The Broken Chariot Read Online Free PDF

take the advice of Phoebus Apollo and ask for a different wish – and he thinks of so many now that this had gone wrong – yet he exults in the glory of what he had become, and in the catastrophe he had provoked, accepting the change from nonentity to immortal charioteer, though it had cost him his life.

Three
    Summer went on tramlines, winter on bumpy tracks. Every day after Christmas was endless and onerous, classrooms pungent with the stink of mildewed wood and damp wallpaper. Herbert knew something was wrong, that the life he was living was no life at all, so that when daffodils along the pathways opened into cups of brilliant yellow he told himself in the cold showers one morning after a run that he’d had enough.
    Dominic responded in the one sure way to encourage him. ‘You’ll end up in awful trouble. You’re bound to get caught.’
    Days were dragging by so ponderously he knew that when looking back on them it would seem as if they had gone quickly. A spot of table tennis in the games room didn’t help. ‘I won’t be. I’d rather die than stay in this prison camp. In fact I have to go before I do die.’
    â€˜I’ll miss you, then.’
    â€˜Same here.’ His compass for the escape came out of a Christmas cracker, and though the north point took minutes to settle it would have to do. He stole keys to certain doors, and knew how to open windows which were supposed to be locked; in any case there were so many that not all of them could be. His bag of essentials was concealed under an evergreen bush in the wood, wrapped against the wet in an anti-gas cape purloined from the cadet stores. Eight pound notes folded in half thickened his wallet.
    â€˜Can I come with you?’
    â€˜Keep your damned voice down, and serve.’
    â€˜I’ll be no trouble. Curse it, I missed!’
    â€˜A person only has a chance to get clean away if he’s by himself.’ Herbert was sorry he’d told him. ‘Do it later, if you like.’
    â€˜I’ll be no good without you.’
    â€˜Oh, stop whining, or I’ll give you a bloody nose. Just remember me to Rachel.’
    â€˜She doesn’t care about you. She thinks you’re stuck up. She wrote it in a letter.’
    â€˜So much the worse for her.’ He put an arm on Dominic’s shoulder, then took it away in case anyone else came in. ‘Let’s pack up this stupid game.’
    â€˜What about your parents?’ Dominic believed he was trying to live out one of his fantasies. ‘Have you thought of them?’
    â€˜You must be crackers.’ He couldn’t find the right tone, so shaped his most effective sneer. ‘Haven’t seen them in years. I even forget what they look like.’
    â€˜They’ll be very cut up.’
    He certainly hoped so. ‘Serve ’em right. I’ll bump into you one day, I expect.’
    Seeing him unassailable, Dominic promised to turn Nelson’s blind eye on his escapade, wished him good luck, and, fatuously, hoped they wouldn’t recapture him before reaching neutral territory.
    Wearing plimsolls, and boots around his neck, he went after midnight into the headmaster’s study and found his Identity Card in the alphabetical file, heartbeats calm, steady fingers following his flashlight’s beam.
    The main door, daunting and heavily studded, was unbolted, but even so he slid up the library window without it squeaking and went over the sill. Good field craft enabled him to reach the outer fence, where he used a rope hidden behind a greenhouse cloche to scale the wall in the best Caged Birds tradition.
    Darkness made him feel more than usually cold, though his battle-dress was buttoned and scarf well folded inside. Under cover of the wood he pulled on his boots, laced them well, and put the plimsolls under his arm. He had counted the paces in from a certain post so as to find the bush which covered his few possessions