The Anti-Death League

'Hold it, you fool,' snapped Leonard. 'Get back out of sight.'

The man retreated. Inside the car, Leonard switched the set on and sat chafing, unable to think, while he waited for it to warm up. When the loudspeaker began to hiss and crackle he went over to Send and spoke into the microphone.

'Hullo, Control, hullo, Control. Padlock listening. Over.'

Preceded by a couple of seconds of carrier wave, Ross-Donaldson's voice, sounding harsh and boxy, issued from the loudspeaker.

'Hullo, Padlock. Sunray Minor here. Something… well, something has come up you ought to know about. Over.'

'Is it urgent?' Leonard waited, then added peevishly, 'Over.'

'I don't see how it can be, and it probably isn't a Padlock matter at all, but if it is it may be important. That's as much as I can tell you. Over.'

'Will return at once. Over.'

'Roger. Out.'

Leonard switched off and got out of the car. Sweat was running down his face. He walked in a meditative manner towards the shrubbery from which the man with the spade had emerged.

'Have you anything to report?'

There was a rustle and the snapping of a twig. 'No, sir,' said a voice.

'Then watch harder. And you ought to know better than to approach me in the open like that. Stick to the telephone arrangement.'

'Sorry, sir.'

'I should hope so too.'

A minute later, Leonard was making his excuses and shaking hands with the three psychiatrists. Drs. Best and Minshull seemed in high spirits, Mann a little subdued. Leonard returned to his car and drove furiously back to camp. He had not enjoyed the tour of the hospital or the lunch-party. Both had done something to strengthen his suspicions of Dr. Best, but without furnishing evidence of the kind he could put in his report. Then there had been the ineptitude of the pretended gardener. The installation of such an agent was required by the regulations covering cases of this kind. Leonard would much rather have done without him, preferring to wait until Dr. Best could be moved up from a green suspect to a blue suspect and so merit having his telephone tapped. But regulations were regulations, which was a pity. This particular set of them, not for the first time in Leonard's experience, was bringing about an impasse whereby the evidence necessary to prove a man guilty was unobtainable except by methods that were only to be used on men already proved guilty by other methods. A lecturer on one of the courses attended by Leonard had cited such situations as reflecting the immature, unfinished state of applied phylactology. Half an accreted tradition given the force of law, half an exact science, it afforded germane analogies (the lecturer had explained) with the condition of Greek medicine prior to the emergence of Hippocrates. To find this view supported by events, or as now by non-events, was depressing. Leonard rallied a little, however, at the thought that he had at any rate managed to set his trap for Dr. Best with about the right mixture, he felt, of emphasis and unobtrusiveness.

He parked his car in its allotted space and crossed the drive to the Orderly Room. The sergeant there jumped to his feet and asked him to go straight into the inner office. He did so and saluted Ross-Donaldson smartly.

'I'm sorry to have dragged you away from your luncheon-party, Leonard, and you may be sorry too when you know more. My sergeant brought me this. He'd found it pinned to the recreational notice-board outside the canteen. Since then another copy's been found among the periodicals in the Sergeants' Mess. I've got a squad out now, seeing if they can turn up any more.'

He passed Leonard a sheet of Service stationery. It was a smudged but legible carbon typescript that read,

THE ANTI-DEATH LEAGUE

incorporating Human Beings Anonymous

It has been decided to form a branch of the above organization in this Unit. We want you to join us if you agree with our attitude. There is no other qualification for becoming a Member, no entrance fee or subscription, and any activities you may see fit to carry out on behalf of the League are entirely up to you. You will not be given orders of any kind.

We think that the attitude of the League is sufficiently expressed in its name, but should you be in any doubt we invite you to consider carefully the three following cases, all taken from newspaper items of the last few years.

Case No. 1: A woman of about 30 years old was dishing up the family supper. She took a potato out of the dish and popped it in her mouth. It lodged in her throat and she died of asphixiation then and there, in front of her husband and 3 young children who were present at the time.

Case No. 2: A house was set on fire by lightning. A woman of about 25 threw her 18-month-old son down to neighbors standing on the pavement, but they failed to catch him and he was killed. She jumped and her fall was broken, but she lost the baby she was pregnant with.

Case No. 3: A boy of 15 had been blind since birth. He was operated on and his sight was given him. 5 days later he caught a little-known virus infection (nothing to do with the operation) and was dead in 24 hours.

If you are against what happened on these occasions, you are fully qualified to join the League. We invite you to attend an inaugeral meeting in the Camp Theater at 1900 hrs this coming Thursday.

Please tell everybody you can about the League and the time and place of the meeting. This notice is not likely to stay where it is for very long.

Issued by the Commitee, 6 HQ Adm Bn Branch, Anti-Death League

Leonard was bewildered. He felt dimly that Security was involved here in some way, but could not have said in what way. His manuals were silent on situations like this, if indeed there were any other situations like this. He could think of nothing to say.

No such difficulty beset Ross-Donaldson. 'A little bit out of the usual run, isn't it?' he said. 'Even so, as I told you on the R/T, it doesn't seem a very pressing issue. I doubt whether I'd have had you buzzed if it had