ll be needin’ it.”
He reaches between them, hooks his hands under Augustin’s waistband, and wrenches so hard the fabric tears. The shorts had been loose anyway, slung low on Augustin’s narrow hips. Now, however, the single button hangs on by mere threads and the seams expose Augustin’s white underwear in swatches of Paddy’s defiant, devilish idea.
“There waves the white flag of the bleeding Free French,” Paddy jokes.
He tugs the ruined shorts down a little more, knowing the pressure between Augustin’s legs is just about unbearable by now. Meanwhile, Augustin clenches his jaw as if storing an insult or admonishment inside. Lock, load—fire at will. Paddy giggles in anticipation.
“I’d do the same,” Augustin chides, “although I’m certain you wouldn’t mind the excuse to walk around with your cock out.”
“There you go, sweetheart,” Paddy purrs. “I knew you knew how to box.”
Sitting back on his heels, Paddy undoes his own shorts. He gets up to peel them off fully, half-hard as he stands with his bare feet planted on either side of Augustin. If Paddy were wearing his boots, he’d tell Augustin to lick them. Even so, there’s power in this stance, power in the way Paddy waits, completely exposed and utterly shameless, for Augustin to kick off his khakis and undergarments and turn over.
The long line of his spine is endless like the horizon, and probably just as warm. And the way Paddy lunges onto him is nothing short of primal. He’s quick as a predator, tasting a path up Augustin’s back before sinking his teeth into Augustin’s neck again, wishing he could draw blood and shake him like a hound plays with its prey’s corpse. Augustin makes a beautifully broken noise, sharp as a rabbit’s strangled scream. Paddy grins.
He puts one hand on Augustin’s sweat-soaked hip and spreads the other through his hair. His hair, now—it isn’t quite long enough, not silken enough. Paddy can pretend, though. Can imagine the heat’s dried the strands out. Maybe he fancied something shorter for the summer. It’s a nice trick and a familiar comfort, delusion is. Especially during sex.
Slick with spit, pre-cum, and precious little else, Paddy ruts, frenzied, against Augustin. The Frenchman’s on his elbows and knees, panting, shaking. He shudders harder as Paddy starts guiding his cock inside of him. Paddy, for all his posturing, feels a flutter of apprehension around his ribcage when Augustin cries out.
“Merde. Don’t stop. You can hurt me, I’m not fragile.”
“I don’t want to,” Paddy admits, louder than he means to. He blinks. There, see, he wants to say. The animal returned to his cage. Abruptly, he grabs Augustin’s shoulders to guide him onto his back. “Like this,” Paddy murmurs, wrapping his fist around both their erections. “Like this.”
Augustin’s breath hitches. Under the blush on his cheekbones, he’s wearing a peculiar expression as if he’s just discovered something vitally important. Reaching toward Paddy, he takes his chin between his thumb and forefinger and applies the barest amount of pressure, his nail indenting Paddy’s skin just so.
Paddy, potentially losing his mind, follows that tacit direction. He clambers up Augustin’s body, kissing the juncture between his shoulder and neck, licking behind his ear. Sighing, Augustin joins his fist with Paddy’s. Paddy’s entire body jerks.
“Shh, shh. Close your eyes,” Augustin tells him.
Right before he closes his eyes, Paddy catches a glimpse of Augustin setting his glasses aside. Then there’s a nose knocking against his, and Paddy prepares to shove Augustin away if he tries to kiss him.
“Say his name.”
Paddy grunts. Thrusting urgently into Augustin’s hand, he shakes his head. He can feel his fury eating through his gums, ready to drip and burn as badly as acid if Augustin doesn’t stop.
“His name,” Augustin repeats.
The command is so forceful that, when giving it, Augustin spits on Paddy’s face. He shifts underneath Paddy, throwing both of his legs over Paddy’s hips. Paddy’s hand falters. Augustin takes the opportunity to wind their fingers together and undulate upwards, trapping their cocks in a mess of wet heat.
“Eoin.” The name comes out of Paddy like it’s been hung on a meat hook and ripped from deep inside, covered in torn flesh and bits of organs, raw and ragged where it lies now in the open.
Augustin kisses Paddy. But with his eyes closed, there’s Paddy’s old friend Delusion to stay his temper. In his head, Paddy kisses Eoin. He tastes of copper and sand, of stale water and antelope stew. The desperate noises and hot breath coming from this man could easily be Eoin’s. Tenderly, Paddy repeats Eoin, Eoin, Eoin into Augustin’s mouth and skin like he can inject the false identity to him. Transform him. Change him, only if for a night.
“Paddy,” Eoin says.
Paddy comes, hips stuttering forward frantically. “Fuck!” he exclaims.
Eoin—no, Augustin, and Paddy can tell now, even with his eyes screwed tightly shut, because Augustin has stopped speaking English altogether—follows a few seconds after. He doesn’t try to kiss Paddy again, probably aware that the illusion has shattered. But he does hold him ever so close.
Immediately after Augustin has satiated himself and stilled, Paddy rolls off him. The first thing he sees is the top of the tent. He maps its shape in a dizzy sort of way while his lungs come back to themselves and the cloud of pleasure dissipates. It is replaced, naturally, with a simmering rage.
“The man you grieve, the cause of your pain,” Augustin says, “he was your lover.” It is not a question. Augustin believes he is simply confirming a previously established truth.
“No.”
Paddy scrubs his hands forcefully over his face, feeling flakes of dried, sunburnt skin peel off his forehead and palms alike. He does not want to have this conversation. He feels rattled as it is, rattled like a damn machine gun when shaken too hard.
Replacing his glasses on his flushed face, Augustin chuckles. “Come now, the French are not so judgemental as the British when it comes to matters of the heart. Or the flesh, for that matter.” He gestures between their naked bodies, perhaps to illustrate to the stupid Irishman precisely what he means.
“Oh, fuck off.”
Paddy wishes they were on his cot and not the ground so he could kick Augustin out of his bed. Instead, he just uses his bare foot to shove him over a little. All skin and bones, Augustin slides easily. Maybe he isn’t even trying to stay.
“Eoin McGonigal was not my lover.”
The final word departs unpleasantly off Paddy’s tongue, rolled around his accent in a great mess of vowels and spat out on the sand. Paddy feels stupid now—cold, mad, and stupid, naked on the floor, with this skinny Frenchman and the malingering emptiness that usually accompanies his orgasms. His grimy hands ache for a cigarette. Maybe, maybe if he had a lit one clenched firmly between his teeth, he wouldn’t have confessed what he did next.
“I only wanted him to be. He never was.” Paddy clears his throat. “It seem'd no force could wake him from his place; but there came one, who with a kindred hand touch'd his wide shoulders, after bending low with reverence. Keats bored Eoin, I think, though it was the only way I knew how to tell him what he meant to me. But we were boys. We were scared.”
“You throw yourself into action because you cannot bear your previous inaction,” Augustin muses. “Blue with all malice, like a madman’s flesh.” He’s propped himself on his elbow now and is staring sadly at Paddy like he’s excavated every secret in this tent.
Paddy’s lip curls. “Don't you start with your philosophy,” he sneers, “or your pity, for that matter. ‘Cause then I'll actually have to shoot you.”
Baring his incisors, Paddy thinks, Or give him cartridges of fine zinc teeth, sharp with the sharpness of grief and death. Never was a smile so keen to cut as his. Paddy then shakes his head and flings himself upward as if dragged by a parachute. There’s a dull ache in his chest, stinging desert sores on his skin, and a smoke to be had. He won’t lie next to Augustin any longer. Paddy’s vigil belongs to only one lad in this vast, unknowable sea of sand, and there is only his ghost left.