Читать книгу Unconditional Surrender онлайн

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"No."

"Well, stick around. I may find something better. But they don't look for good fellows in my office. Look about outside and see what you can find."

And, sure enough, one evening early in October, after his third attendance on the legless major (who offered him, with undisguised irony, an administrative post in Wales at a school of air photography interpretation) he met Tommy Blackhouse once more in Bellamy's. Tommy now had a brigade of Commandos. He was under orders to sail shortly for Italy to rehearse the Anzio landing, and was keeping dead quiet about his movements. He only said "Wish you'd decided to come to me, Guy."

"Too late now?"

"Far too late."

Guy explained his predicament.

"That's the hell of a mess."

"The fellow at the War Office has been very civil."

"Yes, but you'll find he'll get impatient soon. There's a flap about man-power. They'll suddenly pitch you into something awful. Wish I could help."

Later that evening he said: "I've thought of something that might do as a stop-gap. I keep a liaison officer at H.O.O. HQ. God knows what he does. Anyway I'm taking him away somewhere else. There are a few odd bodies that have got attached to me. They come from H.O.O. You could liaise with them for a bit if you liked."