The Travellers - 11. Chapter 11 On the Move again

In which they start a new job under unfavorable conditions, Kyle makes an implicit harsh accusation, that he regrets but that causes Collin to think over his own wartime years and makes him live through ancient Gaelic customs again as an unexpected result.

Oh, and…in which you will meet a new, very colorful character!

Their arrival in the new town was like a cold shower and not only because of the typical Scottish rainy spring weather. After they got used to the fact that they were more or less accepted in Inverness, they hit a brick wall of indifference, hostility and revulsion again.

Immediately after arriving in town, they had their first reception of what would be in store for them, when they saw a police constable. Collin told Kyle to halt and asked the man:

“Good afternoon, can ye tell us where we can find the best place to camp without bothering any one?”

The man stared briefly at him and answered with unconcealed hatred and aversion in his voice and eyes:

“I don’t care. If it is outside the limits of me town, it’s fine with me!”

“So far for a friendly advice,” Collin murmured, shaking his head.

The job was not what they had expected of it. It was a repair job. Collin hated repair jobs: it put limitations on his creativity because they only had to make exact copies of the damaged panels, besides it constrained the appliance of his technical abilities. But it paid good money and it was an excellent exercise for Jamie.

Their first day at the job they examined the wooden choir-stalls of a church, which wasn’t that old at all. Most of the wood was in decay.

“No wonder,” Collin growled disgruntled, “the amateur who made this didn’t even know what wood to use. With all the damp air over here, it rots away while looking at it.”

Whole elements of the furniture needed to be exchanged totally and they all knew, that their stay in this unfriendly town would be longer than they bargained for.

It was one of those nights after work. Because of the lovely weather they were having their tea outside in front of the wagon and both boys toiled on some teaching assignment, that Collin had given them. Which meant: Jamie had mastered it in no time, but Kyle didn’t even know where to start, despite regular help from Collin.

All of a sudden Kyle looked directly in Collin’s eyes with a penetrating gaze and with a venomous tone in his voice he asked:

“Where were you during the war, Collin?”

Collin remained unperturbed: he understood the question. In these terrible years the boy had lost both parents, one as a direct war casualty, the other as an indirect victim. He decided to take the question seriously and to answer it without lies or deviations:

“I was in the Netherlands during the war. Nay, it is not what ye think: I was not a deserter. I happened to be at work there when the war broke out. As an English citizen I was interned. They only let me go in the beginning of 1919”.

“You were on the continent?” Jamie asked excited, unaware of the implication of Kyle’s question.

Collin just nodded in reply.

“Oh man, that is great…those are the real travels!” Jamie exclaimed with gleaming eyes.

“So ye just happened to be there?” Kyle sneered.

“Ye know, Kyle”, Collin said quiet, “I was just doing me job over there, in the south of the country, when the war started. I was arrested and interned, far to the north. I don’t know how it was to be on the front, I’ve never been there. It must have been terrible, but this internment camp wasn’t a picnic either, especially for a free-minded man like me. So every now and then I met English soldiers, who did desert. And judging from the stories they told, I can’t blame them! I think, I would have done the same!”

Kyle put his eyes down in visible shame.

“Sorry, I had no right to ask ye”, he whispered.

“Oh aye, laddie, ye have the right to ask. Ye are fully entitled to look at a man in front of ye alive and kicking and without any visible physical damage and wonder why yer father was killed, when he is still alive”.

“But, did you speak Dutch then?” Jamie asked with unabated excitement.

Collin laughed briefly:

“In the beginning I couldn’t understand a word of it but after four years I picked up quite a lot of the language. Besides: I learned other things as well, but they had to do with me craft, not with the grieve Kyle feels”.

The last-mentioned swept away a tear and said, laying the assignment on the floor:

“I will come over it. But for tonight I spoiled enough good wood”.

With darkness falling the evening continued in some kind of gloomy mood. Collin really wasn’t too sure how to handle it to pay attention to one of his beloved at the expense of the other. On one hand there was the still excited Jamie, who tried to find out more and more about his travels on the continent. On the other hand, there was Kyle, who just sat there with a sad face, without saying anything. No matter what: Collin was glad when it was time for bed.

Night didn’t bring the wanted repose. Collin stared at the wooden ceiling above him and couldn’t catch sleep. Memories came to his mind. They were the recollections of his voyage from the Netherlands back home. No, he hadn’t been on the front, but he had seen it: the total devastation of whole cities and the countryside in Belgium. Not one stone was on top of another, not a single tree stood upright. He had no idea how the moon looked like, but it had to look alike the square miles of desolation through which he had traveled.

The worst thing to look at were the cemeteries: acres full of white crosses, row for row, square after square, all laid out with military precision. It recalled the same reaction this night as it had, when he first saw it: tears filled his eyes! All these lives, that were thrown away for…for what actually? Maybe some of the men under these white crosses had deserved a decoration. But was a piece of gilded tin with a ribbon worth dying for? Maybe Kyle’s father was one of the men under one of these crosses. He didn’t know where the man had died. Maybe even Kyle didn’t know it. Because, besides the hundreds of thousands, who were buried here in ruler-straight lines there were countless others, who only found a grave in the mud, under some pasture or in a nameless piece of forest. Anyway, they had died in faraway places with names that didn’t mean a thing to all their beloved ones in small English and Scottish villages.

And how many generals had died? Presumably none, apart from those who died of a heart failure in a whore house far behind the front lines.

“Ye can’t count them as war casualties, can ye?” Collin thought with a wry smile, “But no doubt they were listed as “killed in combat! Just to keep their records clean, of course”.

But there weren’t only the dead! He had seen the others in the internment camps, those who couldn’t take it any longer and had fled the slaughterhouse and made it to neutral grounds without being caught and shot by a firing squad. Or those, who were transferred by their German capturers to a neutral country for treatment of their grievous wounds. No, those ones weren’t dead, but he almost pitied them for being alive. Because they were the ones, that the politicians and generals had convicted to a lifetime of struggle with their pains, their inabilities and their demons. He was certain of that, he had learned enough from the many talks with these once fine men!

He felt how a head was laid on his chest from the right. It had to be Kyle, he was always on the right side. Without thinking about it, he stroked the boy’s long hair. Then he heard a sobbing whisper:

“Collin, I should have never asked ye about that. I can’t make ye responsible for me parents’ death. It is not fair to do that! I will try to hold me tongue in the future”.

“It doesn’t matter, love”, Collin said soothingly, “Ye were sad, ye were angry. And then it can happen ye say things, that ye regret later”.

“Nay, ye can’t just blurt things out because ye are sad”, Kyle objected, talking louder as he did before, “Ye can hurt people with that. I might have hurt ye with it. Next time I will use me common sense and control meself”.

“Common sense and feelings are two different things, me love. And so every now and then they can collide, But…don’t ye worry about a thing. I’m going to take care of ye, I’m going to take care for the both of ye!”

The second he said it, he knew it: he had made a vow and he was going to keep it! He was going to take care of his two splendid young lovers.

He felt fingertips playing over his breast hair.

“What I really need at this moment is warmth and love”, a new whispering was heard.

Before Collin knew what happened, two soft lips touched his. A tongue pushed itself in his mouth and the hand slipped from the breast to the lower parts. He answered the kiss in an intense and desirous way, which only served to increase the passion in the younger boy. He felt how the whole body of the boy ended on top of his in an intimate contact between their skins.

The pulsing in his groin started as a clear indication of his growing lust. He felt how Kyle stroke his testicles and the boy’s tongue slowly slithered over his belly.

A laughing voice, clearly unaware what had been discussed before and coming from the left, startled them:

“Were you two thinking I was asleep? No way, I want to join!”

In a split second the two boys jumped the older man. Collin really enjoyed it, how two soft, warm tongues stroke his shaft, moving forward little by little: once arrived at the tip they had a friendly competition struggle in which each of them tried to lick the most pre-fluids to his advantage, in the meantime kissing and briefly licking one another. One tongue over an oversensitive tip could be considered as an intense experience, two tongues at the same time was almost an unbearable delight. So now and then one of the tongues slipped to the hyper-sensitive skin of his groin, making the intensity almost joyfully excruciating. The boys kept pushing aside each other’s head playfully and masturbated each other at the same time. Colin knew that the release of his tension could not be postponed for long. The desire, that both boys gave him, was too overwhelming. He tried to buy time with a weak:

“Wait a minute, laddies!”

He might as well have not said it, it fell on deaf ears. The two young stallions stampeded and couldn’t be stopped, no matter what. Moaning he released his seeds. There was a mad scramble between the two of them to catch as much from the white gold as possible in their mouths, but in the resulting melee most was lost.

Collin had to catch his breath first. He closed his eyes and smiled: the old Gaelic warrior had returned. He was in his lair with his two lovers, one on each side of him. That was, what his forebears must have felt as reward for surviving and winning another bloody battle.

The working week was done. The rest of the day and the following Sunday they could withdraw into the sanctuary of their camp, being reprieved from the insults, the distrust and the hostility from the naken in this town until Monday. Compared with Inverness their stay was a shock, but Collin considered this city the worst he had encountered. They were reviled on the streets with “Piss off, stinking tinkie!”, “What are ye doing here, scum?” and other expressions of hate being quite common.

They felt relieved when they had some time off from the hate. They sat in front of their wagon and had tea. It was a lovely day. For a change the sun shone brightly and birds were singing everywhere. It promised to become a nice, quiet evening and they were content to spend it with the three of them.

But they reckoned without an unexpected guest. Jamie looked up, nodded in the direction of the road and said:

“We’re going to have a visitor”.

The others looked up as well. A man, leading a bike with his hand, walked in the direction of their camp. His clothes told them he was a priest.

“I don’t fancy that right now!” Collin growled, “I took all the abuse I could take this week!”

The boys nodded their agreement, but it was an undeniable matter of fact that the man came nearer and nearer.

While he approached them, Collin had a good look at him. It made him doubt his initial impression. The man behaved in a friendly way. It was not the typical inflated local representative of the Lord, who had come along to give them a clear and stern lecture.

It was a young priest, maybe just past thirty or so. His black cassock fluttered loosely around his slim stature. He had a narrow face, but it was a face with two smart eyes, hidden behind a pair of round spectacles and given to laughter. The most noticeable feature of his appearance however was his hair: it was an almost flame-red crop.

“Good evening, men”, he called out, putting his bike against a brush, “Do you mind if I join you for a while?”

“Be our guest, Father”, Collin replied, “Grab a chair. Would you like a cup of tea?”

“Oh yes, I would love that!” the priest said with a happy smile, “It was a pretty good distance on the bike and that makes one thirsty on a warm evening like this. Very nice spot you men have over here”.

The priest got his tea and took his first sip with a satisfied look. Collin was curious why the man had come in the first place and decided to press for the reason for his visit:

“What can we do for ye, Father?”

“Yes…of course, the reason for my unannounced visit”, the man said smiling.

“Well, at least it doesn’t look like a moral lecture or eternal damnation”, Collin thought, but he swallowed the thought prudently.

“Well,…” the thin man spoke, “I am the parish priest of Kilmacolm, a village about ten miles down the road. Everything is just fine there: I have a nice parish with very nice people, a small but beautiful church, a cozy rectory, but there is one thing that irritates me since I have been there”.

“And what might that be?” Collin asked politely.

“My pulpit, sir, my pulpit. That thing is so terribly old and worn out. I might as well stand on a soap box in Hyde Park when I sermonize. So I have the idea to get another one, a really beautiful one, with decorations and splendor, made by a real craftsman”.

“Why did ye come to us, Father?” Collin asked with a smile, “What makes ye think we are real craftsmen?”

“Because my colleague here in town told me you men are really good in what you are doing”, came the down-to-earth reply.

“How about that for a change?” Collin thought, “Someone in this town who tells something positive about us”.

But again, he was wise enough to keep the thought in his head, without speaking it out. Instead, he asked:

“Do ye have any idea how this new pulpit should look like?”

It prompted the man into a long dissertation of how he imaged it to look like. But after a prolonged monologue he finished with a:

“All vague ideas, sir, the ideas of a layman. I have no idea what is possible, I’m no wood carver. So, I suggest I leave it up to you how the final result will be”.

“Think about it”, Collin said, “We can always discuss it again later. Because I really feel like making this pulpit for ye”.

The priest laughed relieved:

“Wonderful! Then we have a deal!”

“There is one tiny problem, Father”, Collin damped his boundless enthusiasm, “We are still working on this job here and we need to finish it first, before yer colleague has less positive messages about us. In other words: we can’t start tomorrow”.

“No problem, my man. I have time. The most important thing is, that the problem of the pulpit nears its end and that a new one will be coming. That is, what is the most important to me”.

He rose, shook hands and walked towards his bike. Suddenly he turned around, a look of shock in his eyes, and said:

“Oh dear, did I introduce myself?”

All three shook their heads.

“Oh dear, how terribly impolite”, the man said ashamed, “I am Father Farquahart. I do apologize, I was so terribly enthusiastic, that I even forgot the most basic rules of politeness. But of course, you can also call me by my nick name, that my parishioners gave me”.

“And what might that be, Father?” Collin inquired curiously.

“Father Lighthouse!” was the direct answer.

The man put up a mock-thinking face and said:

“I really wonder if that is because I am the lighting beacon for my parish? Or is it just because of the color of my hair?”

He roared with laughter when he said it.

Again, he shook hands. Then he took his bike and left, back to Kilmacolm.

Collin watched him leave. Despite his initial misgivings he had to admit he liked the man, actually he liked him a lot.

“One job rolls into the other”, he said to the two boys, “Not bad, laddies!”

“No”, Jamie agreed, “and a very nice job on top of that as well!”

Collin looked at him with a funny glance in his eyes, but kept silent. An idea was forming in his head, that had a lot to do with Jamie. But first he had to discuss it with Father Lighthouse. And that had to wait until the job in this town was done.

It took them some more weeks before they finished up the job at hand. But finally, they were able to break up camp with a sense of relief that they could leave this hostile city once and for all. As far as all of them were concerned, they had no intention to return to it in the future.

They left early. It was a small hop to Kilmacolm, so it gave them the opportunity to arrive at a convenient hour, in that way having plenty of time to search for a nice camp site. As usual Kyle directed Rover expertly out of town. Once they hit the road farther to the west, they set course for Kilmacolm.