Wilt on High

'Definitely,' said Wilt, grateful for her intervention. At this rate, the discussion might spread and leave him free to find that damned box again. 'In fact he had five. There was Katherine of...'

'Excuse me asking, Mr Wilt,' interrupted an engineer, 'but do old queens count as queens? Like they're widows. Is a king's widow still a queen?'

'She's a queen mother,' said Wilt, who by this time had his hand in his pocket and was searching for the box. 'It's purely titular of course. She'

'Did you say "titular"?' asked Captain Clodiak, endowing the word with qualities Wilt had never intended and certainly didn't need now. And her voice suited her face. Captain Clodiak came from the South. 'Would you care to amplify what titular means?'

'Amplify?' said Wilt weakly. But before he could answer, the engineer had interrupted again.

'Pardon me breaking in, Mr Wilt,' he said, 'but you've got kind of something hanging out of your leg.'

'I have?' said Wilt, clutching the lectern even more closely. The attention of the entire class was now focused on his right leg. Wilt tried to hide it behind his left.

'And by the look of it I'd say it was something important to you.'

Wilt knew damned well what it was. With a lurch, he let go of the lectern and grabbed his trouser leg in a vain attempt to stop the box but the beastly thing had already evaded him. It hung for a moment almost coyly half out of the trouser cuff and then slid onto his shoe. Wilt's hand shot out and smothered the brute and the next moment he was trying to get it into his pocket. The box didn't budge. Still attached to the bandage by the plaster he had used, it refused to come without the bandage. As Wilt tried to drag it away it became obvious he was in danger of splitting the seam of his trousers. It was also fairly obvious that the other end of the bandage was still round his waist and had no intention of coming off. At this rate, he'd end up half-naked in front of the class and suffering from a strangulated hernia into the bargain. On the other hand, he could hardly stay half-crouching there and any attempt to drag the bloody thing up the inside of his trousers from the top was bound to be misinterpreted. In fact, by the sound of things, his predicament already had been. Even from his peculiar position, Wilt was aware that Captain Clodiak had got to her feet, a bleeper was sounding and the astro-navigator was saying something about codpieces.

Only the engineer was being at all constructive. 'Is that a medical problem you got there?' he asked and missed Wilt's contorted reply that it wasn't. 'I mean, we've got the best facilities for the treatment of infections of the urino-genital tract this side of Frankfurt and I can call up a medic...'

Wilt relinquished his hold on the box and stood up. It might be embarrassing to have a cricket box hanging out of his trousers but it was infinitely preferable to being examined in his present state by an airbase doctor. God knows what the man would make of a runaway erection. 'I don't need any doctor,' he squawked. 'It's just...well, I was playing cricket before I came here and in a hurry not to be late I forgot...Well, I'm sure you understand.'

Mrs Ofrey clearly didn't. With some remark about the niceties of life being wanting, she marched out of the hall in the wake of Captain Clodiak. Before Wilt could say that all he needed was to get to the toilet, the acned clerk had intervened. 'Say, Mr Wilt,' he said, 'I didn't know you were a cricket player. Why, only three weeks ago you were saying you couldn't tell me what you English call a curve ball.'

'Some other time,' said Wilt, 'right now I need to get to...er...a washroom.'

'You sure you don't want'

'Definitely,' said Wilt, 'I am perfectly all right. It's just a...never mind.'

He hobbled out of the hall and was presently ensconced in a cubicle fighting a battle with the box, the bandage and his trousers. Behind him, the class were discussing this latest manifestation of British Culture with a greater degree of interest than they had shown for Wilt's views on voting patterns. 'I still say he don't know anything about cricket,' said the PX clerk, only to be countered by the navigator and the engineer who were more interested in Wilt's medical condition. 'I had an uncle in Idaho had to wear a support. It's nothing unusual. Fell off a ladder when he was painting the house one spring,' said the engineer. 'Those things can be real serious.'

'I told you, Major,' said the Corporal, 'two radio transmitters, one tape recorder, no bomb.'

'Definitely?' asked Glaushof, trying to keep the disappointment out of his voice.

'Definite,' said the Corporal and was supported in this by the Major from the Demolition and Excavation Section who wanted to know whether he could order his men to move the dumpers back. As they rolled away leaving Wilt's Escort isolated in the middle of the parking lot, Glaushof tried to salvage some opportunity from the situation. After all, Colonel Urwin, the Intelligence Officer, was away for the weekend and in his absence Glaushof could have done with a crisis.

'He had to come in here with that equipment for some reason,' he said, 'transmitting like that. Any ideas on the matter, Major?'

'Could be it's a dummy run to check if they can bring a bomb in and explode it by remote control,' said the Major, whose expertise tended to make him one-track-minded.

'Except he was transmitting, not receiving,' said the Corporal. 'They'd need signals in, not out, for a bomb. And what's with the recorder?'

'Not my department,' said the Major. 'Explosively, it's clean. I'll go file my report.'

Glaushof took the plunge. 'With me,' he said. 'You file it with me and no one else. We've got to shroud this.'

'We've done that once already with the safety trucks and quite unnecessarily.'

'Sure,' said Glaushof, 'but we still gotta find out what this is all about. I'm in charge of security and I don't like it, some Limey bastard coming in with all this equipment. Either it's a dummy run like you said, or it's something else.'

'It's got to be something else,' said the Corporal, 'obviously. With the equipment he's using, you could tape lice fucking twenty miles away it's that sensitive.'

'So his wife's getting evidence for a divorce,' said the Major.

'Must be goddam desperate for it,' said the Corporal, 'using two transmitters and a recorder. And that stuffs not general issue. I never seen a civilian using homers that sophisticated.'

'Homers?' said Glaushof, who had been preoccupied by the concept of lice fucking. 'How do you mean, homers?'

'Like they're direction indicators. Signals go out and two guys pick it up on their sets and they've got where he is precise.'

'Jesus!' said Glaushof. 'You mean the Russkies could have sent this guy Wilt in as an agent so they can pin-point right where we are?'

'They're doing that already infra-red by satellite. They don't need some guy coming in waving a radio flag,' said the Corporal. 'Not unless they want to lose him.'

'Lose him? What would they want to do that for?'

'I don't know,' continued the Corporal. 'You're Security, I'm just Technical and why anybody wants to do things isn't my province. All I do know is I wouldn't send any agent of mine any place I didn't want him caught with those signals spelling out he was coming. Like putting a fucking mouse in a room with a cat and it can't stop fucking squeaking.'

But Glaushof was not to be deterred. 'The fact of the matter is this Wilt came in with unauthorized spy equipment and he isn't going out.'

'So they're going to know he's here from those signals,' said the Corporal.

Glaushof glared at him. The man's common sense had become intensely irritating. Here was his opportunity to hit back. 'You don't mean to tell me those radios are still operational?' he shouted.