She laughed. “All I see is a short, overweight, and out of condition man in his mid-thirties who has a tendency to freckle and who shouldn’t be lying out in this sun with that sort of skin.”
Feely laughed too. “She’s right, Sarge. You’re starting to look like a burned tomato.”
“That’s indignation, lad, not sunburn,” he growled. To Kimberley Fairchild he said, “If I’m such a disappointing specimen, Doctor, why are you wasting your time looking at me?”
“Curiosity, Sergeant. I wanted to see who I was going to be traveling with.”
Slocock’s body twitched. Then he abruptly sat up and stared at her. “You’re coming too? For flick’s sake why?”
“You don’t have to sound so pleased,” she said dryly.
“But Christ, don’t you know what we have to do over there? What lame-brained asshole came up with the idea of including you in the operation? I’m going to have enough to worry about without playing nursemaid for you.”
“Oh, stuff the macho drivel, Sergeant. You’ve got it back-to-front. I’m to be your nursemaid. I’m a doctor, remember, and you’re going to need one over there.”
“Hah! What good will a doctor be? You’ve all been pretty useless so far. About the only thing you can do is hand out the death pills when. “
He didn’t finish but glanced instead at the burned-out patch in the center of the grass area. That was where Hibbert had been incinerated. He’d managed to stagger this far before they’d caught up with him and surrounded him. Then they’d let loose with the three flame-throwers at once. But it was amazing how long he’d kept screaming.
“Believe me, Sergeant, you’ll be glad I’m along. And don’t worry, I can take care of myself. I grew up with firearms. I’m a crack shot.”
It took an effort to tear his gaze away from the blackened patch of ground. He looked at her more closely, noting the touch of arrogance in her eyes; her air of total self-confidence. She was definitely something out of the ordinary.
She had to be. No one in her right mind would volunteer to go where they were going. He knew what his reasons were. He wondered about hers.
Unexpectedly she gave him a dazzling smile and said, “Come on, Sergeant. I’ll buy you and the Corporal here a drink. That is if you’re allowed to drink at this time of the day.”
“We’re both off-duty. A drink would be fine.” He struggled to his feet like an old man carrying two sacks of potatoes. Feely knew better than to lend a hand.
As usual, the bar was packed when they arrived. It stayed open 24 hours a day now as there were always plenty of off-duty men to fill it. The number of soldiers in the base had quadrupled since the Emergency. It was the same at every base in Northern Ireland.
Their entrance caused a stir. Everyone looked in their direction and there were wolf-whistles and crude jeers. It wouldn’t have been like this a few weeks ago, Slocock reflected. Oh yes, these brainless bums would have reacted the same way to a woman like Kimberley Fairchild walking into their private male preserve, but not in so blatant a way. Things are beginning to crumble, he realized. The discipline is giving way. With the center gone the rest of the structure, what there is left of it, is collapsing.
“I think you’d be more comfortable in the Officer’s Club,” he told her.
“Nonsense, Sergeant,” she said and plunged into the crowd toward the bar. Slocock watched her walk coolly through the offensive rabble, then followed after her with Feely bringing up the rear. He ignored the jibes along the way. He’d long since given up worrying about his pride. Marge had taken care of that. As everyone back at Aldershot had known about her sleeping around months before she had walked out on him he knew he was looked upon as being not much of a man. Unusually, for such a situation, Marge had got all the sympathy. No one blamed her for having affairs, because he was generally regarded as a bastard. Many just thought she was trying to get away from him but the truth was even more humiliating than the worst of the gossip he’d picked up about himself—she had been trying to rub his nose in the fact that he could no longer even begin to satisfy her. And when her ‘affairs’ entered double figures he gave up counting.
He pushed ahead of Kimberley and cleared a space for her at the bar. He had no difficulty in intimidating the men there—they may have despised him, but they still feared him. And for good reason.
“What’ll you have?” he asked her.
“What do grannies normally drink?” she asked.
“My granny drank brandy.”
“Then I’ll have a brandy.”
“It killed her.”
“Then I’ll have a double.”
Slocock grinned, ordered her drink, a pint of bitter for Feely and a double scotch for himself.
While waiting for the drinks he turned to Feely. “How did last night’s mission south of the border go?”
“Okay. No real fuss except we had to practically drag the bloke out from under his desk. He was hiding there. Thought we were the bloody IRA.” Feely laughed. “Bit of a wimp if you ask me. Beats me why we had to go fetch him. You any idea, Sarge?”
Slocock grimaced. “Yeah. Too many.” He glanced at Kimberley. “You met him yet?”
She shook her head. “No, but I will soon.” She looked at her watch. “In just over an hour’s time. At a briefing. You’ll be attending it as well, I gather.”
“Wouldn’t miss it for the world,” he said sourly. “I hear, they’re going to show us some great snuff movies”.
“I understand you had something like that right here in the base. A man called Hibbert—?“
Slocock downed his scotch with one swallow and gestured to the barman for a refill. “Yeah. Percy Hibbert. He came in the last batch to be evacuated from Holyhead before they slammed the doors. Spent two days having every inch of his body checked for any sign of the stuff like everybody else and finally got a clean bill of health. Was here for a whole four days before it happened.”
Slocock’s second drink arrived. He grabbed it thankfully. He swallowed half, then continued. “On the morning of the fourth day he’d been here I was walking by the shower blocks and heard a bigger commotion in there than usual. I go for a look-see and almost get knocked down by a stampede of naked guys. Then through the steam comes Hibbert, screaming for help. He was bare-assed too and I could see his whole body was starting to split open with this green and black stuff pushing itself out of him. He came right up to me and grabbed me.” Slocock shuddered at the memory and finished his second double.
“I shoved him away. He goes sprawling across the floor but gets up and runs off. I start screaming for someone to go fetch the bloody flame-throwers and then follow him. We chased him around the camp for nearly a quarter of an hour. We finally cornered him on the football field—out where we were just now.”
“And that was five days ago?”
Slocock nodded. He was watching, yet again, Hibbert’s blackened body writhing and kicking as the three jets of fire sprayed over him.
“It’s fortunate there’s been no other outbreak since then,” said Kimberley. “You were all very lucky.”
Feely said, “The whole place still stinks of disinfectant. And everything Hibbert touched was burned. We even burned down the shower block. But since then everyone’s been as nervous as hell. Most of the lads spend every spare minute checking themselves for a sign of the stuff.”
“Or checking each other. The faggots are over the moon,” growled Slocock. He was still embarrassed at the state of panic he’d been in for 24 hours after the Hibbert incident. He’d torn off all his clothes and locked himself in a bathroom in the officers’ block. He’d sat in an empty bathtub, shaking uncontrollably, and poured a bottle of disinfectant over himself.