Jack stood at the rail of the transport ship Cullen Bay, watching the moon rise slowly above the Mediterranean Sea. “The second time I came here,” he mused, “I was a young, very raw subaltern sailing East and already feeling homesick.”
Cullen Bay“Why were you homesick for a place that had rejected you?” Mary applied a Lucifer match to her cheroot, puffed contentedly, and pressed closer to her husband.
“I was only eighteen, and boys like familiarity,” Jack said. “Herefordshire was familiar, and I scarcely remembered my infant years in India.” He sighed. “We had to land at Alexandria, travel to Cairo, and take the train to Suez.”
“You said that was the second time?” Mary blew smoke into the still air. “What about the first time?”
Jack looked away. “I barely remember anything about it. I
