Here Be Monsters

She had gone too far. Because Oliver St John Latimer didn't lose his temper, he simply became silkier. And he was very silky now.

'Yes, sir.' She must sound contrite, but not craven. Now that they were far enough away from Paul she must think of her own interests exclusively. 'I wasn't questioning that.'

'Of course not!' He smiled at her suddenly, and scooped up the Thornton's box, and cast it into his waste-paper basket. And then reached into one of the drawers of his desk, and produced another one. 'I quite understand how you feel - I've felt the same way myself, on occasion.' He tore off the wrapping of the box like a child with a Christmas present. 'And it isn't as though you're an expert on military history - '

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God! That was turning back towards Paul! 'I found that quite interesting, actually!' How could she have found it interesting? 'Colonel Sharpe's theories on the role of special forces - military elites…' She could just about sustain a few minutes' interrogation on that now.

'Hah!' Latimer appeared to be giving all his attention to the contents of the box. 'Now that, I do agree, is interesting… though more sociologically and politically than in the 'bang-bang-you're-dead' sense… And, of course, we are an elite too, Elizabeth - ' He looked up suddenly at her ' - you realize that.' He thrust the box at her. 'Have one?'

She had better have one. 'I don't feel particularly elite at the moment.'

'Because you didn't get some elderly ex-soldier's Christian name?' He made his own choice, and wolfed it. 'No matter… Although he does seem… not uninteresting, in his way, I agree.' He selected another of his favourites. 'No… the trick, with elites, is that they should be used precisely - almost surgically - for whatever is required, and for nothing else.'

Chocolates notwithstanding, he went up a ladder on Elizabeth's board. For that was almost exactly what Colonel Sharpe had said.

'So I am going to use you precisely - and even perhaps surgically - now, Elizabeth.' He looked at her, and she could see that he was happy in his work, as well as with what he was chomping. 'You did teach Latin in that girls' school of yours, didn't you?'

It didn't quite shatter her confidence, because it wasn't the first time he'd hit her with Latin.

But, of course, he had her curriculum vitae at his finger-tips, so she couldn't deny the truth.

'Yes.'

'Up to O-level? For two years?'

'Yes.' Mrs Hartford had become pregnant; and then she had decided that her new baby was more rewarding than a teacher's derisory salary. 'With difficulty.'

'You obtained good results, nevertheless?'

That was also true - although it was not what she had entered into the record: she had certainly not revealed that she had typed the manuscript of Father's Dover Patrol from nine to half-past eleven, and then prepared next day's lesson from half-past eleven to one o'clock, five nights a week. 'I kept one jump ahead of the class. On Mondays I was sometimes three jumps ahead. But there was one particularly clever girl in the class, with slave-driving parents, so it was usually touch-and-go by Friday.' The memory still made her squirm inwardly - and frown outwardly. 'I trust you are not about to order me to teach dummy2

anyone Latin, Mr Latimer.'

'Eh?' For a moment he seemed slightly abstracted.

'I said - ' It had sounded ridiculous the first time. But then so had the Pointe du Hoc ' - it doesn't matter.'

'Good gracious, no!' His answer exploded as though by delayed action. 'I was about to tell you what happened to Major Parker. The late Major Parker - as you quite rightly pointed out, Elizabeth.'

On balance, that was an improvement, decided Elizabeth.

'And he was late back in 1944 - that is, he was late extricating himself from the Pointe du Hoc, to report back to his commander. There was a motor-boat, or some such craft, waiting for him under the cliff there. But it was almost getting light, so they headed directly out to sea, because there were still Germans on the cliffs on either side of the headland, they thought. And that was extremely fortunate for the RAF pilot they found as a result, about four miles out. He'd been shot down the previous evening - a certain Squadron Leader T.

E. C. Thomas. Aged twenty-eight.' Latimer waved a hand at his screen. 'All the details we have about him will be available to you, Elizabeth. And David Audley will also be available to you.'

It was Elizabeth's turn to think Good Gracious!, even if she didn't say it. 'What do you mean

- 'available'?'

'Exactly that. He knows all about Squadron Leader Thomas, and he should by now be able to advise you on your best course of action.' He made a cathedral spire with his fingers and gazed at her across it. 'Be advised by him - I'm sure he will be extremely useful to you. He's waiting for you now, and he's entirely at your disposal.'

'At… my disposal?' It was the wrong way round - was this what Paul had guessed at when he'd tied himself in knots. 'David Audley?'

'Yes… Have you any objections, Elizabeth?'

Objections, rising up like tripod masts, presented themselves to her. David Audley was so vastly senior to her that what he was blandly proposing was not so much like one of Father's little beardless midshipmen commanding a grizzled petty officer - it was more like a barely-qualified able seaman having his captain at his disposal.

Indeed, it had been David who had been chiefly responsible for her recruitment. Apart dummy2

from all of which, David was notoriously difficult to control and very much a law unto himself: giving him to her