"Scabby Dichson" by Richard Blaker

A review.

The story opens at a school near Simla, where young Dichson, who has no knowledge of his parentage, is a pupil. He has great independence and resourcefulness, but, though he can hold his own with his fellows, there is something in him that is aloof, making him avoid intimate contacts and revelations. Consequently, later on, he resigns his love and takes an ill-paid and lonely job on the Canals. Even at the end, after heroic efforts to save others, he would have preferred to drown rather than to return to the living world. This is a finely conceived and powerful story, full of humour and true pathos.