Chapter 1: The Homecoming

1700 hours, 2nd May 2002. Plaistow, London.

The spare key to 23 Kitchener Road was where it had always been 'hidden', under the third flower pot on the left of the front door. I opened the door, dropped my bags in the hall and made a beeline for the kitchen to put on a brew. Miriam wouldn't be expecting me for a couple of days, and a nice cup of tea, and me, would be two welcome surprises for her when she arrived home from work. As I made my way towards the kitchen I heard faint sounds coming from upstairs, which I thought were probably caused by the hot water system recycling or the TV aerial banging on the chimney. I started up the stairs to investigate in case the noises were due to a bird being trapped inside a bedroom. On reaching the landing the sounds became more distinct; bed springs rhythmically creaking, a headboard banging against a wall in three four time, grunts, groans and moans, in fact all the indications of heavy duty shagging taking place. I pushed open the bedroom door and discovered Martin Hodge fucking Miriam's brains out.

I don't know if any of you ever arrived home unexpectedly to find your wife in flagrante delicto? Even if you never experienced such an event you will agree it would come as a bit of a shock - right? Well, imagine if the bloke shagging seven shades of shit out of your spouse is her brother? Shock doesn't come anywhere near to the emotion engendered.

What I saw when opening the bedroom door is burned into my memory cells, probably never to be eradicated. My wife lay naked on the bed with her legs splayed wide apart and her knees up to her ears. Her eyes were screwed shut, her mouth half open, and her head shook from side to side in delirium, nearing the peak of her climax, as her brother pounded into her with the power of a steam hammer.

Martin Hodge was a brutish hulk of a man, at least six feet four inches tall and weighing in at twenty four stone. Rumour was he sported a ten inch prick, and from where I stood it certainly seemed to be true. My viewing position was slightly to the side of the copulating couple so I had clear sight of his massive, engorged, pinkish/purple, member plunging in and out of my wife's cunt. Hodge's buttocks lifted and slammed down with brutal force. He grunted like a pig with the effort, and Miriam squealed like a farrowing sow as the soft tissue of the innermost recesses of her vagina were invaded by the immense penis of her brother.

He withdrew from his fleshy lodgement, almost to the bell end of his truncheon sized todger, and gasped, "Here it comes, Sis." With a violent lunge he re-buried his cock deep into Miriam's cunt, his balls slapping against her arse.

Miriam came as he exploded inside her. Her eyes and mouth opened wide, the latter in a filthy outburst.

"That's it, Marty. Fill me with your prick and shoot your spunk into me. Yes. Yes. Aargh..." Her eyes registered me and her voice cut off in mid scream. Nonetheless she continued bucking and writhing, in the throes of her orgasm, against the thrusting body of her brother, as he, still unaware of my presence, continued to pump his seed into the eager mouth of his sister's vagina.

Eventually he finished and withdrew, then glanced over his shoulder to see what Miriam was staring at. He was in no way abashed. He rolled off her and sat on the edge of the bed, his semi-flaccid but still huge organ hanging down between his legs, with the mingled juices of the incestuous pair glistening on the swollen head and shaft.

By contrast Miriam snatched up a sheet and draped it over her tits, which I thought a bit stupid after what I had witnessed, plus the fact her ravaged, reddened cunt, with her brother's jism sliding down her thighs, was still in full view.

"Caught in the act! Oh well, it was only a matter of time. I've been giving Sis a seeing to ever since she started growing her tits." Hodge said, and casually wiped his prick on a sheet before pulling up his trousers. "I suppose I should apologise to you for spoiling Miriam with a big cock like mine. You never satisfied her with your little pisser. Same as your mum; I gave her many a good shagging over the years. Your ma loved my cock as much as Miriam does. Little dicks must run in your family. I expect your dad only had a teeny weeny willy as well."

Until now I had been frozen into a sense of detachment, borne of the stupefaction at finding my wife committing adultery and incest.

Hodge insulting my mum and dad finally jolted me out of my stupor, and I had an overwhelming desire to kill the shitehawk. I started towards him, ready to smash his grinning face into a pulp, but the past thirty six hours finally caught up with me.

Everything slowed down, and I moved as if wading through a sea of treacle.

He easily avoided the punch I swung at his head, and hit me with a bottle picked up from the bed side table. I went down like a sack of shit.

Dimly I was aware of them moving about, and then leaving the room.

Hodge planted a vicious kick in my ribs as he passed me stretched out on the floor, and it was thanks to Miriam I didn't get a worse kicking. He was a nasty piece of work and would have stamped me into a paste if left to himself.

"Leave him, Marty. He's done for." I heard her say.

'You're dead right there, girl, ' I thought ... and then I passed out.

Welcome home, Dewey.

Two days previous.'The Uzbek Hilton'; Uzbeki/Afghanistan border.

Excluding the six hour sex filled interlude with Leilah the past 48 hours had been the worst I ever experienced in my life. Getting informed you were being discharged from the army, after nearly 23 years' service, can quite spoil your day. It certainly ruined mine.

My night of passion with Leilah was a gift from the local warlord, Khan Yusuf Vakil, for saving the life of his son Ergash. He and I had been directing mortar fire onto a Taliban compound when we came under attack. A RPG exploded behind me, peppering my right leg and back with shrapnel and rock splinters., and I fell over Ergash, thereby saving him from similar wounds.

It was thought I had flung myself over his body to protect him. In fact I had been knocked unconscious, and didn't know shit from dirty pudding at the time.

After Leilah left the room I got out of bed and hobbled about getting my gear together. I was due to leave for Karshi-Khanabad at 0800 hours aboard a US Army helicopter, and a constant stream of visitors came to say their goodbyes and commiserate with me; I drank tea with the Uzbeks and whisky with the Brits and Yanks. All said, in their various ways, what a bastard the Ministry of Defence (MoD) was to stick to the rule which stated a soldier had to leave the army if not gaining a particular qualification by a certain age. In my case it had been to pass the Staff Sergeant Promotion exam by my thirty-eighth birthday.

I had been prevented from attending the course by foolishly getting myself wounded, and the next course was not due to be held until after June 12th 2002, the date I reached the grand old age of 38. So that was that, and out I had to go ... tough shit, Dewey.

What with the drinking, the effects of the pain killers for my leg wound, lack of sleep, plus recovering from the bout of sexual activity with Leilah, which had been extended thanks to the aphrodisiac she gave me, allowing me to keep my end up, so to speak, I was in piss poor shape when the helicopter lifted off.

I still had a pellet of the prick enhancer with me; Had I used it all I would no doubt have fucked myself to death ... as it was it only felt like I had.

Harry Ledbetter's hand was the last I shook before boarding; the expression on his face expressed what he thought of MoD's action.

"Believe me, Dave, we did all in our power to get your discharge annulled. The senior officers of the regiment, from the colonel in chief down, tried their damndest to get the Ministry of Defence to rescind the order; however the mandarins of the civil service wield more power at MoD than the elected Ministers or the Chief of the Defence Staff."

"I know you would have moved heaven and hell trying to keep me in the army, Harry, and I thank you for it."

I meant what I said. Harry Ledbetter had pulled me out of the shit more times than a few since we first met at 3RGJ in 1981. Loyal, reliable, and always ready to help, he was a mate made in heaven, and I thanked my lucky stars I had stayed with him on the bleak mountainside in the Falklands when the rest of our patrol went for help after he got wounding by a Claymore mine. From then on, what at first had been mutual liking and respect, became a close friendship.

My travel papers had me routed through K2, as Karshi-Khanabad was known, then on to Tashkent, Bukhara, Baku, Ankara, Istanbul and finally London Heathrow. Don't ask me why it had to be such a convoluted journey but I expect politics and diplomacy, or similar bollocks, were involved.

However, what had started as a piss poor day improved 100% when I got off the helicopter at K2 to be met by Lieutenant Colonel Cyrus Q. Howser of the US Army Quartermaster Corps. CQ, as he was known to all the UK training teams in country, was no more a Quartermaster than I was. In fact he was an intelligence officer, and spent as much time with the Uzbek fighters as the training team staff.

"What a cockamamie army you Brits have, to let go a guy with your experience," he said as he shook my hand. I tried to explain I hadn't gained the necessary qualification to be retained, but he interrupted me.

"Horse feathers, Des. Some lard assed civilian made a mistake at your department of defence, and is scared of getting his butt reamed if he came clean." He gave me a sharp eyed glance. "You ain't done something really bad, like humping your commanding officer's daughter ... or his mistress? I hear you have a rep with the ladies."

I shook my head. "No sir, it's the regulations..."

"Baloney! There's got to be more to it than that. I've been around the top brass in DC, and know there's either politics or egos at work when some dumb rule is adhered to when everyone and his danged hound dog knows it's a bum deal."

He fished in his greatcoat pocket and pulled out a bottle of Jim Beam. "A little goodbye present from me, Des." He handed me the bottle. "And here's another. Harry Ledbetter told me you were leaving today and would be routed through K2, so I've arranged to get you on a USAF C-130 flying to Ramstein, in Germany."

I gazed at him blankly. "Germany?"

"Yeah, there are flights to our airbases in England practically every day from Ramstein. I've asked the guy in charge of Air Ops at Ramstein to get you on a flight. He owes me, big time."

I was still shell shocked by the turn of events. "Why are you doing this, Colonel? I'm not in the U.S army, and there's no reason you should stick your neck out for me?"

He laughed. "Don't worry; I'm not sticking my neck, or anything else, out. You're a darn good soldier and deserve some reward for saving the life of Ergash Vakil. His father is an area khan and a big player in the Northern Alliance, besides being the local warlord of the Khola region, and we now have his gratitude. There are lots of Afghans, and Uzbeks, who don't take kindly to us Westerners being in their country, and we have to back off from exerting too much obvious control. Yusuf Vakil will keep us in the picture at what happens at Northern Alliance meetings and Jirgas." He clapped me on my back and indicated the bottle I was holding. "You and Jim can get better acquainted on your flight back to the UK. Take care, son." He strode off, leaving me holding a bottle of bourbon and thanking my lucky stars I wouldn't have to risk life and limb flying across Central Asia in elderly, poorly maintained, former Aeroflot aeroplanes.

CQ's arrangements went as sweet as a nut, and I arrived at RAF Lakenheath, home to the USAF's 48th Fighter Wing, at about 0600 hours local time the following morning. I was pleasantly relaxed, but not drunk, after finishing off the bottle of bourbon. After a hearty breakfast, courtesy of the senior NCO's mess, I left in a USAF pick-up truck which was bound for the US embassy in London, but which made a slight detour to drop me at the gates of Merville Barracks at Colchester at 0900 hours.

"Ecky thump, Dewey," The battalion clerk, Sergeant Paige, hailed from Accrington and tended to relapse into Northern speech when surprised, "We didn't expect you until tomorrow at the earliest." He said in astonishment as I entered the 2nd Royal GreenJacket's Orderly Room.

"I got a lift with the USAF," I said. "Where the hell is everyone, Blanco? The barracks look like a ghost town."

"Three Para, and our rifle companies, are at Catterick. HQ Company is leaving in four days' time. A brigade group exercise got sprung on us, and The Old Man is doing his nut as he was due to go on leave next week." Blanco walked over to a filing cabinet and withdrew a manila folder. "I've got all your documentation here, Dewey. There are some forms to sign at the Quartermaster's stores, then you'll see the Resettlement Officer at Garrison HQ. When you've finished there come back here and see the Colonel, who will give you your service record and discharge papers."