A very disappointed Dave Conway was bending to pick up the boys’ discarded clothing when he saw Angelo approaching from the direction of the clubhouse.

      ‘They went?’ he asked and Dave nodded.

      ‘I’m going too,’ declared Angelo as he unbuttoned his shirt.

      ‘You can’t!’

      ‘Don’t say I can’t! I’m as good as any of you!’

      ‘The Old Codgers won’t like it!’

      ‘Sod them! They’ll have to get used to the idea!’

      Dave Conway watched as Angelo slipped out of his clothes. He was of a mind to join him but knew the consequences of going against the wishes of the Old Codgers. Life, for him, in Henswytch would be intolerable if he defied them. Rules were rules and the Old Codgers made the rules around here.

      Angelo dived in and despite Conway’s protests he swam out to try and catch up with his fellow rowers.

      Out on the river Clyde was by far the stronger of the two swimmers and he quickly drew away, leaving Andrew to lumber through the water as best he could.

      The instructions from his uncle and the Old Codgers had been most explicit in this. They knew full well that Clyde was capable of overcoming the Iceman and taking his place among the village’s elite, but Andrew was another matter entirely. His father had indeed been a ‘worthy’, but the boy did not seem to be made of the same sturdy stock. That was why it had been decided that Andrew must do the Swim, and do it alone. Sink or swim was the Old Codgers’ method of sorting out the enigma that Andrew Lang had become.

      Clyde glanced and calculated that he was about to pass the river’s halfway point and had still not encountered the Iceman. He was feeling confident now and his arms swung past his head in steady strokes while his body felt warm with the blood pumping forcefully through his veins.

      Suddenly the Iceman struck and Clyde felt the wind being smashed out of his lungs. The water had instantly turned frigid and the skin of his scalp felt as though it was trying to crush the skull beneath. ‘Shit!’ he screamed as he struggled to regain his composure. Don’t panic! his mind screamed. Keep going! You have to keep going!

      Every muscle in his body knotted in reaction to the cold and his body temperature began to plummet which caused him to shake uncontrollably. The pace of his stroke dropped dramat-ically and it took all his willpower to keep going, even as his strength sought to fail him. Maybe I should go back? No! That’s what the Iceman wants me to do. I have to keep going forward. How much longer? How much longer?

      Stroke by agonising stroke Clyde crawled toward the far bank. He was shaking like someone in the throes of malaria and could hardly feel his hands and feet when, with a final effort to freeze his intended victim, the Iceman let go his deathly grip.

      Around Clyde the water’s temperature went up by a few degrees and that was enough for his body to begin to feel the warmth return. The youth’s body still felt as though it were made of ice, but he struggled on. More confident now he looked up to see that the welcoming flames of Tilley’s fire were drawing closer.

      At last he found himself among the reeds at the river’s edge and was relieved to find that he could place his feet on the river’s muddy bottom. Still shaking uncontrollably he clambered up the bank and stumbled through the dark toward the fire.

      Tilley heard him coming and rushed to his side. She ignored the freezing water running down his sides and wrapped her warm arms around him while drawing him toward the fire.

      ‘You’re freezing!’ she said.

      ‘The Iceman,’ he stuttered as he willed the flames to ease the pain in his tortured muscles.

      ‘Who else is out there?’

      ‘Just Andrew.’

      ‘Andrew! What made him do the Swim? I didn’t think he had the courage.’

      ‘The Old Codgers said he had to do it. They think it will make a man of him.’

      ‘Fat chance of that,’ sneered Tilley.

      She had lived under the same room as her cousin long enough to understand his true nature.