“Oh my God,” Barry exclaimed, as he watched the new boy mince across the yard and into the school entrance, “I don’t believe it.”
“Did you see what he was wearing?” Grant asked, not certain he could believe his eyes. Nobody, but nobody could be that stupid; everybody knew how Barry felt about queers after one of them had made a pass at him. And everybody knew that Barry was the boss around here.
“Yes, a fucking Gay Rainbow badge. He’s going to get it. This is going to be fun.”
“Careful Barry, you’re on your last warning about bullying.”
“I know, but I’m not putting up with queers around here. We’ll have to take him off school premises. Paul, find out where he lives.” The fourteen-year-old, the youngest of the Q boys, nodded, wondering why Barry always picked him for that sort of job.
Barry continued, “Pretend to make friends with him. Sit at the same table at dinner.” Paul Parks just nodded; there was no way he wanted to be anywhere near that fucking queer, but there was no way he was going to upset Barry. That was one thing you did not do, not if you wanted to survive in this school — especially not if you wanted to be one of the Q boys.
The object of their attention, one Paul Samuel Richardson (who preferred to be known as Sammy), was well aware that he was being observed. So, tossing his long blond hair back with a flick of his head he proceeded to mince his way on into the school. As he entered, he watched with some care the group of five lads lounging by the gate. He knew who they were — or at least who three of them were: Barry Goldmeister, the seventeen-year-old bully who ruled the Q boys and the school. It was said that even the teachers were scared of him, or of his father, Jacob Goldmeister, a big wig in the local community who was also a school governor, as well as a heavyweight on the local Council. Next to Barry was his younger bother, fifteen-year-old Ruben Goldmeister. Sammy suspected that Ruben would rather be elsewhere but did not really have any choice. Then there was Grant Thompson, also seventeen, a black stud who thought he was a gift to any girl around. Well, if that was what the girls wanted, Sammy thought, they could have it. He was not impressed; the bulging muscles were more the work of the needle than the gym.
Sammy was not sure who the two younger boys were; no doubt they were new acolytes worshipping at the altar of Barry’s toughness. He suspected, though, that he would find out soon enough.
“Boy! You there!” an authoritative voice sounded out. Sammy turned, and saw an obviously irate teacher coming towards him.
“What’s your name, boy?”
“Richardson, Sir, Paul Samuel Richardson.”
“Well Richardson, you’re new at Leyton Magna High, I take it?”
“Yes, Sir.”
“Didn’t you read the dress code?”
“Of course I did, Sir; I read it very carefully,” Sammy replied, a faint smile starting to cross his lips.
Mr Buntage, the head of sixth form, who was on hall monitor duty that morning, began to feel uneasy. After thirty years of teaching you tend to get a sixth sense for those times when you come up against a student who knows the game better than you do — especially when it is one who is prepared to play it, and play it hard.
“The code requires ‘black trousers and white shirt’. You do not appear to be wearing either.”
“Oh, but I am, Sir.” Sammy stopped, and stood dead still. “The trousers are black iridescent silk.” Now that the boy (and the cloth of the trousers) had stopped moving, Mr Buntage could see that they were indeed black and not the vivid colours they had appeared to be as the boy had been swishing along the corridor. ‘Swishing’ was the only way his movements could be described. It was the sort of movement that would attract attention — and not a nice sort of attention.
“I suppose you are going to tell me that you’re also wearing a shirt, and not a blouse?”
“Of course, Sir, it’s Sea Island cotton, as Ian Fleming had James Bond wear. Of course, Bond had them tightly tailored; I prefer a much looser fit, but it still buttons up as a shirt, not a blouse. Also, Sir, I would point out that it is white.”
“And what about that?” Buntage asked, pointing to the flowing tie-dyed silk scarf around the boy’s neck.
“Section 23 of the dress code specifically states that scarves may be worn, provided they are not in the colours of a sporting team or club. I think, Sir, you will find that no sporting team or club has adopted these colours.”
On that point Buntage had to concede that the boy was almost certainly right. No club or team would ever dare adopt a scarf like that.
“You know, boy, something makes me think that outfit is deliberate, and you are wearing it with a very specific intent.”
“Of course, Sir.” Sammy glanced over his shoulder at the group of boys loitering just outside the gates. “I am always quite deliberate about my actions; one never knows where they might lead.”
Buntage noted the glance, and who was on the receiving end of it. There was something about this boy he could not quite fathom, but he sensed that there might be some interesting surprises coming if Sammy stayed around.
“Well, you had better get to the office and check in. They’ll give you your class assignments.”
“Oh, I already have those, Sir, I checked in at quarter past eight; just popped back out to make sure I was seen. I believe I have you for advanced maths first period.” He turned and casually sauntered off down the corridor.
Buntage stood in the hall, thoughtfully reviewing the encounter with Sammy. Every now and then somebody arrives in a school and has a massive impact on it. That impact may be for the better or the worse, but it will be real, and Buntage was certain that Paul Samuel Richardson was one of those people. After a few minutes he decided to slip down to the office and have a chat with Mrs Blain, the school secretary. She always knew what was going on.
* * * * *
“The Richardson boy,” she explained, “the family moved her last Christmas, but he stayed at his old school in High Down till he had finished his exams. I believe he stayed with friends during the week, and only came home at weekends, moved here at the start of the summer holidays. I’m rather surprised we’ve got him here actually, he already has his A-levels for university, and if he had wanted a couple of extra subjects he could have gone to Leytonford College.”
“He’s got his A-levels?”[/url]
“Yes,” Mrs Blain replied, “Damned good ones too: A in English Literature, German and Physics and B in Higher Maths. His GCSE’s[url=.#fn2][ii][/url] are impressive considering he took them at fourteen. A in all subjects, including Japanese.”
“What the fuck is he doing here, then? He should be at Cambridge!”
“I think the Head asked the same question when he interviewed the family. Apparently the boy wanted Manchester University for its science and technology department, but the offer from them required an A in maths. He had offers of places at Cambridge and Oxford, but decided to take an extra year to get his maths up so he could get into Manchester.”
“It doesn’t ring true,” Buntage commented, scanning through the boy’s file, “I know Donaldson, one of the admission tutors at Manchester University. He would have swung Heaven and Hell to admit a boy with these grades at his age.” He paused and glanced down at the papers. “What the heck, he took the maths paper in hospital, and still got a B?”
“Yes, remember that food poisoning outbreak at Crayfield earlier this year? The family told the Head that he was one of those hospitalised. They had been at the Crayfield Arms for his 16th birthday party. If you remember, young Warston was taken ill at the same event.”
Suddenly Buntage had an inkling of what was happening; a vague suspicion, yet one which made sense. A new boy, who clearly had better alternatives, had enrolled in this school’s sixth form; a boy who, apparently, spoke Japanese very well, and who had some connection with Tim Warston. The teacher quickly looked at the back of the file of papers where the new boy’s interests were noted, read them and smiled.
He closed the file and returned it to Mrs Blain. “It looks as if we are going to have an interesting term.”
With that, Mr Buntage left the office and slowly walked along the corridor to his first class. As he did so the first bell sounded. He looked out at the gate to see Barry Goldmeister and his cohort saunter into school, bathing in the appreciation of the group of girls who always fluttered around them.
“Yes,” Buntage thought, “if my guess is right we are going to have some interesting times.”
* * * * *
The move from High Down to Leyton Magna had not been planned. In fact Sammy’s mother had firmly stated, when they moved from East Grinstead to High Down five years before, that she was fed up with packing and unpacking, and that was their Last Move. To be fair, she probably had good cause. They had already lived in five different towns that Sammy could remember, and he was only eleven at the time. However, his father had been promoted in the company and that meant that he was working at head office; High Down looked as if it was going to be a long term base for the family, at least until Sammy and his sister were off to University. In her case that would not be long, since she was seven years his senior.
In fact, everybody seemed content to stay in High Down, and they had even been talking about extending the house when Sammy’s great-aunt died and left the Dowager House and its adjoining land and properties in Leyton Magna to her favourite nephew, Sammy’s dad. At first the family had considered selling the House, but then they realised that it had everything they wanted in a home, including a couple of annexes that the children could have as their own flats when they needed them. There was also the fact that in order to sell it they would have to undo the trust that owned the property, and that would cause a massive tax hit. Moreover, selling the High Down house, even in the prevailing depressed property market, would give them a quite nice tax-free capital gain.
Of course, when they had put the house up for sale they expected it would take several months before they got a buyer and probably that long again before completion; the winter was never a good time to sell a house. They never expected to have somebody come along and offer ten percent over the asking price, subject to completion in four weeks. It was too good an offer to turn down, so the family moved to the Dowager House.
It did, of course, present a problem with Sammy’s schooling. Although he was only fifteen (his sixteenth birthday was towards the end of May, actually two days before his Maths exam), he was already doing A-levels. He was currently taking two, having completed German and Physics the previous year. For Sammy those subjects were a doodle. His mother was half German, and he had spent most summer holidays with his German grandparents from the age of three until he was eleven. Both his parents were physicists; his father a researcher in the aerospace industry, his mother a senior tutor at the local university. So, with German and Physics under his belt he had only English Lit and Maths to contend with and he didn’t expect any problems.
There had been no question of Sammy’s changing schools so close to his exams so it had been agreed that he would see out the year at High Down Comprehensive. After that he would be off to university. His mother had said she could drop him off each morning on her way to work since it was only a mile or two out of her way, but Sammy would not hear of it. As he pointed out, most days he would be finishing at three thirty, sometimes earlier, and she did not finish till gone five. Occasionally she worked even later. There was no easy bus route to Leyton Magna so it was best if he stayed with friends during the week.
In fact, it worked out very easily. Mike, Sammy’s best friend and next door neighbour, asked his parents if Sammy could stay during the week for the two remaining school terms. They said yes, provided he was prepared to share a bedroom with Mike. The fact that Mike and Sammy had been in a sexual relationship for a couple of years made the arrangement a godsend to them. They could now be together most evenings, helping each other with revision and other matters, with the other matters taking more of the time.
Each Friday Sammy made his way to Leyton Magna to spend the weekend with his family. It was during his first weekend after the Christmas break that he made his first friend there.
The Dowager House was approached along a drive that branched off from the main driveway leading to what had once been Leyton Magna Court, demolished many years earlier and replaced with a architecturally dismal office block for the County Council. Despite the destruction of the fine Georgian manor, the Gate House still stood in what was now the grounds of the Dowager House. For some years it had been let to the Warstons, a three-generation family of six. Old Mrs Warston, known to everybody as Gran (and Flori to a few friends), her son, Arthur Warston, his wife Margaret, and their three children — Mary, Martha and Tim, with Tim being the youngest.
It was the first time Sammy had been in the Dowager House since the move. His parents and sister had actually moved in two weeks before Christmas, but Sammy had flown to Germany that weekend to visit his Grandparents and to go skiing with his cousins. After that the whole family had gone to New York for Christmas and the New Year, Sammy meeting up with them at Heathrow. The House seemed much bigger than he remembered from his occasional visits to his great-aunt.
One thing that was especially nice about the move was that he now had his own suite of rooms. His father had said that, rather than waste time in moving him around once he was at university, he might as well move straight into the Stable Annex rooms. So it was that he had a bedroom with en suite shower room, a lounge, and a small kitchen on the first floor[url=.#fn3][iii] of what had once been the Dowager House’s stable block. Mary, Sammy’s sister, who was already at University, had a similar set up on the ground floor.
The Stable Annex was connected to the main house via a glass-roofed passageway. Sammy surmised that it had once been an open alley for servants to scuttle along, but had been roofed over when the Annex conversion was done. It led to the scullery behind the kitchen. That was rather convenient, for the kitchen in the Annex was just about big enough to cook a slice of toast.
Somewhat to his frustration, when he arrived at the Dowager House Sammy found there was no broadband service; even worse, there was no internet access at all. There was no 3G signal out at the Estate, even the 2G was so weak that anything beyond texting was out of the question. For some reason which Sammy found completely unfathomable, his parents seemed to think that this would be a good thing, at least in the short term. It did mean that Sammy’s plans for the weekend were completely out of the window, so by midday on the Saturday, once he had finished his assignments he was at a loose end.
With nothing else to do, Sammy decided to walk around the wood that was part of the Dowager House grounds. It was a mixed woodland, about fifty-fifty deciduous and conifers, the latter lining the driveway down to the gate. He found a path that roughly followed the drive but about thirty feet into the wood; the path seemed to go straight whilst the drive took a big sweeping curve.
He had walked what he thought was about halfway to the gate when he heard a voice.
“Hello!”
Sammy turned, trying to pinpoint the source.
“Up here.”
Peering up into an old oak tree he saw the face of a boy who looked a year or two younger than himself.
“You must be Sammy. I’m Tim… Tim Warston. Your ma told my ma you would be here this weekend.” He dropped from the branch he had been sitting on, and landed lightly on his feet in front of Sammy, extending his hand in greeting. Sammy took it — not being able to think of anything better to do — and shook it, whilst looking into the boy’s face.
“So wat yu’r up to?”
“Just walking to the gate, something to pass the time.”
“Yeah, not much to do out ’ere this time of ’ear”, Tim replied.
Sammy nodded, not sure if he should say anything or not; in fact he was not sure of anything right then.
“Cum’n up, I’ll show you something.” Tim turned, jumped up and grabbed a low-hanging branch of the oak, and pulled himself up. Looking down he beckoned to Sammy to follow him. Somewhat to his own surprise Sammy did.
Once up on the branch Sammy could see what had been hidden from below. Between two slightly higher limbs was a platform with a tarp roof over it. Clearly, it must have been here that Tim had been seated when Sammy walked up. Its position meant that it was all but invisible from below, and Sammy surmised that it would be totally hidden when the tree was in leaf.
Tim pulled himself up onto the platform and indicated that Sammy should join him. Then he lay belly down, looking at a tree some twenty feet away. Sammy pulled himself up and got down next to Tim.
“Look, over there.” Tim indicated an old oak on the other side of the path and about twenty feet further along.
Sammy looked but failed to see anything. “What am I looking for?”
“Just below the second branch on the right. Look at the trunk.”
Sammy did, and became aware of a small greyish-brown shape moving down the trunk. “What’s that?”
“Certhia familiaris, it’s the only bird that can go down a tree trunk head first.”
“And what is certhia familiaris?”
“I thought you were supposed to be intelligent? It’s the common treecreeper.”
“I may be intelligent, I just don’t spend my time in trees looking a birds. Exactly why are we up here?”
“Avoiding my sister.”
“Why?”
“She’s taken up knitting, and wants somebody to hold her skeins open whilst she winds them.”
That response made Sammy even more puzzled, but he decided to go along with things for the simple reason that he rather liked lying up there on the planks next to Tim Warston. In fact, given that he had nothing else in particular to do, he could not think of anything more enjoyable.
“What did you mean… that you thought I was supposed to be intelligent?”
“Ma said that you were doing A-levels and you’re three months younger than me. I’m sitting GCSE this year.” The news that Tim was older than himself gave Sammy a shock; he would have sworn he was a year or two younger. He certainly looked it.
“Doing A-levels early is not a sign of intelligence, just of being a geek.”
“Are you a geek?”
“Well, everybody at school thinks I am; at least, everybody except my friend Mike.”
“What does he think?
“He thinks I’m….” Sammy was going to say ‘sexy’ but then thought better of it. “Er… special.”
“Are you?”
“Am I what?”
“Are you special?”
“That depends on how you define special. All right, I’m two years ahead of my age group at school, and I do things that most boys my age don’t, but I don’t think that makes me special. Different, yes, but not special. To be special you have to be able to do something others can’t do. Everybody — or at least most people — could do what I do. It’s just that they’ve not had the background, or the interest or opportunity to do it. They probably do a lot of stuff I can’t.”
“Like what?”
“Change a bike tyre.”
“You’re joking? Anybody can do that!”
“I’m not, and I can’t. The moment I touch anything mechanical it breaks. Ask my father… he’s forbidden me to even think about mowing the lawn. He says the ride on mower he’s bought is too expensive for me to break.”
“So you’ll need somebody to mow the lawn?”
“I suppose so, but that won’t be till April.”
“Tell your old man I’ll do it… a fiver for each lawn.”
Sammy nodded and turned to smile at Tim. “You really want to do it, Tim?”
“Yeah, I could do with the cash; going to get a moped as soon as I’ve got enough saved.”
That was the start of a close friendship. Every weekend that Sammy was home he would meet up with Tim and they would spend time together. Tim showed Sammy things which — in all honesty — Sammy would never have even thought about.
Sammy would have found it hard to say exactly why the friendship developed. It could have been that Tim was outstandingly attractive, but it also could have been that (much to his surprise) he found himself interested in what Tim had to tell him and show him. With Tim he could understand things which had previously had no interest for him. Tim even managed to teach him how to mend a bike tyre.
Sammy’s bike had been sitting in the garage awaiting repair since they moved, and had sat even longer in the garage at their old place. Once they had mended the tyre, the two boys started cycling around the area. During the half-term in May they cycled all the way out to Silbury Hill and then, in blazing sunshine, climbed it. It was two rather exhausted boys who collapsed on the side of the hill to lie in the sun and enjoy a break from all the exercise. Tim lay on his back watching a buzzard circling over the nearby road. Sammy lay on his side watching Tim.
“Sammy, can I ask you something personal?”
“Why do you have to ask? You’ve never bothered before, and some of your questions have been dead personal.”
“Well this one is a bit more personal than those. Are you gay?”
“Why do you ask?”
“It’s the way you look at me sometimes; also, I’ve seen you looking at men, like that road worker we passed on the way here. You nearly missed the bend because you were looking back at him.”
“Well you have to admit he had quite a body.”
“Yes, if you like that sort of thing… and I think you do.”
“Yes, I do, I think I am gay.”
“Only think?” asked Tim.
“Well, I’m fairly certain, but not absolutely sure. A friend at school and I have been messing around with each other for the last couple of years. We’ve had some great sex, but he says he’s growing out of it; he’s getting interested in girls, and doesn’t want to do it so much now.”
“I can understand that. One moment they are a pain in the neck, and then you turn around and they are the most important thing on earth.”
“I take it, then, that you’re not gay?”
“No. Sometimes when I see you I wish I was, but I’m not.”
“Why would you wish you were gay?”
“Sometimes when you look at me I see something that suggests that there could be so much more for us if I was gay. I even considered trying it again with you, but then I realised it would be unfair on both of us. I’d be faking it to you, and to myself.”
“You said ‘again’. So… you have tried it?”
“Yes, got into playing around with my cousin. Things got rather serious, and he said he was in love with me. Then we both discovered girls.”
“Shit, I’m a year or so too late!”
“Only six months, actually.”
“You don’t have to rub it in!”
“Sorry.” Tim leaned over and kissed Sammy on the forehead. “Does that make up for it?”
“I suppose it will have to as I can’t have anything more.”
“I didn’t say that; just… I can’t give you the relationship which you are after. If you want a bit of mutual release sometimes I am sure we can sort something out. After all, I’m going to need it as I don’t get any from Jenny.”
“Jenny? Who’s Jenny?”
“Girl from school. We’ve been out together a few times, but can only do it midweek as she is from Lower Ambyford and there are no buses coming this way at the weekend, they only run into Leytonford, then only up till four.”
“Big breasted, with long red hair, no doubt.”
“No! She’s got no breasts — or at least none that show — and her hair is cut short, schoolboy style, and it’s black.”
“Sure you’re not gay, Tim? That sounds more like a boy than a girl.” Tim grabbed an empty bottle and threw it at Sammy, who had to duck to avoid being hit.
Tim glanced at his watch. “Shits, we better get a move on. Ma will murder me if I’m not back to do the paper round.”
Strangely enough, Sammy found that the fact that Tim was not gay actually made things easier between them. Although Tim had suggested that there could be something sexual occasionally, neither had any inclination to follow up on it. Sammy in particular felt that to do so would be wrong. Somehow he sensed that, no matter what Tim had hinted at, any physical involvement between them would endanger what they had. Sammy did not want to risk that, for he sensed that in Tim he had found somebody who would be a good friend — but just a friend, even if he had at one time wished for more.
Although they rarely spoke about their schools, Sammy got the feeling that Tim was not happy at his. Oh, he liked to read and to study, and Sammy spent many an hour explaining something mathematical or scientific to him. He also helped Tim with English and German. Nevertheless, Sammy felt that there was something wrong for Tim at school.
One weekend Sammy was up in the Old Hay Meadow practising a bo[iv] kata[v]. Although part of the Dowager House land, the Meadow was some way from the house and cut off from it by the wood. It was, however, one of the few spaces where Sammy could practice with an eight-foot staff of Japanese oak without any chance of hitting or catching something. Although the lawns around the Dowager House were extensive, they were also filled with statues, ornamental plantings and other items that his great-aunt’s family had acquired over the preceding three hundred years, which made them less than ideal for swinging eight-foot staffs around.
Tim sat at the edge of the Meadow — in fact now more a clearing at the edge of the wood than a meadow — and watched. There was something peaceful about watching Sammy go through the sequence of moves in the kata, it was more like some form of dance than an aikido training method. Although Tim knew that it was a fighting exercise, he also understood it was a form of meditation. Just looking at Sammy’s face as he moved, Tim could see that he was totally lost in another world. Tim wished that he could be, too.
Sammy finished the sequence of moves and looked over at Tim, who seemed dejected. He also noticed that there was a bruise on the back of Tim’s wrist. Sammy moved over and sat down next to him.
“What’s up?”
“Nothing.”
“Come off it Tim, you’re as miserable as last week’s Sunday paper left out in the rain, and that bruise is saying something has happened. What is it?”
“I’d rather not talk about it, can’t we do something else? Can you teach me how to fight?”
Sammy leaned over and took hold of Tim’s shoulders and gently turned him so they were facing one another.
“Tim, why the hell do you want to learn to fight? You always told me you hated fighting.”
“I do, but sometimes it seems like the only way.”
“All right, something has gone seriously wrong and you better tell me about it. You don’t really have any choice.”
“Why not?”
“Because if you don’t I’ll phone Jenny, then get Mother to go over and pick her up so that we can both nag you.”
“You wouldn’t!”
“Wanna bet?”
“You would.”
“Of course I would, so cough up. What’s wrong?”
Tim looked for a moment as if he was about to cry. Sammy was ready to pull him into a hug when Tim took a deep breath.
“Alright, I’ll tell you but you’re not to say anything whilst I do.”
“OK,” Sammy nodded his agreement.
Tim was quiet for a moment, building up the courage to say what he did not want to say, even though he knew he really had to confide in his friend.
“Look Sammy, you know I have not been happy at school this year.”
Sammy nodded.
“Well, Barry Goldmeister and his gang have been picking on me. I may be one of the oldest boys in the class but I am certainly the smallest. Barry keeps calling me queer and gay. Him and his mates have been bumping into me in the corridor, and pushing doors closed in my face.
“Over this last term it has been getting worse. Barry’s even made comments about Jenny, saying the only reason I’m with her is because she looks like a boy.
“I had a free period yesterday and had to go to the bogs.[vi] Barry and his mates were there. As soon as I entered I saw them and went to leave, but Grant grabbed me. He pushed my arm up behind me in a hammer lock, then pushed me down in front of Barry. Barry got his cock out and told me to suck it. Grant kept twisting my arm. I couldn’t stand it, so I sucked Barry. They were all laughing at me, and then Barry came in my mouth. After that he made me suck them all off. He said if I wasn’t gay before I definitely was after that.”
“You should have told somebody.”
“I did. I saw Buntage; he’s Assistant Principal and Sixth Form Head. Goldmeister is in the sixth form.”
“Well,” asked Sammy, “what did he do?”
“Nothing. He called them in to question them, and they all said I had gone into the bogs and propositioned them, offering to suck them off for a quid a time. Buntage told me afterwards that he believed me, but it was my word against four of them, and with no other evidence he could go no further, unless he called in the police.”
“He should have done.”
“Not so easy. If the police had believed their story I could have been in trouble. You know Social Services are already have us on the ‘at risk’ register because of that trouble with my sister a couple of years ago. We don’t want them getting involved, and if they thought I was propositioning other boys for sex in school they would.
“Also, Goldmeister’s dad is on the school’s Board of Governors. He’s OK — I’ve met him a couple of times — but he thinks the world of Barry, and thinks he can do no wrong. That’s how Barry’s got away with things so long.”
Sammy nodded, he could see the problem. Tim had told him that his older sister had got pregnant by a thirty year old man when she was fourteen. There had been a bit of a fuss about it as the man had claimed she had been prostituting herself and he thought she was sixteen. That, of course, had triggered a Social Services enquiry. He could see Tim would not want to risk there being another.
He decided to change tack. “Come on, let’s get back to the house, and I’ll get changed. Then I’ll get Mother to drive us into town; we can meet up with Jenny, and go to the flicks. I’ve got enough to get a taxi back after so we can be back before your paper round. Tomorrow I’ll start to teach you to fight, after you’ve done your papers.”
“OK, but forget the flicks. Jenny is at her gran’s this weekend. How about you start to teach me this afternoon?”
“OK then, but get a move on, this gi is starting to get uncomfortable. I need to get changed.”
As it was, their plans never came to fruition. Just after Sammy had finished his shower and changed into jeans and a tee-shirt, they heard the sound of a rather badly tuned car pulling up outside the stable block. Sammy’s sister had returned from university. Sammy rushed outside to meet her, followed by Tim.
“Hi, kiddo!” she called as she climbed out of a battered Morris Minor Traveller station wagon that had clearly seen better days about forty years before. “Give me a hand with these.” She indicated a pile of boxes, books and papers that filled the back of the vehicle.
“What’re you doing here… and where you get this?” Sammy enquired, looking with distaste at the car.
“As to your first point, I finished my exams on Thursday, and did not fancy sitting around in Sheffield for four weeks till the results go up. Barry’s gone off on an expedition to some distant and clearly uncomfortable place, so I thought I’d come home. This is Barry’s, we found it in a locked garage at a house sale. Barry got it for a few hundred. He only got it running a couple of weeks ago; when he gets back he is going to restore it.” Sammy remembered a rather gangly boyfriend that his sister had dragged home for Easter. Clearly, the relationship had progressed.
After they had all had some lunch and his sister had been grilled by his parents — on why she had come home early, why she had not warned them, and how medical school was going — the two boys spent a couple of hours helping to unload the car. It was not so much that there was a lot of stuff, more that it had simply been shoved in rather than packed. As a result they could only take out a bit at a time. They managed to get finished just before three-thirty, when Tim had to leave to go off and do his paper round.
Sammy’s sister watched as Tim cycled off down the drive. She looked at Sammy. “New boyfriend?”
“No, just a friend.”
“But you wish?”
“No way Sis, he’s far better as a friend than he would ever be as a boyfriend.”
“How come?”
“We have enough interests in common that we can share things, but we are different enough to be able to give each other space. If we were boyfriends we would find those differences would quickly start to grate and I don’t think it would last more than a few months. We would both need time to do our thing, and I am fairly certain the other would get jealous of the time being taken up. I’d give it six months at the most, if that. Friends who will last are more valuable; I think Tim is one.”
“You’ve grown up over the last six months! How are things with Mike?”
“They’re not. He’s discovered girls.”
“A bit late, but to be expected. I take it you haven’t?”
“No, Sis. I am fairly certain I’m gay: full, proper, one hundred percent queer.”
The siblings finished tidying up the stuff that had been moved into her suite of rooms, then made their way to the family lounge where they spent the next hour talking with their parents about studies, plans and the coming summer holidays. It was just before five when the phone went and Sammy’s mother answered it.
She came back into the lounge looking worried. “Sammy, did Tim plan to go anywhere before he went to do his papers?”
“No, Mam, why?”
“That was Tim’s mother. The paper shop phoned and said Tim has not turned up for his round.”
Sammy gasped then looked at his sister. “Mary, can you drive me into town? I know which way Tim went; we can look for him.”
Mary stood up, saying, “I’ll just go and get my keys.”
Her mother handed her the keys to the family car, and told her to take that.
The main road into Leytonford was to the left as one exited the driveway. Sammy told Mary to turn right, which took them first into Leyton Magna, and then, via a series of twisting country lanes, a back route into Leytonford. This was the way Tim would have ridden; it was also the route to his school, which lay on the outskirts of Leytonford.
They passed through Leyton Magna and turned off the road behind the Manor Farm into a narrow side road. They had gone about fifty yards when, just as they rounded a bend, saw Tim’s bike lying at the side of the road. Just beyond it was a huddled form which they knew was Tim.
Mary, after some basic first aid, left Sammy with Tim — who seemed to be slipping in and out of consciousness — telling him to try and make the boy comfortable, but to avoid moving him as much as possible. She then drove down into Leytonford to get a mobile signal, called the police and an ambulance, then let her mother know what they had found.
The next couple of hours were fairly hectic. Both of them had to make statements to the police, then recount everything to their parents.
It was just after eight that evening when Tim’s parents phoned from the hospital to let them know how things were.
Tim’s left arm was broken, and his right shoulder had been dislocated. He had a couple of cracked ribs and a fractured collarbone. The doctors were more concerned, though, about the possible side-effects from the concussion he had suffered, and they would keep Tim in the hospital for at least a few days. Sammy was told that Tim had regained consciousness and that, if he wanted, he could go in and visit Tim the next day.
Late that Sunday a visibly shaken Sammy stood outside the hospital waiting for his mother to drive around from the car park to pick him up.
He was way beyond upset; what Tim had told him had provoked him to anger, an emotion that Sammy was not used to. Anger, he knew, was to be avoided, but he could not help feeling furious when he heard what had happened.
Tim had been riding his bike down to the paper shop to do his round. As usual he had cut through Narrow Lane, only to find Barry Goldmeister and his gang waiting for him. They had been hiding behind the hedge at the sharp bend in the lane, and jumped out at him as he rode past. Barry, it seemed, was not happy that Tim had gone to the Assistant Principal after the incident in the toilet, and intended to teach Tim a lesson. It may be that the bully had got a bit carried away; nonetheless the ‘lesson’ put Tim in hospital.
Worse still, at least from Sammy’s point of view, was the fact that Tim had decided he was not going back to school. He would miss his last couple of exams anyway, being in hospital, and would have to re-take them next school year, but he had told Sammy that there was no way he could stand up to Barry and his bullies, so he would not return. Instead, he would go to Leytonford College and finish his schooling there.
To make matters worse, although Tim was able to name his attackers to the police, it appeared nothing could be done; all four boys had cast-iron alibis for that afternoon — all of which put them well away from the scene. Sammy thought it very convenient that all four of them had such strong alibis. Judging from the comments of the police sergeant he had spoken with, the police also found that somewhat strange. Without other evidence to support Tim’s account of events, however, they could not proceed.
What Sammy found most annoying was the feeling of helplessness that enveloped him. To make matters worse, he was not even going to be around for Tim. The following day he would be flying out to Japan with his father, and would be away for at least eight weeks. He had been looking forward to the trip but now, somehow, he wished he was not going.
* * * * *

Eb warmed his hands for a moment over the chestnut seller's fire as the man scooped the hot nuts into a paper bag for him.  Accepting the bag he handed over a penny coin and a half penny bit.  Then turned and indicated to the group of raggamuffins, sheltering from the light snow under the portico of the actors' church, that they should come over to him.  The three boys approach warily, Eb smiled.
"Alf Bailey isn't it," he stated, looking at the smaller of the three boys.
"Er… yea Sir."
"And why may I ask are you and your," Eb paused and looked at the other two boys, wondering for a moment what their correct description should be, "associates loitering within the confines of St Paul's Covent Garden and not attending lessons at the Dame school?"
"Well Sir," the smallest of the three boys chimed in, "ain't no school today, this being Christmas Eve, Miss Ridges gone and got the train to Luton to be with 'er family."
"And you are?" Eb enquired
"Fletch sir," the youngster replied.
"That I suppose is neither your Christian nor your surname, but an adopted name granted you by your companions no doubt," Eb commented.
"It's what everyone calls me, given my name."
"Which is?" Eb enquired.
"Why Fletcher sir, Simon Fletcher."
"Master Fletcher, are you by any chance a relation of Peter Fletcher of King Street?"
"Yes," Fletch responded, "he's my grandfather."
"Then," Eb commented, "you must be Robert's son and if so may I enquire what you are doing in such company as the last I heard Robert had settled in Harringay."
"That's right mister, but dad had an accident and 'ad to give up the work, so we 'ave moved back 'ere with granddad."  Eb nodded and made a mental note to check in on Peter Fletcher and his family after he had finished his business in Floral Street.
"Right, lads, I need a service.  There are some boxes for me at Martin's in Ludgate," Eb looked Alf, "you know it, Master Bailey."
"Oh yes sir, I have run errands for you there in the past."
"So you have Master Bailey and done good work of it.  Now there be some twenty-four boxes and I need them at my office by the close of business at four of the clock today, there be a crown in it for you if you can get it done.  My clerk Bob is there waiting for them." The boys jabbered their acceptance of the assignment and assurances that it would be well done, turning to run off down to Ludgate.
"Wait," Eb commanded.  The boys stopped and turned to him.  He handed Alf the bag of hot chestnuts. "You'll need something to warm your innards."
"Oh thanks, sir," Alf replied
"You spoil them," a voice stated as a figure emerged from behind the portico pillar. "Now in my day, a shilling would have been a good reward for such an errand."
"In your day Dodger, you'd have had those boxes up into the rookery before they were loaded on the cart," Eb replied.
"You're right there Mr Scrooge, but I still say you're spoiling them, a crown for a shillings work!"
"Maybe Dodger but it is Christmas and, if I'm not mistaken the third boy was Mistress Alan's son and she has had a hard time since her husband passed away."
"That be true Mr Scrooge but surely a half-crown in the widow's hand would be better than a crown split three ways between the boys?"
"That's as maybe Dodger but Mistress Alan is a proud woman and not one too keen to call upon the parish aid. It be my guess though young Alf knows how things stand and will insist that Mistress Alan's son takes a larger share, he is the biggest of the three by far and will no doubt do most of the work. Anyway I do need those boxes at my office
"So Sir Jack, might I ask what brings you to the Garden this Christmas Eve?" Dodger looked at Eb questioningly.  The fact that he had been knighted was not exactly a secret, nor was the fact that he now used the name, Jack, in those part of society where names were important.  In fact, the not so recent events of his life had been fully documented as had many of the events of his earlier life.* Although it was not a secret, it was also not well known, though when Dodger thought about it someone like Mr Scrooge was just the type of person who would know.  Knowing information was the stock in trade for those who dealt in money.
"There some interesting drains round here," Dodger responded.
"An no doubt some interesting inhabitants, do you look for anyone in particular?"
"Something French," Dodger replied.
"Then I'll leave you to the Queen's business and wish you the best of it," Eb stated.
"Well, before I do maybe you can find a use for these," Dodger stated, handing Eb a bunch of banknotes. "They were amongst a packet of papers a French gentleman will soon be finding he lost, and whilst the Queen, or at least some of her ministers, will be happy to have their papers back, I doubt they have need of such moneys whilst I am sure that there are many in the parish who have need of assistance and are no doubt known to you."
"And you have no need of such funds?"
"Nay, these days I am well catered for, anyway I have no desire to profit from the misfortune of others," Dodger stated.
"Misfortunes, surely you have done the gentleman no harm?"
"Of course not Mr Scrooge, though I fear that harm may befall him when his masters in Paris read the content of the papers he now carries with him." Eb nodded in understanding and placed the banknotes in his pocket, assuring Dodger that he would see that they got to where they were needed.  He could, he thought to himself, make a short walk up to the Foundling Hospital, where there was always a need for funds, before returning to his office. 
"Oh," added Dodger, "you might pay a visit to Mrs Worten, in Wild Street for I suspect she has fallen on hard times."
"Surely not Sir Jack, for her husband is a most sober man and a night watchman at the Arsenal."
"Precisely, Mr Scrooge, unfortunately, he was doing his night watching when certain French gentlemen decided to remove certain papers."  A sudden understanding came upon Eb, who nodded and made a mental note to add Mrs Worten to his list of calls for this day.
First, though, he had other business to attend to, so he turned about and walked up the market in the direction of James Street, turning into that street, then left into Floral Street.
He stopped briefly at a merchant of his acquaintance and accounted to him the problems of a family of Jews who had recently arrived from Russia.  The merchant, himself of the Jewish faith, assured that the community would provide assistance to the family, and sent one of his apprentices off to the address that Eb provided, with an invitation to join them that evening for Shabbat.
A light dusting of snow started to fall as Eb proceeded down Floral Street before he ducked into the ally that was Lazenby Court and then through the side door into the bar of the Lamb and Flag.  A couple of Molly Boys sat on high stools at the bar, sharing a jug of gin between them, waiting, no doubt, for the day to fade before they went out to St Paul's churchyard to ply their trade.  Eb glanced at them and wondered how they would manage when even the advantage of gaslight night could no longer hide the devastation of their trade upon their looks.
"Mr Scrooge, deary me," Barty, the bartender called out to him, "w'at brings you to our facilities at this time of day?"
"A half of flip if you will and a bit of your time," Eb responded.
"French or Navy?" Barty asked.
"Navy."
"Heat the iron boy," Barty instructed the pot boy, seated by the fire.  He then turned to draw the dark ale into a pewter tankard to which he added sugar, nutmeg, cinnamon and a slug of rum.  Once all was prepared the pot boy brought over the heat poker, glowing with a red heat, which Barty plunged into the liquid in the tankard.  Once the liquid was heated the poker was withdrawn and the pot boy took it back to the fire. Barty passed the tankard to Eb who took a deep draught of the warming drink and handed Barty payment.
"How went the Goose Club," Eb asked.
"Well, though we have geese left over," Barty replied.  "You know how it is Mr Scrooge.  It can be cheaper to buy a whole flock coming into town than going to the market and buying a precise number of birds."  Eb nodded.  He did know how it was, and Barty was right.  If you wanted seventy or eighty birds for your members and could buy a flock of a hundred off the drover for what you would pay for forty from the market, then why not buy the flock.  What was over could always be sold.  The club members got their geese, often better birds than they would have got if they had paid market prices for them, and the excess birds could be sold on at a profit for the publican.
"So how many are over?" Eb asked.
"There be some ten fine birds and fifteen not so fine but still good geese."  Eb nodded.  The next five minutes were spent in negotiation, but the two men agreed on a price, which was what both had known it would be when they had started the negotiation. One has to go through the process to maintain the show.  Eb paid the required amount and provided Barty with a list of families to whom the geese should be delivered.  He left it to Barty to decide who got the fine geese and who the not so fine, Barty knew the area and the families just as well as he did.
Their business settled and warmed by the flip Eb departed.  It was now well towards three of the clock in the afternoon and it would take some brisk walking for him to achieve the rest of his plans for this day's work. So he set off with a brisk pace, a very brisk pace for a man of his years, in the direction of Bloomsbury and the Foundling Hospital, arriving there some quarter past the hour.
Being well known as a benefactor of the establishment he was taken directly to the office of the bursar, who upon seeing the person of his visitor immediately sent for hot chocolate.  Over the comforting drink, Eb explained to the bursar that some funds had been handed to him for the benefit of the Hospital, withdrawing the wad of notes from his pocket as he did so.
"Oh, Mr Scooge, how timely such donations are for we are always tight on funds at this time of year," the bursar stated drawing a ledger from the draw in his desk and opening it at the list of donations, prior to picking up his quill and dipping it the ink. "And to whose name shall I ascribe these funds."
Eb thought about that for a moment and came to the conclusion that Sir Jack Dodger would probably prefer it if there was no record of the funds ever having passed through his hands.  "A Gentleman."
"And one no doubt of some means to donate such a fund. Without my recording it can you advise of his person so that we add him to our list of potential donors."
"My dear sir, I somehow think it would not be advisable to call upon this gentleman for funds, though no doubt you can be assured he will make further donations in future, as I believe he has in the past.  Did I not hear of an envelope with some bearer bonds dropped through your letterbox, not a score of weeks ago?"
"Ah," announced the bursar, "it is that gentleman." He made a quick entry in his ledger and then closed the book.  "As you say some things are best not noted." Eb agreed and after finishing his chocolate and catching up on the latest news of the poor and needy of the parish he left and made his way back towards Bloomsbury and from there past the British Museum and down to Drury Lane calling in on those, whom he a mind might be in need, as he passed their places of residence.

The American leaned forward on the table and glared at Howard. “Why the fuck did you allow this queer to get all this information in the first place?”
Howard leaned back and tried to look reposed and at peace, an attempt which he appeared to pull off for everybody but Miss Smithers, who sat at the end of the table taking shorthand notes. She had known Howard for many years, including right through the war, and she knew his little mannerisms, like the way his left eyebrow twitched when he was stressed. It revealed that he was stressed now.
“Basically, old chap, because he invented it all. Without him none of this would have existed,” Howard responded, waving his hand in the general direction of a bunch of files at the end of the table.
The American stood and paced up and down the length of the table for a couple of minutes. The other three men at the table sat in silence, their eyes following him. Miss Smithers took the opportunity to clarify a couple of her outlines. She hated sloppy shorthand but had to admit that during the last hour of talk some of her outlines had not been as good as they should have been. This disturbed her, but then the whole discussion that had taken place during the last hour had been rather disturbing. There was a sense of something that all the men knew but no one wanted to speak about.
“Right!” the American exclaimed, retaking his seat at the table. “Let’s go over this again, see if we have got everything right.
“This guy, this queer, knows the detailed mathematical principles behind our cryptography and parts of our nuclear technology. Right?”
“It goes deeper than that,” the small man to Howard’s left stated. His name was Primrose — Percy Primrose — a name Howard thought suited the man very well. He was an insignificant little fellow and Howard wondered what on earth he was doing in this conference. “He actually invented the mathematics that is being used, and it looks, from what we can gather from his research notes, as if he is heading into areas of mathematics that are totally new and are going off in totally unknown directions. God only knows what he might come up with next, he’s a bloody genius.”
“A queer bloody genius.”
This observation was made by the man seated at the opposite end of the table from Miss Smithers. He had introduced himself as ‘Colonel’ but had failed to give a name. Even if he had, Howard would have assumed it was false, just as he did not think the American was called Rogers. He was familiar with the US Embassy list and as far as he knew there was nobody on it called Rogers. Then again he had been introduced as Mr Jones and there was certainly no Mr Jones working in his department, not that anyone would find his department if they came looking for it.
“It doesn’t matter if he is queer or if he is a bloody genius, the only real questions are is he likely to defect and if he is what do we do about it?” the American blustered.
That, Howard had to admit, was the key to the situation: was he likely to defect? “Let’s go through everything once again, one step at a time,” he suggested. The three other men at the table nodded.
“Mr Primrose,” he began, thinking that this was the one person at the table under his own name (surely nobody would use a pseudonym like that), “would you give us an outline of nature of the information at risk?”
“Well, you know about his contribution to the war effort. It was work of bloody genius! He not only developed the systems that broke the Enigma and Lorenz codes. Don’t get me wrong, gentlemen, he did not break the codes — in fact the Enigma code had been broken before he ever got close to Bletchley; the Poles had done most of the work on that prior to the outbreak of the war.
“The problem was that although we could break the Enigma code we could not do it in a timely manner. It often took days, frequently weeks, and sometimes even months from the time we received a message to when it was decoded. To be honest we just could not keep up with the volume of intercepts that were coming in. It was his mathematics and ideas that provided the basis for the bombes and they enabled us to decipher the Enigma code quickly.
“They were bloody good at it as well. It was boasted that by 1943 we could actually intercept, decrypt and read a message before the captain of the U-boat it was sent to could get it decrypted and read. That’s a bit of wishful thinking but we were not that far off it either.
“The really important contribution he made was on the development of Colossus, the first programmable electronic computer.”
“I thought that was ENIAC was the first electronic computer?” the American interjected.
“No, the first programmable electronic computer was Colossus. It was designed and built by Tommy Flowers, but it was our man’s ideas and concepts on computing machines which gave Flowers the basis on which to design it, and his work on cryptographic probability was the basis for programming it.
“The problem is not his knowledge of current defence computer systems, because he does not have much. The problem is his knowledge of the mathematics of computer systems. Most of the mathematical work in that field is either by him or it is based on his work. The problem is not so much the secrets he is carrying in his head, as I don’t think he actually has that many — except for his knowledge of Bletchley Park, and we are pretty certain the Soviets already know about that — no, the problem is where his ideas and thinking could take him. If he comes up with new ideas and the Soviets have him that could be a major advantage for them.”
The Colonel leaned forward on the table. He was looking at Primrose, but his question was directed at Howard: “Is he likely to go over to the Soviets?”
“If you are asking if he is likely to leave and join the Soviets, I would say very unlikely. He is in most ways highly patriotic, which showed up quite strongly at Bletchley Park. But...”
“That,” interrupted Primrose, “was before his prosecution in ’fifty-two. All the signs are that he feels let down by the establishment; that they ought to have done more for him, protected him in some way.”
“Why didn’t you look after him?” the American asked. “He was quite an asset!”
“We did not know,” Howard responded. “If we had we might have done something... put pressure on the police not to proceed. God knows we’ve done it enough times in the past; we did it again just last week... an atomic energy bod caught in a public toilet in Brighton. He had the sense to contact his superiors and they red flagged it through to us. Our man didn’t, though. It happened up in the provinces and the first we knew was when details of his trial appeared in the press.”
“Don’t your prosecutors flag high profile individuals up the command chain?”
“No, they don’t. We don’t have the type of system you have in the States. Prosecutions are in the hands of the police, and they decide whether or not to pursue the matter.”
“Holy shit, no wonder you’ve got a problem.”
“Yes, well, back to the question in hand. Is he likely to defect? I doubt that there is much chance of him doing so directly but there is a strong possibility that he might do so in stages. Whilst on holiday in Norway he made the acquaintance of a Norwegian homosexual man whom he calls Kjell. We have reason to believe this name may be a cover.
“We know that Kjell came over last year and was supposed to visit him, but for some reason the visit did not take place. We think Kjell may have spotted the parties who were watching the house. They were, after all, only local police, and if Kjell is Soviet he will certainly be well trained.”
“Is he Soviet?” the American asked.
“We’ve no idea. Norwegian intelligence are not that co-operative, considering they are NATO allies. We’re just having to work on the assumption that he is Soviet. Anyway, Kjell, whoever he is, returned to Norway. I must say that at that point we thought matters were fairly well settled, but then it turned out that our man was making steps to learn Norwegian and Danish. It seems that he has had contact with Oslo University and there have been indications that there would be a place for him there if he wanted to take it up.

The climb up the canyon wall to the plateau had taken longer than Lo expected. Now he lay back enjoying the last rays of the setting sun. Living in the canyon, this was one pleasure the boy missed. The sun’s rays penetrated those vast chasms that intersected the planet’s surface only when it was high in the sky, and then it was too hot to lie out under.
Up on the open expanse of the plateau, it would shine for long hours, unobstructed by the canyon clouds. Lo knew, though, that without those clouds and their insulation life down in the canyons would be difficult. On the plateau, above the protection of the clouds, daytime temperatures rose well above what was comfortable and at night could fall close to freezing. Now, in the late afternoon, it was comfortable.
Lo drew in a deep breath of fresh thin air. It smelt clean and pure, unlike the people-scented air of the canyon cities. Five billion people lived in the teeming metropolises of the canyons, whilst less than a million lived on the plateau, which occupied nine tenths of the land surface of the planet. It was, of course, a question of air. The air that was so sweet and fresh to Lo was thin, too thin, for those born in the canyons. They could live up top, but without months of acclimatization they found life hard. Even when fully acclimatized, they never functioned as well in the thin air of the plateau as did those born to it.
Lo was one of the high born, although he attended school down in the City of the Golden Canyon, a full three thousand strides below. For him the plateau was home. It was there, till the age of eleven, that he had spent all of his time at his mother’s house. For him the fresh thin air was a sweet change; he wondered if the other boys in his class had known this when they set the challenge. It was doubtful. Master Armitist had been adamant that no one in the school should know that Lo was high born. Fear of the plateau-dwellers was strong in the low born. Few of them ever visited the plateau—and even fewer of their own free will.
It was not the climb that put them off. There was no need to take the ancient path of twelve thousand steps, a path, so legend had it, cut before the coming of the second moon. Lo smiled at the thought; it was the tectonic movements caused by the acquisition of that body that had opened up the canyons. No doubt the steps had been cut soon after that event. At first it must have been the only way up and down to the canyon floor. Now, however, there were repulsion lifts that made the three thousand-stride journey in less than half an hour. Lo could have used the lifts—in fact he often did when going home—but he knew that the identities of the passengers on the lifts were recorded. The thing about any theft was to get away with it. For this reason, there must be no suspicion that he was on the plateau. As far as all were concerned, he was in his room at school. Only the other boys in his class would know that it was he who had dared to do this thing.
As might be expected, it would not be the first thing he had stolen. One would not survive long at the school unless one stole. In the past it had been minor things: cinnamon-scented bread from the baker, or books from the printer’s. This year, though, the whole class had moved up a notch. Bal, who since they had both joined the school at the same time, was Lo’s best friend, had cut a purse of golden thalers from a Synorthian merchant. Not to be outdone, Lo had sneaked into the temple of the Creator and stolen the alms plate, complete with alms.
The school had made certain that the items were returned, just as they sent payment to the shopkeepers and craftsmen for items lost. The school’s purpose was to turn out the best thieves in the thousand canyons, not to upset the local population.
In all honesty, the population of the City of The Golden Canyon reveled in having the best thieves in the Galaxy. Indeed, it was considered to be one’s civic duty to be robbed by one of the students—who always left a receipt for items taken. Many an up-and-coming family had complained to Master Armitist when, after a couple of years, the students had made no attempt to rob them. As Lady Shema complained “Do they think that I have nothing worth taking?” and went on to point out that she was a Lady of the Third Rank. She was also an absolute snob and had gone out of her way to make her mansion as easy to rob as possible, just so she could boast that she had been robbed. There was no kudos for a student to enter a house where unbarred ground floor windows were left open all night.
Now, Hassam, the slave merchant, was a different prospect. His premises were closely guarded and there were no windows on the ground floor at all. The sills of the upper floors’ windows were greased and many a young thief had fallen from them. Hassam, considerate as always to those who might be future clients, had planted Marron bushes below the windows to break their fall, though at Master Armitist’s insistence, he grew the sharp-thorn variety that meant the lesson was well learnt.
Besides greased sills on windows with rolling bars, Hassam also had dogs and guards. Both were to be avoided. Many a young student at the school had scars to show after meeting Hassam’s dogs. The punishment meted out by the guards was more dark and not discussed, though some of the older students who themselves had dark reputations had been known, once caught, to return to meet the guards again.
Hassam’s place was well guarded and much kudos came from robbing it. Then there were the rewards. Whenever a student was successful in stealing one of Hassam’s treasures, the merchant would invite them to a feast to celebrate. There would be gifts of slave girls or boys according to the thief’s taste, and offers of employment. Hassam often had work for a good thief.
The ultimate challenge, however, had always been the Garden of the Queen of the Night. It was not only that it was on the plateau that made it a difficult target, at least for the low born; there was also the fact that it was protected by magical wards. Normally only the most experienced of students would attempt such a job. Even then, they inevitably failed, sometimes fatally. That Lo, still only in his fourth year at the school, should attempt to rob the Queen of the Night verged on madness, except that it seemed to make sense. Where others stole Hassam’s treasures, Lo had slipped in one night and stolen the guard dogs.
His fellow students had joked that he must have been fathered by Oswald Lightfinger who had stolen fire from the Gods. Lo had just smiled and kept quiet. He knew only too well that revealing his bastard parentage would cause problems. Not that it mattered amongst the high born, but the low born had a different view on these things, just as they did on his having a lover, though that had not got very far and he had not told them that he loved one of the other boys. He often wondered, though, what his fellow students would say if they knew who his parents were.
It was difficult to say who had first come up with the idea of robbing the Queen of the Night, but as soon as the idea had been mooted it had transmogrified into a dare to Lo, one that he had been only too willing to take on.
Lo stirred. The sun was setting below the distant mountains; it was time to move. Only in the short interval after the end of the day but before the start of true night did he have a chance. The young boy stood and moved at a trot towards the verdant grassland that was the home of the Queen of the Night. To one who was low born the exertion would have been killing; for a high born like Lo it was just a mild effort.
It took the boy only a few minutes to come to ‘the Ditch’, a steep-sided moat that surrounded the Queen’s estate. The sides were not vertical—that would have caused problems when the waters froze—but they were near enough, with just a slight slant from the vertical to allow the ice to ride up as it froze and expanded. That slant, however, was enough. Lo extracted two metal claws from his waist belt. Lying flat on the ground, he edged forward, face-down, until the upper part of his body projected over the lip of the ditch. As he had expected there was an overhang. In fact he had been counting on it, for in the setting sun the area below the overhang was in darkness.
The overhang was not deep, a bare two spans in depth, but for a boy of Lo’s size that was enough. He hooked the claws over the edge of the lip, pushing down hard on them to make sure they were firm. Once he was certain, he took a good grip on them and straightened his arms, pushing his body forward. As he did so, he bent his knees, bringing his heels up tight against his buttocks. The effect of this move was to move his center of gravity into his upper body. Now off balance, he toppled forwards into the darkness. The moment he sensed he was past the point of no return, he flexed his legs. His body swung over, pivoted by his grip on the claws. His feet landed on the ditch wall, his bent knees absorbing the impact. With a minimum of effort he had moved from a position lying above the edge of the ditch to one hanging from the lip against the wall of the ditch, the slight slant of the wall giving him just enough support so that he did not have to carry all the weight of his body on his arms.
For a few moments he felt around with a small metal spike that projected from the rear of his boot heel. Detecting the crack between the stones that made up the wall of the ditch he gave a sharp reverse kick and forced the projection into the crack, dislodging moss and dirt that fell into the water below. Carefully he tested the strength of the support provided, gradually putting his weight onto it and relieving the strain on his arms. It held; he was secure.
A disturbance in the water below when a malformed creature, attracted by the fall of dirt, surfaced with snapping jaws, demonstrated that such security was relative. He felt around with the other heel and made that fast within a crack. Then, carefully, he released the right hand claw from the lip, and moved it as far as he could to his right, relocking it once more on the lip. Once it was firm, he pulled his right heel out and moved that to the right, followed by the left heel and finally the left claw. At the end of this process he had moved a stride to the right. He repeated the sequence again and again, slowly moving along the wall of the ditch, always keeping three points of contact as he moved along the underside of the lip, hidden from the eyes of the guards at the drawbridge by the ditch’s darkness.
The Bridge of Sleep, the single crossing point into the realm of the Queen of the Night, appeared silhouetted against the darkening evening sky. Lo continued to edge along until he was level with the bastions of the bridge. The drawbridge was raised, but he knew it would soon be lowered to allow the evening traffic to pass over it. In the guardhouse above Lo could hear the voices of the Queen’s guards as they looked out across the flat lands of the plateau.
Lo took two metal spikes out of this tool belt and with his right hand jammed them into cracks between the stones. Then, using a small leather-headed mallet that dulled the sound, hammered them firmly into place. Each spike had a clip ring in its head. Through these he threaded a fine cord made from the silken web of a moon spider. The cord, although little thicker than a twist of wool, could carry the weight of eight men. This he tied to his body harness, making himself secure. Once so secured, he was able to release both of the claws.
Lo was now ready to cross the ditch. He removed a couple of items from his waistband and assembled them to make a small crossbow. From a slim pocket in his body harness he withdrew an oddly shaped bolt, to which was attached a cord of moon spider silk. Drawing the bow and latching it safe he loaded the bolt into it, then, allowing the harness to take his weight, relaxed and waited.
The boy hoped that the wait would not be too long. Already, with the approach of night, the air temperature was falling. In the ditch the water would stay warmer longer, keeping the layer of air above it warm. That air would rise, and along with it the deadly miasma generated by the stagnant waters. Lo could already see, where the light of the third moon fell, the first traces of the mist that would fill the ditch during the night. Time was of the essence; he had to be clear of the ditch before the morbid vapor rose to the level where he would have to breathe it. He could detect the first hints of its pestilent stench, and that caused him to want to heave.
He had expected that, and was prepared for it. From a side pocket he removed a vial, the contents of which he sprinkled on a kerchief that he then tied across his mouth and nose. The scent of cinnamon and cloves filled his head. For a moment he felt giddy from the cloying sweetness, and then his head cleared.
He knew that the mixture would not protect him from the effects of the miasma should it reach him but it would mask the sweet rancid reek of death that was preceding the rise of the mist. Without his precautions the sickening stench would have set his stomach heaving and his throat retching, the noise of which would have drawn the attention of the guards above—an attention just as deadly as the miasma below.
A loud thud followed by the clinking of chains announced the lowering of the drawbridge. As it descended into place, Lo took aim with the crossbow. Placement was critical for him. He waited patiently until he got a clear shot, then he exhaled and in that moment of stillness that follows the evacuation of breath he fired. The bolt flew true, passing through a narrow gap, less than half a span in width, between two cross beams, and embedding itself in the wood of the drawbridge decking. Behind it trailed the fine cord of moon spider silk.
As the bolt hit the decking, four spring-loaded prongs opened out. Lo peered into the darkness to see if the deployment was complete but even his preternatural eyesight could not penetrate the gloom below the bridge. He pulled the cord tight and fastened it, with arcane knots, to his body harness, then waited, glancing occasionally down into the moonlit part of the ditch to check the rise of the miasma.
That death-bearing miasma was rising as the thunder of feet announced the passage of workers across the drawbridge.
Time passed, the deadly mist rose, and a cold fear began to consume Lo. Would the bridge be raised before the mist got to him? Each time the tramping of feet upon the drawbridge slowed he prepared himself for action, then more traffic would arrive and the level of thumping would return to what it had been before. As each wave of traffic passed over the bridge the miasma in the ditch got closer and closer to him.
Then the foot traffic stopped. There was a heavy thud as the gate pole dropped into place. Lo balanced himself on his heel supports and released the cords that held him to the spikes. Nothing happened. He held his posture. The back of his legs started to ache from the strain. Stillness. Silence.
The clanking of metal against metal sundered the stillness as the treadmill clanked to life, drawing in the chains. For a time it only took up the slack but once they were taut, the chains took the weight of the bridge. Ancient timbers groaned in protest, then started to move. Slowly the bridge began to rise.
Pulled forward by the taut silk cord, Lo overbalanced and swung down into the depths of the ditch, his feet sweeping the top of the still-rising miasma. Under the weight of the boy’s body, the bolt came loose. The boy dropped two strides into the deadly mist, before being brought up with a sudden jolt as the extended prongs on the bolt engaged the timber either side of the gap in the crossbeam. Locked there as a grapnel they held him, as he had intended.
Lo, immersed in the miasma, held his breath. To breathe in now would be fatal.
The bridge continued to rise. As it moved he was pulled upwards, though the ascent was painfully slow. A tightness swelled in his chest, a pain demanding that he draw breath, miasmic breath, deep into his lungs. Lo fought against it; refusing to inhale that deadly air. With the ascent of the bridge he was drawn up and out of the mist. Once clear he took a gasping deep breath.
Free now from the danger of the miasma he pulled himself up the cord using a pair of running locks. It was a slow and strenuous job, causing him to breathe heavily, which was why he had not used them to raise himself above the miasma.
As the drawbridge came to the vertical he swung in and alighted on one of its crossbeams, then he climbed easily through the crisscrossed beams that formed the underside of the bridge. He had to work rapidly; he was exposed and visible to any guard who looked in the direction of the raised bridge from outside the walls, although he doubted that any of those in the outer bailey would look his way. Their job was to defend the approaches from any danger coming from the outside; they did not look towards the castle. However, it was best not to take any chances.
Rapidly, Lo clambered to the top, where, being small, he was able to slip through the opening between the end of the bridge span and the top of the gate arch. He was out of sight again...and he was inside the domain of the Queen of the Night.
Lo lay still for a moment, in that small gap at the top of the gate, contemplating what he had done. A thirteen-year-old student of the Guild of Thieves had obtained unauthorized access to the domain of one of the most powerful of the high born. He savored the thought. It was smoothly delicious, like mint chocolate sauce on fresh ice cream. If he went no further he would have earned a place in the school’s annals. He would go further, though; he had already selected the trophy that would turn him into a legend.
Carefully, he tested the purchase of the grapnel. Once certain that it was still secure he started to lower himself slowly down the inside face of the drawbridge. As he descended he used his feet to push out from the surface of the drawbridge; this was not the time to get splinters.
Beyond the gate was a great paved courtyard, lit by jets of brilliant flame. The area within the gate arch was in deep shadow, providing Lo with good cover. He knew, however, that once he stepped beyond its protection, he would be visible to anybody in the courtyard. This was the point that had given him the most problems when he had planned the theft. As he landed on the paved path that led away from the gate he pulled a cloak of fine silk out of his pouch. He kept it folded, shielding it from the light of the courtyard with his body. Its white colour would show only too well in the gloom of the shadows. He stood there, motionless, waiting, deep in the shadow of the arch.
From outside the courtyard came the faint sound of a flute, then the rhythmic beat of a drum. A hundred feet stamped in rhythm with the drum and the flute played a haunting tune. Gradually the sound grew louder, until, with an explosion of noise, hundreds of white-robed dancers poured into the courtyard. Rotating in rhythmic sympathy with the drum and flute, the dancers spun out across the courtyard like cherry blossom falling on a pond.
Lo slipped the cloak over his dark gray thief’s garb and, copying the movements of the Dream Dancers, spun out of the shadow into the courtyard. Of the thousand eyes that watched from windows and balconies all around none noticed the extra figure that had joined the twirling throng below.
Thromp, left foot turn upon the drumbeat, drompt, right foot turn on the counter beat. Stomp, spin and turn the steps went on in drug-induced ecstasy, the dancers a sea of motion processing in a fluid mass across the gray granite stones of the courtyard. Through this sea, with spinning movements that seemed as random as all the rest, the boy progressed, not with the general direction of the dancers but across the courtyard to the Palace of the Queen of the Night. He spun past the bottom of the steps and past her wolf guards who stood there in ceremonial elegance.
The mass of dancers surged forward and as they did Lo spun off to the side. Slipping along the side of the steps, he stepped deep into the shadow, pulling off his white cloak as he did and stuffing it into his pouch. Once more in his thief’s gray, a shadow in a shadow, he pushed himself back against the side of the steps and edged sideways towards the palace. There, beneath the steps, hidden in the shadow, was a half-vaulted arch in the palace wall. Set into it was a ground level door which gave direct access to the cellar.
It was Lo’s fervent hope that only a bar or a simple set of bolts secured it on the inside. He took from a leg sheaf an instrument that looked like a wide-bladed knife, but this blade was far more flexible that that of any knife. Carefully he slipped it between the door and its jamb, near the base. He drew it upwards slowly until he felt resistance. Was it a latch, bar or bolt? The height suggested that it was unlikely to be a bolt. They were normally at the top or bottom. Therefore, it should be either a latch or a bar. He applied slight pressure. There was movement. It was a latch; a bar would have been far heavier and would have needed more force.
Slowly, keeping a steady pressure applied, he moved the blade upwards. Suddenly there was a click and all resistance vanished. The latch was lifted. A sigh of relief escaped from Lo’s lips. At least that was only a simple latch; were there bolts or a bar as well? Very gently he pushed the door. It moved slightly, then stopped: a bar; bolts would have allowed no movement.
Carefully, he slid the blade upwards. It went about a single span and met an obstruction. Lo applied pressure. There was no movement. He had located the bar. Using chalk he marked the position of the blade on the jam. Then he removed the blade and inserted it slightly lower on the opposite side of the door. Again he slid it up till it stopped at the bar. With care he marked its position and withdrew the blade.
From his leg pocket Lo withdrew two strips of spring metal, split apart along their length to form wide Vs. He squeezed the open ends together and pushed one strip between the door and the jamb at each marked point, feeding them through until at least two spans of projected beyond the door. Then, released from the confines of the gap between door and jam, the two halves of the strips sprang apart once more.
Lo returned to his flexible blade. Along the top edge of the blade there ran a deep groove. Into this groove he laid a fine thread of silk, weighted at the very tip with the finest sliver of pure gold, hardly noticeable but on such a thread sufficient to cause it to hang true. With dexterous ease he inserted the blade between door and jam and above the bar. Once he estimated a good four fingers of blade projected beyond the door he tilted the point down. Inside the door the weighted end of the silk slipped out of the groove and started to fall towards the floor, while as it did, more thread was drawn through the groove. Suddenly a piece of cord tied to the end to the thread came up against the groove and jammed. With a practiced flick of the wrist Lo dislodged the silk from the groove and withdrew the knife.
Taking a small stump of candle he lit it and, shielding its light with his body, he applied the flame to the end of the spring metal strip. The combination of metals in the nickel-based alloy was highly conductive to heat, and the temperature rose rapidly along its length. At twice body heat the metal remembered its true form and snapped back into shape. The arms of the V closed, trapping the silken thread within its clasp. Lo withdrew the strip, bringing the end of the thread with it. Carefully he drew more thread through, and at the same time fed in cord above the bar. Soon the end of the cord appeared below the bar. Grasping it, Lo pulled, drawing a good length of cord out at the bottom whilst still feeding it in at the top. Now he had a loop of cord around the bar.
Lo repeated the operation at the other side of the door. Once completed he had a loop of cord around each end of the bar. He took hold of the loops and pulled up. After a moment’s resistance, the bar lifted free of its mounts. Lo pushed the door with his foot. It opened.
Still holding the bar in the loops of cord, he pushed the door till there was sufficient gap to get through. Then he lowered the bar to the ground. He slipped inside, closed the door, removed the cord loops and replaced the bar.
The door had admitted him to a stone-paved passageway that ran off in both directions. Doors were set into the inside wall at regular intervals. Lo assumed that these led to basement storerooms. He had to decide which direction to take. There was a faint warm smell of freshly-baked bread in the passageway, no doubt emanating from the kitchens that would be on this level. It was stronger to his right, so he set off to the left. Kitchens tended to be busy places in the early evening and the last thing he wanted was to meet someone.
The only light in the passageway was filtering in from the courtyard via ventilation grills placed at regular intervals along the passage. It was not much but it was enough for Lo’s young eyes to make out a darker area off to one side. He investigated and found that it was the opening to a set of stairs leading up. After listening carefully for any sound from above, he ascended, after a few moments coming to a door at the top. It was unlocked.
With care he pushed the door open a whisker, and listened. There was no sound nearby. He opened it slightly more and glanced out. All appeared clear. After a second glance to double check he pushed the door open sufficiently to put his head around. The wide passage it opened onto was clear. He stepped out into what he guessed was a service corridor for the main banqueting hall. If he was correct there should be stairs leading off to the musician’s gallery that ran around the hall. He moved along the corridor, keeping his eyes open for an entrance to such stairs, remembering that they were likely to be concealed. As he passed a rather faded tapestry he noticed a faint movement. Pulling the tapestry back, Lo discovered a narrow spiral staircase heading up. Climbing it, he came out onto the gallery overlooking the great banqueting hall.
Pausing for a moment to familiarize himself with his present location, Lo mentally checked it against the plan of the palace he had built up in the couple of guided tours he had taken. He was on the left hand side of the hall, so to his right and behind him should be the musician’s stand. Looking back over his shoulder he confirmed this fact. The entrance to the private apartments should be ahead, at the end of this side gallery.
Taking care to stay in the shadow cast by the balustrade blocking the light from the candelabrums on the tables below, Lo edged along the gallery. Twice he had to stop and crouch in the shadow when servants came up onto the gallery: one bringing up the music sheets for the musicians, the other to open the roof vents. Neither looked down the long side gallery where the boy crouched, stilling his thoughts. The Tae Bo master Shinza said a noisy mind attracts attention. Lo did not want to attract attention.
Slowly the reverberating crescendo of a tam-tam sounded throughout the hall. Soon the banquet guests would enter and be seated. That would mean the musicians would come up to take their places. Lo could not afford to be on the gallery when the musicians arrived.

To be honest if it had not been for Allen I doubt very much if I would have gone through with it. Don't get me wrong, I am not saying that I did not believe in what I did, of course I believed in it, it is just that belief in something is not always enough. I doubt if it would have been enough in this case to push me to take the stand I did. Or once I had taken the stand to go through with it to the point I did.
Afterwards of course I found myself being feted as a hero. Somebody who was prepared to sacrifice all to stand up for their rights. National and international press covered me and my actions and I got mail from all over the world, even from the Secretary General of the United Nations and the Pope. It all sounded rather grand and important but it had never seemed that way. If anything it had all be a series of accidents which lead step by step to a conclusion that could not be avoided. It was rather like being on a roller coaster and suddenly realizing that there was no way to get off.
Except there had been a way to get off. At any point I could have backed down and agreed to take the reading, or just gone ill. There was always a standby to cover. More than one student at the college had had a series of convenient colds. Even on the day that option had been offered to me. Mr Whiskers had turned to me, just before we entered the assembly hall and asked if I was feeling alright, mentioning that I looked a bit off colour. He did not mention that it was only a few weeks to the end of term and the readings till then had all been allocated, so if I did go ill I would not be called again till next term. He did not need to mention it; he knew that I knew the situation perfectly.
I had thanked him for his concern and told him that I was OK. Then, with a level of assurance I did not have, opened the door into the assembly hall and made my way to the stage. As I walked down the aisle between the rows of seat I could hear a low murmur. They were not interested in why I was doing what I was about to do, all that they wanted to know was if I was going to do it or not. The thing was they did not realise that now there was no choice, Allen's attack on me the previous day had made it inevitable.
The course of events that had led up to the present situation had started eight months ago when the principal of Wednesbury College of Commerce had walked into the classroom, a prefabricated garage like shed hastily constructed at the side of the main building to accommodate overflow. We, a class mostly made up of Secondary Modern School boys who wanted to do better for ourselves than we had a right to, were assigned to the shed, along with its smoky pot stove in the corner, which was the only source of heat. Not that we needed the heat yet, that September 1963. It was not quite the first day of term, or the second for that matter, those were reserved for the students who mattered, the young East African Asians and colonial Arabs who paid massive fees to attend the College and get their qualifications in Accountancy or whatever subject they were after, but it was in the first week. He had sauntered into the room, filling it with his importance, and looked round, whilst addressing us on the importance of the Student's Guild, why the College had a Guild, unlike the Technical College up the road which had a Union.
I was seated in the front row, farthest from the door, against the wall, trying to concentrate through the mass of pain which was one of the early migraines that were to plague me for the rest of my life. The other boys in the class, we were still segregated on gender lines as we had been at school, started to ask questions about the Guild and queried its democratic status. Suddenly I became aware that the attention of the presence was directed at me. It enquired my name, then, after noting it down in his notebook, informed me that I was the representative for this class on the Student's Guild Committee and would be required to attended the first meeting at 4 p.m. the next Tuesday. Upon imparting this information the presence departed the classroom and we returned to our study of the impact of the 'Black Death' on the labour market in England.
The following Tuesday was my introduction to the Student's Guild Committee. The Committee comprised some 24 students, one from each of the full time courses that existed in the college. There were also a number of staff members present. I never did find out if they were technically on the Committee or not. Not that it ever mattered. Their presence made not difference to any voting, as there was no voting. The principal sat at the head of the table and made announcements, that we, the Committee members were expected to pass back to our respective course members. That was the purpose of the Student Guild.
Of course there were times when some student or other would raise an issue, but we were all quickly disabused of any idea that what we said or did was of any importance. If we raised some concern which met with the principal's opinion on how things should be, something would be done. If not, then nothing would be done. It served its purpose. The college prospectus stated that "students are represented in the college's decision making process via the Student's Guild". Represented yes, part of no.
It was shortly after my appointment to the Guild that Mr Whisker, the Economic History teacher came to the class to discuss the Bible readings. We had been informed at the start of term that attendance at the morning religious assembly was compulsory for all full-time students, except Jews and Catholics who had their own service. This was something I had found disturbing as my impression was that it was not a requirement under the Education Act of the time. That compulsory requirement only attaching to schools, not Colleges of Further Education. Also I was well aware that up the road at the Technical College there was no such requirement. I was also somewhat surprised given the fact that a high proportion of the college student population was from overseas and non-Christian. At that time the college was recognized as being one of the leading colleges of commerce in the Commonwealth, it had also been one of the first. Mr Whisker carefully explained that the principal was an Evangelical Christian (I think he said a Plymouth Brother) and insisted that not only did full-time students attend assembly but also that we each in turn took the morning reading from the Bible. This I found very disturbing and advised Mr Whisker that I was non-Christian and could not in all consciousness undertake such an act. A statement which produced some looks from my classmates. Most of them had known me at secondary school, I was the one who consistently came top in RE and could always quote the relevant passage from the Bible. They obviously were not aware of the advice that if you wanted to fight something you first had to know and understand it. Mr Whisker took some pains to advise me that the rule was absolute and there could be no exceptions.
A few days later during a free period I made my way into the library. Mr Whisker was seated at a table making notes from one of the Oxford History series. He saw me enter and indicated that I should go over and join him, which I did. The conversation was general, he stated that his mother had taught me at Secondary School, she had taken us for Drama but also for a few weeks for Religious Education, and had told him I was knowledgeable in this field. We discussed my religious beliefs and I told him that I had been looking a Buddhism but was being more and more drawn back into Paganism. He explained that the Principal was a very dedicated man who had built the college up into its current position but that he was also a very firm Christian and felt it was his duty to uphold the principles of the Christian faith. I pointed out that I felt the principal was misunderstanding the principles of the Christian faith and quoted Matthew 10, "Go not to the Gentiles nor to the Samaritans for my word is for the lost of Israel". Nothing was directly said but I got the impression that Mr Whisker felt some sympathy for the position I had expressed, this would be confirmed to me many years later in different circumstances when I found myself in dispute with another set of college authorities.
For the next five or six months nothing really happened. Although other full-time classes in the college where being called upon to take the readings, no one from my class was selected. I was to learn later that Mr Whisker, who had responsibility in organizing the readings, made a deliberate point to leave our class to last. Although at that time I had not said anything he had established the opinion, on what his mother had told him about me, that I would cause trouble over the issue. On that he was to prove correct.
With hindsight it is difficult to identify one thing that brought about the path which led to confrontation. I could claim it was Saud. A youth from a poor Palestinian family who had studied hard and got a scholarship to study accountancy at the college. His scholarship had come from a Muslim Charitable Foundation, actually part of what is now know as Hammas, and Saud was a devout Muslim. Why he came to me to raise the question of his having to take the reading I do not know, but I was on the Student's Guild and took his case to the Principal. The response I got was that Saud could either take the reading or leave the college. Saud left the college.
It was a few weeks after that when Mr Whisker advised me that I had been listed to take the reading. One by one boys from my class took their turn in taking the reading. I became increasing vocal in my opposition to imposition of a religious practice which I found offensive and believed to be offensive to the many non-Christians in the college. As I result when advised that I would be taking the reading the next week I advised him that I had no intention of doing so. This resulted in me being summoned to see the principal.
The presence sat behind his massive light oak desk. The desk and his seat were slightly raised, so that even with me standing, he still managed to look down on me. The discussion about my refusal to take the reading was short. It was a simple statement from the presence that I either took the reading or left the College, coupled with threat that he would make sure that I did not get into the Technical College to complete the course.
Returning from the meeting to the class I found a atmosphere of expectation in the room. Everybody wanted to know what had happened and what I intended to do. Many thought I should follow Saud's example and just move college. It was not as if the course I was doing was specific to the college. Others that I should just do the reading. As they said I did not believe in it so it was not important. There was also a number who thought I was right in my objections. None would come forward and say so openly. We were still not in the age of student revolt that would fill the newspapers in the later sixties, this was still a time when students were compliant and got down to doing what they were supposed to be doing. The hard times of the fifties where ones qualifications were essential to get a job were still fresh in our memories. They would though take the opportunity when no one else was around to say that they thought I was right, but to warn me that I was making myself a target.
As the week went on the tension got palpable in the class. I had discussed what I intended to do with a couple of friends in the class. They had told the others. Now the whole class knew that I intended to make this a showdown and a public one at that. The day before the reading I was summoned to Mr Whisker's room for a rehearsal. I was word perfect, having been given the reading a week before to learn. It is strange but I have found that as a non-Christian I often have a better knowledge of the Bible than most Christians and as a result had encountered no problems with the text. I once more advised Mr Whisker that I had no intention of taking the reading. He told be that he would make sure the principal knew. Many years later I was to learn that he spent quite a bit of time that afternoon arguing with the principal that I should be excused the reading.
Returning to the classroom after the rehearsal I found a strange tension in the room. I was to learn later that whilst I had been absent from the class the principal had visited the class and warned them that any misbehavior on my part would reflect badly on the whole of the class. Although it was not stated it was implied that if I did anything the whole class would be refused enrolment in the second year of the course. Actually this was on the cards anyway as the college was having funding difficulties and there were doubts if the course could be maintained at it current number of students.
Over lunch the tension became quite heavy with a number of my fellow students demanding to know what I intended to do. When I told them they became agitated and the atmosphere became rather nasty. Allen started to shout at me and things got heated. To this day I do not know how the fight started but suddenly I became aware of myself pressed back on a desk and Allen's arms tight round me, lifting pushing me back painfully. Then just as quickly as it had started it was broken up. The rest of the afternoon passed in a sense of sullen tension. I knew then that now there was no way out. It was not so much a question of what I believed in. It was a question of face. To give up now would mean that I would lose face, I would be shown as not having the guts to back my beliefs. For a fifteen-year-old that was an impossible situation.
The reader was required to take their place on stage five minutes before the start of assembly. Normally at this time the hall would be empty. Most students did not bother to get into the hall until just before the start of assembly. Between first and second bell. Today though was different. Even as the first bell rang and I opened the door I became aware that the hall was full. Somehow word had got round, there was an air of expectation.
I walked down the aisle, aware of the eyes upon me and the murmur of things said and unsaid. I was there, going down the aisle to the stage, I was going to take the reading, I was capitulating. In the back of my neck I could feel the glow of Allen's eyes as they relished the triumph of his force. In the pit of my stomach I could feel the pity of those who knew I had let them down, that I had given in.
Without looking out over the mass of seats I climbed the seven steps up to the stage and then made my way back to the chair upon which the reader sat during the first part of the service. Sitting down, I pushed the chair back. Back towards the fly drop, into the shadowed area of the stage, out of sight, out of mind. Eight hundred eyes looked at me, but did not see me. Why should they? I was just another student who had bent to the demands of the system. Somewhere I could hear a scurrying sound of a mouse or rat under the floorboards of the stage, down amongst the judo mats and badminton gear that was stored down there and really disturbed. How I wish I could have joined that mouse.
The second bell rang. The main centre pair of doors to the hall opened and in paraded the execution party. The presence had arrived in the hall, it processed forward towards the stage, like a racing yacht fetching for the line. In its wake trailed Mr Whisker and one of the English teachers who would play the piano very slightly off key. There was only a momentary glance at the stage to see if I was in place. Followed by a smile of victorious satisfaction.
Once upon the stage the presence completely ignored me. Why should he bother, he had won. I was there, in his domain, sitting submissively, almost cowering at the back of the stage. I must have looked like a scared rat to a man who was totally self confident in his power and authority.