'Get me another drink, Andre.' Wally Hendry thrust his empty glass into
the hand of the man who sat on the edge of the bed.
The Belgian stood up and went across to the table obediently.
'More whisky and less beer in this one,' Wally instructed, turned once
more to Bruce and belched again. 'That's what I think of the
idea.' As Andre poured Scotch whisky into the glass and filled it with
beer Wally hitched around the pistol in its webbing holster until it
hung between his legs.
'When are we leaving?' he asked.
'There'll be an engine and five coaches at the goods yard first thing
tomorrow morning. We'll load up and get going as soon as possible.'
Bruce started to shave, drawing the razor down from temple to chin and
leaving the skin smooth and brown behind it.
'After three months of' fighting a bunch of greasy little Gurkhas
I was looking forward to a bit of fun. - I haven't even had a pretty in
all that time - now the second day after the ceasefire and they ship us
out again.'
'C'est laguerre,' muttered Bruce, his face twisted in the
act of shaving.
'What's that mean?' demanded Wally suspiciously.
'That's war,' Bruce translated.
'Talk English, Bucko.' It was the measure of Wally Hendry that after six
months
in the Belgian Congo he could neither speak nor understand a
single word of French.
There was silence again, broken only by the scraping of Bruce's razor
and the small metallic sound as the fourth man in the hotel room
stripped and cleaned his FN rifle.
'Have a drink, Haig,' Wally invited him.
'No, thanks.' Michael Haig glanced up, not trying to conceal his
distaste as he looked at Wally.
'You're another snotty bastard - don't want to drink with me, hey?
Even the high-class Captain Curry is drinking with me. What makes you so
goddam special?'
'You know that I don't drink.' Haig turned his attention back to his
weapon, handling it with easy familiarity. For
all of them the ugly automatic rifles had become an extension of their
own bodies. Even while shaving Bruce had only to drop his hand to reach
the rifle propped against the wall, and the two men on the bed had
theirs on the floor beside them.
'You don't drink!' chuckled Wally. 'Then how did you get that
complexion, Bucko? How come your nose looked like a ripe plum?' Haig's
mouth tightened and the hands on his rifle stilled.
'Cut it out, Wally,' said Bruce without heat.
'Haig don't drink,' crowed Wally, and dug the little Belgian in the ribs
with his thumb, 'get that, Andre! He's a tee-bloody-total!
My old man was a tee total also; sometimes for two, three months at a
time he was tee total, and then he'd come home one night and sock the old
lady in the clock so you could hear her teeth rattle from across the
street.' His laughter choked him and he had to wait for it to clear
