SIMON IN THE ORIENT

I’ve always been susceptible to nightmares.

My subconscious gets taken over in the night hours by images – phantoms if you prefer – of completely unknown, and probably non-existent, relatives. Lately, the commonest one was a gaunt, bony, ugly woman, who fondled and poked me in my private area, and in a way that she clearly meant to be playful, talked the most horrible gibberish. “Little burry-burry-burry” she seemed to be saying. “He’s a little burry-burry-burry”. “No, I’m not!” I shouted back. “I’m not! I’m not! I’m not!”. This embarrassing scene ended in a paroxysm of terror before I woke up, sweating.

When my heart stopped thumping I lay there in the dark, listening to the small noises of the night. The creak of old woodwork. Gurgling in the water-pipes. Nearer at hand, the sounds of other people sleeping, each one different.. Roddy invariably slept with his mouth open, which made him snore loudly at times. The breathing of the Roebuck twins, by contrast, was much quieter by contrast, just like their own lives. Four teenagers – four neutered teenagers. And of this, more in a minute.

I needed a pee and got out of bed, padding silently to the bathroom. By the blue-ish light that dimly lit the place (not the moon, nothing so romantic; only the security lamp on the wall outside) I took my tiny hairless “doodle” and watched the needle-thin jet arch into the toilet bowl. A child of four would have despised what I had between my legs, but at least I could still pee standing up. Most of my friends couldn’t, but they’d come to terms with that. All part of the culture of being a boy-eunuch.

I returned to bed but couldn’t sleep and soon gave up trying, thinking about things. Chiefly that in a few weeks I’d be sixteen.

When I get to be seventeen, I can get myself a driving licence. At eighteen I shall be able to vote, and legally go into pubs. But at sixteen?

At sixteen a boy can legally fuck girls.

Four years had gone by, since at the age of eleven years and seven months, I’d been declared a menace to my female cousins and a danger to myself, and faced with being neutered without the option.

Four years since I’d been taken to a clinic, where a pretty nurse had welcomed me with “Another dear little boy to be neutered”, and then, more to herself than to me, “That makes four today”.

(Once upon a time, when boys were still neutered surgically, she’d have been one of those who kept trophies of every castration in formaldehyde. Little glass jars on her dressing-table, two little blobs of gristle in every one, each representing a young boy who’d lost all hope of future pursuits as a man.)

She and another nurse had held me still, while a middle-aged doctor had injected Neutersol into my balls. The nurses had giggled, one whispering to the other “He’ll have no use for girls after that!” I could see her smiling behind her surgical mask as
she went on "I just love to watch young boys being castrated before they have
had a chance to be with a girl". The second nurse smiled and told her she just loved
seeing young boys being castrated, full stop. Then they both laughed.

Four years since my life had been changed. On that uncertain note I drifted off to sleep for the next few hours.

Four neutered teenagers, did I say? That needs some explanation.

When I’d first come to Southdown Hall school, a few weeks after being neutered, I found myself one of about a dozen boy-eunuchs, who included some of the school’s most gifted youngsters. Like my friend Mark Maitland who had carved out a singing career to rival Aled Jones. Like Manchit Khannah, a demon in the boxing ring and on the sports field. Dr Holroyd, the Headmaster, looked on his eunuchs as a precious commodity for the sake of what we could do, and never referred once to our neutered state, or what we couldn’t.

The evil reign of Dr Jolly (you can read about that in “The Chinese Connection” increased our numbers to between thirty and forty. Dr Jolly was arranging one or two new castrations every week. But when Dr Jolly was fired, things settled down.

At the time I was “done”, adult men could do what they liked with their own bodies. But taking a young boy’s balls out, before he had reached puberty, had to be justified by a sound medical or social reason – that the boy was a tearaway, or had hyperactive behaviour syndrome, or that he went around with a permanent hard-on – something like that. I’d qualified for all three! I was said to be wilful, destructive, and to have the makings of a juvenile sex fiend.

You don’t know about that? Well, at the risk of being repetitive, it was at my old school (not Southdown Hall) that the boy in the next bed to mine in the dorm. showed me that my penis (“willie” he called it) would go stiff if I kept on pulling it. It did, and I got a nice feeling, so I did it as often as possible. More than that, I’d learned that a boy’s willie went stiff so that he could fuck girls, and that was supposed to be the best feeling of all.

At my aunt’s house, where I lived during the vacation, we – my two girl cousins, their kid brother Charlie and myself- all went around in the nude, or the nearly nude, at bath time. More often than not my penis was stiff, and my elder cousin, Sue, used to tease me about my two inches of rampant flesh. If it came to fucking girls, I guessed that Sue would be game for anything. And so she was. She dared me to rub the end of my penis between her bum-cheeks – outside her black nylon knickers.

That drove me frantic. I was desperately trying to get my penis inside Sue’s knickers, whether the back way or the proper way I didn’t care – when the door opened and in walked my aunt. There was nothing for it; my balls had to go.

Where was I? Oh yes, Dr Jolly. There were no more neuterings for a while, after his departure. That was then. But things had moved on since, more particularly attitudes towards castrating boys.

Sociologists began putting it about that puberty, for a growing boy, can be a minefield. This influenced the adoptive parents or guardians – even, believe it or not, some birth parents – of many young boys to spare them this hell’s kitchen of emotions by getting them castrated and bringing them up as eunuchs. The operation became a commonplace. Not only little boys, but their sisters, knew about it. All boys referred to it as “having their balls pricked”. Boys who had their balls pricked had tiny penises that never went stiff, so that they could never fuck girls.

Four years on from when I came to Southdown Hall, there was now a steady intake of boy-eunuchs into the second and even the first year. Some were “done” at age eight or even younger. Meanwhile, those first few – including me- were a lot older. There were a lot of articles in the medical press, by doctors who were carving out a comfortable living – no pun intended – by castrating boys as a specialism. Most included “before” and “after” photographs. These were meant to illustrate the subjects’ gelded genitals, but you noticed something else besides. Without exception the boys were all very good-looking.

Okay. Castration affects boys in different ways. Take me for example. As an eleven-year-old I’d been on the short and stocky side. People said I was “homely” or more bluntly “pudding-faced. My hair had been mouse-brown, but within a year of being neutered I’d become blond. I’d also begun to grow taller. Now, four years on, I had a well-muscled, slim body that was good to look at. My bum-cheeks were rounded, but athletics and especially hurdling, had turned them to solid muscle. Nothing could change the fact that my face was too round and my nose too short, but at least people didn’t look away.

By contrast, there was Selwyn Cox in the second year. A fat, stupid, unattractive little boy, castration seemed to have made little or no difference. He was now a fat, stupid, unattractive little boy who would never be able to “do it” with a girl.

But I’m wittering on again.

Dr Holroyd who combined being an honours MD with a specialism in social psychology, was no ivory-tower academic. He had always maintained a Chinese wall between the upper school and the junior school. A literal one: the only physical connection between the two wings of the building were the fire doors and they would only open when the fire alarm was set off.

Dr Holroyd knew that, among boys of 12-13 there was not a lot of difference, physically or emotionally, between those who’d been neutered and those who hadn’t. But when it came to 15-16-year-olds, the difference was between chalk and Cheddar cheese. Never, never, never – unless Dr Holroyd wanted a few suicides on his conscience, could he allow neutered 16-year-olds to be let loose in the testosterone-fuelled inferno that was the Fifth Form of the Upper School.

A few months before, we’d all returned from a vacation to find some curious structural changes. Some disused attics in the top of the building had been converted into 4-bed dormitories for our express use. Dorm “A” housed myself, the Roebucks and Roddy. In Dorm B you would find Sandie Ross, the two Elliotts, and Colin Hislop. Dorm C housed Manchit Khannah, Mark Maitland, Calum Hislop and Jan Raxworthy, whilst Michael Banner and three others slept in “D”.

The changes didn’t end there. If the Fifth Form was off-limits to neutered boys then an alternative to the fifth form had to be found. Dr Holroyd solved this by creating an entirely new group of forms called Shell (Shell I, Shell II and so on) and announced that boys successfully completing GCSE would pass – not into the Sixth Form but into yet another Group, called “Remove”. Boys in the Remove would prepare for their Advanced Level examinations. This would take them up to eighteen and over, to school leaving age.

But I’ve nattered on too long about this.

“The morning comes to consciousness” the poem says. Not with faint stale smells of beer however, but with the sounds of two hundred boys getting up, toilets flushing, basins being filled and emptied, footsteps clattering on stairs. From three floors down, smells of coffee, toast and bacon. Cutting across all of this, the loud angry voice of Mr Jackson, the night-duty master: “Brace up, Keeble, for goodness’ sake! I want my breakfast”.

(We’ve met Peter Keeble before. Gawky, spotty and unappealing, with pebble spectacles, he was cursed with a hyperactive sex drive. Every night in bed he used to wank himself silly. Probably there was semen dripping off the end of his cock even now).

From the floor below the noise of twelve- and thirteen-year-olds making beds, getting in each others’ way, quarrelling over whose turn it was for the next washbasin, losing shoes and finding the wrong ones, rose to a crescendo. I washed and dressed quickly, to get ahead of the crowd. But even as I stood in line at the refectory counter there came the voice of Mr Jackson again, loud and peremptory: “There will be silence!” No doubt the third year had got under his skin once too often. So the only sound at breakfast was the scrape of knives and forks and the only voices came from the kitchen.

After breakfast, assembly: Dr Holroyd starting us off with “Hymn Two Hundred and Forty-Nine”. This was “Brightest and Best of the Sons of the Morning”. Epiphany still had a few days to run. Soon it would be Ash Wednesday and we’d have to sing “Forty Days and Forty Nights”. (About the time it had taken for my balls to soften, shrivel up and finally disappear.). There were a few notices about cross-country runs and lost property. Assembly was over.

After assembly, a free period. In theory I was supposed to spend this in the library. In practice, having a key to the sports store, I went there instead. Something about the sports store made it an immensely attractive place to me – I don’t know why. Something about the neat way that everything was stacked. The reassuring smell of tarred twine. Above all the fact that I could be totally and completely alone, plus the minor consideration that Gunner, the groundsman, kept a kettle and tea-bags there, and didn’t mind if I had a brew-up in cold weather.

To make myself at home I lit Gunner’s kerosene stove (the February morning was chill and drizzly) then settled down on one of the folding chairs and began trying to make sense of “The Prelude” – there would be an essay to write on it later.

This proved altogether too boring, so I turned to my laptop and watched a vid of boys and girls – either Japanese or Filipino, I wasn’t sure which – who were all over one another, having a good time. The girls were all in thong underwear, gold, pink or black (at least that’s how they started off!) The boys were nude and had all been castrated. From what I’d read and pictures I’d seen, these boys had all had their balls drilled out – a type of keyhole surgery developed in Japan over centuries.

Unlike castration by Neutersol, after this ancient treatment the boy’s penis remained like that of an intact boy before puberty, in other words it grew to about three inches maximum. It gave girls more to play with during sex fun. Kissing and sucking were on the agenda, but naturally the boy’s cock never became hard! One of the boys, as I watched, was having his cock sucked by one of the girls, who after a time pulled her G-string off and opened her legs, for him to suck her vagina.

Footsteps on the path outside. Hastily I turned off the laptop. Surely not Gunner at this early hour? But then a familiar voice: Mark, my oldest friend.

We’d been through a lot, Mark and I. In the very beginning I’d got over my nervousness at going to a new school, and my embarrassment at being neutered, by discovering that Mark was also a boy-eunuch. I’ve told you how he’d resolved to prolong his singing career by ensuring his voice didn’t change. Later, it had been my turn to reassure Mark, when he was ill with meningitis and terrified of becoming a freak. Royalties from his recordings had made Mark seriously well-off at fifteen, but that hadn’t altered the special bond between us.

“Thought you might be here; can I come in?” called Mark. “Of course” I said.

Mark came in. “You’ve got it nice and warm in here” he commented, looking all round.

I’d not seen Mark since term began. I said “familiar voice” a moment ago, but it wasn’t. It had a creaky quality to it. And when he got a bit closer there was no doubt. There was a definite line of hairs on his top lip.

I didn’t refer to these immediately. It seemed better to “come from behind”. “I’ve not seen you since before Christmas” I said.

“Another trip to see the good Prof” explained Mark.

(If you’ve not been following the story, a German professor called Zuniger, at the cutting edge of stem-cell research, had been treating Mark for many months, to reverse his neutering operation. Last summer he had actually had new gonads – grown in the laboratory – implanted where his own had once been. The outlook, then, was a mixed one: Mark could expect to attain puberty but only in his very late teens).

“So, what’s new?” I ventured. I was all too aware of my own voice, high, like an eight-year-old’s.

Mark looked away. “The good Prof” he replied, after a pause “thought that things were going too slowly – that they needed kick-starting. He’d developed this booster; but the trouble was, it was totally new and he’d no idea what side effects there might be.

“This time I was in his clinic for the best part of a fortnight. Since New Year in fact. The treatment started with a massive shot of this stuff into my groin, then follow-up doses. Those, thank goodness, I can take on sugar lumps, no more needles.

“The effects began at the start of the second week. In fact all hell broke loose. I’m telling you, Simon, that no two days have been the same. Some mornings I felt on top of the world, others I could hardly crawl out of bed, I felt so rotten. Already my voice is changing – you must have noticed. And I think I’ll have to start shaving before the year is out.

“It’s the end of a lot of things I’d begun to get used to. I’m so frightened! I’m not sure I’m ready for it. It was different before when, you know……….”

(Aged eleven and intent on a singing career, Mark had made an appointment to get neutered, biked down to the clinic, had his balls pricked and afterwards biked back again).

I murmured something, I can’t remember what. Mark’s face puckered up and to my horror, he began weeping uncontrollably. Clinging to me he pressed his face into my neck. “Oh Simon!” he sobbed. “Simon, my friend!”.

Mark was setting out on a journey where I couldn’t follow – a journey towards an unknown region, and he found the prospect daunting. There was little I could do to comfort him.

By degrees he calmed down. I made coffee on Gunner’s stove and by the time we’d both had a cup, Mark was back to near-normal. It was also the end of the free period. I’d scarcely looked at “The Prelude” and had to leaf frantically through it whilst hurrying back to the main building. There would be detention waiting if I screwed up! Mercifully the questions were easy.

There’s always somebody worse off than you are.

The first hour of afternoon school was another free period. I decided to bunk off to one of my old haunts – the Lemon Tree Café, adjoining the bus terminus. Behind me, on the bus into town, sat a group of girls from the local Girls’ High School. They had pulled up their school skirts as far as possible – girls often did – and it was impossible not to see up as far as their knickers. All wore hold-up stockings. The sight would have given an intact boy an instant hard-on, which the girls no doubt intended. If they’d hoped to have the same effect on me, ha ha ha to that idea! My cock didn’t so much as twitch.

From Melanie I’d learned about a sort of freemasonry. A girl wore white knickers while she was still “innocent” - until she’d allowed a boy to put his fingers into her, after which she might wear pink. Once she’d gone the whole way – opened her legs for a boy to put his penis in - she graduated to black. (Melanie wore black, dating from the one and only time she’d slept with an intact boy.)

All of these wore white pants, which told its own tale. They were discussing someone they referred to as “Cave Woman”.

“You know about her, don’t you, Tamsin, how she certainly wasn’t born a girl?”

“You can tell at once” broke in another girl. “Just by the way she stomps about, and those great big hands and feet”.

“Well, the story is” continued the first girl “the story is, that when she – he, rather, was quite small, and it was Bonfire Night, you know, November 5th, someone put a lighted firecracker in the pocket of his jeans. It exploded and burned his cock and balls off”.

The second girl, the one called Tamsin, giggled. “So bang went his prospects – literally!”.

“That’s not quite right, Helen” said the third girl – the one who’d referred to ‘great big hands and feet’. “It was only his cock that got burned off, not his balls. But rather than let him grow up like that, his parents decided to bring him up as a girl. So they took him to a clinic and got his balls cut right out”.

All this was at quite a loud conversational pitch and presently an old woman turned round and told the girls that they shouldn’t discuss such things. So I heard no more about Cave Woman, who would have been much happier, I thought, among boy-eunuchs, which in reality she was, instead of being an unhappy freak among girls.

The café was deserted. (It owed its name to the “specialité de la maison”, a revolting drink involving not only lemon juice but lemon-grass.) Too cold for that, or even for Coke, I ordered myself a caffé latte at the counter and just sat watching the buses arriving and leaving. Thinking about Mark. Thinking about myself. Just idling the hour away.

It was the last idle hour I was to have for a long time.

Returning to school I was scarcely inside the building before I was stopped by a very agitated Mr Carter. “There you are, Scott!” he exclaimed with evident relief in his voice. “We’ve been looking everywhere for you. No, don’t tell me where you’ve been – there’s no time for that. The Headmaster sent for you nearly an hour ago”.

He hurried me along to Dr Holroyd’s private sitting room. “Here’s Scott, Headmaster” he said, shepherding me through the door and closing it behind me.

“Ah, Simon!” said Dr Holroyd in his usual quiet, relaxed way. “It seems I must give you leave of absence for a few days”. He turned to his visitor. “This is the young man you are seeking” he said. (I didn’t care for “young man” but what else could he say?)

The visitor rose to his feet, showing first of all that he was extremely tall – six-three or four, I guessed. In spite of the wretched weather he was extremely smartly dressed in a lightweight fawn suit, shirt and tie, with well polished brown shoes. His light-brown hair was carefully brushed and parted. I was going to say he was good-looking, but his features were regular rather than handsome, with something of a hard look. I put him at about twenty-eight or thirty.

“Harmsworth” said this individual, putting out a hand. (Not “John” Harmsworth, or “Captain” Harmsworth (though much later I learned that this was his full name and rank.) Just “Harmsworth”. He looked me up and down, summing me up. I wondered what conclusions he was coming to.

I looked across at Dr Holroyd, but he shook his head. The man who called himself Harmsworth made the first move. “Your full name?” he asked. “Simon Scott” I replied.

He wrote it down. “Your date of birth, please?” I told him. He wrote that down too.

Harmsworth turned to Dr Holroyd. “That’s all I needed to know” he said. “We ought to leave at once”.

“Sir” I broke in. “Sir, what’s this all about?” But Dr Holroyd shook his head again.

“I’m not here to answer questions” said Harmsworth. “And for your information, I don’t know the answer to “what this is all about” and I wouldn’t be allowed to tell you if I did. My instructions were, one, satisfy myself about your identity and deliver you safely to my superior officer.

“From now on you are quarantined, and I don’t let you out of my sight. You are going to need a change of clothes for, hopefully, two weeks. We’ll go and get those now, then we’ll leave. Goodbye, Headmaster, for the present”.

Harmsworth hustled me up to the dorm. and stood over me while I sorted my things out. “A backpack would be more sensible than a grip” he said. (Fortunately I had one). “Wear something very light” he advised. “The outside temperature was 33 degrees C. when I left.”

(The first and only indication he’d given, that whatever our destination was, it was certainly not in the U.K.)

“I’ve only these” I said, holding up the vests I wore for P E and athletics, and the satinised shorts, one pair in royal blue and two in white.

“They’ll do” he replied briefly. “Get changed now, we ought to be going”.

He turned away while I got changed, so I didn’t have to worry about him seeing my almost-bare bum. Or having to explain why I wore thong underwear. Some white ankle-socks followed the spare shorts into the back-pack, four thongs (all I had, the others were at the laundry); my washing things and that was all. As an afterthought I put Wordsworth’s Collected Poems in too. Whatever the future held, “The Prelude wasn’t about to go away.

The few people who saw us leave goggled a bit at the sight of me dressed for athletics, but Harmsworth hurried me out to the carpark. It might have been 33
somewhere in the world but it was more like 3 here. I pulled my blazer round me and shivered.

Harmsworth was opening the rear door of a green van. It was lettered “CHARNEYS PLUMBING AND HEATING” with two phone numbers and a website. “This may look a bit strange” he said, in one of his rare lapses “but in the London area and on the motorway it’s practically invisible”. He said this while pulling on a suit of blue overalls. From the pocket he took a baseball cap. With these on, he looked every inch the British workman.

I passed a very dull and rather bumpy hour as the van droned up the M23 to where it joined the hurly-burly of the M25, turning at last on to the Heathrow spur. Harmsworth stopped outside a hotel. “One of our people will take the van away” he commented (he had left it in a space marked “Setting down only”). He nodded at the reception desk and a man came over with two key-cards.

“This one’s yours” said Harmsworth, as we stopped outside a room door. “I shall be next door if you need me. Don’t call room service and don’t answer the phone. I’d like to let you use the swimming pool but I can’t risk it. I’ll call you about nine. Meanwhile, get your head down”. He left the room and closed the door.

The only window looked out on an immense indoor pool that seemed to take up nearly all the ground floor level. There were tropical trees, seats and little tables where people were having drinks. I longed to jump into that pool, but for some reason Harmsworth had put it off limits. I sat on one of the chairs by the window and tried to look at the hotel’s house magazine, but found it boring. “Get your head down” the man had said. Oh well, perhaps it was good advice. Taking off my blazer and sandals I tried the bed, finding it comfier than the chair………

I was woken, in pitch dark, by a firm knock on the door. Harmsworth’s voice, muffled by the woodwork, called “Leaving in ten minutes. Get yourself washed”. Stifling a yawn I groped for a light switch, tidied myself up, went for a quick pee. Harmsworth was waiting in the corridor. He had shed the boiler-suit and cap and was immaculate again.

Outside the hotel was a van similar to the one that had brought us from school, but this one was lettered “MOORE’S OFFICE SUPPLIES” with different phone numbers. I guess they – whatever Harmsworth’s outfit was – had a whole fleet. Over the A4 we went, through the underpass, and so to the grey-painted, neon-lit hell that is Heathrow Terminal 4.

I hadn’t flown since arriving in Britain from the RSA, some 4½ years ago, and I looked in dismay at the human ant-hill milling round the check-in desks. “No need to mess with that” Harmsworth assured me. “One of the very few perks of this job is flying club-class. We go over here”.

At the club-class check-in desk, there was no one. Harmsworth attended to the tickets, boarding passes and all the rest, explaining we only had cabin baggage. But I was able to see some tags on other people’s cases on the belt, and they said SIN.

SIN meant Singapore!

What did I know about Singapore? Absolutely nothing.

But Harmsworth was already hurrying me towards security and passport control. This took some time despite our lack of luggage. Once through there I’d have loved to look at some of the shops, but nothing doing. I found myself taken on a seeming route march along miles of corridors to an upper-class lounge that Harmsworth knew about: the “Holideck”.

“The secret” Harmsworth confided “is to lay off alcoholic drinks. Stick to fruit juice and iced water”. (As if he’d expected me to fill up on Scotch!)

The Holideck was a quiet, pleasant place but all too soon the monitor showed “Boarding at Gate so-and-so” and we were off on another route march to the other end of the building. Here, again, there was a huge press of humanity; the flight was going through to Melbourne and strident Oz voices sounded on every side. “I don’t envy them” said Harmsworth. “I call them the Prisoner-of-War class” (meaning Economy of course.) By now we’d been corralled into a separate little enclosure with about a dozen other people – all businessmen from the look of them.

No need to spend much time on the next half hour: the tedious wait after we’d found our seats, the hiss and clunk of doors closing, the bumping elephantine trundle to the runway end. Then the shattering din of the engines on full forward thrust, another shuddering, jolting ride, every joint in the tarmac echoed by creaks and squeaks in the airplane, and at last the lurching, lumbering lift into the air. Through the cabin porthole London dropped away in a myriad tiny lights away to port, and then blackness. Beside me, Harmsworth let out a breath. “Take-off always gives me the willies” he confided.

A drinks trolley arrived, which Harmsworth waved away. Then food. Quite nice food probably, but having little appetite at eleven o’ clock at night I couldn’t eat much. Not long afterwards a flight attendant came to recline our seats, and the lights dimmed.

Twice in the night I needed to go for a pee, in the claustrophobic little toilet where the hiss of the air-conditioning was almost deafening. Both times, Harmsworth was wide awake, reading. His book, I noticed, was Scott’s “Guy Mannering”.

Outside, seven miles above the earth, the black hours roared away.

At last, lights came on again. Iced water was offered, by a stewardess who appeared before I could pull down the leg of my shorts which had ridden up in the night. The girl’s eyes asked, as plainly as if she’d spoken “Why can’t I see that boy’s balls?” – but I took the water all the same and eagerly glugged it down. Then breakfast: a diminutive sausage, some scrambled egg, bread rolls, butter and jam. “If you think this is poor” said Harmsworth “it’s even worse in Economy. I wanted us to go by Singapore Airlines. They look after you there. But the Admin boys cut up rough, so nothing doing. Of course if you can hitch a ride with the RAF you get a real fry-up, eggs and bacon, the lot”.

This was the longest speech I’d ever had from him.

Then the blinds were raised. We must have been steadily losing height during breakfast, because I saw glimpses of pewter-coloured sea, with islands like blobs of dark-green, almost black, cotton wool.

And then the descent. The creak of the undercarriage being lowered. Farewell messages from the Captain and his team. A kaleidoscope of buildings, trees – a few palms among them, grass, gleams of water. Thump, thump on the tarmac. A trundle to the terminal building, and at last the interminable noise stopped.

As we passed through the gangway and into the terminal building, I was first aware of the heat outside, though not for long: very efficient airconditioning quickly took over. Miles of passages again, and Singapore immigration. Harmsworth went straight for a desk that he alone seemed to know about, waved some papers, and we were through.

More passages, then a ramp, lined on both sides by magenta-coloured orchids in planters. At the top, a barrier, and a young man with fair curly hair, his face beaming.

“’Morning, sir!”

“’Morning, Robin. Let’s get the formalities over quickly, shall we?” I watched as the newcomer signed a receipt for “the live body of one S Scott”. Harmsworth turned to go. “I’ll leave him in your capable hands then, Robin”. And with that he was off.

“Well then!” said my new acquaintance. “So you’re Simon Scott. My name’s Henchard. Lieutenant for what it’s worth. Only you can call me Robin. Have a good flight, did you? Did Captain Harmsworth look after you well?”

“Very well, thank you, Robin” I managed. Everything seemed so desperately unreal. But Robin Henchard was looking along the serried ranks of parked cars. “Oh good!” he said at last. “There’s our transport”. No trade van this, but an ordinary-looking taxi.

I made the most of my first sight of Singapore. Robin Henchard told me more in five minutes than Captain Harmsworth had said in as many hours. How once, passenger liners had tied up alongside the road we were now travelling. “Only now there aren’t any” he explained. “And container ships are so large that they have to drop anchor in Singapore Roads”.

We had come to a bridge marked “Bencoolen Bridge” spanning a muddy-looking creek, its sides reinforced with old containers. “That’s Singapore River” said Robin. “It stinks!” (It did).

From a skyline consisting of many high-rise buildings Robin picked one out. “That’s the Furama Hotel” he said “and that’s where we’re going. It’s where His Nibs has his office. Only three stars but a very decent place. Chinese-run, as most hotels are”.

Three stars the Furama might have been but it looked pretty grand to me. Robin stopped at reception and spoke into a phone. “That’s good” he said. “His Nibs is ready and waiting. His real name is Brigadier Henderson, but you don’t need to tell him I told you that”.

We travelled to the 11th floor by lift and at Room 1101 Robin pressed a buzzer on the door, which opened immediately. The lobby was occupied by a Gurkha soldier in full combat gear, armed with an AK 47 or something like it. (I’m not good on weaponry). This man saluted Robin, eyed me in a curious way, and opened the door beyond.

What had once been a bedroom was now an office, but an office of the barest possible sort. Blinds covered the windows. A row of green-painted filing cabinets. No desks, but two trestle tables with a blanket spread over each. At one sat a military clerk, pounding away at an old-fashioned electric office typewriter. At the other sat a thick-set, sandy-haired man, with protuberant blue eyes. Both wore combat jackets. The shoulder-straps of the second man bore the crown-and-three-pips of a brigadier.

Robin straightened up. “Morning, sir!” He indicated me. “This is Simon Scott”.

The brigadier fixed me with a piercing stare. For a few moments he said nothing. Then “I understand you’ve met my superior, General Frobisher – the ADMI. That right?”

I gulped and nodded. ADMI meant “Assistant Director, Military Intelligence”. “Yes, sir” I stammered. (For my meeting with the General, read “Simon’s Summertime Adventures”).

“He seems to have formed the impression that you’re good at finding things out” said the Brigadier. “I hope that’s true. Do you know this man?” He held out a small photograph.

At once I recognised the tanned features, the hair brushed back from the forehead, the neat military moustache. “That’s my Uncle Max” I said.

“Good enough” said the Brigadier, and paused.

“You won’t be staying here” he said at last. “I’m passing you on to my opposite number, in Malaysia. And that gives me a problem”. He fixed me with one of his long stares again. “You’re going into a restricted area. No civilians allowed.” (I was, of course, wearing the clothes I’d flown out in: shorts, vest and school blazer).

“The problem is your age. Queens Regulations prevent my enlisting you into the Army, which is what I ought to be doing. But there is a clause which says that you can be temporarily commissioned into the service “if circumstances so dictate”.

“Even so, you are hopelessly under age for what you’ll be doing” (And what’s that, I wondered helplessly). “Not even sixteen. I’m going to say you are nineteen, for the official records. It’s unlikely it’ll ever be questioned. And if it is, I’ll just have to say I’m very sorry, won’t I? Won’t I?” He paused and glared at me. I said nothing, so he went on.

“It’s a crazy situation. But crazy situations demand crazy remedies. So, for as long as this takes, you can consider yourself a temporary, local, unpaid, second-lieutenant.” (He stressed every word).’’Your commission ends, once for all, when you leave here. So don’t try to make anything of it, back in the UK. Understood?”.

“Understood, sir” I managed to say. I had just grasped what he meant by “commissioned”.

“Right, then. Get him kitted-out, Robin, will you? And all the other gubbins – ident. card and some sort of personal weapon- I’ll leave the choice to you”.

“Very good, sir” said Robin. The Brigadier grunted again. The interview was over.

Robin took me down a few floors to another set of rooms which were operating as a stores, and said something to a weary-looking soldier with a single stripe on his arm. This character looked me up and down and began dumping things on the counter. Jungle green trousers. A combat jacket. Green canvas lace-up jungle boots with rubber soles. A green floppy cotton hat. Thick blue-grey socks. Some horrible-looking cellular underwear. Last but not least a set of web equipment – haversack, ammo pouches and water bottle. All of these I was required to sign for. “Thank you, sir” I said to the NCO.

“Don’t call me sir, son” said the NCO, in a strong Sheffield accent. “Ah’m only a lance-corporal”.

“We’re nearly done” said Robin. He took me to another set of offices where a clerk took my photograph and with amazing speed produced an identity card, which I had to sign. Robin showed me how to put “2/Lt” after my name. From a drawer he took the badges of rank that I was to slide on to the shoulder-straps of my jacket: a single black diamond (“pip”) , with the letters “2/7 G R” underneath. “It stands for ‘second battalion, seventh Gurkha Rifles’ said Robin, seeing my blank expression. “Most of the chaps up-country are Gurkhas, so one officer more or less won’t make any difference”.

I was an officer! I was “Mr Scott!” And I felt very, very nervous.

One thing remained. “You’ve not had any practice with a rifle, have you?” Robin asked. “Thought not. I looked this out just before you got here”.

“This” was a sort of carbine. It had an extremely short barrel and a butt of tubular steel. It had once been enamelled black but now was mostly bare metal. “It’s a World War 2 Sten” said Robin. “It doesn’t matter if you’ve never fired one, it needs no practice at all. It’s OK at close quarters but it would miss a house at a hundred yards. If it goes wrong, throw it away. Right, that’s that. I’ll just get into my war paint then we’d better leave. Hang on here a minute”.
Robin disappeared through a door in the corner, emerging soon afterwards dressed much as I was, except for two pips on his shoulders to my one, and a revolver in a webbing holster. He hurried me down to an underground carpark and into a green-painted utility, which set off as soon as we closed the doors.

“You’re probably wondering” said Robin (I hadn’t, but listened all the same) “what the British Army is doing, here, in a sovereign state. Take Singapore first. A tiny little republic, very wealthy – but if things went pear-shaped, lacking the physical muscle to deal with the situation. Malaysia, on the other hand, always was, and still is, a federation of princely states, each with its own hereditary Sultan. There is a central government, now, and the Sultans elect one of their own number to be a supremo, but they all try to do their own thing if they get the chance.

“All about muscle, as I said. Britain maintained substantial numbers of troops here till 1970 when most bases closed down completely. Since then, we’ve been here by invitation and only as specialists. A few conditions apply: no arms to be carried in the streets (keep that Sten well hidden, Simon!) no flags to be flown, no parades or that sort of thing”.

By now we’d reached the train-station, where the driver put us down just inside a side-entrance. A train of only two carriages, and a van, stood there. Robin went straight to the one marked first class, and a steward showed us our seats. The other carriage was already full of Gurkha soldiers who had been loading stores into the van. “This train isn’t in the timetable” Robin explained. “We’ll be off as soon as all the stores are aboard”.

Moments later the train gave a hoot and we were off, rattling through the northern suburbs and down towards the Johore Straits, dotted with fishing sampans. Over the causeway we rattled and banged, and the steward reappeared with cups of very sweet, very milky tea. Then the brakes ground on for the frontier stop at Johore Bahru, where Malaysian police in spotless khaki-drill uniforms and black velvet fore-and-aft caps checked our I Ds. “They’re really only interested in drugs” Robin confided.

On we went. While the light lasted, Robin explained some of the things I could see through the window. That the pinnacles of red, crumbly-looking earth were not termite nests but the result of illicit opencast tin-mining. That the handsome grey-barked trees with herringbone patterns on their trunks were not a native variety but rubber trees imported from South America in the 1800’s. That the Chinese would open up a market-garden wherever there was a few feet of space.

“They run all the businesses, you know” said Robin. “The Malays govern the country but the Chinese are the real mainspring. And all the dirty work goes to the Indians – Tamils mostly – just as it always did.”

It was already dark when the train drew up at a place called Gemas. At once the Gurkhas in the next coach began to de-train and move their kit towards a line of waiting 3-ton trucks. But Robin led me across to the farther platform, where there stood a battered-looking railcar. No first class on this and certainly no steward: the interior resembled a town bus of the more Spartan sort.

Now, for the first time, I really became aware of the sticky, sultry tropical heat. I could feel perspiration gathering between my shoulder-blades. And those cicadas! Their strident chirruping could be heard above all other sounds, even the rasping roar of our railcar, which had set off as soon as Robin and I were aboard. There were no other passengers. It was very slow and very, very noisy, and I said so.

“They govern the motors down to 20 miles-an-hour” Robin replied. “They have to. We’re off the main line now and on the so-called East Coast line. The track’s not made for high speeds”.

Half an hour or so of rackety, jolting progress and we stopped again. In the dim light from the railcar windows I could make out a tiny platform with a palm-roofed shelter. Beyond I could just see some larger buildings, with strangely familiar outlines. There was no mistaking what they were. Fifty years after “Independence”, and in the middle of the Malaysian jungle, I was in a British Army camp.

Lights appeared through the trees, and presently a green-painted Landrover drew up. A tall gangly figure got out, drew himself upright and saluted Robin. “Hello, Jeremy” Robin greeted him. “This is Simon Scott, temporarily attached to the unit”. The gangly officer, like myself a second-lieutenant, didn’t salute but took my hand. “Hello, Simon” he said, confidingly. “I’m Jeremy Fothergill, S O grade 4”.

“Let’s get moving” said Robin, abruptly. We all climbed into the Landrover and Jeremy drove off. “How’s the Water Buffalo this evening?” asked Robin.

“A bit snappish if you ask me” replied Fothergill. “Anxious to get the show on the road. He said I was to bring you to his office the moment you both arrived”.

Robin swore quietly and I swore inwardly. We’d both been hoping for a chance to freshen-up.

Much of the camp, as I could see in the headlights, was mothballed, the huts boarded-up and unused. There were faded notices, “B Coy” “Quartermaster’s Stores” and so on. But the section where Jeremy stopped the Landrover was very much alive. There was another gate and a Gurkha soldier with an automatic rifle, who brought it to the “Present Arms” as we approached. Beyond the gate I saw a white-painted kerb, gleaming brass door-handles, newly-painted fire buckets.

An inner door in the building we now entered bore a stencilled board “Brigadier B P Rawlings”. Fothergill knocked on this and went straight in. He said something inaudible to the room’s occupant, and got a sort of rumble in response. Fothergill stuck his head round the half-opened door. “Mr Scott, will you come in, please?” Robin patted my shoulder. “No need to be afraid of him. His bark’s worse than his bite”.

In I went. It seemed I was at last going to learn why I’d been brought halfway across the world: me, a boy-eunuch, not yet sixteen. I felt very inadequate and not only because of my lack of male genitals, though that was part of it.

Brigadier Rawlings suited his nickname “The Water Buffalo”. He was massive. Though seated, I put him at six-four, and broad with it. I saluted, as best as I knew how. The Brigadier, whose red-banded cap lay on the desk, just nodded. I could almost see inside his head, the wheels going round, the exclamations he might have made, but didn’t: “But this is only a boy”. (Or worse). To save himself embarrassment he lumbered out of his chair, turned around and addressed his reflection in the window.

“No doubt you’re wondering why you’re here. Well, listen and I’ll tell you. I know you’ve signed the Official Secrets Act so I’ve no need to tell you that not a word of this goes out of this camp. Right?”

I gulped. “Sir” I managed to force out.

“Right, then. A few basics. What do you know about Malaysia?” (Presuming my answer was going to be “nothing” the Brigadier went straight on. “Malaysia has some pretty dodgy neighbours, or should I say near-neighbours. Take North Korea. They’ve a known nuclear program. Take Cambodia. Hopelessly unstable – could do anything. Take China! Who knows what’s going on in the interior of that vast country? Do I? Do you? I doubt if anyone does.

“Malaysia is blessed with a unique feature- a spine of mountains rising to six thousand feet. The Government – that is, the UK Government – decided to instal a line of listening-posts at high altitude. Not just for picking up radio signals. Real cutting-edge technology. They would detect unusual gases in the wind, unusual chemicals in the rain, and get a good fix on the direction they came from.

“Six months ago a diplomatic character turned up – man by the name of Manningham. He’d been to talk to the local politicians – the Kuala Lumpur lot – and he went on to visit the Sultan of Pahang. Before flying home he stopped off here to say everything was going ahead and I could expect the contractors any day.” (So Uncle Carl had been there too!)

“The contractors moved in and started building jeep tracks into the mountains. Nothing to do with the army; we just left them to it.” The Brigadier paused. He seemed to have just become aware that I was still standing at attention, because he suddenly turned round. “Sit down, man! Sit down!” I took the folding chair facing the desk and sat down, while the Brigadier lowered his bulk on to his own chair, before continuing.

“ Eight weeks ago the diplomatic fellow returned, and this time he had a colleague in tow, whom he introduced as Major Riche – though I never found out what he was a Major in. Riche was there, he said, to oversee ‘security aspects’, though these were never explained, and he would also make himself useful in various ways.

“We had the pleasure of Major Riche’s company for exactly a week, no more. The Manningham fellow had already gone, by the way. Then, do you know, he vanished. He went off one day, where to I don’t know, he never told us. Damned security again!
A day later a taxi-driver was found murdered by Milestone 101, but we made no connection between that crime and Riche’s disappearance. Till things started to go wrong up in the mountains.

“It began with trivial things. Stores left unprotected from the weather and ruined. Stocks of petrol and diesel allowed to run to waste. But it got worse. Explosives were stolen, and then landslides began to occur, at a season when there should be none. There has always been a bandit problem in Malaysia, but it usually kept to extortion and protection rackets – not sabotage. But these incidents were concentrated on all the new sites and were obviously being co-ordinated.

“Then we had a bit of a break-through. The civil police brought in a very old man who was the father or grandfather of one of the bandits, and he had information about "a“British officer".” So then we knew for certain that Riche was at the bottom of all this.

“I blame myself for the fiasco that followed. I got a heavily-armed fighting patrol together. Their orders were, destroy the bandits, but bring Riche out in one piece – i.e. recognisable - and preferably alive. It wasn’t a secret operation, you can’t keep secrets round here – but it didn’t deserve to go as badly wrong as it did.

“The patrol got into the mountains along one of the new jeep tracks, and was cut off by detonations to the front and rear. Whilst they were re-grouping there was a tremendous explosion, right where they were. There were no survivors”.

The Brigadier pointed to a framed photograph on his desk. It showed a young officer in Number One dress. “My son” said the Brigadier. “Taken on the day he passed out of Sandhurst. He was patrol-commander, just three weeks ago. They found his identity-discs. That’s all I had left of him, to bury”.

For the first time the Brigadier looked me directly in the face. I could read, in his expression, the effort that it had taken him to mention his son. There was silence for a moment.

“We need to get this man” he said at last. “Will you help us?”

“Yes, sir” I said, returning his gaze. “I should like to help you”. In the last few minutes my only feelings for Uncle Max had turned from indifference to a deep contempt, beyond words.

“You are very young” said the Brigadier. “And you’ve had no training – no, don’t try and deny it. Are you afraid?”

I was terrified. If I’d still had testicles they would have shrunk to nothing, but I wasn’t going to admit it. “No, sir”

“I have to allow for the possibility that you might get killed. Is there anybody you would like to be told?”

I gave him Dr Holroyd’s name. There wasn’t anyone else.

The Brigadier sighed. “Alright then. Be prepared to move within the next 24 hours. Robin Henchard will work out the details. That’s all for now. Send Robin in, as you go out”. He waved his hand in dismissal. I attempted another salute, did a clumsy about-turn, and escaped.

I found Robin as instructed, and immediately afterwards encountered the gangling Fothergill. “I’ve sorted you out somewhere to sleep” said that young man. “Down the corridor, Number Four. Bolsover will look after you”.

I found Room Four straightaway. It had a folding iron bedstead, made up with a mattress, two sheets and a mosquito net. There was a small metal bedside locker, one standard folding chair, and nothing else. The window had no glass, but shutters and a gauze panel. Through this, the smell of the jungle drifted steamily in.

A short while afterwards I was putting my school clothes away and tidying myself up, when there came a tap at the door. Fothergill’s remark “Bolsover will look after you” had suggested a pimply recruit, who would make facetious remarks.

The reality couldn’t have been more different.

I called “Come in!” and the door creaked open. “Private Bolsover reportin’, Mr Scott, sir. Was you wantin’ anythin’, sir?”

The speaker looked to be in his eighties, and probably was. He wore private’s uniform, and a private he may have been, but many, many years before. I listened to his story. As a very young man he’d fought through Burma with Fourteenth Army. Surviving, young Private Bolsover decided he liked the Far East, so when peace came in 1945, instead of repatriation, he sought a transfer to a unit that was staying on.

The Malayan emergency found him still in south-east Asia, but then the independence of Malaysia, as it became, forced him to move on. Transfer followed transfer, year after year. Wherever there was the remains of a British garrison, there you would find Bolsover.

In all this time he never once returned to Britain. It was when one of his rare letters to his aunt – his only relative – was returned marked “Gone Away” he decided there was no point in ever returning.

Finally Army Records caught up with the old soldier and discharged him. But not to be outdone, he signed-up as a civilian employee. In the end he drifted back to his old haunts in the Malay peninsula, and convinced some overworked assistant-adjutant that he could be useful as an officer’s servant. And here he was.

Unfortunately he made the mistake of assuming that, since I was young, all I would be interested in was tales of his sometimes bizarre sexual experiences. So I heard all about “wogs wiv fifteen-inch pricks” and “bints what did it wiv ‘orses and donkeys, right up, no messin”. He was a bore, but he kept the place clean and tidy so I put up with him.

“Nothing for the moment, Bolsover, thank you” I said.

“Very good, sir” the old boy said. “Dinner’s in a ‘alf-‘our, sir”. He saluted and shuffled out.

I discovered a shower, and had a splash-down. Clean and fairly tidy, I followed my nose to the officers’mess dining room. Fothergill was there already and offered me a drink. I chose a mango-juice. “The menu is chicken curry followed by tropical fruit salad” said Fothergill. “It’s the same every day. It could be a lot worse. Imagine seven days of compo rations!” (I nodded, having no idea what these were).

Presently the Brigadier came in, with three other officers. One of them was Robin, who joined us. The other two, a lieutenant-colonel and a major, joined the Brigadier at the far end of the table. I was not introduced. Dinner was a very silent meal. Talking shop was forbidden by Mess etiquette and the Water Buffalo didn’t encourage small-talk. When the Water-Buffalo finished his meal, the rest of us stood up as he went out, then we all followed. In the distance we heard a door open and shut.

“He’s gone to bed” said Robin. “My advice, Simon, is, go and do likewise. Tomorrow’s likely to be a busy day”.

I wasn’t slow to follow this advice. The narrow little bed looked very inviting. I pulled all my clothes off and got under the single sheet. For a short time I listened to jungle noises outside – whether insects or birds I couldn’t tell. But I didn’t hear them for long.

Instead I was listening to a discussion between two girls, who might have been Marcia and Melanie. It was a discussion about sex and boys, but the only words I could distinguish were when the boy pulls his cock out of the girl’s pussy. They were not discussing me.

This reverie was quickly interrupted. The light was switched on and there was the egregious Bolsover! “Mornin’, sir” said this individual. “O-six-‘undred hours. Brekfus’ is at O-seven-‘undred. “Ere’s yer gunfire”. (This proved to be a mug of hot tea, sweetened with evaporated milk). “Can’t run yer bath (he pronounced it ‘barf’) I’m afraid, ‘cos there in’t none” (He grinned toothlessly). “But I’ll give yer fings a quick press while yer ‘avin’ yer ablutions”. He gathered up my trousers and combat jacket and shuffled out, muttering the old Army ditty, beloved of orderly NCOs since the year dot: Hands off yer cocks and on with yer socks.

Attired in immaculately pressed jungle-greens I went in search of – and found – breakfast. Once again I had Fothergill for company. He explained that, Malaysia being a Muslim country, the sausages had to be made from chicken and the bacon from beef. The former were pallid in colour and the latter fell to pieces. But the eggs were OK and there was plenty of toast, mango juice and good coffee.

“The Brigadier isn’t likely to issue any orders before 0900” said Fothergill. “What I suggest is that you take a walk and get used to our climate. Some people find it a bit airless at first. If I were you I’d keep away from the Gurkha lines for the present. But the other direction is alright. It used to link up with the main road but it’s blocked off now”.

Taking his advice as an order, but with no idea of what to expect, and even less what I intended to do, I began to walk slowly up the roadway. The mist, which had been heavy earlier, was starting to lift off. There seemed to be no one about, although the trees and bushes might have concealed any number. After about two hundred yards a sort of clearing opened up to my left…..

“All – o!”

The solitary occupant of the clearing, who addressed me thus, stood about four-foot-six. He was dressed in a grubby white T-shirt and loose cotton trousers of an indeterminate grey-blue colour. His feet were bare and also filthy.

This character now came towards me. He didn’t look dangerous. His face – a rather pretty and very smiley face - was tanned to a deep copper colour, set off by a thatch of jet-black hair well greased down. He was smiling, showing big white teeth, not at all stained. I put him at about twelve or thirteen. “Hello” I returned.

“What yo’ name?” was the next question. I told him. He tried it out. “Sai-mun. Sai-mun. Ve’y goo’” . He laughed, pleased at this improvement in his vocabulary.

“And what’s your name?” I now asked. “Me, Kim-Bok” was his reply. (At least that’s what it sounded like). And he laughed again. “You, my flien’”.

“I’m your friend” I agreed.

Events now took an unexpected turn. Kim-Bok took hold of the cuff of my combat jacket and led me to the edge of the clearing, where the trees started again. A narrow path opened up here. Kim-Bok motioned me to bend down, so he could whisper. “Sai-mun, I give you wanky-wanky. You like? Wanky-wanky-wanky”. He giggled.

“No!” I said firmly. He looked surprised – surprised and disappointed. “You no like wanky-wanky?” “No!” I repeated.

“You, ve’y big one?” he enquired, jerking a grubby thumb towards my crotch. “I look-see you?” (He expected me, like other soldiers he’d jerked off, to have an enormous rigid cock).

“I look-see you” I responded. “Then you look-see me”.

My attempts at pidgin had the required effect. With a quick deft movement Kim-Bok unhitched the waistband of his trousers, letting them fall around his ankles. He had a short sturdy penis and a plump ball-sac, not a hair to be seen. That part of him was spotlessly clean. Twisting around he showed me a perfect behind. He reminded me of one of those 5th century Greek figures you see in books. “Now, you look-see me” I said.

I had more layers to remove than Kim-Bok, but after a few seconds’ fiddling with buckles I was able to pull my jungle-green trousers down.

Kim-Bok’s eyes grew rounder and rounder. “Wah!” he said, under his breath. I lifted my penis, to show him all there was to see – or rather, all there wasn’t.

“Wah!” he said again. “Ve’y sma’ one, no goo’ for girl-flien’!” Then, pointing to the puckered skin below my cock, “Cu’ off?” I nodded. “Cut off” I agreed. (The reality would have been too hard to get across in pidgin).

“I think you, Great Man” said Kim-Bok. He used the Chinese term “Ta Jen” which needs a bit of explanation.

Nobody now alive remembers the Chinese Empire for real. But whilst it existed, posts in the Manchu Court – the Forbidden City - were held entirely by eunuchs. Families with more than one son frequently got some of the younger ones castrated in the hope of finding them a niche in the Imperial service. Being so close to the centre of power gave some of the eunuchs very great influence. “Ta Jen” was not just an honorific. It was often literally true. Some Chief Eunuchs ran the country, and not for the country’s good.

Kim-Bok had no doubt heard legends of the Dragon Throne and the court eunuchs, no doubt with a certain frisson at the idea that, if he’d lived a century earlier, he too might have had his balls taken out. And now, here I was. I was a eunuch, therefore, by definition, I was a Great Man.

In the few moments that we’d been talking, some sort of bush telegraph had been at work. More little faces began to appear from nowhere. They were all much the same age as Kim-Bok. Some wore T-shirts and some loose jackets of the same indeterminate blue-grey. Some wore trousers and some wore grubby blue shorts. I found myself being introduced to Ah Foon, Ah Feng, Ah Choi, Ah Yip and Ah Yau.

One of these – I immediately forgot which was which – fingered the black diamonds on my combat-jacket shoulder straps. “Let-ten-un” he ventured. I nodded. “Lieutenant” I agreed. The little boy grinned.

Kim-Bok said something and I caught the expression “Ta Jen” again. Immediately five faces grew solemn. I became the cynosure of five pairs of brown eyes.

I had a captive audience!

From my wallet I took the mug-shot of Uncle Max and showed it to them. “You see this-y one?” I asked. All craned over to get a good look. First one nodded recognition, then another, and another.

“Him, ve’y dirtee man” one said. “Wanky-wanky, all-time wanky-wanky”.

“Cop-cop” said a second.

“Du-li si-fat” said a third.

(From the very few Chinese boys who’d ever come to our school I’d learned the usual things. “Cop-cop” was a pidgin expression for any kind of sexual intercourse. On the other hand, “Du-li si-fat” combined the characters for “fuck” with those for “asshole”. This sounded like Uncle Max alright.

“Him ve’y dirtee man”. It was Kim-Bok who spoke again. “I tell him, I go speak officer, I tell officer ‘You dirtee man’. Then, him go”.

The pidgin idiom was infectious! “Where him go?” I asked. (To have got so far in searching for Uncle Max, only to lose the trail again, was too frustrating).

But Kim-Bok shook his head.

Minutes ticked by, then another of the little boys, the one called Ah Choi, piped up “This-y one, him go Jay Faw”.

Another one nodded, eagerly. “Ya, him go Jay Faw”.

Well at least I had a destination – if I could find out where and what – maybe who - Jay Faw was.

The little boys had seen enough of me. Other distractions called, and they began drifting off. Only Kim-Bok remained. His sense of awe at meeting a Great Man had ebbed somewhat. “Sai-mun” he said in a thick confidential whisper “you give me wanky-wanky? Yes?” “Yes” I replied. Once again Kim-Bok let his trousers down.

There and then, squatting down in the long dry grass, I took his little penis between my thumb and my first two fingers, and rolled back his foreskin. Up and down, up and down I rolled his foreskin, while his cock grew rigid. Kim-Bok closed his eyes, abandoning himself to sex-pleasure. At length his penis jerked in a strong orgasm – dry of course.

He fastened his trousers. “Wanky-wanky ve’y goo’” he confided. “Sai-mun, you my ve’y goo’ flien’”. Then he waved goodbye and disappeared into the scrub.

There was no point hanging around. I’d learned all I was going to for the moment. I thought that the Brigadier would want to know, so I hurried back to the camp and found Fothergill and told him my story. Fothergill disappeared and moments toldme that the Brigadier would see me. I went in and made my report. Robin Henchard was there too. At first the Brigadier was dismissive about my source of information.

“Chinese children!” he snorted. “They get everywhere – they’re like mosquitoes. Tell you what you want to hear. Shouldn’t be there at all, of course. Must have got through the wire lower down”.

“Sir” I broke in (he didn’t look pleased at the interruption but I kept on, all the same) “Sir, from the description they gave, I’m certain they were describing my Uncle Max. (I didn’t elaborate). “And all five recognised the photograph”.

Now Fothergill put his oar in. “Sir, the log shows that three weeks ago there was a complaint from a Chinese boy, name not recorded, about a European officer. But we’d no reason to connect it with Major Riche, so no action was taken”.

The Brigadier grunted. “All right. So it may be authentic. But don’t call him Major. He’s not fit to hold a commission”. He glared at Henchard. “I’ll have a quick think about it and send for you”. He waved us both out of the room.

“Robin” I asked, when we were out of earshot “what’s Jay Faw?”

Henchard smiled. “Easy-peasy! Chinese can’t pronounce final consonants. What you heard was “Jade Falls” and Jade Falls is the name of a place about twenty miles off. You get to it – if you want to – by a side road which takes off at Milestone 146.

“It’s a resort that never came off. Today it’s a ghost town. It took its name from some waterfalls, of a curious opaque green colour, hence the name. But unlike, say, Cameron Highlands in Pahang, there’s nothing to do at Jade Falls. No jungle walks, no tea plantations, no butterfly farms. Once you’d seen the falls that was it. Unhealthy spot too. Cameron Highlands is six thousand feet up, and you need to light fires at night, but Jade Falls is right in the rain forest: ticks, leeches, mosquitoes, the lot! Look here, they say one picture’s worth a thousand words…….”

Robin stopped outside a door labelled “WAR ROOM”. Unlocking the door he put the light on. All walls were covered by maps showing the whole of the Malay peninsula from the Johore Straits in the south to the Thai frontier in the north. Taking a pointer in his hand, he demonstrated.

“We are- here. This is the Jade Falls turn-off. Here’s the settlement, such as it was – and the hotel complex. The hotel’s still standing, by the way. The land drops steeply away to the railway line. Jade Falls used to have its own halt, and passengers were brought up to the hotel on palanquins. No passengers these days of course, but the siding is still used by logging trains.

“The line forks” I said, noticing a junction. Robin nodded. “The old line goes straight on, through a tunnel – here – and links up with the new line, here. The old line is mothballed. It’s shorter than the new one by five miles but train drivers were afraid of falling rock, which is why the new line skirts the mountain. These days the old line’s scarcely used”.

Then an orderly appeared, asking Robin to report to the Brigadier’s office at once. I was left standing outside the War Room door. I felt much as I’d done all that time ago, waiting at the doctor’s surgery before having my balls pricked – that the next few minutes could change my life.

Things then started to happen very quickly.

Robin came bursting into the room. “Right, you leave in twenty minutes! (It was now half-past eleven). “You’ll go with the advance patrol. Subhadar Singh will be in command”. I turned and found myself shaking hands with a leathery little man, with a broad grin and neatly trimmed moustache.
The essentials were these. A reconnaissance patrol would go by rail-car to a spot below Jade Falls and then by jungle paths to the hotel area. What happened then would be determined by what the patrol found. In the best case scenario we should find Uncle Max either on his own or with only a handful of supporters. There were all sorts of intermediate possibilities, ending up with the nightmare of finding the place deserted and no sign of Uncle Max.

Robin would not be with us. He, with a full company, would enter the area by road, in armoured personnel carriers, and would stand by until called upon by the recce patrol. If the bandits broke cover, they would be spotted by helicopter gun-ships and “seen off”.

To describe the next two hours would be tedious. But jumping ahead several frames, in which I’d exchanged my floppy hat for a steel helmet and covered my face and hands with green camouflage paint (this at least disguised my embarrassingly smooth and boyish looks), two o’clock (or should I say fourteen-hundred-hours) found me with the patrol in a very good position, in the concrete monsoon ditch that ran the whole length of the hotel approach road. The jungle paths had been uphill all the way and I was thankful to draw a few deep breaths.

Ahead, there was a row of what had been tourist shops. There were still torn flapping signs with names like “Gucci” “Hermes” “Giorgio Armani” and so on. But the shops showed no signs of being occupied or used at all. The hotel, an Art Deco sort of building, had once been brilliant white, but the frontage was now streaked with green slime from blocked or broken guttering. The main entrance had a rusty grille padlocked across it, and was obviously never used.

There was a faint rustling behind us – unusual, because it’s one of the gifts Gurkhas have, of being one-hundred-percent silent. Turning, we – Singh and I – came face to face with one of the patrol, who had one hand clamped over the mouth of a frightened 12-year old boy.

Subhadar Singh spoke very little – and only when he had something to say. He intimated that this waif – whoever he was – must speak very quietly or he’d get his head taken off by a kukri. But then the rifleman removed his hand and I recognised one of the urchins I’d met that morning. “Ah Choi!” I said, in recognition. The child’s face lit up, but only for a moment.

“No-good men” he said, pointing at the hotel.

“Plenty no-good men?” I asked. “Sap? Sap-ng? I-sap? Sam-sap?” (Ten, fifteen, twenty, thirty?)

But Ah Choi’s numeracy didn’t extend so far. “Plentee no-good men” he repeated. Then his face took on a new expression – of great fear and urgency. He jerked a thumb at the run-down hotel. “Ah Kim” he whispered.

From this we knew that the hotel harboured an indefinite number of bandits and one twelve-year old boy. Of course, Ah Choi was using the familiar form of Kim Bok, whose surname, which I never got to know, would have been Li, or Liu, or whatever.

Very quietly Singh gave an order. One of the riflemen darted across the road and into the scrub. Minutes later he was back, with the information that there was an entrance into the hotel at the rear, that was plainly well used. In no time at all we were inside the building.

For the most part the interior of the hotel stank of damp and decay, like old fungi growing in the dark. But there were other smells too, and a deep humming noise. Someone, in this eerie place, was running a generator.

The floor was tiled and our rubber-soled boots made no sound. We crossed a great shadowy hall, where a stairway ran up into darkness. Singh posted four men here, with his sergeant, whose name sounded like Jinjabir (and may well have been.) From here a long corridor ran on. And at the end of the corridor there was a very bright light burning. I could identify the smell – it was like the smell of a hospital: ether and disinfectants.

There were side doors opening off dark alcoves. As if in a drill movement, Singh’s men took post in these. I could now see through the door at the end of the passage and into the room beyond. A few more paces and I could see everything.

There were two people on the room. One, a young boy, lay spreadeagled on a bare wooden table. He was naked: I could see his penis and balls. The other was a man, dressed in a surgeon’s light blue overalls and cap. He was bending over the boy, who appeared to be unconscious. There was something in the surgeon’s hand, that glittered in the strong light – a scalpel. He was clamping the boy’s penis out of the way. He was going to castrate the boy.

He was going to castrate the boy, to cut his balls out, to make him impotent and sterile. Like me………

Oh no, he wasn’t, because I was going to stop him. Slung round my neck I had the means to do it. I pulled the safety-knob of the little Sten to “Off”, pointed the stubby barrel at the surgeon and squeezed the trigger. The Sten jerked in my hands and a bright red star appeared between the surgeon’s shoulder-blades. With a groan, the man sank to the floor, the scalpel falling with a tinkle on to the tiles. I went over to him: he was quite dead. He had an evil, twisted sort of face. I felt no more for him than for a dead cockroach.

My shots had more results than killing the surgeon. Out of a door at the far side of the room came a man, dressed in a smart linen suit and Panama hat. I’d have recognised that trim figure anywhere, also the crisp Harrow-and-Oxford tone of his first words.

“Who the hell are you?” he said.

This was Uncle Max. Corrupting a child is said to be the one totally unforgivable sin. But Uncle Max had traded on my dirty curiosity, aged ten; fascinated me with his talk of my privates and what they were for, of having my balls pricked, until I actually wanted it to happen! Uncle Max had sodomised me time and again, riding me like a beast. Uncle Max, finally, had dropped the last shreds of decency overboard and become a traitor.

“Remember me, Uncle Max?” I asked, in a high-pitched voice. “I’m Simon!”

Uncle Max said nothing for a minute or two. He felt in his pocket – I feared it might be for a pistol: if it had been, I was quite prepared to shoot him. But he only brought out a cigarette case and lighter. He lit a cigarette and drew on it, then cool as ever, replied. “Yes, I remember you well, Simon. And why do you suppose I should take any notice of you?”

“Because it’s over, Uncle Max” I said. “It’s………all………over”.

Uncle Max had seemed unaware, till then, that I wasn’t alone. But my shots had alerted others. A burst of firing broke out in the corridor behind me. Then a grenade was thrown in the hall: I heard the explosion echoing and re-echoing in the stairwell. Singh rushed past, kicked out one of the blacked-out window-panes and fired a signal pistol into the air: the signal for Robin to bring reinforcements up.

It sounded as if a gun-battle was starting in the hall. Then there was a sound of powerful engines close overhead, followed by a heavy detonation outside. At last it dawned on Uncle Max that all was not well. With a frightened cry he made for the door he’d come in by. It closed behind him with a loud click.

Stray shots were zipping across the room. I feared for the child still lying supine on the table, but there was no time to rescue him. Precious seconds were spent while Singh blew the lock off the door and we were able to pound down the concrete stairway behind it. The outer door was also locked and had to be blown open in the same way.

As the two of us dashed across the carpark there was a burst of firing from the windows of a derelict bungalow. A grenade was thrown; it fell in the ditch, muffling the explosion, but its fragments sang viciously through the air. I felt something rip into the canvas of my pack, something else hit my water-bottle. In seconds the leg of my trousers was swamped. I turned and loosed off the full magazine in the general direction of the shots, which ceased momentarily.

Uncle Max had made his escape down the old palanquin path, that led up from the derelict station. Down this strip of red mud we slithered and slipped. Nearing the bottom it looked as if our luck had run out – that Uncle Max would get away. By sheer good luck- his not ours – one of the rare railcars had been coming along. Uncle Max had got hold of a red flag from somewhere and stopped the railcar. There was nothing to show that he was not a bona-fide traveller, halting the train at a request stop in a perfectly legitimate way.

He had a long start. But the advantage might go to us all the same. The means was very close at hand. In the siding, hissing like an old kettle, was one of the ancient wood-burning locomotives that pulled the timber trains. The footplatemen, both Indian, looked curiously at the two figures that had burst out of the jungle.

Singh spoke to the driver, in a mixture of Indian languages, mostly, I suspect, Gurkhali. The driver nodded and grinned widely. He was in his fifties, a sinewy little man, his teeth stained from smoking too many bidis. He wore the remains of an old Malayan Railways suit of overalls, and a grease-cap. His fireman, by contrast, was a strapping youth of about twenty. He wore a dirty piece of cloth tied round his forehead, a tattered pair of denim shorts and nothing else. I never learned their names.

The fireman jumped down and unhitched the timber wagons. Returning to the cab, he began throwing logs through the furnace door. The driver, meanwhile, was blowing up his fire. Smoke began pouring from the chimney. Singh put a hand to his mouth and began yelling across the tracks in the direction of the signal cabin. “Mister Rameswaram! he bawled. “Mister Rameswaram!!”.

Shaking with fear the Tamil signalman appeared at the top of his steps. “Don’t shoot me, sahibs!” he pleaded. Handing me his rifle Singh went across to the signal cabin to calm the man down and say what he was to do.

Briefly, the plan was this. The signalman was to telephone down the line, so that the railcar could be held up where the old line rejoined the new. We, on the timber-train engine, would go as fast as the old machine could move, and block the line beyond the switch. It was about three miles on the old line; but on the new line more like six or seven. There was a chance.

By now the old locomotive had a full head of steam and was blowing-off at the safety valves. The young fireman hauled us into the cab. The driver was chuckling to himself “Train, let him come! Train, let him come!” I don’t know what he meant but the idea seemed to amuse him. Wires and rods creaked along the lineside and the signal for the old line, rusty and smoke-blackened, dropped to “Line Clear”. The driver’s gnarled fingers closed on the regulator handle. With a thunderous “wough, wough, wough” we began to move. Then faster, faster, faster.

Those three miles belong in the annals of great railway journeys. Over the worn, uneven track we rocked and rolled. The noise was unbelievable. It was as much as I could do to hang on to the footplate. The driver seemed to imagine he was back at the controls of a sleeping-car express of long ago, and the young fireman hurled logs into the fire-hole as if there was no tomorrow. Through the mile-long tunnel we roared, acrid smoke catching our lungs and making our eyes stream. Through a cutting and round the last curve. Would we be in time?

We were. The railcar was stationary, held up at the points. Our driver slowed, applied the brakes, stopped. Singh and I jumped down.

Uncle Max stood in front of the railcar, between the buffers. He was gesticulating, his audience a section of Gurkhas who were covering him with their weapons. For annoyingly (in a sense) we had not arrived alone. An armoured personnel carrier stood nearby.

For its timely arrival, we found out later, we had Ah Choi to thank – Ah Choi who had first given us the lowdown about the hotel and its inmates. Ah Choi who had climbed a tree for a better view. Ah Choi who had crept through the elephant grass, flagged down the convoy and, finding Robin, had conveyed to him (somehow!) that the “ve’y dirtee man” had made his escape. Ah Choi, finally, who had braved the fire-fight that was still going on, found Kim-Bok, groggy from anaesthetic, and helped him to safety.

Seconds later, more vehicles screeched to a halt. First, a staff car with a pennant on it. The front seat passenger eased himself from his seat. There was no mistaking the huge figure of Brigadier Rawlings.

At once, Uncle Max was all charm. “Ah, Brigadier!” he said. “Your arrival is most opportune. There seems to be a slight………..”

“Riche!” thundered the Brigadier, in a terrible voice. “You are dismissed!”

As if on cue, the occupants of the second vehicle, a plain van, got out. They were tall men, wearing the scarlet caps and armbands of the Royal Military Police. They took Uncle Max, one at each elbow, steering him towards the van. He was still speaking, but his words bore no relation to what was going on. “They were all conspiring against me” he was saying. “I can give you a full report; names, dates, instances. I can assure you that…..” The van door slammed, cutting off the last words I would ever hear from Uncle Max.

“And now” said the Brigadier “we’ll go and see how Robin is getting on. You can come in my car. Subhadar Singh had better get all these trains on the move again”. He chuckled, the first time I’d heard him laugh.

Back at the hotel, I could see that the gun-battle was over. Smoke drifted from a few windows, and the derelict bungalow was burning fiercely. The Gurkha riflemen stood about in small groups, smoking and talking. A few wore field-dressings but none was badly wounded. They had taken no prisoners.

The bandits might have been trigger-happy when it only was a matter of frightening villagers, but against trained soldiers they had no chance. Forced out of their hiding-places, with their clothes burning from phosphorus grenades, they had easily been gunned down. They lay in rows, thirty or so; later an earthmover would dig a mass grave for them. The Gurkhas had considered them not warriors, but vermin, beneath contempt, and in accordance with Gurkha traditions, all the bandits had had their penises hacked off and stuffed into their mouths.

While the Brigadier stood taking stock of the situation, a diminutive figure broke away and ran towards me. He took my hand in his grubby paw. Kim-Bok stared up at the Brigadier’s great height. “This-y one, Sai-Mun” he said. “Sai-Mun, my ve’y goo’ flien’”. Then Ah Choi appeared also, from nowhere. “Sai-mun, ve’y gleat man” Ah Choi told the Brigadier. Kim-Bok was gazing at me adoringly, like a spaniel. The boys would go back to their village and their other friends, unharmed and intact. If I’d arrived a few seconds later it might have been different. Kim-Bok would have lost his balls and, unable to father sons, would have been rejected by his family, his only future that of a pampered bum-boy.

The Brigadier was amused. “Well, you’ve certainly made a hit” he said. “Let’s go, shall we? I’d better see about getting you back to school!”
A few hours later, I watched the peaks of the Main Range fall away below, in the last of the daylight. I was the only passenger in an RAF VC-10, flying to the U.K. for modifications.

There had been a few loose ends, mainly to do with my initial shots, which had saved Kim-Bok’s future manhood but alerted the bandits. There was also the matter of a civilian doctor being killed. Subhadar Singh’s report read “On entering the building my patrol came under fire from the bandits. Mr Scott courageously returned their fire and in a confused situation, a stray shot struck and killed a civilian doctor, who was in the building for reasons unknown”. Thus is history re-written!

Words of warning from the Brigadier. “Don’t talk about this episode, young Scott. You know the score. And don’t look for “the battle of Jade Falls” in the papers. It’s just one more case of the army assisting the civil power, so don’t expect any medals either. I’ll be doing a report, but that won’t become public for another fifty years.” He paused, then took my hand in his. “Well, it’s goodbye then. Ever thought of applying for a regular commission?”

I didn’t dare explain how the absence of two blobs of gristle between my legs prevented any possibility of that.

Bolsover wrung my hand. “Give my love to Blighty, sir!” He, certainly, would never see England again.

From Fothergill I extracted a promise to keep in touch with the village boys and forward Kim-Bok’s letters to me. He’d promised to write to his “goo’ flien’ Sai-mun”.

Finally, Uncle Max. Poor, silly Uncle Max. He wasn’t a traitor by inclination. His relationship with the bandits was a simple one. They were on the lookout for “squeeze”; Uncle Max would point them in the direction of the contractors, and they – in theory – would pay protection money, to be allowed to get on with their work.

Uncle Max’s weakness was his insatiable craving for sex with pre-teen boys. In return for information, the bandits would supply Uncle Max with kidnapped village children. So far so good. But weeks before, Uncle Max had discovered, in one of the coastal resorts, an American lady doctor who, as a sideline, ran a sort of exquisite bordello of young boys. Two visits to this place were all that Uncle Max could afford. But the years had made a strange dark labyrinth of his mind, and he was obsessed with the idea of creating for himself, in the seclusion of Jade Falls, a harem, modelled on the neutered boy-slaves of classical antiquity.

This was a mistake. But a far worse one was his becoming involved with blowing-up the fighting patrol some weeks earlier, when the Brigadier’s son had been killed. This guaranteed that everyone’s hand would be against him.

M I 6, I knew, had their own methods of dealing with agents who went wrong. Uncle Max would disappear from human ken. Also there would be some doctoring of the records, so that there would be no evidence that Major Maxwell G. Riche had ever existed.

I was still thinking about Uncle Max as the Malacca Straits fell away astern.

Twice in the night the RAF steward brought me hot, strong tea, and towards dawn, somewhere over Germany, an enormous fry-up. Robin had been right about that. And so to touch-down, at a military airbase “somewhere in north-west England”. Dear old, bloody old England, on a raw cold February morning. I still had my combat gear on (I’d parted with my Sten and steel helmet with real regret, but had kept everything else, to be handed in as and when instructed.) Thus attired I made for a hut labelled “Rail Transport Officer”.

There was no officer there, but an RAF Regiment squaddie, reading that morning’s “Sun”, open at the bums-and-tits page. I asked him about my best way of getting to London. “Ten-ten from Ravenglass” he replied without looking up.

“How do I get to Ravenglass, please?” I asked.

“Not my problem, sunshine” replied this man. The man’s attitude riled me. Ignoring the Brigadier’s warning that my commision ended the moment I arrived on UK soil, I took out my I D card and shoved it under the man’s nose. “Do you recognise my rank, soldier?” I demanded, with all the feeling I could muster.

At once he became all smiles and efficiency. “Very sorry, sir, I’m sure, sir. If you’ll just take a seat, sir, I’ll ‘ave a taxi along in two shakes. And ‘ere’s yer travel warrant, sir”. I took it: first class all the way.

Some while later, in the seclusion of the train toilet, I at last changed out of my combat gear. As I took it off, I felt as if I was giving up part of my life. But not quite. Not just yet. Reaching into the bottom the back-pack I found something thick and heavy. Next minute I snatched my hand away, swearing. Blood was dripping from my fingertips.

Much more carefully this time I felt for the heavy object and drew it out. The collected works of Wordsworth, of course! And stuck through the cover at an angle, something jagged, with razor-sharp edges. A grenade splinter. The thick book had acted as body armour. If it hadn’t been there…………

I became very thoughtful for the rest of the journey south, which was very slow and tedious. Dressed as I now was, for summertime school athletics, I drew a few curious glances as I rode the bus from the train station. Fortunately all the school was at tea, so I reached the dorm. unseen, and changed back into the clothes I’d last worn – was it only five days before?

Then down to evening prep., taking Wordsworth with me. I slipped unnoticed into a back seat. As ill luck would have it, the duty master who came into the room was one P Hipkin, BA (Cantab) known to all and sundry as Pipkin. “Quiet, boys, and open your books” he demanded in a high, querulous voice. (It had been quiet before, but that was Pipkin’s style.) Then his glance fell on me. “Scott, your face is filthy!” (I couldn’t deny that. Camouflage paint isn’t meant to wash off easily). “Show me your
book. Bring it here”.

I took Wordsworth up to his table. The jagged object was still stuck through it. “What’s this? What’s this?” gabbled Pipkin. “Sir, it’s a grenade splinter, sir” I said. Everyone sniggered. They knew my reputation well enough to accept it really WAS a grenade splinter. No one was ever on Pipkin’s side.

Pipkin went ballistic. “I’ve never heard such rubbish in my life!” he spluttered. He began fiddling with the splinter. Next thing his fingers, like mine earlier, were dripping blood. But he now made a silly mistake. “I don’t know where you’ve been, Scott, but it’s clearly gone to your head” he said. “And you’ve vandalised a library book. I shall report you to the Headmaster. And meanwhile you will write out, two hundred times, “I am now back at school”.

A rustle of black silk in the doorway and Dr Holroyd stood there. “Percival, may I have a word, please?” he asked, and Pipkin meekly stepped outside. A few brave souls snorted at “Percival”. Dr Holroyd sought me out at he back of the room and made a face and gesture which could only mean “Don’t worry about the 200 lines”.

Pipkin didn’t utter another word till prep. ended at nine. At cocoa time, people looked at me in a curious way, but only Jamie Roebuck ventured to say anything. “I saw your bundle of kit, Simon” he said (had I been so careless?) “Been on an Outward Bound course?”

“Sort of” I replied. That satisfied Jamie and no one else was interested. If anything they seemed to be avoiding me.

Next morning there was an announcement from the platform.

Lord Phillpotts, a 19th century shoe polish manufacturer, was one of the school’s early benefactors. He had left a large sum of money to fund a prize, or series of prizes, for English literature. Every form had a prize, awarded on the results of an examination on a set book (this is what “The Prelude” was in aid of) but additionally there was a hierarchy of other prizes open to the school as a whole, and at the top of the pile was a gold medal that was very rarely awarded.

It was about the Distinction level that Dr Holroyd now addressed us. “The rules quite clearly state” he said “that candidates who don’t aim at distinction need not attempt Part B. Those who do, should read the instructions carefully. They specify that the chosen poem should be approximately 100 lines in length, and the candidate should explain, in precise terms, how the poem relates to his personal experiences, and I stress “personal”. So please don’t let me have 200 half-baked commentaries on The Lake Isle of Innisfree like we had last year.”

As I walked out of the hall something clicked. At the first opportunity I got a “Kipling” out of the library and read:

“Me, that ‘as been wot I’ve been,
“Me, that ‘as gone where I’ve gone,
“Me, that ‘as seen wot I’ve seen,
“’Ow can I ever take on
“Wiv’ awful old England again”

The speaker is a discharged soldier contrasting the brilliant time he had as an Army “scout” in the Boer War with the suffocatingly boring chores he now has to do in his home village. The poem was only 70 lines long, a bit short for “approximately 100” but it was “me” to the life. The man had been an “irregular” and there could scarcely have been anything more irregular than my life in the past week.

I’d worn a British Army uniform. I’d held the Queen’s commission. I’d fired shots in anger – even killed someone, even though he wasn’t fit to live. I’d been hit myself, though fortunately not wounded. All of this supposedly impossible!

“Awful old England” indeed, I thought, as cold rain splashed on the dusty window panes. I thought of the flowering trees, the sunshine, the sudden showers of warm rain, the strange smells, the hot, sticky tropical night, the calls of the cicadas and birds. The more I read the poem, the more parallels I could see.

The exam day dawned. The wretched “Prelude” held no terrors by now; I knew it backwards. I raced through the questions on that and began Part B. By the time the bell went, for “Pens down – stop writing” I’d completed 12 sides of A4 – and my handwriting is quite compact these days.

A fortnight later I was sent for, by Dr Holroyd. He looked amused. “Scott” he said. “Your Phillpotts paper took up the whole of yesterday’s Governors’ Meeting. I thought I ought to let you know the outcome, at once.

“Everyone was most impressed with the content. The only problem for me was persuading them that it wasn’t a work of fiction. That, of course, is inadmissible. Colonel Smithson, the Chair, was particularly sticky. But I called his bluff. I said that you had never told me an untruth in your life and were most unlikely to start now, and if he had further doubts he had better telephone Military Intelligence.

“Your essay of course is dynamite. It will have to live in my safe, indefinitely. But what I’m really saying is, you are the Gold Medal winner by a wide margin. No other entry, from the Lower School or the Upper School, came anywhere near you”.

And then he was holding a spotless handkerchief to my eyes. As I sometimes do, I’d begun weeping copiously. Just one of those eunuch things. Dr Holroyd understood.

A week later I got another medal. Some clerk in Army Records had done some homework and discovered that a Second Lieutenant Scott had been in a particular place on a particular date, and qualified for the General Service Medal. It was a silver thing on a blue-and-green ribbon and had my name engraved on the rim.

So the Brigadier had been wrong about that.

THE END