Jones herself was a thin, painfully angular woman with a mouth like a puckered cat's anus, and whenever excitement got the better of her-as it had at the moment-the anus would pucker all the more violently.
"Your Highness, Your Highness!"
"Please, Ms. Jones. It's just Major Windsor."
Viv, he could see, was grinning like a big black Cheshire cat.
"And who are these lovely young ladies, Ms. Jones?" asked the sergeant major, not so much as flinching when Harry dug a callused thumb into a very sensitive pressure point on his upper arm.
"This is Miss Lang, and this is Miss Biggins," she trilled.
On closer observation, Miss Lang was what he and Wills used to call a bit of a six-pack, which was to say, if he threw down that much beer in a short space of time, he might just well have a crack at her on general principles. She wasn't even afflicted with red hair. Perhaps…
"Major Windsor, sir?"
In his panic at being fronted by Miss Jones, he hadn't noticed the dispatch rider who appeared through the crush of the room.
"Yes, Corporal."
The rider was dressed for the road, in heavy oilskins, crash helmet, and goggles. He pulled an envelope from his satchel and handed it over, probably wondering why the woman with the cat's butt for a mouth was glaring at him so fiercely.
Harry thanked him and then made his apologies, assuring the three women that Sergeant Major St. Clair would keep them entertained for the rest of the evening. He moved around the bar and into the relative calm of the pub manager's office. Closing the heavy oak door behind him cut the sound of the party down to a muted roar. He broke the seal on the envelope, which came from Downing Street.
The prime minister had ordered that he proceed to London with all dispatch.
THE SOLENT, SOUTHERN ENGLAND
As a child, Captain Karen Halabi had retreated from a deeply unpleasant family life by hiding herself in books, specifically by seeking refuge in the lore and mythology of English seafaring. From her preteen years, when her school friends were plastering their bedroom walls with garish posters of pop stars, she dreamed only of running away to sea and escaping the prison of her father's house. Her obsession was a mystery to all.
Not in its origin-because anybody who had endured the misfortune to deal with Khalil Halabi was soon possessed of the same desire to flee-but because Karen had no seafaring blood in her at all. Even on her English side, her late mother's family ran back through an entirely unimpressive lineage of slum-dwelling lumpen proles. There was no reason why she should have been drawn to the sea, other than the obvious one: it was so much more pleasant than going home.
And it was still the place she chose as her home, she realized as the lighter carried her across the waters of the Solent, which separated the Isle of Wight from England, back to her ship and crew. Still the one constant in her painfully conflicted life.
The sea spray was cold and stinging on her coffee-colored skin as they motored into the chop. The sailors, 'temps, were used to her by now. They'd made the trip from Portsmouth to the Trident dozens of times, ferrying across crew and all manner of visitors. She had even organized a brief tour for them. After that, their initial reserve-which sometimes bordered on hostility-had gradually morphed into tolerance, if not outright acceptance.
She wondered if it would always be that way here. If she would forever be allowed to serve her function, grudgingly valued, but never appreciated for herself.
Halabi huddled deeper into the thick jacket and woolen scarf she wore against the stinging spray and sharp, biting wind. She could feel winter's teeth in the chill of the sea air, and wondered idly whether she was just imagining that the autumn seemed colder here. The air was certainly cleaner, when you got away from the war. If only everything could be cleaner and simpler, but the longer she was here, the more conflicted she became.
She'd promised herself she would not become emotional over the snub she'd received in London, and for most of the return trip to her ship, she had managed to maintain an admirable detachment. But as the little motorboat thumped and beat against the confused swell of the Solent's meeting waters, she found it increasingly difficult to contain her anger and distress. After all, the insult had been as much directed at her crew as at her.
She'd been in the capital only a short time. She had a briefing to deliver to the Combined Chiefs of Staff at the War Room and a meeting with Professor Barnes Wallis, the head of the government's new Advanced Research Council.
The journey up had been uneventful, if more than a little interesting. As was the case with most of her crew, Halabi had duties that kept her on station almost permanently. She rarely left the Trident. On the few occasions she did get away, the trip to London was always fascinating. Not just for the opportunity to examine the historic city and its surrounds firsthand, but also to see the human face of a war that had featured so prominently in her studies at Staff College. There were almost no private cars on the roads, and those very few she did see were gas conversions-preposterous contraptions with a small barrage balloon on the roof or trailing a gas burner in a sort of chariot arrangement. Cyclists were numerous and just as hazardous to life and limb as bicycle couriers in her day. Teams of horses drew post office vans. What few taxis were available tended to be monopolized by GIs with a lot more money than the locals. The open wounds of zigzag trenches defaced parks and playing fields. Women cooked over open fires in bomb sites and hauled buckets of water from who knew where. Occasionally she would spy somebody trying to pee in private behind a bush, often enough to suggest that the Nazis had some mad plan to destroy British morale by bombing all the country's public conveniences out of existence. It was a feast for someone like her, with a first in social history from Oxford, and Halabi had allowed herself to become lost in her observations as she motored toward the War Room meeting.
That had gone well enough. Churchill was there, and she'd come to appreciate his presence when dealing with the contemporary military hierarchy. The PM was a famous curmudgeon with absolutely no tolerance for any nonsense that might interfere with the important business of making war on the enemies of the realm. The Defense Committee had reviewed the contingency plans for whatever Hitler might throw at them in the coming weeks. Halabi had explained, yet again, the capabilities and limitations of her ship, and brought everyone up to date on the latest intel take from her drones and ship sensors. The meeting had concluded on a somber note, with all agreeing that the storm was about to break over the island. But there was also some confidence that the Allies would weather it, however savage it might be. England was not defenseless, as she very nearly had been in 1941. Huge numbers of troops from the U.S. and the British Commonwealth were already in country, preparing to repel the assault. The Trident provided them with nearly total coverage of the enemy's movements. And although the Advanced Weapons programs of Professor Wallis would not begin to deliver in strength for a few months, they still had a few unpleasant surprises in store for the Germans right now.
Halabi had left the meeting satisfied, and even a little more optimistic than when she'd arrived. The battle was unavoidable, but by no means unwinnable. There would be a terrible bloodletting, perhaps every bit as bad as the horrors of the First World War. But she thought the opposition had the bigger task. For all the firepower Hitler was bringing to bear, he was still faced with having to leap the Channel in less than perfect conditions, against a well-prepared opponent. It was not just a river crossing, whatever his loopier generals said.