Mitchell's Art for September - The Deserter

Mitchell - 'The Deserter'

The deserter thought he was safe, hiding at his girlfriends flat,

but the Army tracked him down there eventually.

They raided the place at the crack of dawn

and caught the two of them in the throes of passionate sex.

He was clapped in irons and escorted away,

allowed only a hastily-packed, overnight bag

and still wearing his girlfriend's slinky satin underwear

which he'd put on as part of their sex-play.

He felt dazed, still half-asleep, as they descended in the lift 

Residual, frustrated lust still swirled within his loins

Ahead of him a bleak, prison cell awaited

and the myriad humiliations of the Regiment's Punishment Corps

~

An image in keeping with the retrospective, military theme I've been dallying with recently, this is a previously unpublished oldie from 1997. I was planning to put it into an Army version of my 'Press Gang' Story but that's still some way off. There's a more immediate humiliation facing this deserter when the lift doors open and he's escorted through the public foyer to the Army vehicle which waits in the street outside. I suppose he should think himself lucky that the army did not arrest him at his place of work, in front of all his colleagues.

Mitchell

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