Gaunt and Ellwood's experiences in sex, sexuality and love are so different, it fascinates me. But what is very similar is the feeling that neither of them seem to think that they could be lucky enough to have the other reciprocate their feelings. They tread this topic so carefully around each other, they really don't want to risk anything that they already have. Which plays well into the whole motif of the book: should they risk it, is it better to have loved and lost than to not have loved at all?
When Ellwood and Gaunt are exchanging favours under the oak tree, Ellwood seems to be genuinely surprised that Gaunt wants to do anything sexual with him: "I didn't know… I didn't think you were that sort", he says after Gaunt kisses him. Is the thought of Gaunt actually being attracted to men, let alone to Ellwood, really so foreign to him that he is so genuinely surprised to learn that Gaunt is 1. terrifyingly good at giving head and 2. he wants to do it to Ellwood? He really does seem to think so. He thinks about it in billets, taking advantage of Gaunt's "insanity" and "new-found" attraction to men. Two can play at madness, as he says. He goes as far as to promise Gaunt that after the war it'll be as if nothing happened. (As if that isn't the exact opposite of what Gaunt wants.) Playing it safe again.
Gaunt even matches Ellwood's surprise with "On me? But you can't want-", when Ellwood wants to show how to give a blowjob to someone you like, which is all so funny because I do think there has been more than one time Gaunt has felt Ellwood hard against him while being physically close otherwise (fields in Munich in the summer of 1913 my beloved!). Which brings us to Gaunt's perception of sex and sexuality: he doesn't really seem to enjoy it beyond the act itself, but he really can't be blamed; his experiences with it have been rather negative. (Ellwood reflects on this later in billets: "Would you stop suffering all the time? I don't want to hurt you!") It also makes me wonder how much deeper Gaunt's denial of his feelings are at first, how at the beginning of the book he gets so angry when Sandys talks about him loving Ellwood and how it gradually softens and at the end of the book Gaunt calls his love for Ellwood the cleanest, purest part of him.
Contradicting how Ellwood's sexuality seems so much more easier, probably because his friends are a lot more accepting of his eccentricities, as he calls them, which are very known to his friends all along. Maitland also treated Ellwood very well, despite there being a power imbalance in the relationship, contrasting with how Sandys treats Gaunt even when the relationship is consensual (not to mention all the other encounters Gaunt has had with older boys). And then when Gaunt is confronted by Pritchard and Devi at the POW camp, Gaunt gets to relax with his secret, and the not needing to hide, to be and feel seen as you are makes it all so much easier for him to accept. It is such a fundamental experience humans crave, to be seen. There was no one like that for Gaunt at first, and it takes a war and almost dying to get to a point where he can feel more comfortable in his skin. (Which is a great, if not very bleak, reflection of the times they live in: the societal pressure of marriage and illegality of homosexuality are not a light burden.)
All this makes me think of Sandys and Caruthers, too: they took the risk, they got caught and they met gruesome ends, both of them. Gaunt writes to Sandys, asking if the time he and Caruthers had together sustains him now in his grief of losing him. Sandys doesn't sugarcoat it: he tells Gaunt he envies him for not having something so precious to lose, that nothing is worth what he feels now. Sandys dies before we get to see what the grief really would have done to him, but with Ellwood we get a good view of what that kind of profound and bottomless sadness does to someone (although it isn't just the grief, it's experiencing the war and having it mentally crush you and everything you have believed in). And then, when Gaunt thinks he dies, he feels sorry for Ellwood being the one left behind. He remembers Sandys's sadness and fate. So when we arrive at the end of the book, we have Gaunt who hasn't lost Ellwood in the literal sense, but he has lost the Ellwood he has known. He finds that the unconditional love he has for Ellwood, despite all that has happened, does sustain him. It makes him light, soft, it lowers the walls he has around him. It helps him let people in, it helps him survive the losses he has endured, it makes him a stronger man, in a sense. Ellwood's love, on the other hand, has always burned through him, made him fierce and alive. Grief is a form of love, too, and grieving Gaunt amidst all the violence the love is bound to transform into something else. It matters what kind of an environment you experience your feelings in. And what matters most, in their case, is that they have the chance to build their love again. They have loved, lost and then they get to love again. Aren't they the luckiest boys?
