Читать книгу Unconditional Surrender онлайн

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"I'd gladly come down in rank. Couldn't I have a company? Or a platoon?"

"Be your age, Uncle. No can do. This is an order from Brigade."

The new Brigadier, lately arrived from the Eighth Army, was the man to whom, briefly, Guy had been attached in West Africa when he encompassed the death of Apthorpe. On that occasion the Brigadier had said: "I don't want to see you again, ever." He had fought long and hard since then and won a D.S.O., but throughout the dust of war he remembered Guy. Apthorpe, that brother-uncle, that ghost, laid, Guy had thought, on the Island of Mugg, walked still in his porpoise boots to haunt him; the defeated lord of the thunder-box still worked his jungle magic. When a Halberdier said "No can do," it was final.

"We shall need you for the embarkation, of course. When you've seen us off, take a spot of leave. After that you're old enough to find yourself something to do. There's always 'barrack duties,' of course, or you might report to the War House to the pool of unemployed officers. There's plenty of useful jobs going begging for chaps in your position."