Free Good Enough For Nelson by John Winton Page B

activities, sir.’
    The Bodger was no wiser, but he was far more interested in the Secretary’s presence, there, at that time. Officers of the Supply and Secretariat Branch were not noted for early activities, even when they were only watching them. One could expect a Captain’s Secretary to get up with the lark, if there was a lark getting up at a reasonable hour, after colours.
    ‘But why you , Scratch?’
    ‘I’m affiliated to Hawke Division, sir. One of the DOs has to be present for every divisional activity, sir.’
    The Bodger mentally kicked himself. He should have known that. He did know that, but the early hour had fuddled him.
    As so often at Dartmouth, the peacefulness of the scene was strenuously at odds with the frantic activity of its inhabitants. There was a rapid thudding of running feet and a ragged platoon in shirts and singlets came doubling round the corner of the parade ground, crossed in front of the flagstaff, and disappeared to The Bodger’s left.
    ‘Brace up there, Hawkes!’ barked the Secretary, so suddenly that The Bodger jumped. ‘You’re a shambles , Hawkes!’
    On an impulse, The Bodger ran down and followed them. As he swung round the end of the ramp and began to run uphill he was surprised and delighted to find how quickly and easily he could catch them up. The last runner in the platoon, a Gromboolian, glanced round when he fancied he heard The Bodger’s footsteps and the whites of his eyes showed when he realised who his pursuer was. He accelerated. The Bodger matched him. He spurted again, and again The Bodger responded. All at once, the young man seemed to give up and, so suddenly The Bodger almost ran over him, he stopped, turned round, fell on his knees, and put his hands together in an appealing gesture of supplication. The Bodger reeled back from him, amazed.
    ‘It was me, sir.’
    ‘It was you what?’ said The Bodger, trying to control his hard breathing. He was not nearly as fit as he had thought.
    ‘It was me, sir.’
    ‘You what?’
    ‘Me using all those rolls of bog-papers, sir. Hundreds and thousands of them, sir.’
    The Bodger’s mind staggered back from yet another surrealist Dartmouth conversation.
    ‘You have found me out, sir, and discovered me. So you are following me up the hill, sir.’
    A harsh imperious voice sailed down the hill from the direction of the tennis courts. ‘Come on Qureshi, you bloody skulker, get up this hill before I have to come down and boot you up here! Qureshi, do you hear me?’
    Qureshi rolled the whites of his eyes at The Bodger again. ‘It’s excusing me now, sir, please.’ Qureshi unfolded himself gracefully and fluidly to his feet, saluted with a delicate flip of his hand, and then ran off, with his hands firmly clasped together, as in prayer.
    As The Bodger was still marvelling over the encounter, actually wondering whether it had ever happened, another midshipman in shorts and singlet came doubling down the other way, towards the river. He stopped at The Bodger’s wave, though still marking time smartly on the spot. Finally he stood to attention, his thumbs correctly in line with the seams on his shorts.
    There was something familiar about his face. He was the same midshipman who had been doubling down the drive when The Bodger first drove up on his first morning. Now that The Bodger came to consider it more carefully, he had seen this young man doubling around the College on other occasions. In fact, he was always doubling round the College. The Bodger was reluctant to ask, fearful of unleashing some further improbability.
    ‘Haven’t I seen you before, doubling about the place?’
    ‘Yes, sir. I’m under punishment, sir.’
    ‘What for? What did you or didn’t do?’
    ‘Slack doubling at EMAs, sir.”
    The boy’s face was still familiar, in some other, more remote way, which set The Bodger’s memory prickling. ‘What’s your name?’
    ‘Persimmons, sir.’
    ‘And what entry are you,