Sentence The Threehundredandsixtysixth 

 

And Sir Pantagruel MacFarlane was roused from his reverie – in which he could almost taste the sweet petrichor smell of the cut grass on the first rainy day of the season, as he gazed out of the window towards the eighteenth – by the Club Steward bringing a telephone handset to him: “I'm sorry to disturb you Colonel,” said the Steward, deferentially; Sir Pantagruel was the oldest member, had been his CO in the KOSBs too many years ago, another time, another place, but still due his respect, despite the now sedentary life, “well, he's earned it.” thought the man to himself; MacFarlane took the handset, looked at it carefully, to establish which way up to hold it and glanced at the man who had been Staff-Sergeant O'Reilly when they both served in Palestine, “thankyou, George,” to show he never forgot that day when they had scrabbled together amid the carnage of the King David Hotel, and spoke his name into the microphone: “orb and sceptre,” said the disembodied voice he had not heard for many years, since a brief meeting in a London Hotel, but still remembered clearly, “trumpery,” was his only response and he handed the set back to the Steward, “I think just a small one, for the road, Staff-Sergeant,” and O'Reilly nodded briefly, before returning to the bar; “my oh my,” the old soldier muttered to himself, then looked around to ensure that he had not been heard, but aside from himself there was no-one else sitting in the comfortable 'Members Only' room off the main bar, “so it has come to this, at last!” and when the Steward returned with his glass, he threw it

back in one gulp, pulled himself to his feet, took his stick and hat from the hands which offered them and, with an avuncular nod, but still a clearly military bearing, back ram-rod stiff and straight, walked confidently through the Clubhouse to meet whatever it might possibly be that awaited him!