'Bloody hell! Our Geoff's in love! He's got himself a girlfriend! That's what it is! Ha, ha, ha!'

'Shut up, Harries. Don't be so bloody vulgar.'

'Shut up yourself, Jacko. Anyway, it's true. Geoff's got a tart! He's a lovestruck loon; that's what he is!'

Harries was an obnoxious twerp, but I thought it very likely that, in this case at least, he was right. My friend Geoffrey had been behaving a little… oddly recently. Not that I was going to admit it to Harries. What a silly little man he was! All puffed up with pride just because he'd won his sergeant's stripes in the war, and been in the invasion force on D-Day. Didn't he realise that that was eight years ago now? The war was over. There was peace - a dangerous phoney sort of peace, with America and the Soviet Union glaring at each other across the Atlantic Ocean, armed with horribly deadly weapons of mass destruction, and us, Little England, stuck in the middle and feeling as if we were everyone's target. All the same, it was peace of a kind.

I knew - because he had once told me in an indiscreet and not altogether sober moment - that Geoffrey Thurslow's contribution to winning the war had been infinitely greater than Sergeant Harries could ever guess; but I would never tell anyone else and neither would Geoffrey. Not all civilians were shirkers, as anyone who gave it a moment's thought would realise, and not all fighters necessarily wore blue or khaki.

Harries banged his way out of the Staff Room, leaving me its only occupant. I had a free period coming up, and should be getting on with marking 5B's essays on "What were the chief reasons for the execution of Charles I?" especially as I wanted some free time this evening to visit the cinema. They were showing Genevieve that week. I reached for the pile of grey-green exercise books with a sigh. At the top of the heap was Clerestory Minor's opus. I groaned in anticipation, picked up the grubby book and searched its thumb-marked pages for the essay in question. It began:

Charles 1 was too busy having fun to rule the country properly. He wanted Ship Money. My father says he had a mistress who sold oranges, her name was Nelly Gwynne and he was very fond of her and didn't let her starve but Cromwell and the Roundheads…

I put it down with a sigh. Where could I possibly begin; apart from drawing attention to the fact that the idiot boy had got his Tudor and Stuart kings mixed up, that he had obviously paid no attention to what I was trying to teach him and that he had better try again? I would have to have a quiet word with his housemaster.

I could not possibly face the task of reading another such effort if it were to be along the same lines as Clerestory Minor's. It would only drive home to me the fact that I was not doing as well as I might when it came to dinning the facts of English History into the heads of a class of fifteen year olds who had not the slightest interest in the subject. It was wretched work sometimes. My only consolation was that I was not the only schoolmaster at The Vale who was encountering difficulties at the moment. We teachers love to complain about our lot - spending our lives trying to convey precious knowledge to a crowd of adolescent philistines who are much more interested in rugger or cricket than the mysteries of the structure of the carbon molecule, or the poems of Ovid, or the foundation of the East India Company. It is the same for the other professions too, no doubt. But there was something… something in the air that was distracting the pupils and us and making it harder than usual to concentrate on our studies.

I stood up and crossed over to the window. It was propped open, serving the dual purpose of letting the fuggy, tobacco-laden air of the Staff Room out and the heady scents of the school gardens in. It was, and had been for the past three weeks, the most beautiful English summer imaginable. Soon, indeed, it would be Midsummer's Day and a perfect June would reach its glorious zenith. But there was more than simply the perfume of summer in the air, although that was fine enough - the flowers in the carefully-tended beds outside the window, the fragrance of new-cut grass drifting over from Cricket Bigside where Haynes was preparing the square for the First Eleven's match against our rivals from Marlborough. Leaning out, my hands on the window-sill, I breathed deeply and felt the essence of summertime flowing into my lungs, infusing my blood with a tingling urge to go, to be, to do. Even more than that, there was something else, which I can only describe as a heightening of physical and spiritual desire. I wanted to love. I wanted... I desired to become close to somebody; to lie next to her in a soft bed, or on a high eyrie perched at the top of the world, and to share my longings with her. I had not experienced such yearnings since I had been half my present age; just a boy. These feelings were coming close to overwhelming me, that summer. I often found that I was murmuring AE Housman's words of sweet nostalgia to myself:

When I was one-and-twenty
I heard a wise man say,
‘Give crowns and pounds and guineas
But not your heart away;
Give pearls away and rubies
But keep your fancy free.’
But I was one-and-twenty
No use to talk to me.

When I was one-and-twenty
I heard him say again,
‘The heart out of the bosom
Was never given in vain;
’Tis paid with sighs a plenty
And sold for endless rue.’
And I am two-and-twenty,
And oh, ’tis true, ’tis true.

If I, "Jack" Jackson, a celibate thirty-two year old history master at a minor Public School in the South of England, felt this sensuous urge so strongly, what must it have it been doing to the boys in my charge whose blood was seething and bubbling in their veins, hot from the springs of youth? How could they bear to be confined so - in dormitories and classrooms, laboratories, studies and cloisters? How could they give their full attention to the desiccated tasks and arid disciplines of the school syllabus, when all their instincts must have been pleading with them; begging that they be allowed to rush out into the verdant air, and run, and swim, and swoop, and fly and search, search, search for somebody to adore? No wonder they were unsettled. I certainly was.

And so might Geoffrey be; even he. For all his tweedy devotion to the study of his beloved Latin and Greek, for all his impassioned desire to keep those beautiful old languages alive in his heart and in his pupils' hearts, there had to be a part of Geoffrey, I knew, which lived in other spheres than those occupied by the poetry of Virgil and the plays of Aristophanes, and which wished for more earthly joys than the contemplation of a perfect iambic pentameter could afford him.

For Harries, coarse and objectionable though he might be, was no fool, and he was shrewd enough to notice that Geoffrey's manner was more distracted than usual, and in a different way. There were none of us who hadn't at some time or another been cannoned into in the corridors or quadrangles by Geoffrey, walking fast with his head down, lips moving as he recited some piece of Latin verse to himself; or tried to carry a yard-high pile of books from the Master's Lodge to his classroom. But at least when this happened Geoffrey, covered with confusion and embarrassment would stammer his apologies and, more likely than not I, or whoever it was, would go down on our knees and help him to pick up his things. That was the old Geoffrey. The new Geoffrey wandered about in a random fashion, often with his hands clasped behind his back and a curiously absent expression on his face. His eyes, I remember, often seemed to be out of focus; as if he were seeing the world at a greater or lesser distance than the rest of us. Harries had seen this before in other men - so had I, for all that - and he recognised the symptoms. So did I; or so I thought I did.

Was Geoffrey affected by the same sensations that we all felt? That the world was out there, waiting expectantly for us, breathlessly hoping that we would run to it and embrace it? Did he too hear the call of woods and hills, streams and valleys, entreating him to leave his house of brick and stone and make his bowered home in their nestling folds? Or was it, as Harries said with a knowing leer, just a woman?

It was quite impossible for me to ask my old friend directly, of course. I would have to use my eyes and ears instead. You may say it was none of my business, but a boarding school is a funny place and things work differently here. It's a closed world, an environment where the pace of life is usually slow and steady but where emotions, denied an external release, often flare up very rapidly, only to die down again just as quickly. In such a confined place it's not possible to keep a secret for long.

'Hang it!' I said (Hang Whitewash! Hang Spring Cleaning! said the voice of the Mole in my childhood memories.) I climbed through the staff room window and out onto the lawn beyond, risking damaging the nasturtiums which bordered rankly against the wall. 'And Hang Marking!' I said as loudly as I dared. The Head's study was nearby.

'You should be careful where you say that kind of thing.'

I turned round with a start. It was Geoffrey, sitting with his back to the wall and holding a small book which he stuffed hastily into the pocket of his flannels as I approached.

'I've got a free period. I can hang anyone or anything I like! What're you up to, anyway? Have 3B all gone down with the measles?'

'Yes,' said Geoffrey with a satisfied grin. 'They're sick unto death; every last one of the little beasts. I've packed them all off to the San.'

'Good idea!' I said, but felt an inner disquiet all the same. This was not the man I knew - conscientious and scholarly. What could have happened?

'Was there any particular reason why you decided to strike them all down with the plague?'

'They weren't listening to me. Why should I talk to them? And look!' Geoffrey waved his hand. 'Who'd want to stay inside on a day like this?'

'Won't they fall behind with their work?'

'No more than your marking will fall behind. Go on, Jack! Sit down.'

I sat down. Geoffrey turned to me with a mock-serious look on his face. 'That's better. Take it easy for a while. Admit it - don't you sometimes find yourself thinking there must be more to all this than… all this? Don't you know what I mean?'

'I'm not sure that I do.'

'I mean books and chalk dust and horrible smelly little boys and blackboards and endless, endless talking. We don't listen enough; do you know that, Jack?'

'We talk, they listen. That's the way it is.'

'But there's so much to hear. If we would only learn to be silent for once and listen, we'd be able to hear so much. We've forgotten that.'

I said nothing. I wondered what books he had been reading that had made him talk like this. What was in the volume he had slipped so surreptitiously into his trousers when he saw me approach? Surely it could be nothing improper. I could not believe that Geoffrey would ever consider reading anything that was smutty or inappropriate.

We sat comfortably side by side letting the sun warm us, not speaking but listening as Geoffrey had suggested. After a while, I began to see what he had meant. Now that the sounds of our voices had ceased, there were other things to hear - a distant car climbing the hill out of Wantage, the whirr of Haynes' mower, the patter of Cuthbert's paws on the new paving slabs outside Fields' House (Cuthbert was the school dog), birdsong, the gentle susurration of the leaves of the plane trees which bordered Cricket Bigside. I was, to be honest, dozing off and so, I am sure, was Geoffrey when our joint reverie was disturbed by Muriel Richards, the new Matron of Fields', who was passing with a load of laundry in her arms.

'Hey, you two lazybones! Don't you have any work to do?'

'No!' we chorused in unison.

'Then you can help me fold these sheets. Come on!'

We climbed to our feet reluctantly, but perhaps not very much so. 'Damn pretty girl,' said Geoffrey under his breath and I was forced to agree with him. Sister Muriel Richards was a very pretty girl indeed. How could it be that I hadn't noticed it before?

Later in the staff room, and only after a certain amount of chaffing, Geoffrey showed me the book that he had been reading.

'The Poetical Works Of Keats! Good heavens! You must be going mad,' I guffawed, uncomfortably aware even as I mocked Geoffrey for his adolescent taste in poetry how much like that oaf Harries I sounded.

'Yes. Why not?' He looked offended. 'It's glorious stuff. I never read it properly before. I've not read any of the Romantic poets properly.'

What could I say? I'd heard him refer to the Lakeland Poets, the Georgians and even the Metaphysicals as fly-by-nights, kid's stuff, silly nonsense, only the previous term when he was trying to persuade me that nothing later than Chaucer was worth reading, let alone teaching.

'It all ended with Beowulf,' he had said. 'Nothing really worth while's been written since then, you know.'

'Shakespeare?' I'd responded, with the air of one who has just trumped his opponent with an especially splendid card.

'"Upstart Crow",' he'd replied, and that was just about that. If Geoffrey was reading the poetry of John Keats and enjoying it, then there was something going on that was very odd indeed.

I did not mean to spy on Geoffrey. But as I have said before, a boarding school is a closely bounded community and it is not easy to keep secrets here. We both had rooms in the Masters' Lodge, where the younger and unmarried members of staff lived rent-free in bedroom-cum-studies and our movements could be easily heard in the uncarpeted corridors and staircases. We were not kept under lock and key, of course. Once we had done our share of extracurricular duties we were as free to come and go as if we had been accountants or motor mechanics. Nevertheless, it was considered unusual for a junior master to stay out late by himself. Forays to the Stag at Bay or the Green Man or any of the other public houses in Wantage were not uncommon, naturally, but we tended to go in groups rather than solitarily.

I was lying in bed - it must have been about half-past-eleven - reading Busman's Honeymoon, by Dorothy L. Sayers. I've always enjoyed mysteries and this was not the first time I'd read this particular story, even though it was, in my opinion, far from being the best of the Lord Peter Wimsey novels. Perhaps it was the fact that Wimsey was married to Harriet Vane by the time the story took place that had spoiled it for me. The original purity had been lost. But now… now it was different and I found that my mind kept straying away from the story to considerations of Muriel Richards. That would never do. She was a colleague, nothing more, and I had no doubt that someone as attractive as her would be sure to have a sweetheart of her own. She would certainly not be interested in a prematurely middle-aged history master with chalk-dust under his fingernails and worn leather patches on the elbows of his sports jacket. I reined in my errant thoughts and returned to my book.

I was disturbed a little later by a loud creak outside my bedroom door. Was it Williams returning from the gym, where he liked to spend his evenings engaged in vigorous exercises with the Indian Clubs? No, the footsteps were going to, rather than from, the staircase which led down to the ground floor. Somebody was going out, then, either from my floor or from the floor above me. That was odd. As it was a weekday the pubs would all be closed by now and the boys would all be locked into their Houses. I could imagine no reason for any master to be anywhere other than safely ensconced in his study or tucked up in bed.

Consumed with curiosity, I got out of bed, crossed to the door of my bedroom and turned out the light. Then I positioned myself by my window and pulled back the curtain a little, so that I could see who it was that was slipping out of the Lodge so late in the evening. My bedroom was located directly over the front door of the building, so that it was not difficult for me to watch people come and go if I chose.

The door creaked open, and a figure stepped out. It was Geoffrey. I was not surprised that it was him, even though he was not the kind of person whom I would previously have considered to be fond of midnight excursions. It was a time when queer things happened, you see. The moon was shining brightly; a waxing crescent, and the last of the day still lingered on the western horizon. I suppressed the impulse to call out. In fact, I felt rather ashamed of myself. What was I doing, peering out of windows and following the comings and going of my friends? I'd be taking notes next and reporting Geoffrey to the authorities, and then some little Hitler would come and ask us horrible and embarrassing questions. Only a few years before we'd fought a terrible war against Germany just so we wouldn't have to live under such conditions now. I turned away, determined to mind my own business, and went back to bed.

Sleep did not come easily. I was waiting, I confess, for Geoffrey's return. What would I do when I heard his feet on the stairs? Open my door and confront him in the passageway? Demand to know what he was up to? Or ignore him and pretend that nothing was happening? After all, if Geoffrey had found himself a lady friend and was making nocturnal visits to her then it was absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with me. I never admitted to myself that I might be jealous. 'Good luck to him!' I'd have said if Harries had suggested it, and slapped on the back; both of us good fellows and men of the world.

So I never knew it when I did finally drift off, and it was not until the next morning, when the sun crept past the curtain that I had carelessly replaced the previous evening and shone directly into my eyes, that I even realised that I had been asleep. It was still very early - about twenty past five by my bedside clock - and I was annoyed to be awake so soon. I climbed out of bed and went to the window, determined to pull the curtain fully closed and give myself the opportunity of another hour or two's rest. As I tugged at the faded blue velvet of which the curtain was made, I looked out of the window and saw Geoffrey closing the garden gate of the Lodge and he, catching the movement of the fabric out of the corner of his eye, saw me looking at him. Damn. That's torn it, I thought. Even though Geoffrey didn't know that I had seen him leave the night before, he most certainly knew that I had seen him return this morning.

I felt most infernally awkward. What should I do? Pretend that nothing had happened? Pass Geoffrey the marmalade at the breakfast table and make my usual remark about the solidity of the boiled eggs which, it being Thursday, would be waiting, clad in knitted egg-cosies, by our tea-cups? I should have known my friend better than that.

Less than a minute later there was a knock on my door and Geoffrey came in, as was his way, without waiting for my "come in". His face was flushed and his hair was in a state of considerable disarray. I put on my dressing gown and sat at my desk. Geoffrey flung himself into my old armchair.

'Geoffrey,' I said, feeling more as if I were addressing a pupil than a master, 'before you say anything, please let me state that you are under no obligation to justify your actions to me, of all people.' Good heavens, why was I speaking in such a foolish stuck-up way?

Geoffrey sat back and ran his fingers through his hair, disarraying it still further. I noticed that his eyes were very bright and that they had turned an extraordinary shade of green. That was funny - what colour were Geoffrey's eyes, anyway?

'Oh don't be daft, Jack. Put the kettle on, there's a good chap. I'm parched.'

There was no question of my going back to bed this morning, I could see. I lit the gas ring, boiled some water, and made tea for us both. I passed a mug over to Geoffrey, who drunk half of it in one gulp despite its being scalding hot.

'Ah! That's better!' He sighed gratefully and sat back in the chair.

'Now, I suppose you want to know where I've been and what I've been up to.'

'Only if you want to tell me. It's nothing to do with me, what you get up to. So long as it's legal, anyway.'

'I promise you, Jack, that I've not been out breaking into peoples' houses, if that's what you mean. Or stealing clothes off their washing lines.'

'No bag of swag concealed in the Second Eleven's pavilion, then.'

'No!' Geoffrey grinned.

'Geoffrey… if you're seeing somebody…'

'Ha! Like that odious little man Harries thinks, you mean?'

'Well… yes, I suppose so.'

'The answer to that is yes. And no.' Geoffrey leaned forward. He spoke softly, so that I had to lean forward too in order to hear him clearly.

'What do you mean?'

'I mean that yes; I have been seeing somebody, or something, and no; it's not the way that Harries thinks it is.'

I had a sudden thought. 'Geoffrey; you've not joined the Freemasons, have you?'

He laughed out loud. 'Jack, you idiot! Of course I've not joined the blasted Freemasons! Can you see me with an apron and trowel?'

'No, I can't. Is it the Hellfire Club, then?'

'Now you're being silly. I happen to know that they're not accepting any new members. No, you're going to have to find out for yourself.'

'What?'

'Come with me and see.'

I hesitated. This all sounded very queer indeed. Whatever it was that Geoffrey had got himself involved with, it was having a powerful effect on him. He was strangely excited, constantly shifting his position in the chair and unable to keep still for very long at a time. His eyes, although they had lost their green lustre, were still dilated and glistening with an unusual brightness.

Drugs, you say, and I cannot say I'm surprised to hear it. Drug abuse was not the problem it was to become in later years, but I was not so naïve that I had not heard of cocaine, heroin and marijuana and I was beginning to suspect that Geoffrey might be dabbling in their use. If so, he was skating on very thin ice indeed.

There were two things I could do. I could report him to the Head, or to the police, and all those unpleasant things I had thought about the night before - arrest, interrogation, trial, sentence and incarceration - might happen to him. Or I could go along with him and find out for myself what was going on. What I could not do was to leave things as they were. My duty was plain - I had to do something.

'Yes, all right. When?'

'Saturday. We'll go there Saturday night.' Geoffrey leapt to his feet. 'Thanks for the tea.'

His shoes left grass stains and chalky smears on my carpet.

If anything, the languorous atmosphere which overhung the school intensified over the next couple of days. It was becoming quite impossible for any of us - masters or boys - to concentrate on our work. At any normal time we would have been very concerned about this. The Vale School prides itself on its ability to get the very best out of the boys who live and study here. This does not happen by itself, but as the result of hard work done by us all. I felt that I was, with my lapses of attention, in some way letting down the boys who were entrusted to my care. But... somehow I could not bring myself to believe that it mattered, and neither did anybody else; so ensorcelled were we.

I sat with my Middle Sixth class on a grassy bank overlooking the cricket nets, feeling more like an Greek philosopher surrounded by his acolytes in an Athenian lyceum of the ancient times than a history master at an English boarding school in 1953. We spoke of this and that, a little history, a little religion, what were England's chances in the third Test Match, who was the greater historian – Trevelyan or Macaulay. Some of the boys joined in the discussion, some lay back and stared at the sky, some were engaged in earnest sotto voce conversations with one another. To this day I cannot say whether we were wasting time that should have been devoted to serious study or whether we were discovering the true meaning of education. I would like to think that we learned things that Friday afternoon which would have eluded us in the dry confines of the classroom. What I mean is… what Geoffrey said. We schoolmasters spent too much of our time standing at the front of classrooms giving out knowledge, but never taking it back, never listening to anything but our pupils’ answers and then only so we could correct them. Perhaps even the dullest boy could come up with some new insight and say something worth hearing.

So I listened for a change, and we talked as I have described and eventually our informal class came to an end as the sound of the school bell drifted lazily over the grounds, staying with us just long enough to let us know that our period of study was over before meandering its way beyond the row of lime trees that marked the perimeter and dissipating into the open country beyond. ‘That’s it, boys,’ I said, letting them go to their Houses and games and recreations. They wandered off, in ones and twos and threes, still talking quietly among themselves. I gathered up my books and began to walk back to the Masters’ Lodge and my study-bedroom. Perhaps I would get my bicycle out later and go for a spin along the lanes which ran up and down the length of the Vale of White Horse. The weather was warm, but not too much so, and the exercise would be good for me.

It was not the shortest way back to the Lodge, but nevertheless I found myself passing by the side of Fields’ House. I believe I was intending to look at the notice board which was affixed to the wall just outside the Junior Dining Room. Something to do with an archaeological field trip I was trying to organise for the post-exam fortnight, probably.

‘Jack!’ The voice came out of a ground floor window.

‘Matron?’ I recognised Sister Richards’ voice.

‘Are you busy?’ Muriel leaned out of the window, her hands resting on the white-painted sill.

‘Not especially. Why; have you got some ironing for me to do? More sheets to fold?’

‘No! Don’t be silly!’

‘What is it, then?’ I must have sounded annoyed – actually I was caught on the hop, as it were.

‘Oh, it’s just that… no, don’t worry. It’s nothing at all, really.’

‘Nothing?’

‘Nothing special. I’m sure you must have lots of terribly important things to do, like marking or revising or whatever it is you masters like to do in your spare time. Never mind. Off you go, now.’

‘Oh, all right. Goodbye, then,’ I said to the back of her head.

I rode my bicycle furiously up and down the roads of south Oxfordshire all that afternoon and worked up a terrific sweat, but it did me no good. No good at all.

Saturday was a half-day, so once I had finished lunch my time was my own. I would not be required again until Sunday morning at ten o’clock, for Chapel. I was eager to discover what it was that Geoffrey wanted to show me, so I hunted him down. It took a while, but following a suggestion from Higgs, one of the under-gardeners, I found him in the Music School, sitting in a circle of fifth-formers who were listening to the gramophone. It was playing Ralph Vaughan Williams’ Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis, as I recall.

Not now. Later, he mouthed. Tonight. It has to be tonight.

So it had to be tonight, then. That left me with ten hours or so to fill in some way or another.

I spent them in re-reading some of my collection of mystery stories. Of course, when you revisit a story which has been designed to be a puzzle you look at it more critically than you did when you first read it. Once you are no longer caught up in the excitement of the storytelling you can take the time to look more closely at what the writer was doing when he composed the plot. Often, detached from your interest in the characters – and even so-called "detective stories" have interesting characters; the better ones anyway – the red herrings and various other devices that the author may have used can appear rather unconvincing and artificial. As I sat in the garden outside the Lodge, and tried not to ruminate on my faux pas with Muriel Richards the day before, I found myself thinking I could do this. I could write something just as good as this, if I had the time and a few good ideas.

Why I thought this, I cannot say. My previous attempts at story-writing – at school or University – had been stiff, awkward affairs. "Literate, grammatical, cold and uninvolving" was how they had been described by the friends I had been so unwise as to show them to. My tutor had told me bluntly not to waste my time on something to I was so clearly unsuited. He was a man I greatly respected, so I had taken his advice.

I had a pad of foolscap paper on my lap, and as I sat and read I made notes; ideas for stories of my own. I knew that they would come to nothing, naturally, but the intellectual exercise was stimulating and the time passed more quickly than I had expected. If I’m being completely frank I’ll have to admit that I dozed for a few hours. The sun was warm and the air was balmy and it was yet another perfect day in that perfect June.

I knocked on Geoffrey’s door at a quarter to eleven. He opened it immediately, as if he had been waiting behind it, ready for my call. ‘Ready, Jack? Right-o.’

We tiptoed down the stairs and out of the front door, closing it silently behind us. Our bicycles were kept in a shed behind the squash courts; a short walk across moonlit lawns.

The moon… It was at the full that night, a huge presence hanging in the southern sky, extraordinarily bright. The sky was absolutely cloudless, but we could not see the stars, so intense was the light of that moon. If some astronomer had told me that the moon had left its orbit, which they say is a quarter of a million miles distant from us, and had descended until it was only a few thousand feet above our heads, I would have believed him. I would never otherwise have credited that I would one day find myself being dazzled by moonlight. But it was far from being the strangest light that Geoffrey and I were to see that night.

I was not surprised when Geoffrey, who was riding ahead of me, turned westwards as we left the school gates. Whatever it was that he had seen, whatever it was that had affected him so greatly, whatever it was that was entrancing the whole school, it had to be something to do with the ancient places which lie to the west of Wantage, in the Vale of White Horse. Sparsholt and Kingston Lisle we passed, as the road dipped and rose on its way through the rolling countryside of Oxfordshire. Neither of our bicycles carried lights. Usually that would have earned us a wigging from the local constabulary, but the illumination from the moon which shone from our left was so intense that we could have claimed in court that lights were unnecessary. And there was another thing – we saw no cars or people that night. Not one.

After a few leaf-dappled miles of country road, Geoffrey turned left and started to pedal harder. We were riding up a narrow lane now, and instead of following the valley side we were going up the side of it. Our bicycles were old bone-shakers, without gears, and I had to put my head down and raise myself from the saddle in order to pump the pedals hard enough to keep up with my friend. He, in his turn, seemed to be accelerating, as if he was under a compulsion to reach his destination as soon as possible. Or, it was pulling him towards it.

If it had not been that the lane we were going up was so steep, I am sure that we would have been blinded by the moonlight shining in our faces. We were now proceeding directly south, past Dragon Hill towards Uffington Castle and the White Horse itself.

White Horses are a common feature of the kind of chalky downland country where The Vale School is situated. They have been cut in the hillsides for many centuries and although they are transient things, for the grass grows over them if they are not kept scoured, they are ancient too. Our White Horse – if I can be so arrogant as to claim ownership of it – is a stylised rather than a realistic representation but it is extraordinarily expressive. The Horse seems to be galloping across the hill into which it is cut, as if the East Wind had gone hunting, and there was quarry to be found in the West. White Horse Hill is a favourite spot for picnickers, kite-flyers and model aircraft enthusiasts, who regard its mystery as an everyday thing.

The nearby Castle is an Iron Age hill fort – now just a set of circular earth ramparts. The wooden stake fence which once surmounted it and protected those who sought shelter within it is gone, and will never be replaced. It also has counterparts in southern England, notably Maiden Castle in Dorset.

Was the Castle to be our objective that night? I wondered what could be happening there and had a brief mental vision of the interior of the earthworks; a silver dish in which incantations might be said, and spells be woven. ‘Which way now?’ I called out to Geoffrey. He made no answer, but dismounted from his bicycle, leaving it in a hedge by the side of the lane. We were not far from the place where the day-trippers usually left their cars, judging by the scuffed and pockmarked nature of the ground nearby.

‘Upwards! And Westwards!’ Geoffrey replied. I left my bicycle next to his and scrambled through the hedge into the open field beyond. Slantwise light washed over us, leaving long shadows in our wake.

We were both pretty fit and so we climbed the hill at a fair rate, skidding on the turf beneath our feet in our haste and leaving the White Horse and the Castle on our left, until we crossed a ditch and encountered a six foot wide white streak in the ground, surrounded on both sides by farmers’ fences. Ah… This was the Ridgeway, an old path and sometime drover’s road. I had a shrewd suspicion of where Geoffrey was taking us.

I should say that all around us, although the air itself was still, could be heard a myriad of small sounds – a miniature cacophony. The countryside was alive with movement. The trees were at rest, naturally, but the call of the night-birds and the rustle of small creatures in the grass and the hedgerows to both sides gave an air of busyness that was as far from the general idea of a summer’s night as being a calm, hushed and peaceful time as can possibly be imagined. Millions of small lives were being lived, and lost, with every breath we took. I pointed to the right, and Geoffrey nodded his head.

We walked about a mile westwards along the Ridgeway and my suspicion slowly grew to a certainty. Ahead of us, invisible to begin with, drowned in the moonlight, but growing stronger with every step we took, a dome of pale green radiance hovered over the ground, partially obscured by a grove of trees. Geoffrey was walking ever more quickly and it was only with difficulty that I was able to keep up with him. We crossed another path, heading north-south. It would not be very far now, I was sure.

‘Is that it?’ I pointed toward the light. ‘Is that where we are going?’

Geoffrey stopped and turned. Even though he was facing towards me and away from the glowing source in front of us, his eyes were glittering emerald-bright. ‘Can you doubt it?’ he replied.

I could not. There could not be the slightest doubt left in my mind.

I caught up with Geoffrey and together we walked the last hundred yards to the grove of trees from which the light was flowing; cast about in streamers and threads of ghostly brilliance. We both felt it now – a force pulling us bodily forwards, compelling us to walk faster and faster until we were almost at a run and our feet hardly seemed to be in contact with the earth below. The sky was alive with the flutter of wings, the grass in the fields to our left and right was bowed to the west and the trees of the grove were rustling and swaying. But, as I have said, there was no wind that night. The air was utterly still.

At last we came to a halt. We stood in a gap in the circle of trees, surrounded by constant life and movement. Before us, a vortex of verdant luminosity, swirling and tumbling above the holy ground below. We were come to the place which is called Wayland’s Smithy.

I tell my fourth-formers about the Neolithic barrow, or burial mound, that lies behind the guardian trees. How it is at least six thousand years old, and how it has been revered as a sacred burial ground by the peoples of the Vale since its first building and, who can say (for this is an ancient place), perhaps before then as well; as far back as the beginning of time itself. I tell them of the Sarcen stones which support the burial chamber, of the bodies which have been found there, and carefully replaced.

Simply to tell them is not enough. I take them too, on a quiet afternoon in early Spring or late Autumn, when the crowds are elsewhere, and we sit inside the grove and are silent for a while, considering the meaning of Time. Then, when even the noisiest boy has stopped talking, and the atmosphere of the place has taken hold of our imaginations and we are ready to listen, I tell them of Wayland, the Saxon god of metal-working, also known as Weland, Volund or Volundr, who may have come originally of the Elven race. I relate the story of greedy King Niduth, who sought to enslave the great smith, and of Wayland’s terrible revenge on the King, his sons and his daughter. I tell them of the legend; how if you leave a horse and a silver piece by the Smithy, and go forth without looking back, you will, if you have left good coin and not attempted to observe what happens within the grove, return to find that your horse has been shod and your money has gone. Then we go into the chamber with candles, one or two at a time, and look about ourselves, touching history. And then we go home for tea.

The mystery of the grove - the crystallisation of Time about the stones of the tomb which lies at its heart - never fails to make an impression on even the rowdiest of classes.

Geoffrey and I stood on the threshold of the enclosure. It seemed to us that we had reached a turning-point in our lives. We could turn away, and go, and not return. That was inconceivable to me. We could stand where we stood now and watch; watch the light scintillating before us and feel its gentle touch on our faces. Or we could go forward and embrace it. We had been standing side by side, but now I turned to face Geoffrey.

‘This is a fearful place. How can you bear it?’

‘It has been calling me – you know that, don’t you, Jack?’

‘Yes, I know. How many times have you been here before?’

‘Twice. Once last week and once when you saw me, Thursday night.’

‘Was it as it is now?’

‘It was… like this. Not so bright, not so intense. Not so… vital.’

I shuddered. ‘Do you not fear it?’

‘Yes. I fear it greatly. But… you felt it too, didn’t you? You felt it tugging at you. You have seen its influence over the school – we all have. How could you possibly not seek it out and find it?’

‘Are we the only ones who have ever come here?’

‘I am sure that we are not. But we are the only ones who are here now.’

I took a deep breath. ‘Have you been inside?’

‘Inside the tree-circle? No, not before now. I have been afraid to go in there alone, lest I never return.’

‘You are not alone now, Geoffrey.’ I did what I had never done before; I took Geoffrey’s hand in mine and together, like two little children, we stepped hand-in-hand into the tree-pillared temple of light and left the world of Men behind.

Immediately the pulsing, vibrating force of the light entered our bodies. It was as if the longings and yearnings that I had been experiencing for the past few weeks had been amplified a thousand-fold. The sensation was so overwhelming as to be almost beyond endurance – one of gladness, and revelation and desire. I looked at Geoffrey. His thin face was lifted to the stars above, the stars which now shone directly down onto us, at the centre of a whirlpool of whizzing, humming, singing (for the light had a sound associated with it) sparks of pale green luminosity.

I found the words to speak, although speech was superfluous, ‘It is something too old and too strong, too rich and too strange for we mortals to endure for very long.’

‘It is killing us with a surfeit of delight.’ Geoffrey replied.

The life-force washed over us again and again. Still holding hands, we walked slowly over to the mound which stood in the middle of the ring of guardian trees. This hump of grassy earth was the focus of the energies which filled the air around us. It drew me to itself with an irresistible force.

‘Shall we go in?’ I asked. ‘Is it allowed?’

‘I do not know. I afraid of it; more afraid than I have ever been in my life.’

‘So am I.’ But I was exhilarated too. I knew that, although the opening to the chamber was the opening to a grave, and that it might be my grave, I could not turn away from it now.

‘Will you not come with me?’

‘No,’ Geoffrey replied. ‘I think that I would have gone there before, the other times I was here, if it had been right for me to do so. I will wait for you outside, and I will pray for you.’

I took both Geoffrey’s hands in my own. ‘Pray well, old chap, for I believe that I am placing my immortal soul in great peril. But I must go in there. There is a secret to be discovered that I must find out. I think that it has been waiting for me all my life’

‘I know.’ We clasped each other tightly, and we embraced as men do who go into battle, knowing not whether they will see one another again. Then I ducked my head and stepped into the entrance to the chamber. The light followed me.

It was as I remembered it, dank and musty, earth-smelling and chilly, and for a moment I suffered acute disappointment. Was this it – was the secret I sought nothing more than a commonplace matter of soil underfoot and damp stones to either side? Looking behind me, I saw Geoffrey, briefly silhouetted against the swaying tree-tops. I edged further forward into the chamber.

As my eyes adapted to the darkness, and the sounds outside receded behind me, I became aware of a pressure that was bearing down on me. I am not claustrophobic, so it was not the knowledge that tons of earth and rock were arching directly over my head that was affecting me so, but something else. Also, I was seeing bright pinpoints of silvery light ahead. I rubbed my eyes and blinked, but they were still there.

There was another thing. It is no more than ten feet from the entrance to the chamber to its back wall but I had, I am sure, already walked further than that without coming into contact with it. In addition, the passage appeared to have widened around me, so that I seemed to be standing in a sizeable cavern, rather than the narrow space into which, as I knew from my visits with my classes, you could not fit more than four or five people. I stopped and turned slowly to each side, reaching out with my fingertips, trying to touch the walls and failing. My hands fell to my side.

I did not know what I should do. I did not know where I was, even though I had, or so I thought, been here many times before. The certainty which had driven me to this place now seemed to me to be a very foolish thing, an illusion, based on nothing but dreams and my own credulousness. Why had I followed Geoffrey to the Smithy? Why had I not had the sense to stay outside the barrow, as he had?

As I stood there, trying to decide whether I should turn and run back to the surface (if that were possible) or stay where I was, the cavern slowly grew lighter, and I saw that it was full of shapes – shapes which I cannot describe; except to say that they were alive, and moved, and spoke in a soft tongue that I could not understand. I thought of HG Wells’ Time Traveller, and the evil Morlocks who dwelt underground and feasted on the decadent Eloi from the sunlit lands above. Was I to meet a similar fate? I wished that I carried a weapon – a knife, or a gun, or even a box of matches.

I was not to be left in a state of indecision for very long, for two of the figures – they were no more than three feet tall – came to me and whispered to me in their rustling speech. ‘What do you want?’ I asked one of them, but he did not understand me. Instead, he pointed with a blunt finger towards the darkness before us. It seemed that we were to go in that direction. My nerve failed me briefly, and I turned swiftly and looked behind me, expecting to see some trace of light from the world above, but there was nothing there but a blank wall of rock. Wherever it was that I was now, it was not the country I knew, but somewhere separate from it. I would not be able to return to the surface by simply retracing the steps that I had already taken.

‘What do you want?’ I asked again, but this time there was no reply. They took me by the hands and led me forward. Unsure of their intentions and very afraid, I let them take me with them, pushing my fear to the back of my mind as best I could. There was to be no going back now. I had committed myself to this adventure when I entered the barrow, though I had not known then what form it might take. The darkness closed in around us as we walked and I held tightly to my guides' hands, not wishing to stray from the right path and be lost in the dark.

I have no idea how long the tunnel was. It might have been as short as fifty yards, or very much longer than that. Common sense tells me that it should have sloped downwards, otherwise it would have soon have emerged from the side of the hill, but it was completely level except for the occasional step or low wall which my silent guides took care that I should not trip over. There was light to see by – a quiet light, green-tinged as the light had been in the world above – but I cannot say where it came from. My companions carried no lanterns, nor were there torches fixed to the walls of the passage or skylights in its roof. There was silence, broken only by the sound of my breathing and the soft pad of our footsteps. From time to time the passageway opened out into a wider space and I would feel a sense of great relief even though, as I have said, I am not particularly inclined to claustrophobia.

We proceeded in this manner for a long time, passing from one cavern to another through low passages, where I had to duck my head and, at one point, go down on all fours. The fear, which I had thought I had suppressed, came back to me now more terribly than ever. I was being led into a trap, far beneath the surface of the earth. I would never return; I would be buried here for ever with these grey shuffling creatures in their dimly-lit underworld. I had a heartfelt longing for open skies, and moving air, and brilliant colours.

Eventually we entered an open space far greater than any we had been in so far, illuminated by a copper-coloured light which emanated from the walls. It was set out rather like a church, or an auditorium. There were semicircular rows of stone benches on which were sitting many more of the small people who had led me here. Now that there was more light to see by, I could make out their faces – strange faces, half-formed and indistinct, with huge eyes. Each of these people was dressed in a green jerkin and wore a soft cap and slippers.

The walls of this great underground hall gave forth a red-gold light, as I have said. It seemed to come from translucent panels, arched and patterned with arboreal shapes of stem, branch and leaf. Between these panels, standing in deep alcoves, were carved figures whose shapes were not easy to discern against the luminescence next to them. They were not human; of that I am sure.

The roof of the hall reminded me of a great cathedral, stone-vaulted and high, studded with ornamental bosses of jewelled colours, shining down on us like the planets in the night sky of our own world. I knew now that the distance between this place and my home could not be measured in ordinary miles, feet or inches.

But I must move on in my story, and tell you of the encounter which I had in that hall, and which has shaped the course of my life ever since.

At the focus of the semicircle stood a daïs, and on that daïs were set two thrones, carved out of dusky lignite. And what am I to say of the Two who sat upon those thrones, and held dominion in their subterranean realm? It would be no more than the truth to say that they were beautiful. But their beauty was, as it were, an irrelevance. It affected me, of course. I cannot deny it, nor would I wish to do so, but I believe that even if they had been appallingly ugly, they would still have inspired my reverence. As I approached them, I saw that their solemn brows were bound about with chaplets of bright stars.

The two creatures who had led me here left my side and took their seats in the benches. I was left alone to meet the rulers of this place.

They were a Lord and a Lady; and the Lord was strong and the Lady was grave. He embodied Justice, she Wisdom. I knelt at the foot of the steps which led to their thrones and paid them worship.

‘Where is the other one?’ The Lord’s voice was deep and resonant, forged from the iron bones of the earth.

‘My Lord, he has stayed outside.’ The Lady spoke with the voice of all living things, quick and bright.

‘Does he fear us so very much?’

I found my voice. ‘Yes, my Lady, he does. I fear you also.’

‘Look at us, Man. Are we to be feared?’

I raised my eyes slowly. ‘Yes, my Lady. You are greatly to be feared. It is fitting that I should tremble in your presence, even as I adore you and your Lord.’

‘This is a courteous one, is it not?’

‘It is wise for him to be so. Do you not know, Man, that we could un-make you with a glance, or a small movement of our hands?’

‘I know it very well, my Lord.’

‘Tell me then, and be careful to let courtesy guide your speech; why have you come here?’

‘I have come, my Lord, my Lady, because my friend brought me here. But also, because I have a great longing within me, and I think that you know of this longing and maybe more than that.’

‘You mean that we have engendered these feelings within you.’

‘Yes, my Lady. Why is this? Why have you visited this yearning ache upon me, and upon the children who have been entrusted to me?’

‘You dare to ask us questions?’

‘My Lord,’ I did not want to arouse the wrath of the god to whom I spoke, but the truth drove me onwards. ‘You know what it is to have responsibility for those in your care. Are these not your people? And do you not love and cherish them? Is that not the meaning of kingship?’ I waved my right arm in a wide arc, encompassing the space around us, indicating the benches and the people who sat expectantly upon them, watching us closely.

The Lord rose to his feet and lifted his right hand. ‘You dare to speak to me of kingship? You, common mortal, talk to me of responsibility?’ His face was full of anger, his eye flashed cold fire.

The Lady raised her hand also. ‘Cease, my Lord. Does a little honesty upset you so much? This is a fallible human creature, animated dust. He does not deserve your ire, but rather your understanding.’ The Lord took his seat again, and rested his chin upon his hand.

‘Know, little Man…’

‘I am called Jack, my Lady.’

‘Know then, Jack, that we rule here, as your lords and masters rule in their own country – your country. Know also that the borders of your country and ours are not fixed, but ebb and flow, so that sometimes your world of fire and iron invades our quiet lands and sometimes our world of mists and silence overlays yours. Has it not happened before; that myths and legends – as you call them – have strode across your wide hills and green fields, sword-girt and mystical? Do you not know of Arthur and Excalibur? Or of Joseph of Arimethaea and the Isle of Avalon? Or of cunning Odesseus and the sacking of Troy?’

‘We call them stories. Sometimes we believe them and sometimes we do not.’

‘Nevertheless there is truth in them, would you not say?’

‘Yes my Lady. We call it a higher truth, or a deeper one.’

‘You are wise to do so.’

‘My Lady!’ I cried out. ‘Speak to me not of wisdom! I am a shallow, hollow thing.’ And I wept, for I saw myself to be a being of very little worth.

The Lady stepped down from her throne and joined me where I knelt at the foot of the daïs. ‘Jack. Look at me. Look in my eyes.’

I had not dared to do so before. ‘Your world is a hard place; a hard practical place full of hard men and hard choices. It is not as this world is. I know that you are a teacher. We honour teachers very much; for are not my Lord and I the Teachers of all these souls here?’ She meant the small people who clustered around us, giving obeisance to their King and Queen.

‘We know that your pupils need all the help that you can give them if they are to be happy and successful in the world that you have created. But if their learning consists only of hard facts then they will grow up hard too; and hard men are brittle, and break easily. They need what we have been giving them, these last few days while our world has spilled over into yours.’

‘Will you stay with us?’

‘No, we cannot – even now the tide of which I have spoken to you is flowing back. Before this night is over, my Lord and I and our people will have receded beyond your reach. I do not think that we shall meet again on these shores.’

I was desolate. ‘No, my Lady?’ I wept again.

‘Courage, Jack! Though you need no such gift from us, I think. Not many men would have stepped through the Portal as you did this night.’

‘My Lady.’ It was the King. ‘The time is fast approaching when we must return this Man to his own place, or take him with us for ever.’

I was filled with a wild hope. ‘My Lady?’

She smiled. ‘No, Jack. You have a full life to lead, and work to do which cannot be done here. You would hate it in our world.’

‘But I would be with you!’

‘That cannot be; for I am my Lord’s and he is mine, and we are very jealous of each other. Do not be sad; I do not mean that you shall be alone for the rest of your life. There is someone waiting for you in your own land; you only need to ask her and she is yours. That knowledge is my second gift to you. The first gift, you have already received.’

‘What is it?’

‘You will find out soon enough. Consider; were not my Lord and I known to you already, even before you came here?’

‘I do not know.’

‘Look in your heart, and you will know. We are Legend, my Lord and I.’

I bowed my head. ‘My Lady.’

‘And lastly, because these things go in threes in all the best stories,’ she smiled again,’ I have a third gift for you, which you may choose to accept or not, as you wish.’

‘What is it?’

‘It is the gift of Lethe; of forgetfulness. You can choose to forget the events of this night, remembering them only as a dream which faded with the morning sun. Or you can remember it all, in which case you will never be fully content with your life, for you will be left with the yearnings which brought you here, and they cannot be assuaged while you dwell on these shores.’

I thought for a short while. ‘My Lady, you offer me a choice which is no choice at all, for how could I choose to forget you, whatever the cost to me? Give your gift to another. Let me remember.’

‘You choose as your heart directs, Jack. I think that you have chosen well, for yours is a spirit that will never be content with the ordinary and the everyday. It has brought you to us, has it not? Let the memory of this short hour we have spent together guide you through your life, until we meet again on the farther shore. Farewell!’ And she lifted me up in both of her arms and kissed me on the lips.

At once a mist interposed itself between me and the Lady, and I saw no more of her or her Lord, nor heard any more than a last ‘Farewell!’ from them both, nor felt any more than the touch of the Lady’s lips upon mine and the King’s strong arm upon my shoulder.

It may be that I slept, or that time had passed at a different rate while I was in the other world, for when I could see clearly again I found that I was lying next to Geoffrey, both of us propped up against the burial mound. It was a clear summer’s morning with a light dew-fall, and the birds were singing loudly in the trees above our heads. I prodded Geoffrey, who was snoring loudly. ‘Look!’ I said, as we both staggered to our feet. ‘It’s just like in Keats’ La Belle Dame Sans Merci:’

And I awoke and found me here,
On the cold hill's side.

‘Keats!’ said Geoffrey. ‘What are you quoting that blithering childish nonsense to me for? You know I can’t stand him! What the hell are we doing here, anyway? Did we get very drunk last night?’

The enchantment under which the school had lain evaporated overnight and everything returned to grim normality. You may think that I am overstating it, but normality, the world of Harries and his kind, appeared very grim to me then, beguiled as I was by memories of the Lord and the Lady and their underground land. For others, who were not blessed or cursed like me, it may have been different.

I wonder still about Geoffrey – poor Geoffrey, as I sometimes think of him now. I have long since abandoned the idea that you can, by looking at a man, or even after knowing him for a considerable number of years, tell what he will do when faced with the unknown. I do not think that I am a very brave man, nor is Geoffrey a coward, but when it came to it I went onwards into the burial chamber and he did not. And so I met the Lord and Lady, and received their gifts and the very great joys which they have given me, and Geoffrey received nothing, except for the gift of forgetfulness which I passed on to him. He does not know what he might have gained had he gone with me that night and I will never tell him, for I do not think that I shall ever pass beyond the ken of the Other Realm and it behoves me to be careful in what I do and say.

I am sure that I saw very little of the country which the Lord and Lady ruled and I cannot believe that it was limited only to the dark places under the earth. Unless, and this thought disturbs me, they live there now and not out in the sun and air with us, because the tide between the worlds has forced them to retreat there. Has our busy world of doing, and making, and fighting, and getting, and spending grown too strong for them, and is what happened to Geoffrey and me in the summer of 1953 in the Vale of White Horse the last we shall ever see of them? Or are they, as I hope, only waiting for us to realise our mistakes, and open the way for them to join us?

For they are there still, and they are puissant and strange, and they keep their promises. I know this to be so, for they have kept their promises to me – all of them. But what if I had provoked the Lord to an anger which his Lady could not soothe? What dreadful oath would he have sworn then, and what awful powers would he have unleashed upon us? Can Dream always keep Nightmare in check?

For the sake of us all – of our world and the realm which lies beyond the fields we know, I hope so. I truly hope so.

Author's note

This is the last of the stories about The Vale School although, paradoxically, it occurs first in chronological order.

Jack has been rather freer than usual with his cultural references. Here are a few pointers that may be found to be of help:

Genevieve - A classic English comedy, done in the best post-war style. See the IMDB page.

When I was one-and-twenty - From A Shropshire Lad, AE Housman's famous collection of poems of love and loss set in an idealised Shropshire at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries. This collection has never gone out of print. It's just the sort of thing that would have appealed to Jack.

Hang Spring Cleaning! - From the first chapter of The Wind in the Willows, by Kenneth Grahame

Busman's Honeymoon - The last of the series of Lord Peter Wimsey novels by Dorothy L Sayers. They have been filmed and televised many times. Look all over the web for more on LPW and DLS.

Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis - Somewhere out there is a listener's guide to this extraordinarily beautiful and moving piece.

And I awoke... - La Belle Dame Sans Merci surely needs no introduction from me.