September 1914

Kenny knew what it was that had finally made up Butterfingers' mind.

It was that damn Opinion cover, the one of Lord Kitchener pointing at people.

Now, Kenny did admit it was pretty clever. There was something about the big moustached face wearing some manner of military cap pointing at people and appealing to them directly that had even made him feel a surge of pride that he personally was wanted, even though he maintained that it was a stupid idea to willingly submit himself to get shot at for the purposes of some war that he had little to no greater context for and didn't particularly care about.

But still. That advert was pretty clever.

It had made Butterfingers intercept Kenny on the way back from work the day prior, announce his intentions, and of course today off they'd gone to the nearest recruiting station that was open - unfortunately, a bit of a trek given that it was a Sunday. Most places closed on a Sunday. Their factory didn't. What luck.

Counter to that, though, their factory hours being what they were meant they were masters of waking up at stupid o'clock in the morning, so they got to an open place fairly early - only behind around twenty or so other men waiting to do their bit for the war efforts.

It also meant they'd be waiting for the best part of an hour.

And that was after a twenty minute power walk to get from Shacklewell to Westminster, too - they'd gotten halfway across London before finding a place that was open.

Nowhere was open on a Sunday.

"You're sure about this, Butterfingers?" Kenny asked after a while. They queue had built up behind them some, and two chimes of Big Ben told him they'd been there at least fifteen minutes.

Butterfingers nodded. "Yeah, I'm sure. I'll be honest, Ken, I just want to get away from my dad. He's got real great expectations for me and I really don't think I'm going to be living up to them. He's a real slave driver, that man."

"You said he was a minister or something?" Kenny asked, having forgotten.

"Nah," Butterfingers clarified, shaking his head. "He works in the Palace of Westminster, sure, but he's just, like, someone's secretary or something. He doesn't talk about it much but he's one of those unimportant people, really."

Kenny understood. "The type who think that a job in the Palace automatically gives them the right to boss everyone around?" Kenny didn't want to use the term 'pompous condescending bollock-lord', appropriate as it was. Butterfingers being his friend and all.

"Kinda. I wouldn't say it in front of him, but he's an arrogant dickhead."

Oh. Okay.

Kenny did notice that Butterfingers even looked around for a brief second before saying that. He found it slightly funny. The boy was averse to profanity at the best of times, so he must really have meant it. "I mean," Butterfingers continued, "a lot of people at our factory know the name of the prime minister and that's about it, you say 'Herbert Asquith' and they know who you're talking about. Say 'Stephen Stotch' and they'll think you're trying to get someone else's attention or something. But because he's got a job at the Houses of Parliament he thinks he's so much better than everyone else, he thinks everyone should know who he is and it pisses him off when they don't."

Kenny chuckled. While pissing off the matron had been rather fun, he'd always suffered for it back in the orphanage. Pissing her off was funny because she had a bit of power, but credit to her she never really let it get to her head. Pissing off someone who thought they had power but didn't, now that would have been a golden opportunity that a younger Kenny would leap upon.

A younger Kenny would be charging into the Palace with mischief on his mind already, come to that.

Big Ben chimed again. Quarter to the hour.

The queue grew behind them. Kenny started leaning on the barrier at the side of the road that separated them from the north bank from the Thames. He was used to being on his feet for hours on end, of course, factory work being what it was, but here he had nothing to do to distract him from the aching in his thighs.

He looked around a bit, taking in the view. There was a slightly acrid haze in the air that offended his nose somewhat, and the river looked to have the consistency of sludge. Of course there was the great sodding clock tower on his right, waiting patiently to let everyone who was trying to get some bloody sleep within five miles know what the time was every fifteen fucking minutes, and beyond that the Palace of Westminster, the huge dirty yellow home of British parliament, something Kenny enjoyed having as little to do with as possible.

Over to the left was Charing Cross and Hungerford Bridge, then Waterloo Bridge beyond. More bridges, more sludge river. That was the city to Kenny. It was all more of the same. More factories, more packed together housing, more chimneys pumping more fumes into the air, more of the same boring industrial shit.

It was a dull familiarity that the sane side of Kenny was all but ready to consign his life away to keeping with. But he was still young. Part of him thought that maybe getting shot at a few times might do wonders for his more adventurous side. And the war couldn't be too bad, right? The thought was that they'd have Berlin taken over before Christmas. How bad could it possibly be?

It was all for Butterfingers' sake, Kenny reminded himself. Maybe it would do him some good, but primarily, before all else, he was doing this for his friend.

"What if they turn me down?" Butterfingers suddenly asked. Kenny knew the tone in his voice. He was at that stage of nervousness where he was certain something was going to go wrong in the worst possible way.

"They won't."

"But if-"

"Butterfingers, listen. You're perfectly healthy, you're of age, you-"

"I'm not-"

"SH!" Kenny hushed. It was true that they were both underage by several months, as technically they had to be nineteen for deployment and the pay boon that resulted, but Butterfingers had lied about his age before, after all. Kenny had confidence in him. Besides, they looked old enough and in the absence of contradictory information, who was ever going to know?

People were talking amongst themselves so Kenny spoke quietly, just under the noise. "I know you're not eighteen for a few more days, but right now you're nineteen, okay? We both are."

Butterfingers nodded uncertainly.

"They have no reason to turn either of us down. It'll be fine. Alright?"

Another uncertain nod. "Yeah, if you say so, Ken."

"Good." Kenny softened a little. Maybe he'd been a bit harsh on Butterfingers, but the thing was it was hard not to be. It was the easiest way of getting him calm - he needed someone to tell him that things were okay, or what to do. He'd make quite a good soldier, come to think of it. "It's going to be alright, Butterfingers."

He smiled at Kenny, not happily or sadly but one of those appreciative ones that say 'You're making me feel a bit better, keep going.' It was one of those ones that reminded him ever so slightly of Karen's smiles. "Promise?"

"I promise. It'll all be okay, Butterfingers." Maybe he could introduce the two of them to each other at some point. It wasn't exactly like they were polar opposites, and he did have a habit of constantly talking about them to each other. Whenever there was nothing worth talking about over the manual labour, he'd constantly talk to Butterfingers about Karen's life, and conversely he'd brought up Butterfingers under the ash tree several times when Karen had nothing to talk about.

They'd always liked the sound of each other. They'd get along rather well, Kenny thought.

Then the bell chimed again. Seven o'clock in the morning precisely on the first hour chime. After the seventh, the queue began shuffling forward. Kenny made sure Butterfingers was ahead in the queue, so that if he needed reassuring he'd know exactly where Kenny was looking.

They entered the building. It wasn't particularly grand, considering the area. Of course, that was still pretty amazing by the standards of two factory workers. There was wooden flooring and a few small chandeliers in lieu of more practical light fixtures, that sort of thing, but at the same time there wasn't exactly an air of opulence in the place. Kenny couldn't place it. Maybe it just hadn't been cleaned in a while or something.

In any event it wasn't too alienating, so neither he nor Butterfingers felt too out of place.

The line progressed to a series of tables to one side of the lobby, behind which four people in army uniforms were sitting with stacks of papers next to them. Looking at them was slightly odd – from left to right there was a black haired one, a brown haired one, a red haired one and a blonde one. It could only have been deliberate.

Slowly but surely, the queue shuffled forwards. Butterfingers looked back a couple of times, and Kenny always gave him a nod of reassurance. It kept him under control until, eventually, they were at the front of the queue.

"Next!" shouted one of the officers – the black haired one. Once again, Butterfingers glanced back. Once again, Kenny nodded reassuringly.

He waited behind while Butterfingers stepped forward. There was a quick glance back at Kenny as he moved to the guess. Kenny smiled and nodded once. Then Butterfingers turned to the man behind the desk.

"Good morning," he was greeted. "Here to enlist?" No shit, Kenny couldn't help thinking.

"Uh, yeah," Butterfingers replied.

"Good. Good for you." The man behind the desk pulled a form out. "Name?"

Butterfingers hesitated. "Uh, Leopold Stotch. But everyone calls me Butterfingers." The officer glanced up from the paper for a few seconds, gauging whether this person was trying to be clever. He came to a conclusion.

"Leopold 'Butterfingers' Stotch," he read aloud as he wrote it down. "No middle names." It was an assumption, but as far as Kenny was aware it was a correct one, and Butterfingers didn't correct him so on he went. "Age?"

Kenny felt himself swallowing. This was where it was won or lost for Butterfingers. Too much hesitation before he answered and-

"Nineteen, sir," Butterfingers replied without missing any beats at all.

…oh.

"Nineteen," the officer repeated, writing that down. Kenny made a mental note to give Butterfingers a bit more credit. The boy could fib when he had to, that was for damn sure. "You wouldn't happen to know your height, would you?"

"Uh… No, I don't. Sorry."

The officer shrugged. "Don't worry. If you could come over here?"

Kenny was going to watch what happened at Butterfingers' being measured, but then there was a "Next!" from the next desk along, and up Kenny went. He'd gotten the brown haired officer. "Name?"

"Kenneth McCormick."

The man looked up. "McCormick? You're not Irish by any chance?" he asked. It sounded conversational, and to be fair the officer behind the desk had the lilt himself. But, unfortunately for this particular line of conversation, Kenny didn't know, what with the lack of parents and all.

"Don't know, I'm afraid. I don't know my dad and my mother died before I was old enough to maintain a conversation."

The officer looked down. "Shame. I always love it when I get another Irish guy here, and we can talk about the old place." He filled the top two boxes of the form in. "Tell you something, the superiors hate it. Slows down the line or something… Anyway. Middle names?"

"James Daniel." Another box got filled in.

"Age?"

"Nineteen." Kenny glanced towards Butterfingers' height exam, which was just finishing up. What was he, five seven? Maybe six and a half? Was that enough?

He saw Butterfingers smile. Tall enough.

"Would you know your height, by any chance?" Kenny's officer asked.

Kenny glanced to Butterfingers' sheet. Five feet, six and a half inches. And what Kenny did know was that all told he had round about half a foot on him. "About six foot, ish. Maybe."

"You don't know precisely?"

"I'm afraid not," Kenny responded with a shake of the head.

"No worries, if you could come over here." And so it was Kenny's turn for a measurement. He stood up against the measure on the wall, and the officer pressed his hand down on Kenny's head to flatten his messy hair. Kenny stood away. "Six foot precisely. Okay, fair enough." Back to the table they went.

The officer filled the next box in - six feet, zero inches. "Should probably just take your word for it next time." Kenny forced a chuckle in acknowledgement. "Next question, do you want regular service or short service?"

Kenny's eyes narrowed a bit. "What's the difference?"

"Regular service, you sign up for seven years, then you spend five years in the reserves. So you can get called back up. Short service, basically you get three years service, then after that three years, if we're still at war you stay until the end."

Kenny considered. "Uh… Butterfingers?"

"Yeah?" came the reply from the next table.

"Short or regular service?"

"Uh, I went for short service, I don't think we'd be gone longer than seven years, so…" Butterfingers shrugged, not knowing exactly how to finish that sentence.

Kenny turned back to the officer. "Short service it is."

"Joining up with friends, are we?" the officer asked as he checked a box.

Kenny tightened his face a little. "Well, a friend. He wanted to join up, I'm going with. That's about the extent of it."

The officer didn't respond, instead filling a few extra boxes in. Kenny wasn't sure what it was, but he decided it would probably be best to just write it off as administrative nonsense and not worry about it.

"Okay, you'll have to pass a physical before you can be sent to boot camp. The situation being what it is, you're going to be accelerated through your basic training. I'd expect there be a little less emphasis on the stupid stuff like keeping your uniform presentable and how to march correctly. Since we're looking at either immediate or as soon as is humanly possible shipping, you're more likely to be jammed through to combat readiness as quickly as possible, and-"

"Dara," the black haired officer on the left said in an overly faux-bored voice, interrupting Kenny's officer as Butterfingers left, "you're waffling again."

"Oh, sorry." He scrunched his eyes shut as he corrected his train of thought and got back to the matter at hand. "Well, Mr. McCormick, welcome to His Majesty's army. Report to boot camp at Haggerston in three days for your physical examination, if you pass then you'll get further instructions as and when. Once in training uniform and room and board will be provided, look forward to working with you et cetera." The officer held out one hand. Kenny shook it and smiled warmly.

"Thank you, sir."

Kenny pivoted and left the building as the officer shouted "Next!" Butterfingers was waiting for him just outside.

"So," Kenny said, slapping the smaller boy on the back as they walked back to their homes. "Wasn't so bad now, was it?"

Butterfingers smiled awkwardly and looked down at the pavement. "Yeah, I guess not. I mean, it's not like I'm going to fail the physical, right Ken?"

"Of course you won't," Kenny confirmed.

Butterfingers nodded. "So, uh, are you coming to work?"

"Nah." Kenny started walking a little more briskly. "If you're going then let the foreman know I quit. Me, I've got to let Karen know what's happening."

"Oh, yeah." Butterfingers seemed to have forgotten about that. Kenny didn't really blame him, though, Karen wasn't his sister after all. "You did tell her before, right?"

Kenny nodded. "I let her know that it might be happening, when you first mentioned it. I'll have to tell her it's definite though."

"She'll be okay with it, right?" Butterfingers asked.

"Should be," he replied brightly, just in order to mask that he really didn't know.

Buckling up the meagre bag of stuff that was all he felt essential to take with him, Kenny looked around his room. Even though he was technically too old to be at an orphanage now, Karen had made a very good case, through the medium of uncontrollable crying, to keep him around until she was old enough to be kicked out too. As harsh as she could get, the matron did have a soft spot, and Kenny was bringing money in too.

He'd lived most of his life here. It wasn't a place he felt he should miss, really. It wasn't exactly cosy or nice. The room was shared with nineteen other people, of which one was his sister and eighteen others were people who had dedicated as much of their time as they could to keeping him up at night.

But it was just what he was used to. And now he was moving on.

He was taking the first wobbly steps into the adult world. He wasn't going to get everything spoon fed to him any more.

Karen was there, too. Even though she was getting older too, she was latched around Kenny's midriff, refusing to let go. Kenny didn't particularly want her to let go, come to that, but he just kind of had a place he needed to be.

"You'll be back, right, Kenny?" she asked, sniffling into his chest.

Kenny nodded. "Course I will. I mean, I'm only down the road for a few weeks, you can come watch me." Down the road, incidentally, meant about a mile and a half. While there were certainly recruiting stations on damn near every street corner by now, boot camps were a bit more sparse. But a mile and a half wasn't exactly the other end of the country either - he suspected Karen would be fine with it.

He felt rather than saw Karen nodding. "But then you'll be gone, won't you?" she asked glumly.

She had him there, but Kenny wasn't going to just let that go. "I won't be gone," he tried. "I'll just be away. You'll see." He sniffed himself - he was starting to crack up. It wasn't the situation of him leaving that was doing it, it was more that Karen was sad.

He hated seeing Karen sad.

"Tell you what, Karen," he said finally, "when I get there I'll write to you, okay? I'm sure there'll be time."

"You'll do it every week?" Karen asked, perking up a little. Kenny hesitated.

"Um." He wasn't sure what his schedule was going to be, but the military being what it was meant he wasn't ready to put too much money down on it being flexible. "No promises," he replied honestly. Karen's face started to fall. "I'll do my best though. At least every month."

"Okay," she agreed, nodding slightly.

"I mean, you know me, I won't write much, but I'll write all the same." Kenny gently pushed Karen away, and, placated, she did disengage herself from the hug. "It'll all be okay. I promise."

Karen looked up at him. "Kenny?"

"Yeah?"

"Before you go, could you read to me again?"

Kenny dithered. He really had to go. But it wasn't like he was going to say no, was it?

"Just a little, you know I've got to go, like, right now."

"Please?"

Kenny chuckled. "I did say yes, you know," he teased, deliberately trying to lighten the mood. He didn't go for the books in the room then, though, as perhaps Karen had intended. He already knew what he was going to read, and he had it memorised. "You remember Lady Clara, don't you?" he asked. Karen liked that poem, and it was one of the Tennysons that Kenny was able to tolerate.

Karen nodded. "Clara, Clara Vere de Vere," she began. She was only reciting the last verse - that was merciful on his time constraint, at least.

"If time be heavy on your hands," Kenny continued. "Are there no beggars at your gate, nor any poor about your lands?" Halfway through now, Karen started reciting with him.

"O, teach the orphan-boy to read,

Or teach the orphan-girl to sew;

Pray Heaven for a human heart,

And let the foolish yeoman go."

They let the silence stand for a second. Between the two of them, they'd found that poem, in particular that final stanza, rather appropriate for them.

"Thank you," Karen whispered, hugging him again.

Kenny nodded in acknowledgement. "You know I've got to go now," he pressed reluctantly.

Karen nodded, pulling back. "Okay. Good luck to you."

"And to you in whatever mischief you get up to while I'm away."

Finally, Karen smiled. And everything seemed okay again. "Bye, Kenny."

"Goodbye, Karen." Kenny slung the bag with everything of his that was worth keeping over his shoulder and headed for the door.

One last smile passed between the siblings before Kenny made for the exit and his new, military life.