Our man in Camelot

'Hah!' Handforth-Jones sniffed. 'And he wouldn't leave poor old Fletcher Holland alone at the Institute of Archaeology either—Fletcher's an authority on early English history.'

Mosby drew breath to try his question again.

'But—'

'But he was after Mount Badon, was he?' cut in Audley.

'Oh, sure. It was Badon all the time, with Arthur thrown in. In the end Fletcher got so exasperated that he insisted Arthur was actually a Scottish prince of Dalriada, or somewhere, and Badon was Vardin Hill up there—you often get transpositions of v for b. At which Billy Bullitt went off in a huff.'

'Not that you can blame Bullitt for that. If you are an authority, or if you are running a library, you must expect to be bothered by people who want to know things—that's what you are there for.' Sir Thomas gave a thin smile. Then the smile faded. 'But he also accepted an invitation to speak at the Oxford Union

—what was the debate, Tony?'

'Oh, This House believe that Britons never will be slaves', or some such rot.'

'That's right.'

Anthony Price - Our man in camelot

'It's a line from the chorus of Rule Britannia,' explained Audley to Mosby.

'Well, actually it isn't—as Billy Bullitt was at pains to explain,' said Sir Thomas heavily. 'It's a line from an eighteenth century masque on King Alfred—not to be confused with King Arthur—according to him. And his point was that in Alfred's time the majority of the Britons were slaves—to the Anglo-Saxons. But at least that was slavery by conquest in war, whereas now nobody had the guts to fight for our country —now we were all slaves, and that was all we deserved to be. We'd lost our honour, apparently.'

'Good rousing stuff,' murmured Handforth-Jones.

'Rousing is the word. There was practically a riot after the debate and seven undergraduates were arrested for causing a breach of the peace—'

'Thus disproving Bill Bullitt's thesis that they hadn't the guts to fight,' said Handforth-Jones.

'Ah, but it was no joke, Tony.' Sir Thomas said seriously. 'They turned a car over.'

'Yes—they thought it was his car, but of course it turned out to belong to some perfectly innocent person. And then—'

'Now hold on a minute.' Shirley tossed back her hair and stuck her chest out into the dialogue. 'Will someone kindly tell me who this Billy Bullitt is?'

The chest instantly succeeded where Mosby had twice failed, though for a second or so it brought admiring silence rather than explanation.

Then Audley cleared his throat. 'I'm sorry. Group Captain William Bullitt, DSO, DFC, RAF retired. Or resigned might be more accurate.'

'Group Captain?'

'Colonel would be the equivalent in your air force.'

'Uh-huh… And we should have heard of him, huh? ' She pivoted towards Mosby. 'You heard of him, honey?'

'Can't say I have, no.' Mosby frowned.

'No reason why you should have. He was a nine-days' wonder ten years ago when he resigned from the RAF, and then he made the headlines a year or two back when he came home from the Middle East. But he's hardly an international figure. More a colourful one—the Press loves the red shirt and the combat hat he always wears.'

'Why did he quit your air force?' asked Mosby.

'It was over the TSR-2, wasn't it?' said Sir Thomas.

Audley nodded. 'That's right. The RAF's wonder plane of the sixties and seventies that never was.'

'Never got off the drawing-board, huh?'

'Oh, it got off the drawing-board. And off the ground too.'

'But it was no good, you mean?'

'On the contrary,' Audley shook his head ruefully, 'by all accounts it was very good—way ahead of its time. But unfortunately also way ahead of its budget too. So the Labour Government scrapped it and ordered your F-lll instead. Which they also cancelled—in the end we bought Phantoms from you.'

'Uh-huh… and I guess Billy Bullitt had a few things to say about that too.'

'A few.'

'I get the picture. Your Billy Bullitt equals our Billy Mitchell—'

'Now, honey,' Shirley waved him down frantically, 'don't go making things worse. They won't know Anthony Price - Our man in camelot

who Billy Mitchell was any more than we knew this Billy Bullitt.'

'Wasn't he the one who bombed the battleship?' said Handforth-Jones.

Mosby clapped his hands. 'That's right. Back in 1921— he said planes could sink battleships. So they gave him an old German one, and when he'd proved his point they said 'Get lost, you bum—and don't show your face round here until after December 7, 1941'.'