Extract from my soon to be started again novel- No title at the moment

I couldn’t quite understand such complexities in my current climate of thought but I obviously pondered what on the subject. Such sights and surroundings could surely not be fathomable by even the most scholarly or seasoned minds but I, being somewhat of an adventurous and dare I say forward thinking kind of chap debated going forward.


And so, that is how I left it in the end. I could positively have pursued the question in hand but decided the gentlemanly thing was to fix hat and turn tails. Of course, the next day regret swept and shook my body like a ravaging cancer, eating away at ‘my previous eves morals’. I even in the darkest hindsight wished I had been induced in an opium gin like state; a walking phantasm with not the dickens of human compassion nor the old Etonian spirit that has served me well for so long.

And so the cock crowed, the dawn chorus came screeching through my bed chamber window, that awful chirp that signals another day or intrepid boredom. I reached over to the laudanum bottle; of course the blighter was empty. "Dash it" I exclaimed to the heavens, "Dash it."
And with that I leisurely pulled myself off the trusty steed that serves me so well night after night. Slightly shaken on unsteady foot I proceeded the walk of despair to the bathroom, each step I cursed to our Father for why I had not managed to wake, say nine this eve. After attempting the necessary morrow duties the more enlightening and joyous task of the days wears came into consideration. A slightly off white Oxford shirt, perhaps the club tie, a rather burnt coloured tweed and yes definitely the club tie.

And so my first intrepid task of the day had been achieved and was over. Euphoria cascaded over me like the Highland rains.

When I approached the front door it suddenly dawned upon me that neither Mabel the maid nor Thomas, my occasional valet were anywhere to be seen. A day off I thought and with a shrug my hand reached for the handle to let the outside world in and my glorious self out.


It was around 3:30 when I reached the chaos that is Piccadilly Circus. My reason for this venture into the westward parts of Doris dear London was a scheduled visit to an old chum of mine, Simian Wayters, whom I had penciled in for a diddy and a chat the night before last. Well I believe it was then. As I approached the grey, dreariness of The Young Lions Club it dawned upon me what a frightful place this was.
Now for those not in the know about The Young Lions Club it is a ghastly place that in its stone clad, medieval like structure encases a membership of awful patronage. From over bearing aristocratic hoodlums keen of a bit of wartime roughness to old front liners who came nowhere near or ever thought of getting up close to the front line, who now dribble on to such ‘upstarts’ like myself about what good a bit of the old battle fatigue would do. No thanks and dash to that I say, dining at the Gay Hussar is enough of a battle for me. Anyhow you get the jist of the ferociousness of the lions encapsulated in this old cage.

"Ahhh Napoleon, there you stand before me." Only Simian refers to me in that name charge of yesteryear.
"So sorry to drag you here of all places, but secrecy’s a must and what better place to dwell in secrets than a venue of military prestige."
"Oh, ho hum, not to worry old sort, I am in fact quite partial to this old haunt." Hoping he would sense my incurable sarcasm. Well that’s what one is often told.
"Now my dear fellow, we must chat about what occurred last night. It is of frightful repercussions that we find a way out of this beastly arrangement."
"Oh yes, what. we must."
At this point I must confess the normal thing a chappy would do would be to ask for a reminder, but for reasons of not appearing the class muse I refrained, hoping in a Sherlock Holmes type of fashion that it would become, elementary is it?

Simian looked at me in a rather odd way, his face scrunched up and contorting like a foreign breed of canine. "I’m all partial to a bit of the old gun ho national pride bit but I really don’t think I’m ready for the old battle charge yet. I have only just got engaged to Daphne you know, and the last thing she would want is me running off to some ruddy war."
"War?" I perked up a bit.
"Yes war. The regimental chap from last night. The dotted line. Come on Horatio sharpen up!"
Now by obvious note the news that last night's, once looked upon, forgotten revelry now had some sort of military undertones struck me like a rather large circular thing shaped lead balloon.
"Ahhhh, oh-uh"