The door opened and Leonard turned in his chair, half expecting to see Hunter already arrived, but even when invited to take a little something he could hardly have been expected to cover the couple of hundred yards from his office in something under a quarter of a minute. The new arrival was Ross-Donaldson, who disconcerted Leonard by staring grimly at him for a moment or two before facing the Colonel.
'Yes, Alastair.'
'Nothing else is missing from the stores, sir. One NHW-17 rifle, one round P-6 are gone, the rest is as it should be down to the last cleaning-brush.'
'Good. Another negative confirmed. What are you drinking, Ala-stair?'
'I think a quarter of that rather uncompromising Bellinger, sir, if I may.'
'Press the bell, will you?'
Ross-Donaldson did as he was told, but drink was driven quite out of his head a few seconds later by the high continuous mooing of the alarm hooters situated at selected points round the camp.
'Is this a practice?' asked the Colonel as he got to his feet.
'No, sir,' said Ross-Donaldson, just beating Leonard to the door.
They clattered down the cobbled passage and were soon in the Command Post.
'Unidentified aircraft overhead, sir,' said the sergeant-major.
Pausing only to snatch a miniature transceiver radio from its shelf, Leonard ran back down the passage after Ross-Donaldson and out into the noonday sunshine. A group of swearing men, fumbling with machine-pistols and equipment, was forming up on the main track to their right. Ahead and to their left, they could see the machine-gun crews standing to their weapons. The camp patrol was concentrating near the far end of Hut D4.
'I can't see him,' said Leonard.
'Perhaps he's up in the sun.'
The Colonel came up with them. 'There he is,' he said, pointing.
'A helicopter,' said Ross-Donaldson. He sounded incredulous.
With parts of it appearing liquid or even gaseous in the strong light, the machine was beginning or continuing an arc that would bring it directly above their heads. It seemed rather higher in the air than would be normal for such aircraft and to be descending only slowly, if at all.
Leonard turned the switch of his radio.
'What are you going to do?' asked Ross-Donaldson.
'Call out the RAF.'
'Don't be a fool, Leonard. You've done enough harm as it is. Who do you think is up in that thing, Dr. Best? Or a Chinese? Surely you can't seriously expect hostile action from a couple of chaps in the slowest and most conspicuous type of air vehicle under maximum visibility. You've got the imagination of a schoolboy. This is a training flight off course, or whoever should have given or taken official notice of it forgot to, or the local Group Captain is paying us a visit.'
As he said this, the helicopter began to lose height quickly and almost vertically. It appeared to have standard civilian markings.
'If they try landing they'll have to be arrested,' said Leonard. 'This is Ministry property.'
'Give me that box, will you?' Ross-Donaldson took the transceiver from Leonard. 'Which is the PA channel?'
'This one. What are you going to-?'
Eoss-Donaldson pressed the stud indicated and blew experimentally into the microphone. A sound like a brontosaurus clearing its nostrils came from loudspeakers mounted on poles here and there.
'This is the Adjutant speaking,' he said, and his voice rattled and echoed between the buildings. 'Do not fire at this helicopter. I say again, do not fire. Take no action, I say again, no action, except at my personal order.'
By now the helicopter was only a couple of hundred feet up and still descending. Ross-Donaldson handed the transceiver back to Leonard.
'They're coming down in the meadow. We may as well go and meet them.'
Leonard, falling into step beside Ross-Donaldson and the Colonel, said aggrievedly, 'You ought to have let me handle that, Alastair.'
'Yes, I'm sorry. I was just keen to hear the sound of my own voice on the speakers.'
'You might have waited till a less crucial moment.'
'Who the devil are these people, anyway?' said the Colonel. 'I agree with Rrian, it's a bit casual of them. Treating us like a public park. Good mind to let them cool their heels in the guardroom for a bit.'
He had to shout the last sentence over the noise of the rotor, and no more was said until the machine had touched down on the thick grass of the meadow. As its blades whirred to a standstill the man next to the pilot, a tall fat civilian with red hair and a hooked nose, pushed his door aside and clumsily got out. The pilot, also in civilian attire, stayed where he was. The red-haired man came up to the three officers.
'Jagger's the name,' he said in a provincial accent, seeming to think this the utmost that could be required of him.
