Read The Heat of the Sun for Free Online Page B

sweeping
us all into its startling grip.
    That evening it was my turn to be chapel monitor, readying the chapel for morning service. All except the most pious fellows resented this task. It was worst in winter.
Situated apart from other buildings at the bottom of a sloping lawn, the chapel was cold enough to make me shiver even as I swept the aisles, polished the brass, changed the candles, and adjusted
the hymnals in scarf, gloves, and overcoat.
    I was anything but thorough. There were meant to be two monitors: Trouble had been rostered with me that evening, and I had not been able to find him. I was angry. I had left my tasks too late
and it was time for dinner.
    Only as I was about to leave did I pause, slumping exhaustedly on the front pew. And what, I wondered, had become of Trouble? When the bell had rung and Mr Gregg’s class had spilled into
the corridor there had been jokes, jostlings, but feeble ones; Trouble strode away, and not a single fellow tried to hold him back.
    Still his song disturbed me. In the chapel, the melody came back to me, its strange beauty burning into me like a brand. I gazed up at the lectern, at the crucifix, at the high windows. Fugitive
sunset flashed through stained glass and, resting my chin on my ashplant, I felt myself slipping into violet eyes, into a dark brightness where questions hovered over me like imponderable hanging
fruit.
    I had hauled myself to my feet and was about to trudge back down the aisle when I heard a groan. At first I thought it was the wind, but the groan came again, and I swivelled towards the altar.
Perhaps someone waited there, watching me, setting me up for some cruel joke, but I stumped in that direction all the same. Carpet, thick and blood-red, sank beneath my boots. White linen concealed
the table, dropping at the corners in papery folds.
    For a third time I heard the groan, a sound of pain. I paced around the table. Oh, but I had not been thorough!
    Trouble lay on his side, doubled over.
    I prodded him with my ashplant. ‘Can you hear me?’
    ‘Damn, I must have passed out.’ He raised his head, wincing. ‘Who are you?’
    I reminded him of my name.
    ‘Leave me alone.’ He shivered violently. He wore no coat, no hat; his attackers must have set upon him in another building, then carried him out to the chapel and left him here.
    ‘You’re blue with cold,’ I said. ‘Can you stand?’
    ‘Leave me,’ he said again, and coughed.
    ‘You’ll have to go to the infirmary. I’ll get help.’
    ‘No!’ He reached up, grabbing the edge of the table; I thought he would pull down the cloth, candles and all, and I flustered about him, but he waved me away. Like a drunkard, he
staggered down the steps and crashed into the railing before the first pew. He stood swaying, holding it tightly.
    ‘You’ll catch your death.’ I tugged away my scarf, struggled out of my coat. ‘Here, let me help you.’
    Had Trouble shouted at me, I should not have been surprised; but he turned, pliantly enough. Bundling him into my outdoor things, I realized anew how small he was. Blood glistened darkly against
his blond hair.
    In the chapel porch, we paused. The snow had stopped falling and lay beneath the moonlight in pillowy drifts. From the dining hall, across an upward slope of whiteness, vertical strips of light
shone through cracks in the curtains. The infirmary was further still: across a quadrangle, two flights up.
    ‘Careful on the steps,’ I said. ‘It’s a bit of a way.’
    He said to me suddenly: ‘Who are you? Who are you, really?’
    ‘Come on, you’re light-headed. Infirmary!’
    ‘No, no infirmary.’ He strode towards the dining hall, and all I could do was try to keep up. In the vestibule, he paused. Before us stood a set of swinging doors with portholes in
the upper halves, like twin cheery faces. The clamour of voices, the clatter and scrape of cutlery, sounded from within.
    He pushed through the doors. A clear, wide track led to the