Update, you say? OK. Just - that whole 'chapters successively shorter' thing - not really happening with this one. Oh well. And also, I should take the opportunity to warn you that I realised I was being really coy about the slash, so this part of the story contains a moderate amount of sex and you oughtn't to read it if you are inappropriately young / averse to such base acts.

The title is from Eliot's The Wasteland, in reference to a corpse planted in a garden.


At defessa labore membra postquam
semimortua lectulo iacebant,
hoc, iucunde, tibi poema feci,
ex quo perspiceres meum dolorem.
Nunc audax cave sis, precesque nostras,
oramus, cave despuas, ocelle,
ne poenas Nemesis reposcat a te.
Est vemens dea: laedere hanc caveto.

But the half dead limbs were lying on the couch
after having been exhausted by work,
at this time, delightful one, I made poems for you,
from which you may recognize my anguish.
Now, beware that you may be daring, and I beg,
beware that you may reject our prayers, little jewel,
lest Nemesis demands punishment from you,
she is a violent goddess, you shall beware to harm her.
- Catallus 50

Yet half a beast is the great god Pan,

To laugh as he sits by the river,

Making a poet out of a man:

The true gods sigh for the cost and pain—

For the reed which grows nevermore again

As a reed with the reeds in the river.
- Elizabeth Barrett Browning, A Musical Instrument


He would look across the Common Room, to see the mysterious head on its frail neck bent low over his Latin – Catallus, and unbeknownst to Hutchinson the poem currently being decanted from one linguistic vessel to another concerned the poet's friendship with Calvus, a fact perhaps ironic and certainly apt in light of the dark boy's musings – and would feel a quite diabolical sort of hatred welling up in him. However he tried to tell himself that it was because he couldn't stand someone who snivelled so and was so very affected, who lagged behind everyone else and had a habit of making an irritating wounded face when confronted with his perfidy, he knew that this was not quite true. But he did not analyse it. Why analyse it? Pointless. One ought to be friends with certain sorts of people; one ought not to be friends with certain other sorts of people. One certainly ought not to befriend a younger boy, because people would talk and often did – if the walls of Farringham School were not quite moist with the sighs of lovers trysting in the stairwells, they certainly contained boys often incapable of preventing themselves from striking up fanciful Hellenic friendships with others their junior, and a fair number frustrated enough by the absence of interaction with females to become discreet givers and receivers of rough and perfunctory sexual favours within the acceptable bounds of their own year. Hutchinson was not a romantic. He wasn't capable of hallucinating some mystical pseudo-Platonic bond with a boy whose laziness he despised; and if he was sometimes so hobbled by his own anatomy as to need a quick hand, he certainly wouldn't look to that particular hand, with its bitten nails and inkstained knuckles.

Latimer looked up and Hutchinson looked away.

"Baines is taking an awfully long time," Hutchinson said, by way of subterfuge.

"Yes sir," said Latimer, and these two syllables carried the connotation that Baines was a bumbling idiot incapable of finding his arsehole with both hands and a candle. Didn't they? Hutchinson thought they did.


Tim rolled over. Eleanor was kissing him with her customary violence and he was glad. In the moonlight he saw the harsh blaze of white skin against black feathers. Hutchinson's hands gripped him and he felt his companion's stubbled face rasp on his. Winter passed in a cold burst of feathers. Now Martha, the diffuse glow of moonlight on dark skin, less violence, she was maternal, almost guiltily he sought to see if he agreed with Hutchinson's analysis. Summer, high summer, burning sun. The bag felt so tightly tied around his neck. Hutchinson's hands rolled him over again. Very well. It usually went this way. Then autumn, and everything weighed down with ripe fruit. He watched them come across the fields with scythes. He watched the crows scatter before him. He began to feel suffocated. He felt a weight pressing down on him, like the marble hand of God crushing him against the earth. He scrabbled at the string, and began hurriedly unwinding it, all the while feeling his consciousness slipping away. Before his eyes he saw the bare field, divested of its gold, but now there were no longer headless rows of corn but gaping shell holes, silent and mundane, no writhing corpses, only awful emptiness, and the crows came to land in the holes. He wanted to cry out. He tore the bag from his face and gulped down air. The headboard was in front of him. He felt his flesh entwined with someone else's and turned awkwardly to look over his shoulder. Baines was blushing furiously. "I thought you were awake," he stuttered. "Your eyes were open, you were talking. Did I hurt you? Please stay. Please."


Hutchinson's dislike of Eleanor was rapidly scaling new and angry peaks. He was holding her arm very tightly. "Listen," he spat into her ear, "it doesn't matter to me one whit that you want to go sneaking around in people's houses and stealing their property and making up wild lies – but my wife, despite your best efforts, is as yet sane, and I could do without your sending her into hysterics with stupid ghost stories." He knew he was holding her arm tightly enough to really hurt her, but she didn't flinch, and so he kept squeezing. She looked at him with half-lidded eyes, as though she could not be bothered to pay him full attention. Would anyone really miss her if he were to strangle her to death?

Jane ran back into the room. She had been doing that all morning – running about. It was ridiculous. She was a grown woman, however childlike her mind. It had started the night before, of course. She had come in looking distracted and upset somehow. When he had asked her, she had said nothing was the matter. Then at dinner, she had started talking about the Spiritualists and insisting that they go, which he assumed to be the usual blather, until he looked at her and saw her cheeks burning red. She had a fever. She began to gibber. He put her to bed, had cook make her hot drinks and the maid bring hot water bottles. She needed to sweat it out, he knew, but thus swaddled she began to take on almost a demonic aspect. Some of her blonde hair stood up, as if with static. "It's quite alright," she said. "I have a big enough heart to feed everyone." He ignored this. "It's quite alright that you don't love me," she said.

At this he stopped reading his book, somewhat guiltily. "Why do you say that?" he asked. "Of course I love you, Janet."

"L'on dit q'amors est dolce chose, but I'll still wear your favour, though you give me nothing but pain. And – there was a hunt, a white hart with nine tines that turned into a black hen and then a hissing snake and then a bar of iron."

"Oh, for God's sake." And he had gone down to the library to scowl at the volumes of history, family history, stupid little scraps that stretched back to the Normans, and wondered if he dared take a torch to them and solve all of this in one fell swoop.

The next morning her temperature had plunged back to the normal level. She seemed bright-eyed and clear and less talkative, though she would keep darting about. He told her not to leave the house, and went into the village to church.

When he returned, Eleanor was there. She said very little to him, but while they had tea she took something out of her pocket and began to play with it. When he saw what it was, he slammed his cup angrily down onto the table reflexively. "Where did you get that?" he said, in his calmest voice.

Open, close, click. "Guess."

"Tim gave it you?"

"Not quite." Open, close. Open, close. Click. Click. Open. He snatched it from her hand, at which point she feigned shock. He looked at its face, still at one minute past the hour, forever stopped.

"We went to Timothy's house," Jane said cheerfully, "and you'll never guess what we found, darling. We found clothes from Farringham."

"Whatever do you mean?"

"A uniform. It smelled like death – which is why, incidentally, people don't come back to life." He thought that was still the delirium talking, but had he examined the book by her bedside he would have found it to be a collection of tales of the Miwok Indians. "And it was far too big for little Timothy, we thought, and there had been the most tremendous banging, you ought to have heard it."

Eleanor said nothing as Jane continued to talk, only sat and smiled smugly at him.


When they shot the scarecrows, Hutchinson first felt that dark pulse hid beneath his own. He was not sure whether to be proud of it or not. It seemed, on the one hand, like a grown man's reaction and not a boy's. At the same time, there was something pagan and nebulous about it that he detested. It was not, he thought, good – not in a Christian sense. It wasn't righteous anger at the destruction of a cruel foe, for he did not know what harm the scarecrows might possibly do him. It was something far more awful. He was shooting at something without a face. He did not fear that he was injuring other human beings, though he knew he must be. He felt instead a sort of dark delight in chaos and ruin. Something inside him wanted to laugh, as they toppled lifelessly to the ground. He felt the great mind of the school in him, the mind made up of all the other minds of all the other boys, and all the soldiers who had fought in Africa, and Nelson's forces, and Marlborough's, and those dim and distant crusaders with their plumes and pennants. It was a delight in chaos so ruthlessly ordered that he himself could not be harmed or diminished by it – it was a beast, kept on a chain, to savage thieves – it was chaos hemmed in by order so perfectly that he did not fear its strength. For a few moments, he ceased to exist, and he was filled brimful with the thundering footsteps of the shadowy regiment, where his own heartbeat ought to have been.

And then he was back, himself once more. The guns had fallen silent, the footsteps were gone – now his own damp heart was beating loudly in his ears. Some of the smaller boys were weeping.

He was not sure whether or not to feel disgusted with his animality, when it transpired that the scarecrows were only rags and straw.


There was a sharp rapping at the door. Tim, grunting slightly with effort, slid out of bed and donned the nearest clothes. He wandered aimlessly downstairs. The rapping continued throughout this. He opened the door.

Hutchinson was on the step, huddling to keep out of the rain that was beginning to fall. He looked exactly as men of his age and class were meant to: neatly clipped moustache, slight touch of premature grey in his dark forelock, eyes a little uneasy, chin up and upper lip resolutely stiff. Tim smiled at the thought that one of his legs was shorter than the other, and he hobbled in ordinary shoes. It was a special vulnerability that only a handful of people knew anything about. He reached sleepily towards Hutchinson's face, but found his hand batted away with embarrassment.

"Dear God man, not even up yet? It's noon," Hutchinson blustered as he stepped over the threshold.

"No, I, I didn't sleep well," Tim muttered, closing the door.

Hutchinson turned to him with a grin and stroked his cheek. "At least you barely have to worry about shaving."

Tim spluttered but was pleased. "Oh, leave off. That joke is out-dated by seven or so years."

"Four. I know you didn't shave regularly until towards the end of the war because I used to help myself to your razor."

Tim went through to make tea and Hutchinson followed him. He stood anxiously by the table. Tim motioned for him to sit down, but Hutchinson shook his head and cleared his throat. "I say," he said hesitantly, "it's the silliest thing – it really is damned ridiculous – only Jane came home in quite a state yesterday, and then today your fiancée came to dinner and the subject came up…"

They waited. "What subject?" Tim asked.

Hutchinson was looking at the floor, with a congested expression on his face. "They say they came here, sneaking around, God knows why, and they found –"

There was a creak from the doorway. Hutchinson started back. He looked from Baines to Tim. Baines was rubbing his eyes with his open palm, clad in sloppy jumper and pyjama trousers, seventeen years old, alive.

"Christ," Hutchinson said, unable to think of anything else to say.

"Hello," Baines said mournfully. "I see you grew up too."


Tim dreamed of Africa. It seemed that everything pointed that way. Everyone's fathers and uncles went to Africa. Everyone's fathers and uncles had fought in Africa. He sensed it out there, beyond the walls and the windows, the courtyard, drill and shooting, the fields, the sea. He had not yet had the revelation that would make him realise that Africa would likely remain a forbidden land to him – that for his generation, and for the Empire and for Europe, the next century would point inwards. So he dreamed of Africa. He had been planning to ask Martha, the maid, about it, only something told him she would not take it terribly kindly. Besides which, he ought not to talk to her anyway. And besides which, he was frightened of her because she was a girl and possessed most of the things that currently fascinated the boys. He fidgeted. The other boys were asleep, but from the next room there came a long, low wail. He didn't jump. He had seen spectres, but this was not one. He knew without needing to make sure that it was the younger Jenkins, crying for his mother, and Tim thought that if he possessed such an older brother as the elder Jenkins, he would probably be crying for his mother too.

There was a thought. He might cry for his mother – he tried, and nothing came.

The wailing continued. This gave the whole building the mournful quality of a medieval abbey.

He was falling asleep now. The thoughts were mingling. Martha, Africa, fathers, mothers, baby brothers crying. He thought dimly of the conversation overheard between Hutchinson and Baines. He knew that if they were caught sneaking back in, somehow he would end up being punished for it, although he was curious as to how exactly they would skew things to ensure this. Thinking of this, he got up suddenly and went to the window. He looked back nervously over his shoulder. No one was awake.

Outside, he was sure he could hear a low growling. He was not frightened, only curious. He laid one arm across the length of the sill; the other he used to prop up his head. Between the dim lamplight of the entrance and the few rooms whose occupants were still untouched by sleep, and the bright moonlight, he could see really quite clearly. There was something happening just out of sight. Growling, and giggling. He was about to crane his head to get a closer look when he saw two familiar shapes dart across the bright ground. He ducked slightly, so that only the top of his head and his eyes appeared above the sill. They were not even trying particularly to be quiet, which didn't bode well. They had obviously drinking, and this meant that their chances of being caught and Tim's chances of being cast in the role of burnt offering had increased significantly.

"I suppose it's sort of funny," said the one voice, a kind of nasal drawl, "that you made that joke about Beanpole, and then you couldn't…"

"Shut up," hissed a second, lower, voice. "She was hideous."

"I could still do it."

"Because you don't have standards. Your knob doesn't have standards. You freak."

Then two dark shapes flitted into the protective shade of the wall.

"I can help you…"

"What on earth do you – stop that!"

Then there was a sort of stifled grunt.

"You see. It's really easy."

"Shut up, Baines."

Then there was a sigh, and a chuckle, and the angry voice said, "Don't come so close to me. No, I mean, put your hand back, yes, there. Don't put your face so close to me."

"Just imagine it's Latimer."

"Shut up! Oh."

There wasn't any more talking for quite a while, only stifled groaning. And then there was a sort of a gasp, and another chuckle.

"My hand's all dirty."

"Well, don't wipe it on me!"

"It's yours! What am I supposed to do with it?"

"You're disgusting. Disgusting. Let's get back. And you're not to tell anyone about this."

"Ohh, I was going to boast to everyone!"

Just as they were about to sneak back, the giggling resumed, and then a loud growl was heard. Tim had been slumping down tiredly, but drew himself up, the better to see.

"Oh stop it, stop it, Saul," a woman's voice simpered. The growling grew fiercer still. She squealed.

"I say," Hutchinson snapped, "who goes there?"

Suddenly the growling stopped, and the feminine voice said, "Is that one of the boys? What are you doing out at this time? I s'll tell the headmaster."

"It's that maid, isn't it?" Hutchinson guessed. "I forget your name. But you're the fat one, the loud one. And I could ask you the same question."

"Now look here," Saul snapped, and he advanced towards them so that Tim saw his form break momentarily free of the shadow, "you've got no right to say such a thing…"

Tim had seen the gardener with the maid, whose name, he recalled, was Jenny. He liked these occasional glimpses. If he were going around to the back of the school in order to be able to read some Montaigne or some Bayle, he might catch a glimpse of Jenny standing at the kitchen door, pretending to be helping cook, while Saul stood with his cap in his hands and said things that Tim couldn't hear but guessed were probably gently lewd jokes. It seemed the way that people were meant to develop and to grow, instead of being corralled into horrid little regiments and bombarded with God and war and not much else.

At the same time, he knew that the reason Hutchinson found it so repugnant was that he really didn't like women very much at all. It was hilarious, really, that they had to read the ancients in expurgated versions. What did the Latin master fear? That they might learn even more sophisticated methods of relieving themselves? Tim knew, and he knew that even knowing it put him on a very lonely precipice above the others, that in order to train boys for war, you must constantly frustrate them physically. That's what war was, he thought. The roar of blood that had nowhere left to circulate, and instead clouded men's eyes with red mist and made their tongues thick and heavy and their minds unyielding. Drill was a kind of magic that dissolved the individual in a great sea, and as such was a very good substitute for dance. Dance would only make them happy and indolent.


Tim felt that his heart was not merely beating but vibrating at an impossible speed, a magical frequency. Now there would be revelations, for all the little winding roads had met: Hutchinson had discovered Baines, the Spiritualists were imminent, and Joan Redfern almost certainly – no, certainly, certainly – had the Doctor as her houseguest. He watched as Hutchinson stared at the boy, who became uncomfortable and fidgeted.

"This is impossible," Hutchinson said, with a dry mouth, though this was perfunctory – he said it because he felt he ought to, and both he and Tim knew this. Tim's only reply was to shrug and gesture with one hand, a gesture that meant "And yet…"

Hutchinson scrutinised Tim. He knew, had known since he had met him, that Tim did not fit into the world. He had been a really insufferable child, with a look of such aloofness about him that he was nearly impossible to like. Yet Hutchinson had liked, and with what was actually great sensitivity on his part, he rejected this as impossible and incongruous, and decided to go out of his way to make life difficult for Tim as compensation. Then there had been all the business with Beanpole and the scarecrows, which Hutchinson still did not fully understand. He only knew that ridiculous things happened around Tim, things that in any other instance would be impossible.

The stolen child padded across the floor and sat down at the table, not taking his eyes from Hutchinson. Tim continued making the tea. The silence filled the room like smoke.

Hutchinson felt the need to create some order within the situation. "Why isn't he dressed?"

"I haven't anything that fits him," Tim said, setting the cups down on the table.

"I'll bring something, then. You can't have him lolling about like this."

"What will you do?"

"I don't know yet." Tim poured the tea. "But you must do something."

"I will."

"Because… it's disgusting," Hutchinson said, and Baines blinked at him in surprise. Tim too looked up, and Hutchinson raised his hand slowly towards his mouth to cover it, but instead let it drop calmly to his side. He couldn't quite place his revulsion – it was wordless, but it made his skin crawl. It was immoral, really, for Baines to exist. It was not right. It was like an unpleasant smell.

"Perhaps take him to – whatever it is at the hall, the séance or table-turning or what-have-you."

"Yes, I thought of that."

"Well then," Hutchinson said quickly, "I must go."

"No!" cried Tim, "you mustn't! It's awful out there, look."

And indeed the rain was lashing down now. But Hutchinson shook his head. "I can't stay. I can't stay here. I'll bring the clothes for you. Jane wanted to go anyway. We'll get this sorted out. Good bye."

Normally Tim would have embraced him, but Hutchinson turned abruptly and left the room. After a moment, the door slammed. Tim looked at Baines, who put his head in his hands and moaned, "He isn't even pleased to see me. I say, do you think it is me?"

He didn't raise his head as he said it. Tim did not say that he had felt just as Hutchinson had, at least to begin with. "I think it is you," he said softly, unsure whether he was lying or not. "I certainly don't think you mean any harm."


They were going to lose their respective virginities. It had to be done. There was no point being cooped up in here, losing one's mind, when outside there was a veritable torrent of the stuff waiting to be had. Although Hutchinson tried not to think too hard about the exact details, Baines and Baxter had been poring over a medical textbook acquired by Jenkins major, sniggering at clinical depictions of the vulva. Hutchinson didn't want to look at it. It was too much like a grotesque mouth. They had laid this side by side with Rubens' Three Graces (also repulsive to Hutchinson, all that mountainous flesh). They were terribly excited. Hutchinson tried to pretend that he too was terribly excited, and not merely rather nauseous. Jenkins had procured someone for them. Hutchinson did not have great hopes of a milk-white neck or golden curls. (In actual fact, when he had a private moment, he did not conjure up either of these things to amuse him, but rather the dark skin and hair of the maid from London)

Night fell by increments. They crept from their beds. All the way into town there was much posturing and bravado, boasts of anticipated longevity and ability, coarse threats, bursts of braying laughter. Hutchinson suspected that the others' nerves all jangled as horribly as did his, only they would not admit it. It seemed to him a slightly degraded thing to be paying for it, but never mind. It had to be done. Baines had a half-bottle of whisky that he had stolen from the gardener earlier that day, which they all passed around and swigged from.

The house was at the end of the High Street, just past the butcher's shop. The smell of blood and sawdust made Hutchinson rather sick, and he was glad that it was dark enough that the others could not see his face. Jenkins knocked, and the door opened. They did not catch sight of the woman's face, as Jenkins immediately fell into conversation with her, and she went up the stairs ahead of him. But they could all hear her voice, broad Norfolk, and for the first time they all fell silent.

Upstairs was a room that sloped at one end like a garret, and this portion was curtained off. There were four chairs and a table, at which Jenkins and Hutchinson and Baines sat, while Baxter disappeared behind the curtain with the briefly glimpsed but large-rumped woman. Jenkins took from his pocket a pack of playing cards, and dealt them.

Hutchinson forced himself to play.

"I say," Baines said, with a smirk, "are you quite alright? Better not be getting cold feet."

"It isn't his feet he need worry about," Jenkins quipped, and then spluttered with laughter.

Baines laughed nasally. Jenkins was the only one amongst them to have lain with a woman, several in fact, all paid ladies purchased by a kindly uncle, and he spoke little of it and had the calculating look of the experienced rogue. Baines had once got his finger into the moist orifice of a second cousin during a summer game of sardines, and talked about it continually and sometimes quite loudly. Hutchinson did not talk, which allowed the other boys to draw their own conclusions; thankfully, they seemed to have surmised that he knew exactly what he was doing, due perhaps to the fact of his brooding physical presence.

There was some audible and embarrassing grunting and yowling from behind the curtain. After a surprisingly short while, Baxter appeared, looking pale and drained. Baines was next. Then Hutchinson drew the curtain aside and entered into the creature's lair, trying not to show just how apprehensive he was.

She was lying on a rickety little bed, fully clothed but somewhat flushed. Hutchinson saw how old she was, how wrinkled her hands, the grey in her hair. Her skirt was hoisted up around her waist – vainly did he avert his eyes, a moment too late. It was her eyes that he loathed worst of all. They were servile, unconscious eyes – had they even shown any sign of pain or displeasure, he might have been equal to the task. As it was, he turned on his heel and left.


Confusingly, in the war there were both emotions – there was the familiar feeling, the sound of all the many pounding feet of his predecessors, the great dark unconscious delight – and at the same time, disgust, pure and simple. He was disgusted at seeing other human beings die. He discovered this almost with surprise, that to see men bleeding and screaming had some impact upon him even if they were his enemies. Worst of all, he began to see that he was not like other soldiers, who might subconsciously bungle and shoot to miss. Hutchinson almost never missed, though he understood now the implications of his actions. He supposed that this made him a monster. When he told Tim this, one evening when they were safely behind the line, Tim smiled sadly at him and said, "Oh no, I think that's true heroism." "But it's ghastly." "Yes. But it's what heroism amounts to."