'No, I'll probably get the early train in the morning. I'll see what I can do for you about the extra lot of fellows.'
'With a small group under my personal orders,' said Leonard, with a judicial look at his reflection as he buttoned the ultramarine jacket, 'I think I can promise to nail our man within the week. The moment he moves we'll have him… Ah, here you are at last. What's been keeping you?'
Deering had shuffled his way in and now shuffled his heels nearly together as he handed his master a pair of white gloves.
'Sorry, sir, had to wait for a turn with the iron.'
Jagger glanced over from where he lay full length on Leonard's bed.
'What in hell's name are those things?'
'Ceremonial gloves.'
'Gloves? I'd like to see anything bigger than a whippet get its hand in there, old lad. Gloves!'
'You're not supposed to be able to get your hand in,' said Leonard in a cold tone. 'You just carry them. It's a tradition.'
'Lot of that around here, isn't there? And the bloody place has only been going a few weeks. Springs up like weeds after rain.'
'Any news, Deering?' asked Leonard, not expecting any much, but not wanting to have to defend Mess tradition to Jagger.
'Well, the blokes are bitching and binding like buggery about the way you've been messing them around,' said Deering contentedly. 'Up in the middle of the night, off into the wilds before they could-'
This evening, Leonard could have faced a mutiny single-handed. 'I'm not interested,' he said. 'Anything else?'
The telephone rang.
'Leonard here.'
'Have you any idea where I can reach Mr. Jagger, sir? There's an outside call for him.'
'He's with me now… For you.'
At the second attempt Jagger heaved himself off the bed and took the receiver.
'Jagger.'
'Then this ragtime search,' went on Deering. 'Three hours of it and they come up with a couple of rusty shells that must have been around since the Boer War, a typewriter in a sack and a set of filthy pictures stowed away under one of the sleeping-huts. The padre's, I bet you what you like. Apparently they were really something. You know, people on the job. Who's got them now, do you know?'
'I do not. Is there anything else?'
'Yes, I want to apply for a transfer. I'm brassed off with this joint.'
'Talk to me about it in the morning.'
'All right, sir. Good night.'
Deering left. Leonard turned to Jagger, who had replaced the receiver after a bare couple of assenting words and whose face was now thoughtful.
'Big news?' asked Leonard.
Jagger gave an instant impression of falsity. 'No,' he said. 'No, nothing in particular. Nothing to do with this job, anyway.'
'Oh. Are you ready to go down?'
'Christ, I've been lying about waiting.'
In front of the glass again, Leonard scrutinized the image of his face, which was looking a bit meaty after what Dr. Best's nurse had done to it, then turned his attention to Jagger's reflected form, now peering indecisively at its original.
'Aren't you going to comb your hair?'
'All right, if it'll make you feel better. Have you got a comb to lend?'
'Well…'
'Look, me combing my hair was your idea. I'm not going all the way up to that attic they've put me in to fetch a bloody comb. If you want me to be a credit to you and the Service you've got to provide the wherewithal, right?'
'Oh, very well. Here you are.'
The comb slipped and tore jerkily through Jagger's fiery thatch in a way that suggested this was something he did eveiy couple of years. His body was canted over to one side and he kept the operative elbow unhandily close to his chest. In the end most of his hair was horizontal, including some portions that would have done better to follow the curve of his skull.
'They'll have to take me as they find me,' he said, plucking the greater part of a ragged tuft of red hairs from the comb and handing it back. 'Now if there's any buggering protocol like kissing the Adjutant's bum or
