Facing the Tank Read Online Free PDF Page A

of awkward items on the clothes list like galoshes and navy blue cotton-drill football shorts. Most of the football shorts were in brightly coloured imitation satin and they had to explain to several shop assistants what exactly galoshes were. Overtried tempers had frayed further at list-ticking time this morning when it was seen that they had failed to buy garters (‘two pairs – charcoal grey’). Crispin’s mother had hastily run up two rather messy pairs with white knicker elastic.
    ‘And if they tell you they’re the wrong colour they can bloody well dye them for you,’ she had snarled, chafing his calves as she tried one on him for size.
    Third Burrow was a broad, oak-ceilinged room with windows on to the cobbles at one side and a dank walled garden on the other. There were a grafitti-trimmed fireplace, several tired and unclean sofas, ten desks ranged around the walls and a bookcase with half the longer Oxford dictionary and a London telephone directory for S to Z. A note, evidently the work of a pupil, was pinned to one shelf. ‘The other half of this dictionary is in Fourth Burrow because there weren’t enough to go round. Remember we are grateful recipients of charity.’ Someone had added a comment after this in Greek which Crispin failed to understand. He had only been studying Greek a year and wanted to give it up in favour of more maths.
    ‘Is there a “Clay, Crispin of Runnymede Farm, Totley-St-Martha” in here?’ A boy with lank black hair and dark glasses was advancing, a thin white plastic walking stick in his hand.
    ‘Yes.’
    ‘I’m David Speake. I’m your magister and you’re my oik . Hello.’ He smiled the too-sharp smile of the blind and they shook hands.
    ‘Hello,’ said Crispin.
    ‘If we’re still speaking after your Lingua exam you can call me David or Speake but till then it’s magister from you and oik from me, I’m afraid. Actually it’s quite smart to pronounce it meister and to leave the k off the oik but I leave that up to your taste and discretion. Have you sacked your womb ?’
    ‘Sorry?’
    ‘Has your mother left?’
    ‘Oh. Yes.’
    ‘Very good-looking in a distraite sort of way, I gather. Jermyn quite fancied her. Is there a small, thin girl sitting cross legged, intent on a book?’
    ‘Yes.’
    ‘That’ll be her. Jermyn’s having a brief crisis about her sexuality. She’s the only girl – sorry, Jermyn, woman – in this burrow. But next door there are eight to be reckoned with. You’ve got desk four.’ He tapped rapidly along the desks, counting. ‘That’s this one, and this’ – he tapped the shelf above – ‘is your shelf and no one’s allowed to touch either on pain of severe rejection. Sorry I’m talking so much so fast, but I’ve got to go and play the organ for a bit.’
    ‘That’s all right,’ said Crispin.
    ‘Glad you approve. Now this,’ said David, producing a battered, pink-bound notebook, ‘is the key to our relationship. It’s the Lingua – well it’s a sort of Reader’s Digest version for beginners – and you’ve got to learn it all in three weeks. You’ll pick up quite a lot by necessity because everyone’ll be speaking it at you, but some of the rare stuff’s a bit harder. The house rules are in there too. Scholars have different ones from everyone else because we’re so special. If you fail the exam I don’t get let out on the first exeat and if you pass – when you pass, rather – you can buy me a box of after-dinner mints. Now I must fly. Have I forgotten anything?’
    ‘Gowns,’ said Jermyn, nose still in her book.
    ‘God yes. Thanks, Jermyn dear. Gowns. There’s a gown parade in the piggery – that’s the dining hall – at six. As you’re new you just stand to one side. An old sweetie called Dr Feltran inspects all our gowns for wear and tear and then he’ll notice you and issue you with yours. It’s on the house but you pay for repairs and you give it back when you leave. There’s a dinky