Winter by William Horwood

Author:William Horwood [Horwood, William]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780230771277
Publisher: Pan Macmillan UK

28

PERFECT MATCH

The brief yet illuminating encounter with hydden in the garden of Woolstone House brought out the best in Erich Bohr and the worst in Colonel Reece.

The scientist in Bohr saw it as a triumph: he had managed to meet the hydden and record their method of entry and exit from a henge – and probably in the very same location where Arthur Foale had achieved the same thing. Bohr felt he now had a solid basis from which to move forward very rapidly towards the Hyddenworld.

But the soldier in Reece saw it as a defeat. If he had had doubts about the existence of the hydden he did not have them any longer. He had seen them with his own eyes and his life-long training had taught him to think of any living being which did not fall into line with his expectations of what was reasonable, as suspect. That disgusting dwarf of a thing had a chance to be an ally. Not now. Allies do not attack but enemies do – and this one had. Allies are open and comprehensible but enemies are sly and underhand – and this one was. Allies cooperate but enemies do not. Yes, Reece was able to label what he was dealing with.

‘Which means,’ he said, ‘that until they prove themselves deserving of the trust of myself and my force we shall – we must – treat them as an enemy.’

‘But Colonel Reece,’ said Bohr, ‘we cannot know . . .’

‘We know what they are not. They are not allies, they are not friendly, they attack without good reason and we will treat them as they now deserve until I am satisfied that they will not abuse the trust we put in them.’

It was all too horribly clear to Bohr that Reece saw what had happened as a humiliation and a disaster. They had lost an asset which would have given him a great deal of intelligence about the ‘enemy’ and his personal authority had been undermined with his troops.

Bohr was grateful for one thing at least. This early mistake had confirmed what he had feared from the moment Reece was forced upon him. He was the very last kind of officer needed for such an unusual and delicate operation. The hydden were not and probably never had been ‘the enemy’. Human beings were.

He could now see better why Arthur had retreated so rapidly into silence about his work and he decided that when it came to attempting a journey into the Hyddenworld he would try to give Reece and his men the slip.

The positive aspect of what had happened was that they had valuable footage from two different cameras, one in the henge and one just outside it. Bohr and Reece might have different takes on the incident but they could at least agree that what they had was real, it was important and it might show them the best way forward.

In fact, what it actually showed was not immediately clear. The

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