hostile, way she greeted him.
'What's the matter?' he asked as he stood in the portico. 'What have I done?'
She glared at him. 'What are you doing here? I told you not to come over.'
'I thought that only meant the evenings. I've just come to see you. I've got some free time. I'll go away if you like.'
Her glare lessened. 'You're not after James?'
'James? Why should I be after him? Is he here?'
'You're a sort of policeman, aren't you? Yes, he's upstairs.'
'What for? I don't understand.'
He understood better within about ten minutes, by which time he and Lucy were sitting in the shade of an oak-tree on the unkempt lawn outside the drawing-room. As she talked, she sipped a weak gin and tonic. He had two glasses of sherry inside him, a third in his hand, and the bottle beside his deck-chair. For one reason or another, he had forgotten about being gloomy.
'I should have been informed, really, I suppose,' he said at one point. 'But it doesn't matter now.'
'No, this whole business is much more important.'
'And he hasn't eaten or drunk a thing?' he asked when Lucy had finished her account.
'He won't eat. He doesn't even want to smoke. Willie's got him to drink a glass or two of water.'
'What about, you know, going to the lavatory?'
'Willie's taken him I think three times. The last time he had to more or less carry him. To the little lavatory, that is. He hasn't been to the big lavatory. He's sort of shutting down completely. Here's Willie.'
Ayscue came over to them across the sunlit grass. He nodded unsmilingly to Leonard, refused a drink, sat down in a third chair and began rubbing his eyes slowly. He was pale and unshaven.
'Anything?' asked Lucy.
'No change. Except perhaps a little for the worse. It's getting harder to tell whether he's asleep or not.'
'You ought to get some sleep yourself.'
'I might as well. I'm not doing any good up there. You've come to take him back, I imagine,' he added accusingly to Leonard.
'No. Brian just wanted to see me. I've been telling him about it all. You want to help, don't you, Brian?'
'I don't see what I can do if you two can't do anything.'
'Brian,' said Ayscue. His manner had become more friendly. 'What will happen to him if you and I dress him and take him back? From the Security point of view, I mean.'
Leonard knew that the canceling of Operation Apollo would not lead to any remission of the checks and restraints on those concerned in it, at any rate for some time. He guessed that his chiefs would not permit to be at large an individual in possession of such vital secrets who had clearly become unstable mentally.
'They'll lock him up,' he said.
'That's what I thought. Brian, I want to ask you something important. I think James has got more on his mind than he says. Than he said he had when he was still talking. I think it's this Operation Apollo. I think he can't face it. I know all war is dreadful, but whatever this is must be quite unusually dreadful. I want you to tell me if I'm right. Just that and no more.'
'Yes,' said Leonard. 'You're right.'
'Yes. He's fallen into a state of hating God, you see, Brian. That's bad enough. But I think he's lost faith in everything else too. In the world. He's against it all.'
'I think I understand. Will you excuse me? I'll be back later.'
He went off towards the house. Before going inside he looked round at the other two, Ayscue in his rumpled khaki, leaning back now as if asleep, Lucy in her spotless white dress that shone in the sun, sitting forward with her arms clasped round her knees. Then he entered and hurried upstairs to the room where Churchill was lying with his eyes shut. Leonard went and knelt by the bed.
'James. This is Brian Leonard. I know you're worrying about Operation Apollo. Well, you needn't any more. It's off. It's been canceled. You haven't got to do it. You're free. It's all over. Operation Apollo has been canceled.'
Churchill made no move. He hardly seemed to be breathing.
Leonard cleared his throat and said in a caricatured military tone, 'Official message for Lieutenant James Churchill, Blue Howards. Top secret. Operation Apollo is hereby canceled, repeat canceled, effective forthwith. Acknowledge. Message ends.'
This too had no effect. Leonard rose to his feet and stood thinking. After a short while he went out and downstairs, left the house by the front door, got into his car and drove away.
The two on the lawn heard him go. Ayscue stirred irritably.
'Where's he off to?' he said. 'Gone to turn out the Brigade of Guards, I expect, or something equally
