The look Venables gave with this was unfamiliar. Perhaps he was respecting Leonard for having stood up to him, in the way that tyrants, martinets and so on were always supposed to. In Leonard's experience, this sort of respect was never hard to conceal behind a mask of increased tyranny or redoubled martinet-type behavior, but Venables might be different. He was a man full of differences from other people. Leonard tried to imagine him in the act of giving some of the instruction he had been sent here to give, and soon stopped. At this point the Mess Sergeant announced dinner, removing Venables from Leonard's thoughts as well as from his side.
Colonel White led the way across the cobbled hall and into the dining-room. The floor here was of marble, in squares of black and white. This was not an original installation, but one voted in key with the rest of the house when, a dozen years earlier, a program of reconstruction at the county mental hospital had led to various furnishings and fittings there being advertised for sale. The then Mess Secretary had taken a truck over to collect the tiles and had been entertained to tea by Dr. Best's predecessor.
On this distinctive foundation stood a pair of refectory tables, their surfaces polished to a high gloss by generations of batmen and defaulters, and on the bare wood was disposed a great deal of Victorian plate and silver and glass. All this, together with a large selection of wines, Hunter had bought off the previous owners at a price that had made them slightly angry.
As always, the Colonel sat down at the farther table, choosing a random point along the side facing the window. This policy ruled out any traditionally undemocratic nonsense of a regular place or chair for the CO while giving him the outdoor view he enjoyed. The main buildings of the camp were out of sight from here, but he could see the drill square and transport sheds, the clothing store, the concrete bungalow that housed the telephone exchange and the emergency wireless station, a couple of sleeping-huts. It was all quite deserted, apart from four or five men in khaki slowly making their way up the main track. They had the lethargic air of underworked troops drifting along to the canteen and its television room or poker schools. But down at the gate stood the two necessary figures with steel helmets, respirators in the alert position and machine-pistols slung across their shoulders. Then the grandfather clock behind the Colonel struck the hour of eight and within seconds, as he watched, three more men emerged from a nearby hut and marched formally towards the gate: the Sergeant of the Guard and the two relieving sentries. The exchange was carried out with exemplary smartness. The Colonel felt relieved. What really counted was being done.
He picked up the menu. The meal was to open with a choice of avocado pear and eggs Benedict, followed by cold salmon, roast duckling with cherry sauce and fresh peas, and ice-cream pudding with hot chocolate sauce (one of Corporal Beavis's specialities). A Kreuznacher St. Martin 1959 and a Clos de Vougeot 1957 were offered.
The Colonel asked for avocado pear and it was immediately brought. Although of good color, it resisted his spoon in parts. He mentioned the fact to the fattish, mournful-looking young officer sitting on his left. This was his Adjutant, Captain Ross-Donaldson.
'Should have been held back another day or two,' said the Colo-nel. 'You have to keep these fellows up to the mark all the time. Good thing for us all when Max Hunter gets back from his rest cure. When's that going to be, Alastair, by the way?'
'Excuse me a moment, sir.' Ross-Donaldson turned to his other neighbor and repeated the question. 'Churchill thinks tomorrow, sir.'
'Not a moment too soon. Oh, I was just speaking about Max…'
When the Colonel had shifted his attention to the Medical Officer, who was on his right, Ross- Donaldson went on with what he had been saying to Churchill earlier.
'This whole concept of denial is losing its meaning,' he said. 'And of course I don't just mean that ground is three-dimensional. In fact, to insist on that has become rather immature, now that delivery can be made along virtually any parabola one chooses. No, the moment one abandons the front philosophy one's logically forced to part with direction except purely locally, and when that's gone, denial's whole raison de se battre is in peril, though no doubt it'll continue to color unfriendly thought, vestigially at any rate. In my mind there's no question but that prenodalization must be the working principle.'
'You mean you stay where you are and fight whatever you see,' said Churchill.
'Have some hock. Well yes, though that denigrates some of the subtleties. You ought to read the chap's article in the Military Quarterly. It's called, um… ‘Node and Anti-Node: Tomorrow's Denial?' You know. With a question mark.'
'Sounds fascinating.'
'It's the most adult piece of thinking I've seen for a long time. Since the van Gelder-Hernandez-Funck mobility equations came out in ‘62, probably. Do you feel like a bit of fun this evening?' added Ross-Donaldson in the same tone.
'Yes. What sort of fun?'
'Let's look up Lucy. You know her, don't you? Lady Hazell? Oh, you must meet her. She'd like you. I suppose one might call it a slight Bacchante complex in her case, with possible Jocastan undertones. We'll drive over after dinner.'
When the meal ended, Churchill and Ross-Donaldson returned to the ante-room, where they soon put down a cup of coffee and a glass of Cockburn 1945. Taking their leave presented no difficulty, for Colonel White had abjured formal dessert except on the weekly guest night. In the hall, Ross-Donaldson stopped and turned to Churchill.
'I'd better just look in at the Command Post,' he said. 'Coming?'
They went to the rear of the hall and stood for a moment in front of the door of what had been the morning-room. Then the door slid aside and they entered.
A sergeant and a corporal were facing them at attention. Ross-Donaldson told them to sit down. Immediately beneath the beams of the ceiling were television screens giving views of the main gate and, from various angles, a long low building surrounded by a barbed-wire fence and a concrete pathway. As Churchill glanced up at these a soldier with a slung machine-pistol moved slowly and silently across one and out of shot. Elsewhere there was a telephone direct to the civilian exchange, another telephone and a remote-control unit connected by underground cable to the camp exchange and wireless station respectively, and a large red button marked GENERAL ALARM.
'Hullo, Fawkes,' said Churchill to the corporal. 'I thought you were spending all your time over at the hospital keeping the Viet Cong from getting together with Captain Hunter.'
'That packed up yesterday, sir,' said Fawkes. 'I think Captain Leonard reckoned the Reds would have
