die; for various reasons which I won’t bother you with now, because there isn’t a lot of time.’
Well, I thought that wrapped the whole thing up rather neatly, considering I hadn’t done a lot of this exhausted messenger gasping out the tidings business before. I had considered clutching one of them by the arm for support; but decided against it, as being a touch too melodramatic. No – I was relying on the element of surprise, you see; the theory being that if you don’t give anyone else a chance to say anything, there’s not a lot they can do about it till you’ve finished. I’ve often noticed that chaps don’t seem able to kill other chaps to their faces, until they’ve told them that that’s what they’re going to do.
A sort of convention, I suppose it is.
And, do you know, it more or less worked? Because Odysseus didn’t actually kill me: he put out my right eye with a marlin-spike, instead! And then he laughed – just to show that everything was all right, really.
‘Sorry,’ he said, ‘my hand slipped. So you like the Trojans, do you? Well now, my little Cyclops, you’ll just have to learn to take a more one-sided view of things, won’t you?’
And then, I’m afraid, I fainted.
19
A Council of War
Of course, after the lapse of forty-odd years, I can afford to take a rather less jaundiced view of the matter than I did at the time.
Now, I suppose I must admit that the whole thing was largely my own fault: I should never have said that I quite liked the Trojans! Simply asking for it. Because one of the traditions of war is that you have to believe the enemy are fiends incarnate.
And anyone who takes the opposite view is not only on their side, but a bounder and a cad into the bargain. In fact, why Odysseus didn’t kill me I shall never know: but perhaps he thought he had. After all, that sort of wound can often be fatal –
especially when delivered without proper surgical care.
I like to think that the Doctor made some sort of protest, however ineffectual; and no doubt he did. But there wasn’t a lot he could actually do , without getting the chop himself. Quite!
Yes, I can understand that – now . But at the time I was... well, sour, about the whole episode.
‘That’s what you get for trying to do someone a good turn!’
I thought, as I came to, some hours later. I was lying in the scuppers, where Odysseus had obviously kicked me, not wanting bleeding corpses cluttering up the deck. To add to my pleasure, I was covered in fish-scales and crabs’ legs, and other marine bric-a-brac of a more or less noisome nature; and I suppose I should mention in passing that I was in the most excruciating pain I had ever known – or had believed was generally available outside the nethermost circle of Hades! No point in going on about it: but I tell you, I wanted to die, and was very sorry to find I hadn’t. That’s what it was like – so I’ll trouble you to bear the fact in mind, if you think I’m being altogether too flippant.
In any case, as I say, it was all a very long time ago.
But to resume: it was dark by now, Zeus be praised; except where a lantern illuminated the Doctor’s designing board, and a selection of brooding evil-looking faces. Because Odysseus had obviously sent out the formal invitations as arranged; and Agamemnon and Menelaus were now among those present. A couple of death’s head moths were fooling about in the lamp-light, I remember. All very well for them, I thought – but somehow ominous, all the same. Not that I go much on signs and portents as a rule – but you know what I mean.
The genial host was excited as a schoolboy, and busy explaining the whole horrendous scheme to his dubious guests.
‘I tell you, it’s revolutionary,’ he was saying, ‘war will never be the same again!’
‘Show them the working-drawings, Doctor. There! What do you make of that?’
Understandably, no one seemed very impressed at the outset – and you couldn’t
Well, I thought that wrapped the whole thing up rather neatly, considering I hadn’t done a lot of this exhausted messenger gasping out the tidings business before. I had considered clutching one of them by the arm for support; but decided against it, as being a touch too melodramatic. No – I was relying on the element of surprise, you see; the theory being that if you don’t give anyone else a chance to say anything, there’s not a lot they can do about it till you’ve finished. I’ve often noticed that chaps don’t seem able to kill other chaps to their faces, until they’ve told them that that’s what they’re going to do.
A sort of convention, I suppose it is.
And, do you know, it more or less worked? Because Odysseus didn’t actually kill me: he put out my right eye with a marlin-spike, instead! And then he laughed – just to show that everything was all right, really.
‘Sorry,’ he said, ‘my hand slipped. So you like the Trojans, do you? Well now, my little Cyclops, you’ll just have to learn to take a more one-sided view of things, won’t you?’
And then, I’m afraid, I fainted.
19
A Council of War
Of course, after the lapse of forty-odd years, I can afford to take a rather less jaundiced view of the matter than I did at the time.
Now, I suppose I must admit that the whole thing was largely my own fault: I should never have said that I quite liked the Trojans! Simply asking for it. Because one of the traditions of war is that you have to believe the enemy are fiends incarnate.
And anyone who takes the opposite view is not only on their side, but a bounder and a cad into the bargain. In fact, why Odysseus didn’t kill me I shall never know: but perhaps he thought he had. After all, that sort of wound can often be fatal –
especially when delivered without proper surgical care.
I like to think that the Doctor made some sort of protest, however ineffectual; and no doubt he did. But there wasn’t a lot he could actually do , without getting the chop himself. Quite!
Yes, I can understand that – now . But at the time I was... well, sour, about the whole episode.
‘That’s what you get for trying to do someone a good turn!’
I thought, as I came to, some hours later. I was lying in the scuppers, where Odysseus had obviously kicked me, not wanting bleeding corpses cluttering up the deck. To add to my pleasure, I was covered in fish-scales and crabs’ legs, and other marine bric-a-brac of a more or less noisome nature; and I suppose I should mention in passing that I was in the most excruciating pain I had ever known – or had believed was generally available outside the nethermost circle of Hades! No point in going on about it: but I tell you, I wanted to die, and was very sorry to find I hadn’t. That’s what it was like – so I’ll trouble you to bear the fact in mind, if you think I’m being altogether too flippant.
In any case, as I say, it was all a very long time ago.
But to resume: it was dark by now, Zeus be praised; except where a lantern illuminated the Doctor’s designing board, and a selection of brooding evil-looking faces. Because Odysseus had obviously sent out the formal invitations as arranged; and Agamemnon and Menelaus were now among those present. A couple of death’s head moths were fooling about in the lamp-light, I remember. All very well for them, I thought – but somehow ominous, all the same. Not that I go much on signs and portents as a rule – but you know what I mean.
The genial host was excited as a schoolboy, and busy explaining the whole horrendous scheme to his dubious guests.
‘I tell you, it’s revolutionary,’ he was saying, ‘war will never be the same again!’
‘Show them the working-drawings, Doctor. There! What do you make of that?’
Understandably, no one seemed very impressed at the outset – and you couldn’t
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