Soldier No More

'He was frightfully brave, Daddy said,' Lexy regarded Steffy with disapproval. 'They could never get him to shut the lid of his tank, he was always poking his head out of it, Daddy said.'

' 'Frightfully inquisitive', that sounds like,' said Steffy.

It sounded more like frightfully stupid, thought Roche. But in the meantime, Steffy either didn't approve of Audley—or envied Lexy's inamorata role?

'Anyway—we were thinking of introducing you to him before

—it was your idea, Steffy,' said Jilly. 'Remember?'

Steffy frowned. 'I thought it was yours?'

'No—yours. But now we've got a proper reason . . . And we're already invited up to the Tower for an orgy tonight, so we can combine business and pleasure.'

'And it's David's turn to buy the drinks and hold the floor, dummy5

too,' said Steffy. 'That'll put him in a good mood for a start.'

Roche looked from one to the other, and to Lexy, trying not to goggle at them. In spite of the tough talk, they were still only three grown-up English schoolgirls; indeed, because of the tough talk, which was at least partially designed to impress him that they were women of the world, they couldn't really mean orgy when they said it. So he was a bystander to some sort of in-joke of theirs.

'Well, as long as I don't have to hold the floor,' said Lexy fretfully. 'I don't mind buying the booze, but I draw the line at having to spout.'

'Your turn will come, Lexy. You're bound to draw the short straw sooner or later,' said Steffy.

'It's all right for you—and Jilly. You're both too bloody clever for words, with your scholarships and your degrees. But all I've got is five School Cert passes and a bit of shorthand-and-typing—I'm no blue-stocking!' Lexy protested. 'What am I going to talk about, for God's sake?'

The dress had begun to gape again: Lexy was certainly no blue-stocking. Steffy spread her hands. 'Sex, darling—what else?'

Lexy opened her mouth, searching for words but not finding any. So this was the moment, thought Roche, when David of the Secret Service must sing for his orgy, if not his supper.

'If you draw the short straw, Lady Alexandra, then I'll take it,' he said gallantly. 'It's the least I can do, whatever it is, in dummy5

return for your speaking up for me, to find me a place to lay my head.'

They all looked at him in silence for a moment. Then, before he could think of retreating, Lady Alexandra threw her arms round his neck and kissed his cheek.

'Put the man down, Lexy!' said Jilly. 'At once!'

Mmm . . .' Steffy pursed her lips. 'I don't whether that's permissible under the rules.'

'What rules?' said Lexy. 'There aren't any rules! Let's go to the Tower at once and find a bed for this super chap, Jilly!'

'No!' said Jilly, in command as always. 'David's not there yet. He's in Cahors, talking with his French rugger boozers—

you don't play rugger, by any chance, do you, David?'

It was like not being a hussar. 'No, I'm afraid not. Hockey is my game.'

'Thank God! Don't be sorry—I couldn't bear to go through the Lions' match against the Springboks at Ellis Park again, blow by blow! And we've been through it twice in French too . . . Anyway, he won't be back until nightfall— always supposing he doesn't drive into a ditch somewhere on the way back, that is.' She gave Roche a grin, wrinkling her snub-nose. 'Besides which, we came here to bathe, and I need cooling down.'

Cooling down had its attractions, not least after that collision with Lady Alexandra's unrestrained curves.

'Me too!' He grinned back at her. It wasn't really a snub-dummy5

nose, it was delightfully retrousse, and the grin beneath it was infectious.

'I shouldn't wonder, with what you've just been through!'

And there was no maliciousness in that knowing look, either.

In the catalogue of their very different virtues, Jilly Baker's might strike a higher total than either Lady Alexandra's and Meriel-Steffy's, when they were all added up.

'Right then!' Jilly's command never slipped for a moment.

'David and I will bathe forthwith. Steffy will hold up a towel so that Lexy can attire herself in those inadequate red bandages of hers without causing offence to the local voyeurs, and then both join us in the Dordogne.'

They didn't seem to mind being pushed around as peremptorily as Lexy's sort-of general father had once pushed his Audley subalterns to their deaths, they seemed happily accustomed to it.

Roche, less accustomed, found himself looking to the river to see if the Marathon-swimming, long distance-no distance Frenchman was still breasting the current—if this was their accustomed swimming place, to which Raymond Galles had so accurately directed him, was he one of the local voyeurs?

Was all that effort in aid of them?

But there was no one there, the river was empty now. Had the sight of Lady Alexandra's charms, briefly glimpsed, been too much for him, spoiling his concentration for one fatal moment, so that the river had swept him away?

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