Free Sail Upon the Land by Josa Young Page B

kill someone.’
    Then he recognised Payge coming towards him through the gloom.
    ‘No chance of that, old Munty,’ grinned Payge. ‘We swapped the shot in a few cartridges for rice and salt. My father told me about it, Burma police used to do it to disperse a crowd. Hurts like hell but can’t kill you. But we only used it to remove any risk as we were strictly firing over their heads. Didn’t hit anyone, I promise.’
    He had a wild look in his eye and Munty recoiled. It had all been over in a matter of moments. The townies had scattered far and wide, and the shooters broke their guns and strode back towards Reynolds House with the smokers. In the distance could be heard the siren of first one, then more than one, police car. The boys climbed the stone steps to the veranda of the House Study, where they were met by an incandescent Eggy accompanied by several grave policemen.
    ‘What the hell’s been going on?’ the housemaster raged at the boys.
    The police officer beside him said simultaneously, ‘What’s been going on here? There are reports of shotguns being discharged.’
    ‘But Sir,’ said Payge to Eggy, ‘We were only doing what you said, Sir. You told us to show ’em who’s in charge, Sir, by letting off the guns over their heads. Sir.’
    Eggy fell silent and his bright red face drained to putty. To Munty’s relief, he was gone within days, taking his random violence and obsession with the classics with him. But also removing his sweet wife, who had befriended the fish-out-of-water new boy and encouraged him to come to her sitting room for tea in the early, homesick days.
     
    The house settled down after that under a calm and quiet man called Mr Rawlings, and became much like the rest of the school – increasingly sporty and thoughtless, smelling of feet and armpits. Munty had long since adopted the Armishaw’s camouflage of the drawling accent and special language. A football was a bladder, a bicycle a bagger, trousers toggers and exams zaggers. The townies never again came up the hill, and the smokers and their friends were left in peace.
    Munty risked joining his two worlds together by taking Payge to meet Pearl and his grandparents. Payge was charming, and his appetite for high tea filled the family with awe. Then Payge began inviting Munty to stay with his parents Lord and Lady Grangemere in the holidays, and Munty discovered a comforting world of friendly grubby chaos that was nothing like his image of how the upper classes behaved. Payge’s family home was a large, flat-fronted Georgian barracks of a house. Parts of it were uninhabitable with damp. It was full of animals and children, and everything was covered in a fine layer of dog hair. The food was inedible, and Munty understood why Payge loved his tuck so much. There was no particular formality, and certainly no luxuries, and Munty grew more comfortable with his inherited identity. He knew his mother would be horrified and bewildered by what she would see as squalor. Having a clean tidy house was a daily preoccupation for Pearl. Munty found the mess soothing.
    Payge had asked Munty about Castle Hey, what it was like. Munty had no idea, and decided that he ought to find out. He wrote to his mother, who contacted Mrs Jenkins. The house was still under the jurisdiction of the military, although they had moved out. Mrs Jenkins’ reply mentioned that the house was in poor condition and its future uncertain and that they would have to wait until the War Compensation Office decided on their award before they did anything at all.
    Other families had cut their losses and pulled down the scarred remains left by military use, as compensation was not generous and dry rot had run riot during the war years. A visit was arranged for mother and son but they were warned that they would not be able to go inside. They took a taxi up from the station, asking it to wait and stepping out on the overgrown carriage sweep looked up at the crumbling façade