Tomorrow's ghost

though by adding her to himself, like two individually meaningless jigsaw pieces, he might catch a glimpse of the whole design.) ' - and anyway I'm going home, thank God!'

'Oh, no! He's sending you home - Fighting Jack is. And that's a very different thing ...

You're missing the point, Princess. And that's not like you.'

'Flattery will get you nowhere.'

'Not flattery. It's just that I need straw to make my bricks.'

'And I don't?'

'Sometimes you don't, I've noticed. I was hoping this might be one of those times.'

'Not this time. Why don't you ask Colonel Butler?'

'Ask Fighting Jack? You're kidding!'

'No, I'm not ... kidding.' (She had heard the anger in her voice under the weariness, but had no longer cared to conceal it.) ('You seem to have some sort of bee in your bonnet about him, but I think he's pretty damn good, what I've seen of him. So why don't you stop bitching - ' (Sod it! She had used that word again!) ' - stop complaining and just ask him straight out?'

(He had laughed then.) 'Oh, Princess - you are under par! That's the whole point -

that's what is really odd about us being here, and we don't know why - that's bad enough. It doesn't seem to make sense, but it has to somehow, that's all ... we just can't work it out.'

'Yes?' (She had shivered again: the aftermath of fear was this bone-deep chill, a deja-vu of the grave.) 'So what?'

'Christ, Frances! He doesn't know the answer either - like, he's a convoy commander, and they've sent him a couple of battle-cruisers - '

'Oh, for heaven's sake, Paul ... spare me the naval history.'

'What?'

'I don't even know what a battle-cruiser is - and I don't want to know.'

'Oh - sorry. Princess. But what I mean is - '

* * *

'Marvellous!' said Sir Frederick Clinton. 'That must be Orion - the belt with the little dagger ... and that reddish star in Taurus - '

* * *

' - what I mean is. Butler doesn't know why we're here either. As if he hasn't got enough to worry about as it is ... But then he's a crafty old devil - which is why he's packing you off home,

Frances dear.'

'What d'you mean, Paul?'

'Top brass sends you up - he sends you packing. If we're meant to be a team he's splitting us up before we've got started. So if they send you back again they're going to have to do some explaining. I tell you, he may look like the very model of an old-time major-general, but he's one smart operator, believe me. I've been watching him - I haven't had anything else to do but watch him - and I've changed my mind about him.

He's bloody smart.'

* * *

'- and that reddish star in Taurus must be Aldebaran. And there's the Plough, bright as anything - quite splendid! Do you know about stars, Frances?'

Butler, thought Frances. She had learnt precious little about Comrade O'Leary (in fact, she had learnt more about John Ronald Reuel Tolkien than about Comrade O'Leary), and even less about surveillance technology, but she had had a grandstand view of Colonel Butler in action, and so had Paul Mitchell.

'No, Sir Frederick.'

It was no longer totally black. Her eyes had become used to the darkness, so that she could make out the loom of him against the darker mass of shrubbery.

'A pity, with this sky of yours.'

Butler. But why Butler? It didn't make sense.

The darkness which remained was a comfort to her: it not only equalised Robbie's old dressing 99 gown with what would surely be an immaculate overcoat, but it also concealed her bewilderment.

'Yes. But do you know about battle-cruisers?'

'Battle-cruisers?' She could hear his surprise, the darkness seemed to magnify it.

'Battle-cruisers?'

She had the initiative now, but she would have to work hard to keep it.

'They're no good for convoy work, I believe.'

'Yes .. . that is to say, no ... unless the enemy was using some powerful surface ships as commerce raiders, I