The Anti-Death League by Kingsley Amis

Author:Kingsley Amis [Amis, Kingsley]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Literature
ISBN: 9780575008151
Publisher: scan
Published: 1966-01-01T16:00:00+00:00

Leonard was bewildered. He felt dimly that Security was involved here in some way, but could not have said in what way. His manuals were silent on situations like this, if indeed there were any other situations like this. He could think of nothing to say.

No such difficulty beset Ross-Donaldson. “A little bit out of the usual run, isn’t it?” he said. “Even so, as I told you on the R/T, it doesn’t seem a very pressing issue. I doubt whether I’d have had you buzzed if it had been left to me, but fortunately I was relieved of the onus of thought by the existence of your standing order about always letting you know at once of anything with any conceivable Security connection. I’ve a feeling you should redraft that, by the way. I spent several minutes after I talked to you trying to think of something of which it could validly be said that a Security connection was beyond the power of the human mind to conceive, and failed to come up with a single one. I got pretty close after a bit when I started wondering how an orderly reporting sick with toothache could have a Security bearing, but then I realized he might have a microfilm in his mouth for the dentist to take out and send to Peking. That rather discouraged me, getting as warm as that and then ignominiously failing. Of course, empirical semantics teaches us what ‘conceivable’ is intended to convey, but we should always strive for intensified precision. I won’t ask you to work out a synonym now, however. Come in.”

A corporal entered, saluted, and handed over two more copies of the notice.

“Where did you find these?”

“One in the OR’s latrine, sir. The other pinned to a tree by the sleeping-huts.”

“Right. Have you covered the whole area yet?”

“No, sir, we’re still working on it.”

“Do that. If one more of these comes to light after you’ve completed your search, I’ll have you and all the other NCOs in the party up in front of the Colonel and I promise you I’ll do my best to see you lose your stripes. Is that clear?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Off you go.”

The corporal saluted and left with enough of a clatter to bring Leonard halfway out of his daze.

“You were a bit hard on him, weren’t you?” he said. “Why all the flap? One copy of this thing is all we need.”

Ross-Donaldson had spoken to the corporal in his customary level tone. Now he stood up, his plump face flushed.

“It may be all you need,” he said very sharply. “As far as I as Adjutant of this unit am concerned, need doesn’t come into it. If it’s possible to catch this man, which I doubt, I’m going to do it. And I’ll make sure he goes to military prison. You can talk to him there if you want to.”

“There’s no point in getting hot under the collar about it.”

“There’s every point. This is an abnormal happening and there’s no knowing where it may lead.

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