Hindsight by Peter Dickinson Read Free Book Online Page A

to lay down his life for his friends. We will sing O Valiant Hearts, St Aidan Book, number nine.’
    This was a favourite hymn with everyone. They belted it out. Matron played the piano.
    Schol and Midway were stacking the chairs back against the wall of Big Space when Dent said, ‘Bit of a swizz, Rogue, not making you a prae.’
    â€˜Suits me,’ said Paul.
    â€˜Head of Schol’s always …’
    â€˜Honestly! I don’t want it!’
    â€˜Rogers!’
    That was Scammell calling from near the door, and then waiting, clearly expecting Paul to go to him rather than be shouted at from that distance. Paul lounged over, determined to demonstrate his free will in the matter.
    â€˜In the Study. Now,’ said Scammell.
    â€˜What does?’
    â€˜You’ll find out.’
    To get to The Man’s study you went through the green baize door half-way down Long Passage and came out under the stairs at the back of the entrance hall. The stairs were marble, curling up on either side of a black bronze statue of Hercules strangling the Nemean lion. Beyond it you could see the slim white pillars that supported the cupola, and then the front door, almost as large as the door of a barn, always locked now. The hall was dim-lit by one yellowish bulb, any daylight excluded by permanent black-out screens. Your heels clacked on the marble floor as you walked round the left-hand flight of stairs to tap on a shiny red mahogany door. The Man called to you to come in.
    He had made the Study as like his one at Brighton as he could—the same photos of XIs and XVs were ranked on the walls, the same portrait of his father, a red-faced man in a dog-collar who had been the school’s founder, hung over the fireplace, there were the same deep floppy armchairs and sofa covered with rose-patterned chintz, the same smell of sweetish pipe-tobacco and bat-oil and some large tame animal—it must have been The Man himself, as he kept no pets.
    Paul found him working. The only light in the room spread across the desk-top from the green-shaded lamp. His face was little more than a presence in the shadows beyond, but his hands, their backs covered with curling gingery hairs, moved in the plane of light like animals browsing on the paper repast.
    â€˜Sit down, Rogue. You notice I haven’t made you a prae?’
    â€˜Yes, sir.’
    â€˜What do you think about that?’
    â€˜I don’t mind, sir. I wouldn’t have been very good at it.’
    â€˜Oh?’
    â€˜I don’t like taking sides, sir.’
    â€˜You can overdo that attitude, Rogue. “Once to every man and nation Comes the moment …” You don’t think so?’
    â€˜Do you think it’s true, sir?’
    â€˜Explain.’
    Paul hesitated. His habit of noticing the meaning of the words he was singing had sometimes given him the giggles in Chapel, once setting his whole pew off and earning them all Sunday drills. He had thought about this hymn fairly often, because it was a favourite of The Man’s—but that made answering a bit tricky.
    â€˜I mean, well, it doesn’t … Just once, and that’s all?’
    â€˜You’re a clever infant, Rogue, but you mustn’t be too clever. A hymn is not a legal document. It means “at least once”. Everybody gets at least one go, one choice. Some of us have to go on choosing all our lives. You have a fair brain and the makings of becoming a sound chap, some use to your country when you grow up. You’ll be given a lot of chances. You’ll chuck them all away if you try to spend your life sitting on the fence like a neutral.’
    â€˜Yes, sir.’
    Paul felt crushed, though The Man had spoken gently. The idea of being a neutral, crystallised by his enjoyment of the role during the hay-fort War last term, had given him an oddly comforting picture of himself, a way of explaining the slight apartness caused by his too-rapid climb to