The Mind Benders by James Kennaway

Author:James Kennaway
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Valancourt Books
Published: 2014-07-27T00:00:00+00:00

11

Tate was demonstrating to some of the third year men on respiration again. They were using a running machine similar to the one used, ten years before, by Dr Roger Bannister, who used to run for Oxford on the track and occasionally, for physiology, on the machine in the lab. The principle was that the man had to keep up with the rollers under his feet. The faster they went, the more energy he expended. The students were checking the rate of breathing and the body temperature, making the same sort of remarks to the poor bloke on the rollers that are made every year. Tate did not even hear them, now, and he was standing apart from the experiment when Longman appeared at the door. Tate strolled out to the polished corridor.

Longman did not look as casual as his invitation sounded.

‘If you’d care to come down, I’m going to take myself a bath.’

Tate stared at him carefully. ‘Isolation?’

Longman nodded. ‘I know what I’m doing. I can’t force you to come.’

Tate put his hands in the pockets of his white coat. He recognized the motive ‘guilt’ by one look at Longman’s face, and decided not to argue. He stared back at his students who were laughing at some new sally.

He said, ‘They’ll play with that thing for hours.’ Then he wandered back, had a word with the most responsible of the students, and left it at that.

The two men wandered past Calder’s office and to Tate’s unspoken question, Longman gave a negative reply. It was sunny outside.

Suddenly Tate asked, ‘How long are you going in for?’

‘All the way.’

‘Meaning?’

‘Meaning as much as I can tolerate physically, or until the pattern­ of behaviour starts repeating itself. It could do that.’

‘What are we going to do with you when we take you out?’

‘Treat me like a returned POW, with love and care and red meat.’

Tate did not comment. They approached the horrid little hut. ‘It’s a bit of a chance, isn’t it?’

Longman grinned. ‘I like that!’ he said. ‘I thought Englishmen packed up that understatement talk in ’45. It’s murder, that’s what it is. But man’s obstinacy, in this case, is complete. In I go, and in I stay, Tatty, until we know what the hell does happen.’

‘Isolation’ had a Yale lock on its door and as they stood in front of the ‘Positively no entrance’ sign, Longman fished in his pocket for the key. A second before he fitted it in the lock, he looked over his shoulder at Tate, and asked,

‘D’you know what fear over a long period does? It exhausts. It doesn’t come and go. It permanently haunts.’

Then he opened the door, and in they both went. The corridor was dusty and dull like the corridor of any other hut, but it stopped Longman. The musty smell almost overpowered him there and then, and as he stood stock still, Tate softly closed the door. They could hear voices coming from Lab B.

Tate said, ‘It sounds as if the military have anticipated us,’ and Longman nodded then moved forward.

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