By STRIX Loneliness and boredom fell away; I was suffused
by some at least of the emotions which a castaway feels when he sights a sail on the horizon. But how to profit by this all-but- encounter? The castaway could light a signal- fire, he could take off his shirt and wave it about like mad; neither course was open to me. After careful consideration, I decided to attract the attention of my friends by sounding a few dis- creet, irregular and as far as possible facetious blasts on my horn.
It was a rotten idea. So narrow was the high- way and so continuous the flow of traffic in the other lane that I had supposed it impossible that the Rolls would misinterpret my signals as the challenge of a road-hog intent on passing it; but this was what did happen. Tony made an imperious, dismissive gesture; Virginia darted over her shoulder a glance of disapproval and affront; and I hardly made matters better by thrusting my face, inanely grinning, close to the ,windscreen and (for some reason) point- ing at it. At my face, I mean.
Remorse overcame me. How well, as we ground southward at fifteen miles an hour, could I imagine the blight that I had cast upon my friends! I had put an end to the agreeable con- versation with which they had been passing the time. Their minds were now filled with a strong dislike, tinged with fear, of the dangerous oaf on their tail. 'He can't be tight at this hour of the morning, surely?' He looked to me like an escaped lunatic. They're always getting out, you know.' And on top of this my failure to establish contact had been complete. It would be useless to try the same gambit again. Tony and Virginia are not the fist-shaking type, and 1 knew that any further hooting, however' well modulated, would provoke only a slight stiffen- ing of their shoulders, a slight increase in their apprehensions.
We trundled on, twenty feet apart,-locked in frustration and misunderstanding: three old friends in two expensive metal boxes, 'so near and yet so far, caught in a dilemma far beyond the comprehensions of the Canterbury pilgrims or the simple muleteers of Yunnan. 1 was (perhaps) on the point of drawing some pro- found lesson from our predicament when we came to a place where the road dips steeply down through a village and rises steeply out of it. Here, with our, retinue of cars hemmed in by a double white line and its speed reduced to a walking pace, overtaking was so palpably out of the question that I decided to risk another
hoot; and this time the fiend at their heels was exorcised, wide grins and meaningless gestures were exchanged, and the coincidence of our meeting resumed its pristine purpose of enrich- ing life.
Come Clean
A letter from the Headquarters of the United States Air Force Academy in Colorado requests permission to publish something I once wrote in a collection of readings on twentieth-century warfare for the use of cadets. On the form I have to sign it says, 'The material covered by this release may (may not) be placed on sale in the Government Printing Office.' The letter explains, 'We have no intention of placing this material on sale, and we do not ask that you answer this question in' the affirmative.' Then why ask it? And if they want me to answer it in the negative, why not say so? It's all a bit baffling. •
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