The Fox From His Lair by Max Hennessy

Author:Max Hennessy
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Canelo Digital Publishing Limited
Published: 2021-02-15T00:00:00+00:00

12

Lying straight and narrow in his bed, the sheet tucked up neatly to his chin, Pargeter stared at the ceiling. Second Officer Wint alongside him made little delicate snuffling sleep noises that went with her good looks and her good breeding.

He had long since tackled her about the night he’d rung Iremonger at the hotel in Portsmouth. ‘Where were you?’ he’d demanded.

Her wide blue eyes had stared up at him innocently. ‘Sleeping, of course. Stayed the night with a girl friend.’

He didn’t believe her and, knowing he didn’t believe her, she smiled disarmingly. ‘Would it help if I cried a little?’ she asked. ‘Quietly? With ladylike tears?’

He didn’t argue. He wasn’t one to worry about the niceties of what they got up to. War and the likelihood of being killed had destroyed a lot of old moralities. All the same, it was pleasant to feel that, through him, the British Empire was holding its own with the United States of America.

He frowned. There was so little time. The waiting couldn’t go on much longer. There were so many men and machines in southern England the coastline seemed to bulge. The pace had noticeably quickened in the last few days and there had been a warning that trains might be unexpectedly and suddenly cancelled, which could mean only one thing. Even the songs of Vera Lynn and Anne Shelton had grown more sentimental of late, and comedians like Tommy Handley and Max Miller were careful to avoid using jokes which, with death just over the horizon, might be in doubtful taste.

It had been a depressing day. The morning’s post had brought a letter from his mother to say his sister’s fiancé was missing over Germany with the RAF, and during the afternoon a strange American voice had rung up with a message for Iremonger. ‘Just tell him that General Orme’s dead,’ it said. ‘There was an accident with a grenade.’

Everybody in the world seemed to be getting killed or preparing to get killed, he decided. As the pace increased, so the accidents increased and men were dying even before they saw the enemy. He had no idea who General Orme was but he assumed he was sufficiently close to Iremonger for it to make some difference.

A lorry ground past outside, and he moved restlessly, wishing the thing could be over. The tension couldn’t last for ever. Before long, nerves would start to get frayed and if something didn’t happen soon people who so far had managed to avoid grumbling would start wondering what the hell it was all for.

Another lorry ground past, then another and another. He held his breath and heard shouting outside. He had heard lorries in the night before, but now there was something in the urgency of the voices that convinced him that this time was different.

Crossing to the window, he looked out. The hotel stood at the bottom of a long curving slope and a long line of lights twinkled on the hills. The whole of England seemed to be on the move.

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