The Colonel had turned to the men and women in the mess. They stood, sat, in the silence of shock. ‘I don’t have to tell you how shamed I am that such an incident should happen in our mess, to our guest. If anyone should think this a suitable subject for gossip inside or outside our barracks, then that person should know I will flay the living skin off their back.’ He had challenged them all, the Brigadier from London, the civil servants, the officers holding the last free drinks of Major Walsh’s ‘happy hour’, and the bar steward.
The Colonel, deliberately, had picked the tray, the broken glass, the cubes of ice, the two garish slices of lemon from the carpet, and carried them towards Johnson. There was only a small stain left behind on the burgundy and white patterns of the carpet, like the aftermath of a street stabbing, so little to say what had happened. He gave the tray to Johnson, who held it, hands shaking. ‘Your responsibility, I fancy, Perry, to clear up this shambles. I want your report to me within two hours. Your corporal, your responsibility. You’ll not spare the rod, Perry. An honoured guest has been grievously abused while taking the hospitality of the Corps, so you should consider the need to provide a goddamn good answer. What the hell was that about?’
The Colonel had allowed him to carry the tray to the bar, then boomed behind him, ‘You might feel it necessary, Perry, after you have reported to me, to seek out Major Walsh and offer him your personal apology – because she is your corporal and your responsibility – for having ruined what should have been a memorable evening to mark the completion of twenty-nine years’ service in the Corps. You should do that before he leaves Templer in the morning. Beneath your damn dignity, was it, to queue and carry a tray of drinks?’
He’d never liked Harry Walsh – Harry Walsh was brimful of Ireland, claimed Ireland was the core work of Intelligence, and that Germany, Russia, was merely academic self-gratification, called it a bloody wank from his corner at the bar. Perry Johnson had put only a fifty-pence piece in the collection bucket for the purchase of the crystal sherry decanter and glasses set.
He had gone out into the night. There was rain on his face, and there were tears.
He walked fast.
He had been later than usual that morning, running behind his self-imposed schedule. Been talking on the telephone in his small room above the mess to his sister and the woman, dear soul, had little sense of time and less idea of creating an agenda for a conversation. She’d rambled and he’d not been rude, had allowed her to talk, and now he was later than usual coming to his office in the G/3 building. But, then, Major Perry Johnson could hardly afford to be rude to his sister because in thirteen months he would be moving from bachelor quarters at Ashford to her cottage. Ambleside, the Lake District, would become his retirement home. Nowhere else to go but his sister’s cottage and seasonal work with the National Trust if he was lucky… What a goddamn waste.
‘Morning, Barnes.’
‘Morning, Major.’
She hadn’t looked up at him, looked instead at the big clock on the wall across her cubbyhole space, above the filing cabinets.
‘Well, you know, running a bit late… Telephone call just when I was about to leave… Rotten morning.’
He’d barked his excuse. He was fifty-three years old, a primary expert on the old Soviet Army and now on the new Russian Federation Army. He briefed the chief of staff on one to one, and the chief of defence intelligence, and the secretary of state. He as fluent in German, Russian, the Pushtu language of the Afghan tribesmen, and he always felt the need to make an excuse to Corporal Tracy Barnes when he was late to work.
Her eyes had been on her screen. ‘Careful where you stand, Major, ceiling’s leaking again. I’ve been on to Maintenance and bollocked them. They’re sending someone over – won’t make any difference unless he comes with a bulldozer.
‘Of course, excellent – what’s my day?’
‘On your desk, waiting for you. Oh, the Captain rang on his mobile, took the dog walking off camp, lost it – his story…’
He’d unlocked his door.
‘Don’t take your coat in there, Major, get wet all over your carpet. I’ll take it outside and shake it.’
‘Would you? Thank you.’
‘Dogs are as bright as their masters, if you ask me – give us the coat.’
She’d been beside him, reaching up and helping him off with it, tutting criticism because it dripped a stain on the carpet, and she was gone.. Other than his sister, Corporal Barnes was the only woman he knew. Only went to his sister, the cottage near the water at Ambleside, for his three weeks’ leave a year, but he was with Corporal Barnes for the other forty-nine. Four years she’d been with him – didn’t know where she went for her leave, never asked, assumed she went back to her mother. No one could say it was against her wishes, but he’d quietly put the cap on any question of her promotion to sergeant and he’d blocked any proposal for her transfer. He gazed around his room. Not much that was personal to him, other than the pictures. Leave charts for the section, night-duty rosters, photographs of their new armoured personnel carriers and new mortars and their new minister of defence. The pictures were his own. He was not a happy man, and less happy now that the certain days of the Cold War were consigned to the rubbish bin, and certainly not happy that a working lifetime of deep knowledge was about to be ditched into the same bin.
The pictures represented the happiest time of his life. The Last Stand of the 44th Regiment at Gundamuck was his favourite, the little knot of men gathered round their officer who had tied the colours around his chest, their ammunition exhausted and bayonets their only defence, the tribesmen circling them in the winter snow of the Khyber Pass – good stuff – and The Remnants of an Army, Lady Butler’s portrayal of the surgeon’s arrival at Jalalabad a couple of days after the Gundamuck massacre, only chap to get through. The happiest time in his life had been in Peshawar, debriefing tribesmen, training them to kill Soviet helicopters with the Blowpipe air-to-ground system. Living in Peshawar, just across the Afghan/Pakistan border, watching from a safe distance the Soviets catch a packet, just as the 44th Regiment had 141 years earlier, at the heart of real intelligence gathering. Happy times, useful times… She had been hanging his coat on the hook.
‘You haven’t read your day, Major.’
She nagged at him. It was almost domestic. His sister nagged at him, not unpleasantly but just nagged away until he’d done his chores. Not a great deal of difference between his sister and Corporal Barnes.
‘It’s the German thing, isn’t it?’
‘On your desk – it’s all day, buffet lunch. Colonel’s hosting. There’s a load coming down from London. In lecture room B/19. Guests is the German with two spooks to hold his hand. Coffee at ten, kick-off half an hour after that. The background brief’s on your desk as well.’
‘Have you enough to amuse yourself?’
She had snorted. There were those in the mess who told him that he permitted her to walk to the bounds of insolence, but he wouldn’t have that talk, not in the mess or anywhere else. He had picked up the brief, two sheets, scanned it, and she was gazing at him, rolling her eyes.
‘Don’t know about amusement. There’s the expenses from your Catterick trip. There’s your leave application. I’ve got your paper for Infantry Training School to type up. Have to confirm your dentist. Got to get your car over to Motor Pool for valeting. The stuff you wanted from Library…’
He had seen the two cars go by, black and unmarked, glistening from the rain, heading towards the B-block complex.