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“We do.” Prescott shrugged. “Until the captain decides we don’t. Next time wait for him to tell you to play the walk.”
“He can’t tell me anything,” protested Egg. “He’s a mile away.”
“You’re supposed to ride with him!” Prescott shouted as the wind gusted, flinging a few cold droplets. “Bugler rides by the captain. It says so in the handbook.”
“Captain’s supposed to be courteous.” Egg sounded sulky. “Also in the handbook.”
“You can ride back here for now,” conceded Prescott. “There are so few of us. But remember, formation matters. This wouldn’t stand with the full membership.”
Muriel gave a yelp. “Dear God. More Mutton Wheelers?”
Prescott and Egg twisted around and cut her identical looks of surprise.
“Sorry.” She sat straighter. “Did I say that aloud? I could hear your conversation, and it’s just—I hadn’t realized you were so numerous.”
Prescott gave a brief nod. “There are forty-eight members in total.”
“We’re the officers,” added Egg. “This is an officers’ excursion.”
They faced front again.
Kit recognized Muriel’s expression. She had more questions.
“And why Mutton Wheelers?” she asked. “Is it the association with toughness? I’ve found mutton very tender, in curries.”
“Wouldn’t know.” Egg craned his neck to frown in her direction. “Not allowed to eat mutton. Training diet.”
“We used to meet at the Shoulder of Mutton Pub,” said Prescott, turning. “Now we have a clubhouse, but…”
A sudden flurry of shouts snapped both their heads back around.
“I don’t see—” began Prescott.
“Cow!” Egg broke hard to the right. An instant later, Muriel did the same. Prescott and Kit broke left. The cow herself didn’t move. She stood in the middle of the road with laudable calmness, her creamy brown flanks nearly invisible in the fog. They all missed her by inches.
Kit held his breath until he saw Muriel control her wild swerve. She careened back onto the road and steadied her wheel, face pale.
Anger stirred in his guts. With less than a week of training, she lacked experience handling her machine under duress. She might have gone flying into a furze bush, or worse, a boulder.
“Dismount and rest?” he asked her.
She shook her head. “We’ve barely gotten underway.”
Yes, and what a start they’d made.
“Passing on the left,” he announced. He swung around Prescott, and then overtook Butterfield as well, standing on the pedals, both for the added power, and because he did feel a bit too low to the ground in comparison.
He had to exert himself even more to pull even with Deighton.
“Foul weather,” he remarked, when it became obvious that Deighton wasn’t about to speak first.
“Didn’t see you down there.” Deighton grinned. “How’s the mud?”
“Dunno.” Kit grinned too. “Shall we try to knock each other into it? Get it out of the way?”
Deighton hunched over his handlebars. “No one’s knocking anyone into anything.”
“Your father suggested otherwise.”
