Fic: The Long Long Trail, Part 15/15

Part 15: June 1, 1948

‘Aksel? You here? Yoo-hoo!’Bertie called as he hung up his hat and coat.

‘Welcome home, sir.’ The young man in question said, materializing at his side as silently as Jeeves was wont to do. ‘Did you haf a pleasant journey?’

‘Fairly pleasant, fairly pleasant,’ Bertie replied amiably, bobbing on the balls of his feet. ‘Did Jeeves happen to ring today?’

‘Yessir. He said he should be home in…’ he checked his watch, ‘forty-seven minutes, give or take a minute.’ He smiled. ‘I am off to meet Jeremy for dinner and a show and a, ähm, nightcap at his flat.’ He rubbed his neck. ‘I don’t think I will be back before morning.’

‘Oh, right ho! Jolly good.’ Berie said, trying unsuccessfully to hide his relief. Aksel was a good lad, and diligent about making himself scarce in the evenings. Yet Bertie couldn’t help but miss the two years he and Jeeves had spent alone together upon their return to London. Though no doubt he would miss Aksel once the lad had convinced Jeremy to accompany him home to meet the mater and the pater. Fertil segues et alien simper in arbor, as Jeeves would say (or some such wheeze).[1]

‘I am sorry to hear about ze school, sir,’ Aksel said, fishing his hat from a nearby closet.

‘Eh?’ Bertie blinked, nonplussed. Surely the news wasn’t in the papers already? MI5 were still making their ‘inquiries’.

‘About you being expelled. Rotten luck and all that…’

‘Oh? Oh, yes! Well, slings and arrows, etcetera. I think I’ll have a bit of a soak before Jeeves gets home. Go paint the town red, laddie. Tootle-oo!’ Jeeves! They were going to have a Talk when he came home. And no amount of soft tongues and saucy eyebrows would derail his reprimands this time.

He set a velvet jewel box on the foyer table and flipped halfheartedly through the mail that had been piled high in a vase-bowl-thingy his cousin Angela had given him for Christmas, presumably out of spite. It appeared to be made of glass, but bounced when Jeeves accidentally brushed it to the floor. And also when he knocked it out the window.

Most of the letters were addressed to Mr R. Jeeves of Allen and Jeeves, as the agency was known now that Jeeves had replaced the late Witherspoon. Nearly all of the agency’s butlers and gentlemen’s gentlemen knew where Jeeves lived, and they preferred to circumwhatsit the agency and place themselves directly in Jeeves’ capable hands.

There were also a few letters from sundry Wooster relations that he returned unopened to the pile. With the world the state it was in the letters were bound to be stinkers, and if they were Jeeves would know what to do about them.

At the bottom of the epistolary mass was a postcard from Heinrich, who was on honeymoon in Switzerland with an Australian woman he had met in Italy (they had married in Greece). Bertie read it with a kindly eye and set it on top of the pile for Jeeves. Then he legged it to the bathroom, peeled off his togs and slid into a soothing tub-full of the wet stuff.

‘It is most ill-advised to fall asleep in the bath, Bertie,’ a low voice murmured by his ear. There were strong arms around his shoulders and a whiff of brilliantine, Vetiver and… ‘mildew, Jeeves?’

‘Rowcester Abbey is not what it once was, sir.’ The paragon murmured, a hand drifting down in the water to stir up Bertie’s unmentionables.

‘Mm, doubt it ever was, really. Beastly place. We used to say that in the summer months the river was at the bottom of the garden, while in the winter months the garden was at the bottom of the river, or some such crack. How did the bookie scheme go? Did Bill make enough of the ready to marry his specific dream rabbit?’

‘I’m afraid the scheme to which you allude, while an excellent idea upon your part, Bertie, was—due to an unfortunate concatenation of circumstances—’

‘Yes yes alright, Jeeves, the scheme was a bust. But I suppose you came up with a brilliant plan to save the day as always. There’s plenty of good fish in that river, or so I hear.’ He looked up at his marvel of a man with a soppy smile.

Jeeves tilted his head modestly. But Bertie failed to catch what he said next, distracted as he was by the posilutely corking way his lover was stroking the little Wooster.

‘Hm? I’m sorry, old bean, I missed that.’ He stilled Jeeves’ hand with his own, then giggled and plied his other hand to stopping his lover’s roving thumb.

‘I was merely describing the fortunate turn of events that lead a certain rich American widow to buy the Abbey with the intention of transporting it, stone by stone, to California.’ Jeeves reached over and pulled the chain to the bath plug.

‘Like that paper magnet or whatever the bird was who made a new house out of mouldy old bits?’

He felt Jeeves smile into his hair and reviewed his last sentence. ‘Newspaper magnate, I mean, or media mogul or what have you.’ He released Jeeves’ hand and allowed his own specific dream rabbit to help him to his feet.

‘Mr Hearst’s venture was indeed the precedent for the relocation of Rowcester Abbey.’ Jeeves drew a bathrobe around Bertie’s shoulders and pulled him close for a long, languid kiss that turned Bertie’s knees to jelly, but did absolutely nothing to mitigate the unrelenting stiffness of the little Wooster.

‘I missed you, Bertie,’ Jeeves murmured against his lips. His hands slid down to cup Bertie’s posterior, pressing their hips together. Bertie moaned as the cotton trousers rasped against his sensitive anatomy.

‘Me too. Missed you, I mean,’ he stammered breathlessly. ‘Have something for you,’ he added, gliding out of Jeeves’ arms and the bathrobe in what he hoped was a seductively graceful way. He strode into the foyer without a stitch on him (a habit that had led Jeeves to install net curtains in the windows), and returned with the velvet box to where Jeeves waited in the bedroom. He presented it to the love of his bosom with a flourish.

‘Pearls, sir?’ the l. of his b. asked with a bemused quirk of the left eyebrow.

‘Yes, sir! Allow me to put them on you.’ Bertie knelt and unzipped Jeeves’ flies, taking the exposed member into his mouth. His paragon of a lover was nothing if not quick on the uptake, and sucked in an excited breath as he realized Bertie’s intentions.

If there was one good thing that came out of the Equality School fiasco, it was the sudden inspiration that struck Bertie one day as he observed Comrade Edwina nervously rolling a bracelet of cheap amber beads up and down her arm. He coiled the string of dainty pearls around his lover’s rapidly stiffening cock and stroked gently.

‘Oh!’ Jeeves sighed, his eyes drifting closed.

‘Do you like it?’ Bertie whispered.

‘It is most… ingenious.’

‘I doubt the fellow who strung these together would approve, though,’ Bertie grinned.

‘Where did you conceive of such an inspired idea?’ Jeeves murmured ecstatically.

‘At the school. Some beazel with a bracelet and a tic—And speaking of the school,’ Bertie continued, rising to his feet as he recalled his enlightening chat with Aksel. ‘Have you been telling people I’ve been ignominini—er—susly expelled? Because I’ll have you know I passed with flying—’

‘Sir!’ Jeeves panted, for the pearls were still clicking merrily up and down his prick, ‘Bertie, I thought it best for—oh—people to believe the school had not thought you—hm—to be in compliance with their Communist ideals—ah—Once the n-news…’ He stopped and shivered, mumbling something into Bertie’s shoulder of which Bertie could only discern the words ‘heart’ and ‘ecstasy’.

Bertie chuckled. ‘Oh, yes, I forgot about the news,’ he admitted. ‘But I’d like to know what dashed barmy thing I’m supposed to have done to get chucked out. You seem to enjoy making me a laughing stock to my friends, Jeeves.’ He knelt to tongue the leaking slit of Jeeves’ cock.

‘Please, sir!’ Jeeves gasped, ‘I can make amends!’

‘What ho?’ Bertie said, intrigued. ‘You can, eh? Are you close?’ he added in a heated whisper, planting a kiss upon the pearl-festooned little Jeeves.

‘Yes, oh yes!’

Bertie smiled and took Jeeves’ cockhead in his mouth, giving it a thorough tongue-lashing as he rolled the pearls even faster up and down Jeeves’ most delicate extremity. He felt his lover’s fingers twine in his hair and looked up to watch Jeeves’ face, revelling in the naked hysteria—that is to say, euphoria—revealed therein. Yes, the pearls had been an inspiration in a million. And in spite of the eau de old abbey that still clung to him, Jeeves tasted as arousingly as ever.

Bertie rose and amused himself with a long, leisurely liplock with his man as he waited for the latter to recover.

‘You were saying?’ he prompted as he unbuttoned Jeeves’ shirt and brushed it carelessly to the carpet. He had long since trained Jeeves to prioritize in the matter of mess vs. wanton lover.

Jeeves draped the pearls around his neck for safekeeping and glided over to his valise at the foot of the bed. He extracted from it a package wrapped in plain brown paper, presenting it to Bertie with a small bow. He stepped behind the young(ish) master and wrapped arms like iron bands around the y. m.’s chest as the package was torn open.

Inside it Bertie found a photograph of a man in a check suit and a tie patterned with large diamonds. The man also sported an impressive handlebar moustache. Bertie stared at it for a long, puzzled minute before he realized what he was seeing.

‘J-Jeeves!’ he exclaimed, and found that was all he was capable of uttering. So he said it again. ‘Jeeves!’

‘Yes, sir.’ Jeeves murmured into Bertie’s shoulder.

‘B-but, Jeeves! What—how—why?’

‘If I could recall to your mind the typically foul ensemble inflicted by silver ring bookmakers upon innocent—’

Bertie laughed. And it was a while before he could bring himself to stop.

‘What colour the suit?’ He chortled ecstatically.

‘White with a pattern of green check.’

‘Oh golly! And  the tie?’

‘You may see it for yourself, it is in your hand.’

Bertie lifted the photograph to look beneath it, and gasped. ‘Egad, Jeeves! I’m surprised the mere sight of it didn’t give you an apoplectic fit—or is it an epileptic fit?’

‘I believe the former debility is the one of which you are thinking. The disguise was indeed extremely trying to wear. The moustache in particular was a sore trial to endure.’

‘It’s a shame you didn’t keep it,’ Bertie said speculatively. ‘Foliage like that could come in handy.’

‘Lift out the tie, Bertie.’

‘Ha! Oh, it’s glorious, Jeeves! Hm…’ He added, looking from the tie to the moustache and back again. He set the photograph carefully on the dresser, allowing the paper to flutter to the carpet. ‘Right, none of these items are to disappear, Jeeves.’

‘No, sir.’ Jeeves murmured, an indefinable thingness in his voice that might possibly have been excitement.

Bertie turned and shoved his lover roughly onto the bed. He pulled Jeeves’ trousers and pants off with the flourish of a magician performing the table-cloth trick; and bound Jeeves’ wrists to the headboard with the diamond-patterned tie. Then he settled himself comfortably on Jeeves’ thighs and peeled the waxed paper from the back of the moustache, attaching it firmly to the Wooster upper lip.

‘Now be a good old horse and hold still,’ he said, contemplating the bronzed expanse beneath him. The dainty hollow of Jeeves’ throat seemed to beckon to him, so he began his ministering (if that was the word he wanted) there. Jeeves shivered as Bertie ran moustachioed lips up his throat to his shell-like e., which Bertie nuzzled until Jeeves giggled. It was a silent, reserved giggle. Most people would call it a quiet chuckle. But by Jeeves’ standards it was positively girly, and Bertie relished it.

He chose next to nip his way across Jeeves’ shoulder to his oxter, and then brush his way down the most sensitive side of Jeeves’ arm to the tips of his fingers. He suckled two of said digits, then moved without warning to Jeeves’ hips, nuzzling the quivering belly beneath him, and pausing to dip a mischievous tongue into Jeeves’ navel.

With the first brush of the moustache against his manhood Jeeves made a noise that in a lesser man would have been a whimper. For Bertie it was a veritable symphony of pleasure, wantonness and ticklish discomfort.

The little Jeeves rose to attention against Bertie’s lips as he brushed the moustache teasingly up and down the manly staff. It was one of the seventeen wonders of Jeeves’ beautifully honed physique that he could recover from the Big O in five minutes flat, being even more sensitive in round two than he had been in round one. Bertie needed several hours of rest before the little Wooster could be roused from its exhausted stupor.

Once the l. J. had perked up and taken notice, Bertie left it to run his moustachioed lips up his lover’s flank to his nut-brown nipples, pausing to suckle each in turn before edging around Jeeves’ hirsute chest and down to his shapely inner thighs. Jeeves gave another low whimper and shuddered beneath him.

Bertie grinned under the fungus. He briefly considered kissing his way down to his lover’s feet and giving them a thorough brush-up, but he was impatient for the next part of the evening’s programme. So he pressed those delectable thighs together and settled himself on top of them once again, reacquainting the little Wooster with the little Jeeves at last.

Jeeves moaned softly, and Bertie joined in with rather more pith and volume. He took the pearls from about Jeeves’ neck and coiled them around their little gentlemen. He tried to catch Jeeves’ eye, but his lover was staring fixedly at their joined nether regions. It was a moment before Bertie realized why this was, and removed the foliage from the Wooster upper lip.

‘Look at me, Jeeves,’ he commanded, and smiled at the relief he saw in Jeeves’ eyes that he was no longer wearing the horrid moustache. He began rocking his hips, causing their bound members to rub delightfully together. Jeeves’ breath became pants as his trim hips mimicked Bertie’s. Bertie couldn’t help leaning forward to capture that delectable mouth with his own, his fingers walking up Jeeves’ chest to his tanned nubs.

Jeeves whimpered into Bertie’s mouth, the rocking of his hips becoming more frantic. Bertie reached down to give them both a helping hand, and Jeeves moaned, positively squirming beneath him. Amazing what a simple string of pearls can do, Bertie thought, congratulating himself once again. And it hadn’t occurred once to Witherspoon in twenty years! He couldn’t help thinking of the late perisher every so often, usually at the most inconvenient moments. And he knew Jeeves did, too. But he also knew that he compared favourably to the old buzzard, so that was all right.

He broke the kiss and sat up with a sigh, his hand speeding up and down their pricks, the pearls clicking merrily beneath his fingers.

Jeeves back arched as he stretched luxuriously, like a cat, his thighs flexing against Bertie’s bottom. He had reached a plateau of sorts, the rocking of his hips becoming more rhythmic as he hit his stride.

Bertie grinned mischievously. ‘You know, old thing, you’ve just put me in mind of a time when it was me strung up like a… strung up thing to the bedpost. You had slathered the little Wooster in warm cinnamon oil that stung like blazes; and you were causing the poor little sausage all manner of torments with a feather and a shaving brush and that little whip thingy. Then some blighter went and rang the bell, and you up and left the little Wooster in dire need of a rub-down to answer the deuced door. You even, you sadistic Adonis, angled the electric fan at it as you left.’

Jeeves moaned, rocking his hips at a slightly faster pace. Bertie slowed his stroking. There was the flicker of a plea in Jeeves’ eyes. But Bertie ignored it.

‘It was Biffy or Gussie or some other long-winded nincompoop, and you let him go on for hours as I lay fevered and delirious, trying to assure—assuage, that is—my need by rolling around and rubbing up against the sheets. I would have yelled the ceiling down for you to get your capable hands back in here, if it hadn’t been for that dratted gag.’

Jeeves moaned again, his hips jerking frantically against Bertie’s hand.

‘Do you remember returning to find me positively rutting into the mattress? You were on top of me in a flash, still fully clothed.’ Bertie shivered, his hand speeding up on their cocks at last. ‘You rogered me until I screamed into the pillows.’ Jeeves moaned and writhed beneath him. ‘I don’t remember what happened after that, only waking the following morning to you making slow love to me, properly undressed at last. Are you close?’

‘Yes!’ Jeeves gasped.

‘So am I.’ Bertie rolled the pearls off their pricks. ‘Where should I spend myself? In your mouth?’ He rose onto his knees and guided his prick to his lover’s mouth. Jeeves put his marvellous tongue to work, but it was only a moment before Bertie pulled away from him. ‘On your chest?’ He ran his moist cockhead down the furry expanse of Jeeves’ torso. ‘Between your thighs?’ He settled himself on top of them once more, giving his cock a few speculative strokes.

‘Inside me.’ Jeeves panted. ‘Please, come inside me.’

Bertie smiled. ‘Oh, right-oh!’ He rifled in the drawer of their bedside table for a bottle of the spiced oil Jeeves favoured. ‘Buck up, stallion.’ He settled Jeeves’ knees on his shoulders and prepared his lover with slick fingers, paying particular attention to that gland thingy that made Jeeves gasp when he touched it.

Then, without warning, he replaced his fingers with the little Wooster and heaved ho. He had to swallow a small surge of guilt as he watched the little Jeeves deflate a bit in the face of this onslaught. But he knew Jeeves was a fellow who could be brought off by mere words, and a warning would probably have cinched it for him. This verbophilia (if that’s the term he wanted) was another thing the taciturn Witherspoon had missed during his long association with Jeeves. Bertie, on the other hand, took advantage of it as often as he could. There was nothing he enjoyed more than watching Jeeves shudder in orgasm as they sat at dinner in Claridges or the Ritz, both their faces perfectly stony as Bertie reminded him in a low, steady voice of their previous lovemaking.

Jeeves’ most delicate extremity recovered admirably as Bertie began thrusting into him, giving the little Jeeves a helping hand as he leaned forward to smother his lover’s moans with kisses.

It wasn’t long before his nerves began to burn red-hot like chromel wires. He broke the kiss for a victorious laugh as Jeeves shuddered in his arms. He didn’t often succeed in bringing them both off at once, but in this instance his timing had been perfect to a t. He just managed to untie Jeeves’ wrists before melting into a helpless puddle on his lover’s muscle-bound chest.

‘You are the epitome of perfection, Bertie.’ He heard Jeeves whisper. It was the sort of thing Jeeves would only say in moments like this, and only in a whisper. Bertie cherished them all the more for that.

‘S’re you, old thing,’ he murmured sleepily. ‘…l’ve you…’

The End

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[1] Erasmus: Fertilior seges est alieno semper in arvo. (The corn in another man’s field seems much more fertile than our own.)

The Long Long Trail, Part 14/15

Part 14: Keep Buggering On [1]

The Generalarzt crumpled unceremoniously at Jeeves’ feet, the top of his head a bloody, mangled mess. Rothbart stepped into the room, sliding his pistol back into its holster.

Bertie didn’t move as Rothbart unbuckled the straps, but stared in motionless, breathless shock at Jeeves until the latter had risen from his chair and run his fingers lightly down Bertie’s reddened cheek. Then Bertie gasped and clutched him tightly, burying his face in Jeeves’ stomach. He was shivering so hard his teeth chattered.

‘I have paralysed everyone else in the house,’ Rothbart said, his voice sounding distant above the ringing from the gunshot in their ears. ‘But the venom will not last long.’ There was a blowpipe in Rothbart’s breast pocket, and a satchel hung from his shoulder. He swiftly gathered several of the Generalarzt’s papers from the desk, looking rather uncomfortable at the open display of invertism before him.

‘Bertie,’ Jeeves said gently, ‘pull yourself together now.’

The aristocrat obeyed with a monumental effort, allowing Jeeves to pull him to his feet. It was only then that Bertie noticed he had wet himself when he heard the shot. The other two ignored this with practiced ease, and Jeeves took possession of Lustigs’ revolver once again. Then they hurried out of the manse and into the Generalarzt’s Steyr.

‘Where are we going, Herr Rothbart?’ Jeeves asked, wrapping a blanket from the backseat around his and Bertie’s shoulders. They had been stripped of all but their shirts and trousers when they had been arrested. Bertie wrapped his arms around Jeeves in a most unmanly display of emotion and buried his face in Jeeves’ shoulder.

‘To a field where I was given to understand one of your countrymen will be making deliveries tomorrow morning.’ The secretary replied, his eyes on the uneven dirt track over which they were bouncing. It led out the back way of the estate. ‘He might be willing to carry you back to England with him.’

‘Are you not coming with us?’ Jeeves asked.

‘I thought I would save you the expenditure of flying me there and back again. I would also prefer to die with rather more dignity than your preferred method of execution allows. I am certain I can arrange something more suitable.’[2]

‘You will live if you remain in England.’ Jeeves said.

‘Ja, in prison, or in a camp for German nationals. You will not let me wander free in your country.’

‘No. But you will not be detained against your will. I will see to that.’

‘Forgive me, Mr Be—Jeeves, but aren’t you a mere servant in England?’

‘To my advantage, Herr Rothbart,’ Jeeves replied placidly. ‘Surely you are aware of the secrets servants are in a unique position to learn.’ He heard a soft snort against his shoulder.

Rothbart said nothing.

‘On the subject of secrets, Herr Rothbart, how did the Generalarzt learn my name?’

‘I am not certain,’ Rothbart sighed. ‘But after you escaped he arranged that should you arrive safely back to London there would be a man answering to the name of Duggan waiting there to garrotte you before an 8mm camera and send him the footage. Presumably Duggan learned your name as part of his preparations.’

Bertie tore away from Jeeves to have an attack of dry-heaving over the side of the Steyr.

‘I apologise. That was insensitive of me.’ Rothbart muttered.

They drove on in silence, stopping only once to relieve themselves, refill the petrol tank and rifle through the ration tins stored in the Steyr. It was nearly sunrise when Rothbart stopped the Steyr once again and announced that they had reached their destination. The field was completely devoid of airplanes or spies picking up supplies.

‘Did we miss it?’ Bertie mumbled groggily, speaking for the first time since the Generalarzt had been shot. He had been dozing with his head on Jeeves’ shoulder.

‘We are early, unfortunately.’ Rothbart said. ‘I hope we have not been too closely followed. Now hop out and I will hide the car in these trees.’

The two spies clambered stiff-legged from the Steyr and helped each other through a barbed-wire fence, settling themselves by the wall between the field and the road, so as to be hidden from the latter.

‘Why are you helping us?’ Bertie asked curiously when Rothbart had joined them once again. ‘I mean, we’re grateful, don’t get me wrong. But there doesn’t, well, seem to be anything in it for you, so to speak. Quite the reverse, in fact…’

The secretary didn’t speak for several minutes, but sat staring at the gray, empty field. Then he said, ‘I found your car at my uncle’s farm, Lord Yaxley. I must have missed you by a day or two at the most.’

‘Your uncle’s farm? Then you know what happened to them!’

‘Yes.’ He hesitated. ‘My uncle was my uncle by marriage. He was a good Christian man. But his mother had been born a Jew, though he had not known it. She had become a Christian when she married his father, and she had never spoken of her family. But a little over a year ago some especially good Christians read through the parish records and discovered several Jews in the parish who were “masquerading as Christians”. They reported their findings to the authorities and the offending individuals were relocated along with their families. And the good Christians were rewarded with the recently vacated properties and all they contained.’ He spoke as if reciting a parable he had once heard.

‘Did no one lay claim to the farm?’ Jeeves asked.

Rothbart smiled sadly. ‘My uncle was a bit of a romantic, Mr Jeeves. When he married my aunt he gave her the farm as a symbolic gesture of some sort or other. When a friend warned them about the contents of the parish records, my aunt deeded the farm to me. No one dared to contest my ownership.’

‘But what happened to your uncle and his family?’ Bertie asked insistently, ‘Didn’t anyone try to hide them or—’

‘We should have tried to hide them,’ Rothbart said bitterly, ‘but instead their friends and I tried to help them escape. They did not get very far.’ He paused, swallowing convulsively. ‘I could not bring myself to return to that farm until the anniversary of their arrest two days ago. I do not know when they died.’

‘If, or so I’m given to understand,’ Jeeves said slowly, ‘you experienced your change of heart only two days ago, how did you learn about this rendezvous?’

‘I did not experience my “change of heart”, as you put it, yesterday, Mr Jeeves. I began spying for England shortly after I entered the Generalarzt’s employ, when I first saw a British spy die at his hands.’ He smiled bitterly. ‘He could not torment a single word of useful information from her lips. But she answered my questions willingly, because I brought her a mug of tea in the evenings.’

Jeeves suspected the late spy’s cooperation had been due more to a shrewd judgement of character on her part than as a sign of gratitude. He was about to request her name when Rothbart said, ‘Look. Here comes my contact.’

Two young women and a tall, gangly young man were striding toward them, concerned frowns upon their faces.

‘Heinrich?’ one of the young ladies said, ‘I thought you were in—’

‘Mr Jeeves!’ The young man exclaimed, looking at him with nothing short of worship in his eyes. ‘I heard you were dead!’

‘Good morning, Mr Ellis,’ Jeeves replied, recognizing the footman of a country estate he had visited before the war. ‘I fear the news of my death has been greatly exaggerated.’

‘It will get a great deal more accurate if the plane doesn’t arrive soon.’ Rothbart said. ‘There are people on our tail, Miss Hall.’

‘It should have been here already,’ Miss Hall said worriedly. ‘We were running a bit—’

‘Listen!’ The other young lady interrupted. ‘It’s coming in! Gimme the rods!’ And she ran out into the field to guide the plane safely to land.

Part 15

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[1] Winston Churchill’s wartime motto.

[2] The SOE had a tendency to parachute German turncoats back into Germany with some carefully assembled misinformation upon their person and a parachute that wouldn’t open.

The Long Long Trail, Part 12/15

Part 12: Hände hoch!

The bed was too comfortable, that was the difficulty. The hay bales had been prickly and teeming with life. The farmer’s bed had begun to smell of rotting wool. The forest floor had been cold and hard. But this bed was soft and smelled faintly of lye.

‘Come now, sir,’ Jeeves pulled Bertie up into a sitting position. ‘The sun ariseth in his majesty, who doth the world so gloriously behold that cedar-tops and hills seem burnish’d gold… And you must wash before we leave.’ He added, crinkling his nose. He himself was already washed, dressed and groomed. He tried giving Bertie a light shake.

‘Mgln? Mmh.’ The aristocrat sighed and curled up against his shoulder.

‘Bertie!’ Jeeves tried more firmly. ‘Frau Schneider will be up to wake us at any moment. Do you wish her to find you in dishabille?’

As if on cue, Jeeves heard the old wooden stairs creaking. ‘Sir, she’s coming!’

Bertie grunted as if to say ‘I disagree,’ or perhaps ‘I object,’ and buried his nose in Jeeves’ shirt. Frau Schneider knocked and entered in the way of old mothers everywhere: without so much as a by-your-leave. Jeeves drew the sheet up to Bertie’s shoulders, but could not hide the fact that he was naked.

‘He is difficult to wake,’ Jeeves said sheepishly. Frau Schneider looked amused.

‘You must leave in two hours,’ she informed him. ‘Come down and have breakfast before you go.’ Jeeves and Bertie were posing as businessmen on a long business trip. They were relying on the rush-hour chaos to shield them on their way to Leipzig.

Bertie woke at the sound of the Hausfrau’s voice and gave a strangled yelp, scrambling to hide behind Jeeves.

‘Guten Morgen, meine Hübschen,’ Frau Schneider said with a grin.

Jeeves picked up his letter from the bedside table and handed it to her. ‘The pilot is also one of our kind,’ he said quietly, ‘and he would not make a good acquaintance for your son.’

‘Ja.’ She said simply. She was well aware of it.

Bertie left Pound with five hundred Reichsmark to help the Schneiders with his keep as he recovered, and to get him home once he could walk. They both seemed rather relieved to be parting ways. Jeeves wondered what they had spoken of while alone in the muddy field.

***

Boarding a train proved as easy in Brandenburg an der Havel as it would have been in Market Snodsbury, Worc. The two businessmen shared a first class carriage with another businessman, with whom they talked shop for a while before burying themselves in their respective newspapers. When they arrived in Leipzig they took rooms at a moderately nice hotel, and Jeeves requested from the front desk the number of a nearby legal office. He wished to contact his young niece Gera, whom he believed worked there, and invite her for dinner to catch up with the family. Unfortunately, she was no longer with the firm.

‘Do you know where she might have gone to?’ Bertie asked quietly, swirling his brandy as he lounged at the desk in his room.

Jeeves was perched on the bed, his head bowed as he stared pensively into the depths of his glass. ‘No,’ he murmured. ‘That knowledge would put her in danger should I be captured.’

Anyone who cared to look through the window would have seen two tired businessmen enjoying a quiet drink before heading out for a bite to eat. Anyone listening through a hidden microphone, however, would have been spinning up the volume dial with a triumphant grin upon his face.

‘But you were captured. Did you give away any names and locations?’

‘Yes.’

‘… I’m sorry.’

‘But like Gera, the agents I betrayed had changed their location, name, and as much as possible of their appearance before I had given them away. Their confirmable presence in the area in the recent past lent credence to my information without leading to their capture.’

‘Quod erat demonstrandum, eh Jeeves?’

There was a long silence. Bertie poured them each another brandy. ‘Do you think maybe… Witherspoon might have been captured, and that’s why he—’

Jeeves looked up from his drink, feeling as if his stomach had turned to lead. ‘No, he had not been captured. But he was murdered for his change of allegiance. The old fool should have known better. The SOE kills German turncoats, after all.’

Bertie’s eyes widened in shock. ‘We do?’

‘Yes.’ Jeeves did not elaborate.

‘But how do you know? About Witherspoon, I mean.’

Jeeves rubbed his eyes, trying both to ease the prickle behind his eyelids and to erase the memories this conversation was dredging up from the blackest depths of his mind. ‘I had befriended the Generalarzt’s secretary, after a fashion, and he found the information for me. He was not a bad man, Herr Rothbart.’

‘But he allowed Lustigs to torture you!’

‘Not so loud, please, sir. What could he have done to prevent it? He was as kind as he could be to the Generalarzt’s toys. And the Generalarzt ignored this because, ironically, it made us live a little longer for—’ He shut his mouth with a click, and set aside his brandy glass.

‘Maybe it was a game they were playing, you know, like good cop/bad cop in New York.’

‘Perhaps.’ Jeeves sighed, feeling his stomach slowly unclench as he forced thoughts of Witherspoon out of his mind.

There was another long silence.

‘What do we do now?’ Bertie asked eventually.

‘We go to Mannheim. There is a good possibility we will find someone there who can help us across the border to France.’

Bertie nodded, and finished his drink with an ungentlemanly gulp.

***

Jeeves and Bertie ate together at a quaint little restaurant on the Waldstraße, and parted ways to their separate rooms upon their return to the hotel. That night Jeeves dreamt once again of his capture by the RSHA. He woke drenched in sweat and with his stomach churning; and spent the remaining hours of the night in the bathtub with a bottle of Asbach, reciting Marcus Aurelius’ Meditations to himself as the water cooled around him.

He and Bertie met in the hotel restaurant early the following morning. They spoke little, Jeeves engrossed in his copy of the Leipziger Volkszeitung and Bertie engrossed in his tea. He was considering the first clue of the day’s crossword puzzle when Bertie said in German, ‘I think we are being watched.’

He said it casually, like a man commenting upon the weather. Jeeves’ blood ran cold. He swallowed a bilious surge of panic. ‘Where?’

‘Um… to your left and a bit behind you.’ Bertie’s German passed muster as long as he didn’t try to say anything complicated.

‘Are you certain?’

‘One moment.’

It was several moments before he said, ‘Yes, there are two men watching us.’

‘Then follow me.’

Jeeves was not familiar with Leipzig, having visited only once before. He prayed that the foots were mere Gestapo, who were generally not as intelligent as the elect members of the RSHA.

They ambled up the Waldstraße, window shopping. Occasionally they would glance at their watches, two businessmen with time to kill before a meeting. After a few blocks of this Jeeves looked around—and straight into the lens of a small camera across the street. His hairs stood on end, and he began to sweat in spite of the cold air. The foots would notice it, blast them. He continued his carefree window-shopping.

‘They’re gone,’ Bertie said as they stopped to cross a street. ‘Both of them. Odd.’

‘Fools.’ Jeeves murmured. ‘They have gone to verify our identities. We cannot return to our rooms—’

‘The letters!’ Bertie breathed in English.

‘They are in my coat. We must destroy them.’

They turned into the next blind alley, and once hidden behind a dumpster they carefully set fire to the paper with Jeeves’ cheap lighter. They did not stay to watch the letters burn, but emerged from the alley at a brisk trot, choosing speed over nonchalance, and began zigzagging their way across the city. They made frequent searching glances behind them. No followers.

‘Can we get a taxicab?’ Bertie panted in German nearly an hour later.

‘That would not be feasible during the morning rush.’ Jeeves replied. He turned a corner and stopped very suddenly, a shiver of shock rippling across his sweaty skin. He had the sense to look down (obscuring his face with his hat), and study his watch as if hoping it was lying to him.

‘What—’

Jeeves showed Bertie his watch in an expressive movement that said look, it’s early, we’ve been rushing for no reason. ‘Look around you.’ he panted in German, blotting his face with a handkerchief. ‘What do you see?’

Bertie wiped his own streaming face before looking around as if to share his chagrin with the world. Jeeves pulled a cigarette from his pocket and lit it. Condensation was forming on his glasses, but he dared not remove them.

‘Uh, there are many police here.’ Bertie wheezed uncertainly in German. ‘Did something happen? I did not hear sirens.’

Jeeves brought his breathing firmly under control as he offered Bertie a cigarette and lit it for him. ‘They have formed a dragnet,’ he replied conversationally. ‘Looking for spies, I suspect.’

‘Already?’ Bertie gulped. ‘But these are green police! They aren’t part of the RSHA, are they?’[1]

‘No. It would take an extremely well-connected man to convince the Orpo to form such a massive manhunt. I would not be surprised if blackmail was involved. I heard once about a man who requested  a room for the night at that posh hotel we passed a few minutes ago. His name was Braun, I believe, a-u-n. When the clerk asked about his luggage, he realized he had left his overnight bag under his table in the restaurant. He went back to fetch it, but forgot again on the way and had a drink instead. The poor fellow was so forgetful, you know. When he goes into a room, he even forgets to close the door behind him.’ He hoped Bertie had caught all that. He seemed to understand German far better than he could speak it.

Bertie laughed lightly, stubbed out his cigarette and shook Jeeves hand. Jeeves turned and made his way slowly around the block, staring at the pavement as if deep in thought. The hotel was a large, opulent one, with a doorman and bellboys and several front-desk clerks. He pocketed his glasses and scrubbed tiredly at his face as he entered the hotel and made his way across the lobby. No one stopped him or spared him more than a glance. The doorman and bellboys were more interested in the sudden upswing in Polizei on the street than they were in their guest. He ambled around the hotel corridors, rubbing his face like a man struggling to wake up.

At last he spotted a door that was slightly ajar and slipped in.

‘Open the curtains,’ he said, settling himself on the floor beside the window and removing his hat. ‘Closed curtains at this hour will attract their attention.’

Bertie obeyed, and joined Jeeves on the floor. The room now looked empty to anyone who cared to look in through the window. Jeeves eased it up a few inches and listened intently to the activities of the officers outside. They were moving very slowly down the street, being very thorough with their inquiries. Jeeves felt the old familiar panic crackling through him. Herr Schneider’s words echoed in his mind. I take it they have a particularly nasty vengeance in mind for you.

‘Why the overnight bag charade, Jeeves?’ Bertie whispered in English.

‘If the Orpo were properly informed, they would know that their fugitives had left their luggage at another hotel.’ Jeeves replied in the same language. ‘Thus if the fugitives chose to go to ground at this hotel, for example, they would be checking in without luggage.’

‘So if the flatties come in here, they’ll be asking about two men—one bespectacled—who checked in without any luggage, not one man free of spectacles who checked in with an overnight bag. Brilliant, Jeeves!’

‘I hope so, sir.’ Jeeves murmured. ‘They seem to be conducting a large and very thorough investigation.’  He pulled the .38 from his pocket and primed it. ‘If we are captured, Bertie, you must pretend that you believe you are being rescued from me.’

‘What?’

‘I kidnapped you and forced you at gunpoint to accompany me to Leipzig.’

‘No!’

‘I had a mad idea of taking you back to England as a traitor—’

There was a loud knock on the door. ‘Polizei!’ The door swung open, a key dangling from the lock. ‘Sie zwei! Hände hoch! Und Pistole fallen lassen!’

Someone in the Ordnungspolizei had the bright idea to ask the front desk for a list of people who had checked in that morning, arrest them all and weed out their suspects from among them.

Part 13

---

[1] The Ordnungspolizei (Orpo) was the name for the uniformed regular German police force in Nazi Germany. They were also called the Grüne Polizei (green police) because of their green uniforms.

The Long Long Trail, Part 11/15

Part 11: Say Please

After dinner the Schneiders rang up the doctor.

‘Your companion is very lucky.’ The medical man announced in German after a close examination of Pound’s knee. ‘The popliteal artery is intact, and the ligaments have not been badly damaged. With rest, a proper splint and a bit of luck, the leg will recover fully. But he cannot travel. The Schneiders are good people. They will keep him safe as he recovers, and we will find a means to get him safely home.’

Pound was settled into the guest room on the first floor. Then the Schniders and the two spies returned to the kitchen, where Frau Schneider helped Jeeves to launder Bertie’s clothes and dye his auburn hair to umber.

A cobbler friend of the tailor’s stopped by with two pairs of sober black shoes. He also handed Jeeves a pair of horn-rimmed glasses.

‘The doctor asked me to pass these on to you. His daughter had used them for some play or other.’

When the cobbler had left, Frau Schneider led Bertie and Jeeves up another level to her son’s room, and closed the door behind her with a decisive click. Jeeves tensed as she turned to them.

‘My son is like you boys.’ She said quietly. ‘You know what is done here to boys like my son?’

Jeeves nodded warily.

‘You have lived a long time as you are.’ She said to him. ‘How do you manage it?’

‘With secrecy, with lies and with a talent for acting.’

‘You must tell me more!’

‘There are many ways to live as we are.’ Jeeves said slowly. ‘I learned by finding an older man who could teach me, giving my companionship in return for his knowledge. My friend here kept his good name by remaining celibate.’

‘But he is not celibate now,’ the Hausfrau said shrewdly, and Bertie blushed. His German had improved considerably in six months. ‘I do not want my son to… to not have what my husband and I have. Do you understand? How can he find a man to teach him?’

‘Do you understand what I mean by “companionship”?’ Jeeves returned.

‘Ja.’ She said simply.

‘I could give you the names of men I know in Berlin who would be glad to teach and protect him,’ Jeeves said, thinking aloud. ‘But that would be putting those gentlemen at risk, which I will not do. …So I will give you my name: my true name. If the Allies win this war, and your son has not yet compromised himself, he may come to us. We will teach him how to live as we do, and ask nothing in return.’ He saw Bertie’s nod of approval out of the corner of his eye. ‘If the Allies lose, he will not find us. I will write your son a letter of advice, if you wish, in case we lose.’

She nodded. ‘Ja, that will do. Thank you. Good night.’

When the door had shut behind her Bertie collapsed onto the bed. ‘How does she know about us?’

‘She raised an invert.’ Jeeves replied, stepping over to the window and pulling closed the curtains. He turned and knelt between Bertie’s knees. ‘It is my turn to learn how you taste, Bertie,’ he announced with a seductive flick of an eyebrow.

‘I doubt I’m very tasty at the mo. Shouldn’t I have a bit of a wash first?’

‘You will be much more in need of one when I have finished with you, Bertie.’ Jeeves unbuttoned the aristocrat’s flies.

‘Will you take me tonight?’ Bertie asked, rather like a child requesting a treat. His prick stiffened in Jeeves’ hand.

‘If you behave, and do not make a sound.’

Bertie grinned, but then grabbed the pillow from the bed and bit into it as Jeeves drew his tongue up Bertie’s prick. He watched with wide eyes as Jeeves applied a skill gleaned through thirty years of experience.

It is true that the majority of said experience had been with one man who had his own preferences. But Jeeves was glad to note that Bertie did not share them. He, like Jeeves, enjoyed the showier techniques, and he watched avidly as Jeeves alternated deftly between stroking his cock and taking it into his mouth.

Then Jeeves teased the slit of Bertie’s prick with the tip of his tongue, and Bertie’s eyes fluttered closed with a moan. The pillow was-quite contrary to its purpose-magnifying Bertie’s panting breath and adding a stifled intensity to his moans that Jeeves quite liked. He imagined replicating the pillow’s effect with a gag as he took Bertie once again into his mouth, and moaned in turn.

‘Jeeves, perha-oh! Ah, Jeeves-’ Bertie hissed.

‘There are instruments used in certain circles,’ Jeeves murmured, thumbing the head of Bertie’s cock, ‘akin to large, dull needles, which men insert just here,’ he once again teased the slit of Bertie’s cock with his tongue. ‘Many of these objects have small protuberances for added stimulation as they are drawn, very slowly, in and out.’ He blew lightly on Bertie’s cockhead, and Bertie squeezed his eyes shut, either trying hard not to imagine it, or imagining it only too well. ‘I have seen a man… stimulating himself thus…’ Jeeves continued between licks and gentle sucks of Bertie’s prick, ‘as his partner… plied his tongue here,’ He licked along the underside of Bertie’s shaft, ‘and here,’ he tongued the head of Bertie’s cock, avoiding an imaginary metal rod, ‘and here,’ he moved down to Bertie’s stones, suckling them as he slowly stroked his lover’s cock. ‘When we return to London… I will procure such a rod… I will tie you to a chair… and gag this pretty mouth,’ He rose and kissed the aforementioned mouth. ‘And I will draw the rod slowly in and out here,’ he teased the head of Bertie’s prick with a finger, ‘until the pleasure of it-’

‘Stop, Jeeves, please!’ Bertie panted. ‘I can’t hold back much longer!’

‘Shall I take you now, Bertie?’ Jeeves stood and released his member from the confines of his trousers, giving it a few speculative strokes.

Bertie shuddered and shut his eyes with a moan. Jeeves smiled and reached in his valise for the medical box of Bertie’s Singer Nine convertible, withdrawing from it a small tub of petroleum jelly. Bertie opened his eyes curiously, and Jeeves made a show of slathering the jelly on his prick. Bertie’s eyes snapped shut again.

‘Twotimestwoisfourthreetimesthreeisnine-’

Jeeves pushed Bertie gently back onto the bed and lifted his slender calves onto his shoulders.

‘-Fourtimsfourissomethingorotherdashit-’

Jeeves pressed a jelly-slick finger between Bertie’s supple buttocks.

‘-Fivetimesfiveis- No, Jeeves, none of that fingering stuff, just do it!’

Jeeves raised a puzzled eyebrow. ‘But sir-’

‘It has never been more than a tease, a bother and a nuisance, old top,’ Bertie continued, reaching between them to grip Jeeves’ cock with an expression on his face that had been described on occasion as one of bestial greed. ‘I’d much rather we get to the point, so to speak.’ He aligned Jeeves’ cock with his rear and gave it an encouraging tug.

Jeeves didn’t move. He had known a few men in the RAF (the other RAF), who were ready and aching for a prick as soon as they dropped their trousers. ‘But it has been fifteen yeoof!’

Bertie had lunged with a growl and flung Jeeves onto the bed. The tub of jelly clattered across the floor. Bertie held Jeeves down as he sorted out his long limbs, then he reached behind him and guided Jeeves’ prick inside himself. He bit back a moan-a moan of pain, Jeeves noticed worriedly-and lowered himself without pause until Jeeves’ prick was completely inside him.

‘Whew,’ he sighed with a shiver. ‘I’ve missed this-oh! Oh, yes!’ he added, swaying gently on Jeeves hips, ‘Perfect! You are oh!’

Jeeves wanted to return the compliment, but both is voice and his breath had left him as his cock was enveloped in the tight heat of Bertie’s posterior. His breath returned to him in pants as Bertie began to stroke himself, still rocking on Jeeves prick, his eyes closed in bliss.

‘Allow-me-Bertie,’ Jeeves brushed Bertie’s hands gently away from his prick and began stroking it against his own belly.

Bertie leaned forward for a kiss, his hands resting upon Jeeves’ chest, where his thumbs could flick across Jeeves’ nipples. ‘My god, that hits the spot!’ he breathed, grinding his bottom against Jeeves’ hips. ‘You know the one I mean? Not the one you can reach with your fingers. The other one?’

‘Yes,’ Jeeves panted. ‘Shall I hit it harder?’

Bertie shivered. ‘Please!’

Jeeves’ cock throbbed at the plea. ‘Lie down… on your back…’ he whispered.

Bertie reluctantly released Jeeves prick and rolled onto his back, lifting his legs and clasping his arms around them in a classic pin-up pose. Jeeves’ cock throbbed again. He settled those endless legs on his shoulders once again and thrust into Bertie with alacrity.

Bertie grabbed the pillow and bit into it with a low groan.

Jeeves did not pull away, but ground his hips against those pliant buttocks with a rapturous moan.

‘Again, please, Jeeves!’ Bertie whispered with an expectant shiver.

Jeeves obliged him, slowly drawing his prick out with a fleshy pop, and thrusting it back home.

‘Jeeves, harder, please!’

Jeeves thrust hard.

‘Yes! Again, please!’

Jeeves obliged with another hard thrust.

‘Please, don’t stop!’ Bertie panted.

Well, what could a man do with a request like that but comply? But Jeeves kept his thrusts slow, covering Bertie’s mouth with his.

It was not long before Bertie tried to break the kiss and beg him to go faster, but Jeeves would not allow it. He was taking more pleasure in this act than he had in a long time-perhaps more pleasure than he ever had before-and he wondered what it was about this man that made him so exquisitely pleasurable to frig. Was it his light, willowy frame? His nigh effeminately soft skin? His gentility? The lengthy enforced celibacy he was breaking only with Jeeves?

He broke the kiss at last, to better look at his lover.

‘Faster, Jeeves!’ Bertie hand was pumping his cock at double the speed of Jeeves thrusts; and Jeeves watched it, mesmerised, for a moment before complying.

Bertie laughed a gasping, panting laugh, necessity forcing him to release his prick and brace his arms against the wall to keep his head from banging against it as Jeeves drove into him. And in the back of Jeeves’ mind the questions continued: Was it because he laughed in bed? He laughed at all times, more than anyone Jeeves knew. Such joie de vivre, even in the middle of a war…

He was getting close. But it was too soon. He did not want it to end just yet. He stopped and pulled away.

‘No! No, Jeeves, don’t stop!’ Bertie hissed. ‘Not now!’

‘Turn around, onto your knees.’ Jeeves growled. ‘I believe I can frig you harder yet.’

For a moment his lover merely lay gasping for breath and staring at Jeeves from between his knees, which were dangling forlornly in the air. Then he pulled himself together and scrambled with flattering haste onto his hands and knees. Jeeves’ cock throbbed at the sight of him, obedient and eager to be taken again, his hard cock and balls dangling between his legs.

Jeeves parted the aforementioned legs with a few strokes of his hands, and reached between them to tickle Bertie’s tackle.

Bertie shivered. ‘Jeeves, please!’

‘Hm?’ Jeeves slid two fingers into Bertie’s rear and massaged his prostate.

Bertie keened into the pillow.

Jeeves smiled and slipped his prick inside Bertie again, pulling him up so that his back was against Jeeves’ chest. His nails raked across Bertie’s nipples as he nibbled at Bertie’s willowy neck.

‘Jeeves,’ Bertie whispered tremulously, ‘I’m so close, please…’

‘Not yet,’ Jeeves murmured into his shell-like ear. ‘I’m not finished with you yet.’ He pressed Bertie close, to better feel his shivers. ‘We have a long train ride tomorrow, and I would like to amuse myself by watching you recall my prick inside you every time you shift in your seat. If I frig you properly tonight, I might even be rewarded with the sight of your prick stiffening in public.’ Bertie moaned softly. ‘You will blush so beautifully as you hobble your way to the gents. I will imagine you relieving yourself of your predicament therein. And when we are alone once again, I will ask you what you thought of as you did so.’

Bertie chuckled, his head falling back onto Jeeves’ shoulder. ‘Wouldn’t you join me in the gents, Jeeves?’

‘It would be too suspicious,’ Jeeves whispered, ‘But I will undoubtedly need a respite myself when you return.’

‘So make me sore, then. What are you waiting for?’

‘Say “please”, Bertie.’

His lover turned his head so his lips were against Jeeves’ ear. ‘Please, Jeeves, frig me till I’m so sore I can only hobble in the morning.’

Jeeves tipped Bertie back onto the bed and thrust into him with abandon, gripping his wrists against the coverlet to keep him from taking himself in hand. Bertie struggled beneath him, trying desperately to break his grip. How delicious it was to feel the man squirm silently against him, his muscles contracting around Jeeves’ prick with the effort. The image of Bertie bound and gagged beneath him flickered across his mind, and he redoubled the speed of his thrusts.

‘Ohletgo! PleaseJeevesletgo!’ Bertie managed to gasp at last. Jeeves stood and moved his hands to Bertie’s hips, which he pulled to his own with a hard little slap at each thrust. He watched avidly as the muscles along his lover’s back rippled against the onslaught. Bertie was balanced on one elbow, his head resting upon his forearm and his fingers clutching at the blankets. His other hand had disappeared beneath him, but the muscles of the arm worked furiously as the unseen hand sped him toward his peak. Jeeves could hear Bertie panting his name repeatedly, as if cheering him on, and it drove him over the edge. His mind was wiped blank in a surge of white-hot ecstasy.

He did not feel Bertie climax, lost as he was in his own ecstatic rutting. But he felt his lover melt into a shivering ball once the assault had slowed, gasping for air, his skin flushed and glowing in the lamplight.

Jeeves lifted Bertie’s fingers to his lips and licked them clean, relishing the salty taste of Bertie’s seed. Then he took few deep, steadying breaths, and reached for a handkerchief from the valise on the floor. He looked down at his prick and shuddered with horror.

‘You’re bleeding!’ he whispered.

Bertie glanced at Jeeves’ prick and shrugged. ‘Not much. Come’ere…’ He patted the bed beside him.

Jeeves was well aware of the axiom that a little blood goes a long way, but he couldn’t help checking carefully as he cleaned them up.

‘See?’ Bertie whispered with a grin, gathering Jeeves into his arms. ‘Not damaged a whit, am I? But I will be very sore tomorrow.’

The bed was a trifle too narrow for two men to lay in comfortably. It was also too short, requiring them to stick their feet out between the brass bars of the footboard. But neither of them were in any position to mind. And the bed had, at least, not creaked much.

Jeeves waited until he heard Bertie’s light snores. Then he slid from the bed and stretched languorously. He took the handkerchief and the coverlet from the bed to the bathroom and washed out the stains as best he could.

Then he gave himself a quick wash and, upon his return, gathered up the aristocrat’s stationary and fountain pen, seating himself at the small table that had served the young Schneider as a desk throughout his school years. He tore a strip off the top of each leaf: the strip containing Mr Wooster’s name and Berlin address; and filled six pages with small, neat writing, ending the letter with an invitation, his name, and the address of the Junior Ganymede.

It was warm in the room, the radiator hissing as merrily as a teapot under the window. Jeeves eased the latter open a crack, and sat for a long time watching Bertie sleep. It was only when his lover rolled over and nearly fell from the narrow bed that Jeeves at last switched off the light and joined him between the sheets.

Part 12

The Long Long Trail, Part 10/15

Part 10: The Good Germans

There were also men, Jeeves recalled as he surfaced from a deep, sated sleep a few hours later to a stiff back and a crick in the neck, who whistled or sang after good night in bed. He should have known that Bertie was one of them. The song was eerily familiar, though he had never heard Bertie sing it before.

There’s a long, long trail a-winding into the land of my dreams,
Where the nightingales are singing, and a white moon beams.
There’s a long, long night of waiting until my dreams all come true,
Till the day when I’ll be going down that long, long trail with you.

‘Pretty number, Jeeves,’ he added conversationally. ‘Though a tad senti-whatsits. Rather more along the Countess Sidcup’s line than yours. Where did you learn it?’

‘I, sir?’ Jeeves murmured sleepily.

‘Mhm. You used to sing it quite a lot back at the farm, when you were in fever. I’d never heard you sing before then. What were you dreaming about?’

Jeeves shivered and buried his nose in Bertie’s hair. ‘Home. Warmth. You.’ He whispered. ‘It is nearly dawn,’ he added more loudly. ‘We should return to the Lieutenant. Ooh!’

Bertie chuckled. ‘Hard stuff, the ground, what? Cold, too.’

They slowly stumbled to their feet, massaging their sore limbs and shaking opportunistic critters from their clothes and hair.

They found Pound awake when they returned to the parachute. He greeted them with enormous relief and a rather horrible affected cheeriness. Breakfast was eaten in uncomfortable silence, which fortunately dissipated as they resumed their journey.

‘So, Reg, what’s the plan for when we get to town? We can’t just stroll in as we are.’

‘I estimate we will reach the outskirts of the town in a little under an hour.’ Jeeves replied. ‘I suggest we hide at the next convenient location, and I proceed alone to procure proper clothing, lodgings and provisions. I will then return in a taxicab to transport you to the lodgings. In the meantime, Lieutenant, I suggest you try to make yourself look less like a pilot and more like a person who twisted his knee while out for a stroll.’

Bertie had opened his mouth to say that he would be the one going into town. But he closed it again when Jeeves listed all that must be done on the trip, and in German.

‘What about your feet?’ Pound wanted to know. ‘You can’t totter about town trailing bandages like a mummy.’

‘How perspicacious of you to remind me, Lieutenant. You take a size thirteen in boots, do you not?’

***

None of the shops were open so early in the morning, but as Jeeves passed a tailor’s shop he noticed movement inside, so he stopped at the door and knocked. A few moments later an old man opened the door with a cheerful smile and said, ‘I’m afraid we’re not yet open for business, my good man, but if you have an order to drop-ah.’ He stopped, noticing the revolver in Jeeves’ hand.

‘May I come in, Herr Schneider?’[1]

‘Of course,’ the tailor replied in a rather more subdued voice, stepping slowly back into the shop. Jeeves locked the door behind them and stepped into the shadows provided by a group of mannequins.

‘I need a new suit, Herr Schneider, to be made at once. I can pay you handsomely for it.’

The tailor stared at him for a moment, then shook himself. ‘Ah, yes,’ he murmured, turning to peer at his cluttered counter. ‘Do you see my tape-measure about, my good man?’ After a moment of fruitless searching about the counter, the old tailor sighed, ‘Well, I always keep a spare one or two in this drawer here, if you will permit me?’

‘No, allow me!’

But the old tailor ignored him. His hand emerged from the drawer not with a tape measure, but with a small derringer pistol he clearly knew how to use. ‘There was a photograph of you in yesterday’s paper, Herr Bedder.’

Jeeves raised both eyebrows in surprise.

‘Ja, the Nazis do not usually let it be known when a spy has escaped them. I take it they have a particularly nasty vengeance in mind for you. So you are fortunate that I do not approve of them. I doubt you are a man Saint Peter would allow through his gates, but I see no reason why I should imperil my own soul by hastening your death upon the wishes of a bestial government.’ The tailor calmly pocketed the derringer and pulled out his tape measure. ‘Now, permit me to measure you for your suit.’

Jeeves lowered his revolver, confused by the tailor’s unpredictable behaviour. ‘First name your price,’ he said warily.

‘Forty to sixty marks is my usual price, Herr Bedder, varying according to the quality of the cloth and the cut of the suit.’

‘Is there not a fee for the expedience of the order?’ Jeeves asked, surprised.

The tailor thought for a moment. ‘Ja. You must take dinner with my wife and I.’

Jeeves stared at him for a moment, feeling strangely as if he had walked into a fairy tale and was being tested as the victims of fairy tales usually were.

‘You are very kind.’ He said carefully. ‘But I am travelling with companions. We have made other arrangements for dinner.’

‘They are invited as well.’ The tailor said, beginning to take Jeeves’ measurements.

‘I am afraid they will not be able to come. One of them is wounded and cannot walk.’

‘I did not know spies travelled in packs.’ The tailor muttered absently. He was not making note of any of the measurements, and seemed to be merely confirming the trickier measurements he had guessed by merely looking at Jeeves.

‘My two companions are not spies.’

‘Oh? Downed pilots, are they?’

‘One of them is, yes. The other is a foolish aristocrat who thought himself safe here.’

‘We can fetch them in the Volkswagen.’ The tailor wound his tape around Jeeves’ waist.  ‘You have been quite badly treated, my good man,’ he observed.

‘Why do you insist so?’ Jeeves wanted to know.

‘My niece Adele married an Englishman-no, I lie, a Scotsman. They are very insistent about that. When you English declared war my wife and I were visiting Adele in Glasgow. Beastly place,’ he added absently, rolling and pocketing his measuring tape. ‘Her husband’s family assisted us in leaving the country, even though they had strongly opposed the match and were not on the best of terms with our Adele. I am returning the favour.’ Giving Jeeves one more sharp and expert look, he turned to run his fingers across the bolts of cloth standing in their narrow wooden slots.

‘Are you certain my companions and I are deserving of such a favour?’ Jeeves asked quietly. ‘You said yourself that I am not a good man.’

‘I did not say that.’ The tailor replied mildly. ‘In this world there are good men who do bad deeds and bad men who do good deeds. Though the number of bad or good deeds may be high, they cannot change the nature of the man. I can see which of the two you are, Mr Bedder.’

‘Remarkable,’ Jeeves whispered, suddenly and pathetically close to tears. ‘I cannot.’

‘This one will suit you,’ the old tailor muttered as he pulled a bolt of cloth from its slot. ‘Gisela!’ he shouted over his shoulder, ‘we have three guests for dinner!’

***

It was late afternoon by the time Jeeves and the tailor returned to the walled field in which Pound and Bertie had remained hidden. Bertie’s hair was on end, and his brogues and trousers muddy with pacing. Pound, having remained awake the night before worrying that he had been abandoned, had peacefully slept the day away and was only now slapping himself awake.

The old tailor had kept the shop locked all day, purportedly so that no other customer would come in and recognize Jeeves. The spy had prayed this was the case, and every time the phone rang or the door handle rattled he felt bile rise to his throat and each hair on his body stand on end in fear. The sweat of said fear was still drying on his skin when Bertie ran up to him, sputtering incoherent recriminations.

Jeeves cut him short by introducing the tailor. ‘Herr Schneider has offered us dinner and lodgings for tonight, as his guests.’ He explained. ‘His good wife was kind enough to purchase our provisions, as it appears that the German press has released my photograph and a reward for my capture.’ The tailor had given him the day-old Das Reich to read as he waited in the shop. It had not improved his nerves.

The blood drained from Bertie’s face. His thoughts seemed to be jostling one another to reach his lips. ‘What if this is a trap?’ was the one that made it.

‘Necessity is the mother of taking chances, sir.’ Jeeves replied quietly.[2]

They managed eventually to fit themselves into the tailor’s little Volkswagen, the pilot’s splinted leg resting on Bertie’s lap. The aristocrat had insisted Jeeves sit in front. ‘You’re the only one who can commune with our Good Samaritan,’ he had pointed out. ‘Pound and I don’t have the lingo down yet.’

The tailor lived with his wife above the shop. The pilot had to hop the steep, narrow stairs and nearly fainted with pain when he reached the top. As they waited for him to recover, Jeeves noticed a photograph of a bright-eyed, light-haired youth in uniform upon the mantelpiece, with a lit candle in a glass beside it.

‘Your son is in the service, Herr Schneider?’

‘As he must.’ The tailor replied with a sigh.

They found Frau Schneider in the kitchen, ladling mutton stew into bowls from a large pot in the middle of the table.

Pound’s buttocks had no sooner touched his chair than he attacked his stew as if he hadn’t eaten in weeks. The tailor gave his wife an amused wink and began eating his own stew, forgoing for the sake of his greedy guest’s comfort any prayers or other formalities that might have preceded the meal.

Jeeves took a dainty bite of carrot. But as Bertie raised his fork to his lips Jeeves slid a hand under the table and squeezed the aristocrat’s knee, hard. Bertie lowered his fork untasted. He paled as he stared at Jeeves, who had just swallowed his own first bite.

The sharp old tailor caught this interaction and sighed. ‘Pick one,’ he said, reaching out to Bertie’s plate. Jeeves jabbed his fork toward a bite of potato. The tailor speared it and ate it.

The clueless pilot looked up from his empty bowl and sighed happily. ‘Damn, this is good!’ he exclaimed in English. Then he tried ‘Gut, ja?’

Frau Schneider laughed. ‘This is how I like to see a man eat!’ She said, heaping more stew into the pilot’s bowl.

‘Did you serve during the Great War, Herr Schneider?’ Jeeves asked politely as Bertie hesitantly began to eat.

‘Ja.’ The tailor replied, simply and with finality. They ate in silence after that. Frau Schneider watched Jeeves and Bertie intently. It was the same penetrating stare she had given Jeeves when they had met earlier that day. Only now he could see her thinking—planning even. This made him nervous.

Part 11

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[1] Inconsequentially, they are speaking in German. I put in ‘Herr’s and ‘Ja’s because I like how they sound

[2] Mark Twain

The Long Long Trail, Part 9/15

Part 9: Under the Old Oak Tree

Jeeves was not surprised to be woken several hours later by the noise Pound was making as he dragged himself around to Jeeves’ side of the parachute.

‘ ‘s been a long time, Genie,’ the pilot whispered, casually slipping an arm around Jeeves’ waist.

Jeeves stopped the questing hand before it reached his crotch. ‘Don’t,’ he whispered.

‘Why not? The other fella’s out like a light.’

‘I doubt it.’ Jeeves murmured. ‘No other except the bear makes so much noise as you blundering through the undergrowth, Lieutenant.’[1]

‘He seems like a heavy sleeper.’ Pound whispered dismissively. ‘When’s the last time someone gave you a good polish, Genie?’

‘Since when have you been capable of giving anything a good polish, Pounder?’ Jeeves returned without missing a beat. ‘Cock-burns are more your line of expertise.’

‘How about a blow, then?’ the pilot offered, undeterred.

‘You wish me to place my most delicate extremity between those teeth, Pounder?’ Jeeves murmured incredulously. ‘I am rather fond of my appendages, Lieutenant, and would much prefer to keep them intact.’

There was a soft snort in the darkness to Jeeves’ other side.

‘You know, lads at the club still brag about having had their prick in your mouth,’ the pilot whispered, ‘and I bet not half of ‘em have ever even laid eyes on you.’

‘Enough, Pounder. Can you not let a man sleep?’

Pound laughed softly. ‘Not if I can fuck him instead. …I bet you miss how ol’ Spooner used to tie you to the-’

‘I said enough!’ Jeeves couldn’t keep his breath from hitching. Witherspoon was the last person he wished to think about. But Pound had heard the hitch.

‘Why, what happened to Spooner?’ he wanted to know.

‘Nothing, curse you, go to sleep!’

Pound sat up like a jack-in-the-box. ‘Did he chuck you?’ he hissed incredulously. ‘The only man you ever let near that angelic arse of yours and he chucked you?!’

Jeeves rose to his feet and slid off amongst the trees as far as he dared to in the dark. He found an old oak he liked the feel of and curled up behind it, attempting without much success to stem the flow of his tears and regain his composure.

Someone tripped over a root and fell with an ‘oof!’ in front of him. He reached out automatically and helped Bertie to his knees.

‘I couldn’t help but overhear! I’m sorry!’ Bertie squeaked, clearly afraid Jeeves would be angry with him. ‘I was afraid I-we might lose you in here.’

Jeeves gave his arms a light squeeze and released him. Accepting the gesture as permission to stay, Bertie settled himself beside Jeeves and wrapped a blanket around their knees. He took his last cigarette from its case and they shared it in silence.

‘Was Spoo-um, the fellow Pound mentioned, was he the one who was with you here in Germany, on your mission?’ Bertie couldn’t help but ask eventually. ‘I wondered if it was Wither-him you were with, I mean, or Allen, or that other fellow at the agency, wossname, the secretary or junior partner or what-have-you…’

Jeeves said nothing. He still struggled to keep his breath even.

A groping hand found Jeeves’ shoulder in the darkness and massaged it comfortingly. Jeeves took the hand between his own. The palm felt blistered and chafed. He ran his fingers across the bumps and swellings, thinking here there was a splinter… here the stretcher chafed… Bertie fidgeted… here is where it tickles, a lick might make him hard…

‘I can’t imagine you… with someone, like Pound or the other fellow.’ Bertie said hesitantly. ‘You seemed so… above all that, before the war. Even last night…’ He stopped, afraid that ‘last night’ was meant to have been done and forgotten.

‘I was never with the Lieutenant.’ Jeeves replied equably. ‘We merely attended the same club.’

‘Do you mean a real club, Jeeves, or is it a thingummy, a figure of speech?’

‘I refer to a club with premises and a charter. It is a secret club, however, difficult to find and difficult to join.’

‘Does Pound know it’s a secret club?’

Jeeves smiled in the dark. ‘Scotland Yard has known of it for twenty-three years, and have yet to find it. The Lieutenant’s remarks were made to shock you. He despises innocence.’

‘Innocence!’ Bertie huffed. ‘What is this innocence that I apparently give off like radiation?’

‘It is gentility, strength of character, and resilient cheerfulness.’ Jeeves said softly, still running his fingers absently over Bertie’s hand. ‘Innocence is like polished armor; it adorns and defends.’ [2]

‘Indeed, Jeeves?’ Bertie muttered, exactly mimicking the dubious tone Jeeves had often employed as his valet. ‘I always thought innocence was a type of ignorance, and more of a big red bull’s-eye than armor, I can tell you.’

‘But you are not ignorant, are you, Bertie?’ Jeeves asked mildly.

‘I… Do you still love him, Jeeves?’ Bertie whispered.

Jeeves didn’t answer. But that in itself was an answer.

‘Could you… ever love anyone else?’ The question was barely audible, hardly more than the motion of lips.

Again Jeeves said nothing. But after a moment he brought the aristocrat’s long slender fingers to his lips and kissed them.

Bertie’s breath hitched in his throat. He did not move or even breathe again until Jeeves had released his hand. Then, hesitantly, he felt for Jeeves’ cheek in the dark, stroking the light stubble there. Jeeves kissed the palm of his hand.

Bertie sighed and began to trace Jeeves’ lips with his fingertips, so Jeeves kissed them as well. And then Bertie was kissing him in the manner of a drowning man gulping for air.

Jeeves was surprised to discover that Bertie was no novice in the art of kissing. He was endearingly sloppy, but not at all uncertain as he twined tongues with Jeeves. He kissed as an eager schoolboy would. And like an eager schoolboy, his hand made a beeline for his partner’s trousers.

No sooner was Jeeves’ prick free from its confines then Bertie slid down and took it in his mouth.

Jeeves moaned softly as the velvety warmth engulfed his prick. Bertie licked and slurped as enthusiastically as if Jeeves’ prick was one of those ice cream confections so popular at seaside resorts. Jeeves was not surprised to hear a giggle as Bertie tried to take both Jeeves’ stones in his mouth at once and failed. There were men who groaned, men who cried, and men who laughed. Bertie was one of nature’s gigglers. It was one reason why Jeeves invariably disapproved of Bertie’s engagements: his affianced were on the whole the sort of women who would object to laughter in the bedroom.

Bertie took Jeeves in his mouth again and hummed, tickling his prick until he squirmed. Then Bertie began to bob his head.

Jeeves wished-needed-to see Bertie’s face, to watch his prick vanish into and emerge from that fine, soft mouth. ‘Bertie,’ he murmured, knowing he was being rash and hoping he would not have cause to regret it, ‘would you-be so good-as to lend me your lighter?’

‘Hhm. If you’d be so good as to stand, Jeeves,’ was the reply.

Bertie drew Jeeves’ prick into his mouth again as the Zippo flamed in Jeeves’ fingers. Then he drew slowly back, looked up at Jeeves and waggled his eyebrows seductively.

He allowed Jeeves a few moments to drink in the sight of him as he held the knob of Jeeves’ cock in his mouth, teasing it with his tongue. Then he slowly bobbed his head again.

‘Ohhh,’ Jeeves sighed, and he felt a soft laugh vibrate up his prick. Bertie began to alternate in a seemingly random way between stroking Jeeves’ prick with his fingers, his lips, and his tongue. He would suckle Jeeves’ stones as he stroked, and occasionally he would purse his lips and lightly suck just under the head of Jeeves’ cock, as if he wished to leave a small love-bite there.

He would frequently glance up at his lover’s face, and he seemed pleased by what he saw there. He seemed particularly fond of teasing the slit of Jeeves’ cock with the tip of his tongue, studying his face all the while. Jeeves filed the technique in the back of his mind for future reference.

Jeeves’ own favourite technique was when Bertie ran his tongue up and down the underside of his cock as if he were making a giant roll-up. Bertie’s tongue was very long, and could wrap itself around Jeeves’ shaft until it met his upper lip.

When Bertie felt Jeeves was close, he began bobbing his head in earnest, hollowing his cheeks and wriggling his tongue teasingly along the underside of Jeeves’ shaft.

Bertie pulled back when Jeeves climaxed so that only the head of Jeeves’ cock was in his mouth, and he milked him vigorously with his hand. Jeeves’ vision faded for a moment with the intensity of his climax-an intensity that he had previously only reached after Witherspoon had kept him hard for hours before granting him release.

Bertie slowed his stroking as Jeeves began to soften, gently unclamping his lips from Jeeves’ cock. Then he looked up and opened his mouth, showing Jeeves the seed on his tongue. It was a schoolboy gesture that had undoubtedly delighted the boys at Eton, and Jeeves was surprised to feel a near-orgasmic surge of pleasure at the sight.

Bertie’s eyes glinted mischievously as he rose to his feet and gave Jeeves another sloppy kiss. He hadn’t swallowed the seed in his mouth, Jeeves realized with another surge of pleasure, though he seemed to be doing his best, now he had coated Jeeves’ tongue with the stuff, to lick it away again.

Jeeves thought he ought to feel disgusted by such tactics, but he could only feel the echoes of his orgasm thrumming through is nerves as if trapped there, fading with excruciatingly delightful slowness.

At last Bertie released his lips and, pausing to study Jeeves’ face with apparent satisfaction, he closed the Zippo and took it from Jeeves’ nerveless fingers, possibly preventing a brush fire.

‘Good Lord!’ he sighed then, resting his head on Jeeves’ shoulder. ‘I haven’t done that in fifteen years!’

At some point during his previous activities he had released his prick from the confines of his trousers, and it now rested against Jeeves’ leg, a drop of moisture from the tip soaking through the cloth.

Jeeves slid gracefully to his knees and engulfed Bertie’s prick, easing the aristocrat’s trousers down to stroke his long, slender legs. Bertie squawked in surprise, gasped in ecstasy, and moaned in disappointment as his partner withdrew his mouth.

Jeeves stood up, letting his own trousers slither to the frosty ground, and trapped Bertie’s cock between his thighs.

The aristocrat was nonplussed. Apparently the boys of Eton and Oxford possessed a rather limited methodology for getting their rocks off.

Jeeves took Bertie’s narrow hips in his hands and rocked them encouragingly. Bertie moaned and clutched at Jeeves’ buttocks as he began thrusting his hips.

Enchanted, Jeeves mimicked him, guiding Bertie’s thrusts by the simple expedient of squeezing the yielding flesh in the direction he wished Bertie to move, which at the moment was toward the highest and most sensitive part of his thighs, where Bertie’s prick could rub against his stones, and the hair of his bush could tickle with each thrust the highly sensitized head of Jeeves’ cock.

‘Fifteen years.’ Jeeves murmured wonderingly. ‘How could you have borne to remain chaste for fifteen years? I have been chaste not fifteen weeks and I am as crazed as a rutting bull.’

‘How do you think I managed it, Jeeves?’ Bertie asked coyly, releasing his lover’s buttocks to rest his arms upon Jeeves’ shoulders and twine long fingers in his hair.

Their lips were a mere inch apart, and Jeeves couldn’t resist a long, slow kiss before responding, with a sheepish quirk of the brow. ‘I had it from Mr Seppings that as a boy one of your aunts had subjected you to torturous anti-onanistic devices. I assumed these must have damaged you in some way.’

‘Well, really!’ Bertie exclaimed indignantly, pausing for a moment in his thrusting. ‘Seppings told you? Just like that? A jolly anecdote over a glass of port?’

Jeeves gave the pert buttocks in his hands an encouraging squeeze, urging Bertie to keep moving. ‘No sir, he informed me because I had inquired upon the subject, and he knew my reputation for discretion.’

‘Oh. Do you still think those harness thingies might have damaged me, Jeeves? They were hell on earth to wear.’ The head of Bertie’s cock had begun to poke rather insistently against that sensitive inch of skin just behind his bollocks, and Jeeves was not surprised to feel the blood rushing once again to his prick.

‘No, Bertie,’ he murmured, ‘I have seldom seen a finer specimen of upright manhood than yours.’

Bertie laughed softly. ‘Well, I never had to wear them very long. They fascinated the boys in my house. They used to sneak into my study, take the beastly thing off me and put it on themselves. Then they’d do naughty things to me with their hands and mouths. Good heavens! Again?’ he added, amazed to feel Jeeves’ hardening prick against his hips. He reached between them and wrapped his slender fingers around it, stroking it in time with his lazy thrusts.

Jeeves moaned. ‘Your schoolfellows did naughty things to you,’ he breathed ecstatically. ‘Did you do naughty things to them?’

‘Oh yes, Jeeves. But in the daytime rather than at night.’ He tilted his head back and Jeeves obliged him with another long, slow kiss.

‘Pray continue,’ he panted after a while.

‘Oh, well, er,’ Bertie stopped thrusting and, pensively aligning their cocks, began stroking them as one. ‘Sometimes I would return the favour a chap had done to me the night before, re the harness. And sometimes an older boy would take a shine to me and invite me to his study. Rather more often than sometimes, come to think of it.’

‘What would these older boys do with you in their studies, Bertie?’ Jeeves whispered, burying his nose in Bertie’s hair and thinking Lord, can the man beat a bishop!

‘They… they were rehearsing. For girls, don’t you know.’ Bertie slid his prick once again between Jeeves’ thighs and resumed his thrusting. ‘I was the stand-in. That’s what they told me, anyway,’ he murmured, playfully thumbing the head of Jeeves’ cock. ‘And most of them are married now.’

Jeeves began to kiss and nibble at Bertie’s throat, causing his partner to moan and redouble the force of his thrusts.

‘All that horsing around,’ Bertie panted, as if compelled to keep talking, ‘seems to be something most lads grow out of while at university-oh-I tried to. Thought I had, in fact, for a while. But-Oh, heavens, Jeeves!-But when you left-first time you left-and after you came back-Jeeves!-I realized I hadn’t-oh-Nothing-could do-Jeeves!’

Bertie’s stroking of his prick had become erratic, so Jeeves closed his hand around the slender fingers and guided them. ‘Tell me more about these rehearsals,’ he whispered in Bertie’s ear. ‘How were they conducted?’

But Bertie had become incapable of speech, merely gasping and panting and occasionally moaning softly. His small, rapid thrusts made Jeeves thighs and bollocks burn. It was not long before he shuddered, and Jeeves felt the friction between his thighs give way to liquid thrusts.

Bertie laughed shakily as his climax subsided, and rested his head against Jeeves’ shoulder.

‘You are a marvel, Jeeves!’ he whispered, taking control once again of the stroking of Jeeves’ cock. ‘I wish you could take me right here and now.’

‘How would you like me to take you, Bertie?’ Jeeves wanted to know.

‘Like the way we were last night,’ was the reply, ‘with my knees on your shoulders. Only I’d want to be up against something solid like this tree, and I’d want you to take me hard enough to knock the breath out of me.’

Jeeves groaned softly and peaked for the second time that night.

Bertie laughed again. ‘Perhaps some other time, then, old top,’ he whispered, wriggling down to ply his tongue to Jeeves’ shrinking member. ‘I love how you taste!’ he sighed happily. ‘Reminds me a bit of Absinthe.’

‘Indeed, sir?’

‘Mhm. Copperymph.’

‘I do beg your pardon.’ Jeeves murmured indignantly. ‘Ah!’ He added as Bertie gave the head of his cock a tongue-lashing it was a tad too sensitive to receive. ‘Tomorrow I shall learn how you taste, Bertie.’ He promised.

Part 10

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[1] Mary Hunter Austin misquote.

[2] Robert South

The Long Long Trail, Part 8/15

Part 8: Pounder and the Genie

Neither Jeeves nor Bertie could return to Morpheus’ sweet embrace that night. After a fidgety hour in front of the fire, Jeeves rose and packed the valises, stowing the items they would be leaving behind neatly in the wicker basket. He rejoined Bertie at the hearth and together they roasted the remaining potatoes, onions and parsnips for the journey.

‘Jeeves…’ Bertie whispered as the predawn silence settled heavily around them. ‘What do you think happened to the folks who lived here?’ He was staring up at an amateurish painting of the Last Supper on the wall beside the fireplace.

‘I do not know. That painting and other religious symbols have clearly been here for several decades-’

‘That’s not saying much. The one drop rule seems to apply here just as it does in America.’

They spoke in hushed tones, as if there were ghosts in the room listening.

‘The family did leave in a hurry,’ Jeeves murmured pensively, ‘but they had time to pack their bags and secure the house. A neighbour must have taken possession of the animals, yet the house was left unmolested. It does not appear as if the Nazis took this family, not from this farm.’

‘Well… then perhaps this area was evacuated for some reason, though it looks like the sort of place one would be evacuated to.’

Jeeves smiled in spite of himself. ‘There are three inhabited farms bordering this one. I have seen their lights and heard their livestock. But they fortunately appear not to have noticed our presence.’

‘Oh.’

The conversation petered out. Jeeves closed his eyes, basking in the heat of the flames. He knew he would miss it in the days  to come.

They set out as soon as it was light enough to see the ground beneath their feet. Jeeves suggested they walk cross-country to Brandenburg an der Havel, and from there take a train to Leipzig. He had left the slightly-tight Wellingtons behind, using the remains of the bed-sheets to bandage his feet thickly enough for walking through rough terrain.

‘Perhaps I should ankle into town first and get you some togs and footjoy, Jeeves,’ Bertie suggested as they negotiated the seventh hedge on their trip. ‘To say nothing of a size-eleven.’

Jeeves gave him a long, mistrustful look that stopped Bertie cold.

‘Oh, come now, old bean, you can’t really be thinking I would leave you stranded in this God-forsak-’

‘Not at all, Bertie,’ Jeeves cut in mildly, ‘I was merely considering the items of apparel you might see fit to purchase on an expedition such as the one you describe.’

Bertie laughed. ‘You were thinking I’d be getting my own back for all those smashing suits of mine you’ve destroyed over the years, eh, Jeeves? Well, I can’t say it’s not a thought, old bean, but haute couture is a bit thin on the ground at the moment, even in Germany.’

‘If I may inquire, sir, how many Reichsmark are you carrying upon your person at the moment?’

‘Lets see… Ouch,’ he added, nearly turning his heel on a loose stone. ‘I’ve got about eighty in the billfold, I believe, and a hundred each in the tie and brogues, and five h. in the lining of my coat. I suppose banks are out of the question on this trip?’

Jeeves was about to reply when Bertie added, ‘Oh, and there’s another jolly h. in my skivvies in case of extreme emergencies.’

‘Very good.’ Jeeves said, hiding his amusement in a polite cough. ‘Have you left any such remunerative clothing at your Berlin residence?

‘Do you think me a complete idiot, Jeeves? The ties and skivvies have “ragged seams” I can insert the bills into whilst wearing; and I’ve become rather attached to the coat and brogues.’

‘Pity,’ Jeeves murmured, giving the brogues a dirty look.

‘I say, I hope the dough in my skivvies is alright. I forgot to take it out when you boiled them.’

Jeeves did not answer. They had reached a clump of trees, under which a downed pilot lay tangled in his parachute. Not tangled, Jeeves realized a moment later, but wrapped in it for warmth. His complexion was waxen, and he seemed to be asleep, or dead. If he was dead, they could do with another pistol.

He drew the .38 from the pocket of his coat and cautiously approached the body. But when he reached down to feel for a pulse the pilot grabbed him by the arm and yanked him to the ground, pressing a pistol to his chest.

The pilot was not quick enough, however, to keep Jeeves from hooking the .38 under his chin. He looked familiar…

‘Why, bless my bottom, it’s the Genie! Small world, what? Grant me a wish!’

‘Well met, Lieutenant.’ Jeeves murmured, rising to his feet with dignity. ‘Have you treed your aircraft again?’

‘Never mind me, what the hell happened to you, Reg? You look like the corpse of a Jew.’

‘You are as tactful as ever, Lieutenant, and remarkably even less intelligent than when last we met. Why are you taking your ease here when the merest cretin would have hit the ground running and not stopped till his legs gave out from under him?’

”S not my fault, Reg. The ground hit me back pretty hard. The ol’ pins gave out from the get-go. The right one’s broken clean in two,’ the pilot said with a grimace.

‘Is it, indeed?’ Jeeves asked, as if he didn’t believe a word of it. ‘Allow me to examine the break.’ He began tugging aside the parachute. ‘Behind me is Mr Bertram Wooster. Mr Wooster, this is Flight Lieutenant Richard Pound.’

The two exchanged curt nods, eyeing each other warily. Pound swore loudly when Jeeves felt his knee.

‘You are fortunate, Lieutenant, your knee is merely dislocated.’ The disdain in his voice was as palpable as if he had added you sissy. ‘Furthermore, the swelling of the surrounding areas has yet to reach the point beyond which it would be unfeasible to attempt realigning the joints.’

Pound turned even paler. ‘What?’

Jeeves unbuckled the pilot’s belt and slid it into his hands with practiced ease. ‘Bite this. Mr Wooster, would you kindly hold him still while I realign the joints?’

Bertie reluctantly complied. The pilot whimpered and muttered a string of obscenities from behind the belt. The obscenities became louder as Jeeves murmured. ‘Deep breath. One. Two. Three.’

Pound let lose a bloodcurdling scream of agony.

‘Not so loud, please, Lieutenant. We do not wish to be overheard.’ Jeeves unwound a few strips of linen from his feet; and Bertie found him two quite adequate sticks of wood for the splint. Together he and Bertie hoisted the pilot to his feet. Jeeves unbuckled the parachute and carefully folded it back into its pack. The material might prove useful in the cold November nights.

”Tis not enough to help the feeble up, but to support him after.’ He declared cheerfully as the two spies continued on their way with the pilot hopping awkwardly between them.

They had not travelled long, however, before it became clear that the pilot’s one working leg had been too aggravated by his botched landing to bear his weight for long.

‘I do not suppose you have a garrotting wire or a similar instrument useful for the cutting of wood about your person, Lieutenant?’

‘No, I don’t carry a fucking garrotting wire in my pocket, Reg!’ The pilot said indignantly. ‘Why? Did yours get stuck in some poor Jerry’s throat?’

‘What are you thinking, Jeeves?’ Bertie asked curiously.

‘I believe we would be capable of travelling at a much quicker pace if we built a stretcher for the Lieutenant and carried it between us.’

Bertie seemed impressed by the idea. ‘You can cut wood with a garrotting wire?’

‘With the correct wire and due patience one may saw through a steel bar.’ Jeeves replied, regretting the loss of his piano wire, which he had kept hidden in his belt.

Bertie gave a nearby mulberry tree a speculative look. Then he removed one of his shoes and tugged the lace out of its holes. Jeeves watched in horrified fascination as Bertie teased a long waxed wire from the shoelace. Then the aristocrat pulled out his cigarette case and broke the embossed lid into two pieces. The embossed design became grooves around which a wire could be hooked and wound.

‘I’ve never used it.’ He said defensively, noticing Jeeves’ horror. ‘I can climb that tree over there, if you tell me how to saw the branches.’

The sun was high in the sky by the time the stretcher was completed.

‘I say!’ Bertie said indignantly, glancing up from the hand Jeeves was in the process of de-splintering. ‘What’s the big idea! Here we are slaving away so this dashed fly-boy can travel in comfort, and there the blighter is taking his beauty sleep!’

Pound woke at the sound of Bertie’s voice, but made no reply. Jeeves handed them each a cold baked potato and half-an-onion for lunch. They dared not risk lighting a fire.

‘What happened to your feet, Reg?’ Pound asked, by way of a conversational icebreaker. ‘Did the Krauts cut your toes off?’

‘No, Lieutenant.’

‘Oh? Why the bandages, then?’

‘It would be unwise to walk across rough terrain barefoot, Lieutenant.’

‘Jeysus.’ The pilot grumbled. ‘Isn’t it high time to replace that crusty old rod you’ve got up your arse, Reg? Why don’t you take mine?’ He added with a suggestive waggle of his eyebrows.

‘No thank you, Lieutenant.’ Jeeves replied, unfazed. ‘I favour sturdier and less knobbly specimens.’

‘How long have you two known each other?’ Bertie asked.

‘Oh, for ages,’ Pound replied airily. ‘We grew up together, back in good ol’ Brixton where men are men. We’re even in the same club, the Genie an’ me.’

Jeeves gave the pilot a warning look, which was ignored.

‘The Genie?’

‘Yip. Cause he walks like he’s made of smoke, see? And if you rub him the right way he’ll-Arg! Fuck, my leg!’

Jeeves happened to be sitting cross-legged near the pilot’s splinted knee, and at that moment a bandaged foot had shot out and given it a swift, discreet kick.

‘This club of yours, is it the Junior Ganymede?’ Bertie asked dubiously.

Pound shook his head and swallowed a bite of onion. ‘No, I mean the RAF, the other RAF-’

‘Enough, Lieutenant.’ Jeeves said sharply.

‘Hmmm?’ Pound returned innocently. ‘Well, we were Regulars, anyway. At the club, I mean. Regular Arse Fuuuuuck!’

Jeeves had placed a hand upon the pilot’s injured knee, and squeezed. ‘You may believe, Pounder, that a dislocated knee is excruciatingly painful.’ He said quietly. ‘But a broken knee is infinitely more so. Do you copy, officer?’

Pound nodded, eyes watering. Jeeves released his leg and they continued to eat in silence. Bertie seemed to be deep in thought over the pilot’s words. And Jeeves wondered how an idiot such as Pound could have seen Bertie immediately for what he was, while his own valet had remained clueless throughout nine years of devoted service.

They set off again after their meagre lunch. Bertie took the lead, perhaps so he would not have to look at the pilot. Pound alternated between bouts of sleep and long periods of staring up at Jeeves-often no further up than his flies.

They walked until the sun touched the horizon. Then Jeeves directed them as deeply into a nearby wood as they could manoeuvre with the stretcher. When they had found a more-or-less comfortable patch of ground among the roots and dead undergrowth, Jeeves made an impromptu sleeping bag for three from the parachute, and rescued their blankets from the stretcher.

‘The branches up there look pretty thick,’ Bertie said hopefully, ‘D’you think we’d be seen if we lit a fire?’

‘Yes,’ said Pound flatly.

‘Allow me to examine your leg, Lieutenant, while there is still a little light.’ Jeeves unwound the bandages without waiting for a reply and studied the knee from all angles. ‘As I suspected,’ he pronounced, ‘no major blood vessels have been damaged. I cannot determine how badly the ligaments have been torn, but we must hope for the best: I doubt we will manage to find a doctor willing to help us for a while yet.’

Pound opened his parachute emergency pack to supplement their frugal supper with dehydrated cheese, crackers, and chocolate. They risked a stealthy smoke, assuring each other that the pinpoints of light would not be visible beyond the wood. And the pilot barraged them with questions, all of which Jeeves deftly deflected.

Bertie said little, but settled himself in the middle of the makeshift sleeping bag as if he had found the most comfortable bit of turf in the world, and intended to stay there until he grew roots. Jeeves smiled to himself as he and the pilot settled themselves to either side of the aristocrat.

Part 9

The Long Long Trail, Part 7/15

Part 7: The Battle of Berlin

Mr Wooster had pumped enough water that day not only to supply their evening baths, but also to wash their clothes. This Jeeves did (to Mr Wooster’s surprise) in a large cauldron over the fire. He had just removed the cauldron and set it carefully by the hearth to cool when he heard a sharp cry behind him.

Mr Wooster -Bertie, Jeeves corrected himself- was standing in the hip bath, bent over nearly double and clutching at his shoulders. Jeeves coaxed him into a nearby chair. He was not surprised to find Bertie’s shoulder muscles hard to the touch. It was only a matter of time before something in that fine aristocratic body rebelled from the coarse manual labour being forced upon it. Bertie hissed and whimpered as Jeeves fingers kneaded his shoulders.

‘If you are amenable to the idea, a full-body massage would be an efficacious method of relaxing other possibly overwrought muscles, thus avoiding any further spasms tonight.’

‘F-full-body?’ Bertie repeated weakly, staring ahead of him like a rabbit caught in the headlights of an oncoming lorry. He watched apprehensively as Jeeves stacked blankets neatly atop a bench and retrieved a small jar from the pantry.

‘Is that mustard?’ He asked, his voice an octave higher than usual.

‘The sensation of heat from the mustard will help to relax your muscles.’ Jeeves replied serenely. He began his massage at the shoulders, allowing Bertie to sit upright upon the bench, one of the Hausfrau’s towels wrapped primly about his middle. He admired how the flickering firelight glinted off Bertie’s auburn chest hair as he slowly, very slowly, worked his way from the narrow shoulders to the long, graceful neck, and back down.

He was pleased to note, when he instructed Bertie to lie face down upon the bench, the difficulty Bertie was having in resting his hips upon the none-too-soft surface. He kept fidgeting as Jeeves thoroughly massaged his back. Jeeves even managed to elicit the occasional moan. Bertie seemed only too happy when he ceased to feel Jeeves’ hands on his skin.

‘Ah, thatwaslovelyJeevesthankyou!’ He sprang to his feet and made at once for the master bedroom.

‘We are not finished, sir.’ Jeeves said mildly. ‘If you would lie on your back, I will massage your feet and legs.’

‘Er, that won’t be necessary, Jeeves,’ Bertie replied, poking his head around the doorway. ‘They haven’t received quite the workout that-’

‘Please lie down, Bertie.’ Jeeves’ voice had a quiet finality to it that brooked no argument.

Bertie blushed as he returned to the bench and did as Jeeves bade him. He tried to hide his quite advanced state of arousal with his hands, but that only made it more obvious.

Jeeves set to work on Bertie’s feet, applying techniques that in his experience caused delightful little shivers to travel up one’s legs and earth themselves in one’s groin. Bertie began to squirm.

‘Er, Jeeves,’ he panted as his masseuse worked his way up his left calf. ‘Could you stop for a tick, old horse?’

‘I am nearly finished, sir.’

The aristocrat bit back a moan.

When Jeeves had finished massaging Bertie’s calves, he straddled the bench and lifted one onto his shoulder.

Bertie moaned again when Jeeves fingers began kneading mustard into the sensitive flesh of his thigh. He was flushed with embarrassment and quite desperate for release.

When he could bear it no longer he grasped Jeeves’ hands to still them.

‘Please, stop!’ he panted, ‘I can’t…can’t…’

Jeeves twisted his wrists calmly out of Bertie’s grip and rinsed his hands in a nearby bowl of soapwart.  Then, without warning, he took hold of Bertie’s towel and twitched it aside, raising an eyebrow as if to say ‘well, what have we here?’

Bertie blushed an even deeper shade of crimson and covered his face in his hands. But Jeeves wrapped his fingers around the exposed prick and began stroking it, gently rolling Bertie’s stones in his other hand.

Bertie lowered his hands to his mouth and stared at Jeeves in shock. Then he lifted his head and stared in even greater shock at Jeeves’ hands.

‘Lay back, Bertie,’ Jeeves murmured soothingly, ‘you will undo the good of the massage should you develop a crick in the neck.’

Jeeves felt an unexpected thrill when Bertie obeyed him, his hands moving to clutch the sides of the bench in a white-knuckled grip. He continued to stare at Jeeves in dumb disbelief, wide-eyed and open-mouthed.

Jeeves felt a modicum of triumph as he observed Bertie’s flushed cheeks, his panting breath, and the rebellious twitch of his hips as he tried to force himself to lay still. Jeeves had often imagined during Bertie’s many marital engagements what it would be like for Bertie to consummate his marriage with his current fiancé. But for a Miss Madeline Bassett of the Gloucestershire Bassetts, his affianced were invariably of the variety of women who would have bowled him over and had their way with him in spite of his weak protests. Yet it was Jeeves, not those overbearing women, who was having his way with Bertie. And Bertie was not protesting. The thought made his pulse race and his cock throb.

Bertie peaked with a shudder, his eyes still locked upon Jeeves and his seed dripping down Jeeves fingers. His breath heaved as if he had run a mile at breakneck speed.

Jeeves longed to bring his fingers to his mouth and taste them, but he feared how Bertie might react to such a gesture. He knew as only a valet could that his employer had remained celibate throughout the nine years Jeeves had been in his service. But beyond that he had no knowledge of Bertie’s experience in the erotic arts. So he wiped his hands on the towel  and rose to prepare another bath for the mustard-stained aristocrat.

In his mind Bertie’s climax repeated itself in an endless loop. He would have been grateful for a moment or two of privacy in the outhouse. But now was not the time. He set water to boil on the stove, and returned to the hearth to find Bertie seated on the bench, staring at him like a man in a daze. Jeeves could see the questions in his eyes. Why did you do it? What do you know? What must you think of me?

‘Your bath will be ready presently,’ Jeeves murmured politely, and moved to the cauldron of laundry with the air of a man too busy to chat. He continued to feel Bertie’s eyes on him as he wrung out their clothes and hung them before the fire to dry.

***

Jeeves woke inexplicably anxious from a dream about bonfires on Guy Fawkes’ Night. He wondered for a moment what had worried him awake. The night was still and dark, and he could not smell a fire. But he could hear something like it: a distant, continuous roar. He went to the window and opened the heavy shutters. The sound was louder now, and he recognized it, though he had never heard it so loudly before. It was the sound of fighter aircraft.

Behind him Bertie sat up abruptly in bed. He had also heard and recognized the sound. They waited in silence as the noise grew louder, and louder, and louder yet.

‘There must be hundreds of them!’ Bertie exclaimed. ‘Are they ours or theirs?’

‘Ours,’ Jeeves breathed. ‘They’re on course for Berlin.’ He stared at the blackness outside as the great whining roar passed high above their heads. ‘They could raze the city to the ground. I had hoped to spare you this.’ He couldn’t help but add reproachfully. His erstwhile employer ignored him, listening for the bombs.

They soon heard them: a sound like cannon-fire on a distant hillside. Bertie frowned. ‘They’re awfully loud. Berlin must be thirty miles away!’

‘Perhaps they are blockbusters.’ Jeeves replied placidly. It gave him a churlish satisfaction to hear the Nazis getting their own back for having decimated Brixton. He tried not to think of the common folk he had lived and worked with for the past five years: the good Germans who feared the Nazis even more than did the British.

‘It’s not cricket, this.’ Bertie muttered, hunching over his knees as the bombs continued to fall. ‘It’s not British.’

Jeeves hoped the RAF at least aimed for the munitions factories and not for the densely populated areas. He remained standing at the window until Bertie called him back to bed. He was surprised to discover how cold he was.

The bombing was followed by long minutes of velvety silence. Then they heard a faint humming, rattling noise.

‘Listen!’ Bertie hissed. ‘They’re coming back!’

‘With the enemy at their tails,’ Jeeves murmured.

This time the loudest noise in the approaching cacophony was not the whir of propellers or the roar of engines. It was the rat-tat-tat of gunfire.

Jeeves got to his feet once again. ‘Get out of bed, sir.’

There was a pause in which the words ‘why?’ and ‘it’s cold!’ hung in the air.

‘Now, Bertie!’ Jeeves pulled the blankets off the bed, wrapping one of them around his shoulders and another around his disapproving companion. ‘Let us stand over here, in the doorway.’ The farmhouse walls were two feet thick and built of stone.

‘Of all the blithering ideas, Jeeves!’ Bertie grumbled as he was led to the bedroom doorway.

‘Listen.’

They listened as the fighters drew nearer.

‘We can hear them just as well in bed, Jee-’

There was a long metallic scream and a ground-shaking crash.

‘What was that?!’

‘A downed fighter. I estimate it fell about two hundred yards away’

He thought he heard a very small ‘oh’ beside him. It was drowned in the cacophony of the battle overhead.

They waited, Bertie shifting uncomfortably from foot to foot. Jeeves stood not two inches away from him, to shield him should a flaming chunk of sharp metal fall from the sky. -Which one did some time later, crashing through the ceiling and landing at the foot of the bed. Jeeves let go of Bertie (whom he had clutched protectively as he heard the crash), and ran into the kitchen.

‘Jeeves, get back here!’

He did, with a bucket of water that he threw with good aim over the bed. The fire sputtered. Some of it went out, and some of it rode the water to the floor. Jeeves threw his blanket over the burning oil and stamped it out. Then Bertie pulled him back under the doorframe and under his own blanket, as if the cloth could shield them from flying shrapnel.

They did not move again until the noise of the fighting grew faint in the distance. Bertie was gripping Jeeves’ arms to keep him from leaving the relative safety of the doorway again, and Jeeves had no desire to pull away. He held the blanket closed around them instead. ‘We must leave tomorrow at first light,’ he said, ‘the Germans will be out hunting for downed pilots.’

‘Shouldn’t we lend them a hand? The pilots, I mean.’

‘No, sir. The more we are the easier it will be for the Germans to find us. They are safer without us and us without them. We will have to leave the car as well,’ he added as an afterthought, ‘and avoid the roads.’

‘Alright, alright, but first things first, old horse. Where are we going to kip for the rest of the night?’

‘If you are amenable to the idea, I propose we spread blankets before the hearth and take our repose near the fire.’

Bertie proffered a weak smile. ‘Capital idea, as always, old bean.’

Part 8

The Long Long Trail, Part 6/15

Part 6: Bertram Wooster, Gentleman, Spy

Mr Wooster was enjoying a quiet after-breakfast cigarette when Jeeves set two sheaves of paper smartly on the table. One was the carbon copies of Mr Wooster’s letters, and the other was the blank stationary Jeeves had also found in the Singer. He placed a sheet of the blank paper before Mr Wooster. ‘Write down the key, please, sir.’

‘I’m afraid I don’t dig you, old chap. What key?’ His expression was quite convincingly nonplussed. Jeeves arched his brow a threatening eighth of an inch and waited.

Mr Wooster blinked, his own brow still convincingly furrowed. ‘Jeeves? Are you alright? You have the key to the old Singer, you know. It’s in your pocket.’

‘Why did you write these letters in duplicate, sir?’

‘Well, Jeeves, you know my cousin Angela? She got a pippin of an idea. She said-well, that is to say she wrote, really, in a letter-she said, why didn’t I turn these letters into a book. You know, Deutschland in the Summertime: Travels of a British Socialite in Germany, May to November 1943, or somesuch title.’ He turned and tossed his cigarette end into the fire, wincing as his sore muscles protested.

‘Did you have plans to depart for England in the near future, sir?’

‘Oh, yes. I was leaving yesterday, as a matter o’ fact. I’d planned to take it easy in Berlin for a few days, grab a few souvenirs and whatnot. But that perisher Lustigs wired me an invitation to visit his estate before I left, for its historical interest or what have you. I v-very nearly didn’t go.’ Mr Wooster swallowed convulsively.

Jeeves studied his former employer in silence for a few moments. Then he repeated patiently, as if he could continue all day, ‘Please write down the key I may use to decode these letters, sir.’

Mr Wooster’s mouth fell open in an admirable rendition of incomprehension and alarm, ‘I think you might still have a bit of a fever, old bean.’ He groaned as he got to his feet. ‘Let’s get you some water. No, tea. Yes, tea’s the ticket.’

Jeeves felt piqued. Mr Wooster had no right to develop a talent for acting after thirty-odd years of being as transparent as a window and as intelligent as a trapped bee. However, ut quimus, aiunt, quando ut volumnus, non licet.[1] Spotting the .38 on the bread table, Jeeves removed all the bullets save one, and spun the cylinder.

He was absurdly pleased to see Mr Wooster’s mouth fall open in shock.

‘Jeeves, you wouldn’t!’

‘I have given you my story, sir. Now you give me yours. You may be in possession of information that could assist us in returning home.’

‘B-b-but it’s against the rules to share codes, Jeeves, you know that! Vera would flay me alive!’

The cylinder stopped spinning with a final click. Jeeves aimed the pistol at the aristocrat’s left foot, and waited.

‘Oh, come now, Jeeves.’ Mr Wooster quavered. ‘Where’s that old feudal spirit, eh?’

Jeeves pulled back the hammer. ‘Perhaps it has gone the way of the old Bertie Wooster, sir.’

There was a long silence during which neither of them moved. Then Mr Wooster took a deep breath, as if he had suddenly remembered to breathe. ‘No, you wouldn’t.’ He said again, quietly and with conviction. ‘You’re condemned from your own lips, old bean. You want us both to return home.’

Jeeves uncocked the hammer with a rueful sigh and returned the .38 to the bread table. ‘No,’ he agreed. ‘I will not fire. I have learned the ways of this pistol more intimately than those of any other weapon. It so happens that the bullet is currently aligned with the barrel.’ He returned to the dining table and absently began folding a sheet of stationary.

Mr Wooster checked the pistol, and gave his opinion of the Generalarzt using words that had certainly not been in his vocabulary before the war. He keened softly as he lowered himself back into his chair, and watched as Jeeves continued folding, unfolding and refolding the paper. He laughed when Jeeves set a small paper rabbit on the table.

‘I believe I shall tidy this house up a little,’ Jeeves decided, glancing around at the dust and cobwebs. ‘It is the least we could do under the circumstances…’ He rose and began removing cobwebs with a rag draped over a broom handle. The task carried him to the adjoining rooms. He dusted the rooms as best he could and returned to the kitchen.

Mr Wooster called him to the table, where a gold fountain pen lay beside a sheet of stationary still wet with ink. ‘Here is your key, Jeeves. I think it’s my turn to have a go at this cleaning lark, what?’ He groaned himself to his feet and took the broom and rags from his former valet’s unresisting fingers. ‘You must tell me about the good old Bertie Wooster sometime, Jeeves.’ He added softly. ‘I miss the fellow.’

***

Jeeves spent the day decrypting Mr Wooster’s letters, marvelling at the extent and detail of the information he had managed to gather. The man was quite a brilliant spy, though Jeeves thought it best not to tell him so, lest it give him ideas.

Mr Wooster, meanwhile, dusted the shelves and sideboard, swept the floors, brought in fresh water from the pump, and even cleaned out the pantry, though Jeeves assisted him in disposing of the smellier foodstuffs. Jeeves couldn’t help staring at him from time to time. It was unspeakably odd to be the one sitting at his leisure as his former employer kept house.

Jeeves was pensive as he prepared and served their supper of spinach salad with haw-juice dressing and potatoes with sauerkraut. But he waited until they had eaten and were lighting up a pair of friendly after-dinner cigarettes before asking his questions.

‘What was the true reason for which you made these duplicates, sir?’ he began. ‘I assume you mailed the originals to prearranged addresses.’

Mr Wooster nodded, and winced. Manual labour was not suiting him at all. ‘Absolutely, old chap. These were merely for personal what-is-it. Reference, I mean. You know what my memory is like.’

Jeeves nodded, recalling the time Mr Wooster had set a flour trap and walked into it not ten minutes later. Jeeves had nearly cracked a rib trying not to laugh on the way home. He looked up from flicking his ash into a plate to find Mr Wooster looking much more at ease than he had all day. Jeeves had forgotten how well his former employer could read his emotions.

‘What does “fort” in your letters refer to, sir? Operation Fortitude, perhaps?’

‘Right in one, old top.’

Jeeves waited for him to continue, but Mr Wooster did not elaborate.

‘What is Operation Fortitude, sir?’

‘Well, it’s… it’s a decoy, Jeeves, if that’s the word I want. Orders were to convince the Nazis we’re going to attack in Scandinavia and… some other place down in France. Calais, probably. I-I was only told my bit to tell the Huns. I haven’t a bally clue what’s really going down.’

Jeeves said nothing.

‘I mean, I suppose we could be gearing up for a double-attack and what-not.’ Mr Wooster elaborated after a nervous puff or two. ‘And we might get the Americans to fight with us. But we wouldn’t land in Scandinavia or Calais.’

Jeeves repeated himself.

‘That’s about all I know, Jeeves. You know the Nazis would smell a rat if I appeared to know too much. And you know me, I always get confused as to whom to say what to, what?’ Mr Wooster was babbling now. ‘It took me all of three months just to learn my part in this spying lark-’

‘Three months, sir?’ Jeeves echoed, startled.

Mr Wooster shrugged sheepishly. ‘Rather. You probably learned it all in three minutes, standing on your head while juggling fruit, but-’

‘Sir, standard training is six months.’ Jeeves interrupted him, a sharp edge to his voice.

‘Oh. Well, no, it’s three now.’ Mr Wooster frowned. ‘And …well, they don’t seem to care if you pass the training or not, either, really. Chief Wilson said he wouldn’t trust me to find my backside with both hands and a map, let alone find out what the enemy is up to.’

Jeeves sighed, leaning back in his chair. ‘I have heard that some of our best operatives had been declared by their instructors as “unfit to go into the field”. It is Miss Atkins-not the instructors-who has the final say.’[2]

‘That’s all right then,’ Mr Wooster said with a hesitant smile. ‘Were you given the six months, Jeeves?’

‘No, sir. I was trained during the Great War. But I was given a month to “get up to date”, as they say. How did you come to join the SOE, sir? It is the SOE you joined, is it not?’

Bertie nodded. ‘The one and only. I joined through Aunt Agatha. You know the old Stately ‘Omes of England gag? Steeple Bumpleigh is one of the Stately ‘Omes of E. the SOE trains at. After Mrs Coote, um…’

‘Yes, sir.’ Jeeves rose to poke at the fire.

‘Well, once her affairs were settled, I went back to Old Blighty to do my bit on the home front (since the Army and Navy still refuse to so much as look in my direction). No sooner am I off the boat then the old dragon comes along and orders me to see to it that the nice young ladies and gentlemen at Steeple Bumpleigh have everything they need. What they needed, funnily enough, was a toff with business interests in Germany who was stupid and greedy enough to go in the middle of a war and attempt to do business with the enemy. I very nearly didn’t pull it off, you know. The Jerrys at the Swiss border were just about to haul me off to a POW camp or some such place when I casually let drop that I had friends in Whitehall with small brains and loose tongues.’

‘I see,’ Jeeves murmured, suppressing a shudder at the thought of Bertie being carted off to a Nazi camp. His eyes fell once again to the papers on the table. He picked up the pen and began drawing a relationship map of the people mentioned in Bertie’s letters.

The aristocrat watched him silently for a while. Then he asked in a small voice. ‘You do believe me, don’t you, Jeeves?’

‘Yes, sir,’ Jeeves replied, not looking up. ‘I apologize for alarming you this morning, sir. Trust dies but mistrust blossoms.’[3]

‘Right-oh. It’s only… I mean, I, um,…’

Jeeves glanced up. ‘Sir?’

‘Please stop calling me “sir”, for heaven’s sake!’

Jeeves cocked an eyebrow at him, and Mr Wooster ran a tired hand through his hair.

‘You’re my senior in this game, you know. I should be calling you “Mr Jeeves”. Lord knows I’ve felt like it these past few days.’

Jeeves blinked owlishly at him. ‘And shall I call you Lord Yaxley?’

‘No, you bally well shan’t!’ Mr Wooster snapped, peeved. ‘Of all the blitheringness! That’s just a whatchamacallit. It’s on the tip of my tongue…’

‘Would nom de guerre be the phrase for which you are groping?’

‘That’s the baby! The Nazis expect all Englishmen to be Lord Something-or-Other, don’t you know?’

‘Indeed, sir. Shall I call you Wooster, then, as you call me Jeeves?’

Bertie grinned. ‘Good Heavens, no! “Wooster” is the signal for me to hare off like a fox with all the kings horses in hot pursuit.’

Jeeves  heaved a sigh of resignation. He had completed the map to his satisfaction, and was now twisting used sheets of stationary into thin sticks of paper for burning.

‘Bertie would do,’ Mr Wooster said quietly. ‘Or Bertram, if you prefer, though only the Ancients call me that.’

‘And would you call me Reggie or Reginald, sir?’ Jeeves asked mildly.

Mr Wooster gave a quick, nervous smile. ‘I don’t think you’d like that very much. Not even your mother called you that.’

‘I would not appreciate you calling me Laddie, either, si-’ Jeeves cleared his throat and tapped the copies of Mr Wooster’s letters together. ‘Shall I burn these duplicates? It would be safer to travel without them.’

‘Well, you know best, Jeeves. But we might find more information on the way home and need to write it down. If we don’t have time to post another letter, we can burn the original and keep the copy as part of the manuscript. I have an envelope and a pitch letter for it as well, see?’ He pulled a large manila envelope from a side-pocket in his valise, and Jeeves read: To the Arthur Doyle Literary Agency, 64 Baker Street, London NW1 6XE.

Jeeves hesitated. ‘Isn’t this a trifle obvious as a ruse to smuggle information out of Germany, s…?’

‘Certainly, Jeeves,’ Mr Wooster replied with a sly grin. ‘It’s so obvious that no spy worth his thimbleful of lemon juice would even consider it. And look at the wording of the thing. The author is obviously nothing more than a twittering git. I could take it right across the Swiss border with me.’

Jeeves leaned back pensively in his seat, twiddling a paper clip. ‘I believe there is a repro artist[4] in Leipzig who can make me a card that would identify me as an officer of the RSHA. The false identity might serve as further protection on the journey.’

‘It would mean I’m already being watched.’ Bertie agreed.

Jeeves nodded, then gave his fingers a puzzled glance. ‘Why were these papers held together with so many clips, sir?’

‘Oh, um, well, I put them in to help you think up a better plan to fish you out of the mugillitawny, Jeeves. The only plan I could think up on the spot was absolute tosh. I wish someone had told me where you were. I could have come prepared with fishing net and javelin at the ready-’

Jeeves leaned across the table and stopped Mr Wooster with a hand upon his arm. ‘Bertie, when an operative is captured, he or she disappears. The SOE doesn’t often learn of their capture until well after they are dead. These expeditions are not the romantic adventures that shilling shockers portray them to be. Rescue is usually not at hand.’

Mr Wooster blushed. ‘I’m only too well aware of that, Jeeves,’ He said sharply. ‘I didn’t join this gig out of some bally romantic desire to joust with villains or match wits with madmen. I joined because I thought my country might find me useful.’

Jeeves withdrew his hand. ‘To judge by the quantity and the importance of the intelligence you have gathered in these letters, sir, you have proven yourself to be more useful than half the operatives in the SOE, myself included.’ He paused, instantly regretting his praise, true though it was. But Mr Wooster’s face melted into a smile, and Jeeves couldn’t help but add ‘What plan did you formulate to rescue me from the evil Generalarzt Lustigs?’

‘Only the conventional Hero’s Plan B I’m afraid, old top: Drug the villain and run away with the prize.’

‘How romantic,’ Jeeves murmured with the twitch of an eyebrow and the slightest of smiles.

Mr Wooster blushed. ‘But as you said, it doesn’t usually work out that way.’ He paused with a frown. ‘Actually, I was afraid I might just kill the bleeder. The way he looked at you, like you were some bally insect he was taking to bits…’ The look on the aristocrat’s face was so ugly that Jeeves coughed quietly to distract him.

‘Where do you keep the Mickey Finn?’ It was difficult to swallow the automatic ‘sir’, but Jeeves was determined to give it a try.

‘In my wristwatch. It’s quite clever, I thought: looks like part of the mech-er-inner workings of the thing.’

‘Hm. Perhaps I should remove it and disguise it as a shirt-cuff button. You would have it more readily to hand should you require it.’

Mr Wooster grinned. ‘But I would need to be extra careful not to put my sleeve in the soup.’

Part 7

---

[1] Plubius Terentius: ‘do what you can do when you can’t do what you would do.’

In this story Bertie is 38, Jeeves is 48. Presumably Bertie developed acting and other talents during the five years they had been separated by the war.

[2] Vera Atkins (1908-2000), spymistress for the SOE during WWII. She was also the inspiration for Ian Fleming’s Miss Moneypenny.

[3] Sophocles.

[4] SOE reproduction artist, a forger of false documents.

The Long Long Trail, Part 5/15

Part 5 Glossary (feel free to skip on to the fic):
Baker Street: Headquarters of the SOE (Special Operations Executive).
Foots: Members of a spy-catching team.
L pills: L for Lethal. The cyanide pills were often disguised as buttons.
Poem-codes: The four things the ideal SOE operative should be familiar with are crossword puzzles, English verse, popular slang, and English music hall songs. These were essential for memorizing the poem-codes operatives used to transmit messages over insecure channels.
RSHA: The Reichssicherheitshauptamt was the Third Reich’s main security office. They had power to spy on the citizenry, to interrogate, to torture, and to execute. The RSHA was created through the merger of the Security Service, the Gestapo and the Kripo (Criminal Police).
Rolled up: Arrested.

Part 5: Operation Nippy

It was Jack Bedder’s evening off, and as usual he was in the Brauhaus playing Kaiserspiel with a few of the locals. They liked him because he was Swiss and therefore courteous, and also because he couldn’t seem to get the hang of Kaiserspiel, old game though it was (and played in Switzerland as well). The onlookers laughed as his team lost yet another game, and his partner threw up his hands with a good-natured oath.

Bedder glanced toward the bar, thinking about ordering his final beer for the night, when one of the drinkers caught his eye. The man held his gaze for longer than was customary, a small, knowing smile playing about his lips. It was not a friendly smile, and this man was not a regular at the Brauhaus.

Fear crackled down Bedder’s spine, but he turned back to his table. ‘Oh, my Groschen! My hard-earned Groschen!’ he lamented jokingly as the winning team divided their spoils. The group around the table laughed again and offered their condolences. And as Bedder tipped his hat to them he noticed another two strange men watching him more avidly than the regulars did. His nerves began to thrum with fear, and bile rose into his throat. His cover was blown. How was this possible?

For nearly five years Bedder had worked for the wealthiest households in Berlin, his prodigious skill and the Swiss neutrality ensuring his welcome. It had become a popular sport among the upper classes to ‘steal’ him from his employers, and hefty bets were placed as to which household would get him next. Not many households could afford him now. But at a dinner party a fortnight ago he had finally come to the Führer’s attention. He had joined the man’s household as under-butler only a few days before.

He was so close! But now, he knew, he was also finished. The cold, knowing eyes of his watchers had told him so.

Bedder bid his drinking companions a cordial goodnight and stepped out into the still-bustling street. He knew he would not be permitted to return to the Führer’s palace. So he ambled aimlessly along the more populated streets, apparently enjoying the warm summer evening.

He tried a few feints to shake off the watcher team behind him, darting into large shops or restaurants and leaving by another exit. He attempted to disappear in the flow of pedestrian traffic, casually but quickly combing his hair with a small brush that turned it gray, and discarding his Homburg for a felt Fedora he kept folded in his coat. But the foots remained in lockstep with him, stalking him with the ease of seasoned hunters, waiting patiently for their quarry to turn into a quiet side street, where they would take him down with the maximum of speed and minimum of fuss. Bedder suspected that these foots were not mere Gestapo, but answered directly to the RSHA.

He stopped for a moment at a busy intersection and nonchalantly lit a gasper. He knew he could not escape, but he could warn Baker Street of his failure. He turned into a well-plotted route that would eventually lead him to a shabby studio. The route twisted and wound haphazardly across Berlin, and would have lost the Gestapo in mere minutes. But he was nearly at the end of it and beginning to panic before he found himself finally in the black.

He made a beeline for the studio. It held nothing but a bed, a chair, and a desk with a telephone on it. He dialled a number and waited for the relay system to connect him with Lt. Col. R. Thornley’s office in London. One of Thornley’s girls answered, and Bedder gave her his ‘safe’ word,[1] followed by all the most important information he had gathered since his previous communication. He spoke quickly, encoding on the spot, picking phrases from Mr Wooster’s favourite music hall songs, as he found them easiest to remember under pressure. He prayed he was not making any mistakes, though the girl did not interrupt him or ask him to repeat anything. He could hear Mr Wooster’s voice and the tinkling of a piano in the back of his mind as he spoke.

If driving fast cars you like, if low bars you like, if old hymns you like, if bare limbs you like, if Mae West you like, or me undressed you like, why, nobody will oppose!

He paused for breath, and heard the scratching of a pick in the lock. The foots had found him. Panic surged through him, and he suddenly forgot the lyrics to every song he knew except the one Mr Wooster was singing gaily in his head. But he needed no further encoding to finish his message.

‘Nippy compromised. I repeat, Nippy compromised.’ He raised his sleeve to his mouth, and heard a door hinge creak behind him. ‘Putzer rolled up.’ Hands grabbed him just as the L pill crunched between his teeth, and the phone clattered off the desk.

Someone swore in German. Fingers and the lip of a canteen were thrust into his mouth. The canteen had a long neck. They forced it in deep and ipecac flooded his throat. They did not remove it until he had vomited violently.

Then they threw him to the floor and one of them knelt on his legs, pinning his arms high behind his back. He was surprised when a cloth drenched in chloroform was pressed to his face. Surely if they wanted him alive they wouldn’t compound chloroform and ipecac with the trace cyanide and alcohol still in his system?

Bedder smiled and inhaled deeply. Unlike these goons he was well aware of the thin stretch between the effective dose of chloroform and the lethal dose-a stretch made even thinner by the cocktail in his bloodstream. He could still hear Mr Wooster’s bubbly music hall singing in the back of his mind, so inappropriate for the moment.

If saying your prayers you like, if green pears you like, if old chairs you like, if back stairs you like, if love affairs you like, with young bears you like, why, nobody will oppose!

Long minutes of determined breathing and deceptive struggling passed before he fainted, but he failed to bridge that thin stretch between unconsciousness and death. He woke in a windowless cell, stripped to the skin and with his head shaved. His head was also pounding, his gut churning, and he had no sooner opened his eyes than he was violently dry-heaving.

* * *

‘Jeeves? You’re feverish again.’

The headache was not nearly as bad as the one he had recalled in his dream. Jeeves swallowed convulsively, determined not to vomit. ‘I apologise for disturbing your sleep, sir.’

‘Tish, Jeeves. Here.’ Mr Wooster held out a few Aspirins and a glass of water. ‘I’ll wind up killing you with this stuff. Do you know how much of it you’ve swallowed these past couple days?’

He blew out the candle and hurried round to the other side of the bed, sliding under the covers with a shiver. ‘You were having another nightmare,’ he said, sounding aggrieved. ‘Was it Lustigs again?’

‘No, sir. It was… only a memory.’

‘A memory? Egad, Jeeves, what have you been up to all these years?’

Jeeves was silent. He could tell it was a question Mr Wooster had been burning to ask him.

‘Five years that I haven’t heard hide nor hair of you,’ Mr Wooster muttered petulantly. ‘Doesn’t an old friend deserve an explanation?’

Jeeves remained silent.

‘I… I thought you’d copped it, you know, like Ooffy and Packy,’ Mr Wooster’s voice trembled, ‘and Tuppy and Barmy and Claude…’ his voice cracked and he stopped. Jeeves reached out and gave his shoulder a comforting squeeze.

‘I imagined it,’ Mr Wooster whispered, almost accusingly, ‘you being captured and tortured and executed-dozens of times before I even left New York.’

Jeeves flinched. He could recall a time when Mr Wooster’s worst thoughts revolved around undesirable engagements and angry aunts. Now he thought of friends and family killed in battle, of torture and of executions.

‘But it seems you had an even worse time of it than I could have imagined.’ Mr Wooster continued. ‘And the rotter was going to off you, wasn’t he, with that gun in the kitchen? You said in your fever that he had told you so as he polished the damned thing. He gloated!’

Jeeves said nothing. Mr Wooster did not know it, but the .38 was no longer in the kitchen. It was in the drawer of the night-table beside him.

Mr Wooster wriggled a little closer to him. ‘Please, Jeeves, tell me where you’ve been all these years, and what you’ve done. What have I missed?’

Jeeves smiled in the dark. ‘If you were a double-agent, sir, you would be saying precisely the right words to induce me into telling you everything. But I’m ashamed to say the Germans already know everything I could tell them.’

Mr Wooster sat up sharply. ‘Jeeves! How could you still think that I-’

‘I was betrayed, sir,’ Jeeves interrupted quietly, ‘by a man I had known intimately for more than twenty years; a man who was instrumental in advancing my career. He was, in fact, the man who had directed me to your doorstep when you were in need of a new valet.’

‘You mean one of the fellows at the agency? Which one?’

Jeeves did not reply. Mr Wooster slid pensively back under the covers, now so close that Jeeves could feel a faint breath on his hand where it clutched the pillow. He sighed.

‘My mission was called Operation Nippy, sir, after the Nippies in the Lyons Teashops,’ he said softly. ‘The plan was to poison the Führer quietly in his own home.[2] I was the inside man, the intended assassin. But I was caught because a man I trusted betrayed me to the Main Security Office.’

‘You were the intended assassin,’ Bertie echoed softly. ‘How did you plan to escape after you had killed him?’

Jeeves again did not reply.

‘I see. So five years ago you dropped me off at your mother’s like an old piece of luggage and went off to die.’

Jeeves opened his mouth, and closed it again. He had indeed cajoled Bertie into relocating to Mrs Coote’s spacious Southampton home. Bertie had at the time made New York too hot to hold him; and Jeeves had discreetly ensured he would not be permitted by any Royal military body to join the burgeoning war effort. He had told Bertie the arrangement was as much to keep his mother out of trouble as it was to provide Bertie with service he could trust. Fortunately Bertie had been charmed by Mrs Coote’s cheerful good nature, and enchanted by her tales of adventure, for she had lived her life to the fullest (often leaving her son to fend for himself).

Bertie fumed silently for a few minutes, but then his curiosity got the better of him. ‘How were you captured?’

‘Spycatchers crept up behind me and dosed me with chloroform, sir.’

‘Good heavens! Like the heroine in those old Sexton Blake novels?’

‘No, sir,’ Jeeves murmured with a hint of reproach.

They said no more that night, but after a while Jeeves felt Mr Wooster’s hand lightly cover his own. The memory of chloroform drowned in the scents of musty sheets, peppermint and Zizanie.

Jeeves woke with the dawn to find Mr Wooster’s hand still covering his own on the pillow. Their fingers were entwined, and Mr Wooster’s finely shaped nose was sending gusts of warm air between them. He recalled with a smile the few mornings upon which he had entered Mr Wooster’s room to find the young man with his thumb in his mouth. This comforting subconscious behaviour had always followed an extremely difficult evening, such as an outing with a particularly argumentative relative or fiancé.

This morning he had mistakenly latched upon Jeeves’ thumb, and the realization gave Jeeves an instant and almost painful cockstand. Hardly daring to breathe, he stealthily took the offending appendage to hand and stroked it until the need for release became too insistent. Then he gently withdrew his thumb from Mr Wooster’s mouth, eliciting a sleepy whimper that made his cock throb. He hurried into the chilly kitchen and beat himself to completion, stifling his gasps in a handful of nightshirt.

He remained standing in the cold a long while afterward, stroking his shrinking prick and berating himself for his lack of self-control. He had never before in his adult life suffered an unintentional cockstand in the presence of a man, and now he’d had two in a span of twelve hours. At last he chalked it up to abstinence, and moved to clean up his mess and build up the fire.

Part 6

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[1] As opposed to his ‘Nazis have caught me and are making me say this’ word.

[2] Several plans to poison Hitler were hatched during WWII, but none were carried out because of the necessity for an inside man in one of Hitler’s households.