SIMON IN THE BLACK FOREST

Part 1: narrative begun by Simon

Of all the people I meet, what sort do I like best? Listen and I’ll tell you. I like uncomplicated people, and they are a rare breed. If you read this story to the end, you’ll understand why.

Near the head of this select list you’d find Barney, my former driving instructor. I told you a bit about him a while ago (see ‘Simon and the Horrible Hotel’). Naturally I don’t see him a lot now, since I passed my test some months back. He was like the proverbial breath of fresh air: his interest in me was as a pupil, first and last. (When I wasn’t there, all his attention seemed to be given to the ‘Racing Times’).

He might have been – although he never was – inquisitive about several other things. Why I hadn’t – aged seventeen – started shaving. (My complexion would have passed anywhere as a girl’s.) Why, when I spoke, I sounded like a twelve-year-old child. Why, although I was on the tall side – five-nine, I was so slim with it. That afternoon, so long ago it now seems, when I walked away from the clinic, a newly-made boy-eunuch, two pricks of a hypodermic had just stopped my biological clock and it would never be re-started. The future promised to be a long list of non-events.

In the absence of Barney the top prize in the “uncomplicated” stakes goes to our school groundsman, Gunner (I think his given name is Walter but he never uses it). For a long time now he has allowed me – even welcomed me – into his little sanctum in the sports store, where he had, among other things, a private store of teabags and a kettle. I can just hear him:

“’Ullo, Master Simon! (he’s always called me that) “Come to do a bit o’ studyin? Kettle’s just boiled!”

There was something very peaceful and relaxing about the sports store. Gunner had everything stowed away by exact locations: Practice Nets, Beech Tree Level, Chapel Level West, and so on. There was a pervasive aroma of tarred twine, Gunner’s preferred material for all kinds of repairs: a clean smell, reassuring in an odd sort of way.

If Gunner had a home life it certainly didn’t intrude. In fact he rarely mentioned it. There was a day, not so long ago, when he’d taken my arm in a confiding way (“Got somethink ter show yer, Master Simon!”). There, in an alcove, was a brand-new, folding camp-bed.

“Eva, that’s the wife” he’d begun, explaining this item “won it in a beetle-drive in aid o’ the Church ‘All. Now then, I sez to meself, what are we goin’ ter do with one camp-bed? Then I thought about you, and set it up ‘ere. Then yer can get yer rest, like, whenever yer like”.

Now I usually “got my rest” at the Simon Scott Centre, where the apartment I now occupied (formerly that of my late unlamented Uncle Carl) was sumptuous beyond the dreams of self-indulgence. But it was a lovely idea of Gunner’s all the same.

Here I am, banging on about Gunner instead of getting on with the story: why I’d holed-up in the sports store at half-eleven on a sunny July morning; why I was waiting a response to the call I’d made on my mobile phone a few minutes ago.

Through the window I watched Gunner (sorry but I can’t avoid him!) at the wheel of the ancient school tractor. Then footsteps sounded on the bare boards of the stores entrance: lighter and quicker than Gunner’s. Then a head appeared round the corner of the door. Blond hair in a pageboy bob. A peaches-and-cream complexion. Blue eyes that still held that “little-boy-lost” expression they had worn when I first saw their owner.

In short – Roddy.

Since our first meeting (for that you must go right back to Simon and Melanie part 2) a lot had happened. Principally he was no longer the shy and frightened little boy of those early days. He was Roddy Fisher, whose features, rendered little short of angelic by the make-up team, appeared on a thousand CD sleeves. Roddy Fisher, the acclaimed ( and commercially very successful) boy soprano.

“Of course” Roddy would say “I’m not a boy-soprano really; I’m a castrato and that hardly counts”. Roddy’s disclaimer was based on his belief that castrated children automatically developed marvellous singing voices - as he himself most definitely had. Something to do with changes in the hormone balance I guess. So, Roddy thought, if he sang like an angel, it was because he couldn’t help it.

Roddy was a castrato because at age thirteen he’d taken me as a role-model, and I was already a boy-eunuch. If by now you’ve turned up “Simon and Melanie” you’ll have read how Roddy got castrated: by torchlight, with me holding the torch, while Melanie, wetting her knickers with excitement, injected the drug that would make Roddy, too, a boy-eunuch. Anyway, forward to the present time………

Roddy came cautiously in, his body-language saying it all.

“Simon?”

“Drag that other chair over, Roddy” I began. Roddy did just that, but had hardly sat down before he began feeling up the leg of his shorts, rubbing himself furiously.

“What’s the matter, got an itch”

“More than that – it’s pretty dreadful”.

For some time after getting his balls pricked, Roddy’s penis was much the same as any preteen boy’s: slender, tapering to a point, and (of course) always hanging limp. But then he picked up an infection. Matron took one look at his swollen and painful “doodle” and decided Roddy’s complaint was outside the scope of her usual treatment – to bend him over a chair, pull his pants down and pump soapy water up his bottom.

So she bundled him off to hospital, where he was immediately circumcised. No half-measures either. The surgeon removed every last millimetre of foreskin and stitched Roddy up very tightly, leaving him with a little pink organ that made me think of a peeled prawn. Not surprisingly, his circumcision-scar was sensitive, as those of fair-skinned boys often are. Now, as a consequence, he’d re-infected, but circumcision wasn’t a possible option!

“You need to get that seen to” I said. “Get down to the new clinic, and if you can, make an appointment with Dr Laing. He's the best”.

The big new clinic, not far from the school, was equipped to carry out a range of minor surgery. It was there that Ricky had accompanied little Peter Cardew when the time came for Peter – like many twelve-year-olds – to get his balls pricked, before he could become a nuisance with girls. People who knew Peter Cardew said that losing his balls had been the making of him – he’d entered a growing-spurt and put on weight, besides being altogether more confident. No balls but more “balls” if you like!

All the medical team at the clinic were good, but most particularly, kindly old Dr Laing could be depended on to take a neutered boy’s genital problems seriously. Some unsavoury characters have emerged in the years since castrating boys became a regular clinical procedure: obsessives like Dr Kristin Geller (at one time Ricky’s mentor); perverted sadists like Dr John Julius Spicer. But Dr Laing was another of those straightforward people, a placid, slow-spoken old Scot.

Whether the problem was a sore foreskin, a scrotum that was slow in drying-up, or whatever, neutered boys could expect just this: no more, no less:

“I just need to take a wee look, laddie, so slip your shorts down. Aye……aye. Nothing serious, so (scribbling away on his pad) just take this along to the Dispensary and they’ll fix ye up. ‘Bye now”.

Roddy would be in good hands.

“If you don’t mind, Simon” Roddy chipped in “I’d like to go now. This is driving me mad”. I nodded. Roddy skipped off, shorts tight across his behind.

So it was much later that day, after dinner at The Simon Scott Centre, that I asked him the question I’d wanted to put to him that morning.

“Ever been to Germany, Roddy?

And to explain why I was asking him that, I need to go back a few frames.

I was seventeen. In a year’s time I’d be preparing for University entrance. Perversely the thing that worried me most was not which university or which degree course, but the sports I might take up. Much as I loved Rugby Union, that would surely be “out”. Even if I played at 9 or 10 where skill and agility count for more than mere brute strength, I would certainly be undersized. Nor could I really see myself in a locker room full of intact youths, all hairy asses, big balls and testosterone.

For the same reason, rowing was a non-starter (no pun intended). Anyone under six-four in height and sixteen stone in weight, need not apply.

Perhaps I could take up a solo sport, like fencing….

With these thoughts going through my head I sought Mr Carter’s advice. He heard me out with his customary patience.

“Simon, I really think you ought to decide on your preferred degree course first, and let sports take care of itself. Had any thoughts at all?

Frankly speaking, I hadn’t.

“Might I suggest, Geography?”

I’d never have thought of that.

“Geography doesn’t call for any great linguistic skills and you don’t have to be a maths genius either. There’s scope for quite a lot of variance at first-degree level and if you should decide to go on and do a Master’s, or even beyond that, there’s even greater scope for research”.

I mumbled something that was meant to show agreement and interest.

“Now, when you go for interview, as you will, it’ll be a feather in your cap if you can demonstrate that you’ve successfully completed some kind of project at school level – something involving an expedition. It needn’t be on the other side of the world. There are plenty of places in Europe. Germany has some nice remote areas. Now, remind me what interests you have, Simon, apart from getting into every conceivable kind of hot water, involving HM forces, the diplomatic service across three continents and whatever? “

He grinned at me in a very friendly way, encouraging me to speak. “Old railways” I said at last.

“Well then, I’m sure you could think up some expedition that would involve your interest in old railways. What about…

I chipped in first. Right off the top of my head I blurted out “What about ‘Railways in the Black Forest and their impact on the local community’ sir?” (Why I chose the Black Forest I couldn’t begin to explain).

Mr Carter slapped his knee. “A first-rate idea. Shall we agree on that?”

So I left Mr Carter’s study, committed, over the first few weeks of the summer holiday, to doing a project on ‘Railways in the Black Forest and their impact on the local community’. And I hadn’t the first clue how to go about it.

Forward again, to my flat at the Centre, the same evening. I poured myself a drink and jumped straight in. “Ever been to Germany, Roddy?”

“Year before last. I went to Bonn, to discuss a possible contract with Deutsche Gramophon. It didn’t come to anything. Why do you ask?”

I explained how I was stuck with doing a project about old railways in the Black Forest, as a direct result of not keeping my big mouth shut. Then I remembered something.

“How did you get on at the clinic?”

“OK. I liked your Dr Laing”.

“What did he say?”

“He said ‘Right you are, laddie, just slip your shorts down and I’ll take a wee look, and then………”

I interrupted him with a snort of laughter – it was all too predictable. “Yes, I can guess the rest. Did he give you something for it?”

“Hydrocortisone cream. It’s much better already. Where were we?”

“The Black Forest. Do you still do mapping, and sketching, and that sort of thing?”

Earlier that day, not long after leaving Mr Carter, my mind had gone back to that first summer at Lymington Haven. Roddy had always had quiet tastes, one of which was making maps, and doing pen-and-ink drawings of a rare delicacy. I thought, myself, they were equal to old Wainwright’s Lake District guides. But then I’m biassed.

In those first days after Roddy had his balls pricked, we would lose track of him for hours on end while he sketched and recorded every bend of the river, each little muddy creek. I think it took his mind off the profound change in his life and the strange feelings “down there” as the soft tissues withered away.

“Yes, now and then. Not as much as I’d like – there never seems enough time. But what’s that got to do with Germany, and railways, and all that?”

I outlined my meeting with Mr Carter and the fix I was now in. Then, very selfishly, I said “I expect my text will be pants. But if it was illustrated with a few maps of where I’d been and perhaps a sketch or two, it might pass”.

Roddy said nothing for a moment or two. Then he came out with “My German isn’t brilliant, but it would be enough to get us around, buy food, order meals and so on”.

“Mine’s non-existent” I said “but hang on, that sounds as if you’re coming?”

“Well of course I’m coming, you silly mutt! When are we leaving?

-----xXx-----

That was how, a few days later, we found ourselves on the bus from Basel-Mulhouse airport to the city centre. (Looking at the map Basel had seemed a convenient starting point: the southern end of the Black Forest was just over the frontier).

“Why all this barbed wire?” I muttered, to no one in particular. There was a thick barrier on both sides of the road. It looked like a prison camp.

“I think it’s called an enclave” Roddy explained. “The airport is Swiss territory but is actually in France. It’s France on both sides of the road, beyond the fence”.

Funny idea, I thought.

The bus trundled on. The built-up area began quite suddenly. Trading estates first, then big old mansions, some of them hotels, some taken over by insurance companies, and finally a big open square in front of a train station. Roddy was looking all round, clearly recognising places he knew.

“You’ve been here before” I commented.

“Oh yes, several times, with the record company. We used to meet at the Hotel Euler, you’ll have seen it a bit back. Then we’d all go off to some place where there were snowy mountains in the distance and they’d take pictures of me: playing in the snow, throwing snowballs – all kinds of rubbish”.

“Would the Euler be a good place to stay?” I ventured.

“Oh dear, no. Far too expensive. Stuffy, too, old dowagers and retired colonels! I thought we’d stay over there”.

He indicated the hotel that took up the whole of the far side of the square. It was big without being ostentatious. “So while you were in the loo at the airport I phoned them and reserved a room”.

So that was that! Over to the hotel we went, and Roddy marched up to the reception desk. A middle-aged woman sat there, absorbed in a copy of “Ganz in Farben”. I stood, listening in incomprehension, while the following exchange took place.

Roddy. Gute Tag. Ich bin Herr Fisher. Ich habe ein Doppel-zimmer reserviert.

Woman (after looking it up on the screen) Herr Fischer – ja, ja. (Jerking her thumb towards me) Ihre Bruder?

Roddy. Nein, nein, er ist mein Freund! Er heist Herr Scott.

Woman. Ach so. (Looking Roddy up and down) Nehmen Sie ein Zimmer mit zwei Betten?

Roddy. Oh ja, naturlich!

Woman. Ach so. (Enters data on computer, then looks up and hands Roddy a key-card.) Zwei-zwei-sieben.

Roddy. Zwei-zwei-sieben. Danke schön.

Woman. Bitte schön. (Returns to her illustrated magazine)

Room 227 was on the second floor. It was plain but pristine. The window gave on to the main station building with a good view of the tracks. The ensuite shower-room was small but spotless.

“This seems OK” said Roddy, dumping his back-pack on the bed. “But that woman! Did you hear what she was asking? Whether we wanted twin beds or a double!”

“The suspicious old cow!” I replied. “What does she imagine we’re here for?”

If I’d allowed myself to dwell on it, I’d have become incandescent with rage. Both of us – Roddy and I – knew all about that kind of sex, to the extent that we never wanted to get involved with it ever again. Take Roddy first.

When I first knew Roddy, he was the adopted child in an (apparently) respectable family. What we found out, by degrees, was that he had become the unwilling sex-slave of his adoptive parents’ own son, a loutish 15-year-old, and forced to have unprotected sex at least once a day. His anus bled from the incessant abuse. His mental state was worse: he felt helpless, used, and dirty. At one point we feared he was on the brink of collapse and might try to end his own life. (All in “Simon and Melanie” if you want to re-cap.)

Now I – I have to admit – was a bit different. Aged not much more than ten I had a highly-developed sexual curiosity (by contrast Roddy at thirteen had next to none.) Which is another way of saying that Roddy was innocent, whilst I was a dirty-minded kid, ready for anything. I was big for my age (apart from my genitals which were tiny) and had a round fat behind – an attribute much prized by senior boys at my first boarding school, on the look-out for potential ‘flowers’ as such pampered favourites were known.

On my first Sunday afternoon was taken to a quiet place by a prefect and propositioned in the terms “Scott, I want to put my penis up your bottom” I wasn’t shocked or horrified or frightened. I thought that what Ramsay wanted to do to me was, well, sort of funny!

Ramsay was kind, patient and skilful. I wasn’t the first junior boy he’d had as a sex partner. “By the end of term” he confided “you’ll be a real, experienced bum-boy”.

Sunday afternoons followed a pattern. There would be a treat of some kind – often a large cream-tea with éclairs. Then we would bike to a new housing-estate where, in one of the semi-finished houses, I would take my trousers and pants down. Ramsay liked to fondle my tiny cock and balls to “get me in the mood” as he put it.

The next few minutes were always the same. I would get down on all fours, Ramsay would lubricate my bum-hole with Vaseline, and very slowly inch his enormous erection up my bottom. After a few seconds I’d feel his hot white drops shooting into my bowels and his penis going slack. He would pull out of me, and we’d tidy up and bike back to school.

Things continued like this for a while, but a lot happened over the next couple of years. I had my balls pricked, I went to Southdown Hall School, and I met Melanie. Now and then one of my uncles made me do it, and I went along with them for the sake of a quiet life. But by my fifteenth birthday time had moved on. I’d no further inclination to be a bum-boy, ever.

So there you have it.

Back to our hotel bedroom in Basel. Roddy had unpacked his few belongings (we were travelling very light) and had dropped into one of the room’s two easy-chairs, where he was scanning a useful-looking little booklet called “How to Get By in German”. I made a mental note to borrow it. But there were other things to do first. It was gone six o’clock and it had been a long day. “Time to look for something to eat” I suggested.

“There’s no catering at this hotel, except for breakfast” said Roddy. “The station is our best bet, there are several cafés and a burger bar”.

So to the station we went. Burgers and beer made an adequate tea. Afterwards Roddy – who seemed to know the Basel tramway system too, suggested a circular tour on a tram. So after getting tickets from a machine we hopped on to a No 1. All the stops seemed to be at museums, banks or conference centres. At the Wettsteinbrücke, Roddy made me get down and look at the river.

I must admit that even here, nearly 1,000 miles from the sea – right in the middle of Europe – the Rhine was breathtaking. You could almost hear Wagnerian music.

But as I said, it had been a long day. Rather than complete the circuit, which Roddy said was rather long and without much to see except workers’ high-rise flats, we crossed the road and took the first tram back. Here, as if to make up for the embarrassment with the receptionist, there was a surprise. Our dirty T-shirts, underwear and so on, that we’d dropped on the floor, had been gathered up, taken away and laundered immaculately. And so to bed.

-----xXx-----

Fast forward to breakfast next morning, which was generous if plain: nothing cooked of course, but no shortage of rolls, cheese, cold meats, butter, black cherry jam. And unlimited, very strong, coffee. Roddy munched away, his head buried in a map. I looked over his shoulder. The map showed the Black Forest as a big brown area, with Basel at its south-western tip. “What are all these places called Bad something?” I asked. “Aren’t there any “Good” ones?”

“It literally translates “bath” Roddy patiently replied. “But if a place name has Bad in front it means it’s a spa town. In the days when doctors recommended ‘taking the waters’, spas were just about the main industry in the region”.

“Is there anything you don’t know about this area?” I joked.

Roddy said nothing, but gave me one of his quiet smiles. To use the old French euphemism for castrated children, he was – in every sense – an ‘enfant doux’ (The expression had its origins in the belief that boys who lost their balls automatically became cherubic and sweet natured. “Anyway” Roddy resumed, when he spoke again. “I thought we’d have a quiet morning and you can get your bearings. So finish your coffee and we’ll go out”.

Roddy took me to another square, not far away. A two-car, tram-like vehicle stood on tracks in the centre of this. Roddy bought two tickets from a kiosk. “This is the Birsigthalbahn” he explained. “It’s only eight miles long – it runs up the valley of the little River Birsig and then just stops. It’s not the Black Forest but it’s pretty”.

Presently the driver climbed into his cab, gave two toots on the horn and the tram clattered off. We were not the only passengers. A few rows up, two teenage girls in mini-dresses sat side by side. The one nearest the gangway had one foot up on the seat opposite, giving me a flash – no, not a flash, a full view – between her thighs. The front of her very sheer white thong left nothing to the imagination: like all modern girls she’d shaved off, leaving her love-mound as smooth as a peach.

Did she know I was looking? Was she even bothered? Ah well…………….

Melanie, after all, had shaved her fanny for years. But from the very first time she’d undressed for me, Melanie always wore black underwear, never white..............

Roddy’s voice broke in on my daydreams. “This is really a commuter line” he said. This much was obvious. The stops had all been dormitory villages: Binningen, Bottmingen (where the girls got down), Witterswil, Bättwil - all different but all alike. The gardens of the villas by each tiny halt were a blaze of flowers, the lawns immaculately mown; the sun shone, the birds sang.

Then the PA crackled into life: “Nächste Haltestelle Flüh, alles umsteigen” it said. “All change” Roddy explained.

Unattractively-named Flüh had a bigger station than any of the others, though it wasn’t the end of the line. It boasted a toilet (which stank) and a tiny café. Roddy took out his sketch pad and began to outline the station buildings. I wandered to the platform-end.

In a field across the track, a solitary old grey horse had ambled up to the fence to meet the train. I nipped into the café and grabbed some lumps of sugar. The old horse took them in his rubbery lips, showing stained, brown teeth, and looked at me – perhaps in his horsey way recognising a kindred spirit.

Too tired and too hot to hold his penis in, the horse was letting it limply dangle. I pictured the time, years before, when as a young horse, frolicsome and randy, they’d distracted him with a bowl of oats while the vet cut his balls out, making him a tame gee-gee for some spoilt brat to ride. Gelded.............well, we both knew a thing about that.

But Roddy was waving at me from the other platform, where another train, which I hadn’t noticed, had its motor running. We both piled into the empty coach. A toot on the horn, and we were off to the end of the line.

At one point, shutters came down over the windows and the doors were locked. Looking out at Leimen station I saw that there were heavy barbed-wire fences both sides of the track. There was a post-box on the platform embossed “RF” and that meant France – but it was painted in Swiss yellow.

“There’s a wiggle in the frontier here” said Roddy “but the line’s dead straight. For a short distance we’re in France again”. (Once again I wondered if Roddy knew everything about Basel and the country round about. It wasn’t to be for the last time!)

Rodersdorf was the last station. Roddy dashed off another sketch. Then, finding no reason to do anything else, we rode back the full distance. Time for something to eat, we dropped into the first pavement café we came to, after getting off the tram. Roddy briefly scanned the menu then called the waitress over.

“Menu eins, zweimal” said Roddy.

“Menu eins, zweimal” repeated the waitress. “Danke schön”

“Bitte schön” said Roddy, and the waitress went away.

“What was all that about?” I asked, mystified.

“The menu was a series of set meals” said Roddy. “Menu Number One was sausages and chips, followed by fresh fruit, which will most likely be peaches. I ordered that for both of us.”

“But there was more” I insisted.

Roddy looked puzzled. “Oh, you mean Danke schön and then Bitte schön. It’s just a polite formula. Literally it means “Pretty thanks, pretty please”.

“How strange” I murmured.

“Well, all the same, it’s what you say!” said Roddy. At that point our food arrived and Roddy ordered some much-needed beer also. The sausages were a bit odd-looking but nice to eat and the chips were miraculous. Dessert, as Roddy had accurately guessed, was fresh peaches. Roddy settled up and I learned another formula – “Stimmt so” signifying “Keep the change”.

The sunny afternoon drifted along. Roddy had some arcane idea of his own which took him back to the hotel; I wandered about and found a model-shop. The old model-railway layout at the Simon Scott Centre was still very popular with junior boys but it needed some new items. At this place I was spoiled for choice and they were most obliging about shipping my purchases back to the U.K.

Much later as we sat over our evening meal I said to Roddy “Time we began planning ahead what we want to do. I’d like to go to Zell” (this was the name of a place I found in one of my books about old Continental railways).

“That gives you a choice of about twelve places of that name” Roddy replied. “If you mean Zell-am-see, that’s a ski resort in Austria. You don’t mean there, do you?”.

“No of course I don’t!” I said. “There’s a Zell quite near Basel. I mean that one”.

“That’s Zell-im-Wiesenthal” said Roddy. “Yes, it’s right at the end of a branch line. Should have a direct service from here”.

“So we’re well placed at our hotel” I ventured. “Just across the square”. Roddy shook his head. “It’s in Germany” he explained. “And all German destinations are reached from the Bädische Bahnhof on the other side of the city. Our station (he jerked his thumb in that direction) is always known as SBB – that’s short for Schweizerische Bundesbahnen”.

With a jaw-cracking name like that, they needed an abbreviation I thought.

So that was decided on.

Next morning we settled up – at least I did, and believing Switzerland to be bilingual I did it in French. This made me over-confident, and when we reached the other train station after a tram-ride across the city centre I went to the ticket window and asked “Deux billets, seconde classe, pour………..”

The man waved me impatiently away, with something I couldn’t catch. Roddy elbowed me out of the way from the other direction, saying as he did so, “Wir möchten zwei Fahrscheinen nach Zell, bitte”. The man handed the tickets over, and Roddy paid.

“Sorry, I ought to have warned you” Roddy explained. “This station’s DB property and all the staff are German. I’m sure a lot of them understand French but they just won’t use it. Sheer bloody-mindedness if you ask me! Anyway that’s our train over there so let’s grab some seats – it looks to be filling up fast”.

A few minutes later the train tooted. The jerk it gave as it set off might have been an omen. We were on our way to Zell – and to adventures we could never have guessed at.

It being a Saturday most of our fellow-passengers were middle-aged hikers. All – both sexes – wore a most unbecoming costume: tweedy breeches strapped well below the knee, ankle-socks and boots. This combination left several inches of bare shin, not to mention varicose veins and other disfigurements. Stockings seemed an unknown quantity (I mean the thick woollen knee length sort of course, not fish-nets!)

Most of these piled out a few miles down the line at Schopfheim. We continued to the end of the line – the tiny station of Zell. The train gave a sort of shudder, and the driver switched-off his engine. There was silence!

There seemed to be no one about. From a machine labelled “Automat” we got two plastic beakers of rather terrible coffee, and sat down on a bench. “Why did you want to come here, Simon?” Roddy asked.

In answer I pointed ahead, beyond the stationary train, to the road. “There used to be a level crossing there once” I explained. “Another line – a private company – used to run up the valley of the Wiese for another eleven miles, to a place called Todtnau. After World War II it still ran till 1967, or so my book says. It was too much to hope there was still some remnants of a service – and of course there isn’t – but I thought there might still be some interesting relics”.

Roddy nodded, without saying anything. We finished our coffee, with an effort, and set off up the course of the old line, now just a bridle-path through the trees. If this old line had had any influence on the local communities it wasn’t obvious. By contrast, the busy main road, just to our right, with frequent buses and traffic of all kinds, clearly had a great deal.

Eleven miles along a level path offered a day’s leisurely walking. There weren’t very many railway relics left, other than bridge parapets where small streams tumbled down the slopes and ran beneath the line to join the Wiese. There was one, rather attractive bowstring-girder bridge which I induced Roddy to sketch. The sketch completed, Roddy advanced to the railings and pulled his pants down, to wee into the tumbling waters below. He really did have a nice behind, I thought – and instantly dismissed the thought from my mind.

Todtnau was bigger than I expected. Of the rail terminus there was no trace at all. On we went through streets of timbered buildings, their window-boxes bright with flowers. There were several hotels and we chose the Gasthof Hirschen, where they were willing and able to put us up for the night.

Much later, over dinner (a rather pungent game casserole, venison at the least, and more probably wild boar) I remarked on the number of single men in the restaurant, men in green velveteen jackets and cord breeches. I’d watched one or two of them arrive at the hotel, armed with formidable high-velocity rifles with telescopic sights. These weapons were taken charge of in the foyer and secured in a steel cabinet.

It was one of these green-clad men, at a table some way from ours, who now beckoned to Roddy to go over. Roddy sat down at the man’s table. In answer to some question or other, Roddy nodded, the man summoned the waitress, who went away, returning minutes later with two glasses of “Obstler” – apple brandy to you.

I couldn’t begin to imagine what was going on between them. For starters, Roddy rarely drank anything stronger than beer in my company. His new-found acquaintance was deeply sun-tanned and didn’t look a pervert. The two were soon deep in talk.

Feeling unwanted I went up to our bedroom.

It was well equipped with, among other things, a coin-operated TV. I shoved in a few Euros and diddled around till I found the porn channel and selected a Japanese hentai movie. Now I said a few pages ago that at the age of 10 – 11 I had a highly developed sexual curiosity, and I’ve never pretended that losing my balls lessened this in any way. If anything my longings became intensified by my being unable to do anything. (It does happen, though not to all boys. Roddy had next to no sex drive at all).

Roddy……what the hell was he doing?

Unable to answer that question I watched the screen. A strangely Western-looking pair of kids (boy and girl of course) were lying in the nude on a bed. The boy had a huge erection and was desperate to come. Sensing this the girl slid a vibrator up the boy’s anus and watched with delight as the boy abandoned himself to the thrills of a colossal orgasm.

At the peak of his climax, the boy shot a blob of cum, which splattered over the girl’s face. Desperate now to get laid, she straddled the boy and guided his erection into her love-passage. A few moments of teenage rumpy-pumpy ended with the boy losing control and filling the girl’s twat with hot thick cream (these cartoon boys seemingly never attended sex education classes, because none was ever depicted with a rubber on his cock). At that very moment the bedroom door opened and the girl’s brother came in…..

At that very moment, too, the real bedroom door opened and Roddy came in. I killed the movie before he saw anything.

Roddy looked quite normal – though I don’t know why I expected anything different. I was on the point of saying “Made a new conquest?” which would have been unforgivable. In the event Roddy spoke first.

“That was interesting. He was a real nice guy. He comes here to shoot wild boar in the forest. Those he gets, he sells to dealers in Munich, Berlin, Hamburg – all over Germany”.

“And?” I ventured.

“He asked me, very quietly, if I was Roddy Fisher. I couldn’t deny it because he had one of my CD’s – he plays my music to himself when he’s out walking – and the picture’s a pretty good likeness. Then he asked what I was doing in this neck of the woods”.

Very clearly Roddy’s command of German went far beyond the ability to get from A to B and order meals!

“I told him, and he was very interested. It seems the terminal buildings, here in Todtnau, were standing, until eighteen months ago when they were knocked down and replaced by a branch of Carphone Warehouse. A good place to go, though, is a town called Lahr, which used to be the centre of a whole network of lines. He also recommended the West End Hotel in Lahr as a good place to stay. Shall I look up the buses and when they run?”

Soon, Roddy had his head buried in a pile of maps and bus timetables – something he was good at. He began giving me a running commentary along the lines “Take Route 123 to such and such, then change to Route 456……..” Maps had been one of Roddy’s passions when I’d first known him as a little boy, after he’d had his balls pricked. I’d sometimes felt it was like talking to a signpost, though I never discouraged him.

Despite Roddy’s researches, we never got to Lahr.

-----xXx-----

Part 2. Narrative resumed by Roddy.

Simon had left the travel arrangements to me, and when I reminded him, a few miles down the road, that the bus we were on didn’t go all the way to Lahr – we had to change to another service to get there, he was unimpressed.

He was even less impressed when he found out what a bad connection it was. Three hours to wait in the little town of – no, I shan’t tell you its real name. Terrible things were happening there – unmentionable things. So I’ll call it Bad Waldbach which means something like “the spa with the woodland stream”. And all of those three things come into our story.

Having nothing better to do we wandered along one of the main roads out of the town. A bit beyond the last of the shops Simon noticed the parapet of a bridge which he thought might once have spanned a railway cutting, so of course we had to go and look. We were still a little way from the bridge when both of us noticed the smell.

Railway there had never been. Into what was once a stream-bed, a big iron pipe was disgorging raw sewage. The water was a filthy black sort of soup, in which quite recognisable lumps of toilet paper, turds, condoms, tampons &c &c were floating about. This unhappy brook was slowly oozing along, to finally lose its disgusting burden kilometers away, in the already-polluted Rhine.

To make matters worse, away from the bridge, where the stream crossed a short piece of open ground before re-entering the forest, thick vegetation arched right over it, rendering it all but invisible.

“Well, at any rate we needn’t ever go there again” I said as we turned away. I meant it – but it never does to be too dogmatic about what you will or won’t do.

A few minutes later as we were walking back towards the coaching station Simon asked “What’s a Kursaal?”

“What’s a what?”

“A Kursaal. That building over there”.

We were passing an ornate edifice standing in a small ornamental garden. Carved stonework over the arched entrance included the word that was puzzling Simon.

“Oh, that. Literally it means “Cure Hall”. It’s the main building in a German spa; it’s where people go to take the waters – if they still do. In Bath or Leamington it’d be called the Pump Room. They often have a concert hall for recitals and so on”

“Like a firework display?”

“Whatever do you mean?”

Simon had stopped at a board on which the Kursaal people stuck posters advertising “forthcoming attractions”. Simon didn’t understand German but had picked out the word “Feuerwerk”, and added 2 + 2, but making, in this case, 7.

“No, I see what you mean but it doesn’t mean that. It’s advertising a children’s dance troupe. Performing every evening this week. It promises “pyrotechnics of skill” or something like that”.

“Oh”.

As we turned away we noticed something caught on a bush. A biggish piece of white chiffon. It looked as if it had come off a ballet dress. We left this relic where it was. If it had a message for us we couldn’t interpret it. Not yet. But a few minutes later there were stronger signals.

Both of us needed a wee. On the further corner of the Kursaal building- the one furthest from the entrance – was another door or rather two, marked respectively “Damen” and “Herren”. Into the latter we went, and not wanting to put our bare behinds on display to anyone else coming in, we took turns to use the one-and-only cubicle. While standing in there, we’d each of us noticed a sound, a strangely familiar sound, coming through the wall. Finally we both went in and listened together.

No doubt about it. On the other side of the wall, somebody was sobbing his heart out.

-----xXx-----

Simon looked at me, and I looked at Simon, both of us with the same thought.

Once in a lifetime perhaps, trouble comes on you head-on like a Sioux Indian war-party. In that case you send the cavalry in. I’m sure you’ll remember the last scenes of “Ricky Visits America” – rooms-full of CIA agents, people getting gunned-down. But opportunities like that are very rare. More often you just sense that something isn’t quite right. Then you patiently peel the layers away – and you may uncover a cess-pit.

“I think we ought………” began Simon “Don’t you think we ought………” I began.

The upshot was that we abandoned the idea of going straight on to Lahr. There were things to do, things that we were very fidgety about - and we would make a start by going to see the children’s dance troupe at 7.30 that evening. We’d get ourselves a room for the night, and if after seeing the show we decided there really wasn’t anything to worry about, we’d go on to Lahr next day.

Opposite the Kursaal there was an unpretentious-looking place, the Gasthof zum Löwen. They gave us a top-floor room overlooking the street. From half-six they began serving food. One choice only: Bratwürst mit Kartoffeln, with Apfelstrüdel to follow. Replete with sausages and mash and apple-tart, we made our way across to the Kursaal.

The show was hardly the box-office draw of the year – more than half the faded velvet seats were unfilled. Simon picked two in the front row. After a time, a scratchy tape-player came to life, filling the auditorium with “Tales from the Vienna Woods”. Then this stopped. The first item on the programme was billed, improbably, as Les Sylphides. The well-known Chopin melody of the first act drifted out –no less scratchily – across the dingy hall, and the curtain jerkily rose on a strange scene.

There were six dancers on stage –no more. Any resemblance to Sadler’s Wells or Covent Garden was accidental – you can not stage Sylphides with just six. We ignored the dancing – mediocre at best – and concentrated on the performers. All six were dressed alike in classical ballet costumes – the material suspiciously like the ragged fragment we’d seen earlier. All were heavily made-up with a lot of blue eye shadow. Here the similarity ended.

Centre stage was taken – most of the time – by a girl whose well-developed boobs put her at 15 – 16. She had a spoilt, petulant expression. She was supported, much of the time, by two younger girls, who I guessed were respectively 13 and 11. I turned my attention to the remaining three, who were……….

Dress him up as a girl if you like, but there’s no disguising a boy. He has bigger hands and feet, a narrower pelvis, slimmer thighs. No doubt about it, the three remaining dancers were male. One was just a bit shorter than I am, the other two very much younger, the smallest no more than ten.

“Sylphides” came to an end at last. There was polite clapping and a short interval before the second half, which was billed as “Le Carnival des Animaux”. Up went the curtain; the tape-player launched – as scratchy as ever – into Saint-Saens’ well-known score, and we were off.

The eldest girl’s “Swan” outfit was black – possibly the relic of an Odette/Odile from a more professional ballet company and obtained cheap by a thrifty wardrobe mistress. With this the girl wore fishnets, and black knickers under her tutu that barely concealed her most intimate charms. The boys, masquerading as birds, lions and all the rest, wore tights as part of their costumes……..

Flash back to “Ricky Visits America” and to the scene before the baseball game. One look at the crotches of my team mates was enough to show me that all of them were boy-eunuchs. The shape of a neutered boy’s genital area, once his scrotum has dried up and his penis has retracted, is quite similar to a girl’s, which is why, back at school, we’d all taken to wearing girls’ thongs. Simon founded the Knickers Club as a sort of inner-circle of boys who’d adopted thongs. Melanie, and Mark’s girl-friend Wendy, were honorary members, since they wore thongs anyway.

The three boys on stage were all boy-eunuchs. No doubt of it.

“Le Carnival” reached its rumbustious end, and the curtain fell. It rose again for the company to take their curtain-call, for which there was yet more polite clapping. But there were now seven people on stage: in the middle of the troupe stood a fat woman in her forties, dressed entirely in black. She was obviously the moving spirit, or whatever, behind this show.

A second curtain call, then a third. The clapping sounded a bit forced by now. But before the curtain fell for the final time, the eldest of the boy-dancers shot me a glance – or more accurately a look of entreaty. Simon saw it too. If ever a look said “Help me!” that was it……

“What do we do, Simon?” I asked, in the privacy of our attic room.

“I don’t know” replied Simon “because I don’t know what we’re up against”. And for the moment, things rested there.

I was getting ready for bed, some time later, when I became aware of something out in the street. A faulty street lamp, flickering on and off. No, not a street lamp, a window, low down in the building opposite. Not just flickering but flashing. Dot, dot, dot, dash, dash, dash, dot, dot,dot. S-O-S, over and over again, S-O-S. I pulled Simon across to the window.

“That’s for us” he said. “Come on”.

We slipped silently over the road. The window continued to flash. Down the side of the building, in an alley, we found a door. I reached in my pocket for the old expired credit card, one of Mr Jackson’s, which I carried for occasions like this.

“What on earth are you doing” asked Simon as I worked the credit card down the crack of the door.

“If I’m not mistaken” I said “this is an ordinary night-latch, and this is the way you open them without a key”. I wasn’t mistaken. A few more wriggles of the credit card and the door swung open.

We found ourselves in the backstage area of the Kursaal, a gloomy passageway used for storing scenery and odd bits of lumber. At the far end, light showed under a door. Prepared for another bit of burglary I got out my credit card again. But the door wasn’t locked. I turned the handle………

The room – a very dingy room with bare brick walls – was bare apart from a grubby futon on the floor and a bucket in one corner. There was a faint smell of wee. Cowering against the far wall stood a boy. A boy who would have been very good-looking indeed – beautiful even – if his face had been cleaner, and not furrowed by tear-stains. In fact he looked as if he’d been crying rather a lot lately.

“Who are you?” demanded this boy.

“I’m Simon Scott” replied Simon. (He sounded a bit nonplussed which was scarcely surprising with this reception). “And this is my friend Roddy Fisher. We saw your signal – your S-O-S”.

“I didn’t think anyone would actually come” said the boy. “Hang on – you said Roddy Fisher. Do you mean….are you…..” He stopped, lost for words.

“Yes I am, but that doesn’t matter” I chipped in. “You sent a distress signal. That’s why we came.”

“I learned Morse code in the school CCF” the boy replied, irrelevantly. (For readers that don’t know, CCF is the Army cadet force that is found in a lot of UK schools. Southdown Hall didn’t have one. Since the Army doesn’t accept eunuchs, Dr Holroyd – the Head – saw no point in setting up a cadet force.)

“Won’t you tell us your name?” asked Simon, gently.

The boy began blushing, furiously, to the roots of his light-brown curls. “I’ll tell you if you promise not to repeat it”. We both nodded.

“My grandparents were nutty about the Winnie-the-Pooh stories” he went on. “They insisted that I was baptised Christopher-Robin. Well, just imagine! Being stuck with the wettest, weediest, most wimpish pair of names ever. By the time I was eight years old I’d come to hate them. So at school I’m always known as C-R. You can call me that”.

“And school is……….?” I asked.

“St Gregory’s”. (We knew it well – at least I did. We played St Gregory’s in a variety of sports).

This conversation was going nowhere. Simon brought things round to the here-and-now. “You look as if you need to see a doctor” he commented.

(To make sense of Simon’s observation I should have said that C-R was naked below the waist. Unlike Simon and myself, C-R had been castrated the old-fashioned way i.e. by having his balls taken right out. Quite recently, too. Taped between his thighs was a gauze dressing. But the dressing was days – if not weeks – old. It was dirty and bloodstained, and looked in urgent need of replacement).

“I do, but that’s the least of my worries” replied C-R. Then to our surprise and dismay his eyes filled with tears. “I’m going to be sold as a slave!”

-----xXx-----

Part 3: narrative continued by Simon

Go on! I can just hear you saying “Oh, not again! You’ve told us how, not long ago, Roddy found the Smith twins in an old French château; before that, he’d been captured by weirdoes in the States, and it’s not long since you stopped the abduction of asylum-seekers’ children. Can’t you do anything else but rescue kidnapped boys?”. And then you’d yawn!

And to that I’d have to reply “Get real!” Roddy and I, on hearing C-R’s pathetic words, also experienced “déjà vu” - but to us, it was like a kick in the stomach. Yes, I agree that some of our adventures follow a kind of pattern, but this only serves to make my point.

The trafficking of children goes on all the time, all the world over. And just as soon as you round up one set of the filthy perverts involved in this trade, others come in to fill the void.

So where were we before you interrupted? Shut up and I’ll go on.

C-R continued to snivel. I gently patted his shoulder. “Tell us all about it” I said. By degrees he quietened down and began to tell us his story.

C-R’s parents were living. They had once lived in Surrey, and C-R had begun to attend St Gregory’s as a day-boy. But three years before C-R’s father’s job – he was a hedge-fund manager – took him to New York. C-R had barely seen his parents since then. He’d gone to live with his grandparents in Leicestershire, and the school took him on as a boarder.

C-R had for a long time been interested in ballet, and this interest had been sharpened and intensified by the “Billy Elliott” film. His grandparents neither approved no disapproved of this interest. And so it came about that, with 8 – 9 weeks of summer vacation looming, C-R began surfing the internet in search of a summer-school offering classes in ballet, which would occupy him agreeably until the autumn term started.

Well, he found a website. I shan’t tell you its name, because the police in five countries and two continents are presently tracing all its ramifications. Numerous arrests have been made already and those will not be the last. Suffice it to say that in response to C-R’s activities on-line, a fattish middle-aged woman (whom we’ve seen on the Kursaal stage a bit ago) appeared on his grandparents’ front doorstep one day.

Her name was Mrs Elvira Hall-Smith: professionally she liked to be called Madame Elvira. The upshot of the visit was, that C-R was immediately accepted as a summer-school pupil, subject only to his grandparents’ signature on a contract-document which Madame Elvira took away with her when she left.

A week later, C-R reported to the address he’d been given, equipped only with his washing-things and a change of clothes. “Only this was no ballet school” commented C-R. “It was a perfectly ordinary semi-detached house in Beckenham”. Madame Elvira however was there as large as life. She welcomed C-R, showed him where to leave his things, and gave him a glass of chilled Coke. C-R eagerly drank it down; the coach journey from Leicester had been hot and uncomfortable.

C-R ventured to ask when classes would begin. Things now began to take a sinister turn.

“Tomorrow we shall leave for Montelimar, in the south of France” Madame Elvira told him. Then, before you leave here, you’ll have a little procedure. You’ll be castrated. All the boys who arrived before you have already been castrated”.

C-R wasn’t shocked, or horrified, or frightened, though he knew perfectly well what castration was. An operation on his private area, to remove, or perhaps destroy, his testicles. He knew that many boys had it done, for one reason or another, to calm them down (like me!) to spare them from the traumas of adolescence (like Roddy), sometimes (like Mark) to further a singing career. But for the moment, taken by surprise, he could only stammer “Me, as well?”

“You as well”.

“Why will I have to be castrated?” asked C-R.

For reasons he couldn’t imagine, C-R was beginning to feel drowsy. He couldn’t know, of course, that his cold drink had been laced with something like Mogadon or Mandrax. Nor could he know that the papers signed by his grandparents had given Madame Elvira total legal rights over him. Through a haze, he heard Madame Elvira’s voice saying that castration would be helpful to his dancing – that without his testicles he would develop all the right muscles. Also that he would be working with young girls, and he wouldn’t be distracted by feelings he couldn’t control…..

C-R attempted to say that he thought this was a summer school, that he’d be returning to St Gregory’s in September. But the words wouldn’t come, and he drifted off into unconsciousness.

“When I came to” continued C-R “I discovered I’d had my balls taken out”.

This for the 21st century, when most boys (like Roddy and me) have their balls pricked, is uncommon. Among all our close friends Ricky Silva was the only one to have undergone a traditional gelding operation. In one respect C-R was more fortunate than Ricky: he’d been unconscious the whole time. (Ricky had sat propped-up on pillows and saw every single stage of the procedure that deprived him of his future manhood).

In all other respects C-R was less fortunate. Ricky’s guardian at the time, the notorious Dr Geller, had, in her strange obsessive way, loved him. So, Ricky had enjoyed complete bed-rest for a week, until the post-operative pain had faded away and his dressings could come off. By contrast, C-R was bundled into a car that same night by Mrs Hall-Smith, who drove to Stanstead Airport, whence a rackety Ryanair flight took them both to Marseilles. Then another car-ride to Montélimar, and Mrs Hall-Smith’s villa.

“The pain was horrible – really horrible!” said C-R plaintively. It was some days before the severed ends of his cords ached themselves insensible, and all that Mrs Hall-Smith seemed capable of, was to feed him on Paracetamol, which made him feel sick after a time. And as Roddy and I could both tell, the cuts in C-R’s scrotum had barely begun to knit together at all.

At Montélimar C-R met the rest of the troupe, those we’d seen on stage. “I think the girls” said C-R “are Madame’s own daughters. The eldest one, her real name’s Hannah but she’s got notions of becoming a prima ballerina and likes to call herself Dorabella – she’s a bitch. Has a horrible boyfriend – a black bloke – called Leroy. I think he fucks her too”.

C-R paused for a moment, as if reflecting that he himself would never fuck Hannah, or indeed any girl. But he pulled himself together and went on. “The little one’s only nine, and thick with it – doesn’t understand much. Her real name’s Kay-Anne but for some reason wants to be known as Boopsie. But the middle one’s nice. She’s called Holly”.

“And the other boys?” asked Roddy.

“The small dark one’s called Luis. He’s either Spanish or Portuguese - can’t tell which. If I try talking to him all he says is “Me spik Inglis, lit-tel”. I don’t know his full name, or how he came to be there, or anything. The larger one is – I think- called Bruno. He’s Slovenian or Croatian – again I’m guessing because he doesn’t speak any language I know.”

“And they’d been castrated too?”

“Oh yes. Just like me, they’d had their balls cut right out”.

There was another awkward pause, before C-R went off at another tangent. Turning to Roddy he asked “Excuse me being personal, but from the way you sing, are you…..I mean, have you been………..?”

“Am I a castrato?” Roddy chipped in. “Well, of course I am. How else do you think I’d have gone on singing treble all this time?”

“That goes for me too” I added.

“Gosh!” said C-R. “May I shake your hand – yours too?”

In silence, C-R gripped our hands in turn. “We’re wasting time” I butted in. “And there’s a lot we don’t know yet. How do you know, or rather, why do you think, you’re going to be sold as a slave?

“It began with something Madame said” replied C-R. “After a week in Montélimar she said we were coming on here, followed by a week in Innsbrück, and then a week in Prague, before flying out to Istanbul. When I asked her where we would be going after Istanbul she gave a sort of snort and wouldn’t say anything. Only Hannah, the little cow, said “If I were you I wouldn’t be thinking about where I’d be, after Istanbul”.

“And what then? asked Roddy.

“Holly – the nice one - came to me, when no one else was looking. She told me Madame has done three tours this year so far – this is the third. In February the furthest they went was Beirut. In May they went as far as Abu Dhabi. That time they set out with three boys, there was one called Liam, one called Del, and a third she can’t remember. Only on the homeward part of the tour the boys weren’t with them. The time before was just the same – in Beirut the boys just disappeared. It seems that the boys are different every time. And they never come back”.

An icy feeling gripped the pit of my stomach. Roddy was looking grim too. There was no doubt of what was going on. It was now July; time for two more tours in the autumn and by the end of the year Madame would have trafficked fifteen boys into the Middle East. There, rich Asian perverts would readily snap-up European boys as sex-slaves; failing that, Arab countries had an insatiable demand for domestic eunuchs.

“And when was this?” I asked. “Which day did Holly speak to you?”

“Day before yesterday- the first day we were here. I was so frightened that when we went off-stage for the interval I tried to run away – just as I was, in my Sylphides outfit and ballet shoes. They spotted me and Leroy caught me in the garden. Madame locked me in here as a punishment, and she took my trainers and pants away”. (And that’s when we heard him crying, I realised.) I began thinking fast. “Is this Leroy character around” I asked.

“No; Madame sent him back to Montélimar for something she wanted. But he’s due back the day after tomorrow”.

(If we didn’t additionally have to deal with a young and (probably) athletic black guy, the odds were more in our favour).

“Listen carefully” I said. “We’re getting you away from here, back to Britain. One or two things to sort out first so it’ll have to be tomorrow.” I glanced down at my Rolex. “Time is now – half-eleven. It’s still as bright as day outside with this full moon – we’ll need to wait till it sets. Call it one o’clock – owe-one-hundred hours in CCF language, if you prefer”.

C-R just goggled at me. Then “But I’ve no clothes” he said, weakly.

“Roddy has a spare pair of jeans” I said. “And we’ll get you some trainers – what’s your size?”

“Eight AA”. (Long and narrow, not a good match for Roddy whose feet are short and broad – like an ape.)

“Okay. Now, the other two boys – shall I include them in?”

“I should think they’d jump at it. That is, if I can get it across to them what we’re doing. I told you the language problem”. I nodded.

“Passports” prompted Roddy. (Of all the frontiers in the E.U., the British border is the stickiest when it comes to immigration documents).

“No problem. They’re kept in a tray under the reception desk. I saw that, on the day we arrived”.

“And where was that, exactly?” (I realised we hadn’t asked where the rest of the troupe were staying).

“Didn’t I tell you? Right next door to here, at the Pension Azalea. It’s a sort of B-&- B, only you wouldn’t know from the outside”.

“Right then. We’ll go now, there’s a fair bit to do. Just stick it out for the next 24 hours. Owe-one-hundred tomorrow. Give us a Morse signal like you did today”.

“But not S-O-S” said C-R. “I’ll use the old calling-up sign. That’s di-di-di-dah-di”.

“Mind the light bulb doesn’t burn out” said Roddy.

-----xXx-----

Part 4 (and quite short!) Simon gets his head down. Roddy fills us in.

What’s the funny word they use about a collection of foxes? A ‘skulk’, isn’t it? Well, skulk is what we did, all of the next day. Keeping out of sight of windows, lurking in corners.

Mid-morning, Simon went out by himself to the street-market and bought the promised trainers for C-R. As he came back into our bedroom he was humming quietly, a sure sign that he was rather pleased with himself. “Been making a few phone calls” he confided.

“Who to?”

“You’ll see!” he chuckled. (And if Simon was going to be cagey, I knew there was no more to be got out of him just then.)

“Any sign of – them?”

“Not even a glimpse”.

The long day dragged past. Among other problems it was stiflingly hot, and now and then I thought I got whiffs from the filthy stream up the road. Once, Simon borrowed my map-book and shut himself up in the bathroom to study it. I could hear his mobile phone beeping as he made a series of calls. When he finished and emerged, there was that same quiet smile playing round his mouth.

At seven, taking great care not to be seen, we both saw the rest of the troupe leave the Pension Azalea and enter the Kursaal by the same door we’d surreptitiously opened last evening – clearly it doubled as the stage door also. At the main entrance we saw a thin audience filing in. At nine o’clock we saw everyone come out again. Still three-and-a-half hours to kill. We re-packed our back-packs and continued to wait, with the light out. I must confess I dozed off, to be roused in the middle of a crazy dream by Simon vigorously shaking my shoulder.

“It’s C-R’s signal: V-E, V-E, the calling-up sign. Come on”.

Silently we slipped across the deserted road, I with C-R’s jeans and trainers clutched in my hand, credit-card at the ready. The door yielded as easily as last time.

“Get those on quickly” I whispered, thrusting the jeans and shoes at C-R. “Are the other two coming?” A tiny sound behind me made me look round. Two white faces appeared in the gloom. How C-R had made himself understood, I didn’t, for the moment, ask.

“You’ll want our passports” said C-R. “Wait a sec”. And in a “sec” he was back, with four passports in his hand. Three he gave to Simon who stuffed them into an inside pocket. The fourth he held out. “It’s Mrs Hall-Smith’s” he hissed. “I had an idea”.

“Good thinking” Simon said. “Drop it down that drain. Now listen. Go to our hotel over there, and go right through to the back. It’s okay, I’ve warned the hotel people you’re coming. At the back there’s a sort of garden-room or summerhouse. It’s not locked. Get in there, and keep quiet till I come. Meanwhile we – myself and Roddy – are going to create a diversion”. The three slipped away. “We’ll give them a few seconds to get under cover” he whispered.

Part 5. Simon takes over

“Right” I said quietly, a moment later. “We are now going to organise a wild-goose chase. I’m going to stage-manage a break-out. You are going to be C-R, and draw them off. Go up the road a little way. Do it quietly. When the fun starts you can make as much noise as you like. Off you go now”.

Roddy slipped away as far as the doorway of a souvenir shop. Once he was there, I took hold of the door of C-R’s “prison” and slammed it to, with a resounding thump. That done, I gave the Pension Azalea door the same treatment, only more so, and for good measure threw a half-brick through the Kursaal window. The crash of breaking glass was followed by lights coming on in the Pension and a sleepy German voice exclaiming “Was ist das?” I retreated to the far side of the road to await developments.

They weren’t long in coming. A shrill frightened voice piped “Mummy, mummy! Bruno and Luis aren’t in their beds!” This was followed by a deeper adult voice saying something I didn’t catch, then heavy footsteps descending the Pension’s wooden stairs. The unmistakable bulky figure of Mrs Hall-Smith appeared. At once she saw the Kursaal door swinging on its hinges and screamed “My God – he’s gone!”

Roddy, bless him, heard this too. Among his other talents he was an excellent mimic and in a very good imitation of C-R’s rather Londony tones called out “You two – Bruno, Luis – this way! Hurry!” There was the sound of scurrying feet (made by Roddy running on the spot and scuffing up the gravel”.

Mrs Hall-Smith’s voice rang out across the empty street. “Stop! I can see you. I have a gun, and I’ll shoot!” (She couldn’t possibly see anything, but I didn’t want her loosing off and possibly hitting someone by accident. I needn’t have worried, because the deplorable Hannah immediately squeaked “But Mummy, you haven’t got a gun!”

An exasperated “D’ oh!” from Mrs Hall-Smith, then “Don’t just stand there, help me catch them!” And off they went. Mrs Hall-Smith had ankle-boots on; Hannah some strap-over sandals with silly heels, so there wasn’t any competition really; Roddy could out-run most people, and these two posed no threat whatsoever.

The ill-assorted pair, in their unsuitable footwear, tittupped up the road in the direction of the bridge. Meanwhile Roddy had carried out a brilliant piece of strategy. His next call – still in his C-R voice of course – came from well over to the left, beyond the filthy stream. “Come on, you two! Over here, into the trees”!

Mrs Hall-Smith now made – had she only known it – a fatal mistake. She left the road and set off across the grass in the direction of Roddy’s voice. She imagined her quarry to be only a few paces beyond her on the edge of the wood. Suddenly I heard a heavy splash, a wild scream, then shouts of fear and disgust.

Seconds later Roddy reappeared from the direction of the Kursaal garden, not the least bit out of breath. “There’s a plank bridge just before the wood” he said “though it’s narrow enough to jump, just there. Now, can we get out of here?”

Right on cue a silver Mercedes people-carrier swished round the corner and drew up. Roddy quickly fetched the boys from the garden-house and retrieved our back-packs. “Grüss Gott” grunted the driver as we all climbed in. As the car moved away I just caught a glimpse through the rear window of Mrs Hall-Smith, plastered with horrible filth, being assisted along the road by Hannah. She was limping heavily along, and appeared to have lost a boot. Bingo!

I was the only one, just then, who knew our immediate destination – another small spa town on the edge of a lake. It was about 25 miles away and at first the car company had jibbed at my request to be taken there. Their tone changed when I paid the full fare in advance and added a bit extra; after that, I think they’d have taken us to Berlin if I’d asked.

I’d selected the place from Roddy’s map for two reasons. It had a good connection with the autobahn network, and was in exactly the opposite direction that Mrs Hall-Smith might have expected the escapees to go. Among the many phone calls I’d made, to Roddy’s mystification, had been one to the coach terminus, reserving three places on the morning departure for Strasbourg (from there, there was a TGV service to Paris, and also to Lille – and the Eurostar.) Well, they could watch the coach station till they were blue in the face. Tough!

The car went well on a good road, and though the hour was still early, it was broad daylight when we arrived. Roddy and I shook hands with the driver, exchanged the old farewell formula “Alles gut!” and he drove away.

I looked around. Very near to where the car had stopped, a place with the sign “Bäckerei – Konditorei - Kaffe” was already open and doing business despite the early hour, with tables and chairs outside. Hot coffee and new rolls (with black cherry jam) worked wonders and while the younger ones were finishing off, I went off to explore, and found something exactly suited to our needs.

Down by the lake-shore there was a bathing-place. A board fence enclosed a semicircular area, with rows of cubicles for changing, diving-boards, barbecue hearths, and an area for sunbathing. Opposite, there was an island separated by a few yards of water with more diving-boards, and a small yacht was anchored only a short distance from the lake-side. Entry was by turnstile, but a board outside said “Eintritt frei” so that wasn’t a problem.

I rounded-up the gang and we took possession of the place. If any intruders had turned up there were any number of places we could go to ground. Though I wasn’t expecting any.

Roddy wasted no time in taking his clothes off, diving in and swimming to the yacht, which didn’t appear to have been used for some time. He unhitched the mooring and brought it in to the lake-side. The cabin smelt of being shut-up, but there were berths with deep spring mattresses. Our three protégés were soon making full use of these, i.e. fast asleep. C-R, in particular, seemed shattered.

Roddy stretched himself luxuriously and lay on the soft grass. Soon he was asleep too. I watched him. At one point his cherub’s penis began to twitch. Was Roddy having an erotic dream, perhaps about saying the forbidden words to a girl (Angel, I want to put my prick in you) and doing the thing that he – and I - never could? I should never know, and Roddy never divulged his private thoughts to anyone, not even me.

I went for a quick shower, and settled down to wait.

It was mid-morning before there were signs of life from anyone, and they came from a direction I’d least expected. A tousled head popped out of the cabin-door of the yacht, and I recognised the boy we knew as Bruno, whom C-R had believed to be Croatian or Slovenian. (Consequently neither Roddy nor I had ever spoken to him since we hadn’t a word of his language.). He it was who now looked out at the day. He caught my eye and beamed – it was a lovely smile, showing nice front teeth.

Impelled by I don’t know what, I called out “Buon Giorno!”

The boy’s smile grew wider still. “Buon Giorno! Com’ è sta?”

“Va bene. Parl’ Italiano?”

“Naturalmente. Sono Italiano – da Brescia. E voi – parl’ Italiano?”

“Solamente un po’”

Now I’d just a few odd words of Italian, picked up on a school exchange when I was only eleven but somehow remembered over the years. They were enough for a limping conversation. I got as far as “Mi chiamo Simon” (he looked blank at “Simon” so I substituted “Simone” at which he nodded) but much of the rest was supplemented by French or even Latin words with O’s and A’s added.

It was enough to show that our new-found friend wasn’t from former Yugoslavia at all and wasn’t even called Bruno. He came from Brescia in Italy and his name was Carlo Bianchi.

I showed Carlo where the showers were. As he stripped off I stole a glance at his gelded genitals and saw that he was healing up nicely – faster than poor C-R who was still struggling.

The bright day ambled along. The only arrivals at the lakeside, barring ourselves, were, first a van towing a trailer on which there was a mobile grill, on which from about twelve o’clock onwards, a man began grilling sausages and sauerkraut. Then another van, selling soft drinks and ice-cream. I bought provisions for us all including the sleepers.

The afternoon was very like the morning, cloudless and warm. It was later – much later, when the sun had just started to dip below the treetops, when I heard the sound of a car coming along the lakeside road. It drew nearer. It was a large car, gunmetal-grey. The badge on the front was of two white wings enclosing the name ASTON MARTIN. But this was not just any Aston Martin.

It was MY Aston Martin!

-----xXx-----

The car glided to a halt. The door opened and the well-remembered chunky figure of Barney got out. He had clearly been enjoying himself immensely, for he was grinning from ear to ear. His greeting was typical.

“ Eh, Simon! Eee, that were a drive, that were! It were an’ all. But I need a wee! Show me where to go”.

While Barney “pumped ship” Roddy got the younger ones organised and ready to leave. The yacht, which had been so useful, was released and allowed once more to ride to her moorings.

Barney emerged, pulling up his zip. “We’re turning ourselves round at once” I told him. “We’ll have a break when we’re well-and-truly down the road. I’ll drive”. To this, Barney at once agreed – he’d been at the wheel all day.

The Aston would easily seat six. Roddy, C-R and Carlo climbed into the back. In front, Barney sat in the passenger seat while I took the wheel. A bench front seat had been fitted at some time, and Luis, being the smallest, was sandwiched between us, and once he was properly strapped in, appeared to go to sleep.

Once we were fairly on the road Barney told me of how he’d spent the past few hours. “I got yer message, Simon” he began “and Eee, I were that excited! I rang oop all me customers fer t’ next few days – there were nobbut five or six – put ‘em all off “Urgent Business” I told ‘em – and went straight round to t’Centre to pick oop yer car. Got ‘er started and Eee, talk about a sewing machine! I were down at t’Tunnel in no time.”

“You used the Shuttle, then”

“Oh aye. Then straight across from Calais, Belgium, over t’ border and on to t’autobahn. Eee, that’s a road and no denying it!”

(Barney would have certainly enjoyed giving free rein to the Aston on the German motorways, where there is no upper speed limit).

“I’m heading straight on up, into Holland” I said. “We’ll use the Hook of Holland – Harwich night crossing”.

Then, from beside me, a tiny voice piped “Hurrah for the Hook of Holland, and the sea!”

I was so startled I almost crashed the car.

“I read that in a book” the little boy went on – in impeccable public-school English.

I was still dumb-struck and said nothing.

“When I first went away to school” the child continued “I was only eight. I got picked on a lot, because I was small and rather dark. Then I very quickly learned that if I pretended to be stupid – you know, really thick, and said nothing, they would leave me alone. It’s a trick I often use.”

Still reeling I managed to ask “So what’s all this Luis business?

“Aren’t I explaining?” he replied in a scornful tone. “It’s part of the same defence mechanism” (This, from a ten-year-old!)

“Every time anyone spoke to me I just said “Portugues” or “Portugal”. It was Madam who gave me the name Luis – she had to call me something”. (Had she ever bothered to check his passport, I wondered).

By now I’d recovered myself enough to say “You mentioned school, so, school is – where? In England, obviously!”

“It’s ******”.

The name he came out with, was a byword for exclusivity and elitism – the stuff of legend. We didn’t play them at any sport. Situated on the Thames, ****** was a rowing school, which Southdown Hall, up on the chalk downs, could never be. And in all other sports they punched well above our weight. Unusually they had their own prep. Department and admitted boys as young as seven. It must have been a severe training-ground for an eight-year-old.

“Would you like to tell me who you are?” I ventured.

“It’s The Honourable Michael **********. But everyone calls me Mike”.

“My name’s Simon. Simon Scott”.

“Yes, I know”.

Mike’s rather unusual surname was a giveaway as to who he really was. At a time when hereditary peers were scarcely flavour-of-the-month, Mike’s father, Lord ********* had been very active in party politics, so much so that he’d been allowed to keep his seat in the Upper House, and besides that, had been made a junior Minister and later elevated to the Cabinet. Mike’s mother, by contrast, was South Asian and had been high up in the diplomatic service of her country, where her family name was a byword. Here were two political heavyweights. It could prove useful.

I was lost for words – something unusual for me, as you know. For a while I said nothing, and when I glanced down at this extraordinary little boy, his eyelids were again drooping, so I let the moment pass. Beyond him, Barney was lolling back in the passenger seat, snoring thunderously, and the rear-view mirror showed my three back seat passengers. They, like the foolish virgins in the parable, slumbered and slept.

Outside, the long miles streamed past. I decided against stopping at any of the many service stations. On we went up the autobahn, out of Germany and into Holland, round the dreadful Rotterdam ring-road where 50-tonne trailer trucks come at you from every side, on at last to the Hook passenger terminal. Here I had to rouse everybody, but made up for it by booking us all into club-class cabins.

Part 6. Roddy finishes off

Actually it’s just like Simon to leave me to fill in the gaps, when he alone knew what was really happening, in those days following our return. I can only tell you what I imagined went on behind the scenes.

Simon arranged rooms for C-R, Carlo and Mike at the Centre, and immediately disappeared to London, leaving me to keep everybody entertained. First job was some emergency shopping – the trio had left with only the clothes they had on – even their toothbrushes had been abandoned. It didn’t much matter what they bought so long as it was clean, and Suter’s, the school outfitters, provided all the necessaries. C-R chose – it might have been an omen – the royal-blue tracksuit that was the favourite leisurewear for many Southdown Hall boys.

This left much of the morning to kill so I took them up to school. A notice on his door said that Dr Holroyd was away on a Swan Hellenic cruise and all enquiries should be directed to Mr S.Jackson. I knew better than that!

What happened next was unpredictable by any standards.

The main school field was already being prepared for the winter season. Rugger pitches were being marked off with white lines, and conspicuous in this activity was Simon’s friend and confidant, Gunner – the school groundsman. He was tinkering with the ancient tractor that he used to move himself and all his gear around the school estate. He saw me and waved, so I took the trio over to meet him.

“’Ullo, young Master Roddy” was his greeting. “Brought some of yer friends, ‘ave yer?”

I pushed the boys forward one my one. “I want you to meet Mr Gunner” I said. “He’s a good friend to Simon – and to us all, and without him there’d be no school sports”.

Carlo shyly murmured “Buon giorno” as he took Gunner’s gnarled hand. Mike, showing perfect aplomb (at meeting an artisan!) gravely intoned “Delighted to meet you, Mr Gunner”.

C-R ignored the formalities. Pointing towards the lifeless tractor he said “I think I can fix that, if you like”. Before anyone could reply, he was fiddling with something on the fuel pump. “Thought so” he called out as he swung himself into the driving seat and pressed the starter. The old Fordson started at once with a roar, before settling down into the throb-thrum-throb-thrum of a healthy diesel. C-R scrambled down. “It’s all a matter of adjustment” he said.

We all looked at him and gaped. “School Cadets” he replied simply, wiping his hands on the rag that Gunner held out to him. “They sent me on a one-week course on vehicle-maintenance last term, at Aldershot”. (So he knew more about diesels than most people).

“Coo, I could do with someone like you round ‘ere!” said the old man wistfully.

“Would it be possible” faltered C-R “I mean, would you let me – is there any chance of – oh, gosh!” He broke off, blushing scarlet.

All too vivid for C-R was the memory of those long, empty days at his grandparents’ little house in a Leicester suburb. Days when nothing happened and nothing was ever likely to happen. He dreaded returning there. By contrast, I could see that between the grizzled old groundsman and the sensitive, gelded boy, there was an instant rapport. Don’t misunderstand me. It wasn’t the least bit sexual. Like me, C-R wasn’t at all interested.

When C-R managed to pull himself together it was instantly agreed that he would report to Gunner every morning, deal with anything relating to the tractor and generally make himself useful – until Simon got back, and Dr Holroyd returned from his cruise, and C-R’s longer-term future could be sorted out.

Fast-forward a day. Clearly, Simon hadn’t been idle. First thing after breakfast a black car – an Alfa 159, with a red-white-and-green pennant, drew up outside the Centre, and two consular officials got out. Their mission was to collect Carlo. This done, they drove away immediately. I thought about Carlo as the car disappeared round the bend. An Italian castrato, in the tradition of those thousands of children who, two or three centuries ago, used to be taken, as often as not by their own parents, to face the crude surgery of those times………….. I wondered what his reception in Brescia would be, without his “bits”, and if he’d already come to terms with his new life.

We never got to learn, fully, what piece of bumbling incompetence had made it possible to snatch Carlo from the midst of a school party on the steps of the National Gallery in London’s West End. The outline was in that morning’s daily papers. All over the front of the “Sun” predictably, were the huge headlines “Sex Ogress Unmasked” and a mugshot of Mrs Hall-Smith a.k.a. Madame Elvira. (Simon had obviously stage-managed a press conference!) The Guardian and Telegraph were more restrained and more informative. Madame Elvira had called at the local police station to enquire how to replace her lost passport (dropped down a drain by Simon, you may remember). The problem for her was that Simon had alerted the international police first. Attempts were now being made to trace 39 boys abducted and sold by her (presumably, though the papers didn’t say specifically) to rich Eastern perverts.

I shuddered – the same fate that had once been in store for me (read “Ricky Visits America” if you haven’t already).

The British police had also detained a Dr Schultz, of Bromley, Kent, for questioning in connection with “Illegal Operations on Boys”. Remember at this time there was nothing illegal about castrating boys – it was all a question of where, when and why, and Dr Schultz’s activities hadn’t ticked the right boxes.

With C-R working on the school playing field and Carlo already departed, I spent a lot of time with little Mike. In time, conversation got around to his castration. He was a bit sheepish at first. He’d been snatched in a crowded shopping-mall one Saturday afternoon. He remembered feeling something stab into his arm. “There was a big black guy hovering near” he remembered. Could this be the mysterious Leroy – I ught to tell Simon about this.

Then, like C-R, he remembered waking up somewhere totally unfamiliar, with his little balls gone. (“And it’s not as if I had very much to start with” he said, with a rueful smile.

I asked how he felt about going back to school, ball-less. “Oh I shan’t be alone” he’d replied immediately. “I know quite a number of boys who’ve been. “

So that was that! But he was interested in what the longer-term effects might be. “You may find that you’ll be able to run a lot faster” I told him. “I know I did. It’s because of not having anything between your legs, to get in the way”.

He thought about this. “Will it help me to sing any better?” he asked. “I know it works for some boys. You, for instance. And at school, the junior choir have all had their balls pricked. The music director arranged it.”

“It might” I said. “I could always sing just a bit, even as a little boy. But it was when I got to fifteen I found that it really made a difference being a castrato. “You’ll just have to wait and see”.

He gave me a sly smile. He was really more interested about what he could get up to, on sleepovers with the children of his parents’ friends. “I’m sure of one thing, though. Now that I can’t – you know – actually do it, girls will let me play around with them – with just their knickers on!”

Hearing this I sighed. Oh to be ten-and-a-half again, to that age of innocence, where girls’ knickers are something naughty!

Not long afterwards, Mike’s parents came and collected him. Two big black Series 7 BMW’s, the first, chauffeur-driven, with Lord and Lady **********, the second with three individuals in dark suits (Minders? Bodyguards?) This cavalcade drew up outside the Centre and a single individual got out and came to meet me. He was dark-suited and suave in appearance, like a butler. Perhaps he was one.

“We have come to remove the Honourable Michael *********” was all that this man said. (“Remove” was pretty rich, I thought).

I found Mike. His face fell, but he got his few belongings together and came downstairs. He sighed. “They’ve brought the whole shooting-match, then” he murmured. I didn’t ask what that meant.

Before going across to the waiting cars Mike turned to me. “You know, Fisher” said the little boy, with the most serious expression “I’ve come to a decision. I’m going to be like Farinelli”.

“That’s some ambition” I said. “Farinelli was up there with the greatest”.

“Well, I’m going to be even better than Farinelli” said this extraordinary child. “And I’ll tell you why. You know when I was……you know, I didn’t cry at all while they were doing it. But when Farinelli was “done”, I’ve read that he screamed so much, that he could be heard all over his village.

“But then, after all, he was Italian, wasn’t he? So we must make allowances. They’re not like us”.

“Not at all like us” I said, gravely.

“You’re a good chap, Fisher” the little boy said. “A really first-class chap. Shake on it?”

We “shook on it”. And then it was time for him to go.

Time passed, until Simon returned, and Dr Holroyd came back from his Swan Hellenic cruise. It was quickly decided that C-R should transfer from St Gregory’s to Southdown Hall in September. Not long after that, Ricky returned from his stay with his grandparents – the Bensons – at the Lymington Haven house. Ricky was horrified to learn that C-R was still putting gauze dressings on his scrotum.

“Good grief!” exclaimed Ricky. “I’d healed up in a week, and after a month I’d forgotten I’d ever had balls!”

So I made an appointment to take C-R along to the clinic. We waited for a short while; I showed C-R the waiting area where boys went to get their balls pricked, though, it now being the summer break, there was no one there. Then the green light came on, and I took C-R in to see old Dr Laing. C-R explained his problem.

The old doctor gave C-R one of his slow, quizzical smiles. “Nothing serious, laddie, I’m sure” he said. “But I just need to have a wee look, so slip your shorts down…..”

He looked at C-R’s gelded genitals, the loose empty scrotum, the penis hanging limp. He looked up and smiled again – a warm smile, a quiet Scots voice. “Aye, aye, like I said, nothing serious”.

He bent over his prescription pad and began scribbling.

FINIS