For a man of seventy-five, Sir Thomas was still fit and strong, hitting his drive further than most golfers of thirty-five do, but he still didn’t clear the hill.
“Nice drive,” I said softly and fell in step with him as, driver in hand, he began to walk up the slightly sloping fairway.
“The military became my family, though of course I couldn’t join straight away — I was too young. My brother, your father, well he was busy with the estate and the family businesses so most of the time I stayed with the cadets. As soon as I could, I joined up. Later of course UNPOL became my family, but when your father died and the estates and the family businesses all passed to me, that is when I thought of creating the Oliver Foundation.”
“Why gifted children only? Why doesn’t the Oliver Foundation accept any child who has lost its parents?”
“Well, there’s no shortage of care for orphaned children in our world. Indeed, the care given is superb. However, the opportunity for gifted children, or even just above averagely intelligent children, to thrive in that environment is extremely limited with the result that their potential is lost to the world. Over the years, Oliver children have risen to positions of great influence.”
“Was the Oliver Foundation started because of the loss of your brother and because you were alone then?”
“Well, I wasn’t quite alone was I? I lost a brother but gained a nephew. But yes, losing my brother was the influence that led to the Oliver Foundation.” He suddenly side-stepped towards me, and reaching out, put his arm nearly around my shoulders. He missed because he was quite a bit shorter than me, and instead squeezed my elbows awkwardly. I stiffened involuntarily at his touch and he stumbled away, withdrawing his arm and clearing his throat.
“We must do this more often, Jonah. It is one of the hopes of my having more self-time that I’ll be able to spend more time with you.”
“Yes, Uncle, we will. This memoir idea of yours is a great way for me to get to know and appreciate the life you have led. I don’t believe that I have ever thanked you properly for the life that I have enjoyed, and you must allow me to make that up to you somehow.” He smiled at my words and kept walking.
“Of course I will, Jonah, but raising you has been my pleasure. As you know I had some regrets that you showed no interest in a military career but you have made me very proud with your success in the legal field.”
We walked on in silence for a bit. I glanced behind me to see how close Call was to me.
“Exactly where were you when I was born, Uncle?”
“Huh, let me see. You were born on the 29th of October, 2075. I was in Australia at the time — yes, that’s right, official UNPOL business, top secret. But I returned to England the moment I heard the news of your birth.”
Sir Thomas hit a good second shot but still had about one hundred sixty to the green. I took a six iron and played safe just short of the water, leaving me with an easy chip shot onto the rolling green.
“Thirty-four years ago and still top secret — that must have been quite some business you were on?”
“Yes, it was. Well without giving away too much I can say that it had to do with the assassination of Bo Vinh.”
“Really! But Bo Vinh died the 1st of January 2075 and this was more than a nine months later, right?”
“Yes, correct, but something came up that provided a lead in the case and I had to follow that up personally. One of my great regrets, perhaps the greatest, is not finding the coward who killed Bo Vinh. I live in hope that one day we will uncover the truth behind the firing of that anti-tank weapon at Bo Vinh’s convertible.”
We walked in silence for a little while.
“And this lead, was it significant?”
“No. It turned out to be a dead end.”
“I see. So getting back to when you were cleared in the court martial over the annihilation of Bucharest, what did you do next?”
We reached his ball. It wasn’t in a good lie. Sir Thomas grunted and looked at the green ahead. An island green connected by a small wooden bridge with low railings and surrounded by a moat twenty yards wide. The sides of the green where they reached the water sloped sharply down hill and anything landing five feet from the edge would roll into the moat.
Sir Thomas looked at me and grinned, “No guts, no glory eh,” and took out a seven iron. I smiled back at him, thinking how I could probe deeper.
Sir Thomas lined up his shot and I stood waiting. He swung and hit it, the ball crisply rising up high, then sharply dipping as it passed the wooden bridge and hit the green. He’d hit the ball so cleanly it had lots of back spin on it, and Sir Thomas’s proud grin vanished as the ball spun off the green, reached the sharply sloping edge and trickled down into the moat.
“Blast,” shouted Sir Thomas and slashed the seven iron into the dirt in front of him.
We walked up another fifty yards to where my ball was lying. I had a short hundred yard pitch shot — again I had played this shot a hundred times. Nine times out of ten I could shoot a birdie on this hole, with exactly the shots I’d used so far.
“Thanks, Call.” I took the sand wedge that Call had already selected from the bag before I’d asked for it, and adopting a wide stance, lined up the shot. I cleared my head getting ready for some distraction out of Sir Thomas and took my back swing. Too late to stop this time. As I swung, Sir Thomas’s Devcaddy reversed sharply, rattling the clubs in his bag. I was prepared this time and followed through, hitting the ball cleanly and dropping it past the pin by about twelve feet. It bounced once and spun back towards the hole, coming to a rest with a four foot putt for me to make.
I held my follow through sand wedge high across, my right elbow pointed at the flag and Call’s voice rebuked Sir Thomas’s Devcaddy. “Devcaddy violation, course rule Fifteen B. One more incident and you cost your player a stroke.”
“Dammed Devcaddy. Sorry about that, Jonah, must be something wrong with its circuit.”
“That’s OK, Sir Thomas. No guts, no glory, eh?” and I smiled at him. His apologetic smile froze on his face and his eyes searched mine for guile, but I held his eyes with an innocent look that I’d had years to perfect. Finally he smiled, sure of my innocence, but suspecting that I might just be making a fool of him. I wanted him unbalanced, not thinking straight.
He dropped a new ball on the ground in front of him and I waited while he chipped onto the green. He still had a long putt to make. I didn’t say anything. When he’d finished his shot we crossed over the bridge, me following him, and as we walked onto the green I said, “So after Bucharest, what did you do?” and went and marked my ball.
“Yes, well as you know the immediate aftermath of the war was a troubled time. There was a great shake up in how military forces were organized, and the UK along with most of NATO was deployed to manage the camps. Those were awful times, Jonah. People dying of secondary diseases caused by the fallout. People starving, begging for food. I was sent to the camps outside of Boston, in what was then the United States of America. At the time I must confess that I thought it ironic that a British army lieutenant would be put in charge of a camp in Boston, the birthplace of the American revolt against the British Empire. But it was a small camp, just three thousand people, and Boston was a wasteland.”
He took his putt and missed. He was still outside my putt so I stayed where I was and let him putt again, looking at his ball all the time. He putted and missed again, rolling past the hole by about a foot.
“Pick it up, Uncle,” I said, and walked over to place my ball on its mark. I cleared my mind. Just as I started my back swing I heard the sound of Sir Thomas taking off his golf glove, the Velcro ripping loud as he pulled it off. I held the stroke steady and swung through the ball following it with my putter as it rolled forward and dropped into the center of the cup.
“That’s three in a row, Uncle. Would you like to go double or quits on the next hole?”
“Double or quits? Yes, all right. Why not? Your luck can’t hold forever.”
I laughed and we walked up to the thirteenth, a short one hundred and thirty yard par three again with an island green.
Call held out the pitching wedge for me as I dropped my ball on the green and nudged it forward with my toe to find a slightly better lie.
I took a nice steady slow back swing and swung through the ball hitting it crisply. The ball arced up and
