BigBen

As a Yank myself, I loved that comment, "Bloody Yankees!" 🤣 And I also loved the scene at the end, with the soldiers trying to hide from Captain Eccleston. Nice to know they all have a sense of humor! ('Course they'd have to, with our Jex around, wouldn't they?)

Oh! I think I remember him . . . !

Interesting! Thank you for explaining. 👍

Wow! This was an exciting chapter. You really got my heart going! The confrontation with the miners escalated rather quickly. This reinforces my suspicion of something nefarious going on with that base.. I looked up "freehold" on a couple of Australian legal sites, to see what it means in this context, and I gained the impression that even when the land is held by freehold, the Crown retains the mineral rights. Is this not true? Does it vary from state to state, perhaps? I'm not familiar with the Australian system, and U.S. law is quite different, even though derived from British practice. Not that it's all that important, but I like to learn these things. 😊

Either that, or Augie just isn't cute enough to get his juices flowing! Now, if it were me, I'd have been suggesting we zip our sleeping bags together to keep warm. . . . 😊

Now, wait! I thought Jex was saving himself for Marcus! 🤣

Appendicitis is no joke. Not only is it extremely painful, but if the organ ruptures before is removed, the resulting infection can be very difficult to combat. Yes, but he shouldn't treat active-duty military personnel, because he is a veteran-arian! 🤣 (Okay, I'll just leave now, shall I?)

Well, that makes sense. Thanks for letting me know.👍

Suppose I am looking for stories about adult gay men and wish to exclude from my searches all stories about teenagers. I see how to include tags for consideration when searching for stories, but is there any way to specify tags to be excluded?

Our Jex is certainly fortune's fair-haired child. This research jaunt is a great opportunity for him, and the team is lucky that Jex's parents are extremely generous with their money. Now they'll be living in a lot more comfort than they would have been! Dad certainly seems to be an organiser, that's for sure. He gets things done! Thanks for fixing the chapter, everything makes so much more sense, now! I forgot to mention that I was happy to learn why Jexon went to visit Dr. Harris. I couldn't figure out why, before, but now we know it was for Marcus' sake! Jex is a great kid.

Did I miss something, or is this chapter out of sequence? I don't remember any discussion of Eclipse Island or a planned visit to it, in earlier chapters. Sorry!

It's a good thing Jexon was able to help the dog with snakebite, though I'm still not clear why Jexon made the trip to Newman, if he's not planning to go to work for Dr. Harris. Is he hoping to co-ordinate his practice with hers, in some way? I'm looking forward to seeing how it all works out in future chapters. 😃

Jex doesn't seem to have any love interest in his life. Is it too much to hope that he and Marcus might hit it off? Or perhaps Jexon and Police Sgt. Brown? 😄

I'm not advocating trying to restrict our vocabulary solely to words of Anglo-Saxon derivation, if that's what my point appeared to be. "Program," "charisma," and "character" are Greek words that have developed specific meanings in English that would be hard to convey in pure Anglo-Saxon vocabulary. I just don't think "kudos" adds any value that "praise" doesn't already convey. Whereas you could write a whole dissertation on why we need both "charisma" and "gift" in our vocabulary.

"Kudos" is a Greek singular. The plural is "kudoi." So it is just as ungrammatical to write "many kudos" as it is to write "many praise." "Much kudos" is quite proper, however, just as "much praise" is. In any case, to use a Greek word when there is a perfectly good native English one to do the job is a bit pretentious.

I loved the arrival of the paratroopers. That was fun!

I certainly hope that pastor is long gone from the village! Perhaps he learned the error of his ways and repented, or perhaps Michael took him, in which case he's definitely learned the error of his ways! 😁

That Jex is such a rascal. You know he had a good time playing those recordings!

I knew I was attracted to men at age four. And even at that tender age, I knew to fear the consequences of making such an admission. But I might well have made that mistake, if I had trusted my parents more. I agree that Germany is a much more enlightened society than the U.S. and this reaction on the part of Lukas's father is probably a lot less likely than it would have been in the U.S., but I know first-hand how distorted religious teachings can warp people's minds.

Remember that Michael is an angel, and surprising things are going to happen when he's involved. Yes, the young men will probably get into some trouble for absconding with Lukas, but it was hardly against Lukas's will, and I don't know enough about European law to know how much trouble they'd be in. Lukas's father certainly doesn't deserve to get him back. In the U.S., crossing a state boundary is problematic. You can't just be shipped back without extradition proceedings, but fleeing out of state doesn't sit well with the judge in the original jurisdiction when you finally get hauled back into his or her court. Also, I don't know how good the Jugendamt is in Germany, but in the U.S., Child Protective Services (or whatever they call it in a given state) can sometimes be worse than an abusive family.

I'm surprised that the airbase museum is such a hit as a tourist site. The Kendriks have put so much money into the restoration that I'll bet they'll be glad to start earning some income from it. It will be interesting to see how Jex will combine running the museum with his veterinary practice. I'm sure the new plane will be a great help to the vet practice. When I was laid up for a while a few years ago, there was a great show on television about a vet in Alaska who made regular flights to treat those of her patients who were unable to get to her. Some of the animals were in very isolated locations, and the owners were very grateful that she could come to them.

It's possible that the wrong chunk of text got posted, by accident.

Stephan is a wise old man in a teenaged body. And to tell the truth, not all that many people are that wise at any age. 😃

One of the things I like about fiction by gay men is that the characters generally sleep naked. Women writers seem to feel that people need to dress up in order to sleep. It's a much nicer feeling to sleep naked.

That airbase sure is popular, they can't keep people out! I'd be willing to be the "reporters" were after something. It's good the snakes and scorpions are helping to manage trespassers, lol!