I was soon to be fifteen. I carried fantastic stories in my head. I held off the future dreaming of adventures in the Baltic Lands, imagined myself there fighting with Scots knights and mercenaries in the German service. And when I grew tired of that, I saw myself a Bronco Warrior, on the run with the last of the fighting Chiricahua. I was bored, but resigned to putting in the time until June. I wanted to be anywhere but St Mary"s School. I dreaded what lay ahead when I left school: I wasn"t going on the Baltic Crusade, or preparing to ambush the Cavalry; I was going down to Reid"s foundry, a dirty noisy place where they built diesel engines for ships.
St Mary"s was a school for boys, but on Sunday mornings at Mass I stared at the plump freckled girls. That helped shut out the soporific v
