Jeffrey Archer - Paths Of Glory

Laughter followed, before several more hands shot up, George’s among them. However, Captain Scott answered three more questions before he pointed in George’s direction.

“A young gentleman on the end of the fifth row is showing the sort of determination I look for when selecting my team, so let’s hear what he has to say.”

George rose slowly from his place, his legs shaking. He felt five hundred pairs of eyes staring at him.

“Sir,” he said, his voice quivering, “once you have reached the South Pole, what will there be left for an Englishman to conquer?” He collapsed back onto his chair as some of the audience burst out laughing, while others applauded. A puzzled expression appeared on Finch’s face. Why would Mallory ask a question he already knew the answer to?

“The next great challenge for any Englishman,” said Scott without hesitation, “will undoubtedly be the scaling of the highest mountain on earth, Mount Everest in the Himalaya. It stands at over 29,000 feet above sea level-that’s almost five and a half miles high, my boy-and we have no idea how the human body will react to such altitude, as no man has yet been above 22,000 feet. And that’s before you consider temperatures that can fall below minus forty degrees Fahrenheit, and winds that will cut your skin to shreds. But of one thing I am certain: dogs and motorized sledges will be of little use up there.” He paused and, looking directly at George, added, “But whoever succeeds in that magnificent endeavor will be the first man to stand on the roof of the world. I envy him. Let us hope that he will be an Englishman. However,” Scott concluded, turning his attention to a lady seated in the front row of the gallery, “I have already promised my wife that I will leave that particular challenge to a younger man.” Scott looked back down at George as the audience burst once again into spontaneous applause.

Finch’s hand immediately shot up, and Scott nodded in response. “Do you consider yourself to be an amateur or a professional, sir?”

An audible gasp could be heard around the hall as Finch stared defiantly at the speaker.

Scott took his time before replying, never once taking his eyes off Finch. “I am an amateur,” he eventually replied, “but an amateur who surrounds himself with professionals. My doctors, engineers, drivers, and even my cooks are all fully qualified, and would be insulted were you to describe them as amateurs. But they would be even more insulted if you were to suggest that their presence on this expedition was motivated by a desire for financial gain.”

This reply was greeted by the loudest applause of the evening, and prevented anyone other than Young and Mallory from hearing Finch say, “If he really believes that, he has no hope of coming back alive.”

After two or three more questions, Scott once again thanked the RGS for sponsoring the lecture and for their wholehearted backing of his latest enterprise. This was followed by a vote of thanks from Mr. Hinks on behalf of the Society, after which the audience stood to attention and lustily sang the National Anthem.

While Young and Finch joined those leaving the theater, George remained in his place, unable to take his eyes off the stage Scott had occupied; a stage from which one day he intended to address the RGS. Finch grinned when he looked back and saw the immovable Mallory. Turning to Young, he said, “He’ll still be sitting there, listening just as intently, when it’s my turn to deliver the annual lecture.”

Young smiled at the presumptuous pup. “And what, dare I ask, will be the subject of your talk?”

“Everest conquered,” Finch replied. “Because this lot”-gesturing with a sweeping arm-“won’t let me stand on that stage unless I’m the man who gets there first.”

“W HEN E LIZABETH ASCENDEDthe English throne in 1558, neither the court nor the common people welcomed her as their monarch. However, when she died in 1603, forty-five years later, the Virgin Queen was as popular as her father King Henry the Eighth had ever been.”

“Sir, sir,” said a boy in the front row, his hand held high.

“Yes, Carter minor,” said George.

“What’s a virgin, sir?”

George ignored the sniggers that followed, and carried on as if he had been asked a serious question. “A virgin is a female who is virgo intacta , Carter minor. I hope your Latin is up to it. Should it not be, you can always look up Luke 1:27, ‘To a virgin espoused to a man whose name was Joseph…and the virgin’s name was Mary.’ But back to Elizabeth. This was the golden era of Shakespeare and Marlowe, of Drake and Raleigh, a time when the English not only defeated the Spanish Armada, but also put down a civil insurrection led by the Earl of Essex, who some historians have suggested was the Queen’s lover.”

Several inevitable hands shot up.

“Wainwright,” said George wearily, only too aware what his question was going to be.

“What’s a lover, sir?”

George smiled. “A lover is a man who lives with a woman, but not in the state of holy matrimony.”

“Then there’s no chance of a lover being virgo intacta , is there, sir?” said Wainwright with a smirk.

“You are quite right, Wainwright, although I suspect that Elizabeth never took a lover, as it would have called her authority as monarch into question.”

Another hand shot up. “But wouldn’t the court and the common people have preferred to have a man, like the Earl of Essex, on the throne rather than a woman?”

George smiled again. Graves, one of those rare boys who preferred the classroom to the games field, was not one to ask frivolous questions. “By that time, Graves, even Elizabeth’s original detractors would have preferred her to the Earl of Essex. Indeed, over three hundred years later this woman surely ranks as the equal of any man in the pantheon of English monarchs,” he concluded as the chapel bell sounded in the distance.

George looked around to see if there were any more questions. There were none. He sighed. “That will be all then,” he said. “But gentlemen,” he added, his voice rising, “please be sure that your essays on the religious and political significance of Henry the Eighth’s marriage to Anne Boleyn are on my desk by midday on Thursday.”

An audible groan went up as the lower fifth gathered their text books and made their way out of the classroom.

George picked up the blackboard duster and began to rub out the names and dates of Henry’s six queens. He turned around to see that Graves was still sitting in his place.

“Can you name all six of them, Robert, and the years in which they became Queen?” he asked.

“Catherine of Aragon, 1509; Anne Boleyn, 1533; Jane Seymour, 1536; Anne of Cleves, 1540; Catherine Howard, 1540; and Catherine Parr, 1543.”

“And next week I’ll teach you a simple way of recalling their fates.”

“Divorced, beheaded, died, divorced, beheaded, survived. You told us last week, sir.”

“Did I indeed?” said George as he placed the duster back on his desk, seemingly unaware of just how much chalk had ended up on his gown.

George followed Graves out of the classroom and made his way across the quad to the masters’ common room to join his colleagues for the mid-morning break. Although he had proved to be a popular master with the majority of staff as well as the boys, he was well aware that not all of his colleagues approved of what they described in hushed tones as his laissez-faire attitude, and one or two of them openly voiced the opinion that the lack of discipline in his classes was undermining their own authority, especially when they had to teach the lower fifth on the same day.