After two weeks of this sort of thing, I was called in to face a panel of three doctors who had my ‘case notes’ spread in front of them. They all stopped talking quite suddenly when I walked in.

‘Aircraftman Medway.’ I am still an aircraftman until I leave here with the relevant bits of paper. ‘Please. Sit down.’

I walked to a chair. They all watched me. What did they expect? Mincing? Some of the other lads walk around the hospital like Mae West. This is known as ‘working your ticket’. They would have sat down, double-crossed their legs and rested their hands on their knees. I imagine Stephen did just that. The thought made me smile.

‘Something amuses you, Medway.’

‘No, sir. Just thinking about a friend …’

‘Ah! A particular friend, perhaps?’

And we were off again, with lures and baits at every conversational turn. Did I like Connie Francis? Was my father in any way weak and/or absent? What games did I play at school: football or hopscotch? They made me strike a match, and looked excited when I struck it away from myself. They made me stand up and pretend I had just trodden in chewing gum, to see which way I lifted my foot (disappointingly in front, rather than to the rear). They tried everything, rather than asking me outright if I was queer. What would I have answered? The truth is that I am neither one thing nor the other. I am nothing. Whatever appetites I may once have had have gone. Not satisfied – just gone.

After half an hour of this farce, we got down to business.

‘Quite clearly, Medway, you cannot go back to active service.’

‘Oh, really?’

‘You sound disappointed.’

‘I am, rather.’

‘Why?’ He looked genuinely surprised.

‘I was thinking of signing on.’

They looked at each other in consternation. ‘I’m afraid that’s quite out of the question. The issue we have to decide is on what grounds you will be discharged.’

‘I see.’

‘Normally, in cases such as this, we would have no alternative but to put certain things on your discharge papers which would … well, limit your employment options in civilian life. Do you understand?’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘But in your case, we don’t think you are what we would call a habitual offender.’

‘Sir?’

‘Hmmrrrmmph, and so we are willing to offer you a deal.’

‘A deal, sir?’

‘We would like you to volunteer for a form of therapy which has been getting excellent results in the United States and which we believe will return you to civvy street as a useful and balanced member of society’

‘What’s that, sir? A lobotomy?’

‘No, Medway, in this instance I don’t think a lobotomy is indicated. But we would like to try you on a course of hormone treatment.’

‘Sir.’

‘Nothing to be alarmed at. Nothing at all. Just a question of realigning certain chemical imbalances in the … er … the pituitary gland which may, we believe, control … the procreative and other … impulses. You see?’