To Say Nothing of the Dog Read Online Free PDF

tell her right now the source of my anxiety, which was not undue, if she’d only listen, which wasn’t likely. And fierce though she was, she was no match for Lady Schrapnell.
    I couldn’t stay here. When you have a scan, they strap you into a long enclosed tube for an hour and a half and communicate with you by microphone. I could hear Lady Schrapnell’s voice booming at me through the earphones, “There youare. Come out of that contraption immediately!”
    I couldn’t stay here, and I couldn’t go back to my rooms. They were the first place she’d look. Perhaps I could find somewhere in the infirmary and sleep long enough to be able to think clearly what to do.
    Mr. Dunworthy, I thought. If anyone could find me somewhere quiet and unlikely to hide, it would be Mr. Dunworthy. I put the paper gown, somewhat soot-smudged, back in the drawer, tugged on my boots, and climbed out the window.
    Balliol was just down the Woodstock Road from Infirmary, but I didn’t dare risk it. I went round to the ambulance entrance, up to Adelaide and through a yard to Walton Street. If Somerville was open, I could cut through its quad to Little Clarendon and down Worcester to the Broad, and come in through Balliol’s back gate.
    Somerville was open, but the journey took a good deal longer than I thought it would, and when I did reach the gate, something had happened to it. It had been twisted in on itself, and the ironwork scrolls had been bent into prongs and hooks and points, which kept catching on my coveralls.
    At first I thought it was bomb damage, but that couldn’t be right. The Luftwaffe was supposed to hit London tonight. And the gate, including prongs and points, had been painted a bright green.
    I tried sidling through crabwise, but the epaulet on my non-AFS uniform caught on one of the hooks, and when I tried to back out, I got even more entangled. I flailed about wildly, trying to free myself.
    “Let me help you there, sir,” a polite voice said, and I turned around, as much as I was able, and saw Mr. Dunworthy’s secretary.
    “Finch,” I said. “Thank God you’re here. I was just coming to see Mr. Dunworthy.”
    He unhooked the epaulet and took hold of my sleeve. “This way, sir,” he said, “no, not that way, through here, that’s it. No, no, this ways,” and led me, finally, to freedom.
    But on the same side I’d been when I started. “This is no good, Finch,” I said. “We’ve still got to get through that gate into Balliol.”
    “That’s Merton, sir,” he said. “You’re on their playing fields.”
    I turned and looked where he was pointing. Finch was right. There was the soccer field, and beyond it the cricket ground, and beyond that, in Christ Church Meadow, the scaffolding-and-blue-plastic-covered spire of Coventry Cathedral.
    “How did Balliol’s gate get here?” I said.
    “This is Merton’s pedestrian gate.”
    I squinted at the gate. Right again. It was a turnstile gate, designed to keep bicycles out.
    “The nurse said you were time-lagged, but I had no idea . . . No, this way.” He took hold of my arm and propelled me along the path.
    “The nurse?” I said.
    “Mr. Dunworthy sent me over to Infirmary to fetch you, but you’d already left,” he said, guiding me between buildings and out onto the High. “He wants to see you, though what use you’ll be to him in your condition I can’t quite see.”
    “He wants to see me?” I said, confused. I had thought I was the one who wanted to see him. I thought of something else. “How did he know I was in Infirmary?”
    “Lady Schrapnell phoned him,” he said, and I dived for cover.
    “It’s all right,” Finch said, following me into the shop doorway I’d ducked into. “Mr. Dunworthy told her you’d been taken to the Royal Free Hospital in London. It’ll take her at least half an hour to get there.” He pulled me forcibly out of the doorway and across the High. “Personally, I think he should have told her you’d been taken