time to the music. We added Steam just for fun. Like a code.”
And Ferguson began to hum Greensleeves with a distinctive locomotive rhythm that Kramer recognised instantly.
“You poor bloody sod,” he said.
“Steam Piggy thought it such a joke!”
“I bet.”
Kramer left abruptly.
“Holy jesus,” he said again, in the passage. The nurse, returning with her cup of tea, stared after him with the utmost sympathy. He looked ill.
He was sick to the stomach to think that of all the types of names he had considered, not once had the idea of a nickname occurred to him. No wonder nobody had ever stopped to explain it before-the topic had always been the girl and they must have supposed he understood what such a trifling thing meant. It had never been important.
Except to Shoe Shoe and he had missed the point as well. Look where that had got him. God, the consequences could be almost as devastating if this ever got into the Colonel’s after-dinner joke book.
Oh sod him. He’d never catch Jackson and so he’d sodding well never know. The sod.
Kramer stepped out into the night heading briskly on foot for the Trekkersburg Tudor Tavern. It had been a lot of trouble to go to for a whore, a steam-driven Coloured whore from Durban at that, but it bought steak.
