preshute can never keep a secret for long, and just as word got out about sandys and caruthers, those two boys who were caught and sent away, disappearing on a train never to be seen again, there's also the story of two boys who went to war and miraculously survived. they left the country - some say they left it together. There are whispers that they fled the war, whispers that they deserted, died, came back from the dead, but there are also whispers that they eloped. Ran away together.
No one at Preshute knew them in person - it was too long ago, and the war feels like a lifetime ago; it's a new decade, and the world is changing, even old Preshute, with its timeless traditions. But people don't forget stories. Sometimes the names of the boys are wrong, or more likely misspelled; mostly names are not mentioned at all, and the story is just a murmur or ripple, because everyone knows its not safe to talk about this kind of thing out loud, not even now, in the 1920s, unless you're ready to laugh cruelly about it all. But every now and then, a young boy - perhaps one in Hundreds, feeling on the cusp of something, or perhaps older, preparing to face the reality of adult life, or even much younger, already knowing who he is and wondering how he'll manage his own life whilst knowing it - hears the rumour of the two Preshute boys who ran away together after the war. They weren't sent away, or captured, or expelled, or dismissed - no, they left by choice, together, and rumour has it (and this is the part that these boys hope is true most of all) that they are still out there somewhere, together, making a life, even though all who knew them at Preshute are long gone.