"Give them to me,” she said impatiently. “I'll put them in the chest as I leave. Oh, Captain! I saw my first naked man several hundred years ago, and none of the equipment has changed since then."
He gave her the bundle.
"Thank you. And your bandages. Then we can begin."
The governess instructed her pupils in the proper ritual movements for Ombay fala. They took it in slow motion, gesture by gesture, and Smedley felt worse and worse as the farce progressed. His nerves were not going to take much more of this. Exeter, he was glad to notice, was starting to shiver. At least when they began to dance in earnest, they both should feel warmer. He was shivering too, and he did not think that temperature had very much to do with it in his case. It was funk.
Oddly, Miss Pimm seemed colder than either of them, and she was fully dressed. She was snappier than a vixen in heat, shouting at them when they got it wrong. She kept glancing at her watch.
For once, Smedley realized, he was picking up something faster than Edward Exeter. Exeter was distracted, thoroughly miserable. Pining for Cousin Alice? Had he just realized that he could never see her again? He could not even send her a postcard. The Blighters would never stop hunting him until he fulfilled the prophecy or died. Or was he just unwilling to cross over?
Miss Pimm made herself comfortable in the front pew and adjusted the drum on her lap.
"Now we'll try it with music. First verse. Ready? One, two—"
"Ombay fala,” Smedley chanted, lifting his left foot and raising his stump overhead, “inkuthin.” Exeter followed him around the circle. Surprisingly, they went right through the first verse without an error—at least it felt as if they got it right, and Sergeant Major Pimm did not interrupt.
"Not bad!” she admitted as they bellowed out the closing, Hosagil! “Edward, you forgot the words a time or two, didn't you? Captain, your timing is erratic. Is that leg going to be a problem?"
The scar on his wrist was blood red, but a neat piece of sewing. The trivial scratches on his leg looked much worse, ugly and swollen. He compared his two arms, wondering if the right one was already wasting away.
"Let's try again.” Miss Pimm stole another glance at her watch. “Smartly! I certainly don't want to have to fight my way out of here. Take it right through, now. Keep on going until something happens. Ready? Oh, I almost forgot ... bon voyage!"
It was the first real smile Smedley had seen on her face. It made her seem almost pretty, in a way he would never have guessed, but he was not in a mood to return smiles. He was expecting her to break into howls of laughter any minute, and start shouting April fool! “Thank you in anticipation,” he said coldly.
Exeter said, “Thank you for everything.” But he did not smile either, and Miss Pimm responded with a rolling tattoo of fingers on the drum.
Smedley shivered and waited for the rhythm to begin. This was all wrong! He had taken religion seriously as a child, because his parents had. Here it came.... Dum-de dum-de dum-dum-dum ... At Fallow he had done what all the others had done. “Ombay fala, inkuthin,” he chanted. In the senior forms he had joined the conventional rebellion into Buddhism, atheism, agnosticism, Unitarianism, or any esoteric-ism that had turned up. Right leg, left arm. Smedley himself had never been quite sure which of the -isms he favored. When he enlisted he had given his religion as C. of E. without thinking about it. “Indu maka, sasa du.” He had attended church parade on Sundays. In Flanders he had prayed his heart out a few times, screaming and sobbing to a merciful god, any god, any god at all. No atheists in foxholes ... Hop, bow, hop, bow. When the danger had passed, he had always felt ashamed of his cowardice, and less of a believer in consequence. What sort of merciful god would have allowed the war to start in the first place—and why? Just so some terrified sods would repent of their sins? “Aiba aiba nopa du.” What sins had he ever had a chance to commit?
But even so, a chap ought not to profane a holy place. Even a heathen temple deserved respect. Even if it was a mud hut, even if only one single curly-haired darkie thought it was sacred, then a fellow ought to have the grace not to mock it. Head back, elbows out. St. Gall's was a Christian church, the sort of place his ancestors had worshipped in for hundreds of years. It deserved better than this obscene posturing, these primitive antics. Echoes rolling back from the ancient stones. It was holy. He could almost smell the sanctity. Normans had worshipped here, maybe Angles and Saxons. “Aiba reeba mona kin.” That meant nine centuries of humble people bowing down and glorifying their God. Their worship alone made it sacred. The thought was suddenly terrifying. Light blazed. He screamed and stumbled and fell facedown in the grass. Hosagil!
Bewildered, not understanding, he raised his head and blinked at the painful brightness. He lay in the exact center of a circular lawn, about the size of his parents’ dining room, and the surrounding hedge was the color of a blue spruce, with the sheen of holly. He heard sounds of chirping, whistling, and hooting. He blinked harder to clear away tears. Beyond the hedge soared the most incredible snow-capped peak he had ever seen, blushing orange against a pale blue-gold sky. The air was tangy with a scent of wood smoke. It was evening or early morning.
He had done it! He had done it! He had done it! Yes! It was true. He had crossed over to another world. Grass. Odd, mint-scented grass. Day-light. The war, England, the guv'nor, the aunts, medals, the dead, the maimed—all gone. He had really done it. He wouldn't have to go to the Palace for his bloody gong after all. He had done it, really done it.
He laid his face on the back of his hand and started to sob.
53
IT WAS THE COLD THAT STOPPED HIM, THE UNPLEASANTNESS OF LYING on dewy grass at dawn. He sat up and rubbed his eyes with the back of his hand and almost laughed. He hadn't had a weep like that since Wednesday's lunch in the Black Dragon. Done him a world of good, it had! Two worlds of good. Now he needed to find some clothes before he caught pneumonia.
He had done it. He had done it.
Behind him stood a small kiosk of unpainted wood, like a summerhouse. Alongside it was the only break in the hedge, through which he could see only a gravel path and more hedge on the far side of that. Assuming this place was not somebody's idea of a joke, it must be a secluded, private aerodrome for travelers arriving in a state of undress—which was a reminder that Exeter would be dropping in any minute, and the exact center of the circle might become crowded.
Miss Pimm had issued somber warnings of the aftereffects of passing over, and especially a first trip. Cramps and nausea and despair, she had said, and Exeter had nodded grimly. Usually it would last only a few minutes, but it was as unpredictable as seasickness. Smedley felt none of those, unless his weeping fit qualified. He felt fine.
So he scrambled up and limped over to the gazebo. The orange fire had already faded from the mountain and the sky was brightening. There were several other peaks to admire as well, painted in blinding white and ice blue. The hedge was high enough to hide everything closer, except a trailing, lazy cloud of white smoke, which accounted for the tangy smell in the air. Someone was having a bonfire.