pursuing the girl. Her apparent status as inmate of a mental hospital would certainly have raised unusual obstacles to his pursuit of her, but if he had managed to surmount these he would only have found himself committed to some variation on that repetitious and mechanical program which had turned out to be the accepted way of dealing with women: telephone calls, restaurant dinners, car drives, seaside trips and attempted or actual seduction. He had been round this course a dozen times over the last few years and had got quite good at it, usually finishing successfully, always enjoying it after a fashion once he was off the mark, and hardly ever having to cheer himself up by reflecting that women who needed no pursuing were probably not much of a catch. But at times the whole thing would strike him as oddly out of touch with what it was supposed to be about. The proportions seemed wrong. He could only get them right in his thoughts.
'Hullo, what's up here?' said Naidu. 'An obstruction of some kind?'
'Looks like it.'
Ahead of them was a line of halted traffic. Ayscue drove up to the rear of it and stopped. A minute went by.
'Shall I walk on round the bend and have a look?' said Churchill. He wanted to be in the sun and alone, even if only momentarily.
'I think they're just starting to move now.'
After another minute they came to two stationary lorries almost side by side and blocking most of the roadway, an ambulance and a police car parked on the verge, and a small crowd just beginning to be dispersed by policemen. Churchill saw somebody's hand sticking out from under one of the lorries, just behind the front wheel. Two ambulance attendants and a man in plain clothes were kneeling nearby. The hand clenched, then opened again.
'It looks as if you may be needed here, padre,' said Naidu.
Ayscue drew into the nearside verge, stopped the jeep, got out and walked across the road. Churchill watched. Then he noticed a motor-bicycle lying on its side on the opposite verge. He had a view of its rear mudguard, across which were painted bands of blue and white, the insigne of the Royal Corps of Signals. He got out and went over.
As he approached, a police constable was saying to an Inspector, 'It's a ten-ton crane, sir. Should do the job all right.'
'Go and tell ‘em to speed it up. Say it's a matter of minutes.' The Inspector turned and saw Churchill. 'He wouldn't be one of your lads, sir, would he?'
'No, but I can handle the Army side for you if you want.'
'I'd be most grateful if you would, sir.'
'We're about a mile down the road.' Churchill explained where. 'When you get his documents off him, have them delivered to the Adjutant. I'll warn the sentry on the gate. We'll see to it that the proper people are informed. Now there's the question of his dispatches. They'll be on his bike.'
The two men walked over to the machine, which had suffered no more than minor damage, and Churchill opened the dispatch-bag strapped to the carrier. There was only one packet inside, the one destined for Leonard. It was a fat foolscap envelope stamped Top Secret.
'I'll deliver this,' said Churchill, 'but I'd better give you my signature for it.' He wrote in the proffered notebook. 'What happened here?'
'He hit one truck and went under the other. Sounds like his own fault, but you can't tell at this stage.'
They were strolling back towards the two lorries.
'Has he got a chance?'
The Inspector shrugged. 'He had a wheel over him and must have got dragged a fair way before the driver could pull up. We can't get him out till the crane arrives. The doc's with him now.'
Ayscue was among those watching as the man in plain clothes, seen earlier by Churchill, bent forward with a hypodermic syringe. There was a gap in the passing traffic and a faint moan could be heard from under the lorry. The extended hand went limp.
'Coming, James?' said Ayscue.
Without answering Churchill turned back to the Inspector.
'One more point-if you'll just tell me where you can be got hold of I'll see that's passed on to his unit too.'
The Inspector gave the information and thanked him.
Ayscue was waiting a few yards off. The two walked back to the jeep in silence.
'It was that dispatch-rider we talked to just now outside the hospital,' Ayscue told Naidu.
'Oh. Is he dead?'
'Not yet. But he soon will be, I gathered.'
'Poor fellow,' said Naidu. 'Only a youngster, too.'
Standing on the verge, Churchill took out the packet addressed to Leonard and looked at it.
'Imagine dying delivering this. Whatever it is.'
Naidu looked at Ayscue for a moment, then said, 'He isn't dying delivering it, James. He was on his way to deliver it when something happened as a result of which he will presumably die.'
'Something happened. Why? Why did it have to happen?'
