6 "You'll Hear My Voice, On the Wind, 'Cross the Sand"

When I got back inside, my laptop was still on the table but the lid was raised. Bruce held up the empty glass he'd just dried and I gave him the thumbs up. When he brought my pint over, he told me 'some DLF' had had a look at the laptop,  but left it. 'Too old even for a desperate druggy to get anything for it, eh?'

He was right of course, so I gave him the kind of smile I thought writers might describe as rueful. I plugged my cable into the wall socket mounted on the stone wall. The ugly ducting leading to it was never going to be aesthetically pleasing, but at least most of it was hidden by the pew-like seating's back, or the wainscoting. I powered up the laptop again. By the time it was ready to go, I was half-way down my pint.

Google, as many times before, was my friend. I typed 'Prospero Vint' in the search box. Nothing, nada, nichts, ничего, nimic. Yes, I did try various languages. He just wasn't there. No Facebook, No X , No BlueSky, no Mastodon: no nothing.  So, of course, I searched  "The Hereford and Worcester Clarion" to see if they'd put their back issues on-line. No, they hadn't. The paper hadn't been printed in a decade-and-a-half. It had been subsumed by The Hereford Times, which paper having gone digital early, meant the extinction of The H&WC altogether. I could have tried the local library, but since it wasn't in Herefordshire or Worcestershire, it was unlikely to have a microfîche archive of The Clarion anyway. I did know – sort of – someone who had served in The Regiment, back in the day.  Or sort of had: Dave had been Royal Signals and served in 264 (SAS) Signals Squadron. They got a nice hat and the badge, but didn't have to do the hard stuff, which made them – as many other servicemen put it – SOSAS, that is, Sort Of SAS.

It was the longest of long shots. I hadn't spoken to Dave in 30 years. He would be out of the service, just like I was. Any address I did have would be out of date, as his phone number certainly would have been too, had I ever even had it on the heavy brick that passed for a mobile phone in those days. He might have heard about "The Vint-cident" as it would surely have been referred to over too many beers in the Sgts' and WOs' Mess at Stirling Lines. Being SOSAS rather than properly in The Regiment did mean that he might be somewhere on line.
I tried Facebook first. There were lots of Daves with the right surname. Some of them were even the right age. Two of those had transitioned. It was unusually practical of them to have their dead name on display, I thought. Then I came across a Dave_Xanadu on X and – even if the profile picture showed he'd lived hard and fast in the intervening years – I knew it was Dave Dee, because we'd used to sing Xanadu to him back in the day, when we'd all drunk enough.
 

His profile stipulated no DMs. I @-ed him in a post

@Dave_Xanadu 'You'll hear my voice…'  DM me
     #GaratsHay #BackInTheDay

[https://youtu.be/rsExj_0IHEs]