quads that everything was going to be all right when the Lieutenant appeared from the guardhouse with two armed sentries. 'Pardon me, ma'am,' he said, 'but I'd be glad if you'd step over to the office.'
'What for?' asked Eva.
'Just a routine matter.'
For a moment Eva gazed blankly up at his face and tried to think. She had steeled herself for a confrontation and words like 'stepping over to the office' and 'a routine matter' were somehow threateningly bland. All the same she opened the door and got out.
'And the children too,' said the Lieutenant. 'Everybody out of there.'
'Don't you touch my daughters,' said Eva, now thoroughly alarmed. It was obvious she had been tricked into the base. But this was the opportunity the quads had been waiting for. As the Lieutenant reached for the door handle Penelope poked the end of the bicycle pump through the window and Josephine pointed a carving knife. It was Eva's action that saved him from the knife. She wrenched at his arm and at the same time the ammonia hit him. As the stuff wafted up from his soaked jacket and the two sentries hurled themselves on Eva, the Lieutenant gasped for air and dashed for the guardhouse vaguely aware of the sound of girlish laughter behind him. It sounded demonic to him. Half suffocated he stumbled into the office and pressed the Alert button.
'It rather sounds as if we have another problem,' said Colonel Urwin as sirens wailed over the base.
'Don't include me,' said Wilt. 'I've got problems of my own like trying to explain to my wife what the hell's been happening to me the last God knows how many days.'
But the Colonel was on the phone to the guardhouse. For a moment he listened and then turned to Wilt. 'Your wife a fat woman with four daughters?'
'You could put it like that, I suppose,' said Wilt, 'though frankly I'd leave the 'fat' bit out if you meet her. Why?'
'Because that's what just hit the main gate,' said the Colonel and went back to the phone. 'Hold everything...What do you mean you can't? She's not...Jesus...Okay, okay. And cut those fucking sirens.' There was a pause and the Colonel held the phone away from his ear and stared at Wilt. Eva's shouted demands were clearly audible now that the sirens had stopped.
'Give me back my husband,' she yelled, 'and take your filthy paws off me...If you go anywhere near those children...' The Colonel put the phone down.
'Very determined woman, is Eva,' said Wilt by way of explanation.
'So I've gathered,' said the Colonel, 'and what I want to know is what she's doing here.'
'By the sounds of things, looking for me.'
'Only you told us she didn't know you were here. So how come she's out there fighting mad and...' He stopped. Captain Fortune had entered the room.
'I think you ought to know the General's on the line,' he announced. 'Wants to know what's going on.'
'And he thinks I know?' said the Colonel.
'Well, someone has to.'
'Like him,' said the Colonel, indicating Wilt, 'and he's not saying.'
'Only because I haven't a clue,' said Wilt with increasing confidence, 'and without wishing to be unnecessarily didactic I'd say no one in the whole wide world knows what the hell's going on anywhere. Half the world's population is starving and the overfed half have a fucking death-wish, and'
'Oh for Chrissake,' said the Colonel, and came to a sudden decision. 'We're taking this bastard out. Now.'
But Wilt was on his feet. He had watched too many American movies not to have ambivalent feelings about being 'taken out'. 'Oh no you're not,' he said backing up against the wall. 'And you can cut the bastard abuse too. I didn't do anything to start this fucking madhouse and I've
