Soldier No More

Roche thought: That must be the Sargent picture of 'Blinker'

Hall and if Avery's got that picture for his room then Bill Ballance and Jean-Paul are both right about the new group.

'David—'

Roche tore himself away from Admiral Hall's basilisk eye. It was Thain, the only man in Personnel Recruitment who had thought well of him after he'd fluffed half the tests in training.

'David—let me introduce you—Sir Eustace, this is David Roche, about whom you've been hearing so much these last few days.'

Christ! Thain had come up in the world since PRT days, to be in this company, overlooked by Admiral Hall himself. But dummy5

that at least accounted for his own presence, even if 'hearing so much' could hardly ring true. Since his PRT debacle he'd been little more than a hewer of wood and a drawer of water, in spite of Thain's approval. So there really wasn't so much to hear about.

'Sir Eustace,' he mumbled. But he had to do better than that

—here— now—by God! He had to shine—

'Colonel Clinton, David—'

Clinton was another new face, but the name rang faint warning bells: one glance at Colonel Clinton was two glances too many—the thought of Colonel Clinton hearing so much these last few days was blood-curdling.

Clinton smiled a terrible non-smile, far worse than Jean-Paul's bullet-in-the-back-of-the-neck grin. 'Roche.'

'Sir!' Roche did his best to make the word stand to attention for him.

'And St. John Latimer, of course,' concluded Thain.

St. John— Sin-jun—Latimer was very young, and podgy with it; and languid, like an Oxford undergraduate who had strayed into the wrong party but was too idle to do anything about it.

'Latimer,' said Roche.

'St.John Latimer,' corrected St.John Latimer, swaying at Roche's faux pas.

Latimer—plain Latimer, damn it—was standing to the right dummy5

and slightly behind Colonel Clinton, in the creature-to-the-Duke position, so that was what he might very well be since he was too young to be here by right of experience and seniority. But he might also be some sort of catalyst, introduced to sting a reaction from the provincial and dull Captain Roche.

'Is that so?' Well, if they wanted a reaction, at least let it be a controlled one. 'Jolly good!'

Like all good catalysts, Latimer showed no sign of change at this controlled Roche-reaction, he didn't seem even to have heard it.

'Yes . . .' It was Thain who produced the reaction, and it was a decidedly uneasy one. 'Yes—well, I must be off now—' he gave Roche a glance which was more charged with doubt than encouragement, like a gladiatorial trainer delivering a novice into the arena '—subject to confirmation and—ah—

mutual agreement, David, you will be transferred from the Paris station to Sir Eustace's care ... on a temporary basis, of course—'

Sale or return—as the liquor store off-licence would have put it. Or suck-it-and-see, as Roche's old squadron sergeant-major more accurately would have pronounced.

'—Colonel Clinton will fill you in on the details.'

The figure of speech was unfortunate after the memory of SSM Lark had been conjured up in Roche's memory: to be filled in at Shaiba Barracks involved the scattering of blood dummy5

and teeth in all directions.

'Sir Eustace—Colonel—' Thain looked at Latimer, who was examining the pattern on the carpet, and decided against including him in the general farewell. Perhaps he hadn't come up in the world, or not as far as the present company and venue had suggested; perhaps he had only been present to complete the formality of pushing the doomed Roche out on to the arena's sunlit ellipse of sand for the killing.

'Thank you, Malcolm. You've been a great help,' said Sir Eustace with the easy insincerity of long experience. 'I'm sorry you have to go . . .'

He wasn't sorry. And, what was worse, Thain wasn't sorry either.

'David—nice to see you again,' Thain nodded.

He wasn't sorry because he expected Roche to fluff it again.

And maybe that had also been what Jean-Paul expected, except the possible benefit of his not fluffing it outweighed the attendant risk. What was more, his— Roche's—very presence here, win or lose, increased his value as a bargaining counter on the board. After this, for Jean-Paul, he would be worth trading in for some other advantage as he had never been before. He was on the way to becoming a blue chip.

And that made his own betrayal of Jean-Paul even better sense, as a pre-emptive strike, to mix the very latest Israeli jargon with that of the Stock Exchange. More than ever, he dummy5

had to do well now simply to keep ahead of them—both of them—until he could bargain on his own account.