with hatred, uttering that word, that one unbelievable horrible word.
'Sean!'
'Sean!' he said aloud in his desolation. 'Sean. Oh God!'
and then savagely,
'I hate him. I hate him! Let him die-please God, let him die.
He closed his eyes, losing his grip upon reality, and felt the first
dizzy swing of vertigo as the liquor took firm hold upon him.
Too late now to open his eyes and focus them upon the bed across the
tent, the giddiness had begun-now he would not be able to hold it down.
The warm, acid-sweet taste of brandy welled up into his throat and
mouth and nose.
When his servant found him it was the middle of the morning.
Garry lay fully dressed but asleep upon the bed with his sparse hair
ruffled, his uniform stained and grubby, and the leg lying derelict in
the centre of the floor.
The servant closed the door softly and studied his master, his nostrils
flaring at the sour smell of stale brandy and vomit.
'Had yourself one hell of a bust-up. Hey-Hop, Skip and Jump? ' he
murmured without sympathy. Then he picked up the bottle and examined
the inch of liquor remaining in it. 'Your bloody good health, cock,'
he saluted Garry and drained the bottle, patted his lips delicately and
spoke again. 'Right! Let's get your sty cleaned up.
'Leave me alone,' Garry groaned.
'It's eleven o'clock, sir.
'Leave me. Get out and leave me.
'Drink this coffee, sir.
'I don't want it. Leave me.
'I've got your bath filled, sir, and a clean uniform laid out for
YGU
'What time is it?' Garry sat up unsteadily' Eleven o'clock,' the man
repeated patiently.
'My leg?' Garry felt naked without it.
'One of the harness makers is stitching the straps, sir. It'll be
ready by the time you've bathed.
Even in a position of rest Garry's hands, laid upon the desk in front
of him trembled slightly, and the runs of his eyelids prickled.
The skin of his face was stretched like that of a drum over the slow
pain that throbbed within his skull.
At last he sighed and picked Lieutenant Curtis's report from the top of
the thin sheaf of papers that waited for his attention.
Garry skimmed through it dully, few of the names upon it meant anything
to him. He saw Sean's name headed the list of wounded, and below him
was the little Jewish lawyer. At last satisfied that mained nothing to
the discredit of Colonel Garrick Courtney, he initialled it and laid it
aside.
He picked up the next document. A letter addressed to him as Officer
Commanding the Natal Corps of Guides, from a Colonel John Acheson of
the Scots-Fusiliers. TWo pages of neat, pointed handwriting. He was
about to discard it and leave it to his Orderly's attention when the
name in the body of the text caught his eye. He leaned forward
