“Welcome to the head of the dormitory,” said Tamplin. “Are we all late? Are you going to report us?”

O’Malley looked at his watch. “As a matter of fact, you have exactly seven minutes.”

“Not by my watch.”

“We go by mine.”

“Really,” said Tamplin. “Has your watch been put on the Settle, too? It looks a cheap kind of instrument to me.”

“When I am speaking officially I don’t want any impertinence, Tamplin.”

“His watch has been put on the Settle. It’s the first time I ever heard one could be impertinent to a watch.”

They undressed and washed their teeth. O’Malley looked repeatedly at his watch and at last said, “Say your dibs.”

Everyone knelt at his bedside and buried his face in the bedclothes. After a minute, in quick succession, they rose and got into bed; all save Tamplin who remained kneeling. O’Malley stood in the middle of the dormitory, irresolute, his hand on the chain of the gas-lamp. Three minutes passed; it was the convention that no one spoke while anyone was still saying his prayers; several boys began to giggle. “Hurry up,” said O’Malley.

Tamplin raised a face of pained rebuke. “Please, O’Malley. I’m saying my dibs.”

“Well, you’re late.”

Tamplin remained with his face buried in the blanket. O’Malley pulled the chain and extinguished the light, all save the pale glow of the bye-pass under the white enamel shade. It was the custom, when doing this, to say “Good-night”; but Tamplin was still ostensibly in prayer; in this black predicament O’Malley stalked to his bed in silence.

“Aren’t you going to say ‘Good-night’ to us?” asked Charles.

“Good-night.”

A dozen voices irregularly took up the cry. “Good-night, O’Malley… I hope the official watch doesn’t stop in the night… happy dreams, O’Malley.”

“Really, you know,” said Wheatley, “there’s a man still saying his prayers.”

“Stop talking.”

“Please,” said Tamplin, on his knees. He remained there for half a minute more, then rose and got into bed.

“You understand, Tamplin? You’re late.”

“Oh, but I don’t think I can be, even by your watch. I was perfectly ready when you said ‘Say your dibs.’”

“If you want to take as long as that you must start sooner.”

“But I couldn’t with all that noise going on, could I, O’Malley? All that wrangling about watches?”

“We’ll talk about it in the morning.”

“Good-night, O’Malley.”

At this moment the door opened and the house-captain in charge of the dormitory came in. “What the devil’s all this talking about?” he asked.

Now, O’Malley had not the smallest intention of giving Tamplin a “late.” It was a delicate legal point, of the kind that was debated endlessly at Spierpoint, whether in the circumstances he could properly do so. It had been in O’Malley’s mind to appeal to Tamplin’s better nature in the morning, to say that he could take a joke as well as the next man, that his official position was repugnant to him, that the last thing he wished to do was start the term by using his new authority on his former associates; he would say all this and ask Tamplin to “back him up.” But now, suddenly challenged out of the darkness, he lost his head and said, “I was giving Tamplin a ‘late,’ Anderson.”

“Well, remind me in the morning and for Christ’s sake don’t make such a racket over it.”

“Please, Anderson, I don’t think I was late,” said Tamplin; “it’s just that I took longer than the others over my prayers. I was perfectly ready when we were told to say them.”

“But he was still out of bed when I put the light out,” said O’Malley.

“Well, it’s usual to wait until everyone’s ready, isn’t it?”

“Yes, Anderson. I did wait about five minutes.”

“I see. Anyhow, lates count from the time you start saying your dibs. You know that. Better wash the whole thing out.”

“Thank you, Anderson,” said Tamplin.

The house-captain lit the candle which stood in a biscuit-box shade on the press by his bed. He undressed slowly, washed and, without saying prayers, got into bed. Then he lay there reading. The tin hid the light from the dormitory and cast a small, yellow patch over his book and pillow; that and the faint circle of the gas-lamp were the only lights; gradually in the darkness the lancet windows became dimly visible. Charles lay on his back thinking; O’Malley had made a fiasco of his first evening; first and last he could not have done things worse; it seemed a rough and tortuous road on which Mr. Graves had set his feet, to self-confidence and poise.

Then, as he grew sleepier, Charles’s thoughts, like a roulette ball when the wheel runs slow, sought their lodging and came at last firmly to rest on that day, never far distant, at the end of his second term; the raw and gusty day of the junior steeplechase when, shivering and half-changed, queasy with apprehension of the trial ahead, he had been summoned by Frank, had shuffled into his clothes, run headlong down the turret stairs and with a new and deeper alarm knocked at the door.

“Charles, I have just had a telegram from your father which you must read. I’ll leave you alone with it.”

He shed no tear, then or later; he did not remember what was said when two minutes later Frank returned; there was a numb, anaesthetized patch at the heart of his sorrow; he remembered, rather, the order of the day. Instead of running he had gone down in his overcoat with Frank to watch the finish of the race; word had gone round the house and no questions were asked; he had tea with the matron, spent the evening in her room and slept that night in a room in the Headmaster’s private house; next morning his Aunt Philippa came and took him home. He remembered all that went on outside himself, the sight and sound and smell of the place, so that, on his return to them, they all spoke of his loss, of the sharp severance of all the bonds of childhood, and it seemed to him that it was not in the uplands of Bosnia but here at Spierpoint, on the turret stairs, in the unlighted box-room passage, in the windy cloisters, that his mother had fallen, killed not by a German shell but by the shrill voice sounding across the changing room, “Ryder here? Ryder? Frank wants him at the double.”

Thursday, September 25th, 1919. Peacock began well by not turning up for early school so at five past we walked out and went back to our House Rooms and I read Fortitude by Walpole; it is strong meat but rather unnecessary in places. After breakfast O’Malley came greasing up to Tamplin and apologized. Everyone is against him. I maintain he was in the right until he reported him late to Anderson. No possible defence for that—sheer windiness. Peacock deigned to turn up for Double Greek. We mocked him somewhat. He is trying to make us use the new pronunciation; when he said o’ú there was a wail of “ooh” and Tamplin pronounced subjunctive soo-byoongteeway—very witty. Peacock got bored and said he’d report him to Graves but relented. Library was open 5–6 tonight. I went meaning to put in some time on Walter Crane’s Bases of Design but Mercer came up with that weird man in Brent’s called Curtis-Dunne. I envy them having Frank as house-master. He is talking of starting a literary and artistic society for men not in the Sixth. Curtis-Dunne wants to start a political group. Pretty good lift considering this is his second term although he is sixteen and has been at Dartmouth. Mercer gave me a poem to read—very sloppy. Before this there was a House Game. Everyone puffing and blowing after the holidays. Anderson said I shall probably be centre-half in the Under Sixteens—the sweatiest place in the field. I must get into training quickly.

Friday 26th. Corps day but quite slack. Reorganization. I am in A Company at last. A tick in Boucher’s called Spratt is platoon commander. We ragged him a bit. Wheatley is a section commander! Peacock sent Bankes out of the room in Greek Testament for saying “Who will rid me of this turbulent priest” when put on to translate. Jolly witty. He began to argue. Peacock said, “Must I throw you out by force?” Bankes began to go but muttered “Muscular Christianity.” Peacock: “What did you say?”; “Nothing, sir”; “Get out before I kick you.” Things got a bit duller after that. Uncle George gave Bankes three.