Shirley sighed theatrically. 'You have to forgive my husband. Outside of teeth and King Arthur he's got a butterfly mind.'
'Not at all,' said Mosby. 'If Billy Bullitt's anything like Mitchell then he must be quite a guy.'
'More like quite a fascist, according to some people,' said Faith Audley with a sudden flash of vehemence.
'A fascist?'
'Now hold on there, love,' protested Audley. 'He may have been a pain in the neck for some of your Labour friends, but now your schoolgirl prejudices are showing. He's never had any known political connection, left, right or centre.'
And now, on Audley's tongue, it meant one thing only: the British had run such a profile on Billy Bullitt.
But just maybe not well enough.
Anthony Price - Our man in camelot
VII
NOBODY SEEMED TO mind Mosby's going off by himself on foot after breakfast, ostensibly to explore the village, even though he had used the same excuse to do the same thing after dinner the evening before. In fact everyone seemed pleasantly relaxed, bent on doing their own things along the several lines they had agreed during the evening meal, with no second thoughts and consequently no need for further discussion.
'Make sure you see inside the church this time,' admonished Margaret, as she heaped potatoes into a bowl. 'It's really quite a good one, and there are some super views from the top of the tower.'
'It isn't locked, then?' Mosby repeated his explanation for the previous expedition's omissions. 'The church, I mean?'
'Good heavens, no. Why should anyone want to lock it? There isn't anything of value there unless you count the Mothers' Union banner… which incidentally I've promised to repair. It's got the moths in it, or something.' She smiled at him over the potato peelings. 'You wouldn't be a dear and collect it on the way back, would you? It's waiting for collection inside the vestry…'
As he made his way down the hill between the now familiar (and, as usual, empty) canyons of Cotswold stonework, Mosby reflected that for once General Ellsworth would be proud of him.
The General was a keen advocate of Good Relations between his officers and what he termed 'the Indigenous Community'. As a result, while enlisted men were encouraged by every means to stay on base (since the only relations they could be relied on to establish with the natives were sexual), certain mature and reliable officers were practically ordered to do their bit in the cause of Anglo-American friendship. Mosby had hitherto not qualified for this unpopular duty, because the General clearly didn't regard him as a suitable representative of the American way of life. But now, with a tale of the Mothers'
Union banner which would lose nothing in the telling, he had the means of changing all that.
The General would also be proud, if not surprised, at the way he had handled himself yesterday, too, he decided. It wasn't simply that he'd mentioned Billy Mitchell, one of the General's heroes, but also that he'd implemented two of the highest Ellsworth precepts, Co-ordinated Effort and Delegation of Authority, as to the manner born: Audley, Shirley and Sir Thomas Gracey were for the time being doing all the work, while he busied himself with a little gentle Data Monitoring and Operations Analysis.
Which was exactly what he should be concerned with at the Informational Phase of his Implementation Structure Programme.
What was strange, almost disturbing, was the comfort he now derived from his virtuous condition. In his late- night debates with Doc Hollister on the essential nature of the Service mind, and in particular the devious mind of General Ellsworth, they had always ended by agreeing that it was high in crap and low in credibility; or as Doc McCaslin put it, 'Man cannot live by jargon alone.' Yet here he was, on assignment at last, instinctively playing it by the General's book.
Self-analytically, he decided that it was his involvement with Shirley that was to blame. Or, to be fair, it was the personnel controller who had united Agent Sheldon with Agent Morgan in simulated wedlock in the belief that nothing was liable to develop between them except maybe a little casual sex, which wouldn't inhibit their efficiency.
Anthony Price - Our man in camelot
That would have been the calculation, and it could hardly have been wider of the mark: Agent Morgan—
and that probably wasn't even her real name, he thought with a curious twinge of sadness—had kept her legs tightly together, and Agent Sheldon had graduated through thwarted desire to romantic and protective daydreams… Which were ridiculous —he'd even been comforted this early morning by the knowledge that she'd be safe enough in the joint company of Audley and Sir Thomas.
Or perhaps not so ridiculous, because danger there must sooner or later be, that was for sure. Not yet, this tranquil English summer's day, and not here, on the quiet lane to the church. But sooner or later the safe gathering of information among civilised men would end and they would catch up with the killers of Major Davies and Airman Pennebaker, who weren't playing scholarly games… Which cold bit of logic must sharpen his wits now, because Information Minimises Risk.
Ellsworth again, for God's sake.
He would have to do something about ditching Shirley. But since Shirley was unaware of his feelings that might not be so easy…
Either the village had once been a lot bigger or the old Englishmen who had lived there had reckoned on impressing the Almighty with their enthusiasm, because the Church of St Swithun and All Angels was out of proportion with the rest of the place: it was on the way to being a miniature cathedral.
The element of surprise was increased by its seclusion; it was so completely surrounded by tall elms that it was only possible to get glimpses of it—even from the road on the ridge above the village only the pinnacles had been visible through the trees—and because he hadn't realised the steepness of the valley and the height of the elms Mosby had been expecting a much smaller building.
And yet, surprisingly again, it was neither overshadowed nor overawed by its trees, but stood in the midst of a
