Colonel Butler's Wolf

Butler met her gaze with obstinate innocence. In an establishment like this it was reasonable that the fees purchased a measure of loyalty as well as treatment, apart from the simple mathematical fact that the longer Hugh stayed, the louder the final ring on the cash register would be.

'Well...' the hand resting on the file relaxed a fraction '... you must understand that the original injury sustained by Squadron Leader Roskill was a serious one, Major. There was considerable damage to the bone. Whatever is done, there is bound to be a limp. What we are doing is attempting to minimise it.'

Are doing. That meant that the sawbones was still at work and Hugh wasn't going back on to the active list for some time yet.

Butler nodded sympathetically, wondering as he did so just how much Matron knew or guessed about the nature of that original injury. Probably not too much, since Hugh had been taken to one of the Ministry's own nursing homes in the first place, and they would have passed on only the information they couldn't possibly conceal.

The hand opened the file at last.

'Now—let me see—' she began.

'When I'm grown up I think I'll marry Uncle Hugh.'

dummy2.htm

Sally's childish treble came through the open quarter-window with startling clarity. The three children had moved gradually across the gravel until they were playing directly beneath the office.

Matron swung round in her chair with a rustle of starched uniform to examine the source of the interruption.

'Don't be silly. You're far too little for him.'

Diana's emphasis indicated that she was also in the running for Roskill's hand, and as the eldest of the three had a much better chance of reaching the winning post first.

Matron turned back towards Butler. 'Your daughters, I believe, Major?'

'I'm sorry, Matron. I'll send them back to the car at once—'

'There's no need for that.' She smiled at him. 'They won't bother anyone here.'

'Well, you'd both better wait until he gets better from his accident. He might only have one leg.'

As always, Jane represented reason and calculation. At nine she was already estimating the odds with a coldness that sometimes worried Butler.

'They are delightful, Major—quite delightful.'

'He didn't have an accident, stupid— he was shot.'

'I know he was. But Daddy tells people it was an accident.'

'And he shot all the people who shot him.'

'Only one person shot him, Sally.'

'Well, he shot lots of them'

The smile on Matron's face had turned sickly with unbelief. It struck Butler that she was probably mirroring his own expression.

'Only three, there were.'

'Four.'

dummy2.htm

Butler rose from his chair and reached for the window-latch.

'Three. I heard Daddy say three to that man.'

The latch stuck maddeningly as Sally groped for a riposte to Jane's irritatingly factual claim. How the devil had they heard anything when they should have been safe in bed and long asleep?

The latch yielded, but one catastrophic second too late : short of a rational reply, Sally took refuge in an irrational one—

'Well, Daddy's shot hundreds of men— hundreds!'

For a moment Butler stared at the three upturned little faces, little round freckled faces. At the start of that moment he had wanted to tell them that it wasn't so and that of all things death was not the measure of manhood.

Then he saw beyond them the great frozen lake north of Chonggosong, and the Mustangs he had summoned up sweeping down on it in front of him . . . they had been wearing white parkas, the Chinese, when they'd come streaming down over the Yalu, but sweat and dirt and grease had turned the' white to a yellow that stood out clearly against the snow. . .

'Hallo, Daddy,' said Sally.

'Go on back to the car, darling,' said Butler carefully. 'Here—catch the keys, Diana. You can turn the radio on.'

He watched her shoo her sisters safely away from the window before turning back into the room. He had been lamentably careless in forgetting that little pitchers had large ears— it had never even occurred to him.

Only when he was settled comfortably in his chair again did he lift his eyes to meet Matron's, and then with unruffled indifference. The damage was done, but like the absence of the notes on Roskill's operation it was of no importance. It might be hate and anger she felt, or even horror. Or only distaste and contempt.

But it was all one to Butler. He had his instructions and she had her proper duty, and he would see that she