* * *
Neville left the Major at the shade house, indicating the path of broken shards through which he must walk to Under. Then he headed back upstairs to face the music with Mum. On the way though, he heard the preliminary greetings between the two men.
“Hold your position, Lieutenant. Just checking perimeter placements. Are we secure?”
And the Quiet Man issuing a snappy, “Yes Sir, Major Mann, Sir! Good to see you up and about, Sir. I’d heard you’d been wounded.”
“We’ve all been wounded, one way or another, soldier. Don’t think I don’t know that.”
They’ve met before, Neville thought. How could that be? How could Ragged Man from Apollo Dungeon actually be Major Mann from the war - and someone known to the Quiet Man? It was a question with no answer and he was a boy with no room in his mind for another unanswerable question.
He wandered apprehensively upstairs, where he was made by Mum to endure a merciless disinfecting of his physical cuts and scratches as well as an equally merciless attempt (again) to readjust his attitude. He wanted to say that the injuries were from falling out of a tree or being attacked by echidnas or being trampled by Latifeh the nanny goat but, with the lie-hating Ragged Man right below them, it seemed unwise. So he confessed instead to a truncated version of his encounter with Beau the Bum.
He’d accidentally lost the Quiet Man’s medal, he said, and Beau had found it and been reluctant to give it back but had now seen that it was the right thing to do and was going to fetch it from his secret hiding place. And they were friends again.
“So you had to fight with him to get him to agree?” Mum demanded. “What about your promise to me - to not be a fighter?”
“Sorry,” he said, thinking that demanding the return of The Quiet Man’s medal and then defending ‘Soon against The Bum, especially when all she was trying to do was help him, was not so much being a fighter as being a friend.
Even that, though, Mum saw differently.
“Better to let him keep the medal, Neville, than get in a punch-up about it! It’s only a bit of metal after all! And by the way, no you’re not friends with Beau again! I’ve told you before to steer clear of him. And I mean it! Once you get that medal back, you’re to stay entirely out of their yard and away from him. Permanently! Understand?”
Neville the Less Page 37
