'I told him that with his command skills, it wouldn't be frightening for long.'

Saskia made the mistake of smiling at that, and Harker had to resist the urge to throw his drink at her.

Right then a creak of the door heralded Captain Wilmington himself, and Harker forced a smile.

'Ah, Captain,' said Saskia. 'We were just talking about you.'

'Yes, sir?' Wilmington looked at them with a hope that rapidly faded when he saw Harker's expression.

'Major Harker was telling me of your bravery in the field,' Saskia said, and Harker turned away before he thumped one or the other of them.

'On second thoughts,' he said to the barman, 'whisky would be great.'

In the morning, head pounding and mouth dry, Harker woke up cursing Saskia, Wilmington, Wheeler, the barman in the mess, and all whisky distilleries. His mood wasn't improved when, over breakfast, he was summoned to General Wheeler's office.

'Major Harker,' she greeted him as he saluted. 'At ease. Take a seat.'

Harker did, with bad grace.

'How are you getting on with Captain Wilmington?' Wheeler asked, without looking up. Which was just as well as Harker was pressing his hands to his forehead, trying to stop his brain from expanding out of his skull.

'Harker?'

He sighed and dropped his hands from his throbbing head. 'Permission to speak frankly, sir?'

'I don't believe you have ever required anyone's permission for that,' Wheeler said mildly.

'Why the hell did you send him to me, sir?'

She laid down her pen and looked up at him, eyes sharp in a face only slightly softened by age.

'You don't like him, Major?'

'Oh, I like him fine, sir, but if he takes any of my men out into the field he's going to get them all killed. He has no experience, sir. Where did he come from, QM stores?'

'No, but I suspect that's where he'd prefer to be,' Wheeler said. 'He is very good at drilling the men, I hear?'

'Yes, sir, but he can't fire a weapon. And if he ever took command of the company ...'

'Why would he do that, Major?'

He gave her a heavy look. 'Because sooner or later some bugger's going to hit me somewhere they can't patch up,' he said. 'And in that case '

'In that case, Lieutenant Riggs will surely step into the breach, Harker, because by the time I send C Company out on campaign, she will be its captain.'

Harker opened and closed his mouth several times before he said, 'What, sir?'

Wheeler smiled. 'You didn't think I really wanted to hold either of you back, did you, Harker? No. I have something I need you to do, a special mission, and I'm quite sure you'll be wanting to take the good lieutenant with you. Were she your second, you could not in all good conscience do that without leaving C Company commanderless.'

'I'm not sure I could in all good conscience do that now, sir,' Harker muttered.

'I give you my word, Harker that, barring unforeseen circumstances, I will not send your company out on active service until you return.'

Harker, who couldn't believe anything had ever happened to General Wheeler that she hadn't already foreseen, nodded warily.

'What mission, sir?' he asked.

Wheeler smiled.

'She wants us to what?' Charlie said, as Harker went around the mess kitchen searching out eggs, bacon, and strong coffee to soothe his hangover.

'Go up north, break into a rebel stronghold, steal a computer, find out how to work it, and use it to track the Coalitionists' movements,' Harker said, breaking an egg into a skillet and watching in dismay as the yolk broke.

'Apparently, her intel says that's how they've been tracking ours.'

Charlie closed her eyes momentarily. 'That's how they knew there was only a skeleton force in Oxford.'

'Yep. And in Peterborough. And in Southend.' Harker took a breath and let it out slowly. Wheeler had given him the estimated casualties for those cities, and they hadn't been pretty. The people had gone down fighting; but they'd really gone down.

He laid a couple of strips of bacon down in the pan and watched them sizzle. 'She's set us up to stay with someone in the Lincolnshire Wolds.'

Charlie frowned. 'We're not going to another base up there? We still have Hull, don't we?'

'Aye, but it's too far from the front. And she doesn't want us obvious. I'm to take a small party, stay with civilians'

'Wear civilian clothes?' Charlie asked, with a gasp of mock-horror. At least, he thought it was mock. Briefly, he wondered if she'd been born with dogtags round her neck.

'Mock not, Charlie. Wheeler wants us to start looking in Leeds.' A city which had been under Coalitionist control for a while. 'Shame Smiggy's not with us, that were his old ground. Wonder if we might bump into him.'

'And who is "we", sir?'

'Well.' Harker flipped the bacon. 'She's letting me choose'

'She is?'

'but she has recommendations.'

Charlie smiled. 'Of course she does.'

The door opened, and a man in a grubby chef's coat came in. Harker and Charlie stared at him until he went away, then Charlie asked, 'Who's she recommending?'

Harker added a generous helping of salt to the pan. 'You, obviously, and Tallulah.'

'Tallulah Watling-Coburg? People are going to start thinking you have a favourite.'

'How many other poor kids in this army have been named Tallulah? Apparently she speaks fluent French and German, so if we run into translation difficulties'

'In Lincolnshire, sir?'

He gave her a look. 'Clearly, that's why she's sending me. No, she thinks the computer may be in French.'

'Do they have languages, sir?'

Harker raised his palms. 'How the hell should I know?' He didn't even know what a computer looked like, never mind how one worked. The whole mission was a disaster waiting to happen, but then weren't all army missions? He continued, 'Which brings me to her next recommendation. A Captain Darren Haran.'

'Darren Haran?' Charlie said, her eyes wide, her mouth twitching.

''Fraid so. Joined us recently from the Medical Corps. Wanted to be an engineer, but couldn't get the training, so joined as a doctor, and learnt medicine at the army's expense.' At Charlie's look, he added, 'Well, it's all a sort of engineering when you think about it. Just ... squishier.'

Charlie made a face. 'Remind me not to get injured when he's around.'

Harker, unconcerned, turned off the heat and flipped his splattered egg and bacon on to a plate. 'Pass us that bread, will you?'

She did, and Harker cut two thick, uneven slices, slathered them with butter, and squelched egg and bacon into a sandwich.

'Hangover?' Charlie asked, watching him eat it.

'If you tell anyone,' Harker began, and had to chew and swallow before he could continue, 'I'll have to kill you.'

'That whisky gives you a headache?'

'Whisky does not give me a headache. Whisky makes me feel wonderful, and then in the morning I feel like a piece of old carpet. And I do not want my men knowing I feel like old carpet.' He glanced around the kitchen, nodded at the larder. 'Any juice in there?'

Charlie raised her eyebrows and went to look. Finding a jug, she sniffed experimentally. 'Reckon that's apple,' she said, and at Harker's gesture, poured him a glass. He drained it, and gestured for more as he finished the doorstopper sandwich.

'I think that's the healthiest thing I've ever seen you consume,' she said, fascinated, as he picked up the glass.

'Charlie, I get shot at on a reasonably regular basis,' he said. He considered that, and added, 'Probably daily if I have to work with Wilmington. What's the point of eating healthily?'

Charlie just shook her head and put his plate in the sink.

'But if it makes you feel any better, I'll take the men on a march around the city. Blow away some cobwebs.'

'Good idea, sir,' Charlie said approvingly.

'Right. Now, where are my fags?'

Chapter Seven.

Cobwebs duly dispersed, Harker dispatched Charlie to find Captain Haran while he decided on who else to take with him. On returning from the march with his men, he found her on the green where the cars were parked, talking to a Wolf with a pair of legs sticking out from under it.

'Bleedin' freezing out here, Charlie,' he said. 'Did you find our sawbones?'

The legs flailed for a second, then the body attached to them revealed itself. Under the greasy smudges, Harker discerned the cartoon-faced doctor who'd treated him last week after his dip in the Thames.

Charlie said, as politely as she could, 'Sir, this is Captain Haran.'

Harker winced. 'Right. Sorry.' He nodded at the man's hasty salute, and added, 'Wheeler said you were something of a mechanic.'

'Yes, sir. In my spare time.'

'Really? And when do you get that?'

Haran's ears turned pink. Charlie hid a smile, but Harker didn't bother. 'We'll leave tomorrow, Captain. Get all your stuff, I want a full and comprehensive medical kit, no telling what sort of trouble we'll get into, and we won't be attached to a base. Do you know anything about computers?'

'Not very much, sir, but I'm good at working things out.'

'Fantastic,' said Harker, and judging by Captain Haran's smile, he hadn't caught Harker's sarcasm.

Harker walked away wondering who else he could possibly add to this band of misfits to make it any worse. Charlie clearly didn't have a high opinion of the doctor, but he'd seemed reasonably competent when he was treating Eve, and if he knew his way around a complex piece of machinery like a car, or a human being for that matter, then he could probably figure out a computer. After all, how hard could they be?

He pinched the bridge of his nose as he walked out under the Middle Tower, nodding to the guards there.

Wheeler had told him to take between six and ten men, and so far he only had four, including himself. He'd spent the afternoon march observing his men, mentally taking notes as to who would be due for promotion soon, and who would never rise higher than private. He'd taken them to the targets in Southwark and shouted them, personally, into line, then watched to see who the best shots were.

They'd marched out over the Bridge, which was hell this time of day, but he needed to sort the wheat from the chaff and hell was a damn good place to do that. Southwark, a desolate wasteland, had given him thinking space. Leaving Captain Wilmington to take the company back to the barracks, he'd kept a few of the best shots back. And then they'd taken the old horse ferry across to Westminster and marched up Whitehall on his way to the targets at St Giles-in-the-Fields, to remind the men who they were fighting for. Shooting at them as they tried to take aim, to test their ability in battle conditions, all but one managed to dodge his fire; and according to the medic, his ear would be just fine with a small nick in it.

Harker blamed himself; he'd been distracted. For the march, unfortunately, brought him perilously close to the only other person he'd ever heard talk about computers. And, damn it, it had dawned on him as he took his men home that he was going to end up taking Eve Carpenter with him.

The guards on the gate at St James's weren't familiar to Harker, but they saw his rank insignia and let him in anyway, and he trudged up to the handsome brick building. It had once been a royal residence, but the King had signed it over to the army for their own use after it became apparent that he didn't need quite so many palaces when he wasn't even in the country.

Lucky sod, Harker thought. I'd sure as hell like to be in America right now. So much electricity they used it for street lights. Televisions in every home. I've never even seen a damn television.

And no war. No sodding, ugly, bloody war.

'Eve Carpenter,' he said to the officer at the desk, after showing her both his rank insignia and a copy of Wheeler's orders that he could take any soldier, officer or civilian he deemed necessary to the mission.

And then he cursed himself. She'd actually written that word, civilian. She knew he was going to get Eve. Hell, the guards on the gate had waved him straight in. And the officer at the desk had seemed to be expecting him.

'She's probably in the ...' The woman listened, then smiled. 'Yes, the Garden Room.'

'And where's that?' Harker said, wondering what she was listening to. He could hear faint music, was that it?

'Straight down the hall, through those double doors, and keep going until you see the piano,' the officer said, and Harker turned away, slightly confused.

It was one of those grand buildings where each room opens on to another by means of double doors. Saskia's parents had lived in a place like this, and back then they'd been able to employ men to open each door, at least when they had company. Now there was no one to open the doors for him, although there were plenty of people standing around, reading books or sewing or playing endless games of chess.

Most of them, on seeing his uniform, glared.

The sounds of music, piano-playing and singing got louder the further he went, until there was only one set of doors between him and a woman singing. The melody was sad, haunting, but the words weren't clear, so he opened the door on her singing something about yesterday coming suddenly, which made no sense to Harker.

Then he realised that the singer was Eve, and that she was sitting at the piano with her back to him.